Relationships and Sex Education
Jess Phillips Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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John Howell
I partially agree with my right hon. Friend but am not sure I go all the way with it. Faith schools provide a lot of such education, or could provide a lot of it, if they were worked with and engaged with in a much more successful way.
Jess Phillips
The hon. Gentleman talked about how a parent could be there to give guidance and should be able to opt out if they wish to give the guidance. What would he say to a parent who is perpetrating domestic abuse or even sexual violence at home, or to a child who is growing up in that type of environment? How will we ensure that, when those people opt out, the child can understand what a healthy relationship looks like?
John Howell
The hon. Lady makes an important point. One does not want to see that level of abuse continuing down the generations, but those issues can be picked up by other measures and dealt with in that way.
Education Funding
Jess Phillips Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). I hope he will encourage his hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), to put these views on increasing schools funding in his own literature. Perhaps the Government will alter the funding formula to make it fairer for that constituency.
It is a pleasure to be called in this debate and to reflect on the good news and the good work happening in Torbay to improve school standards and invest in our schools. I am particularly proud of the money that Paignton Community and Sports Academy will be getting to sort out some of its school buildings, some of which have been in a poor condition for some time. I want to pay tribute on the Floor of the House to my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) who, when she was Education Secretary, met me and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) to discuss the school’s buildings. The school had been knocked back from a couple of bids, but my right hon. Friend was very good and she listened. She took the school’s points on board and now about £4 million will be spent to sort out its buildings and provide the top quality education its pupils need.
In many cases, such debates about Torbay can focus on our grammar schools. I am always very clear that grammar schools should be a choice for those parents who believe it is right for them and their children, but that no one should feel compelled at 11 to take an 11-plus test to get a good education. That is why the improvement of other schools in Torbay has always been so welcome. I look particularly at Torquay Academy, which is now one of the schools with the highest value-added scores in the south-west. Its academy partner is Torquay Boys’ Grammar School and they work very closely together. The academy is excellent in attainment for those of all abilities and a priority in exactly the same way, despite the fact that there is a grammar school down the round. They do not conflict with each other; they complement each other and work very well together.
In terms of aspiration, we are looking ahead to the new £17 million high-tech skills centre that is under construction in Paignton; it will be part of South Devon College. The Paignton Community and Sports Academy sixth form will be provided by the college, taking advantage of many of the fantastic facilities. For me, it is about driving aspiration and giving people opportunities, not just the idea that if someone goes to university, it will be the greatest part of their life—although it is good to see that more people from deprived backgrounds are going to university. Technical skills are as important for driving aspiration and ambition, which is why that investment is so welcome.
Ellacombe Church of England Academy is in one of the most deprived parts of my constituency. After the previous speech, people might think that Torbay is purely palm trees, beaches and retired people, but we have areas with particular challenges, and that does not change just because they happen to be in Torbay rather than another part of the country. The new nursery provision will support a school that has come on in leaps and bounds over the past eight to nine years, partly through the academy process, partly through working with other schools nearby, and party through the work of the superb team of teachers there.
One concern that some schools would want me to raise while I am on the Floor of the House is Torbay Council’s current consultation on its high-needs formula and how the top-slicing might work. I see that the Minister for School Standards is sitting on the Treasury Bench; he will remember meeting the heads of three of my schools to discuss how they have been at the very lowest points of funding and that the top-slicing proposal could push them below the minimum that they have been guaranteed. It would be interesting to hear some thoughts from him either now or in a later meeting on how some of those challenges can be avoided.
There is a lot to be proud of in our schools, not just across the country, but particularly in my constituency. There will be challenges, but to pretend that the challenges are just recent ignores the past. One of my primary schools is a great place to go, but it was saved only due to the election of a Conservative Mayor, because the then Liberal Democrat council, under a Labour Government, wanted to close it as part of a surplus places scheme. That would have been such a short-sighted decision, given that it is now in an area where there is the most demand on school places. Thankfully, Nick Bye, the then Mayor of Torbay, took the decision to keep the school open and looked ahead to a future when numbers would be increasing, so we have not been left in a situation where our area that has the most pressure has even more. I am also pleased to say that a private, independent school that recently closed—it had falling numbers for some years, partly due to the quality of local state schools—has now been acquired to become a new state primary school slap-bang in the middle of Paignton. That would be a positive investment in one of our most deprived communities in Torbay.
It has been interesting to hear this debate. I must say that when it comes to education, point scoring is better on a school sports day than in a political debate. Certainly some of the stuff we have heard is not what people would particularly want in a classroom, and perhaps one or two Opposition Members could do with doing their homework on one or two issues.
Kevin Foster
No, I will let other people speak. To be honest, the hon. Lady has not been here for much of the debate—[Interruption.] Someone shouting when they have not been here is really not very professional. It has been welcome to have this debate and talk about the schools and what we are doing in Torbay, and to reflect on a few of the issues for my constituents.
Mr Deputy Speaker
If you are really cross, find somewhere else to show your bad temper. In here, Members have put questions to the Minister and we all want to hear what he has to say. We may not agree with him—that is up to you—but we must hear the Minister.
Presidents Club Charity Dinner
Jess Phillips Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he thinks that it is appropriate that David Meller remain a non-executive director in the Department for Education following the revelations about the men only Presidents Club dinner.
The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)
Mr Speaker, I am sure you have seen the papers this morning. It has been reported that last Thursday, the Presidents Club—this is the first time I have heard of the club—[Interruption.] I am just saying, I had not heard of it before. This club hosted a charity dinner to raise money for causes such as Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. I understand from reports that there are allegations of inappropriate and lewd behaviour at this event.
It is quite extraordinary to me that, in the 21st century, allegations of this kind are still emerging. Women have the right to feel safe wherever they work, and the type of behaviour alleged to have occurred is completely unacceptable. I have recently taken on ministerial responsibility for the board of the Department for Education and was previously Minister for Women. As hon. Members will know, David Meller has been a non-executive board member in the Department for Education and chair of the apprenticeship delivery board. The Government expect board members to adhere to the code of conduct for board members of public bodies, which clearly states that they should adhere to the seven principles of public life.
David Meller is stepping down as a non-executive board member for the Department for Education and as a member of the apprenticeship delivery board. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is absolutely clear that that is the right thing to do. In case right hon. and hon. Members or you, Mr Speaker, are in any doubt, the event was absolutely nothing to do with the Department for Education.
Jess Phillips
I thank the Minister and welcome David Meller standing down. The undercover report in the Financial Times about the event organised by the charitable trust that David Meller chairs tells more than just an alarming story. I notice that the organisation wants to put the blame on the individual members, but what actually happened is that women were bought as bait for men—rich men—not a mile from where we stand, as if that is acceptable behaviour. It is totally unacceptable.
The Department for Education recently published a response to the Women and Equalities Committee report on sexual harassment in schools, saying:
“The scale and impact of sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools set out by the inquiry shines a light on a worrying picture: sexual harassment and abuse of girls being accepted as part of daily life…and a prevailing culture in schools which seemingly condones sexual harassment as being ‘just banter’. It is clear that action is needed”.
Those are the words of the Department. Does the Minister think that one of the junior Ministers in that Department attending that event is appropriate? Did that Minister—the Minister for children and families—raise concerns with the Department about David Meller and his conduct after he realised what was going on at the event? What is the Department going to do to make sure that a message is sent that this “lads culture” has no place in our Department for Education and it has no place in our country?
Anne Milton
My hon. Friend raises a number of important issues, not least sexual abuse and harassment in schools, and that is where the sort of culture that ends up at a dinner like last night’s starts. Unless we get it right in schools, it will simply feed through to the rest. The Department for Education is clear that this is unacceptable right from the word go. All Departments and public bodies need to ensure that this sort of behaviour is not going on anywhere; it cannot be tolerated. This is not just about forcing people to do the right thing; it is about changing attitudes. The reports of women being bought and sold are extraordinary. I contributed to a WhatsApp group this morning and said that words failed me. I am quite old—I was born in 1955—and as I have said at the Dispatch Box before, I thought that things had changed. However, it is absolutely clear that things have not changed. I think that there is an association between wealthy people and this sort of behaviour, and we have to send a clear message that it is unacceptable.
Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools
Jess Phillips Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
It is a real honour to both follow and work with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). She has outlined exactly where the problems exist, what the Select Committee found and the areas in which we still have so much progress to make.
I have worked in this area, including by delivering sex and relationships education in schools, for many years. I have written programmes for the Home Office in the past. In my career I have dealt with hundreds, if not thousands, of cases of rape and sexual violence against adults and children. As the right hon. Member for Basingstoke outlined, the cases are horrendous, and the cases in which children are involved hurt even more.
I am a resilient human being in this subject area; I have been trained and I know what I am talking about. This week, in this place, I find my resilience at its lowest ebb, because I feel like nothing is changing. I feel as if all the things the Select Committee heard about the need for boys and men to be included completely in SRE programmes, about gendered attitudes, about who we can and cannot trust, about the processes that should exist in schools but simply do not seem to—all those things are every single reason why what we have heard about happening here in the past few weeks happens.
We have an opportunity to change things. I have to keep believing that we have an opportunity to change the culture of our schools, Parliament and industries, because after this week it feels a little bit like I should give up having this same conversation. I will rally—do not worry—but the fact is that every single argument that has been made about this place could be applied to our schools at the moment. There is not a clear process in place for the harrowing peer-on-peer abuse that we have heard about, which should be called child abuse—that is what it is.
On the Committee, we heard from parents whose children had been left in the same classroom as their perpetrator. The complaint was not just how harrowing that is, but the fact that there is no guidance: there is no process to tell us what to do. What is so galling about that—and what has been so galling about some of the situations in this place this week—is that, if it were a teacher who had committed, or been accused of committing, some of these crimes against a child, there would be a clear process to follow. Again, I find the parallel to here painful in that there is no process and no threshold for this place and the people who work in it.
Jess Phillips
I have been told that, because so many Members wish to speak, I should not take interventions. I am very sorry about that.
I say to the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, who I know cares deeply both about the culture here and the culture in our schools, that getting SRE right does not need to take the length of time proposed. This is not something new; it exists in schools, but is patchy. I also say that, just like here, the advisory group on sexual violence and sexual harassment, which the Government have got on board to help with this, does not have any sexual violence academics, frontline specialists, or sexual violence organisations working on it. I fear that that means we are missing some of the very vital information that is needed to get this right in the future to make sure that we are not prejudiced and do not treat any of this like banter—like something that is just part of a culture that we must accept.
The length of time spent on the issue was, unfortunately, interrupted by the election. We will have to chalk that up to experience. I cannot bear to think that, in a year’s time, we will be having the same debate because the process will not have changed in schools, SRE will not be being delivered compulsorily, and specialist agencies will not have been lined up to swoop in when schools rightly need help—schools are not specialists just as not all of us are specialists in this building. I leave that with the Minister and say that we must act.
International Women’s Day
Jess Phillips Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House welcomes International Women’s Day as an important occasion to recognise the achievements of women; and calls on the Government to join in this international event and pledge its commitment to gender parity.
I am honoured to lead this debate today and pay special thanks to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and the hon. Members for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) and for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) for supporting the application to the Backbench Business Committee, on which I remain the only woman member.
International Women’s Day is an opportunity for all of us to use our voices to celebrate the amazing women of the world. It is also our opportunity to send a rallying cry out to the world about the hardships and injustices women everywhere still face. With each passing day, it seems that right now the women out there need to hear us in here and how we support them more than ever before.
It will surprise no one that the subject that I will speak about today is violence against women and girls. Before my rallying cry, I want to reflect on where we were last year and where we are now. As I closed my speech on International Women’s Day last year, I declared that the women murdered in the UK deserved better than what they got. I pressed this House to hear their names and feel their pain.
I have been proud to be a Member of this House in the past year, where parliamentarians, including my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) and for Hove (Peter Kyle), myself and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke and many others, called on the Government to overhaul a family justice system that leaves women and children damaged and unsafe. Our calls were heard, and an establishment—an actual establishment, in this time when we talk of establishments—that others said we would never change will now begin to improve. From this place, a message was sent to women living in fear, and hundreds of them have contacted me to express their gratitude.
Last week, the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) did a thing that few will manage in their time here when she pushed her Bill to ratify the Istanbul convention through this place to its completion, regardless of those who wanted to stop it. That Bill will mean that a Minister will stand at the Dispatch Box in this place every year and lay out to us exactly how they are going to protect vulnerable women and children.
Yesterday, the Government finally heard the calls that have echoed round this place for over six years and made sex and relationship education compulsory. We have waited too long for this, but the euphoria felt by myself and many campaigners across the House made me want to cartwheel down the halls.
The work over the years of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), the right hon. Member for Basingstoke and many others means that girls will now be safer. These changes in the past year are not exclusively due to but have been led and pushed through by the women in this place, with the support of amazing women’s organisations such as Girlguiding, Women’s Aid, IC Change and many other female-led organisations.
Sir Desmond Swayne
The issue that the hon. Lady has rightly drawn to our attention has international implications. Does she agree that one of the most important things we can do is provide the incentives for girls to remain in school much longer? That reduces the opportunity for early marriage, from which so many of the evils of which she has spoken flow.
Jess Phillips
I absolutely agree. Every time a girl stays in school in any part of the world and uses her education to stand up and speak for the other women in the world, the whole world becomes a better place. Women with voices matter. Women with voices change things. Women with voices in here give hope and protection to women without a voice at all. I am proud of our efforts, and today I will lay down another marker and say that there is still much to do.
Last year, I rose to my feet in this House and read out the names of the 125 women who had been murdered by men. I decided that I would do that every year while I still had the privilege to be in this place. While we have achieved many things here, I hope that this list once again reminds us of all the reasons we must keep going. I want to stress that this list is the Femicide Census, which is collated by Karen Ingala Smith. The list is made up of all the women killed where a man was the perpetrator or is the principal suspect. While the majority of these deaths can be attributed to partner violence, they are certainly not all in that category and include all the women murdered by men they did not know in the UK since last International Women’s Day. Their names are:
Lyndsey Smith; Robyn Mercer; Paige Doherty; Carrie Ann Izzard; Lynne Freeman; Jodie Betteridge; Joanna Trojniak; Amina Begum; Natasha Sadler; Laura Marshall; Elizabeth MacKay; Marie Johnston; Norma Bell; Tracy Cockrell; Helen Bailey; Leigh-Anne Mahacci; Jean Ryan; Coleen Westlake; Nasreen Khan; Laraine Rayner; Fay Daniels; Louise O’Brien; Xin Liu; Natalie Hemming; Becky Morgan; Iris Owens; Julie Cook; Khabi Abrey; Anne-Marie Nield; Maria Mbombo; Maria Erte; Sonita Nijhawan; Dawn Rhodes; Sylvia Stuart; Andrena Douglas; Karen Hales; Jade Hales; Jo Cox; Helen Fraser; Jean Irwin; Nijole Sventeckiene; Agnieszka Szmura; Sarah Nash; Albertina Choules; Allison Muncaster; Fiona Southwell; Emma Baum; Claire Hart; Charlotte Hart; Tracy Gabriel; Samia Shahid; Nicola Haworth; Lenuta Haidemac; Hannah Pearson; Margaret Mayer; Darlene Horton; Gregana Prodanova; Lynne Braund; Donna Williamson; Xixi Bi; Mia Ayliffe-Chung; Shana Grice; Alison Farr-Davies; Melinda Korosi; Hayley Dean; Annie Besala Ekofo; Zofia Sadowska; Elizabeth Bowe; Nasreem Buksh; Zoe Morgan; Jackie Pattenden; Natasha Wake; Mandy Gallear; Lucy Jones; Vicky Bance; Alice Ruggles; Sophie Smith; Jodie Wilkinson; Pardeep Kaur; Ellia Arathoon; Belen Trip; Natasha Wild; Deeqa Ibrahim; Lisa Skidmore; Rebecca Johnson; Linda Ordinans; Holly Alexander; Andraya Webb; Umida Eshboboeva; Angela Best; Claire Nagle; Hayley Wall; Nicola Woodman; Eulin Hastings; Victoria Shorrock; Leonne Weeks; Kiran Daudia; Kulwinder Kaur; Anita Downey; Ann Furneaux; Chrissy Kendall; Gillian Zvomuya; Amandeep Kaur; Tina Billingham; Hannah Dorans; Catherine Kelly; Hang Yin Leung; Karina Batista; Humara Khan; Hazel Wilson Briant; Margaret Stenning; Avis Addison; and Julie McCash.
Let these women be our inspiration. Let these women be the ones who drive us. I would ask each and every one of us to remember these women, one of whom was one of us. We must remember them when we make our decisions and when we use our votes and our voices. We have a responsibility to be the voices of these women, now they are gone. On this International Women’s Day, let us remember why we are all here and let us raise our voices.
Several hon. Members rose—
Jess Phillips
I shall be incredibly brief. I thank the Backbench Business Committee—I am thanking myself—for allowing us to have the debate. I thank everybody who spoke in today’s debate with much passion and consensus.
One of the names I had to read out today was that of Jo Cox, my friend and colleague. Her voice should always be heard in this place, so I shall let her have the last word. When Jo Cox was asked what sort of feminist she was, with the idea that we are all terribly divided, and that “I’m this sort of feminist, you’re that sort of feminist”, her answer was, “a massive one”.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes International Women’s Day as an important occasion to recognise the achievements of women; and calls on the Government to join in this international event and pledge its commitment to gender parity.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. This week, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) was in my constituency. To his credit, he informed me that he was going to be in my constituency for a Conservative fundraiser. I offered to go with him, but he rejected my advances. Today I opened my local paper, the Camden New Journal, to read that he had described the “pygmy” nature of the Opposition. Do you, Mr Deputy Speaker, think it was appropriate for him to use the term “pygmy” when he was in the constituency of the shortest MP in Parliament? I await your guidance.
Draft Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and public authorities) regulations 2017
Jess Phillips Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
That is an excellent question. That is the whole point behind ensuring that businesses and employers have to publish their data publicly. They cannot be hidden away in the murky depths of their website. They need to be in a really accessible place so that we can compare the data and tackle any worrying sectors or employers.
The regulations do not require mandatory equality objectives connected to gender pay gap data or action plans, but all employers will be strongly encouraged to publish information on how they intend to tackle the gender pay gap in their organisations. That is why we have strongly encouraged a narrative. Many public bodies have indicated that they are keen to publish a narrative alongside their gender pay gap calculations, so that they can provide more context for any gender pay differences, and highlight work to reduce any gaps. We know that sometimes the organisations that are doing some of the best work to bring women through the pipeline have, on paper, some of the worst gender pay gaps, but they are investing in a much more long-term strategy. That is where that narrative is really important.
We know that transparency is not a silver bullet. The hon. Member for Rotherham and the right hon. Member for Slough have spoken about the things that are missing here. We are not pretending for one second that this is a silver bullet, but it will incentivise employers to analyse the drivers behind their gender pay gap, which is what this is all about, and the extent to which their policies and practices might contribute to that gap.
We are also working closely with ACAS to deliver guidance for public bodies to help employers fully understand and implement the regulations and understand why they are good for their organisations and businesses.
The hon. Member for Rotherham asked why the Government had not accepted all the recommendations from the Women and Equalities Committee. Of course, we massively appreciate the important role that that Committee plays on the issue. I was one of the MPs in the previous Government who campaigned hard to get a Women and Equalities Committee. We carefully consider all the recommendations it makes. The report makes a number for Government, several of which we have already actioned. For example, the right to request flexible working already allows those with fewer than full-time hours to request the opportunity to work more.
Many of the recommendations would involve significant cost to business and, because we are so early in the process, they would also require changes to primary legislation, which has been in place for only 12 to 18 months. In particular, shared parental leave and flexible working are very new. We would rather wait until these new policies have had time to become established and sufficient evidence has been gathered on what works before changes are made.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for what she is saying. I wonder, when she says that the Government are going to wait, whether she could give us an indication of how long.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady knows that I am passionate about this and will not let it drag on forever. I will keep it under constant review. She knows, as well as I do, that I am not in the business of spending taxpayers’ money before knowing that that money is going to be well spent and will make a real and positive difference to working women—and men and employers—up and down the UK.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jess Phillips Excerpts(7 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
I would, of course, be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss school funding in Yeovil. Indeed, so efficient are our offices that that meeting is already in the diary for 27 February. I should remind him that in his constituency, school funding rises by some £2.8 million under the new national funding formula, and that 94% of the schools in his constituency will see a rise in funding.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to point out that our early years workforce is one of our greatest assets. We will shortly be releasing a workforce strategy, which will outline how we want to improve what already exists. We need to help employers to attract, to retain and to develop their staff to deliver the very highest quality of early years provision.
Education, Skills and Training
Jess Phillips Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Nicky Morgan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am delighted and pleased—perhaps he will pass on my congratulations to the school he mentioned on its recent Ofsted report. We want the opportunities that schoolchildren in his constituency have to be available to all children, right the way across the country. That is why the White Paper talks about “achieving excellence” areas.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State have any words for the school my children go to, where class sizes are currently increasing from 30 to 32? The notification I have had this week is that my children are now going to have more children in their classes, and their teachers will be stretched. Would she like to say anything to their school?
Nicky Morgan
We have created 600,000 new school places since 2010. The hon. Lady will know—everyone does—that the most important thing is to have the best quality teachers in the classroom in front of pupils, inspiring that next generation.
I will turn to the remarks made by Members on all sides of the House. The Chairman of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), welcomed the care leavers covenant. He discussed illegal and unregistered schools. Sadly, that situation has been going on for far too long. We now have a new Ofsted team leading investigations and preparing cases for prosecution, but more needs to be done, which is why we have talked about regulating out-of-school settings. We will come back to Members with proposals on that after the consultation. I will return to his comments about the consultation on the education for all Bill later in my remarks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) set out his track record on referendum votes. That has not been too successful, but we can all agree that, whatever we think about the current referendum debate, this Government have delivered on giving the British people an in/out vote on our EU membership on 23 June. He was the first person to talk about support for the new national funding formula. I am grateful to him and other hon. Members who mentioned that.
In a very personal speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) spoke about her experiences, saying that what matters is not where you come from but where you are going to. That is absolutely right, and a view we would all subscribe to. She supports the national funding formula. The Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), talked about the Chancellor’s recognising the importance of funding science even in a time of austerity.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse)—I cannot see whether he is in his place—called the Queen’s Speech a Milk Tray of hard and soft centres, and a smorgasbord of delights. He certainly has a way with words. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), who talked about her support for the national funding formula, kindly invited me to make a visit on 5 July. I will have to look at my diary, but I very much enjoyed my last visit to Chippenham schools with her last year. She also talked about the links between schools and businesses, and we are of course backing the Careers and Enterprise Company, which offers exactly those sorts of opportunity.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) talked about her support for the National Citizen Service. I am sure that, like many others, she will welcome the Bill in the Queen’s Speech to put the NCS on a statutory footing. We are also going to make sure that it can be promoted in schools, to make sure young people get the opportunities she talked about. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) talked about the Wales Bill. I have to say that I have not been involved in its drafting or the debates about it, but I am sure that his remarks will have been heeded.
My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) talked about the Higher Education and Research Bill, welcoming the establishment of new universities, which she hopes will particularly benefit her part of the country. She offered her support for the national funding formula. She also admitted that we have invented some new words in the past few weeks. For the benefit of the Minister for Schools, we have invented the verb “to academise”, along with the noun “academisation”. I look forward to those words being added to the next edition of the dictionary.
My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) talked about early years provision. I encourage her and interested people in her constituency to take part in the early years national funding formula consultation when it is published shortly.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) talked about the better markets Bill and the problems in her own constituency. She may be interested to know that the Government today published a call for evidence seeking to establish whether there are any problems with the provision of advice, advocacy and dispute resolution in the regulated sectors, including water, to help us develop that better markets Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) also welcomed the national funding formula. She mentioned, as did other hon. Members, her concerns about young people’s mental health. She is absolutely right to identify that issue. The Department has done a lot of work on that. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), who has responsibility for childcare, has worked on peer support schemes, on counselling in schools and on school pilot projects on child and adolescent mental health services, but we know we can go further.
Childcare Bill [Lords]
Jess Phillips Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Gyimah
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. If central Government make the funding available but we do not have an efficient way of distributing the money to the providers on the frontline, we should not be surprised if those providers then say that they are not seeing the increased funding. That is why it sits alongside a package of reforms to ensure that the money reaches the frontline—the providers who are delivering these high-quality places for parents.
The hon. Member for Darlington touched on the attainment gap, and I now want to turn briefly to new clause 2 on the important issue of attainment and development. Let me reassure hon. Members that the Government want all children to have the best possible start in life and the support that will enable them to achieve their potential. We want high-quality early education and childcare for all children, wherever they live and whatever their background.
The early years foundation stage framework sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. The framework recognises that children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates. It is an inclusive framework that seeks to provide quality and consistency in all early years settings so that every child makes good progress and no child gets left behind.
Our approach is working. As I mentioned earlier, more children are achieving a good level of development. There have also been improvements in provision for disadvantaged children, for whom high-quality childcare can help to mitigate the risk of falling behind early on. For children with eligibility for free school meals, there has been a 6 percentage point increase in the number achieving a good level of development in 2015 compared with 2014. That is the equivalent of an extra 5,800 children with free school meal eligibility achieving a good level of development, which the whole House should welcome. Furthermore, the gender gap has also continued to narrow. Although girls continue to outperform boys, the gap is narrowing—falling from 16.3 percentage points in 2014 to 15.6 percentage points in 2015.
Children with special educational needs and disabilities are also benefiting from our policies. Early years providers must ensure that the necessary arrangements are in place to support children with SEN or disabilities, and providers delivering funded places must have regard to the SEN code of practice. In preparation for that, we will of course meet our duty, under the Equality Act 2010, to consider the potential impact on groups with protected characteristics. We will also undertake the families test and consider the potential impacts on family relationships.
Finally on the new clauses, I will briefly mention the qualification levels of the early years workforce, which have risen in recent years. Continuing this increase is a key aim of the Government’s workforce strategy, through the introduction of early years educator qualifications, which are equivalent to A-level standard, and early years initial teacher training.
As far as evaluation is concerned, I hope I have reassured the House that a substantial amount of work is already going on to evaluate all our policies in the early education area. [Interruption.] It is a two-year study. If the Labour Front Benchers had been listening to me, rather than chuntering from a sedentary position, they would know that I have discussed it in detail. We are following 8,000 children from the age of two, and we will publish the study’s conclusions.
The hon. Member for Darlington mentioned student nurses and their eligibility for the free entitlement, and I will now turn to amendment 2. The current funding system means that two out of every three people who want to become a nurse are not accepted for training. In 2014, universities were forced to turn down 37,000 nursing applicants. This means that the NHS suffers from a limited supply of nurses, and has to rely on expensive agency nurses and overseas workers. The changes announced by the Chancellor in his autumn statement will place trainee nurses on the same system as all other students, including teachers and doctors. As I outlined in my letter to the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), the Department of Health and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills plan to run a consultation on the detail of the Government’s reforms early this year.
Specifically in relation to support with childcare costs from 2017, students can be reimbursed under the student support regulations for up to 85% of their childcare costs—up to a maximum of £155.24 a week when they have one child and up to £266.15 a week when they have two children. The child must be under 15 years of age, or under 17 years of age when they are registered with special educational needs. In addition, students may also be entitled to the means-tested parent learning allowance of up to £1,573. That recognises some of the additional costs that a student incurs from supporting children while training.
I make it clear that, aside from the support available under student support provisions, parent student nurses, along with all parent students, can and will continue to benefit from the existing 15 hours of free early education for all three and four-year-olds. This is a universal entitlement, regardless of whether or not parents are in work. Parent student nurses may also be entitled to 15 hours of free early education for two-year-old children, depending on their circumstances.
I hope I have reassured the House that although student nurses do not qualify for the second 15 hours, other student support programmes, reimbursing them to the tune of 75% of their childcare costs, will achieve the same objective as that of amendment 2. In addition, those entitled to any tax credits would receive support in that way.
I hope my arguments have reassured hon. Members that we care about the robust evaluation of our policies and that it would be inappropriate to evaluate the impact of the policy according to the timescales in the new clauses. We care about children, and no one wants to get this right more than the Government. We put the Bill into the Queen’s Speech—the first childcare Bill in a Queen’s Speech—and we are determined to get it right. That is why we have put evaluation at the heart of what we are doing. I do not believe that stating that in the Bill in the way drafted in the new clauses—within a year—would actually work.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Although I am not sure Mr Speaker saw me do so, I almost fell over when I tried to catch his eye earlier. As I am doing dry January, I assure hon. Members that it was not for the usual reasons why people fall over in Parliament. In fact, my heel got caught on my bag.
I rise to speak to amendment 1 in my name, which is about victims of domestic violence. I give credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) for finding another vulnerable group in kinship carers, whose needs may not be well met by the Bill. I would put them in a similar category to the people I am going to talk about. She made some very interesting points. I hope the Minister will take them away and try to understand what it is like for senior citizens to take on children who have been in very traumatic circumstances.
The purpose of the amendment I have tabled is to ask the Government once again to look at the possibility of exempting those fleeing domestic violence from the 16-hour employment threshold. As someone with years of experience working in this field, I know that one of the single biggest barriers to women attending and seeking recovery services is access to childcare. For example it is pretty difficult for a woman to engage in trauma counselling for the repeated rapes she has suffered with a four-year-old running around her feet.
When women flee their homes and seek refuge for them and their children, they are very often forced to give up their jobs as well. That is usually brought about by an anomaly in the benefits system regarding rates of housing benefit in supported accommodation. Similarly, however, many women find that, in order to give up their home and surroundings, they are forced out of work for a period of time, as staying in work becomes totally impossible logistically. A woman who came to my surgery just a few weeks ago—she was living in her car, while her children stayed on relatives’ floors—had to give up her job as a care worker once we were able to place her in a refuge. That is not uncommon.
I ask all Conservative Members to imagine for a second leaving all their belongings, shutting the door of their home, and giving up their job and their financial security. Most women I have met do this for the sake of their children, but imagine the effect of that on a three-year-old. There are only so many times they can be convinced that it is just a big adventure before the difficult reality sets in.
Now, this Bill will tell those children that they will lose their place in nursery too. That might be the only consistent thing left in their chaotic lives. I can see that there is confusion among Government Members. If a woman loses her home and her job and is no longer working 16 hours, she will lose the nursery places she had for her children. I just wanted to clear that up. [Interruption.] Would a Minister like to intervene? They seem confused.
Mr Gyimah
The hon. Lady raised this point in Committee and we debated it extensively. I promised to write to her about the needs of women in refuges. Having looked at the matter, I want to give her an assurance. First, I want to put it on the record that £40 million of extra support is going to women who find themselves in that tragic situation. In terms of childcare, they will get the first 15 hours for their three and four-year-olds, as everyone does. If they are entitled to the extended entitlement and, as a result of their situation, their children have to leave childcare, there will be a grace period of three months, which we have discussed.
Jess Phillips
I am delighted at the Minister’s—erm—willingness, when it had seemed that those on the Government Front Bench were confused.
Jess Phillips
Yes, that is the word I will use. There is now a firm commitment from the Government.
I was about to say that I recognise that the Bill includes a three-month grace period, which I welcome, but that the children will still have to give up their place in the end. I do not need to say that anymore because the Minister has made his commitment. He has recognised that it is laughable that a woman, after escaping violence, would be tickety-boo, back in another property and gainfully employed after just three months. Unfortunately, the reducing availability of social housing for families to move on to means that many women and children live in refuge for much, much longer than three months. The cuts in local authority spending have meant that newly localised social funds, which are there to help such families, have limited women in respect of where they can and cannot move across local authority boundaries. That leaves them stuck in supported accommodation, even if they are ready and safe to move on.
These children need and deserve consistency. I welcome the Minister’s intervention because he said that he will give it to them.
Mr Gyimah
I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady that such children need consistency and support. To extend the commitment that I have made, I will meet her to discuss how we can do that. We will be consulting on the grace period and I want to get her input on what we can do for this particular group.
Jess Phillips
I was going to say that, whereas other Departments have shown a clear commitment to taking their role in the fight against domestic violence—the Minister has mentioned the £40 million—I had felt, until now, that the record of the Department for Education, with the constant wrangling over personal, social, health and economic education and healthy relationships education, could be described as woeful. I am delighted that the Minister has proven me wrong. As someone who has masses of experience, I would be delighted to meet him and talk about how this policy will work in practice.
I will say no more on the matter, other than to thank the Minister for his commitment.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Childcare Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)
Jess Phillips Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Gyimah
Once again, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. At the start of the line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill, I said that there were three aims behind our childcare policy: to enable parents to work more hours; to help parents with the cost of living; and to give children the best start in life with high-quality early education.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Does the Minister recognise that a mother’s education is the single biggest factor in how well her children go on to achieve? As we are focusing on children’s attainment, does he agree that helping women in education to access this childcare provision would be a step towards one of his three aims?
Mr Gyimah
Obviously helping women in education is a broad aim of the Government, but those are the three objectives of this particular Bill. The amendment addresses the third objective of giving children the best start in life, and I am grateful to hon. Members for tabling it, as it draws attention to the importance of closing the gap in achievement between disadvantaged children and their peers. I am pleased to say that more children, including those in receipt of free school meals, are now achieving a good level of development at the end of the early years foundation stage. In 2015, 66.3% of children achieved a good level of development. That figure was up from 51.7% in 2013. In 2015, 51% of children on free school meals achieved a good level of development compared with 45% in 2014. That is the equivalent of an extra 5,800 children. The gap in achievement between disadvantaged children and other children has narrowed from 18.9 percentage points in 2014 to 17.7 percentage points in 2015, which is welcome news. However, the gap is still too large and the Government are absolutely committed to narrowing it.
Mr Gyimah
The hon. Gentleman is alluding to the announcement we made earlier this week on wrap-around care, which will allow private providers to bid to use a school site to provide care for school-age children during the holidays. So we are already working on that. I will come later to what we can do for children under five.
Local authorities depend on the market to supply childcare places. We want them to work with local providers to transform the market and increase flexible childcare provision for parents with out-of-hours working patterns. It would not be reasonable to place a statutory duty on them to guarantee out-of-hours or holiday provision for every parent who wants it, since their local childcare market may not be able to deliver that.
Returning to the hon. Gentleman’s point about school nurseries, there are a number of local authorities, particularly in the north-east, where the majority of childcare is delivered by sessional providers such as maintained schools or nurseries. A large number of those providers cannot offer out-of-hours or holiday provision. As Lord Sutherland said in the other place, for those providers
“to continue provision outside their normal hours may well stop them operating completely”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 October 2015; Vol. 765, c. 265.]
Placing a duty on local authorities will not change that overnight. It is also important to note that local authorities, rightly, cannot require private providers to deliver the free entitlement. Therefore it is simply not right to give them a legal duty to secure flexible provision for every parent in their area.
In my view, the way to promote flexible provision is to work with local authorities and providers to look for innovative ways to meet the needs of parents, and to encourage new providers to enter the market to give parents more choice. We should encourage provision to respond flexibly to demand. It does not make sense to require every local authority to secure a particular type of provision when parental working patterns and the type of demand for childcare will vary from area to area.
I reassure the Committee that there is already flexibility in the system used for the existing 15-hour entitlement, and we intend to build on that flexibility in delivering the extended entitlement. There is no requirement that free entitlement places can only be in line with school term dates, or during the hours of nine to five.
In fact, the previous Government changed the statutory guidance to enable local authorities to fund providers to allow parents to access places between 7 am and 7 pm, so that parents can drop off their children earlier in the day or collect them later. Providers can also stretch their entitlement across the full year rather than limiting them to term-time only provision, and a number already do that.
The Bill is very carefully drafted at clause 2(1) to say that the free childcare must be available for a period
“equivalent to 30 hours in…38 weeks”
so that the primary framework allows for the stretched offer. Some local authorities are already promoting flexible childcare provision, including Brighton and Hove City Council, where 82% of year-round nurseries offer a stretched entitlement; Blackpool local authority, where nurseries and childminders work in partnership to offer out-of-hours provision, including weekends and evenings; and Bradford Council, which offers a community nanny scheme, providing flexible childcare for lone parents struggling to access work or training. In Tuesday’s discussion of eligibility I mentioned the great work that Swindon Council is doing to offer weekend sessions from January 2016. In addition, we will set up a flexible funding model to support providers to deliver flexible provision to meet the needs of parents.
Although it is great that some local authorities are already delivering flexible provision to meet parents’ needs, I want more local authorities to deliverthe 30-hour entitlement in that way. I have been clear that the extended entitlement needs to support parents to work. We have been working with the Local Government Association to set up an expert local government working group in the new year, to build on existing flexible provision and make the extended entitlement even more flexible.
Jess Phillips
Is there anything to stop private providers just setting off a block of time within their timetable and saying that the free hours can be claimed in that time? That was certainly my experience of what happened under the 15-hour provision. They could say, “You can use your free hours only between nine and five.”
Mr Gyimah
The hon. Lady makes a good point—what sort of restrictions can private providers impose on parents taking the free entitlement? We want providers to deliver this more flexibly. Now that the offer is moving to 30 hours from 15 hours the scope for providers to say, “You can take it only at this time,” is significantly limited, because if a child is taking all of the 30 hours, that is most of the week.
The Department for Education will be working with the Local Government Association to enable the sector to take a leading role in expanding existing provision and responding effectively to emerging demand as the extended offer is rolled out. We will also review the statutory guidance to remove any barriers to the flexible delivery of childcare, such as those the hon. Lady mentioned. We will set out work that local authorities can do to enable parents to take the current entitlement in a pattern of hours that best meets their needs.