Tutoring Provision

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It really is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. I look forward to you being in the Chair every time I am here. Thank you for being here and for your fairness.

I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for leading this debate on a very important issue. As always, I will try to bring a Northern Ireland perspective, not because the Minister has responsibility for Northern Ireland but because it adds to the debate. I will give some stats and talk about what we have done back home, and hopefully we can share those experiences for our betterment.

The hon. Lady and the Liberal Democrat party have done much work on children’s education, and specifically on tutoring. She set the scene well and talked about what she and her party espouse and hope to achieve. She spoke about the benefits of tutoring, which were endorsed by the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell). There is certainly a disparity across the United Kingdom, but we must ensure that children from all backgrounds can take advantage of good educational learning. It is great to be here to give a Northern Ireland perspective on this issue.

The Government set up the national tutoring programme in England in response to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on education. Those two and a half to three years really did change life for everyone. The programme provided subsidised, small-group catch-up teaching and mentoring for pupils impacted by covid. It is crazy to think about where we were just a few years ago and about how much school young people missed out on. Although teachers did their best, it was always going to be a difficult task, so it was important that we looked at different ways of providing education. The Government did that, especially for key worker parents.

The latest child poverty figures for Northern Ireland show that 82,000 children live in absolute poverty. Remember that we have a population of 1.95 million, so those figures show the enormity of the situation and what we are trying to achieve back home—we are talking about almost one in every five children. Just under 100,000 children in Northern Ireland live in relative poverty. Adding those two figures together gives a sum of 182,000 living in absolute or relative poverty. Those figures worry me. They highlight not only the situation in Northern Ireland but the need for better one-to-one tutoring provision.

Key worker parents provided essential services, but their children had less face-to-face teaching at home, so it is likely that many of those children suffered due to that too. The hon. Members for Twickenham and for Sedgefield talked about a combination of issues, and I know that the hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) will do likewise.

I always look forward to the Minister’s response, because he tries to encapsulate our fears, concerns and questions, and gives us some encouragement as elected representatives. Funding for Northern Ireland was secured by the Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland and the Charities Aid Foundation. That allowed for the creation of a free online tuition service for the children of key workers from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and for children with special educational needs. The combination of those two issues—parents who are away at work, and the education of children with special educational needs—is a massive problem. I have realised from all the debates we have here that the issues relating to children with special educational needs affect not just Northern Ireland but the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Ask a Tutor scheme really did make a difference, and I thank the Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland and the Charities Aid Foundation for that.

The Government have said that raising children’s attainment is at the heart of their agenda, and that is very true. Being able to obtain good tutoring services is one thing, but that must be deliverable across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I am a passionate believer in the strength of the Union, and I am sure everybody in this Chamber is of a similar disposition. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North spoke at my association dinner two weeks ago about the strength of the Union, and he enthralled that audience of true Unionists in Newtownards with his words. I put my thanks for that on record, and I am pleased to see him here.

Although it is fully understood that education is devolved, we need to ensure that the initial budget is there to support one-to-one tutoring in our schools. The Assembly is now up and working again, and the Minister for Education back home is my colleague Paul Givan MLA. I know him and I know that he will work hard on this issue, but there also needs to be the support from Westminster. I am sure the Minister will give us encouragement on that through his words, as well as his actions.

One of my staff members was tutored in maths through her fourth and fifth years of secondary school, and her sessions cost £32 for one hour each week. That was almost eight years ago, so I imagine that they cost at least another £10 to £15, which would make it quite challenging for any person to afford that individually—it could cost over £200 a month, depending on how many sessions someone was having. Although there are people out there who will be able to afford that—that is fine, and those are the sacrifices we make—there are those who simply will not be able to. Giving consideration to those families should be made a priority, and that is the first of my requests in this debate.

We all want our young children to grow up and excel at school, and to have the best opportunities possible, and providing extra one-to-one tutoring sessions is an excellent way to ensure they do. I see that through the staff in my office and what they have told me, and we heard it in the introduction from the hon. Member for Twickenham, who explained why tutoring is important, and others have added to that message and will add to it in a minute.

I urge the Minister to engage with the devolved nations to ensure that we can all play a role in improving educational outcomes for young people in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Isn’t it great that we have that Union? Isn’t it great that we can share these ideas? Isn’t it great that we can do that for our children?