Oral Answers to Questions

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb)]

We believe that Oak can coexist with high-quality commercial publishers and that it will stimulate the market, helping teachers to become better informed consumers of resources. This country is one of the lowest users of commercial textbooks and our expectation is that Oak will increase the use of high-quality knowledge-rich textbooks in schools. The full business case for Oak, including the market impact, was published on gov.uk on 1 November.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

T4. The next Labour Government will recruit thousands of new teachers to ensure that every child has access to a broad curriculum that includes music, art, sports and drama. What is the Government’s plan to increase pupil access to these vital subjects?

[Nick Gibb]

Of course we want children to have the benefit of a high- quality curriculum including music and the arts. We have a high uptake of arts GCSEs in our system, we have published the model music curriculum and we have a national plan for music education as well as a cultural plan for music education that is about to start its work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I am committed to reform in children’s social care across all sectors. The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), has been working hard in partnership with the national implementation board and the wider sector to design a plan for reform that will introduce meaningful change for children and families. It is quite a small group, and we have deliberately kept it small, but I will ask my hon. Friend to take a look and check that it is representative.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

T10. The number of PE teachers has fallen by nearly 3,000 in the past 10 years, and the number of hours of PE taught by 36,000. With nearly a third of young people currently classed as inactive, what will the Government do to stop physical activity flatlining and make sure that young people can get the social, physical and mental benefits of PE in schools?

[Nick Gibb]

We have met the target for PE teacher recruitment for most of the past 10 years. We have the school sport and activity action plan in place, and there is a new plan being worked on at the moment. We take sport in schools very seriously; it is important for physical and mental health and for academic attainment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Jonathan Gullis)]

The Department is committed to attracting and retaining the highly skilled teachers we need by investing £181 million in this year’s recruitment cycle, including training bursaries and scholarships worth up to £29,000. We are also delivering 500,000 training opportunities, reforming teacher training and delivering on this Government’s manifesto commitment of £30,000-a-year starting salaries.

[Jeff Smith]

That sounds very rosy, but teacher vacancies have gone up 240% since 2011. According to the latest National Education Union poll, 44% of England’s state school teachers plan to quit by 2027—22% of them in the next two years. Things are particularly difficult because experienced teachers—who may have 20 years’ experience—are leaving the profession. What steps is the Minister taking to address pay, stress and an unmanageable workload, which are driving the most experienced teachers out of the profession?

[Jonathan Gullis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that great question, because being a teacher is so important and positive, and it is a shame that he used his opportunity to be a bit negative about the profession. As we try to recruit and retain staff, we need people to talk up what a great profession this is to work in. [Interruption.] I am being shouted down by Opposition Members, but there is not a single year of teaching among them—I have nine years’ experience and I get shouted down for simply being someone who worked on the shop floor. The lessons should be learned from the past.

However, let me tell the hon. Gentleman what we are doing. We are making sure that we have the £30,000-a-year starting salary, which is amazingly competitive with the private sector. We are going to have the £181 million in scholarships and grants, including £29,000 in physics, for example. And we are going to make sure that we tackle retention and workload through the Department’s workload toolkit, which has so far reduced workload on average by about five hours.

Awarding Qualifications in 2021 and 2022

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes a very good point, and his example is one reason why exams are the fairest system of assessing students. But we are also aware that disadvantaged students have suffered disproportionately compared with the average in terms of disruption to their education, which is why the recovery premium and the 16 to 19 tuition fund are designed for and targeted at students from disadvantaged backgrounds in particular.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab) [V]]

As the Minister implied, students currently in year 10 have arguably been hit harder than any other cohort, having missed most of year 9 and had a hugely disrupted year 10. So is it not ridiculous to reintroduce performance tables, given the massive disparity of the impact of covid on different schools and different pupil cohorts? He said that fairness is the guiding principle, but how can the Government possibly build fairness into performance tables for 2022?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. As he acknowledged, there are no performance tables in 2021. In 2022, there are no performance tables for standard assessment tests, but there will be performance tables for GCSEs and A-levels. By 2022, we will not have had performance measures from secondary schools in either 2020 or 2021. These are qualifications for young people that really matter to their life chances, and we are able to make adaptations to them, as I have explained. There is also the notion of comparable outcomes, so they will be a fair reflection of schools’ performance. Parents do need to have that data and that information when making a choice of secondary school for their children. By contrast, in primary schools we have not been able to make adaptations to the SATs in 2022, so we did not feel it was fair to continue with performance measures for the 2022 SATs.

Covid-19: Impact on Attendance in Education Settings

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

We always work with our colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England in respect of the very best forms of testing. We are always aware that there is new technology and innovation and we want to be able to use that to the best of our ability, to make sure that not only all my hon. Friend’s constituents in Burnley who want to attend school are able to do so but everyone throughout the country can do so as well.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab) [V]]

I have had lots of emails from desperate parents in south Manchester whose children have suffered multiple periods of isolation and are worried about more. They all say that we need to review the isolation rules urgently. We now hear that the Secretary of State is looking at announcing plans as part of step 4, but there is no reason to wait for step 4: schools have a problem now and they need to know what to do about it. Every time I have met headteachers in the past year, their biggest complaint is always about the lateness of guidance from the Secretary of State’s Department. Why is it that the Department for Education is always so slow with advice? Why do pupils and schools always seem to be the after- thought in this crisis?

[Gavin Williamson]

I assure the House that we always do everything we can to ensure that all guidance is available to schools at the very earliest opportunity.

Investing in Children and Young People

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab) [V]]

I am, Mr Speaker. Thank you for calling me so early in the debate. First, I pay tribute to all the teachers and school staff in Manchester, Withington for the amazing job that they have done over the last year. They have kept our schools open. They have kept children learning and they have supported families in really difficult times. They have been some of the heroes of the pandemic.

It is a pleasure to follow my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who made an excellent speech. The key point was when she said that Labour would put children and young people at the heart of the recovery from the pandemic, and they deserve to be, because this has been a tough year for young people. It has been tough for everybody. In the most formative years, a year really is a long time. I believe that young people are resilient, but there is no doubt that the last year will have had an effect on their mental health. The brilliant mental health charity Mind published a survey last year on the impact of the first lockdown and it said that two thirds of young people said that their mental health had worsened during the first period of lockdown restrictions. We have now had another year of various lockdowns and restrictions. It has been hard for young people, so we need the best mental health support we can give to children affected by the crisis.

There is an equally worrying issue around lost learning and the widening of the disadvantage gap in attainment. Despite the brilliant work of teachers and schools generally, there are pupils who have not been able to access learning as they should. I know that my own niece and nephew, who live in quite a small crowded home, really struggled to get the internet access that they needed to be able to properly access online learning. It is really tough in disadvantaged areas to be able to do that. In Manchester, the gap in months between our disadvantaged pupils and non-disadvantaged pupils nationally is likely to be 8.2 months at primary and 18.2 months at secondary level. That is really worrying and we need a plan for recovery.

When the Government bring in a highly respected adviser such as Sir Kevan Collins as education recovery commissioner, and when he puts forward well-received and well-respected proposals, we would expect any Government to act on those proposals. Can there be any more damning condemnation of this Government’s actions, any more damning illustration of their failure of our young people, than their own adviser resigning in protest at the inadequacy of the Government’s response? It is a shocking indictment, but, unfortunately, it is only the latest sign that the Government have got education policy wrong all along in the last year.

I met a group of heads last month to talk about issues in school. I have to tell the Minister that, from my conversations with those heads, you would not recognise the rosy picture of the education system that he has just painted. They were pretty damning in their assessment of the Government’s performance on education over the last year. The biggest complaint was on short-termism —not knowing what was happening from one week to the next; items never arriving until the last minute; and the Government not thinking through policy properly. We all recall the chaos over exams and the issues on assessment; the Government should have defined the process months ago. Problems on nursery funding compounded the difficulties, making life impossible for teachers trying to ration places for keyworker children. Reductions in pupil premium had a massive impact in big cities such as Manchester.

Budgets have been reduced in real terms, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said, meaning that schools are looking at having to lose staff when they are most needed. On budgets, over the last year, it has been a case of the Government giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Those are just some of the problems that headteachers have brought up with me.

On top of all that is the failure to properly support families. About 100 yards from where I am speaking now, there is a mural on the side of our local coffee shop that has become something of a tourist attraction. It is a brilliant portrait by the street artist Akse of a man who has become a national treasure. Even a lifelong Manchester City fan such as me has to doff my cap to Marcus Rashford for his brilliant work highlighting food poverty, but, again, what an indictment that it took a football star to help to shame the Government into providing free school meals during school holidays.

Labour would extend free school meals into the holidays, including this summer. We have a plan, outlined by my hon. Friend, to make a real difference to young people across the country: small group tutoring for everyone who needs it; high-quality mental health support in every school; support for teachers; and a proper education recovery premium, investing in the children who have had their schooling disrupted most.

The amount committed so far by the Government is inadequate, as Sir Kevan has said. It is just a 10th of what he recommended and what is needed. I know that the Prime Minister has suggested that there is more to come. If there really is more money to come, it is needed now so that pupils can be catching up now. The Government really need to put their money where their mouth is now. Sir Kevan wrote to the Prime Minister saying:

“I do not believe it is credible that a successful recovery can be achieved with a programme of support of this size.”

Those are damning words. The Government are failing hundreds of thousands of children. Our children need a plan that will not fail them, and Labour has that plan. I hope Members from all parties will support it this afternoon, for the sake of all our young people.

Exams and Accountability 2021

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

In Manchester, some year 11 pupils are now in their fifth period of isolation. Most have lost at least 10% of class time because of isolation and many of those pupils do not have decent digital access to enable home learning. The deputy head at my local high school told me this morning:

“The system he is putting in place will serve to widen the disadvantage gap. He repeats that exams are the fairest means of assessment and all the studies point to that; however those studies were not undertaken in a global pandemic.”

May I plead with the Secretary of State to think again about what more he can do to help those pupils who have been disproportionately affected by isolation? That does not need to include keeping all examinations, because, on exams, making the playing field slightly smaller for everybody is not creating a level playing field for those disadvantaged pupils.

[Gavin Williamson]

The measures we have introduced are very much designed to support the pupils the hon. Gentleman talks about. I know from personal experience—my own daughter has had to isolate and is facing her GCSE exams in this academic year—the impact it has on all children. That is why we have put these measures forward to assist all children. That is what we have done, and we believe they will make a significant difference to all children in his constituency and mine.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I do not just share my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm; I am right there with him, cheering it on and making sure that it happens. I pay tribute to him and other brilliant Conservative colleagues in Stoke-on-Trent, including of course the Conservative leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Councillor Abi Brown, who has been driving this forward so hard. We want to see all schools having that connectivity and the benefits that the internet can bring for every single child in our schools.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

I was at Chorlton High School in my constituency on Friday, where over a third of pupils have either no or very limited digital access. It is a similar pattern across Greater Manchester. More laptops are fine, but they are no good without decent broadband, so what more can the Government do to guarantee—perhaps with the internet providers—broadband access for pupils who are out of school during this emergency?

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. When we looked at the provision of support for children, especially the most disadvantaged, we were looking at the equipment not just in terms of laptops or tablets, but the routers that go with them. We have also been working, along with colleagues from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with major internet providers on how we ensure that that provision is available for all youngsters across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s campaigning to deliver better funding for schools and post-16 education in her constituency. Many of the actions of Labour Members and their reckless approach give me great concern as they seem unwilling to listen to the will of the British people.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

12. What assessment he has made of the effect on higher education of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)]

Leaving the European Union with a deal remains the Government’s top priority. We are working energetically and determinedly to get the very best deal. We are supporting the sector’s transition through Brexit, and have provided reassurance for EU nationals on access to student support for 2020-21, and on migration arrangements for staff and students.

[Jeff Smith]

But what about Erasmus? The Government’s technical notice has confirmed that if we leave with no deal, we will lose membership of the Erasmus programme. Given the benefits that it provides to tens of thousands of students, what assurance can the Secretary of State give to students that those benefits and the support provided will be maintained, and how is he going to achieve that?

[Gavin Williamson]

It goes without saying that we will always be looking to ensure that all students in the United Kingdom get the very best in terms of their education, and Erasmus has played an important part in that. If we were in a situation where we did not have access to it, we would look at successor schemes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

13. What recent estimate she has made of the level of teacher shortages.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

There are more teachers in England’s schools than ever before. The vacancy rate remains low at 0.3% of all teachers and secondary post-graduate recruitment is at its highest level since 2011. However, we recognise that some schools face challenges, which is why we continue to invest in teacher recruitment—more than £1.3 billion up to 2020. In addition, our work in the 12 opportunity areas will ensure teacher recruitment and retention challenges are addressed.

[Jeff Smith]

That is a very complacent answer. The Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), said that the public sector pay cap is having a clear impact on recruitment and retention. Does the Minister agree with his right hon. Friend that the policy makes it harder to recruit the teachers we need?

[Nick Gibb]

We rely on the expertise of the School Teachers Review Body. It reported in July and we responded to that review. It has recommended increasing the pay bands in the main pay range by 2%, and by 1% for the remaining pay bands. Pay is of course important, but it is not the only factor that drives teachers in or out of the profession. Others include workload and pupil behaviour, and we also take those issues seriously.