Childcare Entitlements

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

Yes, I will. The projections for the years 2025-26 and 2026-27 are based partly on economic conditions at the time—a few factors going into them will determine those rates—but I will write to the hon. Lady about specifically what has been happening in Bristol to date.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

As a parent of a 20-month-old, I know that this new entitlement will be very much welcomed by many parents across Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire and will make a massive impact on many working families in particular. However, I also know there are challenges in getting the right place for a child. With the Minister look at what more can be done to ensure we support the sector as much as possible and expand those places in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire?

[David Johnston]

My hon. Friend is right. Our key focus is on ensuring that places and staff are available in every area of the country, as we have shown in April with 200,000 benefiting from the new entitlement. We are pulling every lever, in time for the roll-out next September and the September after, to up recruitment, up rates, encourage more people into the sector and help expansion to ensure that provision is there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

I thank the hon. Lady. We are keen that schools are as inclusive as they say they will be when it comes to children with special educational needs. We have nine change programme partnerships to try to make sure that the system works a lot better. The money is given to local authorities, and we should already be seeing an improvement, but I would be happy to discuss it further with her.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

11. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that tertiary and technical education providers work with businesses to meet local skills needs.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

16. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that tertiary and technical education providers work with businesses to meet local skills needs.

[The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)]

We are transforming skills through our local skills improvement plans, backed by £165 million and supported by business, further education and higher education, and though a £300 million investment in institutes of technology, which are collaborations between business, higher education and further education to revolutionise our tertiary education offering.

[Jack Brereton]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. Stoke-on-Trent College has recently launched its new “Skills Ready, Future Ready” strategy and has been working with a number of employers locally to fill skills shortages, and it is very welcome to see the local skills improvement fund investment of around £3 million for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, but given our industries locally and the skills shortages, we need to go further, so what will my right hon. Friend be doing to help fill some of those skills shortages—to support our industries to help people earn better wages and get skilled now?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is a true champion of skills in Stoke-on-Trent and, as he mentioned, we strongly support the £3.2 million we are investing through the local skills improvement fund. That is underpinned by £3.8 billion of additional national investment and my hon. Friend will be pleased to know we will be opening the Stoke-on-Trent Staffordshire institute of technology in September 2024, with £13 million of capital funding as part of our revolution in tertiary education.

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I am not aware of any RAAC schools in Stoke-on-Trent, but we have a number of schools with wider serious structural and safety issues, particularly Trentham Academy in my constituency, which we hoped would be included in the school rebuilding programme, but that was stopped because of the PFI agreements. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that, just as with all the RAAC schools, we assess schools for wider structural and safety issues and look at how we can ensure that the schools that are part of PFI agreements can have those issues addressed as well?

[Gillian Keegan]

I know my hon. Friend has raised that particular school before and has had a couple of meetings on it. The school rebuilding programme is focused on condition and we will specifically work with him to understand what options there are for that school and what PFI is doing to stop its eligibility for rebuilding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

5. What steps she is taking to help improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities and their families.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

7. What steps she is taking to improve provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

21. What steps she is taking to improve provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Coutinho]

We have not waited to take action on this issue. We have increased, for example, high needs block funding by 50% over the last four years to 2023-24. We have set out £2.6 billion to increase the number of specialist schools. We have also hired educational psychologists. We have done a lot of work to date, but the reforms are ambitious and wide-ranging and they will, I hope, help with the issues mentioned.

[Jack Brereton]

The need for more specialist school places is raised frequently by parents in my constituency, and children are being bounced between mainstream providers that are simply not fit to cater for many advanced needs. Recently, I visited Hillcrest Glebedale School in my constituency, which is keen to expand the number of places. Will the Minister do more to ensure that we support such schools and grow the number of SEND places in Stoke-on-Trent?

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank all the special schools for the amazing work they do to support children and young people. We have announced more than £1.4 billion of high needs provisional capital allocations to support local authorities to deliver new places for academic years 2023-24 and 2024-25. Local authorities can use that funding to work with any school or institution in their area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)]

We have set out the announcements on funding for SEND, which, as I said, has increased by 40% over the past three years for the high needs block funding. We have also set out spending on capital grants. We are setting out early next year our proposals for the SEND and alternative provision Green Paper to make sure that that money is spent well.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

Trentham Academy has recently received a very good Ofsted rating, with a number of outstanding features, following significant improvement. But the school building is in a very serious condition, with rat infestations, a number of areas of safety concerns and more than one third of classrooms below 40 square metres. Will my right hon. Friend agree to support Trentham’s being in the school rebuilding programme?

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

Thanks to my hon. Friend, I am very aware of the serious issues affecting the condition of the Trentham Academy building, and as always he continues to make representations on behalf of the schools in his constituency. We plan to confirm further schools for the school rebuilding programme later this year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Question 4 has been withdrawn.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to ensure that students have access to high-quality vocational alternatives to A-levels.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Andrea Jenkyns)]

We are reforming technical education to ensure that all post-16 students have access to technical options that support progression and meet employers’ needs. We have introduced T-levels, a new high-quality programme designed with employers that will give learners the knowledge and experience needed for skilled employment and further study, including higher education or higher apprenticeships. We are also reviewing existing qualifications that sit alongside A-levels and T-levels to ensure they are high quality and lead to good outcomes for students.

[Jack Brereton]

We have some fantastic creative and manufacturing industries in Stoke-on-Trent, but many of these industries say to me that they often struggle to fill certain vacancies. Will my hon. Friend look at what more we can do to help to incentivise vocational skills to get our economy growing?

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I know this is of great importance to my hon. Friend. Many different sectors face skills needs and challenges, which is why we are investing in skills through T-levels, apprenticeships, skills boot camps and free courses for jobs, giving people of all ages the opportunity to obtain the skills that industries like and that support economic growth.

Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I will look very carefully at the review, which has more than 80 recommendations so I am tentative; I am not going to pick some to respond to immediately and some not. We are taking clear initial steps and I will publish an implementation plan by the end of the year. Broadly, I agree with the hon. Lady. There are two aspects to address if we want to ensure better outcomes and life chances for children and young people in care. If we can avoid children going into care by enabling them to stay with a kinship carer or special guardian, we must look at that. The secondary factor is the cost to local authorities, and therefore the taxpayer, of children going into care. Where there is the opportunity for them to stay with a family member, it can be advantageous for us to invest in that family member to avoid the child going into care, saving the taxpayer money and leading to better outcomes, so of course I am looking at that. I have given the hon. Lady the clearest steer I can, but I will respond by the end of the year.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I very much welcome the review. As the Minister knows, over the last few years we have had serious challenges in children’s social care in Stoke-on-Trent, but the city council is now taking significant action to improve children’s social care in the city and we have seen some promising signs. Does my hon. Friend welcome those improvements, and does he agree that we need partners to work with the city council—the police, health services and others—to drive further improvements?

[Will Quince]

I am pleased to see the improvements made in Stoke-on-Trent. My hon. Friend is absolutely right when he says that the Department for Education and local authorities cannot do this alone; they need other agencies and partners to be involved, and not just when it comes to safeguarding, although that is hugely important. We need the multi-agency approach, with all arms of the state, and indeed local businesses, communities and the voluntary sector, pulling together to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children in our country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), will be hosting a roundtable meeting this summer to discuss the different approaches being taken around the country, where I hope we will learn from some of those people—as my right hon. Friend knows, I will always be the evidence-led Secretary of State. Early intervention is important, and the SEND and alternative provision Green Paper will deliver that. Moreover, the parent pledge in the Schools White Paper is a lever for teachers to identify those children with dyslexia and dyspraxia and to put that help in place.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

15. What steps his Department is taking to support pupils who fall behind in maths and English.

[Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

24. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of maths teaching in primary schools.

[The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)]

The Schools White Paper includes a parent pledge to identify children who have fallen behind in English or maths and provide them with support. To help schools support pupils who have fallen behind we have invested £1 billion in 6 million tutoring packages by 2024, re-endowed the Education Endowment Foundation, set aside £55 million for our accelerator fund and introduced a menu of targeted support methods. We are continuing to invest in networks of maths and English hubs to support schools. I was privileged to visit a maths hub in St Marylebone’s C of E School on National Numeracy Day.

[Jack Brereton]

I very much welcome Stoke-on-Trent being announced as a prioritised education investment area. Locally, partners have been working hard to drive up standards through an education challenge board. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should welcome that work and that this is the way that we will drive up standards in both English and maths?

[Mr Walker]

I, too, am very pleased that Stoke-on-Trent is a priority education investment area. With such proud and outspoken Members of Parliament, the area is always well-championed in this House. Our approach will look to build on the strong work to date in all those areas, including existing partnerships such as the education challenge board. We will be considering the best ways to do that and ensure that a diverse range of local partners inform our decision making in every priority investment area.

Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I was delighted to welcome the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to Stoke-on-Trent last week to meet local workers, businesses, educators and community groups. Stoke-on-Trent is on the up, and we are determined to deliver an even better place to grow up and grow old. We must now level up cities such as Stoke-on-Trent and seize on the opportunities of Brexit, free from the shackles of Brussels bureaucracy, through the Brexit freedoms Bill. Stoke-on-Trent is a city that has been neglected and held back for decades, but we have so much potential just waiting to be unleashed. Finally, we now have a Government and local politicians who are focused on securing the investment and delivering the improvements our city needs. We must particularly improve our local public transport, which is a barrier to jobs and skills opportunities. In parts of Meir, in my constituency, 40% of households do not have a car. For the rest of the city, the average figure is 30%. The need for rail and bus improvements is desperate, so the big win pledges that we have secured for investment from the transforming cities fund, the bus service improvement plan, the restoring your railway fund and others have been gratefully received, because they remove some of the barriers to better jobs and skills opportunities.

I was delighted to champion the improvement works proposed for Longton station through the transforming cities fund, and it is time for those funded works to be delivered. Network Rail must start playing its full and properly co-ordinated part in the delivery, which it has not been doing up until recently. I hope that Great British Railways and the transport Bill will help to resolve how we can better deliver the transport improvements needed in cities such as Stoke-on-Trent. In particular, I hope that they will help to address organisations that can hinder progress, as Network Rail has done on the works that we have been doing across Stoke-on-Trent.

I also call on the Government to announce that our plans to reopen Meir station will proceed—I have been chairing the delivery board for that—and I ask them to continue to support us as we develop our plans for the reopening of the Stoke-Leek line. In building a better city, we are not only making it easier to get around, but reviving historic sites that give our city and our towns their unique character and appeal. I particularly welcome the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which will help us to breathe new life into our towns and high streets.

The heritage action zones that we have won for Longton and for Stoke town, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon), and the levelling-up fund pledges for major regeneration sites, including the derelict Tams Crown Works in Longton, are all key to levelling up our communities and breathing new life into our town centres. Our city is becoming the place to invest for digital and creative sectors such as the gaming industry, right at the heart of the UK and spurred on by the massive investment in fibre gigabit connectivity. I was pleased last Friday to visit a site where Openreach is installing such connectivity in Fenton.

That is alongside improving education to ensure that everyone locally has the ability to access better skills and better-paid employment. The major announcement that Stoke-on-Trent will benefit from the family hubs programme and as a prioritised education investment area will ensure that every young person gets the best possible start in life, particularly in the early years.

We need to focus on the gaps in engineering and creative skills for the high paid, high-value jobs that we want to attract locally, to fill the gaps that employers regularly speak to me about. I particularly welcome the Government’s lifetime skills guarantee, which offers free training for adults to upskill. That will be significant in places such as Stoke-on-Trent, given the number of adults there without higher level qualifications. The Schools Bill and the higher education Bill can get us on the right track to ensure that young people and everyone in our city achieve their full potential.

I hope to see some more support for the ceramics industry. There are real concerns about the current cost of energy for high energy use manufacturers, particularly the local world-leading ceramics industry. I know that the Prime Minister is listening, and he did so carefully on his visit last week to Churchill China, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). I hope that we will not allow other countries to steal a march on the fantastic British ceramics industry. Increased energy costs remain a significant concern for much of the sector, and we must see more support, especially for the SMEs that did not qualify for much of what has been announced thus far.

Schools White Paper

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Member will know that education is devolved, but we happily share all the evidence. We share our strategy with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations, and in the spirit of collaboration I am happy to continue to share the evidence. England has in many ways been evidencing what works, and we are happy to share that.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I very much welcome Stoke-on-Trent being announced as a prioritised education investment area, which will help to continue the significant work being done to improve standards in education that teachers have been working on in Stoke-on-Trent. Does my right hon. Friend agree that improving standards of education is absolutely vital both to levelling up standards and to unleashing the real potential of places such as Stoke-on-Trent?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I absolutely agree. I am the beneficiary of great education, of which the greatest determinant is having a great teacher or an inspirational teacher in the classroom. That is why much of the focus of this White Paper is about backing teachers, and making sure that they get the qualifications and the professional development that they need to do their job properly.