Safety of School Buildings

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

Earlier today the Prime Minister said that he had acted decisively on RAAC. Earlier this week, the Secretary of State said that schools in which critical RAAC had been identified had been fixed immediately. As we have come to expect from this Government, neither of those statements are true. Critical RAAC was identified at St James Catholic Primary School in my constituency in June and action was not taken immediately—or, indeed, at all. It was told that it could open in part and then, as with many other schools, it received just 24 hours’ notice that it had to close in full.

Schools would not be in this position had the Government acted decisively. They have known RAAC was unsafe since 2018, and they could and should have taken action much earlier. Decades of cutting money from vital public services has literally left buildings crumbling and left our kids at risk, sitting in unsafe buildings. The Government’s decisions have left all our public services on their knees, not just our schools but crumbling hospitals and courts. It is not just the buildings: whole services have collapsed.

Staff, too, are being failed: workers in schools, the NHS and local government have all been left propping up services. Huge increases in workload, coupled with real-terms pay cuts, have also left public sector workers at the point of collapse. We know that the Government’s rhetoric on levelling up is yet more untruths and we know why: the Prime Minister boasting about moving money from poorer areas to richer areas, cutting tax on champagne, spending millions on new offices while our northern communities like Hebburn, Boldon, Jarrow and Gateshead in my constituency are left behind. It does not surprise me to see so many of my colleagues from the north-east present today.

Communities are neglected and left paying the price of Tory chaos while Ministers, their spouses and their cronies get richer. Conservative Members attempt to gaslight the country into believing that everything is okay, but despite their panto screaming during Prime Minister’s questions, they know the reality: that 13 years of Tory Governments has ruined our country. From the cost of living crisis and food and energy bills to our waters, schools and NHS, every part of our country is falling down.

The Secretary of State likes to keep saying that decisions were “nothing to do with me”, but the fact that our schools and the country are falling apart is absolutely down to the Government. At this moment, thousands of parents are petrified because of this crisis, while we have a Prime Minister and a Secretary of State with feet of clay. They need to accept that their time is up, and move aside so that the Labour party can start clearing up the mess that they have caused.

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

We intend to publish management information. As I say, the list that will be published this week will have the initial information about mitigations. We will publish more management information probably from the following week, and then we will regularly update it as cases move on and move off.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

St James Catholic Primary School in my constituency had critical RAAC identified in June. Despite what the Secretary of State told the media this morning, this has not been immediately fixed, and the school is now closed. Ministers and the DFE guidance have been contradictory on funding temporary costs, and the school has been told to fund travel and temporary arrangements itself. This is not acceptable. Can she confirm a timetable for works to make schools safe, and that all costs will be fully funded? Finally, she made it clear earlier today that she does not consider this situation to be her fault or her responsibility, so maybe she can tell us who she thinks has been “sat on their arses”?

[Gillian Keegan]

I made the point to a journalist earlier— an off-the-cuff remark after the interview had finished—but I was responding to the fact that, in effect, the journalist had interviewed me in a way that suggested everything my fault; saying everything in 1994 was my fault, when I was working elsewhere. I pointed this out to the journalist, off the cuff—[Interruption.] No, I am not thin-skinned at all. It was something I said off the cuff.

On that school, which is a much more serious issue, some of the schools on the critical list were closed if they had a large degree of RAAC. Those children should be being accommodated, but if they are not and there is no plan to do so, the Department for Education will be paying for the mitigations that will be put in place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is a champion of skills, and she is right that UTCs, such as the outstanding Portsmouth UTC, are providing students with skills that will lead to rewarding technical careers. The Department is carefully assessing the free schools applications received against the published criteria and intends to announce the successful proposals before the summer. It is worth mentioning that UTCs have high destination outcomes at key stage 5, especially into apprenticeships.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

10. What steps her Department is taking to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

17. What steps her Department is taking to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers.

[The Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb)]

The school workforce census published last week shows that the number of teachers has increased by a further 2,800 this year. There are now more than 468,000 teachers in the state system in England. We have invested £181 million in recruitment this year, including training bursaries and scholarships worth up to £29,000, and we are delivering £30,000 starting salaries, reforming teacher training, delivering half a million training opportunities and working with the sector to address teacher workload and wellbeing.

[Kate Osborne]

The Minister mentions the data released last week, but it also highlights the unacceptable consequences of real-terms cuts to teachers’ pay and unmanageable workloads. It shows that posts without a teacher have more than doubled in the past two years. Last week, I met with NASUWT North East and the South Tyneside branch of the National Education Union, which raised concerns about the impact of the recruitment and retention crisis. When will the Minister take action to tackle this crisis by increasing teachers’ pay and reducing their workload?

[Nick Gibb]

In terms of teachers’ pay, we are waiting for the Government’s response. We have received and are looking at the School Teachers Review Body’s recommendations now, and we will respond in the normal way and on the normal timing. In terms of workload, we set up three important workload working groups, and over the years that has resulted in the working hours of teachers coming down by five hours a week, and we have pledged to do more to reduce that further.

Foster Carers

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the recruitment and retention of foster carers.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank the Backbench Business Committee and the supporting Members who made it possible to secure this debate. I also thank the Fostering Network, Home for Good and one of my local authorities, South Tyneside, for organising meetings and relevant briefings for me and my team, which were very useful for this debate. I put on record my thanks to those bodies for their work in championing the overlooked and neglected fostering sector. I am sure all Members present will want to join me in welcoming the Fostering Network and foster carers to the Public Gallery. It is great to see them here.

One cannot overestimate the important role fostering plays across child protection and safeguarding. In a climate where, over the last 12 years, local authorities have been forced to adapt their operations through cuts to local expenditure, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, the demand for foster carers has never been greater, with many children needing emergency support. That is why I will focus my opening remarks on why the fostering sector and carers need increased recognition and wraparound support from local authorities and independent fostering agencies.

While the debate is centred on the recruitment and retention of foster carers, we also need to look at the challenges faced by the sector more broadly, and at where we can share experiences of local authorities and constituents to not only platform the sector, but raise its profile and actively encourage people to enter into fostering.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

The Welsh Government’s initiative Foster Wales has created a network of local authority fostering services across Wales, showing a clear national commitment to the cause. Does the hon. Lady agree that England and Scotland would benefit from a similar national call to action?

[Kate Osborne]

Yes, I agree, and I will refer to a similar point in my speech.

As I was preparing for this debate and looking at the statistics, two particular facts on recruitment stood out to me. First, the number of initial inquiries to foster is at an all-time high. There were 160,635 initial inquiries from prospective fostering households in the year ending 31 March 2021. In contrast, only 10,145 applications—a mere 6% of initial inquiries—were actually received. Secondly, according to the annual fostering statistics published by Ofsted, the number of foster carers in England has increased by only 4% since 2014, while the number of children in foster care has increased by 11%.

Those statistics show a crisis in recruitment and retention. Members on both sides must ask why those significant shortfalls in the fostering sector are occurring and what we in this place can do to help to alleviate this recruitment and retention crisis. I believe that we need to champion foster carers, but central to that must be deeds, not just words: we need to make sure that foster carers are fairly paid and respected as workers.

Set out in its 2021 “State of the Nation’s Foster Care” report, the Fostering Network’s findings on pay are damning:

“Over a third of foster carers said that their allowances do not meet the full cost of looking after a child.”

That is certainly something I can give personal testimony of, from my experience as a foster carer before entering this place; it has also been said to me today by some of the foster carers present.

Secondly, the report notes:

“Fourteen local authorities reported that their foster care allowances were below the NMA for at least one age group across England. Of these, two were in London, four were in the South East and ten were in the area of the rest of England.”

While I thank the Children’s Minister for writing to 13 local authorities on the specific issue of the national minimum allowance, that has to be weighted against this Government’s political decision to put the burden of inflation and the cost of living crisis on the backs of ordinary people.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a meaningful speech, including about her own experiences as a foster carer. She may or may not know that I used to be a manager in fostering, and for as long as I can remember there was an issue with the retention of foster carers and with those carers not being valued enough. Does my hon. Friend agree that the severe cuts to local government funding have had an indirect impact on the support that social workers can offer foster carers, which in turn has an impact on their ability to continue fostering and how they can look after, or manage the welfare of, a child?

[Kate Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we cannot keep taking money out of local authorities and expect them to still deliver the same level of services. The impact, unfortunately, is felt by the children and young people who are in the fostering system or child services.

The financial pressures and stresses felt by carers, highlighted by the Fostering Network’s research, are only set to get worse. The Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers believes that the Government should urgently make a pay award to foster carers, both within local authorities and independent fostering agencies, to preserve and protect this precious resource for children and young people in need. This would be an important signal to foster carers that the Government really do value their contribution.

Another critical issue that we have to be aware of is the responsibility local authorities and IFAs have in providing vital—often emergency—wraparound support for foster carers and their families. I put on record my thanks to South Tyneside Council, one of my local authorities, for its progressive outlook in prioritising this area. First and foremost, we have to recognise that each child currently being supported through fostering services has different and complex needs, which must be met from the first moment that child comes under the care of their carer. That is why South Tyneside’s model of training carers to degrees, whereby they can be matched with the child best suited to their level of training—a model that is in the best interests of all parties and, most importantly, those of the child or young person—is highly commendable. In this, it is vital that children are kept as close to the local authority as possible. This approach means that at crisis point there is no delay in support, and any crisis has a better chance of being mitigated, as tailored, traumatic and therapeutic support can be accessed quickly.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech on this important issue. Regarding the role of local authorities and the point about funding, does she agree that the crisis with children’s social workers and the shortage that we have is exacerbating the problems, and will impact on the very commendable operating model she is talking about?

[Kate Osborne]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. As has been said, the funding that is being taken out of the system means that, unfortunately, we are not continuing to provide the support that is needed, in terms of both social workers and the many other people who are involved in children’s care.

The system South Tyneside Council has in place means that if a breakdown occurs between the child and foster family, the local authority is accountable, thus upholding the fostering standards to improve outcomes. With such support mechanisms in place, more people will be encouraged to become foster carers.

However, we must recognise that South Tyneside’s model relies on factors for which the responsibility lies truly at the feet of Government Ministers. The cuts to local authorities over the past 12 years, along with the present day record levels of children needing emergency foster care mean that my local authority, like most others, must turn to independent fostering agencies to plug the gap. The money local authorities have to spend from Government grants, council tax and business rates has fallen by 16% since 2010. That means that local authorities have an increasingly limited capacity to respond to significant inflationary pressures.

While I respect the work that members of IFAs do to alleviate the pressure felt by local authorities, those agencies have the ability to add another complex, unnecessary layer between the child and the local authority, meaning that when crisis hits, unnecessary delays, which are detrimental to all involved, are often hard to avoid. In South Tyneside Council, 50% of children are placed into IFAs.

We also need to break down the popular perceptions of fostering, which undermine the diverse and varying shapes that it can take. Fostering should not be compared with adoption, although it often is. We need to break through the perception that fostering is a means, whereas adoption is the end, because one size does not fit all. We also need to recognise that circumstances in the lives of carers can change. The value of a carer fostering one child needs to be recognised as the same as a carer who may foster many children.

Finally, we need to appreciate that, more often than not, foster carers can be thrust into a situation at extreme short notice. Their presence in the safeguarding process can often be to provide emergency care.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. The House is always at its best when Members draw on their personal experience and my hon. Friend’s speech shows that she knows what she is talking about. I add my thanks to Fostering Network, who I have worked with a lot in the past and who I have found to be incredibly helpful.

I want to pick up on black, Asian and minority ethnic foster carers and children from BAME communities. BBC analysis shows that two thirds of councils in England have a shortage of BAME foster carers, but 23% of children on the waiting list are from BAME backgrounds. Black boys are left longest on the waiting lists. I wondered whether my hon. Friend might comment, and I hope the Minister will also pick up on that point.

[Kate Osborne]

That point came up in my meeting with the head of children’s services in my local authority. As my hon. Friend says, we are desperately short of BAME foster carers.

Often children arrive into foster care with nothing apart from the clothes they are wearing. The responsibility lies firmly with the fostering family to pick up from there, otherwise the child would have nothing.

What do we need from the Government? I would like the Minister to look at and seriously consider the Mockingbird strategy as adopted by South Tyneside and many others, and to listen to best practice from my and other local authorities. I hope we will hear more on that today from other Members.

The Mockingbird model is based on the idea of an extended family. The strategy focuses on a fostering hub, where satellite carers work in sync to provide specialist and centralised care to children along with real-time support for those satellite carers. Mockingbird means intervention can take place without the need to necessarily remove children completely from their support network, should an emergency occur. Depending on circumstances, the programme can be adjusted to include birth families and adoptive families, and to provide support for independent living, while giving assurance to foster carers and those in care that a secure and close support network is at hand.

I also want the Minister to listen to the recommendations set out by the Fostering Network, which with others is calling for a fully funded national fostering strategy, a national fostering leadership board and a national register of foster carers. In addition, the Government need to carry out a comprehensive review of the minimum levels of fostering allowance, using up-to-date evidence to ensure foster carers are given sufficient payment to cover the full cost of looking after a child.

There is no one quick fix to address the issues relating to the retention of foster carers. The themes of carers feeling unsupported, making a financial loss and not being treated as workers would lead to a high turnover rate and chronic difficulties in recruitment in any workforce. I hope that today’s debate acts as an opportunity to address Members’ concerns from their constituencies and encourages the Minister to put recommendations in place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Osborne]

I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions. I also thank the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and the Minister for their comments. He rightly acknowledged the important role that foster carers play, and I welcome his intention to work with the Fostering Network and to look at the allowances. To allow foster carers from all backgrounds—as is necessary and has already been stated—to continue in their role, we have to have the correct support in place. I reiterate how much there needs to be a fully funded national fostering strategy. We have one in place for adoption, and we need one for fostering.

There is an urgent need to support fostering at a local level, with the appropriate funding and right structures regionally and nationally. We need to determine where different functions should sit depending on where they are most accountable and effective and bring the most innovation to children’s social care. There is also a need for a national fostering leadership board. The establishment of a fully funded national leadership board would provide visible leadership, drive forward the national strategy and provide oversight for the sector to ensure a co-ordinated, collaborative and strategic approach to support and drive improvements.

Fostering services and foster carers have long been under-supported, under-financed and undervalued. We now need to address these issues to make a real difference to foster carers, the many people who support them and, most importantly, the children and young people who desperately need and deserve the best from us all.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the recruitment and retention of foster carers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

First, let me say that in the next financial year, high-needs funding for children and young people with complex needs is increasing by £1 billion to more than £9.1 billion. That is an unprecedented increase of 13%, and it comes on top of the £1.5 billion increase over the past two years, but that is just the finances. Over and above the £2.6 billion we are investing in capital, the SEND review will answer many of the questions that the hon. Lady rightly poses, and she just has to wait a handful more days.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

11. What steps he is taking to help ensure that there are adequate numbers of specialist teachers to support children with SEND.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)]

We are committed to ensuring that all pupils can reach their potential and receive excellent support from their teachers. Our reformed initial teacher training content framework and the new early career framework, both developed with sector experts, will equip teachers with a clear understanding of the needs of children with SEND.

[Kate Osborne]

Research by the Education Policy Institute found that children from the most disadvantaged areas are less likely to be identified as having SEND than children from more affluent areas, with families in poorer areas facing higher thresholds to accessing support. Why is that the case and what is the Minister’s Department doing about it?

[Will Quince]

All teachers are teachers of SEND. We are doing a lot of work, and we will do as part of the SEND review, to ensure that teachers are equipped—but not just equipped, that they have confidence—to teach and identify special educational needs. All I would say, as I have said a few times, is that the hon. Lady should wait a handful more days for the SEND review.

Budget Resolutions

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood).

This is a Budget that has nothing to do with levelling up or building back better; it is the same old Tory economic policy that will squeeze people on middle incomes while giving a tax cut to the super-rich. How can the Chancellor justify cutting taxes for the super-rich while increasing national insurance contributions? The consequence will be that a person on an average income can expect their real income to fall next year once tax increases and inflation are taken into account. Alongside falling incomes, there will be rising energy prices, rising council tax, the withdrawal of furlough, continued use of the disgraceful practice of fire and rehire, and the axing of the £20 universal credit uplift.

This Budget does nothing to mitigate those issues. It risks leaving the vast majority behind in pay and in the public services that we all rely on. We should have seen reforms in it to create a fairer tax system in which the wealthiest in our society pay a fairer share through a wealth tax that helps to fund public investment to create good green jobs and a net zero economy. Instead, we have seen no action on the climate emergency—in fact, the Chancellor has opted needlessly to cut taxes on domestic flights. In the week of COP26, that is just astounding, as is the Prime Minister’s decision to fly to Glasgow rather than use the rail network.

Although there are some changes in the Chancellor’s Budget—such as the reduction in the universal credit taper and the rise in the minimum wage to £9.50 an hour—that will have some impact on incomes, sadly they will not be enough. The public sector pay freeze should be truly ended with an above-inflation rise and the minimum wage should be lifted to the level of a real living wage that people can survive on.

Despite the claims of levelling up, this Budget offers nothing to get our key public services back to where they were before 2010. The Government have said that spending on schools will return to 2010 per-pupil levels by 2025. That means that there has been no extra investment in our children’s education for 15 years, despite what the Secretary of State for Education said earlier today.

Even the funding planned for the NHS falls well below what has been delivered in the past and what many believe is needed now. Since 2010, the Government have put in less than half of the NHS’s historic spending growth rate of 3.6% per year since its creation. After more than a decade of cuts and the pandemic, our services are under enormous strain, and it is showing. Our public services are crucial to improving people’s everyday lives, and they are key to creating a more equal and just society.

This Budget was a missed opportunity to increase living standards for the many, to improve our public services and to invest in our communities. It does very little for the north-east and for constituencies such as Jarrow, where levelling up is still something of which we have yet to see any evidence.

Investing in Children and Young People

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is clear from Kevan Collins’s resignation that the Government’s catch-up plan is failing to deliver for our children. It has highlighted that supporting children and young people to recover from the pandemic is not a priority for this Conservative Government. Let us make no mistake: child poverty was rising long before the beginning of the covid crisis. In the three years before the onset of the pandemic, my region of the north-east had the second highest child poverty rate in the UK at 37%. The north-east has urgently needed a new and credible Government strategy to end child poverty for some time. For too long, school budgets have been under extreme pressure, waiting lists for mental health services have been too long, and services to support families and children have been stretched by a lack of Government funding.

In my constituency, the child poverty rate stood at 24% in 2015. That is a shameful figure, but the latest data shows that in 2019-20, it stood at 36%—a 12 point increase. The Collins report calls for an investment of £15 billion—£700 per pupil—over three years to support children’s recovery. That would have gone a long way to reversing those figures, yet the Government have decided to go with only a tenth of what is needed. The stated figure of around £50 per child is an insult to hard-working families, schools and teaching staff in Jarrow and beyond. It is time that this Conservative Government began to wake up and realise that investment in our children is both the morally and fiscally responsible thing to do. Children and young people in my constituency cannot wait until the spending review for emergency funding to arrive. It must come now for it to have any effect on learning and social outcomes.

A Labour Government would see action and investment to ensure quality mental health support in every school, small group tutoring for all who need it, not just 1%, continued development for teachers, extracurricular activities for all, an education recovery premium and a guarantee that no child will go hungry. Only through Government delivering those things can we begin to see a reverse of the shocking child poverty figures across our regions.

There is no economic reason why this Conservative Government could not deliver for our children and young people. They have been warned that failing to help children to recover lost learning could cost the economy and taxpayer as much as £420 billion—almost 30 times the cost of Labour’s comprehensive £15 billion plan. It is time that the Prime Minister stepped up and sent a message about what really matters, because this Government cannot afford not to make an investment in our children’s future.

Special Educational Needs

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Edward, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) for securing this important debate.

It is a pleasure to speak here today. I have a particular interest in this debate, both as a member of the Women and Equalities Committee and as the mother of a SEND child. As colleagues rightly pointed out, the support system for SEND children was already at crisis point before the start of the pandemic, but like all other existing inequalities, the pandemic has shone a light on the failures within the system that deny young people their right to an education and has shown the urgent need for increased support for young people with SEND, their families and their educational providers.

There are many issues. The long wait in obtaining a child and adolescent mental health services appointment, and the ability to access that appointment, particularly through the pandemic. The process to obtain an EHCP with little or no help or support during the process, and also the lack of support for those who do not qualify for a plan but who clearly need additional support. Schools that are struggling through lack of funding, and parents who are told, “Sorry; there is no money available to support your child further,” while all the time the child continues to struggle both at home and at school, quite often with a big impact on their mental and physical health.

The Government recently announced funding premiums to help schools and students catch up, with additional weighting for mainstream schools that have pupils with SEND. However, in the light of experience earlier this year, it is unacceptable that the catch-up premium does not include ring-fenced funding for mainstream schools, which means that there is no guarantee that school leadership teams will direct that money to SEND children, given the already tight constraints on their budgets. Just a week ago, the Women and Equalities Committee published its “Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services” report into the impact of coronavirus on disabled people, which widely acknowledged the problems created by a lack of ring-fenced funding for children with SEND in mainstream schools and showed evidence that such pupils consistently make less progress than other pupils with the same starting point. It is disappointing that the Government rejected the Select Committee’s recommendation that funding be increased to allow mainstream schools to receive £240 per pupil with SEND, ring-fenced for catch-up support in this academic year.

Last week, in a Westminster Hall debate, I asked the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work whether he could give me a further explanation as to why the Government rejected the report’s recommendation to commit to ring-fenced funding for pupils with SEND in mainstream schools. I did not get a clear answer from the Minister, other than an acknowledgment that the forthcoming SEND review remains a key priority for this Government. I hope that the Minister here today will be able to give her thoughts on this issue, and on whether she agrees that SEND children who go to mainstream school should have the same amount of money ring-fenced as children who go to a special school. The Government have said that it costs more to teach children in special schools. I hope the Minister agrees that it should not matter what school a child goes to, and that a lack of funding for cash-strapped local authorities results in their not being able to give their schools and pupils the additional support that they so desperately need.

This should not be a race to the bottom between mainstream and special schools. It is just a fact that local authorities continue to report the pressures on the high-needs funding block as one of the most serious financial challenges they face. Giving evidence to the all-party parliamentary group for SEND, the Local Government Association said that local authorities will be unable to meet their statutory duties to support children with SEND without additional funding being made available.

I urge the Minister to look deeper into how high-needs funding is undertaken. It is essential to the recovery from the pandemic that these long-standing issues over SEND funding are fixed. Finally, I ask the Minister when the SEND review will be published, and I ask her for a more detailed response than was given to me previously, and that was given in the report in the spring.

Education and Training (Welfare of Children) Bill

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Friday 12th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab) [V]]

I praise my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) for the work that she and others across the House have done to bring forward this important private Member’s Bill. I am happy that it has received cross-party support; keeping young people safe in further education should never be a party political issue.

It is surely common sense to ensure that the same safeguarding guidance should apply across the sector. It is also pleasing to see that the Bill simplifies safeguarding requirements for education providers. The Bill will bring 16-to-19, academies, specialist post-16 institutes and independent learning providers in scope of the duty to follow the statutory guidance note, which will ensure that our legislation goes further to keep children safe in education.

As the parent of a child who has been through further education and of another who will be entering it in the near future, I am pleased that the Bill will reassure parents that, no matter how their child’s education is being delivered, their child is being kept safe to the highest standards. Any improvements to the safety of our young people need to be welcomed. For that reason, I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham on bringing the Bill, which I fully support, to the House.

Education Route Map: Covid-19

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab) [V]]

I pay tribute to the schools and colleges in the Jarrow constituency that have gone the extra mile during this pandemic in ensuring that the impact on their pupils’ learning has been as minimal as possible. We must not forget that schools have never really been fully closed.

I want to see all children and all young people safely back in schools, colleges and higher education for their learning and wellbeing without any further disruption. This must be a priority. However, the Government must do everything to prevent a return to the scenes of last year where school staff and children were having to isolate, often multiple times, meaning further lost learning, further disruption, and an increase in infection rates in the community. The Government must rethink and set out a plan to introduce measures including effective mass testing, creating space with Nightingale classrooms, improving ventilation, vaccinating school staff, and increasing the financial support to allow schools to introduce covid safety measures.

Although cases are falling, along with hospitalisation rates, it remains true that cases are three times higher now than when schools reopened last September. From September to December 2020, covid infection rates rose among secondary and primary age groups, which meant that by Christmas, secondary students were the most infected age group and primaries the second most infected. Rushing all pupils back to school on 8 March without all safety measures effectively in place could potentially see our schools become once again, in the Prime Minister’s words, a “vector of transmission” into the community.

Why not take the same route as the devolved nations, whose cautious, phased approach to school opening will enable their Governments to assess the impact that a return to the classroom will have on the R rate and to make necessary adjustments to their plans? This is surely the common-sense approach, because the current plan to test all secondary school pupils three times on-site is a huge logistical challenge and will have a massive impact on teaching and learning time. That lost teaching time will undoubtedly have a knock-on effect on the wellbeing and mental health of children, and there is no long-term plan in the Government’s education recovery package to mitigate this. It would be better to plan and implement a successful and sustainable wider opening alongside vaccinating education staff as a priority. I urge the Minister and the Government to get it right this time to ensure that this is the final return to school and that they are guided by the science, along with listening to the trade unions, whose members work in this sector and who know how this should be done. I ask that the Health and Education Ministers listen to this and act.