Educational Settings: Reopening

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right to raise these issues. Mental health concerns are at the forefront of all our decision making on schools and reopening schools, and I pay tribute to those students who have taken these issues as seriously as they have. It is why we are, over the longer term, putting in place the recommendations in our Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health. Once fully rolled out, I believe that they will transform the provision of mental health services for children in our schools.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister is insistent that there is a clear plan for reopening schools. Schools are largely open for those important children with additional needs and the children of key workers, but surely we must do more than hope for the best; we have to plan for the worst and let school leaders and governors know what these proposals consist of. If they do not know, they cannot plan and prepare for the eventuality of being told what the plan is by the Minister. Can we also have laptops delivered that are free of malware? All too many of the laptops delivered to schools in my vicinity—and not all schools have them yet, by the way—have had malware on them.

[Nick Gibb]

Of course we want to give schools the appropriate notice, which is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said last week that we would give schools, colleges and universities two weeks’ notice. That is not just for the schools; it is for parents as well, who need to know precisely what their childcare arrangements will be. As for the malware issue, that occurred in a very small number of devices. They have been dealt with, and the virus has been removed.