Classroom Teaching Assistants (Cumbria)

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab)]

It is nice to see so many Cumbrian MPs in the Chamber, because it demonstrates just how important this issue is. I will begin by being extremely blunt. What Cumbria county council is doing through the single status process is wrong and unfair. Classroom teaching assistants are angry, disillusioned and demoralised. I have had more than 70 teaching assistants come to my surgery recently. They feel hurt, upset and desperately worried about their future. The situation has brought some of the most caring and professional people I know out on to the streets of Cumbria. That is how important this matter is to them. Regardless of the levels and bandings they fit into, they see what is happening as grossly unfair. This is really about reducing people’s salary by a third. It applies to staff in care homes, some of whom came to see me recently, and I am told by a lady called Sarah Field that adult education teachers are in the same position, but this debate is about teaching assistants.

I recently spoke to a head teacher in west Cumbria who told me that back in 1997 the only additional resources she had had were packs of felt-tip pens. Her school had since had new classrooms, new computers, whiteboards and all sorts of modern innovations, but she said, “I’ll tell you something: the most important resource we have in schools is classroom assistants.” That is how strongly she felt about the situation.

Teaching assistants work as an integral part of the team. It is not strange or even a coincidence that Cumbrian primary schools are in the top 10% in the country; I think it is very much to do with the support staff, who are working with teaching staff and improving standards in teaching and learning. Support staff enrich the experience of pupils. Teaching assistants cannot be lumped together as their jobs vary enormously. They do a fantastic job, and some work with children with complex needs.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I wish to point out the expertise that my hon. Friend brings to this debate: he was formerly a teacher in west Cumbria. Does he agree with me and with Ofsted that the introduction of teaching assistants has made an absolutely fundamental difference to attainment levels in primary and secondary schools, not just in west Cumbria but across the country, and that the abolition of the national pay and conditions framework, the effects of which we are now seeing, will lead to a race to the bottom when it comes to pay?

[Tony Cunningham]

I wholeheartedly agree; I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Let me read out what an assistant teacher in a special needs school has said:

“Children with complex needs have to be changed because of incontinence, and then physiotherapy is needed and leg splints applied, then hoisted onto the standers. After one hour they need taking out of their standers, tubes put in place and connected for feeding, after feeding medication is given. Children need this every day, plus hydrotherapy once a week. Children with challenging behaviour need assistance with Makaton (This uses signs, symbols and speech to help people with learning and communication difficulties to communicate.)…Children with learning difficulties need a lot of time, encouragement and resources like Makaton to enable them to achieve objectives and enjoy their lessons.

These are only a few of the duties I do with our children. I love my job, but a reduction in my wage will make it very difficult to carry on working in this school. Our children are the only reason we love to go to work”.

Is anyone going to tell me that that classroom assistant deserves the loss of a third of her salary?

If one asks the teachers and school governors what they think, they will say that the assistants do a great job and thoroughly deserve the pay that they get. They do not earn a lot; a full-time teaching assistant earns around £14,700 for a 32.5 hour week. The cuts will reduce their salary to £11,140. The council justifies the pay cuts by arguing that teaching assistants have a shorter working week and longer holidays than other staff. The council claims that teaching assistants get paid for 37 hours a week and receive 14 weeks’ paid holiday.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who spoke convincingly about what I hope and think is a shared aim among all Cumbrian Members who want to resolve this issue. I will be brief. In February alone I was lobbied by almost 100 people in the town of Millom. I had been asked to attend a brief drop-in session at a local school, only to find myself in front of 100 people faced with life-changing alteration to their remuneration as a result of the single status process that Cumbria county council is engaged in.

I was asked to attend a similar meeting at my children’s school in Whitehaven. There were more than 200 people there, with standing room only in the school hall. Some of those people could lose around £9,000 a year, a life-changing amount of money. For some of them, who were visibly upset, that means that they will be unable to pay their mortgages. For those who are married to other teaching assistants or other people affected by the single status process, it really is a calamitous event. I hope that the Minister and the Government will take that into account.

I make no apologies for relating the issue to my constituency rather than to Cumbria as a whole, because my constituency is the single most heavily reliant upon public spending in the country, with more than 50% of all jobs, according to independent tables, relying on public spending. It goes without saying that unprecedented and arbitrary reductions in the salaries of so many of my constituents will have a significant socio-economic effect outside those immediately affected by the move.

Pay equality is something that we all wish to see. I understand that the county council is having to cut its cloth because of the cuts it has to deal with, but the winners of the process that is under way in Cumbria—even those who are seeing slight improvements in their terms and conditions—do not like what is happening to their colleagues. They do not think that it is right to rob Peter to pay Paul.

Finally, I am clearly not a spokesman for any trade union or any of those involved in the single status process, and nor am I an advocate for industrial action, particularly indiscriminate industrial action. No one ever wants to see industrial action, which is the very last resort for any professional, but I completely understand why someone facing a life-changing reduction in salary who does not have their appeal heard would feel moved towards withdrawing their labour. That is a natural human impulse. Without continuing negotiation and a fair resolution of the situation, I struggle to see what options, apart from threatening industrial action, remain open to those who are being subjected to such swingeing changes to their standards of living. As my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) said, none of us in this House would put up with it, and we should not expect our constituents to put up with it, either.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

It is dangerous and not helpful if I make a judgment on something to which the Department and I are not party, because I am not seized of all the evidence. However, I observe as a matter of common sense and of law that any employer who goes through a process has to meet their obligations under employment law more generally. It is probably best that Ministers do not try to advise either party about employment law, but it is a factor that everybody has to bear in mind in ensuring that any process is appropriate.

[Mr Reed]

The Under-Secretary is being generous with his time and I genuinely appreciate the constructive way in which he is trying to engage with the issues. I also feel for him because he has to answer the debate. Does he agree that it might be a more elegant and effective fit if he went back to his colleagues in government, particularly the Secretary of State for Education, and asked him to reinstate the School Support Staff Negotiating Body? That abolition, which the Secretary of State for Education announced last October, has landed the process in the single status framework, where it should not be.

[Robert Neill]

Of course all Ministers always take back to their colleagues matters that overlap, and that is on the record in Hansard for all to see. Let me deal with the specific point about the School Support Staff Negotiating Body. The previous Government set it up, and the hon. Gentleman is right to say that that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education decided to bring those arrangements to an end. However, it is worth noting that that body had not reached agreement about any of the issues with which it was tasked. Its existence or non-existence therefore had no influence on the particular circumstances that were determined in Cumbria. We could have a separate debate about whether that was desirable, but the decision to discontinue the body had no impact on the pay and negotiations of the school support staff with whom we are concerned today. It is important to state that. However, the hon. Gentleman has raised the matter, and it is now on the public record.

[Mr Reed]

The Under-Secretary has been exceptionally gallant.

[Robert Neill]

I hope that I have been exceptionally factual. It is my duty to the House. Against that background, I hope that hon. Members will understand—