A Brighter Future for the Next Generation

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman has had an opportunity to speak; I am sure he will contribute later on.

The Turing scheme is genuinely global in reach and will connect our young people with a whole world, rich and varied in its cultural experiences, giving them the opportunity to learn from the very best institutions on a global scale.

This is a Government who deliver on their promises. We are fulfilling our manifesto commitment by introducing a Bill to protect freedom of speech and academic freedom in universities. Free speech is the lifeblood of democracy. Our world-class universities have a long and proud history of being spaces in which differing views or beliefs can be expressed without fear or censure. However, there have been increasing concerns about a chilling effect on campus and that not all students and staff feel able to share their views. That is why we will strengthen existing duties on universities, extending those duties to students’ unions and establishing a director in the Office for Students to protect and promote these rights.

We have always been determined that every child, regardless of background, should have access to high-quality education, and that is just as true for our youngest children as it is for those who are on the cusp of adulthood. The early years are a crucial time in a child’s development, and we know that the pandemic has had a significant impact on many young children. Earlier this year, we announced £18 million to support language development, which includes £10 million for an early language programme to help nursery children who have been affected by the pandemic. We are introducing the early years foundation stage reforms, which will be statutory for all early years providers from September this year.

When it comes to the most vulnerable children, there is no such thing as being too bold. We have launched our children’s social care review of systems and services, so that vulnerable youngsters can experience the benefits of a stable and loving home, many of them for the first time. The review will take place alongside ongoing reforms to raise standards in local authorities, boost adoption, improve support for care leavers and improve quality and placement practice in unregulated accommodation, including banning the placement of under-16s in unregulated homes and introducing national standards for provision.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State look again at placing a ceiling of the age of 16 on the requirement not to place young people in unregulated accommodation? I am sure he will agree that there are very many vulnerable 17, 18 and 19-year-olds for whom that would also be an important measure.

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady will know about my commitment and passion in this area and how important it is to look at how we can improve things for these children. Certainly, as part of looking at how we continuously improve, we will make sure that we get these regulations in place initially, but we will then be looking at how we can continue to improve on that work.

Our country, like many others, faces a number of social and economic challenges as we recover from the pandemic. I am confident that, thanks to this ambitious legislative programme and our unwavering mission to level up every inch of our country, we will all have a chance to play our part in that recovery. In Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech, a fairer, better Britain is emerging, and future generations, as well as this one, will feel the benefit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to open this debate on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition, because nothing can be more important than our obligation to create a bright future for the next generation. On the Opposition Benches—indeed, I am sure, across the House—we believe that every child, whatever their background, must be able to make the most of their childhood and reach their full potential. As politicians, we have a solemn responsibility to ensure that the next generation enjoys greater opportunities than we have had, and that Britain is the best country in the world to grow up in.

Regrettably, this Queen’s Speech is a missed opportunity. It is a missed opportunity that comes hard on the heels of a decade of Conservative failures that have betrayed our young people: 1,000 children’s centres closed since 2010 by Conservative Governments; schools funding 9% lower in real terms in 2019-20 than in 2009-10; Labour’s proud track record in lifting a million children out of poverty wholly wiped out by Conservative austerity policies, with more than 5 million children expected to be in poverty by 2024; FE funding cut almost in half, and apprenticeship starts among under-25-year-olds down by 40% since 2016. The problems were there even before the pandemic.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Of course we all want to do our best for the most vulnerable children in our society, but will the hon. Lady acknowledge that, rather than the picture she has just painted of the past 10 years, the improvement in the delivery of children’s social care services, for example, with more good and outstanding local authorities delivering children’s social care and the number of inadequate services dropping considerably, is a testament not only to the people on the frontline working hard for those children, but to the Government policies put in place to ensure that that could happen?

[Kate Green]

I pay tribute to everyone working in local authorities and in the children’s social care sector for the hard work that has led to improvement in children’s services—vital services for the most vulnerable children in our country—but, frankly, the Government could have made it a great deal more straightforward for local authorities if they had not gone round trashing local authority funding. Our local councils have seen cuts of around 40% in their funding over the last 10 years, and that has put huge pressure on social care professionals, especially children’s social care professionals. It is very much to the credit of social care workers that we have seen improvements around the country, but I hope that the Government will use the children’s social care review that the Secretary of State referenced, which we are eager to engage with, to ensure that we put adequate, sustainable funding in place for these most vulnerable children.

[Alan Brown]

The hon. Lady is talking about opportunities for the future and reshaping things. She will be well aware that in the Scottish elections last week, a majority in favour of an independence referendum was returned. Does she think it is right that the young of Scotland should get their say in a referendum or does she think the Labour party should stand shoulder to shoulder with the Tories and try to block them from having their democratic say?

[Kate Green]

As a Scot myself, I feel pretty confident in saying that I do not think the priority for Scotland and for people in Scotland right now is a constitutional referendum. I do not think that it is the most pressing concern for young people when there are worries that they are struggling to achieve the same standards in school as we are seeing in the rest of the United Kingdom and when we see young people struggling to get—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) needs to hear what he does not like to hear. The Scottish Government are failing young people. Educational attainment is declining. We see no sign of their having taken on the seriousness of how the SNP Government have let down young people. Let us concentrate on the priorities that really matter for the future of young people in Scotland and across the United Kingdom.

Despite facing soaring unemployment and the toughest jobs market for a generation, young people in desperate need of new opportunities have been overlooked by the Government. The 16-to-19 funding for catch-up has been woefully insufficient, and careers advice and guidance will be crucial after David Cameron’s Government brutally slashed it. The Government’s proposals are too little, too late. Apprentices, and BTEC and vocational students, have been repeatedly treated as an afterthought. Unemployment is forecast to rise over the course of this year, and the consequences of the pandemic will be with us for years to come as huge parts of our economy and labour market experience profound change.

[Christian Wakeford]

Children’s attainment in literacy is going backwards, as is children’s mental health, and children are needing to go through potty training again. There are fears over people’s prospects and the jobs market. Which of the above does the hon. Lady think is a “good crisis” for people to take advantage of? Will she apologise for the comments that she made previously?

[Kate Green]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for enabling me to be able to put on record in this House my regret for those remarks. They were inappropriate and insensitive and will have been offensive to people who have suffered terribly in this pandemic, including those who have been bereaved and lost those that they loved and will be missing terribly. I should not to have used those remarks, and I thank him for giving me the opportunity to put that on record in this Chamber.

If we are to seize this generational moment and deliver the fair, low-carbon recovery that we need to tackle the climate crisis, which is imperative if we are truly to pass on a bright future to the next generation, many people will need to retrain in new industries as old jobs disappear, as the Secretary of State said. But in the Queen’s Speech and in his remarks just a few moments ago, all that the Secretary of State could announce was a months-old commitment to a lifetime skills guarantee that simply is not guaranteed for everyone. It is not guaranteed because people cannot use it if they are already qualified to level 3; they cannot use it unless they are getting a qualification that the Secretary of State has decided he thinks is valuable; and they cannot use it if they need maintenance support while they are learning. If they are already qualified to level 3 in their existing field but need to retrain for a new industry, there is nothing on offer for them. Ministers have chosen to close the door on millions of people who need to retrain, and who need to do so now. I am at a loss to understand the Secretary of State’s position on this. Can he tell the House why a promised guarantee will not in fact be available to some of those who will need it most?

On maintenance funding, we are awaiting Ministers’ response to the Government’s Augar review, which is now over two years old. Augar said that those in further education should receive the same maintenance support as those in higher education. Does the Secretary of State agree with that proposal? If he does, why is it absent from the Queen’s Speech? While everyone will agree that employers have a central role in creating jobs and training opportunities for young people, they do so in the context of local economic and regeneration strategies driven by metro Mayors and local leaders, who seem to have been sidelined in the creation of the local skills plans and with the Government having abandoned a national industrial strategy.

After a decade of Conservative damage to the sector, I desperately want the Government to get skills policy right. Labour believes in a high-skill, high-wage economy that offers fulfilling, rewarding work and jobs in which people will take great pride. That is why, for years, I and my colleagues in the Labour party, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition in his speech opening the debate on the Loyal Address on Tuesday and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) during her time as Shadow Secretary of State for Education, have championed lifelong learning, further education and all those who learn and teach in this sector.

In contrast, in a startling, if only partial, conversion in the Conservative party after a decade spent in power, including times when the Education Secretary and the Prime Minister sat around the Cabinet table and nodded through cuts to further education and a loan-based funding model that, by the Government’s own admission, directly reduced the number of adults in education, we have reforms that offer, at best, a mere reversal of some of the worst excesses of Conservative ideology over the past decade. It is a desperate attempt to polish the windows, having taken a sledgehammer to the foundations.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

The hon. Lady will know that I was a school teacher who started in 2011, just after the Conservatives took power. I want to remind her of the situation that I, as a teacher, inherited on the frontline. Between 2000 and 2009, England fell from seventh to 25th in reading, eighth to 28th in maths and fourth to 16th in science in international league tables. In addition, we had 350,000 young people aged 16 to 19 who, according to the independent Wolf review, received little to no benefit from the post-16 education system, which provided students with a diet of low-level vocational qualifications—[Interruption.] It is interesting that the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) is angry that a former teacher is speaking about education; I am interested to hear what he knows better than I. Is the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) proud of the record of the Labour party in that decade?

[Kate Green]

We should never accept less than the highest standards for young people in this country. I will compromise with nobody on being ambitious to deliver a world-class education and achieve world-class standards for our young people, but let me remind the hon. Gentleman of the progress that we made under Labour between 1997 and 2010. In London, for example, we massively narrowed the gap in attainment. Will he acknowledge that what we are seeing now, under his party’s Government, is the attainment gap once again widening? Our young people deserve better than that.

There are so many measures that I believe the Government could and should have included in the Queen’s Speech. Ministers could have gone beyond the platitudes on early years that we heard a few minutes ago and set out a plan to reverse the damage their decade of cuts has produced and to ensure affordable, accessible, high-quality early years education and childcare for all children. They could have set out how they will transform the national tutoring programme, creating the space for children to socialise and recover the time they need to develop and grow, and ensuring that no child loses out because of the damage that Ministers’ failure to manage the pandemic has created. They could have addressed the horrifying rise in child poverty—not mentioned once in the Queen’s Speech, although it is the driving cause of the widening attainment gap. They could have ensured that education professionals’ and school and college leaders’ expertise and hard work during the pandemic were recognised with a fair pay rise.

Instead, the Secretary of State has decided that it is more important to focus on free speech on university campuses. Free speech and academic freedom are important, but suggesting that we should use up valuable legislative time while the employment Bill has been quietly dropped and while, nearly two years after the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street telling us that he had plans for social care ready to go, nothing has appeared, will make people up and down the country think that this is the wrong priority.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

I will not at the moment, if the right hon. Member will forgive me. I wish to make some progress.

We need to get this in perspective. Only six out of 10,000 events on campus—I repeat: 10,000—were cancelled, four of them simply because of lack of paperwork. One was a pyramid scheme. Now, I do understand that Conservatives responsible for a decade of economic mismanagement may struggle to recognise a pyramid scheme when they see one, but I am surprised that the Secretary of State wants to protect the ability to promote such schemes on our university campuses.

Much more concerning, though, is that the Minister for Universities was forced to admit on radio yesterday that this flawed legislation could have dangerous and troubling consequences, including potentially protecting holocaust deniers.

[Gavin Williamson]

The Universities Minister never said that this would protect holocaust deniers, and it would not protect holocaust deniers because this party does not stand for antisemitism, unlike the Labour party. This party recognises that we need to eradicate antisemitism and racism of all kinds, and this legislation will never, never, never protect holocaust deniers, because that is something that should never, and will never, be tolerated.

[Kate Green]

Antisemitism is intolerable in my party, and in any organisation and any part of this country, but I am very sorry to tell the Secretary of State that the legislation does appear to offer protection, potentially, to antisemites and holocaust deniers; and the Universities Minister yesterday was not able to gainsay that.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend will be aware, having listened to the interview on Radio 4 yesterday, that the Universities Minister was explicitly asked whether this legislation would cover holocaust denial and she explicitly said that it would. This is appalling. There is no academic merit whatever in debate, distortion or denial of the holocaust. I hope my hon. Friend will agree that the Secretary of State should correct the record, because what he said just then has misled the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am sure that the hon. Lady would say “inadvertently misled the House”.

[Kate Green]

Let me read a transcript of the broadcast yesterday. The Universities Minister says:

“What this bill is designed to do is to protect and promote free speech which is lawful so any free speech which is lawful”.

The interviewer, Evan Davis, says:

“It is lawful isn’t it? Holocaust denial in this country is lawful isn’t it?”

The Minister says:

“So what I’m saying, yeah, so that’s”

Evan Davis asks:

“So holocaust denial is okay, you’d defend a holocaust denier being invited to campus because that is part of the free speech argument?”

The Minister responds:

“Obviously it would depend on exactly what they were saying”.

Madam Deputy Speaker, it never depends on what a holocaust denier is saying.

[Gavin Williamson]

Let us be absolutely clear that this legislation will never protect holocaust deniers. It protects free speech within the law. It protects the fact that—we know that antisemitic activity and antisemitism are not to be tolerated. It is clear in the Equality Act 2010. We will never tolerate it, and this legislation will not allow holocaust deniers to be able to spread their hate and misinformation on our campuses.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful for that assurance on the Floor of the House from the Secretary of State. I hope when we are able to debate the Bill again on the Floor of the House and in Committee that we can work together to make sure that we have absolutely watertight provisions to ensure that there is no place for antisemitism anywhere on campus.

I also say very gently to Government Members, many of whom have a proud record of defending free speech, that handing over the power to determine whether free speech complaints on campus are justified to the Office for Students—a Government regulator, with an unqualified former Conservative MP appointed as its chair—smacks of the kind of thought control that we would rightly condemn in authoritarian Governments around the world. But it is not the way we do things in this country. I hope the Secretary of State will also think better of those proposals.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Queen’s Speech was the absence of anything meaningful for one of our most precious assets—our children—and their learning and wellbeing in school. Although we know that the Secretary of State is determined to send more schools down the path of academisation, he says that there will be a “try before you buy” model for schools contemplating this route. I have no idea how that will work, so perhaps the Secretary of State will be able to enlighten us.

Most parents do not care that much about the structure of their children’s school, and they are quite right. It is not structure that determines a school’s performance, but high-quality teaching and excellent school leadership, and we see that in both the maintained and academy sectors. Prioritising favoured structures at a time when the role of schools in helping children to bounce back from the pandemic could not be more important once again shows that the Secretary of State has the wrong priorities, especially when schools are struggling with a stealth cut to their budgets because of changes to the pupil premium, while it is rumoured that the national tutoring programme is being taken out of the hands of experts and given to Randstad, a multinational outsourcing company. Can the Secretary of State confirm the media reports that Randstad will be running the national tutoring programme next year, and if so, can he tell the House what expertise in education, teaching and learning it will bring? In fact, can he tell us why it was able to win this tender at all? Was it because his Department decided to lower the quality of provision required to cut corners on price?

Those are questions that the Secretary of State should answer, but let me conclude by addressing the perfectly reasonable question: what would Labour do to guarantee a bright future for children and young people? Let me tell the House what would have been in a Labour Queen’s Speech this week. We would have started with a credible, radical plan to enable children and young people to bounce back from the pandemic—a plan that created time for children to play, learn and develop, that gave the teaching profession the recognition and support it needs to guarantee a world-class education for every child and that ensured the national tutoring programme reached all children who need it. We would have detailed proposals for children’s wellbeing, catch-up breakfast clubs guaranteeing every child a healthy breakfast and creating more time in the school day for children to recover lost learning and time lost with their friends and teachers.

We would have delivered a credible plan to support young people into work. We would have implemented policies outlined earlier this year by my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) that would have guaranteed every young person not in education or employment a job or training opportunity to end long-term youth unemployment. We would have ensured the apprenticeship levy was used to create opportunities for our young people, as we suggested with our proposal to use the underspend from the apprenticeship levy last year to create 85,000 youth apprenticeship opportunities. Most importantly, we would be working right across a Labour Cabinet to end the scourge of rising child poverty, which is scarring the lives of millions of children. Tackling child poverty will always be a priority for Labour, and I am proud that my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) will be leading our programme of work on this within the shadow Cabinet.

Before I came into Parliament, I spent a decade of my life working for and championing a brighter future for young people, because while children make up 20% of the population of this country, they are 100% of our future. They are ambitious, optimistic, imaginative, creative and excited about the world they will grow up to. They have so much to offer, and our job as adults is to give them every opportunity to make the most of their childhoods and their future, so let us not let them down with empty rhetoric and hollow promises. Today, let us commit to truly deliver a programme of change that transforms children’s lives, fulfils the promise that this will be best place to grow up and, in creating a brighter future for young people, gives the promise of a better future for every one of us.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am now going to put a six-minute time limit on Back-Bench contributions, which will be on the screens and on the clock in the Chamber. We now go to the Chair of the Education Committee, Robert Halfon.