Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I assure my hon. Friend that we will be writing to him in due course with full details of the national funding formula—we hope this will be in early October—and the impact this will have on individual schools .

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

T4. As a result of the introduction of universal credit in Coventry, 25,000 children are below the poverty line. What is the Secretary of State doing, or what are other Ministers doing, to fund school meals properly—not just in the holiday period, but generally?

[Mrs Badenoch]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. There are 50,000 more pupils eligible for free school meals at the moment. There is much that this Government are doing, and we will continue to look at ways in which we can improve circumstances for disadvantaged children.

Early Years Family Support

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady is right, and it is, of course, part of the upcoming comprehensive spending review. I will return to that later because, at the moment, the troubled families spending does not specifically pick out the 1,001 days, but I think it will in future.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her work on this issue. I do not want to be negative or political, but it strikes me that, where a troubled family have an additional child, that additional child often does not develop as we would want. That happens for a variety of reasons, and it could be economic or the lack of a second parent. Has she looked at that? If so, does she have any solutions?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me to launch off in a completely different direction. He is right that, all too often, troubled families who have further children go on to have further problems, but the whole point of early intervention is that it can turn around the outcomes for all the family’s children, not just the new one. The programme is vital.

Insecure attachment in the early years has a cost to society in terms of not only human happiness but the financial cost to individuals, families and the public purse. As Professor James Heckman, a winner of the Nobel memorial prize in economics, has demonstrated, the return on every dollar invested in the 1,001 critical days delivers an exponential financial benefit in later life. Not only is early years intervention good for human happiness; it is also good for the public purse.

There are two profound areas of impact on the foetus and, then, the infant during the 1,001 critical days. The first is the level of cortisol, the stress hormone, and the second is the extent of the development of the infant’s prefrontal cortex. We know that a pregnant mother who suffers from stress produces more cortisol, which is easily transmitted via the placenta to the unborn child. The more stressed the mother, the more frequently the foetus is exposed to higher levels of cortisol.

The mother’s stress levels could be due to insecure employment, financial instability, the worry that her partner might leave her or the difficulties of being a single mum living in temporary or unsuitable housing, and so on. We know that exposure to high levels of cortisol can lead to modifications in gene expression while the foetus’s brain is still developing. Even in the womb, the potential for lifelong emotional and physical health is being determined.

We also know that maternal stress can lead to low birth weight, which can lead to all sorts of later complications, including diabetes, obesity and congenital heart disease. Once he or she is born, a baby left endlessly to cry themselves to sleep, or who is neglected or abused, will experience higher cortisol levels, which can over time lead to a lifelong higher tolerance of stress and an increased likelihood of being attracted to high-risk behaviour such as drug abuse, violence, criminality and so on.

We also know the critical role that the prefrontal cortex plays in developing the social and empathetic capacity of human beings. The prefrontal cortex is hardly present at birth, with the greatest growth spurt happening between six and 18 months, largely stimulated by the attention of a loving adult carer. Games like peekaboo, gazing into the baby’s eyes, smiling and mimicking them, and saying, “I love you. Aren’t you gorgeous?” [Interruption.] That is not directed at you, Mr Deputy Speaker. [Hon. Members: “Ah.”] I take that back, as it was mean. You are gorgeous. It is just that you are not in my arms. All that, in those 1,001 critical days, acts to jump-start the growth of the prefrontal cortex and the development of that vital human empathic capability.

However, if mum or dad is depressed, or if the baby suffers adverse childhood experiences, such as witnessing domestic violence, sexual abuse or substance misuse, that can have a significantly damaging effect on the development of the prefrontal cortex and the baby’s ability to regulate their own emotions. That, extraordinarily, can affect the ability in later years to cope with life’s challenges and opportunities, to form strong relationships and even to hold down a job. At the extreme end, the impact will be disastrous for that baby’s own future life and therefore for society at large. So love—a secure early bond—is what we want for all babies, although that is far from what is happening today.

Children’s Future Food Report

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field]

I am immensely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was not going to mention that matter, because I was not sure how many other people would raise it during the debate. It is covered by one of the report’s recommendations, and the fact that a targeted benefit is failing to reach many of the people at whom it is aimed is important. Perhaps the Minister will set out the Government’s response.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Prior to 2012—my right hon. Friend touched on this point—food banks were set up by churches and voluntary organisations to help refugees, but since then, these things have become institutionalised. Only a couple of weeks ago I made a visit to a major distributor to nine food banks in Coventry. Some 22,000 people in Coventry used those food banks last year, and they provide everything from food to babies’ nappies. That is how bad the situation is getting, so I agree with a lot of what he has said.

[Frank Field]

I am glad that my hon. Friend has intervened, because Coventry has the terrific Feeding Coventry project, which not only deals with the issues he set out, but has set up a citizens’ supermarket to cater for people in desperate need while giving them real choice about how they build up their budgets, or at least the food with which they feed themselves and nurture their children.

The Government will rightly say—they should claim some credit for this—that they have been sponsoring pilots for two years. Birkenhead was successful in gaining funding from the first pilot, but we were not successful in gaining any of the large dollops of money the Government gave out this time. We have therefore had to look at other ways of raising money, because an important job remains of feeding children during the school holidays and enabling them to have fun. Members will be raising points about the importance of various aspects of this report, and I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about how he wants to develop those two pilots so that we are not dependent on bidding for funds. I hope he will provide a universal service for all children of people on low incomes so that they are fed during the school holidays and can have fun, like richer children. Once that has occurred, I also hope that the education system will be able to report to him that poorer children have not dropped behind richer children when they come back to school, especially after the long summer holidays, due to a lack of food and nutrition over the holidays widening the educational disadvantage they suffer.

I wish to set out an example of a school governor in my constituency because it tells us about the journey that many of our constituents have travelled, and which we have travelled with them as Members of Parliament. We are grateful that the Government sponsor breakfast clubs at five schools in Birkenhead. Today, however, the fact that 27 schools and community groups could pick up 80,000 breakfasts in Hamilton Square in Birkenhead was made possible by moneys raised by Feeding Birkenhead and the provision of supplies from that person’s church. This one school governor reported that there was initial amazement that there was a need to start a breakfast club. However, later came the realisation that children did not want to go home during the winter months because their home was cold and there was no food, so they wished to stay in school. It was therefore decided that schools should provide a form of tea for those children so that they would get at least one good meal between going home and coming back the next day for their school breakfast. Sadly, many of our constituents will have made that journey, and many good-minded people in our constituency have done their best to try to counter it.

Following the report and the #Right2Food charter, we very much look to the Government to respond, particularly given the report’s list of recommendations, to which other Members, including our co-chair, will speak. They include the recommendation that there should be a children’s food watchdog. When will that person be put in place? What part will the young food ambassadors play in ongoing work so that we can regularly monitor progress when there are reports to this House?

Let me end my speech by discussing free school dinners. This topic concerned me when I worked for the Child Poverty Action Group. I have been around for some considerable time, so I have experience of the discrimination that poor children suffer through free school meals and how the face of that discrimination has changed. In the early days, children might have been brought in through separate doors, sat at separate tables or given tickets of a different colour. Today, in this age of IT, we find that children are discriminated against through the new IT system.

With thanks to the academics watching the debate from the Public Gallery, I shall end on the following issue. If a child’s parents pay for their dinners and the credit is put on to a card, but that child is not at school to have their school dinner for a particular reason, the money on the card is rolled over. However, for a poor child, the school dinner money for that day is cancelled. Our good academics have found that something like £88 million a year is lost to those children, and that goes somewhere—presumably to the companies that run the cards used to operate the dinner system. I am very concerned about this issue, and the sum itself is horrendous. Yesterday I wrote to the new Comptroller and Auditor General to ask him to undertake an inquiry on behalf of MPs who are interested in the issue so that we can establish whether £88 million is the floor or if the sum is even larger. If a poorer child does not attend school on one day, it is probably because they are ill, so we would think, as ordinary human beings, that they would need extra food the following day. For them, however, unlike their richer peers, the money that they did not spend the previous day disappears from their cards. I very much hope that the Minister will support the National Audit Office carrying out an inquiry into this new, nasty, vicious little twist that stigmatises poor children who draw on our school dinner system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

I thank my hon. Friend for having already raised this issue with me. I hope she has managed to speak to the Further Education Commissioner. Students will be at the heart of all our plans, but we are keen to find a solution as soon as we can.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

T5. Some weeks ago, thousands of children marched across the country voicing concerns about climate change. What is the Secretary of State doing to equip teachers to teach the subject so that students are well equipped?

[Damian Hinds]

I totally acknowledge and celebrate the fact that school children are among those showing leadership on this issue. We cover climate change in the national curriculum, and rightly so.

Murders in Northamptonshire: Serious Case Reviews

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend is absolutely passionate about work in this area. Schools and other local partners are involved and engaged, but the purpose of the legislation was to make sure that health, police and social services work together. However, he raises an important point about how we can make sure that schools are much more involved.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I am not attacking the Minister, but for years, his predecessors have come to the Dispatch Box and said, “We are going to learn the lessons. It’s not going to happen again.” Some years ago, I took a delegation to meet one of his predecessors and we were assured that resources would be available, but we are back at square one today, and I feel very sorry about what has happened to these kids in Northampton, as much as I do about some of the things that have happened to kids in Coventry. The Minister really has to get a grip on this now. It is no good talking about good practice in one authority as opposed to another. He has to face up to it: there is a shortage of social workers and a lack of resources in local government.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for at least not blaming this Minister, but nevertheless, he raises a very important point. One of our innovations is the introduction of a national panel, chaired by Edward Timpson, which has a remit to make sure that nationally we learn the lessons from such terrible cases. For the first time, it will undertake national reviews. The first of those reviews is on the criminal exploitation of children, so we are learning the lessons and putting the infrastructure in place to be able to do that and act upon it.

Education

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I do understand my hon. Friend’s concerns. We worked very hard during and after the consultation process to ensure that we could assemble the widest possible consensus on the new draft guidance. We accept that it contains some very sensitive issues and I understand that some parents have legitimate concerns about their involvement in their child’s education, particularly in primary schools. We have considered that very carefully.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I think he knows what I am going to ask him, because he has been very helpful prior to this debate. What can he say to reassure, for example, the Muslim community in relation to these proposals? Can he provide some reassurance to them?

[Nick Gibb]

I can give the hon. Gentleman, the Muslim community and other communities who share those concerns outside this House the assurance that schools will be required, for example, to consult with parents on their relationships education, and on relationships and sex education policies. One key purpose is to help to minimise any misconception about the subjects and what might be taught, and to enable parents to decide whether to request, for example, that their child is withdrawn from sex education. We encourage schools to engage proactively with parents to set out how and when they plan to cover topics included in relationships education and RSE, so that parents can understand what is going to be taught. This means ensuring that parents know what they can and cannot withdraw their children from, that they can have an input into policies, and have sufficient time and notice to make an informed decision about whether to withdraw their children from sex education.

Children Act 1989: Local Authority Responsibilities

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osamor]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. I will go on to discuss the hostile environment and its impact on the most vulnerable in society.

Project 17, an east London-based charity that I have been working with, works closely with families who have no recourse to public funds. Its recent report, “Not Seen, Not Heard”, documents the experiences of children living under this condition—I call it a “condition” deliberately. In 2018, four of the eight families living in Enfield who attended Project 17—my constituency of Edmonton is in the borough of Enfield—were told to call the emergency out-of-hours service each night for extended periods, rather than being provided with accommodation. It is standard practice for some local authorities to wrongly refuse interim support when they are first approached by families who need help. One woman was forced to call the out-of-hours service every night for almost two months.

The practice of not being child-focused is deeply concerning for a number of reasons. First, families have no stable place to be. When they are asked to leave temporary accommodation by 9.30 am, they wander the streets and have no safe place to go. Secondly, it is unclear how long it will take the out-of-hours service to arrange temporary accommodation following a request in the evening. Thirdly, navigating the out-of-hours service can be difficult for anyone, not least for those who struggle with English as a second language.

I hear reports of more and more families sleeping in the A&E reception. The reasons vary from them not understanding the system to safety, warmth and, basically, being destitute. One such report comes from Joel, who is nine years old. His family were forced to sleep in the accident and emergency department when they were left street homeless after a local authority refused their request for section 17 support. Joel said:

“We had to keep going to McDonalds every night and we would also go to A&E. I would have to wear my school clothes and sleep like that. They would say we have to sleep where the people wait but it’s just like lights and there is nothing colourful there. The chairs were hard. You know when you just sleep in the waiting room? I felt sorry for my mum because she had to stay up and my head had to be on her lap. She had to stay awake, her eyes were open like 24/7, all night and all day so she could watch over me. It was hard for her but also hard for me.”

Joel mentioned that he slept in his school uniform. That gives us more context on the plight of these children: despite having no fixed abode, Joel sleeps on his mother’s lap every night in an unsafe A&E reception. He is also expected to get up and concentrate in school.

I thank the Education Minister for being here today. I will not focus much on those young children’s experience in school, but I want to highlight the fact that, because a lot of their parents have no access to public funds, they cannot apply for free school meals and other things that would help their day in school.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an important contribution and is outlining the problem. Local authorities have obviously been underfunded in relation to childcare for a very long time, although the Government will not admit it; they keep telling us that they are putting more money in, but they are starting from a low base.

One thing that struck me in what my hon. Friend said—I have come across cases like this—is that kids, whatever their background, are expected to go to school, but they cannot concentrate on their education if they are worried about where they will live when they come home from school, whether they will get a square meal, whether their father and mother are together and whether there has been domestic violence. We can understand why kids sometimes become resentful in those circumstances. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Kate Osamor]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. What I take from it is that there is a lot of emotional strain on young children, which we must express and, more importantly, acknowledge.

The “Working together to safeguard children 2018” statutory guidance says that, where urgent needs are identified,

“social workers should not wait until the assessment reaches a conclusion before commissioning services”.

As I have illustrated, homelessness or destitution is clearly an urgent need. A refusal to provide interim support has led to a vulnerable woman and her children in Enfield having to stay with a local stranger they met on the street. When I first heard that story, my sadness turned to frustration at the fact that families are having to risk their safety and, ultimately, their dignity.

Why are families—mainly black families—forced to live like that? Would there be more of a public outcry if the victims of this pernicious policy were white? Would I even be standing here speaking on this matter? The hostile environment has a lot to answer for. The Prime Minister has a lot to explain, because it is her legacy that those innocent families are enduring.

Housing is a chronic issue across the UK, but housing scarcity does not remove local authorities’ obligation to ensure that all children are safe and that their needs are met. Amir, aged eight, described living in shared accommodation for 10 months:

“Where I live now, I’m not comfortable. There’s a lot of noise from people coming up and down the stairs. It’s always dirty. I have no space to do my homework and I don’t feel safe. At 3 am someone broke a door in the house—people were fighting.”

Poor living conditions are commonly reported. Project 17 reported the issues that children raised about the conditions of accommodation provided under section 17. They included living with rats, not having access to cooking facilities, cockroach infestation, antisocial behaviour from other residents in shared accommodation, not having basic furniture such as a table or chair, and not having access to washing facilities.

Civil society groups also report families receiving rates of financial support below the support rate of £37.75, set out in section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The Home Office says that that is the minimum amount required to avoid a breach of the European convention on human rights. Case law suggests that it would be unlawful for local authorities to expect families in receipt of section 17 support to live on less than that amount. It is unreasonable to expect families to live off less than £37.75 per week, and I am concerned that the Department, and thus local authorities, do not adequately recognise the negative impact of lower levels of support on children’s development and wellbeing. Even when support is provided, the current provision is insufficient. Interim support is being refused, and poor accommodation and low rates of financial support are being offered.

How are we helping these families and children? While there are process and practice issues that local authorities need to address, civil society groups across the UK have also reported that local authorities are increasingly deliberately putting barriers in place before supporting these families. Embedded Home Office immigration officials are one method by which that is done. While they can be used constructively, there are more consistent reports of their deployment to intimidate. The perceived threat of immigration enforcement action can deter the most vulnerable families from seeking support that they should be able to access. The management of these officers differs considerably between local authorities. Local authorities must take charge of their use.

Unfortunately, it is not just Home Office officials who intimidate parents. Worryingly, there is a trend of excessive scrutiny—of credit checks, minor inconsistencies being used to undermine a family’s case, allegations of fraud, and even threats of removing children without sufficient cause. I am sorry to say that several families in Enfield were simply misinformed by council officers. One family was even told that Enfield does not provide financial support to families.

How can we work together and help the failing authorities? Looking ahead, I would like to offer some solutions. At a local level, councils can take steps to ensure that such hardship is a thing of the past by signing up to a commitment to ensure the health, development and wellbeing of every child in their area. There is already such a pledge in Project 17’s children’s charter, and the Children’s Society has a charter, too. Project 17’s charter sets out a framework for local authorities working with children in need of support under section 17. It was derived from the UN convention on the rights of the child, the legal duties defined in the Children Act 1989 and subsequent case law, and what children and young people have told civil society groups about what they want.

I ask the Minister whether the Department will agree to meet Project 17 to discuss its work and its children’s charter. At a strategic level, I ask the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, if it is listening, to encourage local authorities to sign up to such a charter, and to clarify the procedures that local authorities must follow, and their obligations, regarding their care for every child in their area. In addition, those in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government can lobby the Prime Minister and their colleagues in the Home Office to end the hostile environment policy, which causes me deep concern. With all due respect, Madam Deputy Speaker, although Brexit is important, it is all we debate in this House, while this important issue only gets an airing in an end-of-day Adjournment debate.

The hostile environment policy builds destitution into the asylum process; destitution is going to happen, and that is wrong. Any attempt to combat destitution will be limited as long as the hostile environment continues. In a sense, people with insecure immigration status being forced to go without money, food or nappies for their children is not a failing in the system; it is the system. Can the Minister really say that he is happy with such a system? If not, will he do everything he can to ensure that the Department looks at the policy and how it affects the most vulnerable?

Ensuring that the needs of children are met should be the utmost priority of local authorities. However, if boroughs are expected to provide this essential support, it is crucial that they be provided with the resources to do so. In an age of austerity, it is imperative that the Government take this matter seriously and open a dialogue with local authorities and other organisations involved, to determine how much annual funding is required.

To put this in context, London boroughs spent £53.7 million in support of an estimated 2,881 households under the no recourse condition in 2016-17, and the estimated average total annual expenditure per borough was nearly £1.7 million, but the case load size in six boroughs led to their having far higher expenditure than the London average—expenditure of £5 million per year. That funding is primarily derived directly from the local authority’s social services budget: if pressures are not uniform across London then funding levels to cope with “no recourse” families should not be uniform, but targeted to ensure effective service delivery.

As I come to a close, let me say that I understand that local authorities are under immense pressure from a population with growing and increasingly more complex needs, from year-after-year reductions in Government funding, from the hostile environment policy and from a host of other problems and concerns. That is why no one expects every council to be able immediately and perfectly to adopt every proposal that I and others have made. However, when the stakes are so high for the children and families involved, I ask local authorities, the Minister and the Government to make concrete steps in the right direction.

Catholic Sixth-form Colleges

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about choice. I suppose the essential point of this debate is to say that there needs to be a level playing field in funding. A child who wants to go to a certain type of school or college should not see that there is better funding for one particular institution than there is for another down the road. I am sure that is a point he will agree with.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. In relation to capital, particularly for colleges and their funding, sometimes Catholic schools have had to amalgamate to release property they can sell to raise capital funding. I have come across cases such as that—I do not know whether he has or not—because of the lack of capital funding.

[Gareth Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the lack of capital funding, and access to capital funding is one way in which Catholic sixth-form colleges face the double discrimination that I talked about in my opening remarks. Later in my speech, I will give some detail about the issue of capital.

Until 1993, St Dominic’s Sixth Form College was part of Harrow’s local authority-maintained system, but following the Government’s post-16 reorganisation the college became independent within the state tertiary system, overseen by the Further Education Funding Council for England. That change brought about new challenges and pressures on the college, primarily to increase student numbers and its educational provision, in order to cater for the educational needs in our community.

The 21st century has seen a series of considerable successes for the college, as its reputation for delivering high-quality sixth-form education has continued to spread. By 2007, St Dominic’s Sixth Form College was among the small group of colleges that were awarded beacon status. The 2008 Ofsted inspection of the college judged it “outstanding”, which is a distinction it has held on to ever since. Indeed, the college is now regarded as being at the very top of the league of sixth-form colleges for “excellence” in its educational provision and for its A-level results. In 2017, The Sunday Times specifically recognised it as the best sixth-form college of the year.

Not surprisingly, therefore, St Dominic’s is heavily oversubscribed—typically, there are about 3,000 applications for the 700 places available annually—but in recent years the college has had to expand, in part to meet the financial challenges of a static budgetary settlement. However, with 1,300 students, the college is now full, with no capacity to expand further.

Without an increase in funding per student or additional students, revenue income will remain flat and with increased costs such as pensions, salaries and so on, the risk of further financial challenge becomes very real. The implications of that include the possibility of a reduced curriculum, at a time when the new Ofsted framework requires a rich and diverse curriculum offer, and the possibility of substantially increased teacher-to-student ratios.

The principal of St Dominic’s, the excellent Andrew Parkin, rightly describes his college as an “educational jewel” that is looking increasingly fragile, because there are no significant financial increases on the horizon.

There are 14 Catholic sixth-form colleges in England: Aquinas in Cheshire, Cardinal Newman in Preston, Carmel in St Helens, Christ the King in Lewisham, Holy Cross in Bury, Loreto in Manchester, Notre Dame in Leeds, St Brendan’s in Bristol, St Charles in Kensington, St Francis Xavier in Wandsworth, St John Rigby in Wigan, St Mary’s in Blackburn and Xaverian in Manchester, as well as my own, St Dominic’s. Like the wider sixth-form college sector, those are high-performing institutions, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes).

Catholic sixth-form colleges teach just over 27,000 pupils, and employ almost 2,500 teachers and support staff. Together, they educate about 3% of all 16 to 18-year-olds in publicly funded provision. They account for 4% of all A-level students and for 5% of students progressing to higher education, including to the most competitive universities. Some 86% of them, as the hon. Gentleman also mentioned, are rated outstanding or good by Ofsted. They have a justified reputation as centres of excellence and places of academic rigour and achievement. They give students the chance to excel, regardless of their previous academic achievement.

Catholic sixth-form colleges have many things in common, and most serve diverse and often deprived communities.

School Funding

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist]

I do not have a percentage figure, but it has been estimated that more than £2.8 billion would be needed to restore the situation to where it was in 2013.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Liz Twist]

I will make some progress, but I will take some interventions shortly.

The campaign started with a letter co-signed by headteachers of primary, secondary and special educational needs and disability schools in Gateshead, who became increasingly alarmed by the impact that a real-terms reduction in school funding was having on the children and young people in their care. The letter, which was sent to parents before Christmas, informed them that schools may no longer be able to provide the same level of service and asked them for their support in raising the schools’ concerns with the Government.

This is a speech of two parts. The first part is about the facts and figures that we regularly bandy around the Chamber and in official papers. Eventually, they get down to the school heads and governors at the kind of scale where they can see the black holes in their budgets and try to work out how they can balance their books.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Coventry has experienced the same sort of difficulties as my hon. Friend’s constituency. I did a survey and visited several schools last year, which showed that out of 103 schools, 102 were suffering from teacher shortages, demoralisation, rising class numbers or low pay. Does she agree that the Government have to do something about that?

[Liz Twist]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend.

Relationships and Sex Education

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

I will come to that later in my remarks, but of course my right hon. Friend is right that parents must play a major role in this. Most schools will want to work in co-operation with parents; we would be foolish to do anything else.

The Government issued draft guidelines for what should be taught in school, and it is important to look at how those draft guidelines work. In primary school, children should be taught about families, “people who care for me”, caring friendships and respectful relationships. They should be taught that there are different kinds of families and what to do if they feel unhappy or unsafe at home. That part is crucial because, although we hear much about stranger danger, let us remember that most children who are abused are abused within their own families. We must remember that. They need to learn about how to keep safe online and offline, and where to go for help.

I cannot honestly see a difficulty with that. Saying to young children that there are different kinds of families is only reinforcing what they know. They know from their own experience, from their own classes, that some children will have a mummy and daddy, some will only have a mummy or a daddy and some, increasingly, may have two parents of the same sex. That happens.

In secondary school, what is proposed is necessarily more complex. Children will be expected to learn about the importance of marriage and that it must be freely entered into, which is crucial given that some British young people are still experiencing forced marriage.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

This is a timely debate in a number of ways. I read somewhere today that the Secretary of State for Education implied that parents could actually opt out of this. Having said that, I know that my hon. Friend has looked at the guidelines. Do they take into consideration, for example, religious schools? Several parents from different strands of religions have written to me about this. Could my hon. Friend enlighten me?

[Helen Jones]

The guidelines do take that into consideration. I will come to that in a moment.

Young people in secondary schools also need to learn about consent, what constitutes a respectful relationship and what constitutes sexual violence and sexual harassment. They also need to learn why what they see online is often a distorted picture of healthy relationships, about grooming and sexual exploitation and, I understand, about female genital mutilation and why it is illegal. Again, that is crucial to keeping people safe.