Children from Low-Income Families: Education Support

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. You are always very kind, and I appreciate your kind thoughts. First of all, may I say how pleased I am to make a contribution to this debate, and that I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on having secured it? He is a very active MP in this House. Certainly when it comes to questions in the Chamber or debates in Westminster Hall, he is always there, so I wanted to come along and support this debate and my Opposition colleagues.

As a father, I feel very strongly about this issue. My boys are now young men in their 20s and early 30s, and the education of my own children was always very important to me. We as parents know that we would do all we can to see our children succeed, because that is what parents do: we want to see our children do well. We want to see them settled and in a job, and we want them to have happy lives. I am very fortunate that my three boys have achieved that, although I must give credit to my wife Sandra for the rearing of the children and the supervision of their education. I was not there often enough to have the input that I should have had, but certainly my wife was.

Although circumstances can sometimes get in the way of this happening, it is crucial that as policy makers in this House, we do all that we can to support those families who are struggling. The education of children should be a priority for us, and we should not forget about low-income families—that is what this is about. I always think that my job—I believe that others subscribe to this as well—is to look out for those who have no one to look out for them. In this House, we bring forward issues on behalf of our constituents in such a way that the Government can perhaps respond and help in all the ways we would like them to, and take additional steps to make our constituents’ lives easier. As the Minister knows, I am pleased to see her in her place: she has a deep and sincere interest in this subject, and I am very confident that she will be forthcoming with the responses that my Opposition colleagues hope to receive.

I understand that the Minister does not have responsibility for Northern Ireland, and therefore any comments I make are not for her to respond to, but I want to add to this debate a perspective on life in Northern Ireland, and perhaps reinforce and replicate the issues to which hon. Ladies and Gentlemen have already referred. I want to highlight the struggles that many have faced, especially in my constituency of Strangford. Over the duration of the covid-19 pandemic, those struggles have been at an all-time high. I am very fortunate to have the former Education Minister Peter Weir in my constituency back home, so I have been able to work alongside him to try to address some of these issues, but it has been difficult throughout the covid-19 pandemic to know how to respond and know what the right things to do are.

I want to highlight some of the things that the community has done to help, in partnership with others. Many residents have contacted me about the struggles of at-home education, a feeling of helplessness because of lack of income, and the pressures of having to stay at home either because they have to self-isolate or because the rules mean that they are not able to got out as often as they would like. I am not quite sure whether that is a sign that not enough has been done. I think that the Education Minister back home probably did try to respond wisely, ever knowing that the covid-19 coronavirus and how to respond to it was a complete unknown. However, the education of the children of our nation should be at the forefront of our priorities.

I acknowledge the work that has already been done by the Departments for Education here on the mainland and back in Northern Ireland. Free school meals and uniform grants have been instrumental in helping parents. More than 1.4 million children in England are eligible for FSMs. We have to give credit where it is due, and I give credit to the Education Departments for the things that they have done correctly. I also gently encourage them to address other things in the same way. They have allowed for additional nutritional meals for pupils during school time. I am very pleased to say that that has been extended in Northern Ireland until Easter 2022. We are taking it into next year back home, which is an indication of the importance we attach to the issue.

I would like to make hon. Members aware of the work done by my colleague back home, former Education Minister Peter Weir MLA. He introduced the “A Fair Start” report, which examined the links between educational underachievement and socioeconomic background. The Chair of the Education Committee referred to that issue last week when discussing his Committee’s report, which I was very impressed with. I am sorry but I cannot remember the name of his constituency—I referred to him yesterday in the education debate.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Harlow.

[Jim Shannon]

Thank you for reminding me, Mr Hollobone. I was just trying to remember that while on my feet. The right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) has grasped the issue. We have that problem in Northern Ireland and it is very clear that it has become a problem for education here as well. I thank him for raising it.

In today’s Education questions in the Chamber, it was encouraging to hear the Secretary of State thank the former Education Minister Peter Weir for his work back home, and to hear that the Secretary of State has a good, strong relationship with the regional and devolved Administrations—in particular with my colleague Peter Weir.

“A Fair Start” wholeheartedly engages with teachers and pupils to focus on early education, while maximising the potential for all pupils across Northern Ireland. A recent report has shown that £180 million will be needed to tackle underachievement in Northern Ireland over the next five years. I know that the Minister cannot respond to that, but money for education is given out across the United Kingdom and we get a part of that through the Barnett consequentials. It is vital that additional funds are allocated to the devolved nations in order to tackle this issue, as there is little more important than the future of our children.

I praise the work of our local food banks, an issue that other hon. Members have also mentioned. I have a wonderful working relationship with the food bank in my constituency, which has been instrumental in supporting low-income families who are going through difficulty. They tell me that the first Trussell Trust food bank in Northern Ireland was in Newtownards in my constituency and that it has received more referrals than any other in Northern Ireland.

In the financial year 2020-21, more than 1.5 million emergency food bank parcels were distributed across the United Kingdom—48,000 of those in Northern Ireland. The Trussell Trust, which works through the Thriving Life Church in Newtownards, has done incredible work. It has worked very closely with my office throughout the pandemic to provide food parcels, as well as other assistance. It also does debt assistance and has a clothes bank and a toy bank. Do you know what that shows me, Mr Hollobone? It shows me that the crisis of the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has brought out the good in people. That is what I have noticed. I can see the negatives and the problems, but I also see the positives, and the positives are that good people came together. The churches, community groups and Government bodies came together, and collectively they were instrumental in ensuring that assistance for struggling low-income families was available. Notably, most were struggling financially because of the pressures of furlough and job losses. I want to put on the record my thanks to the Thriving Life Church food bank for all it has done.

It is crucial that action is taken to maintain a level of support for the education of children from low-income families, whether it is through free school meals or underachievement strategies. The children of this nation are the future. I say that as a grandfather of five. It is a good generation to deal with because at 7 o’clock at night you can give them back and not have them for the rest of the night, which is probably an advantage. At different periods in our lives we have children and then grandchildren. I have become very conscious of the future in the past few years as the grandchildren have come along. We want them to succeed and to have the opportunities that my boys had. I want them to have opportunities for the future as well. We are really privileged to have the job here in this place to plan strategies and lobby Government and Ministers to ensure that these things can happen.

I again thank the hon. Member for Slough for initiating this debate. I very much look forward to engaging with Ministers and Members on further action that we can take to improve the education of our young people. As I said earlier, they are our future and we have to do our best for them.