English for Speakers of Other Languages

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does she agree that acquiring English language skills is important both for women’s access to the labour market, and because women mediate so many of the social services for families such as medical appointments, dealing with schools and so on?

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I will come on to those matters later in my contribution.

One reason I requested this debate is because a couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of meeting a group of ESOL students at the Granville Park education centre in my constituency. About 25 women sat in a classroom in Lewisham and asked me whether their individual circumstances mean that they will have to pay for their courses this September. They wanted to know why the Government are making changes to the funding of ESOL courses, how much money will be saved, and why the Government are taking away the one thing that offers them a lifeline out of poverty and the chance of a better life. They wanted to know whether the Government are pushing through the changes simply because they think that they can get away with it. The people affected by the changes, such as those women, are some of the least likely to be able to mount a campaign against them. Suffice it to say, I struggled to answer their questions.

The ESOL students I met in Lewisham come from all over the world. Some are eastern European, some African, some Asian and some from the middle east. Some have come to this country recently, and others have been here for many years. Most are not in receipt of active benefits and do not receive jobseeker’s allowance or employment support allowance. Many of those people have husbands in relatively low paid jobs, and many are in receipt of tax credits. Most have children in local schools and told me that they want to improve their English in order to get a job. Without exception, all of them told me that they want to speak better English so as to get on in life and be able to speak to their doctor, their neighbours and their children’s school teacher.

[Heidi Alexander]

That has certainly been my experience in Lewisham, and research by the Association of Colleges shows that a significant number of people who study ESOL courses are in receipt of inactive benefits.

I was talking about the sorts of people whom we find in English language classes across the country. Some people in the UK may ask how it is that those who cannot speak English are living in the United Kingdom. I have some sympathy with such a sentiment, although I wonder how many Brits living abroad make little effort to learn the local language. More seriously, the circumstances that led to some people—refugees in particular—coming to this country in the first place did not mean that they could say, “Hang on a minute, let me brush up on my English language skills.” Like it or not, there are people in this country, many of whom are British citizens, who have poor language skills.

When the Prime Minister tells us how vital it is that all migrants speak the language of their new home, I agree with him. When he says that practical things can make a big difference to community cohesion, I agree with him again. When he says that the presence in neighbourhoods of significant numbers of people who cannot speak the same language as those already living in the area can cause discomfort and disjointedness, I agree with him for a third time. Why on earth, therefore, are the Prime Minster’s colleagues, including the Minister present today, making it harder for people to learn English? It is completely nonsensical. Many other countries make language training compulsory for new arrivals, but we are in the unique position of running the risk of making it harder to learn English.

The situation that I described of the ESOL class in Lewisham is replicated in towns and cities up and down the country. A recent survey carried out by the Association of Colleges found that at least 90,000 ESOL students are on inactive benefits—that is 90,000 people who currently have access to free language tuition but will not if they start their course in September. According to the survey, 74% of those people are women. The AOC’s survey also found that over half of ESOL students receive inactive benefits—income support, working tax credits or housing benefit—but that only 14% receive the so-called active benefits of jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance. Did the Minister realise that when he published his skills strategy last November, and did he realise that roughly two thirds of ESOL students on inactive benefits are women? I know that he has promised an equality impact assessment of the changes to ESOL funding, as distinct from the broader assessment carried out by the skills for sustainable growth strategy, but where is it? Will he update us on when that assessment will be published?

One of the most perverse things that strikes me about the changes to the way that ESOL is funded is that we could end up in a situation where money has been allocated to colleges and other providers for courses such as ESOL, but they will not be able to use it. There is a serious risk that Government funding will just sit in bank accounts during the coming academic year because the students who should be on those courses simply will not be able to pay their half of the course fees.

The Government seem to have acknowledged that that could be a problem in the most recent guidance note published by the Skills Funding Agency. Paragraph 53 of guidance note 7 states:

“The Agency recognises that new rules on learner eligibility and fee remission mean that many colleges and training organisations will have to make significant shifts in their provision in order to earn the allocation they have received for 2011/12. Given the scale of the challenge, the Agency will consider some transitional flexibility, to support colleges and training organisations making that change.”

Paragraph 54 states:

“At the end of the year, if the Agency is satisfied that a transition plan has been successfully implemented during 2011/12, the Agency will agree a manual adjustment to the final claim, to reduce the amount of funding that would otherwise be subject to clawback.”

Will the Minister explain whether that means that colleges that cannot spend their adult education budget on ESOL courses next year because the students simply will not be coming through their doors can keep the money that they would otherwise have spent?

[Kate Green]

Does my hon. Friend share the concern expressed to me by Trafford college that some colleges may be forced to close classes, so even for those people who can fund themselves to attend college classes, those classes may cease to exist?

[Heidi Alexander]

I agree that college governors throughout the country are making decisions at this time about how they will fund courses next year and whether to keep staff on or put them on notice of redundancy, so there is a real danger that the ability to provide the courses will simply dry up.

I spoke about the possibility of funds just sitting in bank accounts this year, unable to be used, as the students will not be coming through the door because they would not be able to pay their half of the course fees. I ask myself and the Minister whether that is a good use of public funds in such straitened economic times or whether it is an admission that the Department had not really understood the significance of the changes that it included when it published its strategy document last November. What happens in a year’s time, when money has not been spent and budgets are being set for the subsequent year? Does the Minister recognise that reduced spend by colleges and training providers will be a reflection not of demand for English language courses, but of students’ inability to pay?

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

I apologise, Mr Gale, because I will not be able to stay for the whole debate; I have to attend the Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee at 10.30 am.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing this important debate. I am grateful to the Minister for engaging in correspondence with me on the problem as it affects my central Manchester constituency. My constituency also contains a diverse and successful multicultural community, so I strongly support everything said this morning about the impact on individuals and families and on the implications for strengthening communities and community cohesion.

I wish to raise a couple of specific points, as time is so short. First, will the Minister amplify what he said in his letter of 13 April about the way in which colleges are to be encouraged to identify and draw in people from vulnerable backgrounds and communities? What processes will be put in place to make that happen? What guidance will be made available to colleges to support them in making those decisions? What auditing or monitoring will be put in place subsequently to ensure that it is indeed the most vulnerable learners who have access to those courses?

Secondly, ESOL funding is to continue for people making steps back into employment through jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance. Whether those people are routed through Jobcentre Plus or Work programme providers, how will the Minister ensure that there is sufficient funding for colleges to sustain that provision and enable access to those courses? As I have said, it is a big concern for Trafford college in my constituency that classes may have to close. ESOL funding has always been patchy and stop-go, and it is difficult to rely on it. What assurances can the Minister give that there will be certainty of funding, even for those who now or under a future regime will remain entitled?

Thirdly, what attention is being to given to ensuring that ESOL provision is sufficiently resourced to meet the needs of people not only to learn English but to learn it in a way that allows them to apply it through their roles in the community and on their journeys towards employment? That applies whether or not they are on active benefits. Many women in my community in Trafford are not on active benefits, but it is none the less likely that at some point they will want to move into paid employment. They are certainly actively engaged in their communities.

The best way to reach those women is in the settings where they already go, and for English language teaching to be set in the context of the activities that they already undertake in the community—in Sure Start centres, in caring for their children, in medical centres and talking to their doctors, in improving their children’s health and well-being and in the context of the kind of jobs that they might be interested in doing in future, such as caring, catering or clerical roles. I would be grateful if the Minister were to say something about making ESOL courses useful and relevant to people’s life courses, whether in or out of work, and about resourcing and supporting them.

I am sorry that I cannot be here to hear the Minister’s response, but I undertake to read his comments in the Official Report, particularly as I am meeting the principal of my further education college in Trafford later this week to discuss this important matter.

Post-16 Education Funding

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I understand from my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning that we are doing just that with the National Apprenticeship Service.

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

Has the Secretary of State made any assessment of the possible impact on the viability of colleges and college courses of student numbers falling significantly when EMA’s replacement is no longer available to many thousands of young people who otherwise might have been eligible?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady has been a passionate campaigner against child poverty, but on this occasion I fear that her powers of logic are not doing her justice. The truth is that we know from all the research that was undertaken that of those eligible for EMA—45% of the total cohort—only 10% said that they would not have participated without that sum, which works out at about 4.5% overall. We will ensure that many more students than 4.5% of the total receive the support they need so that no student should be prevented from participating as a result of these changes. In fact, more of the very poorest students should be supported to participate. If there are any problems in the hon. Lady’s constituency in the operation of the scheme, I would be very happy to work with her to ensure that every student who needs support receives it.

Independent Debt Advice

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Yvonne Fovargue]

Indeed, over the past year, the number of debt clients seen by the CAB has risen by 23%, and a significant increase is expected in the next few years as well, so the loss of skilled advisers in local bureaux will have a catastrophic effect. It is essential that local links are retained. The trust that has been built up between local agencies, such as that between the bureau and the local authority council tax collection department, will be lost, to the detriment of local people who are struggling to pay. St Helen’s citizens advice bureau had regular meetings with the head of finance and the bailiffs to discuss tactics and to raise issues from clients’ experiences. It developed a protocol to assist residents, particularly those entering employment who found that all their creditors immediately descended on them, causing quite a number to leave work, feeling that they were better off on benefits, despite their increased income, because their debts had come back to haunt them.

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

Does my hon. Friend not agree that debt problems often come with clusters of other problems, including some related to employment and welfare benefits, as she suggested? Is it not therefore regrettable that neither legal aid funding, which we have previously been able to look to, nor—now—funding for debt advice will be available to support people with a multiplicity of difficulties?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I completely agree. The idea that there were clusters of problems was identified at least 10 years ago. The legal aid cluster of social welfare law was developed so that the person could be addressed as a whole and not just seen as a set of individual problems.

A national telephone advice system could not help with our current problem of debt. Local knowledge, particularly about bailiffs, is vital. That was evidenced on Saturday in an article in The Times, which highlighted the different practices of bailiffs employed by neighbouring local authorities. The cuts cannot, however, be taken in isolation, as my hon. Friend pointed out. The consultation paper on legal aid proposes to remove debt from scope for all cases except those with an

“immediate risk of losing their home”.

That flies in the face of all the research demonstrating that early and timely intervention is crucial and actually saves the public purse money. For every £1 of expenditure on debt advice, the state potentially saves £2.98. Indeed the figure could be higher, particularly for the NHS.

Last Thursday in the Chamber, I mentioned a project that had been funded by my local primary care trust, which I managed until last May. It measured stress levels on a recognised NHS scale before and after the debt advice process. In the first nine months of the project, the PCT estimated that three suicides had been prevented. The project was a finalist for a national NHS innovation award due to its low cost and good outcomes for clients and the NHS.

Local authorities are also cutting the amount of money available for advice. The CAB in England and Wales faces an expected cut of 10% in 2011-12. If that is factored in with cuts to the financial inclusion fund and the proposed changes in legal aid from 2012, local bureaux can expect, on average, a 45% cut in funding.

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[Lorely Burt]

Despite the heckling from a sedentary position, I will continue.

In 2009-10, citizens advice bureaux experienced a 23% rise in demand for their services. Of the queries that they dealt with, 150,000 were about quite complex debt problems, as outlined by the hon. Member for Makerfield. It is estimated that the loss of the financial inclusion fund reduces the debt advice capacity of citizens advice bureaux by 40% to 50%. So I am looking forward to hearing from the Minister today about what steps are being taken, particularly in relation to the national money advice service and how that service will help people and make up the shortfall.

[Kate Green]

Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?

[Lorely Burt]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not give way.

So how will the citizens advice bureaux replace that loss of support, because as I said we have faced such losses before? In relation to Birmingham, I am hopeful that the Minister will have some good news.

I also wanted to pick up on what the hon. Member for Makerfield said about debt management companies. I am absolutely delighted—as I am sure she is—that the licences of a number of debt management companies were withdrawn by the OFT. I think that 42 companies in all had their licences withdrawn. Those companies can lead to a spiral of debt. Some debt management companies operate free of charge to the recipient. They do that because they are able to be paid by the creditors. It is much better if those who stand to gain pay, rather than those who stand to lose.

The spiral of debt that comes with companies that charge up front is clear. Two months’ repayments are made up front, the company promises to get creditors off people’s backs, but often that does not happen and six months later the company says, “We’re very sorry, but we can’t do anything for you now. We think you should file for bankruptcy.” They then charge for bankruptcy, and the spiral continues.

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[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I apologise, Mrs Riordan, that I will have to leave before the debate’s conclusion in order to attend a Public Bill Committee. I am pleased to follow my neighbour, the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), and I welcome the concerns expressed by Members on both sides of the Chamber. Our analyses may differ, but that does not alter the fact that we share a common concern. The reason why we are taking part in this debate and why it is so well attended is to get answers from the Minister to the points so ably made by my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), whom I congratulate on securing this timely and important debate.

We are in a time of falling growth, rising unemployment and rising prices fuelled by the VAT increase. That may well mean that, notwithstanding the past, more families and people are more likely to get into financial difficulties in the future. They are, therefore, in danger of becoming prey to organisations that take advantage of the financially vulnerable, putting desperate people into a state of greater desperation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) has done much already in this Parliament to raise awareness of the need to control the actions of loan sharks. We also need to ensure that accessible, independent debt advice remains available for people so that they can square up their affairs and remain healthy and effective in society. Statistics nationally show that demand for debt advice is already on the increase. Last year, Citizens Advice assisted 580,000 people with £2.4 million-worth of debt problems, which is an increase of 23% on the previous year. In addition, 1.4 million people—one in every 33 UK adults—received advice from charities such as National Debtline.

The financial inclusion fund was deliberately located in areas such as Scunthorpe to meet the needs of communities that had difficulty accessing debt advice. The vision was to create a step change in the availability of face-to-face debt advice services, and Members on both sides of the Chamber who have spoken so far have insisted upon the importance of those services in addressing the issues. Every year, the FIF debt advice services have directly helped more than 100,000 people nationally to resolve their debt problems. Audits and evaluations show that the services have been effective and well targeted at people who need such advice.

The situation in relation to the provision of independent debt advice in my Scunthorpe county constituency is particularly concerning, and I fear that it is typical of many other parts of the country. Some 200 people a year are currently being supported by FIF debt advice, and many of them have problems or communication needs that require face-to-face support for it to be effective.

An additional problem in the Scunthorpe area is that there is currently no legal service contract for debt advice, which exacerbates the problem for all advice agencies. The previous contract allowed for 400 new matter starts, or cases, per annum. The local firm of solicitors who provide this service tell me that all their clients were referred to them from other agencies, such as the CAB and North Lincolnshire Homes, which do not have the capacity to provide that advice themselves. To its credit, that solicitor’s practice is providing advice on a pro bono basis, but that is clearly not sustainable.

[Kate Green]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a significant concern about solicitors providing debt and other forms of advice as part of a package is that the legal aid changes will narrow access to advice, so that it is given only when a family home is at risk? As we know, creditors like to negotiate the whole package of debt together, including mortgage debt and other personal debt. However, that will no longer be possible because we have no single funding stream through which all debt advice can be provided.

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is completely right. Early intervention in providing debt advice saves money, saves homes and saves lives. There is a real danger that the legal aid changes will exacerbate an already difficult problem. I hope that a new contract will be agreed in the Scunthorpe area, but when the contracts expire in 2014, no further debt advice of that sort will be provided locally.

Disadvantaged Children

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I join right hon. and hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this important and welcome debate. I also join colleagues in welcoming the reports of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), which was published yesterday. I could not agree more with them, nor with hon. Members’ remarks this afternoon, on the crucial importance of the early years. It is good to see this subject receiving so much attention, not only in those reports, but in other reports that have been published in recent weeks. This week, the charity Family Action published “Born Broke”, and just before Christmas, we had the important UNICEF report “The children left behind”.

I warmly welcome and strongly endorse many of the suggestions in the reports of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North. It is absolutely right that we need to be proactive in addressing the needs of disadvantaged children, and that we should intervene early. It is absolutely right that what happens in the home affects what happens at school. It is right that we should secure access to quality services and programmes for children and families, and I welcome what my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead has said about the importance of putting children’s centres at the heart of the support that we offer disadvantaged children and their families. I welcome the proposal for local child poverty commissions. It is right and sensible that we track a range of outcome indicators so that we can ensure that children improve their life chances across the spectrum of outcomes.

The early years are crucial, but investing in them will not be enough on its own. We need to sustain the investment right through the child’s life, otherwise the good effects of the additional investment in the early years will fade. I am concerned that we must keep our attention on addressing income poverty and inequality. There is so much evidence that adequate family incomes are crucial to children’s outcomes. The UNICEF report that I mentioned highlights that the UK suffers from relatively poor outcomes across a range of indicators compared with other countries. That relates to our position at the lower end of the inequality spectrum. Our children are raised in a much more unequal country than those with more successful child outcomes.

Money is important, as right hon. and hon. Members have said, and it is actually quite easy to understand why—it is about what money can buy. Parents who cannot afford the rent on decent housing will find it difficult to provide a quiet space for children to do homework. It may also mean that they are forced into overcrowded and unsuitable accommodation, where children cannot grow up safe and healthy. The lack of an adequate income to afford a decent diet will harm children’s health and well-being and limit their ability to learn. Poorer families lack the means to ensure that their children can participate fully in their schooling and education. They may not be able to participate in extra-curricular activities or secure the equipment, books and computers that would help to improve their learning.

Parents who are forced to take a series of inadequately paid and unstable short-term jobs will find it difficult to secure adequate income from employment. If we are interested in improving children’s outcomes, we have to improve family income, too. Money is not separate from what enables children to do well; it is integral to their success. A continuing policy of income redistribution must therefore be at the heart of our strategy for improving children’s outcomes.

I wish to say a little about the provision of services for parents and children who face particular disadvantages and have a high level of need. As Family Action has stated in the report to which I referred earlier, the best solution for most children is to keep them with their families and support those families to do their best in bringing up their kids. Poor parenting and poverty are not necessarily linked. In the vast majority of cases, poor parents are as desperate as any others to do the very best for their children and to provide them with a loving family background and a stable home life.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady, and I should like to share an experience with her. When I was about to be a father for the first time, I went to parental classes on childbirth and on how I could help my wife in the first few weeks afterwards, and things that I could do physically to help. Perhaps it was a missed opportunity that there was no explanation for new fathers and mothers of what they could do to bring up their child well and do the most positive things possible for them. The classes were about the health and well-being of the child in the early weeks and months, not about how to be a good parent. Perhaps we should introduce lessons involving such matters for new fathers and mothers.

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[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that suggestion, which covers a number of important points. The first is the importance of fathers in raising children and improving child outcomes, and of the support that we can give families, whatever their structure, to ensure that both parents remain engaged in their children’s lives.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman hints at the important point that universal provision for all people who become parents—not just the poorest—provides us with a crucial opportunity to improve the way in which they are equipped and given the confidence to raise happy, successful kids. He is right also to say that parenting and the ability to parent well go much further than simply providing materially for children and providing them with good physical health and circumstances. They are also about emotional, educational and social support, all of which should sit within programmes of support for new parents. I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments.

As I said, we should do everything we can to enable parents to bring up their children successfully in the context of family life. It is therefore particularly important that we give extra attention to services such as Family Action’s Building Bridges service, which works with parents in the home to enable them to keep their kids with them and ensures that they are properly supported to do what they want to do—raise successful children. I am wary of an over-emphasis on care settings and taking children out of the family home, which we should avoid wherever possible. The worst outcomes are for our looked-after children, and we should do everything we can to minimise the number of children who end up in state care.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

We all take on board the hon. Lady’s comments, given her long record in this area. I am delighted to hear her say that she sees an equal role for fathers and mothers in bringing up children. Does she agree with a presumption of equality of access between fathers and mothers in the event of separation, rather than the current presumption, which too often means fathers dropping out of children’s lives altogether?

[Kate Green]

The presumption at the moment is that the child’s best interests must be paramount, which I continue to support. Of course, in the majority of cases, we would want to secure contact with both parents after separation. However, the starting point should not be the interests and wishes of the parent; the best interests of the child must remain paramount. I hope that there will be no deviating from that valuable and valid principle in the Children Act 1989.

Let me conclude by addressing one or two of the suggestions made in the report of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North. I am disappointed that he is not here this afternoon to hear the many compliments that his work certainly deserves. I was pleased that he wrote of the need to intervene early and to sustain that intervention and support. His suggestions for private funding to support our children and the families who raise them are interesting and imaginative, but I hope they will not be used to let the Government off the hook. At this time, when so many of the voluntary agencies that have done so much to support our most vulnerable families are struggling to maintain their finances and when they are concerned about their financial future—they face uncertainty perhaps as soon as the beginning as the next financial year—it is important that we underwrite with financial support what is needed to raise happy, successful and healthy children. That is the responsibility of all of us: the country, the state and the Government cannot abdicate it.

[Jessica Lee]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

No—I am just concluding, although I am always willing to hear the interesting and useful suggestions of my co-vice chair of the all-party group on children.

I greatly welcome this debate and the reports that have informed us in recent weeks, and the many interesting, important and imaginative ideas that we have heard. Raising our children cannot and should not be done on the cheap. They are our most important priority. They are our future. Whatever the pressures on the public finances, our children must be the priority. They deserve the best.

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[Fiona Mactaggart]

In my view, the red top newspapers have created that approach much too much. If men had more experience of the lives of children, they would be robust and resilient to those unfounded accusations.

Most speakers in this debate have called for effective early intervention to tackle such inequality. I would strongly urge us to draw on good evidence of what works. For example, in my constituency a family nurse partnership working with teenage mothers has gathered powerful evidence of how it has helped young women not only to bring up their children but to take up education opportunities and build successful and happy lives. We know from research by the HighScope Perry project in America that a structured, play-based early curriculum can make a huge difference to children. I am sad that cuts in child care tax credits will mean that fewer parents will be able to afford access to high-quality provision for their children, despite welcome additional early-years provision for some of the poorest two-year-olds.

Unfortunately, we tend to grab on to things in politics that we think will be popular where there is not necessarily the evidence to sustain them. Our Government were occasionally guilty of that, and the current Government’s proposed marriage premium is also an example. It will skew income distribution to those who are more prosperous and from those who are less prosperous. However, one of the things that we need in this debate is really good evidence. The last time we had a Tory-led Government, they stopped the cohort studies, which tracked the progress of children and young people every seven years, and we now have two cohorts missing. I would strongly urge those on the Treasury Bench to do what they can in this era of cuts to ensure that that mistake is not repeated. Unless we have good quality evidence about what works, we will carry on making mistakes.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the important issue of tracking and research. I, too, would ask those on the Treasury Bench to respond to that point, because it is important that we sustain such tracking. It is not good enough to look too early at how a particular cohort of children is performing. The advantage of cohort studies is that we can track people all through their lives.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, although I will not take any more, because they are now beginning to eat into my time. We need good quality evidence. If we do not have it, the odds are that we will make more mistakes. There will be debates in Government about such matters, and although investing in a cohort study is not very sexy, I would strongly urge those Ministers in the Chamber to do what they can to ensure that such evidence is collected.

I want to be brief and talk about the things that need to happen. We know that it is not just teachers who make a difference to children—many Members have spoken about the contribution that parents make—because their peers make a difference too. That is one of the reasons why poor children in prosperous areas overachieve compared with poor children in poorer areas by a factor of 18%. That is why I have some suspicions about the much-trumpeted pupil premium, which does not take into account the fact that poor children in prosperous areas already do much better than those in poorer areas. I would also strongly echo the support that others have given to parenting education. We introduced quite a lot of parenting education, but, unfortunately, the people in my constituency who got most of it were, to be brutal, those who were in trouble with the law or whose children were in trouble with the law. Those people found parenting education quite transformative, as did the parents whose children went to a Catholic infant school in my constituency that offered it. I strongly believe that parenting education can make a huge difference.

Other Members have referred to the problems of children in care. I cannot compete with Members who talked about the poverty of their childhood—mine was very prosperous—but I remember well how shocked I was at how few things, such as books, CDs and clothes, children in care possessed.

I want to mention one more way in which the Government could make a real difference to disadvantaged children. Most of my educational advantages and most of the things I learned were the result of being able to read. I got into books and I discovered whole new worlds that would otherwise have been completely beyond me. When I went to university to do English, I remember asking one of my fellow students what she had read as a child. I was shocked when she said that she had read The Beano, and that was it—yet she had managed to get to university.

Children can transform their lives through books. One of the most depressing pieces of news that I heard recently was the decision to axe the Booktrust. It has a scheme that gives books to babies and gives every mum a book bag. My constituency is full of mothers who do not read English, and for them those books are transformative. They mean that their children can go into school knowing at which end of a book to begin reading. Members of Muslim families might be readers, but their books are often in Arabic, and start at the back. I urge Ministers to do what they can to revive the Booktrust scheme.

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[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) made an observation about the number of Members here to debate this issue compared with the number who debated the horse racing levy. The other observation that I would make is that so many Members of the new intake are here on a Thursday afternoon to debate this subject. That is so especially because most of us will have stated at some point in our political campaigns that making life better for other people was our motivation for getting into politics. We have my hon. Friends the Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for Salisbury (John Glen) to thank for getting this debate together. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire has been focused on this subject for a very long time. Before he came to this place he was involved with the Bow Group, where he examined the causes of debt, deprivation and despair. In this House, he has set up the all-party group on credit unions. So helping the disadvantaged is something that he is committed to, and I am glad that he has given us all the opportunity to speak in this debate.

What is interesting about this debate is the amount of consensus—something that we do not often get in the Chamber—as well as the fact that we are not attacking each other’s motives. We do not always get that in the Chamber. The consensus is that the early years to which the right hon. Member for Birkenhead referred in his excellent report as the “foundation years” are critical to one’s life chances. That is when boundaries are set and when cognitive functions are developed.

We need only consider the difference that the little things, such as reading to a child, can make. If I look back at my own life, it was traumatic in the early years when my parents split up when I was four or five years old. I remember my mother spending a lot of time reading to me in her very strong way. I could not get away from having an hour or two hours of reading with her every evening and, at the time, I hated every moment of it. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire said, however, if a child cannot read at school, nothing else works. It was important, and I can understand it now. Whenever I complained, she used to throw the scriptures back in my face: train a child in the way they should go and when they grow they will not depart from it. Now, at the age of 34, I can in some way understand what she was trying to achieve.

That is based on my experience and we all have our own individual experiences—some good, some bad, and some to which we are indifferent. The interesting thing about what the right hon. Member for Birkenhead has done is that he has grounded some people’s gut feeling in analytical work. I have commented on what he said about the foundation years, but he has also come up with a set of life chances indicators, all of which are important. What excited me most as I read his report was the fact that it changed the terms of the debate—moving from considering static indicators, such as poverty, to considering this as a life chances issue. The hard data and the research that back them up mean that we can now move on and come up with some decent policies. By move on, I mean that we can move away from the predominant approach of the previous Labour Government, which was the redistributive approach of all-round tax credits, to the approach that some of us on the Government Benches might have had, which is that parenting and the family are outside the responsibility of the state. In fact, if someone is responsible, they know what it means to be a parent, so what business does the state have to comment on it?

We all agree that parenting is at the core of this matter. It is the single biggest responsibility that we can take on as human beings but, interestingly enough, it is the one that nobody trains for. We train if we want to play the piano, or to learn how to speak in public. One can train for almost everything except being a parent. When training does exist, the situation has often irrevocably broken down. As the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said, state intervention happens when people have had problems with the law, by which time it is probably too late. I find it interesting that some of the comments that we have come up with suggest having an intervention earlier on in the process, before things go wrong. Why is that important? It is hard to be a parent. The knowledge that most people have comes from grandparents or their own experience, and we only have to look at the popularity of the site Mumsnet to know that it is all about shared knowledge. Those who live in an area where there is a lot of good shared knowledge can learn from it, but if they live in a part of the country without that knowledge, they are left to their own devices. People make mistakes, sometimes with the best of intentions.

Let me turn to the point I want to focus on, as I have to rush through this. Let us not be fatalistic. Some parents will struggle and some parents will do a good job, but peer pressure might mean that their children will go off the rails. Sometimes the school is where things go right or wrong, and sometimes it is the local environment. In focusing on the early years, we should not automatically consign disadvantaged or unconventional families to an at-risk group. Let us not say that people have only one life chance, as so many things happen in the course of someone’s life that can make a difference to their life chances. There is overwhelming evidence about the early years that we need to focus on, but let us not ignore the other stages in their life. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said that we should continue to invest throughout someone’s life, but that is probably where I slightly disagree with her. It is interesting to move away from seeing this issue as purely one of resources and from thinking that the problem will be addressed by investing more and more. Deep character development, which is how I would sum all this up, does not depend on wealth. One piece of information that I came across in the report of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is that Chinese families—

[Kate Green]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Gyimah]

I need to race on—I am terribly sorry. In Chinese families there is not the same correlation between poverty and the outcomes we see in other types of family. While we focus on the early years, I would like us to reintroduce the concept of character into public discourse and to discuss how to bring up and raise children to improve their life chances. When I talk about character, I mean self-discipline and a child saying, “I am not going to watch TV now; I need to do my homework.” I mean a child showing respect to others and knowing that when they go to school and someone gets on their nerves, they should not just thump that person, but should report them to the teacher. Some academics call these considerations pro-social norms. This is something that happens at home and we should not be afraid to talk about character in our public discourse. Character is a function not of wealth but of values and we should be happy to speak about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mark Pawsey]

I will continue if I may.

We have heard about the importance of the father’s role in minimising the risk of poor outcomes. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) reminded us about the absence of a male role model in the lives of many disadvantaged children. I want to offer support for the role of grandparents in the family unit, which often seems to be an all-or-nothing arrangement in that they are either ever-present or completely absent. The break-up of the family unit means that some grandparents no longer have a relationship with their own children and, as a consequence, have no relationship with their grandchildren. When neither the parents nor the grandparents have the time or skill to support the child, there is, of course, a role for the state to step in.

My experience as a father echoes that of other fathers here, which is that absolutely nothing prepares one for the burdens of parenthood and that one has no idea of the implications for one’s own life. For young mothers and fathers, who are often ill-prepared for parenthood, Sure Start centres have helped to provide the support they need. Having visited Sure Start in my constituency, I recognise its value and believe those important resources and facilities should be targeted in the areas of greatest need. I fully support the proposals to open Sure Start centres to the market so that private companies may bid to run them.

It is important to mention maternity and paternity provisions, because only this week the Deputy Prime Minister announced proposals to allow couples to share maternity leave. I am pleased that the rules will allow either parent to care for their child, but as a former business owner I must sound a note of caution. It is necessary to highlight the difficulties that exist between reconciling what is good from a child development perspective with the needs of people running small businesses in particular. The director general of the British Chambers of Commerce has asked valid questions about how employers are expected to plan and arrange cover with this increasingly flexible system.

The report by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) highlights that it is crucial to recognise that the educational cycle begins at birth. A child’s development does not start from the day they enter primary school, and we should start counting development from birth. In the education system, children do not reach year 1 until they are five years old, and we have already heard from other hon. Members that five is often too late for children who are risk. I am pleased that the report of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) also draws attention to this issue.

Only 20% of young people in the poorest households gain five or more A* to C grades at GCSE, compared with 75% of those from the richest families, so the pupil premium is crucial. If we want children from poorer families to get to university, we must ensure that the additional targeted resources will give them a head start. Providing money for each pupil from a deprived background means that head teachers will have more money to spend on those children.

The right hon. Gentleman’s report also refers to the importance of good teaching between the ages 14 to 16 in reducing the likelihood of children trying cannabis, playing truant or becoming a frequent smoker or drinker. In this context, I want to mention the benefits of selective education. At one time, that was seen as the best way of providing bright children from less well-off backgrounds with the best opportunities in life. My constituency of Rugby has an excellent system, and as both a product of that system and a parent of children who have gone through that system, I know many people who have benefited immensely from the excellent teaching and extra-curricular activities on offer at such schools.

I am pleased with the measures that the Government have already introduced, such as the refocusing of Sure Start and the pupil premium. I hope that the Government’s longer-term strategy to be announced in March will take into account not only the conclusions of the reports of the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen, but the valuable contributions to this debate.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing the debate and I applaud Members on both sides of the House for the good temper in which it has been held. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) who spoke just before me in a debate on life chances. He and I started 43 years ago in the same class. I sat three behind him, and I am delighted that his life chances have not been overly impacted by that experience.

We are talking today about social mobility, which, to me, is the hallmark of a civilised society. It is a subject that probably 650 Members on both sides of the House would agree really matters. It really matters that we get this right. I want to speak on one aspect of this, and it is about how we measure it and targets. Occasionally targets get a bad press and people say that we should not have so many, but in this area, targets are important. The problem is that we have confused three different things—poverty, inequality and life chances. Those three are quite different. They are heavily correlated, but they are not the same, and the danger is that if we apply a policy to the wrong one, or try to affect another, we will get the wrong outcomes.

My concern is that we have made the measurement of inequality a proxy for success in that area. We have discussed the intention of the last Prime Minister but one to eradicate child poverty by 2020, which is a noble ambition, but the principal definition used for that purpose—median income at 60%—is a measure of inequality, not poverty. The risk is that money is spent sub-optimally and that, even though we make transfer payments of £150 billion over a period, we will still be ranked 21st out of 21 countries in a UNICEF report.

[Kate Green]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Mowat]

I apologise for being the third Government Member not to give way, but we have been asked to rattle through.

One of the most important aspects of the report produced by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) is the indices for life chances. Targets matter, and if we could start to measure the correct things, it is possible that we could really start to make a difference in those outcomes.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) gave the example of the Chinese community and the fact that in schools, the poorest Chinese children outperform children from all other parts of society, except the richest Chinese children. That shows that something is happening that is not just about money. I have conceded that everything is correlated, but it is not just about money; it is about attitude. The words in the right hon. Gentleman’s report that I found the most useful in that context were those relating to positive parenting. “Positive parenting” is a strong phrase that describes the breeding of self-confidence and aspiration in some communities. I hope that the Government will test those indices and take them up if they find them valuable, because we need a proxy for social mobility that is not the same as some of those embedded in the Child Poverty Act 2010.

I will make a final point on a different subject. We can continue what we are doing on educational attainment, but we must also create jobs and ensure that the people leaving our universities are able to take up the opportunities that will exist in the world over the next few years. That relates increasingly to a knowledge of applied science, engineering and technology. I applaud what the coalition Government are doing on apprenticeships. One of the most significant policy failures of the past 20 years has been that we have succeeded in increasing the number of people who go to university by a factor of five, while at the same time fewer of them are studying applied science and engineering. That is at a time when the world is moving towards more advanced manufacturing and all that goes with it. I will finish by reiterating that social mobility is the hallmark of a civilized society. The coalition Government, who are supportive of that aim, should be ready to be judged by their success on that, or lack thereof, over the next few years. That is important to us all.

School Sports Funding

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

It certainly does. Such stories, much more than statistics, illustrate the success of what has been achieved.

I felt a raw injustice on this issue because I saw that such opportunities were not available in the 1980s, although they are the right of all young people. When I came into politics, I wanted to do something about it. As an adviser to the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Chris Smith, I encouraged him to set up a lottery programme under the New Opportunities Fund called “active sports co-ordinators”. It was the start of the school sports programme. A BBC report in 1999 said:

“The first wave of sports co-ordinators to boost competitive sports in schools will be in place within the next year”.

It is a total myth to say that they have not boosted competitive sport. They have succeeded in that regard.

The coalition says that only one in five pupils play inter-school competitive sport regularly—that is, nine times a year. I have two comments to make. First, that represents a big increase on the proportion many years ago. In itself, it is an impressive figure. However, it is only part of the story. Last year, 49% of children took part in inter-school competition, playing on at least one occasion. There was also a large increase in the number of pupils taking part in intra-school competition: it rose from 69% in the preceding year to 78%.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree with Rachel Redmond, partnership development manager of the North Trafford school sport partnership, that such partnerships have not only increased the level of activity in competitive sport, but improved quality through access to high-quality coaching and facilities?

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady will have to wait until we make the full announcements per school. Many of the anomalies to which she alludes are the sort of thing that will be dealt with by the pupil premium in any case, and by fairer funding for individual schools.

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

7. What steps he is taking to provide support for parents in preparing their children to start school.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

We are committed to supporting parents in making sure their children are ready for school. We are maintaining the network of Sure Start children’s centres; protecting funding for free nursery education and extending it to disadvantaged two-year-olds; and reviewing the early years foundation stage to look at how young children can be best supported throughout their early years while preparing them for formal schooling.

[Kate Green]

Save the Children has argued that every parent needs to be able to access family support programmes, which are shown to support children’s development and learning. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that a pipeline of evidenced family support programmes is available in order to improve children’s attainment?

[Sarah Teather]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. She will be aware that we appointed the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) to undertake a review of early intervention. He will publish a report relatively soon on best practice in that area, and it will include many of the issues that she has just mentioned. The best Sure Start children’s centres already use a significant number of evidence-based programmes, and the Secretary of State for Health has also announced an expansion of family nurse partnerships, which are extremely important in supporting young parents and in working with their children. However, we are very keen to encourage more Sure Start children’s centres to make better use of the programmes on offer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

Again, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work campaigning for his constituents and their post offices. I must say that Camelot’s proposal to provide commercial services through lottery terminals is still subject to the regulatory approval of the National Lottery Commission. If the commission consents to Camelot’s proposals, Post Office Ltd will carry out an assessment of the impact on sub-post offices and we will take that into account.

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

I welcome the Minister’s commitment to the continuation of the provision of postal services in a wide range of communities. Given the difficulty of maintaining counter and, indeed, banking services in our poorest communities, can he give us an assurance that, in ensuring that such services can be maintained in such communities, public safety and staff safety will be a paramount consideration in finding suitable outlets?

[Mr Davey]

The safety of staff and the public is always a major consideration as we go forward in modernising the network. I think the fact that the Government are committed to looking for new services and new ways of doing things, and to seeing whether we can increase the financial services that go through the network, will be widely welcomed. That will enable the network to be more financially viable and therefore to meet even better the concerns that the hon. Lady has voiced.

Free School Meals

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

Exactly. I shall come to that, and it is why I call for universal free school meals.

Last week, an Ofsted report found that although the quality of school meals had increased, the take-up of free school meals by those entitled to them remained low because of stigma, complexity and some families’ constant movement in and out of entitlement. I received free school meals from the day I started school until the day I left, so I can speak about the stigma from personal experience. Even today, a significant stigma is attached to receiving free school meals, and expanding access to all is the fairest way of eradicating that stigma.

One in five children who are eligible for free school meals do not receive them. In addition, a swathe of forgotten children is not entitled to them, although they definitely live in poverty. A healthy packed lunch might be too expensive for their parent or parents, who might be in a low paid, full-time job and rushing about doing their best to look after their children. Universal free school meals are undoubtedly the best way to address all those problems, but they would do more than that; they would ensure that all children had a healthy meal during the school day. Some parents may be able to shop at Waitrose or Marks and Spencer, but it does not follow that their child’s lunch box is healthy. A ready meal from Marks and Spencer may cost more than a ready meal from Asda or Tesco, but it is still a ready meal, and we should not assume that all children go home to healthy food just because they have an upmarket postcode.

That is why my colleagues and I have campaigned so strongly on the matter for the past four years. We have lobbied incessantly. We lobbied the Child Poverty Action Group to take up the cause, and I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) in the Chamber today and look forward to hearing her valuable contribution to the debate. Believe it or not, the issue was not always popular. There were objections even in my own party to rolling out free school meals regardless of household income. However, it remains the fairest way to ensure that all children below the poverty line, however that is measured, receive a healthy meal during the school day.

I chased Cabinet Ministers through the voting Lobby to try to convince them of our crusade to such an extent that they pre-empted me before I had even said a word by telling me that the matter was still being considered, and eventually to tell me that it was with my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), who was writing our manifesto. I need not say what happened next, as I am sure that hon. Members can imagine, but I became his shadow and was always ready to extol the virtues of universal free school meals.

The first big success for our campaign came at the Labour party conference in 2008 when my right hon. Friends the Members for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) announced the introduction of three pilots for free school meals, all to be local authority match funded. Two pilots were for universal free school meals; Durham and Newham bid for them and were lucky enough to secure them. My hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham and for West Ham (Lyn Brown) played a great part in that. The further pilot involved raising the threshold to the agreed poverty line to ensure that more children in poverty qualified for free school meals, and that went to Wolverhampton.

Those pilots have been under way for nearly a year. They have been hugely successful, especially those involving universal free school meals in Newham and Durham, where take-up is 75% and more than 80% respectively. The majority of primary school pupils in those boroughs therefore receive a hot, healthy, nutritious meal instead of the sugary, additive-laced snacks that some children are given in their packed lunches.

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

Has not the research also shown that extending entitlement universally leads to not only increases across the board—that is obvious—but increases among those who would have been entitled anyway, as demonstrated in the 2006 Hull experiment?

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend is right, and I will come on to the Hull experiment.

The quality of packed lunches is usually dependent on cost, but do not take my word for that, Mr Weir. Research by Professor Derek Colquhoun of the university of Hull showed that it is not always possible for families to access, let alone afford, fresh food for their children. The alternative of paying for school meals may cost almost £20 a week for a family with two children—money which those still living below the poverty line do not have.

I look forward to hearing more about the success of the Durham and Newham pilots from my hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham and for West Ham. Unfortunately, due to the recession, universal free school meals did not make it into our manifesto, but our party gave a commitment in the 2009 pre-Budget report to extend the universal free school meals pilots to at least one in every region and permanently to raise the access threshold everywhere else to £16,190 to enable a further 500,000 children to have a free, hot and healthy lunch every day. That approach would also lift a further 50,000 children out of poverty, which was welcome news as far as my colleagues and I were concerned. Such a measure would also be an important first step on the way to universal entitlement, and I welcome it as still affordable, even during a recession.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Hodgson]

That well-made point is another that I was about to come to. I am sure that hon. Members from all parties agree that the education and health of our children is of utmost importance. That more than justifies the admittedly considerable spending commitment that such a policy would entail. It is estimated that obesity costs the NHS £3.5 billion a year and the figure is set to rise, so this is a cost worth paying to save money in the long run.

Even at a time when the deficit needs to be cut, we cannot forget the social implications of the decisions that are made by the Government—by a coalition Government no less. They are a broad church that goes from left-leaning Liberal Democrats to right-leaning Thatcherite Conservatives through all colours in between. One would think that a coalition with the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable) at its heart would produce fiscally sound social policies and that the last thing that it would do would be to increase child poverty. Alas, I fear not. One only has to look north towards Hull to see that the Liberal Democrats have form on such matters.

In 2004, the Labour council in Hull introduced universal free school meals. It had to get a dispensation from the then Labour Government to do so as that took place prior to the passage the Education and Inspections Act 2006 which, by changing “shall” to “may” in a line of legislation, made it possible for universal free school meals to be introduced by any local authority anywhere in England.

That first pilot scheme was a huge success. Those successes were chronicled by a number of academic papers, the most notable of which is the work I mentioned earlier by Professor Derek Colquhoun from the university of Hull. If I started to go into detail about how positive that evaluation was, there would be no time for anyone else to speak in the debate. I will therefore not do so, but I strongly suggest to the Minister that he look it up—it is a very good read.

What happened next? Sadly for the children of Hull, Labour lost control of the council after three short years to the Liberal Democrats, who promptly and savagely, and without remorse, scrapped the free school meals initiative. Once again, there was a charge for access to the lovely hot and healthy school meals to which the city’s children had become accustomed. That was greeted with outrage from local parents, who had not realised that that was what the Liberal Democrats would do. Does not this all sound strangely familiar? Lo and behold, here we are again. What happens as soon as they are in government? The Liberal Democrats, aided and abetted by their Tory masters, are at it again. Time and again, they are literally taking food out of the mouths of society’s poorest children.

[Kate Green]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am just about to finish.

I notice that no Liberal Democrat Member is present in the Chamber to try to defend their part in this atrocity. I hope that the Liberal Democrats are proud of themselves and of the fact that such policies are what they seem to have come into politics for—they do it time and time again. I hope that their ministerial salaries and cars are worth it and that all the hard-working people up and down the country who voted Liberal Democrat are happy with the decisions that their elected representatives are taking on their behalf. In future, the mantra will not be, “Vote Lib Dem, get Tory”; it will be, “Vote Lib Dem, increase child poverty”. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanations.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is an absolute pleasure to speak in the debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing it. She and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) have been long-standing collaborators of mine on this subject. I was very pleased to work with them on it when I was the chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, and I am delighted that we will continue to work together on it in the House. I guess that I should declare that I remain a member of the CPAG, and I am a strong supporter of its work and what it stands for. I am pleased that, following my departure, the CPAG remains as committed as ever to the cause of free school meals, as part of its wider “2 skint 4 school” campaign.

I very much welcomed the announcements that the previous Labour Government made over a number of years to improve the quality of, and eligibility for, free school meals. One of the most important years in the development of policy was 2005, with the establishment of the School Food Trust, which heightened awareness of the importance of this issue on a number of policy fronts. We should pay tribute to the trust for also playing an important role in driving up nutritional standards, which is something that every Member will want to applaud.

Of course, the Labour Government’s policies were important in other ways. Investment in our school infrastructure enabled a number of schools significantly to improve catering facilities, which could increasingly be brought back in-house. I was recently delighted to have the opportunity to visit the wonderful new kitchen at Acre Hall primary school in my constituency. To my great delight, Theresa, the school cook, has offered me the chance to join her and cook lunch for the children. I am very much looking forward to doing that in the next few weeks, when I expect that I will learn a great deal about how to peel carrots in bulk.

Perhaps the Labour Government’s most important initiative was the extension of eligibility for free school meals. With my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West, I strongly welcomed the direction of policy travel that that represented. I am deeply concerned that the announcement that the Secretary of State for Education made the other day represents a reversal of that direction of policy travel, which is something that we must all be very anxious about.

I was particularly interested when the Secretary of State explained that the pilots would not be further extended because the evidence of a link between the provision of free school meals and educational attainment remained unproven. It is certainly important that educational attainment is one of the gains of extending the right to free school meals, and the evidence does in fact suggest that there are improvements in cognitive ability, concentration and learning behaviour. Early on in the Hull experiment—researchers confirmed this later—teachers reported a calmer learning environment, with children more engaged, including in the often difficult classroom period in the early afternoon. It is therefore wrong to suggest that the educational gains are unproven. Moreover, it is wrong to judge the provision of universal free school meals on educational attainment grounds alone, important though those of course are.

We must also be aware of the health gains, because standards of nutrition in school meals have risen significantly since 2005. Hon. Members should contrast that with the packed lunches that many low-income parents are still forced to provide to their children, only 1% of which meet the standard of today’s school meals.

We have also heard about the importance of the socialising and behavioural gains that we see in our schools when more children eat lunch together. Children learn to converse and to look out for one another, and they learn good courtesy and table manners. Importantly, children who are having lunch in school are not hanging around the chip shop at the end of the road—something that is particularly significant in secondary schools.

It is also important to consider school lunch in the context of the broader curriculum, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham said. There is the opportunity to link lunch to education about diet, nutrition and cooking. Many schools have used the extension of school meal programmes to bring more parents into schools, so that they and their children learn to enjoy cooking healthy meals together.

There are important sustainability gains in extending the reach of free school meals and in the opportunity that that creates for cooking locally, on-site, with less transport of ingredients. It also offers schools the opportunity to source from local producers, which boosts the local economy. The extension of free school meals is an important job-creation opportunity. Working in school kitchens is a particularly desirable form of employment for many parents, especially mothers. The flexibility of the work—the fact that it takes place in term time and obviously coincides with the times when the children are in school—makes it a good source of additional local jobs.

It is highly regrettable that those additional gains were not mentioned by the Secretary of State when he said that the gains on educational attainment grounds were unproven. Even if that had been true—in my view the evidence shows that it is not—it is highly regrettable that the much broader social and environmental gains were not considered, too. Most importantly, I guess, for many of the families whom I have talked to, are the economic and financial consequences for family budgets of extending eligibility for free school meals.

School meals represent good value, and many hon. Members present in the Chamber will believe that a hot lunch at £1.90 or £2 a head is good value; and that is right. Still, however, for many low-income working parents, who may perhaps be raising two or three children, that £1.90, £2 or £2.20 added up over the week can be unaffordable. Larger families are a group already at higher risk of child poverty. Undoubtedly, for some of those families, the cost of providing lunch for their children is a component of that greater risk. It is a matter of regret that we are not taking the opportunity to deal with that.

As my hon. Friends have said, one of the most significant concerns for us is the position of low-income working families. I very much regret the decision not to roll out the provision of free school meals to more children in such families. Even the pilots under the previous Government were, I confess, limited and did not go far enough in my view in relation to provision for secondary school kids. Almost no secondary school child in this country in a low-income working family has been able to get a free school meal. The recent announcement by the Secretary of State means that we have lost substantial potential gains to do with creating work incentives and ending child poverty: as has been mentioned, the measures would have lifted a further 50,000 children out of poverty; there would have been wider social and economic gains, too.

The opportunities and options for extension are quite numerous. Many MPs have long argued that, as a first step, free school meals should be extended to all families on working tax credit. That would make a significant difference. We could also consider families in receipt of housing benefit and council tax benefit. As the Minister knows, those are in-work benefits, too. We have significant reasons for supporting the Government’s own back-to-work and work incentivisation agenda, with extending the entitlement to free school meals.

I alluded to take-up in an intervention earlier. The wider the eligibility, the greater the take-up across the board, including among those children who would be entitled to free school meals even on the most limited eligibility criteria used some years ago. I think that I am right in saying that the rate nearly doubled in Hull among such children—those who would have been entitled anyway. That significant increase in take-up shows the absolute power of universal provision; some of us find that we are making that argument repeatedly in different contexts. We can understand why take-up increases when eligibility is widened; my hon. Friends have alluded to the reasons. There is less stigma: if their friends are having lunches, children will go along, too, and have lunch with their mates. Administrative simplicity is another factor. It is as true in this context as in any other that means-testing brings complexity and shuts out people who should be entitled. Of course, schools—hard-pressed to meet budgets—will be very pleased about anything that reduces administrative costs.

I want to explore the extension of free school meals into the wider educational environment, which is another thing mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham when she talked about extended schools. Many schools have in recent years extended their support to families by providing longer hours, with out-of-school breakfast clubs and after-school events. It is of great concern to me that pressures on funding resulting from the Budget and other cuts being announced will put those extended school activities at considerable risk.

The Minister has long been a strong proponent of the benefits of out-of-school and extended school activities. I remember hearing him say early on that schools in his constituency would want to take advantage of such moves and would be unwise not to. We will not necessarily lose extended school activities completely, but I am concerned that the poorest children may not be able to afford to participate: the children who could benefit most from those activities will be exactly those who will be shut out. We need some guarantees about funding for extended and out-of-school provision, and that must include providing for the children taking part to eat together—healthy snacks, breakfast or supper—where that is part of the plan.

Breakfast clubs have a particular significance in that context. They play an important role for many low-income families, and hon. Members should welcome several aspects of those clubs. They have attracted considerable support in many areas—in the private sector as well as the voluntary sector. In my constituency, a major employer is Kellogg’s, which has put millions of pounds of support into helping school breakfast clubs. It is incredibly committed to their future and extremely anxious about what the Government intend for them. It has highlighted to me its concerns about some of the language used by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who suggested that breakfast clubs might not be desirable for a number of kids. I am sure that it would be good for children to have healthy breakfasts at home, wherever possible, but for all sorts of reasons at all sorts of times that is not possible for every parent. We must be able to build on provision that has proved a considerable success in many schools and that has given some of our most deprived kids a strong start to the school day. I hope that we shall receive assurances from Ministers in the next few weeks about extended school activities—funding for them and enabling the poorest children to participate in them more broadly—and about the role that free school meals will play in offering that.

I think that everyone understands the financial pressures and the fact that we can expect public spending cuts. However, the pain of those cuts, as my hon. Friends have repeatedly told the Government, must not be borne by the poorest; but I very much fear that that will be the exact consequence of not extending the provision.

I am concerned, too, that we are seeing a massive policy step backwards; although the direction of travel in recent years has been at times hesitant or a little stop-go, it has none the less been broadly progressive and positive. Having seen such progress, it is a matter of huge regret to find things suddenly being put in reverse.

My concluding plea is for Ministers to consider again their plans for the provision of free school meals, and to do so with fully open minds. I want their minds to be open in the context of child poverty; I want their minds to be open in the context of improving working centres; and I want their minds to be open in the context of children’s health—and, of course, their learning and educational attainment. Unfortunately, the Conservative-Lib Dem Government has a bit of a track record in not having an open mind.

Several hon. Members have spoken of the fate of the programme in Hull. One of the most shameful aspects of the Lib Dem attempt to stop that programme early was that they did not wait for a proper evaluation to be made; only after the campaigning efforts of parents and others were they forced to finish the programme, so that a proper research basis could be established for the success that it had enjoyed. The governing parties have form for not evaluating programmes properly, and I know that the Minister will not want to be associated with that.

I hope that the Minister will offer some reassurance—for a start, to the many working families who are anxious about the many financial pressures that they already face. In that context, extending free school meals to more of those low-income working families would be a step towards the long-term provision of universal free school meals. That would be widely welcomed, and I hope that the Government will consider doing so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

If the hon. Lady is patient, she will hear more detail.

Over three years, the extension of the scheme would have cost £295 million, for which the previous Government did not budget. That is a simple fact. It was immoral of the previous Government to lead people to believe that they could extend the free school meal programme without making any provision for funding it. Furthermore, in this debate, hon. Members have not just been talking about extending the free school meal entitlement; they have been talking as though the last Government wanted a universal free school meal entitlement. That was never a manifesto commitment. If hon. Members are now talking about a universal free school meal programme, where will that money come from? Which programmes would they cut? They cannot have it both ways.

To return to the points that many hon. Members want addressed, I will clarify exactly what the Secretary of State for Education said. He has reallocated £50 million in direct funding from the harnessing technology grant to create a standards and diversity fund, thus reinventing a fund set up by the previous Government in 2006, but stopped in 2009, that was intended to create diversity of provision in the school system. The fund will now provide capital funding for free schools until 31 March 2011. Funding for free schools beyond that will be a top priority for the Department in the forthcoming spending review. I would like to make it clear that the new free schools will be funded on a basis comparable with other state-funded schools and that, as is the case now, money will follow the pupil within the funding system.

To return to the issue of free school meals, we are of course extremely disappointed that we cannot proceed with the previous Government’s proposal to extend the free school meals pilots. It would be good for more children to have access to free school meals. I agree with hon. Members that there is no doubt that free school meals help families and children in need across the country. However, the previous Government underfunded the programme to the tune of £295 million over the next three years, and we are not prepared to cut front-line budgets to support an as yet unproved scheme. We have therefore taken the difficult decision, from this September, not to extend free school meals to maintained nursery and key stage 1 pupils from working families on low incomes. We have also decided not to provide funding from central Government for the further five local pilots mentioned.

Let me be clear: we are absolutely not taking free school meals away from anyone who is eligible. The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West said that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would become known as the meal snatcher. No child currently eligible for free school meals will lose that entitlement. Nothing is being taken away. However, the extension that the Labour Government promised but failed to fund will now no longer take place.

[Kate Green]

Does not the Minister accept that that in itself is a significant blow to many low-income families who expected that, from this September, their stretched family budgets would have been helped by the extension of the pilots, which will now not take place? Does he not regret that?

Education and Health

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I know how committed my hon. Friend is to the education of children in Colchester and, indeed, to that of children throughout the country. He will be relieved to learn that we will ensure that front-line funding for existing schools will not be damaged by the reforms that we intend to make.

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

Will the Secretary of State confirm that he is aware of some of the successful pilots that have been attempted in recent years to provide free school meals on a universal basis in some of our primary schools? Will he confirm that the educational and health gains that have been seen as a result of those pilots will now be taken forward, and that his Government will commit to continuing the pilots that the previous Government announced?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. I know that in her previous incarnation, in the Child Poverty Action Group, she was a committed fighter for the very poorest children. We are now looking to ensure that we can guarantee that those children most in need receive support with free school meals, and we are examining the evidence that has come in from the pilots that she has mentioned.