Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

What steps he is taking to ensure the financial stability of early years providers during the covid-19 outbreak.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

What steps he is taking to ensure the financial stability of early years providers during the covid-19 outbreak.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

What steps he is taking to ensure the financial stability of early years providers during the covid-19 outbreak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

As I have said, we have given unprecedented support to the early years sector. It does an amazing job, and we are keeping the question of whether any further action is needed under constant review. The advice that we gave last week is really important, because this week is the annual census week, and it is really important that those providers know that they can count children who are temporarily absent, provided they remain open for them. That is really important advice to our early years providers.

[Kate Osborne [V]]

With so many staff in early years settings having to isolate, it is becoming increasingly difficult to open the maintained nursery schools in my constituency, as they do not have surplus staff to rely on. What funding will be made available to mitigate that, so that support staff can be employed to cover staff who are shielding or self-isolating?

[Vicky Ford]

We are taking two actions urgently to support our early years. The first is the roll-out of asymptomatic testing for staff. Asymptomatic testing went live through the community testing system last week, and I have written to local authorities to ensure that early years staff are prioritised in their community testing. Secondly, if maintained nursery schools and, indeed, other private providers have a staff shortage that means they need to close temporarily, they can still count those children for this week’s census—just as they can in any year if they have a temporary closure due to, for example, a flood. They can still count those children, provided the closure is only temporary.

School Closures: Support for Pupils

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dame Angela, and I congratulate you on your damehood. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) for securing this important debate.

I pay tribute to all the schools in my constituency and to the two local authorities, South Tyneside and Gateshead Councils, which reacted quickly to ensure that children and families are as supported as possible during the latest schools closure. I of course pay tribute to all the parents and carers, including my wife, who are home schooling their children at this very difficult time.

However, schools and families still face huge challenges in ensuring that every student has individual access to reliable and high-quality digital devices and the internet. This is, of course, not a new issue. The digital divide existed prior to the pandemic and left many children struggling to complete homework. The pandemic has highlighted the digital divide and other inequalities on a national scale, and effective action must now be taken to address that wide-reaching educational inequality.

Although this debate about digital exclusion among young people, alongside other things, is vital, let us not be in any doubt that it alone will deal with the deep-seated inequalities that having no face-to-face teaching creates. Online is no substitute for many, which is why it is vital that the Government ensure that pupils have guaranteed face-to-face contact time with their teachers online. Research conducted by the Child Poverty Action Group and Children North East in May 2020 showed that school closures further exposed and exacerbated the gaps in education caused by low income, and left children unable to access or engage in learning because they did not have adequate resources or an appropriate set-up at home.

It seems a long time ago now that a demand for everyone in the UK to have a right to access the internet, irrespective of income, was considered by some to be “broadband communism”. Fast forward a year and many children across the country are not able to gain access to laptops and the internet when it is so desperately needed. That is no surprise when Ofcom estimates that between 1.14 million and 1.78 million children in the UK—around 9%—do not have home access to a laptop, desktop or tablet, and more than 880,000 children live in a household with only a mobile internet connection.

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point. Does she agree that, with the closure of so many libraries in our communities, we easily forget just how important access to information and knowledge is, and how so many in our communities are being isolated from that access? That is why the provision my hon. Friend is describing is so crucial.

[Kate Osborne]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Libraries are so important to our communities.

In June 2020, the National Education Union, the Labour party and others called on the Government to urgently address the digital divide and provide laptops for all pupils who needed one. Seven months on, that has not been properly addressed. How long does it take to order and distribute laptops?

Delivering devices alone does not fully address the issue of connectivity, with 880,000 children and young people living in a home with only a mobile internet connection. Schools have reported that take-up of additional SIM cards has been low among families in certain areas. Even with mobile companies expanding data plans, this still means that children’s learning is dependent on phone reception, which can often be unreliable or slow. That is preventing children and pupils from fully participating in lessons.

The Government’s decision to cut school laptop allocations in October last year—a decision that was fortunately eventually reversed—combined with schools previously being able to request laptops only for isolating pupils, left many schools and pupils unprepared and without the right resources to move quickly into an extended period of remote learning. Echoing much of the Government’s handling of the pandemic, this has been a story of dither, delay and indecision, and it is our children who are now paying the price. I agree with the Child Poverty Action Group and Children North East that the Government must commit to rapidly increasing the distribution timetable for the 440,000 purchased devices that are currently available to schools and ensure that every child across the country has access to a device for learning and other essential items.

The CPAG and CNE have outlined some very basic ways in which the Government could achieve that goal. First, the number of devices schools can apply for should be increased, enabling them to meet the needs of their school communities. Cash grants could be provided to parents to allow them to purchase the ICT equipment that is needed—not just laptops, but wi-fi, printers, printer ink, paper and so on—so that pupils can learn from home. Child benefit could be increased by at least £10 a week to ensure that families have enough money to meet the additional financial pressures placed on them as a result of children learning at home. Will the Minister commit to those reasonable requests, to ensure that no child is further disadvantaged by forces that are completely out of their control? Nearly one year on since the start of the crisis, the Government’s failure to deliver the digital resources for school children’s learning must not continue at this critical point in their lives.

Finally, I will turn to free school meals. I echo the concerns so eloquently outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington, and add that, surely, the easiest way to ensure that children, through their parents, receive the full level of their allowance for free school meals is to use vouchers. That will allow parents to make sure that the food given to their children is nutritious and balanced and that it is food their children will eat. It will also mean that unscrupulous companies no longer benefit at the expense of our children—literally taking food from their mouths.

Early Years Settings: Covid-19

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Robertson. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) for securing today’s important debate.

The strong messages that have been given under lockdown, telling everyone to stay at home and to keep school-aged children at home where possible, are in contrast with the messages that the early years sector should remain open, and have caused confusion and concern. Families and early years workers deserve to know the scientific basis for the decision to keep nurseries open when primary schools are moving to remote learning, and they need a clear, evidence-based explanation of why this is. Early years practitioners urgently need to be reassured that their safety is being prioritised, by making regular mass testing available to them, and by Ministers’ making the case to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation that early years practitioners should be prioritised for vaccination.

This policy, like many of the policies thought up throughout this pandemic, has not considered the practicalities on the ground. For example, in my constituency of Jarrow, parents are now taking their primary school-aged children when collecting their children from nursery. That makes social distancing difficult, as it naturally leads to problems with children mixing in car parks and playgrounds outside. On the flipside of that, one mother in my constituency was so confused by the messaging from the Government around home schooling that she left a young child in front of an online lesson while she picked up her other child from the nursery school; although I cannot support that decision, of course, I understand her reasons and the difficulties that she faced.

Then, of course, there are general practicalities for early years workers in their day-to-day roles. By its very nature, early years education involves much more close contact than other kinds of education, as other hon. Members have said. Nappy changing, helping to take coats on and off, and mealtimes are all examples of where close contact is unavoidable.

The “protect early years” campaign, run by the three largest industry bodies, has called on the Government to provide scientific evidence for the decision to keep early years settings open. They have also called for early years staff to be prioritised for vaccinations. Trade unions such as Unison and GMB have further called for the closure of early years settings to all but key workers and vulnerable children during the current lockdown. I personally support those calls, and I hope the Minister will acknowledge these concerns and take them on board.

At the same time, like other hon. Members, I am concerned about the long-term impact of the pandemic on the already fragmented, privatised and underfunded landscape of early years education and care. The sector needs targeted financial support for nurseries, childminders and other early years providers, which have been hit badly by a decade of underfunding and now face substantially reduced income and higher costs during the covid-19 crisis, with months of uncertainty ahead. Early years providers were struggling before the crisis, with thousands closing every year, but this crisis poses a further threat to those that have managed to survive. A loss of parents’ fees during lockdown and continuing low demand for childcare due to covid-19 have left half of providers fearing closure before the summer.

Any Government change to providers’ funding from this month would push 20,000 providers to the brink of collapse. The Government’s decision to fund all local authority nurseries based on their one-day snapshot January 2021 census for the spring term means that early years providers with children who are off for covid-related reasons cannot access that funding. Even if all children on roll were fully funded, in most cases that would reflect a fall compared with those providers’ usual numbers, as many eligible January starters’ parents will have held back on taking up a place. That is putting pressure on already overstretched budgets.

Without urgent confirmation that there will be full funding of early-entitlement places, early years providers will not be able to remain open for all children. Just this morning, I heard from the headteacher of Boldon Nursery School in my constituency that it is set to lose £24,000 through the funding formula. There are four nurseries in my constituency, all outstanding: one of them, Boldon nursery, has not only provided an emergency childcare service during this pandemic, but has acted as an emergency service delivering food parcels to families in need, as well as its general role of acting as an extended family in many cases. I pay tribute to that nursery and all nurseries and childcare providers. Now they face being punished by potentially losing their jobs at the end of it.

Despite the crucial role the sector plays in caring for children outside of school hours, it has been completely neglected by the Government. The Government must urgently rethink the funding charges that will force many nurseries to close their doors, and give the sector the support it deserves.

I hope that the Minister will acknowledge how this unfairness is causing a huge amount of stress for early years leaders and workers. It is time that the Government recognised the importance of childcare and early years education for our economic recovery, and brought forward a review to ensure the safety of the workers and prevent the sector from financial collapse.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend that under-16s should not be using that app. I would like to thank schools and the leadership of schools, which have done so much in working with Test and Trace to ensure that the number of youngsters who need to self-isolate as a result of a case has been reduced significantly over the past few weeks, making sure that as many as possible children are attending school. I will take up the point my hon. Friend has made and look at guidance on how best we can give people the right and proper steer.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

At a time when LGBT+ hate crime is on the rise, it is extremely disappointing that the Government have cut the funding to support education about LGBT+ bullying in schools. Can the Minister assure me that an alternative will be put forward so that this vital training can continue to educate our young people in preventing bullying and achieving better mental health?

[Nick Gibb]

This was the Government Equalities Office scheme to support a number of anti-LGBT bullying schemes. I have seen these schemes in action myself, and they are very good indeed. We will be looking at what more the DFE can do after the spending review to ensure that our anti-bullying programmes are LGBT-inclusive.

Union Learning Fund

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) on securing this important debate; what a pleasure it is to speak in Westminster Hall for the first time on such an important issue. I declare an interest as a life-long trade unionist, as a former member of the Unite national executive and as someone who has greatly benefited personally from union learning on many occasions over many years.

This debate could not have come at a more important time; when tens of thousands of workers have lost their jobs or are under threat of losing them because of the economic devastation caused by the pandemic, the last thing that the Government should be doing is cutting funding to training.

The union learning fund, as has been said, was created over 20 years ago and has been a great success in enabling millions of working people to improve their skills and their lives, both in and outside of their workplaces. This is not a partisan issue; the union learning fund has always enjoyed cross-party support, receiving continued recognition for its contribution to work-based learning under the coalition Government and previous Conservative Administrations.

The statistics speak for themselves with regard to the fund; the most recent independent evaluation showed that 68% of learners with no previous qualifications gained a qualification due to the support of the fund, while 47% with entry or level 1 qualifications gained a higher qualification. That is not just beneficial for the employee; 77% of employers said that the union learning fund had a positive effect in their workplace. The fund supports working people to better their lives at all levels; one of my own team members is doing a part-time master’s degree that is partly funded by Unionlearn through Birkbeck College. With postgraduate qualifications out of reach for so many working people, the way that Birkbeck College utilised this fund alongside their evening study hours is commendable.

We need to be looking forward to a post-pandemic economic world, where this country’s skill base will provide the foundation for economic regeneration, growth and employment opportunities, and increased prosperity for all. A fully skilled workforce will be vital in spearheading the UK’s economic future in this new and challenging global economy. That is why the union learning fund should remain as an important section of the UK’s overall training program.

I hope that the Minister will listen closely to the contributions made here today and hear the overwhelming arguments for the union learning fund to continue and, in the words of the Prime Minister,

“offer a Lifetime Skills Guarantee to help people train and retrain—at any stage in their lives”.

A decision to continue funding and to abandon these plans to cease the learning fund in 2021 would be a positive step in achieving that ambition.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

One more speaker has arrived, so I will have to cut the time limit to three minutes with immediate effect. That way, everybody will get to contribute to the debate.

Education and Training (Welfare of Children) Bill

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 14th October 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I look forward to serving under your chairship, Ms Cummins, and I am very grateful to every Member who has agreed to be part of this Committee. I appreciate people’s willingness to give up their time, especially given the important debates taking place in the Chamber at the minute.

While the Education and Training (Welfare of Children) Bill might not make the front pages, it is a very important piece of legislation. There is a flaw in the way young people are safeguarded in education: while every child is protected by safeguarding duties, they are not all protected in the same way. That is clearly wrong.

The Committee has the opportunity today to enact the sort of cross-party work that is sometimes needed in Parliament. A clear problem has been identified and a sensible solution provided. Together, we can work to correct a mistake and help to improve the education system by keeping young people safe and giving parents the peace of mind they deserve.

Although technical, the Bill is relatively simple. All providers of post-16 education have safeguarding requirements. Further education colleges, sixth forms and schools have a statutory duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of every child at that institution. However, while 16-to-19 academies, special post-16 institutions and independent learning providers have safeguarding duties as a condition of funding, young people who attend those institutions are not protected in the same way that they would be at a school or further education college. That was clearly an unintentional oversight and it must therefore be amended.

The Bill has two substantive clauses and it will amend the Education Act 2002 and the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009. It will impose direct safeguarding duties upon 16-to-19 academies and also place an obligation upon the Secretary of State for Education to ensure that compliance with the safeguarding duties is a condition of funding for special post-16 institutions and independent learning providers.

As all providers have safeguarding responsibilities, there should be no extra cost for providers. Instead, the 100 16-to-19 academies and 1,000 independent providers brought into scope by the Bill will benefit from a simplified safeguarding system with greater alignment of duties. The Bill therefore works for education providers, as well as parents and young people.

I want to stress just how necessary the Bill is. It will only become more important as we see the roll-out of T-levels and continued academisation. No matter what our disagreements on how education should be delivered, we can all agree that every young person should be protected in the same way, no matter which organisation delivers the education. That is why it is so important that this anomaly is corrected. By law, providers have safeguarding responsibilities and the vast majority will follow best practice. I believe we need a guarantee of that in law. I hope the Committee will support me in closing the loophole to ensure that every young person is kept safe in education.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Cummins, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham on promoting this private Member’s Bill.

The flaws in the way young people are safeguarded in education and the disparities in the system need to be addressed and corrected. It is right and absolutely necessary that apprenticeships training providers meet the minimum standards that already exist for schools, further education colleges and sixth form colleges. Every child and young person needs to be protected, and the Bill helps to do just that.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham for introducing the Bill, which is an important piece of legislation. We all feel strongly about the importance of apprenticeships and skills, and we recognise that 16 to 19-year-olds are at a delicate stage in their lives. Anyone who has been the parent of a child of 16 to 19 knows—most Members here are too young—that it is quite a challenge. [Laughter.] Joking aside, they are at a vulnerable point in their lives, moving between childhood and adulthood. Also, in many areas, they are moving from the school education space to the workspace, and it is important to have clarity on what their rights are in relation to safeguarding.

Free School Meals: Summer Holidays

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

Having been brought up in a single-parent household, I imagine I am one of a small number of MPs who received free school meals; I know exactly what it is likely to struggle to make ends meet.

No child should have to go without food, and a child’s concentration, alertness and energy are greatly improved with a nutritious meal inside them. As we are one of the richest countries in the world, we must question why in 2020 families are struggling to put food on the table, heat their homes or clothe their children. No family should have to deal with this, and no parent should have to choose between feeding themselves and feeding their children. Sadly, that is often the choice parents face, and it is exactly what would have happened right across the country had this Government not made yet another U-turn today.

It is a sad fact that one in three children in my constituency are growing up in poverty, and it is shameful that countless families have to endure this painful struggle, day in, day out. I see that struggle at first hand on a daily basis. My inbox regularly contains heartbreaking emails from families forced to rely on food banks to eat and struggling to pay their rent. Staggeringly, food banks have become normalised in society. I remember being outraged when they first started to pop up, as I could not quite believe people were needing to access charitable donations because they did not have enough money to buy food. Now, we all expect that there will be a donation box in the supermarket for food banks that we can donate to. We need to end the normalisation of food banks and to work towards a society where every family have enough money to live on.

The Welsh Government have already announced that they will provide each eligible child with the equivalent of £19.50 a week over the summer, so it would have been deeply heartless for the Government not to fund the estimated £120 million, which will now ensure that children in this country, including 2,605 children in the Jarrow constituency, can eat for the summer holiday period. Not for the first time, the Prime Minister and his Government have found themselves on the wrong side of the argument, and I welcome the fact that they have made yet another U-turn.

This issue is not about politics; it is about doing the right thing. Marcus Rashford, in his efforts to persuade the Government to see sense on this issue, should be applauded, and I am glad the Government have listened to him, to MPs on both sides and to the whole of the country, who have called for this. If the Government can find billions of pounds to support businesses during this pandemic, it is only right that £120 million has been found to ensure that families and children are provided with food this summer.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Education Settings: Wider Opening

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

This is why it was vital that we immediately made it clear to those organisations that we will continue to support them with grant funding for those children who access those settings. Those organisations receive money from Government. On top of that, there is the furlough scheme and we have been able to offer rates relief to many of those organisations. We continue to work with the sector to find long-term solutions to some of the challenges they face.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

More than 80,000 children and young people across the north-east receive free school meal vouchers. Bearing in mind that the children who are entitled to those vouchers are most likely to be in poverty and that we are currently living through a pandemic, what are the Secretary of State’s plans to ensure that no child goes hungry during the summer holidays and that no parent or carer will have to rely on food banks?

[Gavin Williamson]

We continue to work with the Department for Work and Pensions, MHCLG and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on this. I talked about the unprecedented £6.5 billion extra that the DWP was distributing. We also have the holiday activities and food fund, which we are looking to continue to run this summer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Opposition are getting upset because Government Front Benchers are taking too long. They should speed up in future.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)]

This week, I announced a new set of behaviour hubs that are being introduced right across the country to make sure that there are the very highest standards of behaviour in every single one of our schools.

As with all Government Departments right across the country, we are making sure that there are regular communications about the coronavirus. We are communicating to all educational settings to make sure that they have a clear understanding of some of the challenges in dealing with the virus. We are advising that schools should stay open unless advised otherwise by Public Health England, and we are planning for a reasonable worst-case scenario, working closely with other Departments and, of course, Public Health England.

[Kate Osborne]

In my constituency of Jarrow, headteachers have told me that they are struggling to make ends meet. Cuts to funding for their schools have resulted in overcrowded classrooms, and teaching and non-teaching staff being cut. Buildings are crumbling. Does the Minister believe, like me, that our teachers and children deserve better?

[Gavin Williamson]

What we are seeing in the hon. Lady’s constituency is a 6.1% cash increase in what is going to be going to schools and a 4.8% per-pupil increase. That is a positive step forward in making sure that every school benefits from the increases in funding that we announced last year.