Investing in Children and Young People

Kim Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) [V]]

I pay tribute to all parents, Liverpool City Council, and all staff working with children and young people in Liverpool, Riverside, who have provided invaluable support over the past 14 months during the pandemic.

In this country, 4.3 million children are living in poverty, and in my Liverpool, Riverside constituency, 38%—11 children, on average, in every single classroom in my constituency. That is totally unacceptable. It is the legacy of this Government, including a decade of Tory austerity that hollowed out vital services, leaving millions of children in need and at risk, and my council with £450 million less to spend on those in greatest need.

If there was any doubt about this Government’s priorities, the pandemic has laid them bare for all to see. In the past year, this Government have chosen to spend more on one month of the disastrous Eat Out to Help Out scheme than on the entire year’s budget for schools catch-up, and put only £50 per pupil into the education recovery fund. This is scandalous when £25 million of this meagre budget has been spent on a contract outsourcing teaching to a HR firm with little teaching experience—another example of cronyism. That the Government’s own education recovery commissioner has resigned over the pitiful funding pledge to help pupils catch up speaks volumes. They are still threatening to cut the universal credit uplift of £20 that has been an invaluable lifeline for so many families living on the breadline in Liverpool and across the country. Barnardo’s, the largest children’s charity in the UK, has identified that nearly 300,000 children were referred to children’s services during the pandemic, many of them previously unknown to local authorities. Two thirds of its workers have supported families in the last year who were unable to put food on the table. This speaks to a crisis of poverty and the welfare of children. It is a shameful state of affairs for a country as wealthy as ours, the fifth richest country in the world. This Government have presided over the expansion of the wealth of billionaires by 25% during the pandemic, while the use of food banks has rocketed by a third in the same time.

If this Government are serious about ensuring that no child is left behind, we need an urgent change in direction. Can the Minister give me a straight answer: does he accept that this Government’s funding pledge for post-pandemic education recovery is entirely inadequate, and will he commit today to go back to his Government and get a commitment to proper resourcing on a par with the investment made by other countries, so that we can provide an education system that supports high standards and places pupil wellbeing at its heart—yes or no, Minister?

We are emerging from an unprecedented crisis that has shone a spotlight on the struggles of the poorest and most vulnerable in our country, particularly black young people, who are twice as likely to be unemployed, six times more likely to be excluded from school and over-represented in the criminal justice system. This must be a turning point—one where our country fundamentally shifts our priorities and commits serious resources towards eradicating child poverty, improving our welfare and education systems and creating a country in which every child can thrive, for the many, not the few.