Educational Opportunities

Debate between Laura Trott and Mark Pritchard

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing the debate and on his focus on the specific issue—it was a very good speech. I echo the commendation from him and the hon. Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) of the work of colleges and the important things they do.

I will get the ding-dong out the way. I gently point out to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe that apprenticeship starts under the Conservatives went up quite considerably from 2010 to 2022-23, from 279,000 to 337,000. I am sure he will want to reflect that in his closing remarks. I also want to pick up on something said by the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin). We are never going to get anywhere if we talk about a toxic legacy on education under the Conservatives. We all want to make progress on this stuff. In 2010, we were behind Germany and France in PISA; now we are ahead. Obviously, we can contrast that with what happened in Wales and Scotland.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (John Grady) was absolutely right that the SNP has failed to close the gap for disadvantaged children. If we are going to make progress, which we all want to do, on raising educational standards and helping disadvantaged children, it is important to look at why some things have gone well, and one of the reasons is a knowledge-based curriculum. I say to the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) that we need to be careful about what we do in this area, because the worst thing we can do for disadvantaged children is dilute academic standards.

I will get to the meat of the debate now because I think I have covered that. We are all interested in the number of apprenticeships going up. I would be interested to know from the Minister how much apprenticeship start numbers will go up and whether the Government stand by the pledge to spend up to 50% of the apprenticeship levy on other types of training. That was committed to before the election. I am not clear as to whether that is still the case now, so it would be helpful for the Minister to give some clarification on that specific point.

I agree with the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) that once skills have gone, it is very difficult to get them back. What is the Minister doing to safeguard specific high-value and rare skills, particularly in the craft area? I hope she answers correctly the brilliant contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on free school meals, holiday activities and breakfast clubs, all of which are crucial to driving forward the progress of disadvantaged children.

I share interest in the question asked by the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) on when the children’s wellbeing Bill will be introduced. The Lib Dem spokesman, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), mentioned the importance of driving down the number of absences, which we absolutely want to do on a cross-party basis. We will very much support the register, which I believe is going to be in that Bill, but when will that Bill be brought forward and how does the Minister intend to make it work?

The speeches made about young carers by the hon. Members for Leeds South West and Morley (Mr Sewards) and for Harlow (Chris Vince) were very moving and absolutely right, and I am interested in the Minister’s comments on them. The mention by the hon. Member for Twickenham of state special schools was important. I was pleased to see that they have not been paused, but given the speech given last week by the Secretary of State, will the Minister confirm that she still believes in the principle of having separate special schools? Will they be continued and will parents have the choice as to whether they send their kids to them?

I very much echo the comments from the hon. Member for Twickenham about the importance of early years. I will quibble with her about the funding that has gone into early years, which obviously increased massively under the last Government, but we have a real problem now with early years funding. The national insurance contributions change will have a significant impact on the sector. It will means that, in contrast to what the Prime Minister said today, costs for parents will go up. Also, childcare provision has had no guarantees that the Government’s funding formula will include provision for the increased cost from NICs. Obviously, under the previous Government we set it up so that the minimum wage increases will be taken into account. Will the Minister please confirm today that the increased costs from employers’ national insurance contributions will be taken into account by the Government in the funding formula? Otherwise, we are going to have a real crisis with provision. The Minister needs to recognise that and take it away if she cannot answer now.

More broadly, this has been a helpful and interesting debate. Education is an area where we need to work together to make progress for disadvantaged children. I say to all Labour Members that the Conservatives will drive that forward by insisting on high academic standards and the rigorous holding to account of schools for their performance, and by ensuring that the curriculum is knowledge based and drives children forward. We will support the Government if they seek to drive up apprenticeship starts and improve vocational education, and we will work as hard as we can with them on improving the current absence rates, because we know they are hitting disadvantaged children.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call the Minister, I should say that if she wants to make time for the mover of the motion to have a minute or two at the end, I think we have time, if she is so minded.