Catholic Schools (Admissions)

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laws]

I am coming to that, and I hope I will be able to get to it before the end of my speech. As a Catholic—this is a personal comment and not one that I make on behalf of the Government—I think that our faith is at its best when it reaches out to people beyond the faith, and I urge the Catholic faith in this country not to think of itself as providing schools to serve only people of the Catholic faith. Surely, in a society where all religions seem to be struggling to keep people engaged, faiths such as Catholicism should welcome the fact that many parents want their children to attend those schools even if they are not of the faith. I acknowledge that that is an issue for Catholic schools and the Catholic faith; it is not for me, but I think it should be considered.

Although I recognise that the Catholic sector has aspirations whereby it continues to have objections to our policy on admissions in faith free schools, I am keen that that the Catholic Education Service should continue to engage with us in discussing the matter. We remain committed to continuing our engagement with the Catholic Education Service on this issue, and we would welcome innovative ideas from it. For example, a free school that, in response to local demand, met the anticipated faith demand but had a capacity greater than that demand and thus did not exceed the 50% limit would still be eligible for funding. Such a school would help to provide additional school places where they are most needed and extend school choice to parents who might not be Catholic but nevertheless want a Church education for their children. I must be clear, however, that we currently have no plans to change the 50% limit. Given the fact that we have a very small number of Catholic free schools, I hope that Catholic schools will consider engaging further in that programme.

In understanding the importance of the 50% limit in ensuring that new provision Church and faith schools are also accessible to their local community, it is vital that we recognise the wider pressures on the schools system. Making sure there are enough high-quality school places for the growing population will remain one of the Government’s top priorities. The Department has allocated a total of £5 billion of basic-need money to local authorities between 2011-12 and 2014-15. That is considerably in excess of the amount for the previous Parliament. Local authorities and other schools in those areas have already created about a third of a million additional school places, and must continue to create such places in future.

The Department provides funding to enable local authorities to meet the demand for new places based on authorities’ forecasts of pupil numbers in their areas. The Government welcome Church and faith schools as part of the diverse and autonomous pattern of education provision in this country. We therefore provide for faith designation of both maintained schools and academies. A voluntary-aided school can seek to convert to academy status, just like any other maintained school, but a voluntary-aided school converting to academy status would convert under existing arrangements—

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Order.

Child Care (London)

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Nick de Bois]

I will tackle the point. The choice has been made by the head of the school. He is not responding to a central directive from Whitehall or, it appears, from the local education authority. Although the LEA has expressed a preference, it is not a direction. I am highlighting that we now have a situation in which a head teacher finds it more attractive to follow the direction of the Deputy Prime Minister by disregarding parents, many of whom have used the child care centre for a considerable period of time.

Central direction is not the solution, because it is close to the market intervention that we are talking about and will create another dysfunctional consequence somewhere else. Even if we intervene with the best of intentions, it strikes me as odd that the education establishment thinks it is perfectly acceptable to remove some parents in favour of others. That touches on my supply-side argument: if I was a parent who was told that that was what the school had chosen to do, I would look for somewhere else to go because I would not value the school that had made that decision. We therefore have to accept that the weakness on the supply side, which goes back as far as 2003, is at the heart of our problems. That is what we should address, instead of making the wider interventions with which we seem to be obsessed. That is the ultimate solution to the problem.

I apologise for going on for far too long, but I think I have initiated a lively discussion.

Several hon. Members rose—

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Order. I give notice that I intend to call the shadow Minister at 20 minutes to 4.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I will try to be quick. I am grateful for your indulgence, Mr Dobbin, because I am due to speak in the Budget debate in the House. Will the Minister forgive me for not being here for her conclusion?

I congratulate my hon. and very good Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing this debate. I am also grateful for the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) to ensure that the issue of child care is to the fore here in London. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) is here, and we should remember the work that she did when she was Minister with responsibility for public health to get child care on the agenda and to set up the children’s centres. I suspect that many of us are concerned that the children’s centres are disappearing and are not quite what we envisaged all those years ago. That is the context of this debate.

I reflect, too, on a mother who came to see me last Friday. She is a nurse working in a major London hospital. She is meant to be at that hospital for 7.30 am, and she is a single mum with two kids who have to get to primary school. She is one of the many Londoners in temporary accommodation, and she has been housed by the local authority miles away from the school that her children attend. She is actually housed at the other end of the London borough; I know hon. Members will be familiar with that situation. She also now lives further away from her job. She came to speak to me in tears, asking where the balance was between getting to school for the newly begun breakfast club and getting to work. She faced losing her job. She asked simply whether I, as a local MP, could visit the hospital to ask whether she could have the flexibility to get her kids to the breakfast club and then go to hospital to start work. She is an average Londoner and my heart goes out to her, because I remember my mother juggling the priorities of raising kids on her own and getting to work. The truth is that in the economy we have created—both major political parties have to take some responsibility for it—it is virtually impossible successfully to raise a family on one income in London, particularly if that is one average income.

Child care is a fundamental issue. It takes 31% of the disposable income of London families; that will be 40% in 10 years’ time, and in 50 years’ time, it will be the entirety of their disposable income. We should take the issue seriously. It is not just about child care, however. Local authorities, with their budgets squeezed—we heard in the Budget today that further squeezes are to come in the years ahead—have withdrawn from subsidising breakfast clubs and after-school clubs. Families are having to make difficult choices about how they provide for their children. We should not forget that many working families, when making those decisions, leave younger children in the care of slightly older children; that is what is going on. Those older siblings have to feed younger siblings and marshal the dangers of the internet. They are raising many young Londoners, because of the cost of child care.

To some extent, I welcome the raising of the worth of what is effectively a voucher scheme to £2,000. I suspect that the shadow Minister will raise the issue of who receives that money. It causes me great concern that so much of it will be received by Londoners who can afford child care. Why are we giving subsidies to those earning £300,000? Are bankers, barristers, accountants or senior consultants really complaining about the cost of child care in London? Should we be prioritising them? Child care costs on average £15,000 a year in this city, so let us be honest: £2,000 is a drop in the ocean, and shame on this House if we Members are not very clear about that. It is a drop in the ocean in relation to the demand and the problems that we have in this city.

We should also be clear that the demand among many Londoners and right across the country is for support not just for children aged nought to five, but for those aged nought to 14. People do not want their 11-year-old or 12-year-old in the house on their own, and being expected to make their own breakfast. I am pleased that the Government are shifting the cut-off age for the scheme to 12-year-olds, but I put on the table that the issue is for young Londoners, full stop. The spectrum certainly has to go beyond five-year-olds.

I do not want to get lost in the central discussion on cost and lose sight of quality. Most Londoners are making child care decisions based first on cost and then on location. The real challenge for us in London is to get Londoners making decisions fundamentally based on quality. There are real concerns that a diminution or a stepping back on some of the nursery standards that were in place has led to a drop in quality at nursery level. I have real concerns about our youngest children in London—babies aged nought to 18 months—and the recent changes in regulation regarding the number of child care attendants that should be there for babies.

There is quite a lot of evidence that our youngest children in nurseries should have the one-to-one support that mothers want. It is not just about cost; it is about mum and dad—I should mention dads, as chair of the all-party group on fatherhood—having confidence that the quality and support is there while they go out to work. There is a supply-side issue. We have to drive up standards and ensure that suppliers can flourish and provide the child care that we want. I welcome the debate, but in the end we need a proper 10-year plan. We need to be clear that child care is for those between nought and 14 years old. We need a road map to the universal provision that is required in our capital city.

We must build on the successes that we saw withthe children’s centres, although there were problems. The policy began in the Department of Health under the previous Government with my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, when she was responsible for public health. While we were in government, that policy shifted to the Department for Children, Schools and Families. As has been said by academics and others, that shift meant that the policy became more about the Treasury, gross domestic product and getting women out to work, when it should have been about a holistic vision of well-being, as it was when it sat in the Department of Health. Things have slid even further recently. Yes, the debate is about cost, but it is also about quality provision. We should be ashamed that so many of our continental partners are making huge strides forward on child care, while here in Britain the debate stagnates.

Several hon. Members rose—

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Order. Three Members still wish to speak, and we have 25 minutes until I call the shadow Minister.

Child Care

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

That is a continuation of the fall in the number of childminders under Labour. We have reversed the policy, starting this September, and the Department for Education is already getting a lot of positive calls from childminders who are keen to offer early education places. There is a great deal of support for that; it helps parents to combine their child care and early education requirements. From this September, we are trialling childminder agencies, which will enable more childminders to join the profession, and they will be fully up and running in September 2014. They will provide training and support, and will be an easy way for parents to access home-based care. We are at the beginning of making significant changes to the way childminders are regarded in our system. What we want to see is an increase in independent childminders and more agency childminders, as well.

We want to expand the level of school-based care, too. As opposed to Labour’s child care mirage, we are allowing real schools to offer real facilities. We are encouraging schools to use their nursery facilities to offer full-time day care rather than just be open for part of the day. We are allowing schools automatically to register two-year-olds, and I saw some brilliant provision for two-year-olds at the Oasis school in Hadley, which opened in January.

We are seeing 8-to-6 schools blossoming. The Norwich free school has a squirrels club, which means it is open from 8 am to 6 pm, 51 weeks a year. I know that the shadow Education Secretary thinks that free schools are a “dangerous ideological experiment”, but I think schools like the Norwich free school are giving hard-working parents the support that they need.

Another example is the Harris chain of academies, which has promised that every new school it opens will operate on an 8-to-6 basis. I am hugely in favour of 8-to-6 provision. It supports working families and helps to increase children’s attainment, but we must do that in a way that is realistic and sustainable for schools. That means making the necessary regulatory changes, aligning the requirements after the school day from within the school day and making it easier for schools to collaborate with outside providers. We do not get anywhere by making false promises that cannot be realised. We are also reforming child care funding so that parents see more of their money, rather than see it wasted. This means that all working parents will get up to £1,200 per child towards child care costs and the provision of 15 hours for three and four-year-olds.

All that is in the context of what the Government are doing to help families with the cost of living: a £705 income tax cut, thanks to our increases in the personal allowance; a £1,000 saving on mortgages because rates have been kept low; £364 saved on petrol for those who top up their cars once a week; and £210 saved thanks to our council tax freeze. This Government have real policies, helping real working parents to manage their lives—not the dodgy numbers, unfunded promises and gimmicks we have seen from the Labour party today.

[Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I understand that a very serious incident has occurred in the Mediterranean today, when a Spanish naval vessel entered Gibraltar harbour. Is a Minister from the Foreign Office coming along to make a statement about what amounts to a very serious incident?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I have been given no notification that a statement is to be made, but I am sure that the Foreign Office is listening carefully to what has been said about such a serious incident.

I shall now impose an eight-minute limit in order to get all Members who want to speak into the debate. We will start with Jonathan Ashworth.

Speech, Language and Communication Education

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

The hon. Gentleman has made his point, but I will not test the Chair during this debate by expanding on antisocial behaviour or on my discussions of the subject with Front-Bench colleagues. The hon. Gentleman has made his point, however, and it will have been heard by my colleagues.

That failure—all those young people being excluded and ending up in the youth justice system and then adult prisons—is a significant cost to the public purse, through lost productivity and taxes from children not reaching their potential, and the cost of welfare or of keeping the young person in youth justice or in the prison system, if it comes to that. Therefore, early intervention and getting the right support in place as soon as possible are important not only to the individual child or young person, but to the whole of society. That is why I pushed the Minister so hard, as did everyone who spoke on these matters during Committee consideration of the Bill, on the provisions that will be in place under the new system, and particularly on the role that early years settings and early years area special educational needs co-ordinators working across those settings will be expected to play.

The Minister resisted my calls for local authorities to have a duty to co-operate with private, voluntary and independent child care providers with regard to children in their settings whom they believe to have special educational needs, saying that he believed it would place a burden on those providers. However, as I have heard from such providers, the problem is that they are often completely ignored by local authorities when they try to refer a child for an assessment or some other form of help. That is the problem that I was trying to solve with an amendment. I hope that our noble colleagues can address it in more detail in the other place.

I would also like early years area SENCOs to be given a statutory role to ensure that PVI child care settings are given the support that they need to identify and adequately cater for such children. As we discussed in Committee, the draft code of practice includes a heading on that role, which I welcome, although there is no content yet. I am sure that the Minister and his officials are working on that now, so I would be grateful if he could tell us what progress has been made on developing that guidance since our discussion in March.

Obviously, the vast majority of children and young people with identified SLCNs do not qualify for a statement at present, and will not qualify for an education, health and care plan when the new system is rolled out. At present, their teachers and parents have school action and school action plus as a graduated response to meeting their needs, which will become a single SEN category under the new code of practice. We are still not sure exactly how that will look in practice, but the Minister assures us that the 1.4 million children on school action and school action plus will continue to be supported, and we must take him at his word.

Clearly, though, the level of support that children receive will owe much to the quality of the local offer in their area, which is why I have sought at every stage of the Children and Families Bill to strengthen the wording of the legislation on that issue. In particular, the Minister and I, along with the hon. Member for South Swindon, have had many debates about what standards we should expect from local offers in terms of provision and accountability. I am sure that such debates will rumble on as the Bill continues its passage through the other place.

I reiterate a point made in last week’s debate by the Chair of the Select Committee on Education, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart). The success of this raft of reforms rests on getting local offers right. I do not believe that the Department for Education can afford to take the chance that 152 flowers will blossom if cash-strapped councils are left to their own devices.

Finally, teacher training is crucial in making every school a good school for children and young people with high-incidence SENs such as speech, language and communication needs; the hon. Member for South Swindon mentioned that as well. Every teacher is a teacher of children with speech, language and communication needs, but not every teacher knows how to be. Fewer than half of newly qualified teachers surveyed by Ofsted had good skills and knowledge of language development, and about one third did not have sufficient training to enable them to plan how to give such children extra help in the classroom. That is clearly not satisfactory.

Again, I feel that the Department for Education should be leading on that issue by requiring improvements to teacher training and continuing professional development so that every teacher has the skills needed to teach the class in front of them rather than just the subject. The Department is going in the opposite direction, saying that people do not need a teaching qualification to teach, or even to head a school in some instances. Labour Members restated our opposition to that idea this week.

That said, I hope that the Minister, outside the Children and Families Bill process, will consider our calls to make such improvements to the quality of the work force. He has made a lot of improvements to the Bill during his relatively short time in office, for which Members from all parties are grateful. During his remaining time in post, however long or short it may be, I hope that he will continue to listen to the concerns of parents and practitioners and take the actions needed to ensure that the unacceptable outcomes for children and young people with SLCNs that the hon. Member for South Swindon and I described will be improved in the years to come.

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

I am sure that the Minister will take this opportunity to stay in place.

AS-levels and A-levels

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

I wish to point out that, because of a technical problem, the clocks on the wall are one hour behind, although the clock on my desk is accurate.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin, and to raise a matter of great concern in schools, colleges and universities throughout the country. I thank my hon. Friends who have provided so much support for this debate. Some are here today, but others could not make it. I initiated this debate on the proposed changes to AS and A-levels following a letter that I received from the chairman of Hounslow secondary head teachers and signed by all secondary head teachers in my constituency. They are baffled and concerned about the proposed changes announced earlier this year.

I am sure we all want the very best education for the young people of Britain and the highest levels of participation and attainment possible for each child. However, I am greatly concerned that the proposals announced by the Government in January will be a regressive step, with participation and attainment going backwards. Under the proposals, A-levels will be linear and taken over two years, with students sitting exams at the end of the course. AS-levels will apparently remain, but will be redesigned as stand-alone qualifications, with a slightly confused proposal that they could be delivered over one year or two. AS-levels will not contribute to A-level grades.

Head teachers in my constituency of Feltham and Heston at Feltham community college, Lampton school, St Mark’s Catholic school, Rivers academy, Heston community college, Cranford community college and other schools throughout Hounslow have written to me in an unprecedented way with their concerns. They say:

“We are baffled and concerned by the proposal to shift the AS level to a standalone qualification. In its present format, the one year course leading to a more challenging A2 course enables schools to raise standards. A-level students are more seriously motivated in year 12 when they know that they are going to be externally examined at the end of the year. In our view we are going to lose that motivation from students if we have to return to internal exams at the end of year 12.”

My head teachers are not alone. The changes have been opposed by the 24 Russell Group universities and the Association of School and College Leaders, an organisation that represents more than 80% of school heads in public and private schools and which oversees an estimated 90% of A-level entries. ASCL-affiliated organisations include the Girls Schools Association and the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference. In addition, the National Association of Head Teachers, the Association of Colleges, the Science Council, which is made up of 39 member bodies, and the Labour party have all voiced concerns about the Government’s proposed changes to AS and A-levels.

From my discussions with the education sector, it is clear that concerns about the proposals fall within a range of areas. The first is education. Let us be clear that AS-levels are a success story. According to the Joint Council for Qualifications, the take-up of AS and A-levels has shown an upward trajectory since 2003 with more than 500,000 more AS-level certificates awarded and more than 100,000 more A-level certificates awarded last year.

My schools believe that that stepping-stone approach to building on educational attainment with choice, diversity and flexibility has kept up a love of learning, and for those who may never have expected to do A-levels or to go to university it has opened a door. They have also said to me that, instead of forcing specialisation early, keeping options open and enabling a later choice of A-level subjects has kept many pupils in post-16 education when they might otherwise have opted out.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

The debate may now continue until 4.25 pm. I call Alex Cunningham.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I inform Members who have just joined us that we will finish this debate at 4.25 pm.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

My hon. Friend is doing a great job in promoting apprenticeships in his constituency, and the whole House will want to celebrate that fact. He is right that small businesses sometimes perceive the risk of taking on apprentices as being greater than larger firms do. We need to make the process much simpler and take out the bureaucracy. We have provided a toolkit and put financial incentives in place, but we will go still further to ensure that in every village and town, every business has the chance to take on an apprentice.

[Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/Co-op)]

T10. It is important, when individuals and groups apply to open a free school, that proper checks on them are made. Can the Secretary of State give me guarantees that those checks are in place?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. One of the things that we have done in the Department is to set up a specific unit—the preventing extremism unit—which exists specifically to ensure that those people who may come from a fundamentalist religious background or from an intolerant tradition are prevented from having access to public money. Whether they are intending to set up a free school or to subvert the operation of an existing school, safeguards are in place. They can always be better, and I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman and everyone else in order to ensure that public money does not go into the wrong hands.

School Food

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Gwynne]

I agree absolutely. When I was a pupil not at Russell Scott primary school but at Egerton Park community high school in Denton—during the Government of the noble Baroness Thatcher—we did indeed make pizza in home economics. Those lessons were probably the only opportunity that a lot of my school colleagues had to cook. I was more fortunate because my mum and my gran, from an early age, taught me a lot of the cooking skills that I have today. I make a superb Victoria sponge cake, thanks to my gran, who was the best baker in the world, and my custard cream biscuits are to die for—perhaps, Mr Dobbin, I shall bring some in after the recess and we can all share them. It is absolutely important that children learn how to cook, not only cakes and biscuits but meals—my Scotch broth isn’t bad either, I have to say.

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to curry favour. [Laughter.]

[Diana Johnson]

I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend talk about his culinary skills, but I wonder whether we should recognise in particular that being able to cook a nutritionally balanced meal is a basic life skill that everyone should have. School and education should instil such basic life skills in young people, as much as the ability to read, write and add up. Basic skills such as cooking should be on the curriculum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Teather]

No, I will not give way again. We would have had to cut the best part of £300 million from elsewhere in the Department’s budget. If hon. Members were to tell me which areas of the budget they would be willing to cut to the tune of £300 million, then it might be a little easier—[Interruption.]

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Order. I ask hon. Members to quieten down a little.

[Sarah Teather]

Hon. Members also spoke about Ofsted. It had responsibility only for the healthy eating approach of schools. It did not engage nutritionists when doing those inspections, so it would be a fallacy to assume that the only thing that was driving compliance with standards was the Ofsted inspection.

On the School Food Trust, I think there have been some misunderstandings. All advice that the trust has made available with Government grant will continue to be made available free of charge. It will be able to charge for new advice that it prepares once it becomes a charity and no longer receives Government grant, but it will be a charity, a not-for-profit organisation, and will need only to cover its costs. I believe that the high quality of its advice means that local authorities and schools will want to use it. A great deal of the support that it has offered has proved useful.

Opposition Members raised the subject of including cooking in the national curriculum. They should wait until we have reviewed the national curriculum, and see the outcome. However, our internal review of what secondary schools are doing shows that most already provide practical cooking at key stage 3, and they are unlikely to stop doing so regardless of whether we legislate.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish on securing the debate. I have tried to answer at least some of the questions raised this morning.

School Governance

Jim Dobbin Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Percy]

That is a difficult question. In some respects, federating would lessen the burden, because some people who join governing bodies want to take on that strategic role regarding the direction of the school but do not necessarily want to be engaged in the nitty-gritty. I have sat on governing bodies where it has been about who can outdo the others and who has been in the school the most, but that does not mean that that person has necessarily been the most effective governor. There is a role for both kinds of governor, which might be achieved through federation. You can have governors who give their expertise to the strategic direction of education in a particular area, and you can have others who play the community role or a much more involved role in a particular school. That is something that we need to look at.

I will not speak for much longer, because I know that other hon. Members wish to contribute. I associate myself with many of the thoughtful comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon, who has a great deal of experience in this area. I am sorry that I will not be here to listen to the Minister, but I will, of course, read his speech in Hansard tomorrow.

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, I remind Members when making interventions not to use “you” to refer to other Members. Please use “hon. Friend” or “hon. Member”.