Reform of Children’s Social Care

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

We are grateful to people like my hon. Friend’s constituents for all the work they do. Indeed, we want to make it possible for more people to take on this vital role. In our strategy, we have committed to exploring the implementation of a financial allowance for kinship carers during the next Parliament but, working with local authorities, we will make sure it is much easier to be a kinship carer and that kinship carers are better supported.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. As she said, it is important to remember that kinship care is built on love. Funding for kinship carers has reduced by a fifth in recent years, and there has also been covid-19. Will she make investment available to keep families together? Such investment will always pay dividends because healthier, happier children become functioning, happy adults.

[Gillian Keegan]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and it is why our focus is on early intervention through the supporting families programme and family hubs. We will continue to roll them out, and we will continue to make sure that we test what works. We will make sure we do everything we can to keep families together.

Apprenticeships: Government Support

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I asked permission, Mr Hollobone, in order to allow my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) the chance to speak.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) on leading the debate. Not long ago, I spoke in this Chamber in a Backbench Business debate on labour skills and shortages to highlight the importance of a sustainable and efficient apprenticeship programme for young people across the UK, so I am in full support of having more Government funding for apprenticeships, as the hon. Lady mentioned. I believe apprentices should be valued for their work, along with being paid equally and fairly.

It is always encouraging to see young people wanting to take up a skill, whether in mechanics, plumbing, the food industry or electrics. They are willing to devote their time, despite not receiving a great wage, to advance their skills and learn in combination with courses at technical college, such as the one in Newtownards, which is well used.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the unit being built in Coleraine, the £40 million Northern Regional College, will offer that type of facility? Such colleges are much needed, particularly in areas of high deprivation.

[Jim Shannon]

I certainly do agree. My hon. Friend and I both have colleges in our constituencies that do marvellous work, and we want to commend them. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. This Minister understands the issues very well and brings a wealth of willingness into his answers.

A constituent, who was recently in my office with his grandfather, took up an apprenticeship with a motor parts company. He was due to be paid by the employer to attend college one day a week, but he was never paid for that day. He has now been told by the Labour Relations Agency that he has no basis to claim that money back as he left the company more than three months ago. My constituent was unaware of that as it was not in his contract and, to this day, has not received the money he was owed for his one day a week at the technical college. What sort of employer would take that money off him? It is a clear example of young people doing their best to learn a trade and adapt to the world of work, but not getting their fair chance.

UKHospitality got in touch with me about those issues ahead of the debate. It states that reconsidering the working of the apprenticeship levy would help to ease the staffing crisis, benefiting employers, employees and the wider community. I support apprenticeships as a means of recruitment, retention and boosting productivity. It is important to acknowledge that some young people do not see university or further education as a way to advance themselves, but they do see the skills that could be learned through an apprenticeship. I sit on the board of governors for Glastry College. Some students come through who will never be educational achievers; they were always going to be guys who could do apprenticeships, boys who could get their hands dirty and make things happen. We have to look after them. The debate is about that and the hon. Member for Bristol South deserves great credit for bringing it forward, as I am sure many hon. Members will say.

In conclusion, such people would rather learn a trade and dive straight into the world of work and our education system should encourage that. I know the Minister agrees, as he has always said that in response my questions. Schools should offer pupils more support on the options they have, and that should start with us in Parliament giving our schools the funding and opportunities to do that.

Fair Taxation of Schools and Education Standards Committee

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We all see and recognise the value that our teaching assistants, learning support assistants and school support staff bring to our schools. Our teachers just could not do their jobs effectively without them. We all recognise their contribution, and I join him in paying tribute to them.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

For everyone in this House, there is nothing more important than our support for children’s education and ensuring that standards in all schools are up to scratch and equal. In the thoughts that the hon. Lady is putting forward, can she address the issue of underachievers? I know that the Minister of State at the Department for Education, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), was at one time very keen on that issue. In my constituency, and across the whole of the United Kingdom, people—young, white Protestants, can I say?—underachieve because they do not get the educational opportunities that they need. Does the hon. Lady feel that what she is proposing can change that to the benefit of people who do not get the educational standards that they should?

[Bridget Phillipson]

Here in England we see growing and widening attainment gaps in many areas, but I point out to Ministers that we saw that starting to happen even before the pandemic hit. We all recognise and appreciate the impact that covid has had on our children’s education and wellbeing. I still think it is shameful that the Government failed to act on Sir Kevan Collins’s recommendations to bring forward a thorough recovery plan to support all our children. The Prime Minister claimed, when he was Chancellor, that he had “maxed out” on the support available to our children. Sadly, that will cast a very long shadow over children’s life chances here in England.

Our teachers do so much to improve the lives of children, but over the last few years they have truly gone above and beyond. From the covid pandemic to the cost of living crisis, our schools are supporting and holding communities together. They are doing an incredible job, but they cannot change all that happens beyond the school gates. Rising child poverty is holding children back, as is the growing mental health crisis. Too many children are struggling with their mental health, and they are struggling without support—unable to see a GP, stuck on child and adolescent mental health services’ waiting lists for years and left in limbo without help. No child should be left without the support they need to be happy and healthy, and no parent should be left feeling unsupported and alone when helping their child to face mental health problems.

We know that supporting young people with mental health is putting another burden on schools and our overstretched school staff, and the Government just are not doing enough. Mental health support teams are reaching a fraction of the children who could benefit. Senior leaders are being required to take on yet another responsibility for children’s mental health, because child and adolescent mental health services are unable to tackle the backlogs. We all know that wellbeing is essential to enabling children’s learning, but again the Government are letting young people down.

Using the money raised, Labour will give children access to professional mental health councillors in every school. We will ensure that children are not stuck waiting for referrals, unable to get support, and that teachers are not trying to carry the burden of young people’s mental health on top of wider workloads. We will ensure that every child knows that help is at hand. For young people for whom accessing support in school is not the right choice, we will deliver a new model of open-access youth mental health hubs. Providing an open door for all our young people, getting support to children early, preventing problems from escalating, improving young people’s mental health, not just responding when they are in crisis, and enabling them to learn and to thrive—that is Labour’s plan.

Ofsted School Inspections

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Ofsted school inspections.

It is a delight to see you in the Chair, Ms Harris. I thank Mr Speaker for giving me the honour of holding this debate, and I welcome the Minister to his place. I am delighted that we are joined in the Public Gallery by the headteacher of Bishop Stopford School, Jill Silverthorne, and the deputy head, Damien Keane, who recognise the importance of the issues I wish to raise. I am grateful to them for travelling to London today.

May I start by praising the Minister, who is one of the Ministers I hold in the highest regard? He has a distinguished record in education. He was shadow schools Minister from 2005 to 2010. He was a Minister in the Department for Education from 2010 to 2012. He had his second coming from 2014 to 2021 and his third coming on 26 October this year. That is 15 years of Front-Bench experience in opposition and in government. We are very lucky to have him as schools Minister. He cares about the subject and I am grateful to him for being here today and for his genuine involvement in this issue.

I wish to raise the recent Ofsted inspection of Bishop Stopford School in Kettering, which resulted in a downgrade from “outstanding” to “requires improvement.” May I declare my interest, as one of my children attends Bishop Stopford School? However, I raise the matter not because of my child, but because I think a genuine injustice has been done with this inspection.

Bishop Stopford is a non-selective secondary school and sixth form with academy status in Kettering. Located in the Headlands, the school has 1,500 pupils. At the heart of all it does is a Christian ethos, and its core values are faith, responsibility, compassion, truth and justice. That provides stability for pupils in an ever-changing world. In the light of that ethos, the school’s aim is quite simple:

“to provide the highest quality education for every student.”

The Minister has seen the school’s pupils in action. The school’s brass band performed at the Music for Youth Proms in London, in November. Students were outstanding in the performance in every respect—behaviour, attitude, performance, kindness to each other and helping staff. They did the school proud in every way possible and were tremendous ambassadors for the school. Yet Ofsted’s view is that personal development at the school “requires improvement”.

The Ofsted inspection was done on 28 and 29 June 2022. The overall recommendation was “requires improvement”. Quality of education was “good”. Sixth form provision was “good”. Behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management were graded “requires improvement”. I am very concerned about the way in which the inspection was carried out. From the information I have received, I believe not only that the correct procedures were not followed, but that the inspection team deliberately set out to engineer a downgrade in the school’s Ofsted rating from “outstanding” to “requires improvement”. That is the equivalent of one of the highest scoring teams in the premier league being relegated straight to the conference.

I support rigorous Ofsted inspections of schools, which raise school standards. Until now, I have had every confidence in Ofsted’s abilities to inspect schools in line with proper process and to challenge them where improvements can be made, but I have to tell the Minister that it is my strong view that this Ofsted inspection has gone wrong. It should be quashed, and a fresh inspection undertaken with different inspectors. I know that this is a serious request, and I do not make it lightly.

The evidence I have heard from the headteacher, the deputy head and pupils at the school is compelling. I believe that the inspection team sent in by Ofsted went rogue. In effect, Ofsted has sent in an educational inspection hit squad with a pre-arranged agenda to downgrade this faith-based school, whatever it found on its visit. In interviews with pupils, the inspection team disparaged the school’s Christian ethos. One year 7 boy was asked, “Do you think this is a white, middle-class school?” A year 10 girl was asked, “Do you feel uncomfortable about walking upstairs when wearing a skirt?” I ask the Minister, are these questions appropriate for an Ofsted inspection?

Furthermore, the new downgraded rating for the school was leaked by Ofsted to the local community in breach of Ofsted’s own procedures.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his initiative and assiduousness on behalf of the school. I am shocked at the allegations that he has made, and I see the problems there among those of a certain faith group. Does he feel, as I do, that this inspection has increased anxieties and stress among the teachers, parents and others involved? He has asked for the whole thing to be done again, and that is probably the best thing to do, because what has happened is clearly wrong.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am grateful for that intervention. The hon. Gentleman is a Christian gentleman. He understands the importance of a Christian ethos in schools, but it seems that some Ofsted inspectors do not share those values. In this case, it seems that they have deliberately set out to downgrade the school, and the hon. Gentleman is right that that is having a devastating impact on the teachers, pupils and parents, who feel that the inspection has gone wrong and that they have all been treated extremely unfairly. It appears that, unable to criticise the school’s educational achievements, inspectors have pursued an agenda against a top-performing school with a Christian ethos by engineering criticisms of the behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management criteria.

I thought that this matter was so serious that it should be brought to the immediate attention of the Department for Education, so I wrote to the Minister’s predecessor on 11 October. I am afraid that I do not think that Ofsted can be relied on to judge its own homework. The deficiencies in the inspection of this school are extremely serious. In effect, no one is inspecting the inspectors, and they can basically do what they like.

On the same day, I wrote to Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman, yet all I received was a one-page letter from the assistant regional director of the east midlands on 20 October saying that they noted my concerns but that nothing else would be done and that they would just go along with the complaints process in which the school was engaged. I do not regard that as satisfactory, when a Member of Parliament has raised genuine concerns.

Let us look at the quality of education at the school. On the Department’s latest unvalidated educational attainment data, Bishop Stopford School ranks 106th out of all 6,761 secondary schools in the country and is in the top 1.5%. Let us look at the key headline measures of educational attainment. On the EBacc scores, in the data comparing Bishop Stopford School with schools that Ofsted has rated “outstanding” since September 2021, the school is the highest performing non-selective school. Some 94% of the school’s students entered for the EBacc, which is massive. In Northamptonshire, the second highest school is at 79%. The national average is 39%, and the Government’s ambition is 75%.

On progress 8 scores, which show how much progress pupils at this school made between the end of key stage 2 and the end of key stage 4, out of 3,721 selective and non-selective schools with a progress 8, the school is No. 115, which is in the top 3%. On the attainment 8 scores, which are based on how well pupils have performed in up to eight qualifications, there are 3,768 non-selective schools, and Bishop Stopford School is 110th, which is in the top 3%. On the basic five GCSEs, including English and maths, Bishop Stopford School is at 70%. Of the 126 schools ranked as “requiring improvement”, Bishop Stopford School is fourth, with the range 0% to 96%. Of the 52 schools rated “outstanding”, the school is 27th, with a range of 45% to 100%, and it is fifth for the non-selective mixed schools in this category.

In terms of the number of pupils who stayed in education or went into employment after finishing key stage 4, of all the selective and non-selective schools previously rated as “outstanding”, Bishop Stopford School is ranked 16th in the whole country. Of non-selective mixed-sex schools, it is fourth in the whole country, with 98% staying in education or going into employment. Ofsted partially recognises this educational record:

“Most pupils enjoy attending Bishop Stopford School and value the teaching that they receive. The school is ‘unapologetically academic’ and leaders have high expectations of what pupils should achieve.”

Yet Ofsted only gave the school a “good” rating in this area.

The mantra about making a judgment about the quality of education is explicitly stated as depending on the three Is: intent, implementation and impact. In essence, this assesses whether a school is clear about what it wishes to achieve with its curriculum, how well that intent is implemented and what its impact is. The only way this can be easily measured is through the empirical data: results, destinations and attendance. The impact of the school’s curriculum is, once again, abundantly clear in this validated data.

If the school is enabling its young people to be so successful and to progress to high-quality destinations, there has to be a disconnect somewhere. If the school is performing so poorly, as the report suggests, how could it possibly generate outcomes that can only be described as excellent, even among the schools Ofsted has judged to be “outstanding”?

The school has followed the Ofsted complaints process, and it got a reply dated 9 November from the senior regional inspector. The school complained about the judgment on quality of education. Ofsted said that a common area that needs to be improved is using assessment to adapt teaching so that identified gaps are addressed. It said:

“modern foreign languages and the mathematics curriculum are not as securely embedded as other curriculum areas”,

and the complaint was not upheld.

The school complained about the judgment on behaviour and attitudes. Ofsted acknowledged that

“behaviour was calm and orderly around the school.”

In its report, it said that the school deals with low-level disruption when it occurs, yet in the inspection on the day the Ofsted inspectors said that there was no low-level disruption. The inspection team had a particular concern about bullying and the use of derogatory language. In this case, the grade descriptor that needed to be considered was:

“Leaders, staff and pupils create a positive environment in which bullying is not tolerated.”

The inspection team said that that criterion was not fully met, and the complaint was not upheld. Parents are in disbelief that the inspection team could come to that conclusion.

The school complained about the Ofsted judgment on personal development. Ofsted said:

“inspectors considered how the Christian ethos and wider curriculum supported pupils’ personal development”,

yet the inspection team raised the Christian ethos only twice, both times negatively.

Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for setting the scene so well and for giving us an opportunity to speak on the issue. I thank the hon. and learned Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) for his knowledge, focus and experience in this matter, which have been helpful for the debate. I also thank all the other hon. Members who have made and will make contributions.

As with many issues discussed in the House, Northern Ireland has different rules and laws on social care, and alternative social care guidelines, but the premise of what we do is the same. The 2019 Conservative manifesto said:

“We will review the care system to make sure that all care placements and settings are providing children and young adults with the support they need.”

That is therefore the shared goal of all hon. Members for our social care system, so it is great to be here to see how we can strengthen that further.

The Department of Health in Northern Ireland is responsible for child protection and social care. The Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland co-ordinates and ensures the effectiveness of work to protect and promote the welfare of children. The most recent statistics for child social care in Northern Ireland were released in 2021. They showed that 32,070 children were in need of referrals, almost 3,000 children were on the child protection register, and 3,500 children were in care. Some £277 million is spent on family and childcare within social services in Northern Ireland, which is a significant sum. In the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust, where my constituency lies, there are 471 children in need.

To undertake potential reviews of child social care, we must accept and understand the four main factors behind the need for it: neglect, physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse. I am sure that all hon. Members have heard—regularly, unfortunately—horror stories surrounding child cruelty that make them feel uneasy and queasy. The very thought of some of the things that happen in this world—this normal world that we are supposed to live in—makes us flinch, and it is unimaginable how perpetrators try to justify that type of behaviour.

Some 681 such offences were reported in 2021-22 in Northern Ireland, which is an average of two a day and is up from 506 in 2020-21—an increase that unfortunately shows the direction that society is heading in. Child support registers are seeing an increase of reports due to substance and emotional abuse by parents, which ultimately creates an environment where children are unable to develop, are frightened and could potentially be socialised to go down a similar path to their parents.

The children’s social care report stated that by 2032

“there will be approaching 100,000 children in care (up from 80,000 today) and a flawed system will cost over £15 billion per year (up from £10 billion now).”

Despite this being separate from Northern Ireland, there will ultimately be a knock-on effect and impact on the devolved Administrations, as their funding will not have the potential to increase. So we must do more to support our care givers, workers and support staff by ensuring vastly improved training, mental health support, sufficient pay and enough staff.

The report in question also highlighted a need to identify and remove the barriers that needlessly divert social workers from spending time with children and their families. We have heard that children in the social care system often have no concept of friendship, love or, indeed, companionship. How very sad it is that, in the society in which we live, they do not have those three things that our families, children and friends have. There is an imperative for social workers to play an important role in a young child’s life as they grow up and learn how to form relationships, and it also needs love, friendship and companionship to make that happen.

As others have mentioned, particularly the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), we must not forget the impact that the covid pandemic has had on social care, too. The increase in referrals in childcare throughout this period shows that parents have been potentially struggling to cope. We are still very much dealing with the impact of this, and there is a backlog of referrals that have not been dealt with, putting more children at risk. I thank the local social services team in James Street in Newtownards in my constituency of Strangford, who go above and beyond to provide safe and secure services for children. Some excellent work has been done, and I want to thank in particular those who do that work in my constituency.

Prior to this debate, I was in contact with the National Youth Advocacy Service, which made me aware that three out of 10 children in care did not know how to get an advocate to speak on their behalf while they are in care, despite its being an entitlement for them. On that particular point, can the Minister give me some indication of what has been done to address the issue for such children, so they can have access to impartial support when they discuss their situation and their next steps as they move forward in their lives?

To conclude, there is certainly potential for change and a review of children’s social care. With the increasing number of referrals, the social care system must be able to cope, and proper funding for that is necessary. I believe that better emotional support is very clearly at the heart of this debate and that we must support, first, the parents; secondly, the children; and, thirdly, the social workers, who are bending over backwards to support the families. I really urge the Department of Health and Social Care—and the Department for Education as well, because I think they have to go hand in hand—to engage with the devolved Administrations in tackling the increased number of referrals, the volume of social work staff and the subsequent mental health of all those who will be directly impacted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

I completely agree. It would probably be fair to say that there is not an area of Government spending in which we could not make a saving if we did better at getting children a warm, stable start in life. As I said, I hope that the Department is clear about the breadth in spending.

I turn to one short-term area. Again, I pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury and the work that his family did, as well as that done by many families who choose to be foster carers. Fostering and adopting are probably among the most powerful, special and important things that someone in our society can do for another person. Taking on that responsibility of caring for someone else’s children in the short term—not permanently—is the most noble thing that anybody can do, and I pay enormous tribute to every single person who does that.

Every child who ends up in a loving home instead of a care setting—of course, care settings can produce good outcomes—is being given the best shot at life. Again, that saves a financial cost, and the wellbeing of that young person is enormously improved. Sadly, we could do better. It is a good example of the fact that, no matter how good the Government get at doing things, individuals must step up and be willing to do it. It is not just about the state fixing the problem; we all have a role to play.

My understanding is that, of the 160,000 people who registered an interest in fostering last year, just 2,000 were registered to be foster carers. That is an absolute tragedy. Given the process of becoming a foster carer, we should expect a big drop-off once people come to realise everything involved, but that kind of drop-off is very sad. It says to me that at least tens of thousands of people who could and wanted to be foster carers did not become them. What does the Minister think we can do in the short term to get to the target of 3,000? Can we not be more ambitious than that, get to at least 10,000 and convert that huge moral willingness to help our fellow man in society and see the money that comes in savings from that?

[Jim Shannon]

I have a number of friends who are foster carers and I understand the work they undertake. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that those who take on foster caring—caring not just for their biological families, but for other families who are challenged—are special people? That is my impression of them.

[Dr Mullan]

People who foster and adopt are the best of our society; there is no two ways about it.

Similarly, on kinship carers, the report does a great job of explaining how a wider family network can help. As a Conservative, the idea of giving more financial support for kinship carers causes me questions. I believe in families and normal family structures. I think it is the natural thing for family members to take care of each other potentially outside the immediate family. But when it comes to the very, very difficult financial decisions that grandparents on pensions, in particular, have to make, we have to be practical and recognise that, yes, I would want people to do that for their family members regardless of the support available to them. If that is a genuine practical barrier, it could make a huge difference for the children and the state, and we should be doing more. I support the idea that the model of support should match that of foster carers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I asked about the advocates. The figures I have from back home show that only three in 10 children have an advocate. I asked whether it would be possible to look at that process to ensure that every young child has an advocate so that they can plan their way forward in a structured fashion.

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I will be looking at that carefully. The heart of what we want to do is to make sure that all people have these powerful relationships in their lives. As he ably pointed out, that is what we expect for our friends and families and actually everyone deserves to have those people who will go the extra mile for them.

On our ambitions for this area, first, I come to our ambition for families. Many Members spoke eloquently about the importance of families. They are at the heart of what makes us happy and well, so when families are struggling we should provide rapid and intensive multidisciplinary support at the right time to help to fix the issues. Lots of Members talked about early intervention and I completely agree that that is the core issue here. We want to make sure that our programmes improve early help services from birth to adulthood. We want to build a strong evidence base on what works to support families to turn around difficult situations, and I would particularly like to thank the Children’s Commissioner for part 1 of her recent excellent review of family life. There was a comment from the shadow Minister about our lack of ambition in this area. I gently point her towards our ambitious reforms on domestic abuse and on drug and alcohol addiction, reducing parental conflict. We talk about prevention to make sure that people are not suffering from the kind of trauma that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) set out movingly. These programmes are both important and exactly the right place to start.

Adoption: Support for Birth Families

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I recognise that the headlines from the House today will be about the Chancellor’s autumn statement, but I am afraid that he has only made things worse for those whose lives are the subject of my Adjournment debate. Nevertheless, I am pleased to have secured this debate on a subject that is often overlooked by Chancellors, Prime Ministers and many others. I am talking about the adoption process by which children are removed from their birth parents and placed in the care of, and ultimately adopted by, parents other than their birth parents.

This year’s John Lewis Christmas advert gives a moving and positive representation of the adoption and care sector, and has brought welcome attention to the topic. I am not ashamed to say that it also brought tears to my eyes when I watched it on the train to the north- east last week. I commend the work of John Lewis and Action for Children on the advert.

Children are the most vulnerable in our society, so it is imperative that the child’s interest is first and foremost in the care and adoption process. Indeed, I would go further and say that the care and adoption process can be successful only if it is child-centred and everyone involved upholds that principle.

That does not mean, however, that birth parents should go without support. For every child adopted, there is a parent or parents who have to go through the process of losing their child. They are often parents in challenging and difficult circumstances, some of whom may not have the social or educational skills to easily navigate the complex adoption process, which is traumatic for many. It is not in the child’s interest to leave their parents without help, for the sake of the parents and the child, because a child placed in care and/or adopted may one day want to make contact with their parents, as is their right.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this debate forward; I spoke to her beforehand. Does she agree that, often, when children are not told that they have been adopted, or when information about their birth parents is kept hidden from them, that can be a distressing occurrence for adoptive parents that can cause resentment and, in some cases, even a complete breakdown of the relationship between the adoptive parents and the child?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and he makes a good point. I would always recommend honesty and transparency in everything and there can obviously be challenges where that is not followed. As I said, everything should be done in the long-term interests of the child.

Male Primary School Teachers

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. Thank you for calling me to speak—it is not often I am called straight after the Member who moves the motion, but it is a real pleasure. I thank the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for leading the debate. He leads on many things in Westminster Hall. I have been there to support him when he has spoken on other subjects in education and I wanted to continue to do that.

There is no doubt that this conversation needs to be had. For some time now, the trends and statistics across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have shown that male teacher figures have either dropped or lulled. Whatever the reasons for that, and there are many reasons indeed, we must do more to encourage men—especially young graduates—to get into the world of teaching. We must also play a key role in destigmatising those reasons as to why men are put off and discouraged from getting into the profession.

In previous debates to which the Minister has responded, I have tried to bring a Northern Ireland perspective. That perspective in relation to male teachers will replicate the very point made by the hon. Member for Mansfield in his speech and by others in their interventions. Male teachers are under-represented in the primary school teaching workforce in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The stats for Northern Ireland are just as bad as those cited by the hon. Member for Mansfield. Back home, just short of 23% of all teachers are male; in primary schools, only 15% are male.

In the ’60s and ’70s, I went to a boarding school—it was many moons ago, so I will see how far back I can go on that—where we had only one female teacher. The rest were all male teachers. I suspect that the trends have changed and, where it might once have been male dominated, it is now very clearly female dominated. My three boys went to Grey Abbey Primary School. Before the new principal joined 15 or 20 years ago, it was a female-only school: all the teachers were female; the principal was female. That has not changed very much over the past few years.

The figures for Northern Ireland have decreased over the past decade. The most recent figures for Northern Ireland, from ’21-’22, show that there are some 4,800 male teachers in Northern Ireland, compared with 16,160 women. The percentages are quite clear—it is about 23%. That shows a trend. How do we address that? That is what the hon. Member for Mansfield was asking. We have to look at that.

I appreciate that this debate is about primary school teachers, but I would just add, to show the extent of the problem—the hon. Gentleman might already know this—that we do not one male nursery teacher anywhere in Northern Ireland. I am quite perturbed by that as well. I understand that trend when it comes to nurseries; there is a perception that it is always girls working in nurseries, and the facts show that it is. Those statistics alarm us greatly. To address them, we must look at the reasons why this is the case not just in Northern Ireland but across the whole of this great nation.

One of the main issues is peer pressure. Men are often socialised to believe that teaching is a female-led job that requires extensive care and nurturing. That is wrong, but it may be a feeling that we have and an issue in society that needs to change. If we are going to make that change, we need to make teaching as attractive to males as it is to females. Despite all that, men statistically tend to end up in higher authority roles—for example, as senior teaching staff or school principals. I do not know whether that is to do with their age or whatever it may be, but there are certainly trends there that need to be looked at. That has been seen as a faulty or illegitimate argument that plays into “anti-gender role” rhetoric. None of this should not come at the expense of decent classroom teaching; merit and effort should mean more than just gender.

It saddens me that there have been narratives of males seeking employment in teaching to display their dominant characteristics. People say that, and that might filter through society. That is wrong, but if it does in any way knock people out of kilter, we have to address it. It further marginalises men who want to be teachers and to support and encourage our young people as they go through their education. Those narratives are simply not the case and are simply not right.

Male teachers are capable of being role models—the hon. Member for Mansfield set that out very well. Society is not broken, but young boys need a male figure in their lives to focus on, and male teachers are capable of being role models to both boys and girls. It is good for children to see that male teachers can be kind and encouraging. The hon. Gentleman referred to them as being caring, and they are. Compassion and understanding are not exclusive to one gender. There has been an assumption that male teachers can play a crucial role in a young child’s development, especially if they come from a family with only a single parent or mother.

I am not being critical, Sir Gary—it is not my form—but I just want to make this point, which was brought to my attention through my engagement with things we are involved with in my office and from talking to teachers. Fatherless children have been shown on some occasions to stray and to get involved in addiction issues, whether it be drugs or alcohol. As the hon. Gentleman referred to, having a male figure in their life can—not on all occasions—help to maintain an element of stability and give a child a role model outside the home, so that they feel less pressurised.

A former Secretary of State for Education initiated a £30,000 grant for a project run by the Fatherhood Institute that aims to break down the barriers that dissuade men from starting childcare careers and to tackle the myth that men are less suited to caring roles. As I said, compassion and understanding transcend all genders across society. I was interested in the comments made by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) about his daughter. Those were my thoughts too coming into this debate. He illustrated the point well through his daughter’s comments, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.

[Mark Pawsey]

My daughter thinks the staffroom is a better place from having a mixture of genders in it. Male and female teachers can engage with each other in the workplace. The perspective of a male teacher may be slightly different from that of a female teacher, and the opportunity to share those experiences in the staffroom is important.

[Jim Shannon]

I absolutely agree. The hon. Gentleman is fortunate to have such a wise daughter, who seems to understand the position of a teacher in school with great wisdom and knowledge. I wholeheartedly agree that that mixture and blend would be better for us all.

I always respect the fact that the rules are different here, as they might be in other regions across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but we have a UK-wide problem. I understand that the Minister does not have to answer for Northern Ireland, but whatever he answers will be the template for all of us across the four regions, because the issues are the same. The dearth of male teachers in primary schools is the same, but how do we address it?

I encourage the Minister to take the lead for all of us. I will certainly be sending the Hansard copy of the debate to my Minister back home and probably to some of the schools as well to let them know what we are doing. I ask the Secretary of State for Education to engage in an in-depth discussion with his counterparts in all the regions about further action on encouraging and incentivising more male teachers. If we can do it here, we can do it everywhere. What we can learn here can be replicated back home. What we have done back home might be of help as well.

Back home, teaching courses have a decent number of male students, but there is clearly a barrier—I am not entirely sure why—that stops them fulfilling teaching roles in schools. We must fix that. If someone has a desire to teach and to be in education, that desire needs to be encouraged in whatever way it can to get males working in primary schools. We must ensure that the blockades are removed to help increase the numbers of male teachers.

Again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Mansfield on securing this debate. It is a very worthy one, and I look forward to the speech by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), who always brings knowledge to these debates, and particularly to the Minister’s speech.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

I call the Opposition spokesman to speak forth.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to speak forth under your very capable chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) on securing this important debate on increasing the number of male primary school teachers in the run-up to International Men’s Day. I thank him for his contributions on this topic during a recent debate on apprenticeships and training. I know that education is a priority in his work, both in his previous role on the Education Committee and in supporting Mansfield and Ashfield as an education investment area. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson): my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield is undoubtedly a sad loss for the teaching profession, but we are very happy to have him here in the House of Commons representing his constituents as ably as he does.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon referred to the PFA wanting to find a way to help ex-professional footballers to be encouraged into teaching. He will know that I want to do more to improve sport in schools. He and I have had many conversations over the years. I will certainly take up his offer to arrange a meeting; I would enjoy that very much indeed.

The Government are committed to providing world-class education and training. We know that accomplished teachers, regardless of gender or background, provide positive role models and shape the lives of young people. That is why the Department aims to attract and retain highly skilled and talented individuals from all backgrounds and to support them throughout their careers.

The Department’s current recruitment marketing campaign on teaching, “Every lesson shapes a life”—with its brilliant marketing and advertisements on television and radio to recruit people into teaching—is deliberately targeted at various audiences, including recent graduates and potential career changers. That targeting is regardless of background. The marketing takes every effort to ensure that all the advertising is fully reflective of the target audiences, including men. If hon. Members see those adverts, they will see precisely how that marketing does that very effectively.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield will be aware, despite the challenges of a competitive recruitment market, the Department’s target for the number of trainees starting postgraduate initial teacher training primary courses has been exceeded in four of the last five years. In 2021-22, 136% of the postgraduate initial teacher training target was achieved in primary.

Too often, we hear schools and universities saying that they know a good teacher when they see one. The Department is committed to dismantling the stereotype of what a good teacher looks like and supporting people into the teaching profession regardless of their background. Although it remains true that men make up a smaller proportion of the teaching workforce, the number of male teachers in primary schools has gradually increased since 2010. There has been an increase of more than 7,000 male teachers in state-funded nursery and primary schools, from 28,180 in 2010 to 35,202 in 2021. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield cited that in percentage terms, but clearly it is still a very small proportion of the total workforce.

[Jim Shannon]

That shows a trend that, unfortunately, we do not have in Northern Ireland. I know that that is not the Minister’s responsibility, but I am keen to know whether he has been able to ascertain why the trend is for an increase here on the mainland, because if there is something that the Department for Education is doing here to improve the situation, I would very much like, as I said in my speech, to use the pluses from this debate for us back home. If the Minister could share any information on that, I would be much obliged to him.

[Nick Gibb]

What is interesting about that intervention is that the problem, the issue, that we have in this country is reflected in Northern Ireland, where of course education policy is devolved, so this is not specifically related to education policy; it is a deeper, societal issue and requires considerable consideration. I will come to those points shortly.

Male teachers are more likely to work in secondary schools than nursery and primary schools: 14% of nursery and primary school teachers are male—that is up from 12% in 2010—but 35% of secondary school teachers are male, although that is down slightly, from 37.8% in 2010. Let us look at the picture as a whole: 28% of all male teachers teach in state-funded nursery and primary schools, whereas 65% of male teachers teach in secondary schools and 6% of male teachers teach in special schools and pupil referral units. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), in his speech, cited similar proportions in Northern Ireland.

Male teachers do progress to leadership positions at a higher rate. As of November 2021, in state-funded nursery and primary schools, 26% of headteachers were male, compared with 14% of all nursery and primary teachers. There is also data to suggest that men progress faster. For example, in 2020 the median new female primary headteacher had been qualified for 19 years or fewer, compared with 16 years or fewer for the median male primary headteacher—whatever a median male primary headteacher is. People know the point I am making in terms of averages.

The Department is committed to making teaching and teacher recruitment as inclusive as possible. That includes recruitment campaigns designed to attract a diverse pool of candidates to teacher training, including men into primary teaching. All candidates have access to tailored support to help find the best route into teaching for them. Although we are seeing increasing representation in some areas—for example, recruitment into initial teacher training is increasingly racially diverse—the Department recognises that some groups, including men, are still under-represented compared with the working-age population. I know that that view is shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and his daughter, who is herself a primary school teacher. This is particularly evident in the teaching workforce in primary schools.

The Department is committed to using all our new sources of data and insight, including the new in-house recruitment services, to identify barriers to accomplished people becoming teachers and staying in teaching. From initial attraction, to recruitment, development and progression into leadership, the new services and support are designed to deliver a high-quality and diverse workforce, for the benefit of pupils across the country. Excellent teaching of course starts with recruiting excellent people, from all backgrounds, and the Department does work hard to create diverse recruitment campaigns, as I mentioned, that attract brilliant students, recent graduates and career changers into teaching. Through the new Get Into Teaching website, prospective trainees can access tailored support and advice from expert, one-to-one teacher training advisers, a contact centre and a national programme of events. The Get School Experience digital service also helps potential candidates find and arrange experience in the classroom before deciding whether to become a teacher.

To transform the application process, we successfully rolled out the new initial teacher training application service in England in 2021. The Apply for teacher training service has removed recruitment barriers and is better supporting a wider range of excellent applicants to apply for teaching. The new Apply for teacher training service gives the Department more data and gives us greater insight into the behaviour of male candidates and all candidates, and of schools and universities that offer initial teacher training. That helps us to identify and address barriers for under-represented groups, including men.

If there is one area in which we can help to address the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield, it is through understanding why certain candidates are refused an initial teacher training place and what causes any particular candidate to drop out of the application process. We will learn a lot through the new website and I can commit to my hon. Friend that, as a consequence of this debate, I will also monitor any differential data that relates to the sex of the candidate going through the application process.

The Department is committed to tackling barriers to becoming a teacher, including reforming the routes to teaching. That includes a review of the postgraduate teaching apprenticeship, to create a more efficient and streamlined route. As well as that, we are providing a seamless journey into teaching for the best candidates. We have increased the starting salary to £28,000, seeking to ensure that the teaching profession is increasingly competitive, and we have the ultimate goal of getting to a starting salary of £30,000 in the following year.

At the recruitment stage, we have targeted our financial incentives where we know they are most needed. That is why we have put in place a range of measures for trainees from 2023, including bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000, to encourage talented trainees to apply for those subjects with the greatest need for new teachers.

In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield for his interest in and passion for the recruitment and retention of the highest quality teachers, and his particular interest in increasing the number of male teachers in primary schools. Recruitment of primary school teachers remains strong, with the Department exceeding primary recruitment targets in four of the last five years. That said, the Department is taking action to increase teacher recruitment and retention and to boost teacher quality through several high priority programmes, including the early career framework, which I have not touched on today.

At the recruitment stage, the Department has made progress in encouraging applications from the highest quality candidates through our marketing campaign and the transformation of our recruitment services. Meanwhile, our world-class teacher development programmes are designed to support all teachers in the early stage of and throughout their careers, right through to executive leadership. I am very happy to continue these discussions with my hon. Friend in the months ahead.

Mathematical Sciences: Contribution to Society

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the contribution of the mathematical sciences to society.

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley, and am most grateful to Mr Speaker for selecting this subject for debate to help to mark Maths Week this week. I am pleased to see the distinguished Schools Minister in his place, and I welcome and applaud his appointment—for the third time, if I remember correctly, which surely makes him the longest-serving Schools Minister ever, and deservedly so. I am also pleased that the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), who I think taught maths before being elected, is in her place.

The aims of Maths Week are to raise the profile of mathematics throughout England, change the conversation about maths in the population at large to be more positive, enable children and adults from all backgrounds to access and enjoy mathematical experiences, supplement teachers and support them to plan low-cost and high-impact maths activities at their schools during the week, encourage higher education centres to invite schoolchildren to visit maths events, raise aspiration, encourage greater take-up of maths at A-level and university, and make maths accessible to and enjoyable for people who think it an elitist subject just for “clever” people.

I want to do four things in my speech: underline the value of maths in enabling us to solve the big challenges our society faces and to build our economy; press the Minister to deliver the full commitment on funding for research in the mathematical sciences pledged by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), in January 2020; argue for ensuring that degree-level maths does not become the preserve of the well-off; and press the case for much higher take-up of maths post 16, fulfilling the promise of core maths, which we see in the higher take- up of maths in the most successful economies around the world.

I have a maths degree, so I am biased, and I know that maths can often seem a bit impenetrable to those not familiar with it, and that being “no good” at maths can almost be a boast sometimes, but maths enables the most exciting and urgent technological developments in energy generation, artificial intelligence, driverless cars, quantum computing and tackling climate change. Professor Alison Etheridge, chair of the Council for the Mathematical Sciences, points out that the maths used to design dust filters in vacuum cleaners is also used to develop filters to remove arsenic from groundwater in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, which benefits hundreds of thousands of people.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman bringing the matter forward and I concur with his comments.

At this time, many of the United Kingdom’s priorities are focused on energy supply and climate change, as well as targets for the future, and the University of Lancaster has concluded that mathematics has proven to be a basic but crucial component of building resilience in terms of flooding and understanding data fluctuations with respect to our energy supplies. With that in mind, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that further funding for mathematics must be centred on helping our students of STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—including 53% of further education students in Northern Ireland, although I acknowledge the Minister has no responsibility for them, because they are paving the way for success with respect to environmental change in the UK?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I do agree with him: maths is a vital enabler of economic growth, and it underpins many technological advancements that contribute so much to UK economic growth. We need to value that.

Deloitte estimates that the mathematical sciences add more than £200 billion a year to the UK economy, that there is a significant salary premium for advanced maths skills, which is calculated to be £8,000 a year, and that the mathematical sciences are of fundamental importance to tackling all our most pressing policy challenges. The hon. Gentleman has just given a good example of that.

The maths that is most familiar to us is about certainty—a x b = c—but maths also provides the tools to quantify uncertainty, underpinning important decisions in medicine and finance, and on the environment. Furthermore, understanding uncertainty is crucial to making decisions on how to deploy limited resources, from allocating hospital beds to dividing up the bandwidth available for telecommunications.

The briefing for the debate provided by the Protect Pure Maths campaign, which I congratulate on its efforts, gives a couple of examples of the use of a mathematical theory called extreme value theory. Unfortunately, my maths course did not include extreme value theory, which has been used in the successful work of Professor Chris Dent and others on energy generation and storage, which has had a big impact on improving energy supply, as well as in the work referred to by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), carried out at the University of Lancaster, to build resilience against extreme flood events.

Extreme value theory was not invented for those reasons, but as invariably happens with mathematical theories developed initially because they are beautiful and fascinating, that theory has turned out to have immensely important practical applications. Algebraic geometry is an important set of ideas in pure maths, some of which were in my course, and pure mathematician turned economist Elizabeth Baldwin has applied the theory of algebraic geometry to microeconomics to design an effective auction system for carbon permits. Her work has been used by the Bank of England, and more and more maths is being used in the social sciences and humanities.

Protect Pure Maths is calling for the Government to demonstrate their understanding of the transformative power of maths by launching a strategy for maths to strengthen UK leadership and to equip us to compete in a global economy that is increasingly dominated by big data, complex systems and artificial intelligence. The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries also provided a briefing for the debate, and it points out that mathematics is fundamental to the work of actuaries in insurance and pensions, and in health and care.

In January 2020, there was a warm welcome for the commitment by the then Prime Minister to invest £300 million of additional funding into research in the mathematical sciences. Of that, £124 million has been spent on projects of national importance, including on institutes, small and large research grants, fellowships, doctoral studentships and post-doctoral awards.

Some of that work is concerned with solving current challenges of the kind that I have referred to, but some rightly is to pursue intellectual inquiry of the kind that characterises pure maths, the output of which will almost certainly yield real-world applications in future, although they are not apparent at the moment. More than half the additional investment—£176 million—has not yet been allocated.

The chief executive of UK Research and Innovation has stated:

“We did not receive £300 million specifically labelled ‘mathematical sciences’ despite the announcement.”

The announcement that she referred to was made by the then Prime Minister. We are surely not in the position where a crystal-clear announcement, attracting lots of attention, made by a Conservative Prime Minister, turned out to be untrue. A recent written answer on this from the noble Lord Callanan in the other place suggested that there was doubt about whether the funding would be forthcoming. I hope the Minister will clarify that, and confirm that the funding already announced for hugely valuable mathematical science research will be delivered.

Without that additional £176 million, doctoral studentships, fellowships and research programmes will remain unfunded. University maths departments need clarity about the sustainability of maths funding, in order to give the go-ahead for research and innovation programmes that will last years into the future—programmes that will underpin future technological breakthroughs of great economic importance.

Marcus du Sautoy, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, has made the point that

“maths underpins all science and technology”.

So it makes sense, he says,

“to allocate funds to mathematical research, even at a time of tight finances…It would be incredibly unwise to now abandon that pledge.”

We have seen welcome progress with advanced maths education since I was doing the Minister’s job more than 20 years ago. The trend then of falling numbers of A-level applicants and undergraduates was halted and, I think, reversed. Changes introduced by another maths graduate, Charles Clarke, when he was Secretary of State, started the improving trend.

The Protect Pure Maths campaign was initially established in response to some UK universities cutting back their maths provision. Governments might be reluctant to intervene in the decisions of individual universities, but the Government should make clear the strategic importance of maths, and incentivise and support universities to give it priority, particularly beyond Russell Group universities, because maths is becoming an almost exclusively high-tariff degree. There is big growth at many high-tariff university maths courses, with one leading maths department in England increasing its intake from 300 to 600 undergraduates a year, but the courses at low-tariff universities, many of them highly regarded, are shrinking. One of them has gone from 150 to 35 undergraduates a year.

Students from lower-income backgrounds are much less likely to go to university outside their local area. If maths courses become too small to be viable, we will see the emergence of maths deserts, which would reduce access to one of the best degrees in terms of future earnings. We need strong and sustainable maths departments at universities in all parts of the country, and in universities of all kinds.

The other key issue for this Maths Week debate is the low take-up of maths in the UK post GCSE. More 16 to 18-year-olds should be encouraged to take up core maths, which is an invention of this Government that I imagine the Minister had a good deal to do with at the time. The background is that, in 2010, the Nuffield Foundation published a report titled “Is the UK an outlier? An international comparison of upper secondary mathematics education”. It turned out that the answer to that question was yes. Twenty-four countries were surveyed, and the UK had the lowest level of participation in upper secondary maths. Of the 24, England, Wales and Northern Ireland were the only countries with participation of less than 20%.

In June 2011, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), looked forward to a situation in which

“within a decade the vast majority of pupils are studying mathematics right through to the age of 18”.

In 2014, he said that by 2020—two years ago—the vast majority of students would be studying maths in some form after the age of 16. He meant not just A-level maths but the new qualification of level 3 core maths, which teaches the statistical and analytical skills essential to every profession, from law to medicine, and from journalism to manufacturing.

That increase has not happened. Progress in the last eight years has been lamentable—one might even say negligible. The UK remains an outlier. In Germany, Japan and the USA, well over 50% of 17-year-olds are studying maths in some form. In Finland and Ireland, the figure is over 80%. In the UK, it is still below 20%.

International Students: Contribution to the UK

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who genuinely brings knowledge to these debates, not just because he represents a university town but because he knows his subject. I want to put that on the record and thank him for it. It is also nice to see the Minister in his place. We have had a long friendship in this House, and it is not before time that he has been elevated to Minister. I am pleased to see him as a Minister for a subject in which he has a deep interest. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) on bringing the debate forward. For the record—I am sure he knew I would say this, but I have to say it—I disagree intensely with him on one matter that he referred to. He said that we should do away with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. No, no—we should get the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill put through this House. Then we can be equal to everybody else in the United Kingdom—those in Wales, Scotland and the rest of the UK mainland. It is not a matter of either/or. I want to speak about international students, the subject of the debate, but I also want to say very clearly that Northern Ireland MPs are anxious to see the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill go through as it is. Then we can all have the same level of representation and the same Britishness that we all love to have.

I am proud to hail from Northern Ireland. Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Ulster, as well as our other higher education institutions, are world class and attract a large number of international students. Northern Ireland has a sterling reputation for providing a high-class education. The result of that is a highly skilled education system, which others wish to feed from. Since the peace process and the cessation of troubles, we have seen a dramatic increase in international students coming to our shores, an unsurprising number of whom wish to stay on. We have many students who come to Northern Ireland, get good jobs, and stay there. How could they not, with all that we have to offer?

The latest statistics show that of the 66,245 students enrolled in Northern Ireland’s higher education institutions in 2021, 74% were from Northern Ireland, 5% from GB, 3% from the Republic of Ireland, 1% from EU countries and 17% from non-EU countries. They also suggest that international students from outside the EU are worth about £102,000 each to the UK economy for the duration of their study. That is not something we can ignore. There is a financial impact, and we want to continue to gain from it. Non-EU students typically pay much higher tuition fees than local, EU or UK students: they can pay between £15,000 and £30,000 a year for courses in Northern Ireland. We have a thriving higher education sector, which we wish to see retained and built upon.

Analysis suggests that international students delivered a net benefit of almost £26 billion to the UK in 2018-19. As the hon. Member for Sheffield Central referred to, this is a market that should clearly be encouraged, especially at our two local universities, Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University. International students account for about £49 million of those universities’ income through fees and grants—a substantial amount of money for us in Northern Ireland—showing the importance of us having education at that level in Northern Ireland. The accounts of Queen’s University Belfast show that international students generated some £43.8 million in fees and grants in 2019-20, while Ulster University received just under £5.1 million in overseas student fees in the same period.

When we have education debates in this place and are talking about universities, I often refer to the partnerships that Queen’s University Belfast in particular has with big business, finding cures for illnesses across the world such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Those partnerships are incredible, and international students are part of making them happen. There have been a great many success stories over the past few years, and Queen’s University plays a critical part in those, as do other universities across the United Kingdom.

The students in Northern Ireland come from 135 different countries and are certainly a welcome addition. I am very pleased to see them coming, and I would like to build on that for us back home. I believe more should be done to encourage others like them to see the potential of study in Northern Ireland, with low rent, low-cost food—the past couple of months might not suggest that, but the costs are low compared with some places—and friendly locals with a warm and welcoming culture. I believe we are missing a trick by not promoting that more robustly. I think that, as other hon. Members have rightly said, we could do that for the whole United Kingdom.

Northern Ireland boasts world-class research facilities at Queen’s University and Ulster University, with both universities ranking in the top 10 across the UK for bioscience research. I referred to some of their research on cures for the ailments that plague us, not just in this United Kingdom but across the world. Their researchers are recognised as being at the forefront of technology, health data analytics, statistics, modelling, simulation and the use of artificial intelligence, which I know the Government here are keen to promote as well. Those are the good things that universities do, quite apart from their cultural value. The hon. Member for Stirling referred to the fact that when students come here, they bring much to this great United Kingdom culturally, individually, socially and emotionally. That is something we should cherish and try to build upon.

Northern Ireland has several unique advantages for medical research and clinical trials, with a small population of just under 2 million, an integrated health and social care system, and the electronic care record, which makes it possible to access digital health from cradle to grave. We have such a technological advantage in Northern Ireland, given our universities and the research they are involved with to try to find cures. We have much to offer, and now it is on us to promote that effectively.

I know the Minister always seeks to give us answers, so let me ask him whether, in the short time he has been in post, he has had any discussions with his colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to secure funds to promote our UK-wide education system globally. If he has not had those discussions yet, I know he will. We have a great education system in Northern Ireland. I want to see it grow and thrive, and I believe this debate gives us an opportunity to help it do just that.

Religious Education in Modern Britain

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Dame Maria. I too thank the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) for setting the scene so well and for giving us a chance to participate. It is good to see the Minister is his place, and I look forward to hearing his comments, as well as those of the shadow Minister.

This debate could include many conflicting opinions, yet I trust we can all come from a place where we respect the ideal of faith. Although we may treasure our individual faiths, there is undoubtedly a place for all in the diverse United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I know that the ideal of religious education differs from region to region. I bring the Northern Ireland perspective to these debates, as I always do, and that is somewhat different yet again. The importance of religious and theological teaching could not be more prominent today, given the expansion of belief and the ever-changing faiths we all have.

It is great to be here today to discuss the importance of religion in schools, both primary and secondary. According to the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, religious education in Northern Ireland is a compulsory part of the school curriculum. As I am sure all hon. Members are aware, Northern Ireland is no stranger to different and diverse religious beliefs and the impact they can have on modern society. For young people to be able to understand our changing world, they must be able to interpret different religious issues.

The Department for Education and the four main Churches in Northern Ireland define the religious studies curriculum, allowing for the teaching of the revelation of God, the Christian church and morality from both Protestant and Roman Catholic perspectives. That is as it should be, because the personal relationship someone has with the Lord Jesus is what is important, not their denomination or the church they go to.

Seven out of 10 people—73%—surveyed across the United Kingdom—agreed that the role of religious education in schools is to provide pupils with opportunities to learn about other people, beliefs and cultures. A further 65% stated that the subject also allows young people to evaluate their own political beliefs. That is why the hon. Member for Cleethorpes referred to political beliefs with a religious viewpoint.

I understand that some young people nowadays have become disillusioned with religion, but it is crucial that they have a basic understanding of how religion plays a part in modern society and indeed in modern Britain. Parents are allowed to withdraw their children from some or all aspects of the teaching of religious education, but I always encourage them not to do that, regardless of what they may think of that religion. Having strong faith oneself is one thing, but being able to understand and respect other people’s faith starts from a young age—as early as P4 teaching in Northern Ireland.

The High Court in Northern Ireland ruled that exclusively Christian religious education and worship was discriminatory. However, we must ensure that this ruling, and the calls for it to be considered UK-wide, do not diminish the place of the larger practised religions, such as Christianity, in religious education, but rather allow learning about other faiths equally. I have the utmost belief in Christ as my saviour, but that does not mean that the faiths of Judaism, Sikhism or Islam are of no interest to me.

I can recall the 1960s and 1970s, when I was at secondary college. Our religious education teacher asked the class whether we wanted to know about other religions, and the answer from us all was that yes, we did. Our teacher then introduced us over a period of time to other religions. In the closed society we were in, we perhaps did not have any knowledge of other religions. That teaching gave us an opportunity to understand these things at an early stage. Through another teacher in a different subject I had the chance to understand Irish history. As a proud Unionist, it did not do me any harm to understand Irish history—understanding it a wee bit better never made me less of a Unionist. It does not harm anyone to understand things from another perspective, but it does let people develop a wider understanding and respect for others, which is what I try to do in my life.

We live in an ever-changing world; nowadays people can believe and be practically anything. In my eyes, one thing that does not change is the importance of religion—not just my own belief in Christianity, but everyone else’s beliefs as well. As chair of the APPGs for international freedom of religion or belief, and for Pakistani minorities, I know that the study of religious education allows us a chance to learn about religions without feeling the socialisation or pressure of today’s society.

As always, there was not a thing that the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said that I do not agree with. She touched on the Uyghurs, the Falun Gong in China, the Baha’i in Iran, the Yazidis in Iraq and the Rohingya Muslims. In Nigeria, which we visited in May and June, we ascertained just how bad the persecution of Christians was, but it is getting worse—there is less understanding. That is so frustrating, because the people we talked to told us they were trying to bring things together, but the reality is that that is not happening.

[Fiona Bruce]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is not too lofty a thing to say that helping our young people understand how important it is to respect the freedom of religion or belief of others of different faiths and beliefs contributes towards nothing less than global peace? So many atrocities across the world start small and locally and then grow. If we can develop a generation in this country that has respect, and we can promote that across the world, we will be able to stop local friction developing so that people can learn how to live together peaceably. We will then see a better world for the next generation.

[Jim Shannon]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady. That is something we should all strive to make happen. I am reminded of the Hindus in Pakistan and the Ahmadi Muslims in India as examples of people across the world with a different religious viewpoint who are terribly persecuted, both physically and mentally.

My youngest staff member chose to drop religious education at GCSE in order to focus on mathematics, as that was what she wanted to do. She has since said on numerous occasions that she does not feel informed about what people believe and why they choose to believe it. She says it was great to pursue mathematics, but in a way it is a pity that she did not get that understanding at an earlier age.

While I appreciate that education is devolved and our curriculum guidelines differ slightly, the principle that religion is important remains the same. I call on the Education Secretary—we are pushing at an open door—and respective regional Ministers to ensure that the teaching of religion in modern Britain remains in our schools to help to tackle religious discrimination and promote respect for others with a different religion or faith. It is difficult to see a path forwards if we do not know where we have come from. For me, the teachings of Christ, which tell a child that they are loved and chosen, that there is a plan for lives and that they are not alone, are imperative. When social media tells them that the opposite is true, we need the calming influence of religious education in schools.

I am far from perfect—I am probably the most imperfect person in this room—but I believe that the creator, God, has a job that he has set only me to do. Oh, that more of our young people across this great nation would understand their unique, divinely appointed role and that, no matter what the world may say to them, they are special and worthy. I believe that RE plays an important part in understanding that. It is as essential a skill as home economics or technology. When we talk about the important things for future vocations, we should note that religious education in schools is a calming influence and gives us a better understanding of those around us. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes referred to a Scripture text, and I will finish by quoting Jeremiah 29:11, which says:

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans…to give you hope and a future.’”

Who does not need that?