Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Ben Howlett

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

11. What steps her Department is taking to improve social mobility through education.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

We want to see an education system that works for everyone and that drives social mobility by breaking the link between a person’s background and where they get to in life. We are delivering more good school places; strengthening the teaching profession; investing in and improving careers education; transforming technical education and apprenticeships; opening up access to universities; and focusing effort on areas of the country with the greatest challenges and the fewest opportunities, through opportunity areas.

[Justine Greening]

The pupil premium is worth £2.5 billion this year, and it is helping to level the playing field for 2 million disadvantaged children, including many young carers and children with mental health problems. We are also looking at the Children’s Commissioner’s recent report and, indeed, our own DFE research on the lives of young carers in England, as part of the cross-Government carers strategy that is being reviewed and developed. On the point about age, the national funding formula for 16 to 19-year-olds provides extra funding for disadvantaged students—around £540 million this year.

[Ben Howlett]

I welcomed the Government’s “Schools that work for everyone” Green Paper—probably as much as the Secretary of State enjoyed reading my lengthy response to it. It showed the Government’s commitment to ensuring that all pupils have the best chance of accessing a good education.When will the draft be published?

[Justine Greening]

I very much appreciated my hon. Friend’s submission to that consultation. We received several thousand submissions, which we are now going through. We will respond in the spring.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Ben Howlett

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

It is important that we support campaigns that are trying to play a role in reducing LGBT bullying. In September last year, we set out a £2.8 million programme to invest in charities that are working to prevent and address homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools in England. The Government have launched their own “Disrespect NoBody” campaign to help young people recognise and challenge abuse within teen relationships. It is important to work in schools to change attitudes due to, as the hon. Lady sets out, the level of discrimination and abuse that many young people say they have received.

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

I am pleased that the Government are considering the views of charities, campaigners and Members of this House in introducing statutory relationship education. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on plans to update the statutory guidance, which was last updated when I was the ripe age of 13?

[Justine Greening]

I did not realise that my hon. Friend was quite that young. He sets out the serious point that the world has changed immeasurably since 2000. Children now learn about relationships in different ways, but the challenge is that they are learning about them in ways that give them a skewed, inaccurate view of what relationships are about. It is important to look at how we can ensure that the guidance genuinely works and reflects the world as it is today, therefore giving ourselves and our children a better chance to get the education that they need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Ben Howlett

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

In part, the Bill reflects our wish to secure value for money for students, which we are building into law for the first time. Our updating of the higher education regulatory framework is long overdue, and I am delighted that we are taking the opportunity to put the interests of students at the heart of it.

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should beware the law of unintended consequences? Adding students to the board of the Office for Students would put at risk representation and engagement with students throughout the higher education system. Will she assure me, and the student community, that the OFS will put students at the heart of the system?

[Justine Greening]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I know that he has played an important role on the Public Bill Committee and presented his own proposals. As we have made clear, we do not want to be over-prescriptive. We want to set up the Office for Students and allow it to ensure that students have a voice not just through representation, but through the way in which the office itself works.

Schools that work for Everyone

Debate between Justine Greening and Ben Howlett

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at the consultation document proposals, as I think he will welcome some elements of them. We have to remember that we are coming from a position of there being no conditionality on grammars whatsoever and far less push on them to reach out into more disadvantaged communities. That push is precisely what we are setting out in this consultation document, while also setting out our intention to give parents more choice.

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s and the Prime Minister’s commitment to opening education up for everyone and leaving nobody behind, but, having conducted research on this issue and asked the Library, I have found no evidence, thus far, to suggest that social mobility is improved as a result of opening up new grammar schools. What evidence has the Secretary of State got that she will present before this House to prove that opening new grammar schools will improve social mobility? That is something for which the Conservative party has worked hard for a very long time.

[Justine Greening]

I set out how research by the Sutton Trust has demonstrated the impact of grammars on free-school-meal children and on the broader school communities of which grammars are part. That is a case for change, not a case for keeping the status quo. I encourage my hon. Friend to look at our proposals to see how they can do exactly what he says, and I think he will welcome them.