Investing in Children and Young People

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House regrets the resignation of the education recovery commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins, over the Government’s inadequate proposals to support children after the coronavirus pandemic; agrees with Sir Kevan’s assessment that the current half-hearted approach risks failing hundreds of thousands of young people; and therefore calls on the Government to bring forward a more ambitious plan before the onset of the school summer holiday which includes an uplift to the pupil premium and increased investment in targeted support, makes additional funding available to schools for extracurricular clubs and activities to boost children’s wellbeing, and provides free school meals to all eligible children throughout the summer holiday.

It is a privilege to open this debate. Today I invite hon. and right hon. Members from all parts of the House to put children and young people first and support our motion. I do not believe there is a single Member of this House who does not agree that children and young people are our country’s most precious asset, that as we emerge from the pandemic and begin to rebuild our country their education and wellbeing must be our top priority, and that we owe it to them to match the ambition, optimism and enthusiasm they have for their own lives and their futures with measures to ensure that every child can enjoy an enriching childhood and achieve their full potential. So Conservative Members must understand not just my dismay, but the dismay of every teacher and parent I have spoken to in the past week at the wholly inadequate announcement from the Secretary of State, providing just 10% of the funding that the Government’s own highly respected expert education adviser Sir Kevan Collins had said was needed to enable children and young people to bounce back from the pandemic. If this Government really want to make good on the Prime Minister’s claim that children’s education is his priority, the paltry announcement we got last week is simply inexplicable. As we know, the plans fall so far short of what is needed that Sir Kevan refused to be associated with them and resigned last Wednesday. He described them as too small, too narrow and too late —and he was right.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

I will not at the moment, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. There was nothing in the plans to support children’s socio-emotional wellbeing, which parents and teachers have told us again and again is their priority for children and young people. I support small group tutoring as an element of supporting children to catch up on lost learning, but last week’s announcement of additional funding will amount to just one hour per fortnight per child of tutoring, and the Government’s package performs woefully when compared with those of other countries, amounting to just £50 per pupil compared with £1,600 in the USA and £2,500 in the Netherlands.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Is the hon. Lady suggesting that that figure she has just given for the US relates solely to catch-up funding and therefore is comparable? Does she need to add up a number of figures from the British Government for English schools? Is she suggesting that that is what that figure refers to?

[Kate Green]

It is certainly not 30 times out in its accuracy. The right hon. Gentleman is right, of course, to ask about the make-up of the different figures, but even on my most generous interpretation of the amount the Government have put in over the past year to support children’s catch-up, which I calculate would amount to £310 per pupil, we are still well short of what other countries are spending.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Lady has rightly pointed out that the Government’s own expert adviser recommended 10 times more money than is being given, so I am sure she would agree that this is an outrage. Does she also agree that headteachers and teachers will make the best use they can of what paltry money the Government do give them, so is it not right that the professional judgment of headteachers should be trusted in how they spend that money? Yes, there has to be accountability, but surely they should be given the freedom to make the best choices of how to make the best use of what money they are given.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful for the opportunity to echo the appreciation of the work that school leaders and staff have been doing over the past 15 months of the pandemic, and of course we must respect and recognise their professional judgment.

The suggestion that last week’s announcement is just an instalment and that there will be a review of what more is needed is both wholly unnecessary, when Sir Kevan Collins has laid out a clear and comprehensive plan, and is an insult to children who have already lost between two and four months of classroom time and should not have to wait another term or more for the support that they need to recover from the pandemic.

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

In the proposals that Sir Kevan Collins made, how much of the £15 billion was related to the half-hour extension of the school day? Does the hon. Lady agree that if we are to do something as radical as extending the school day, which I support, the evidence base should be looked at and it should be done carefully? We will have trade unions to negotiate with, and rightly so, as well as teachers who are not on contracts and may have had their hours extended beyond 4 o’clock already. There are problems with suddenly announcing things without having carefully thought them through.

[Kate Green]

If I may say so, I think that the hon. Gentleman is probably building up more problems than actually exist in the provision of extended activities at the end of an enhanced school day. We already know that many schools are able to provide some such activities, and that it is not just through schools, but through youth and community organisations, that such activities can be added to the school day. We are talking about ensuring that every child has the opportunity to benefit as soon as possible—we had 15 months to plan this— from the enhancement that those activities can bring to their childhood.

The Conservative party’s plans are a terrible betrayal of children and young people’s excitement at being back in class with their friends and teachers, their optimism and their aspirations for the future. Today, I hope that we can come together as a House to resolve to do better. Last week, I was proud to publish Labour’s children’s recovery plan, which proposes a package of measures for schools, early years and further education settings to address children and young people’s learning loss and their wellbeing.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

rose—

[Kate Green]

I give way to the Chair of the Select Committee on Education.

[Robert Halfon]

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis), because I think that a longer school day is essential. In the media last week, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said that she opposed a longer school day. There is a big difference between a longer school day and enhanced activities, and a longer school day is a core part of Sir Kevan Collins’s programme. I think we need the Labour party to be clear on exactly what it supports.

[Kate Green]

My reading of Sir Kevan’s proposals is that the longer day would be used for exactly the kind of activities that the Labour party supports: social and emotional play, learning and development-related activities, including sport, the arts, drama, debating, music and so on. There is also time, of course, for some focus on formal, more structured learning, but we have heard again and again from teachers and parents, as I am sure Conservative Members have, that children get tired and their concentration wanes after seven or eight hours.

[Jonathan Gullis]

indicated dissent.

[Kate Green]

There is no point in the hon. Member shaking his head. That is what they told us. Any parent will recognise the fact that expecting children—

[Jonathan Gullis]

Children are far more resilient.

[Kate Green]

I am coming on to children’s resilience, so it will be good to speak about that in a moment. I think we have to be realistic about expecting children to work full on, especially children who may already have a large amount of homework. We have to be realistic about what childhood is for. Enhancing a school day, of course, increases some learning opportunities, but we have to recognise that play, social activity, arts, culture and music are also learning activities and will therefore enhance children’s attainment.

In recent months, parents and teachers have told us again and again that socio-emotional wellbeing and time for children to be with their friends is their top priority. That is why our plan would see all schools offering new extracurricular activities, from breakfast clubs to sport, music, art and drama, creating time for children and young people to play and socialise, and removing the cost barrier that prevents all schools from offering those activities or all children from participating in them. Such targeted programmes can also help to accelerate children’s academic development, delivering two months of additional progress, which rises to around three months for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is therefore all the more disappointing that the Government have failed to invest in these activities.

Of course, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) rightly says, children are resilient, and many will be able to overcome the challenges and disruption of the past 15 months, but some will struggle and need more help to recover. That is why Labour’s plan also proposes funding to meet their needs by providing schools with additional resources to hire specialist counselling or mental health provision.

Mental health support, and activities that make use of schools’ fabulous facilities to provide an enhanced offer at the end of the school day, are important in and of themselves. They also free up teachers to concentrate more of their time on children’s learning. However, more must be done to make up lost learning. Although small group tutoring will help, the truth is that most children are going to do most of their learning in class, alongside their classmates.

That is why Labour would reverse the Government’s £133 million stealth cut to the pupil premium, and why we are calling for a further boost to the pupil premium in early years and schools, as well as for its extension to further education, to reach the most disadvantaged children and young people—including, of course, those with special educational needs and disabilities or in alternative provision. That targeted funding will enable teachers to focus extra attention on the children who need it most, helping to close the attainment gap, which Sir Kevan suggests could have increased by between 10% and 24% as a result of the pandemic.

Finally—hon. Members must forgive a sense of déjà vu here—our motion calls on the Government fully to deliver free school meals to every child eligible for them over the summer holidays. The current guidance for the Government’s holiday activities and food programme proposes that children should receive that support on just 16 out of 30 weekdays this summer. No one in this House would think it acceptable for their children to be fed only once every two days, so why do the Government think it is acceptable for the 1.6 million children eligible for free school meals? Children do not go on half rations just because it is the holidays. The Government really must put this right before this term ends, to ensure that no child goes hungry over the summer.

Today, more than 200 charities, education experts, business leaders, unions and young people have called on the Government to put children at the heart of the recovery, so it would be especially fitting for every hon. Member in this House to support our motion today—to support our call for the development, by the summer, of an ambitious recovery plan that enables our children to access world-class education, receive support for their mental health and wellbeing, enjoy the opportunity to make the most of their childhood, and achieve their full potential.

As adults, we have a responsibility to match the ambition that children have for their own future. That is why addressing the impact of the pandemic on young people must be our priority, for their life chances and wellbeing, and for our country’s future success and prosperity. Today, we have set out how Labour would make Britain the best country in the world to grow up in. This afternoon, I hope that Members across the House will join us in voting for that bold ambition.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

I welcome this debate and the opportunity that it gives us to set out clearly what we have done and what we plan to do to ensure that no child—no child, Mr Speaker—will suffer damage to their long-term prospects because of the pandemic. As I listened to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) talk about vision and ambition, I asked myself, where was she—where was the Labour party—on all the big strategic decisions we have taken since 2010 to transform our education system and drive up academic standards in our schools?

Where was the Labour party in 2010, when we reformed the national curriculum, replacing Labour’s dry, bureaucratic, competence-based curriculum with a curriculum rich in the knowledge that children need to succeed? Where was Labour when we transformed the teaching of reading and introduced the phonics screening check, ensuring that every child is set on the path to becoming a fluent reader? Where was Labour when we extended the academies programme to primary schools and to good and outstanding schools to give them the autonomy to drive up standards even further and to help underperforming schools improve? Where was Labour when we introduced the EBacc performance measure, ensuring that more young people are studying the core academic subjects at GCSE—English, maths, science, history or geography and a foreign language —that are so fundamental to later progress and success?

It is this party’s vision, ambition and actions that, under three Conservative Prime Ministers, have led to the attainment gap between those from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers closing by 13% in primary schools between 2011 and 2019 and by 9% in secondary schools. It is this party’s vision, ambition and actions that have resulted in 86% of schools being judged by Ofsted as good or outstanding, compared with just 68% when we came into office, despite the bar of what makes a good or outstanding school being raised. It is this party’s ambition, vision and actions that have led to this country rising in the international league tables of children’s reading ability—we were up to joint eighth place in the progress in international reading literacy study published in 2016—with nine to 10-year-olds from this country scoring our highest ever results and low-attaining pupils improving the most.

The commitment of Conservatives to educational standards and to the success of our school system was demonstrated clearly when, in 2010, even as we had to tackle the crisis in the public finances after the global financial crisis, school funding was one of just three areas of public spending that were protected from the spending constraints needed at the time to restore confidence in our public finances and our economy. At every stage of this appalling pandemic, it is the commitment of this Conservative Government, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Education Secretary to education standards and to the success of our schools that has meant that we have taken every step possible to protect the education and life chances of young people.

Our commitment to education has been at the core of the Government’s decision making, only closing schools when absolutely necessary and reopening them before any other sector of society and the economy, and ensuring that the most vulnerable children and the children of critical workers have been able to attend school throughout the pandemic. What a debt of gratitude we all owe to the thousands of teachers and support staff who have kept our schools open, even during the darkest days of this pandemic.

In 2019, we secured the biggest school funding settlement in over a decade—a three-year settlement adding £14.4 billion in total to school funding—and we reconfirmed the 2021-22 school funding settlement, even as the Treasury faced enormous bills as we fought the pandemic, while protecting people’s incomes and jobs.

[Kate Green]

Surely the Minister accepts that the figures he suggests for school funding ignore and overlook the fact that we have seen a real-terms funding cut for schools of 9% over the last 10 years.

[Nick Gibb]

That is not what the Institute for Fiscal Studies says is the record of our spending on schools once we reach the end of the three-year financial settlement for schools.

When schools were closed to most pupils in March last year, we continued to provide support to pupils eligible for free school meals, even though they were at home, and we extended it to the Easter holiday, to the Whitsun half-term and, with inspiration from Marcus Rashford, to the long summer break. Altogether, over £450 million has been spent through the food voucher scheme. We invested more than £400 million to provide laptops, tablets and internet access, with over 1.3 million computers built to order, imported, configured and delivered to schools, so that every child, regardless of means, could continue to study and be taught while locked down at home. Again, what a debt of gratitude we owe to our teachers, who have developed lessons and learned how to teach remotely and to engage their pupils while confronting their own challenges in working from home.

We supported the inception of the Oak National Academy, helping schools to provide high-quality online lessons. Thanks to the hard work and brilliance of scores of highly talented teachers, that has led to over 94 million views and downloads of those lessons, and Oak will continue to have a critical part to play in helping schools and helping pupils to catch up.

We put in place a system of controls in schools to ensure that as they reopened after the summer, they would be as safe as possible from the spread of the virus. We also provided £139 million to help schools cope with the exceptional costs that they faced during the first lockdown. Again, I thank teachers and support staff for all their hard work last summer to adapt their schools and introduce the new safety measures.

In June 2020, while we were still in lockdown, the Prime Minister announced the first £1 billion commitment to ensuring that pupils were able to catch up: £650 million of catch-up premium and £350 million for a teaching programme—a new initiative to provide private one-to- one or small-group tuition for the children most in need. We created a market. We worked with the Education Endowment Foundation to identify and evaluate the best tutoring companies—33 in all—and asked them to expand their number of tutors. So far, more than 230,000 pupils have been enrolled, and our announcement last week extends that further still to 6 million courses. This is an evidence-based approach that research suggests that could help to boost progress by up to three to five months for every pupil who takes one of those 6 million courses. Combined with our provision through the 16 to 19 tuition fund, it will amount to 100 million hours of tutoring over the next three years.