Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jon Trickett and Vicky Ford

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

What proportion of children (a) classed as vulnerable and (b) eligible for free school meals are attending school.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

About 18% of children with an education, health and care plan or a social worker attended an education setting on 11 June. The Department does not collect separate attendance data for those eligible for free school meals.

[Jon Trickett [V]]

Is the Minister not ashamed that after 10 years of a Tory Government, in West Yorkshire alone there are almost exactly 100,000 children at risk living in families of multiple vulnerabilities? Many of them are still not at school and therefore at risk. What will she do about it?

[Vicky Ford]

I am enormously proud that after 10 years of a Conservative-led Government the attainment gap between those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those from more advantaged backgrounds has narrowed at every stage of children’s education. We have kept schools open for vulnerable children, and those children most at risk have been seen or contacted by their social workers. I thank social workers and schools across the country for doing that. We need to get children back to school, and the Opposition should support us.