Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Nick Gibb

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

9. How many schools in England subject to an academy order have not confirmed a sponsor.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

There are currently over 2,000 open sponsored academies and, as of 1 February, 92 schools subject to an academy order were in the process of being matched to a sponsor. That involves brokering a relationship between a suitable academy trust and maintained school, and includes addressing any land or contractual issues. A school not having a confirmed sponsor is generally not due to the lack of a sponsor, but because of the time it takes to address those issues.

[Heidi Alexander]

The Minister might know that my interest in this matter stems from the number of years it took his Department to resolve the situation at Sedgehill School in Lewisham, which was not able to find a sponsor and instead has agreed a three-year school improvement partnership. If the Department is struggling so much to find sponsors for academies, why is this still a central plank of the Minister’s school turnaround strategy?

[Nick Gibb]

Because we are not, across the system as a whole, struggling to find new sponsors. We have 7,000 academies now, most of which are converter academies, and they themselves are becoming the sponsors of underperforming schools across the system. This system is working. Secondary sponsored academies made the strongest improvements in 2016, despite facing the biggest challenge, and compared with 2015, the average attainment 8 score for sponsored academies improved by almost three attainment points, compared with 1.3 attainment points for maintained schools. The academies programme is working and is raising standards right across the system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Nick Gibb

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

Yes, I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. Of course they will. The Europa School provides an excellent education. Since it became a free school in 2012, it has been rated good by Ofsted, and it continues to provide a very high-quality education.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Parents in my constituency have been left feeling bewildered and angry after an academy order was issued for Sedgehill School but was withdrawn for six months because the regional schools commissioner could not find a sponsor. What does this uncertainty say about the state of the Government’s academy programme, and how can this uncertainty possibly be good for pupils?

[Mr Gibb]

What it says is that the regional schools commissioners are very selective about the sponsors that oversee our academies programme. That is why two thirds of secondary schools are now academies, one in five primary schools is now an academy and standards are rising faster in academies than in local authority schools.

Infant Class Sizes

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Nick Gibb

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this important debate.

The ability of parents to send their children to a good local school and have them taught in suitably sized classes is something that the vast majority of British people would deem a pretty basic feature of life in the UK in the 21st century, but sadly in my constituency of Lewisham East it is becoming more and more difficult for families. During the last six years, competition for primary school places in Lewisham has been growing significantly, a phenomenon replicated across the whole of London. A rapidly rising birth rate, fewer people moving out, because of a broadly stagnant housing market, and high inward migration from the other parts of the British isles, as well as internationally, have all contributed to the need for more school places in the capital.

The present Government’s failure to adequately fund extra classrooms in areas with the greatest need means that many parents in Lewisham and London more widely are left wondering why public money is being spent on opening new schools in leafy areas of low demand when their own children are being squeezed into more and more crowded schools. In the last 13 years, the birth rate in Lewisham has increased by 32%. In real terms, that means that approximately 1,000 more babies were born in Lewisham last year than in the year 2001. Since 2008, Lewisham council has created nearly 3,000 more primary school places. The vast majority have been in temporary bulge classes—extra forms of entry, which then move up through the school as the children progress to their next academic year. Only 500 or so of the extra places have been in schools that have been permanently expanded. This is partly to do with funding, partly to do with very constrained school sites, and partly to do with the need to act quickly to meet the demand for extra spaces in the next academic year.

Classrooms have been put up on playgrounds, and music and art rooms have all but disappeared from schools in Lewisham, having been converted into much needed full-time teaching space. Some children inevitably find themselves being taught in classes with more pupils. The pressure on primary schools also means that an increasing number of children are being taught in schools a long way from home. Time and again, whether it be at my advice surgery or when I am out speaking to people on the doorstep, I meet parents who are really angry about their inability to get their son or daughter into a local school.

These are not “pushy parents” who are unrealistically limiting themselves to an over-subscribed outstanding school—although who could blame them if they were; more often than not, these are parents who would be happy to send their children to any one of five or six good local schools. The schools, however, are simply full up, so the children are allocated a place far from home, often involving multiple bus journeys in rush-hour traffic—no small feat in London, with small children in tow. The strain this places on family life can be considerable. I have repeatedly had women telling me that they may have to give up work in order to drop their children off at school. Sometimes siblings can be at different schools, miles apart. Many of my constituents do not have cars, so it can be almost a physical impossibility to get one child to one school and another child to another school on time.

I do not have children, but if I did I could not imagine that navigating long distances to get them to school at the ages of four or five is the sort of start to their education that I would want for them. I understand it when parents say that they want their children to be taught in small schools with small classes and close to home. I understand that, as a parent, one would want to feel confident that every teacher was able to know every child as an individual, to be able to monitor their progress and understand what they are good at or not so good at.

I know that parents do not want to have their children disappearing into a sea of faces at the back of a classroom, but this is the direction in which the current Government seem to be heading. That is not right—not right for the parents, not right for the children and not right for the school and the teachers who are trying to provide education in school buildings that are bursting at the seams. It is made worse by the fact that central Government funding for school places is not going to the areas that need it most.

How this Government can justify opening new schools in areas of low demand when they do not adequately fund the areas with the most pressure on school places is beyond me. Let us take London as an example. We know that the capital has a 42% share of the national demand for extra school places, yet receives a 36% share of basic needs funding. How do Ministers account for that? The money provided by central Government to my local authority of Lewisham to meet the rising demand for school places has quite simply been inadequate for the task.

I am grateful to the Minister for Schools for twice meeting me and the mayor of Lewisham over the last year to discuss the issue. He knows—and I hope to bring this to the attention of other Education Ministers—that the local authority of Lewisham has identified a £19.5 million shortfall if it is to meet all the demand for extra primary places up to 2016. I am aware that in the last round of funding allocations, the Government provided a 2% uplift to London local authorities. It was a helpful start, but even with this, the funding does not fully reflect the additional costs of expanding schools in the capital: there is fierce competition for land, site acquisition costs are higher, and even the costs of construction are higher in London. The Government need to look at the methodology they use for allocating funding. Assumptions in the funding formula about the percentage of permanent spaces created by local authorities recently have worked against local authorities such as Lewisham, where very few permanent expansions have taken place.

The Government also need to start thinking about the looming crisis affecting secondary places. My local authority has opened a brand-new secondary school in the last few years, but anticipates that it will need another by September 2017. Secondary schools do not come cheap, and they do not come quickly. Indeed, London councils have estimated that the capital needs a further £1 billion if it is to meet all need come 2016.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady’s speech. She has made some important points, but I should point out that the Government have delivered what they have been able to deliver. Between 2007 and 2011, under the last Government, allocation for basic need stood at about £25 million. Under the present Government, it has risen to £78 million, and a further £18 million has already been allocated to Lewisham for 2015-17. I shall be happy to discuss the issue further with the hon. Lady, because I know that she is sincere and passionate about it, but I hope that, in return, she will acknowledge that a total allocation of £96 million between 2011 and 2017 is a very significant sum in the current economic circumstances.

[Heidi Alexander]

I acknowledge that money has been spent; I am just not sure that it is keeping up with the scale of demand for extra places. I believe that there are fundamental questions to be answered about how the Government allocate resources, and how they plan to ensure that future generations can gain access to the education that they deserve.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Nick Gibb

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know that some people have seen the EMA as an additional welfare benefit—the point made by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk)—but it is important to clarify that the EMA has never been a support benefit. It was introduced by the previous Government to incentivise young people to stay in post-compulsory education. It has always been paid in addition to welfare payments. The Government have protected support for families with the lowest incomes and we will continue to support the most vulnerable while ensuring that all sections of society that are able to contribute to the deficit reduction do so. The withdrawal of child benefit from higher rate taxpayers, which will save £2.5 billion a year by the end of the review period, will ensure that people on lower incomes are not subsidising those who are better off.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady, because I am running out of time and I want to get to this point: child benefit for families without a higher rate taxpayer will be maintained and will be paid for children up to the age of 19 if they are in full-time education. The Government will use some of the savings from child benefit to help fund significant, above-indexation increases in child tax credit, which will be worth something like £30 in 2011-12 and £50 in 2012-13. That is in addition to the increases announced in the Budget: £150 in a year for 2011-12 and £60 in 2012-13.

I can also assure the hon. Member for Glasgow North West that none of us wants any young person to drop out of education because of financial difficulty. However, we cannot justify continuing to fund a programme that is so expensive, unresponsive and poorly targeted. Instead, we will introduce an enhanced discretionary learner support fund.

Currently, £25 million a year is given to schools, colleges and training providers through a discretionary learner support fund, to enable small payments to young people to help them meet the cost of their education. Colleges value the fund, because they are able to provide support to the young people whom they consider to be in most need. They can also respond to any changes that there might be in a student’s household income during the year. After the EMA is abolished, the fund will be significantly increased over the spending review period. The detail of the future arrangements is still being considered, but we envisage that the enhanced learner support fund will build on the principles of the current scheme to provide exceptional targeted support to students aged 16 to 18 who are experiencing financial difficulties.