Oral Answers to Questions

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

Let me be abundantly clear: off-rolling—removing a pupil from a school without using a permanent exclusion—is unacceptable and unlawful. That is in the Ofsted framework, and it is strengthened in the revised framework that came out in 2019 to look at that. That can be seen in Ofsted’s report. It is also looked at by the Teacher Regulation Agency. We must be abundantly clear that being involved in off-rolling is not consistent with the conduct we expect of a teacher. In serious cases, it could result in action.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

7. What recent estimate she has made of the number of school places available for pupils with special educational needs in Gloucestershire.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)]

Places for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities have increased in Gloucestershire since 2015. We estimate that there are 1,700 places, and the local authority opened two additional settings in 2022-23.

[Mr Robertson]

At the moment, 120 pupils have been assessed as needing special school places, but those places are not available. Over the next couple of years it looks like at least 200 more special school places will be needed in Gloucestershire. Can the Minister look at the situation urgently to see what he can do to help?

[David Johnston]

We are working closely with local authorities on this issue. We have allocated more than £1.5 billion of high needs capital allocations in the last two years for local authorities to create additional places. Gloucestershire County Council has announced a 200-place moderate and additional learning difficulties school for four to 16-year-olds, to be delivered through our free school presumption route in early 2026.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

Part of the reason why we are staggering the entitlement is to ensure that we have the staff in place to deliver it. In the next few weeks we will announce changes to the processes for recruiting people. We will launch a big campaign of recruitment in the new year to increase the workforce, and I have every confidence that we will meet the commitment.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

24. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding for special needs education.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)]

Higher needs funding for children and young people with complex needs is increasing by a further £440 million next year, bringing the total higher needs budget to £10.5 billion in 2024-25—60% higher than it was in 2019-20.

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to the Minister for that response, and I heard the earlier responses, but there is a shortage of places in special needs schools—special schools for children who need those places. Will he carry out a national assessment of the number of places that are available in special schools against the number of places that are needed, because it is resulting in some children having to attend mainstream schools when actually they should be in special schools?

[David Johnston]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have approved the opening of 78 special schools, and this year we collected new data from local authorities on their capacity and demand forecast for special schools. That will help us to support them more effectively to fulfil their duty to provide sufficient places.

Free School Meals: Eligibility

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

In a moment, I will call Emma Lewell-Buck to move the motion and later I will call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the mover of the motion to wind up, as this is only a 30-minute debate.

If anyone wishes to remove their jackets, they should please feel free to do so.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered eligibility criteria for free school meals.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Robertson. There is nothing more grotesque than a Government who not only preside over thousands of children going hungry but who actively pursue policies that plunge them into hunger and poverty. As we debate the issue, nearly 4 million children in Britain are living in poverty, more than 800,000 are missing out on free school meals and hundreds of thousands are missing out on school breakfasts.

In my part of the world—the north-east—such figures are not decreasing but rising rapidly. Just this morning, the North East Child Poverty Commission revealed that our region now has the highest rate of child poverty in the UK, with 38% of our children now living in poverty. In South Shields, that rises to over 42%. It is clear that levelling up, just like the northern powerhouse before it, is a vacuous, empty phrase that was never intended to, and never will, do anything to improve the life chances of children in my area.

Hungry children, no matter how talented they are or how dedicated their teachers are, simply do not learn. When children spend their day worrying about where their next meal will come from, or about when their mams, dads and siblings will be able to eat again, their learning will inevitably be hindered.

The impacts of child hunger are well documented. Numerous studies have shown the links between nutrition and cognitive development. Hungry children suffer developmental impairment, language delays and delayed motor skills, not to mention the psychological and emotional impacts that can range from withdrawn and depressive behaviours to irritable and aggressive ones.

Pre-pandemic, we even saw rising numbers of hospital admissions for children through malnutrition and a resurgence of Victorian diseases such as scurvy and rickets. If it was not for the nearly 200,000 food banks in the UK—those are the ones we know of—as well as kind neighbours, faith groups and charities, many more children would simply have gone without.

When I was a child protection social worker, it was the children suffering from severe neglect who would be going without on such a scale, but now we have a generation of children for whom hunger and grinding poverty have become the norm. Back in 2019, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights visited the UK and found that the driving force of that Government was not an economic goal but rather a commitment to achieving radical social re-engineering and sending messages about lifestyles. His well-evidenced and thorough assessment was rejected outright and his recommendations were ignored.

When it comes to free school meals, what support the Government have put in place has been hard-fought for by charities, faith groups, Opposition MPs and celebrities.

Foster Carers

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I could not agree more, and I am sure my hon. Friend will join me in thanking Kevin and the foster carers here today, and indeed the Members here who have been foster carers themselves, as well as foster carers up and down the country. Given the importance of foster carers and the difference they make to society, the data on the number of foster carers makes for difficult reading and lays bare the scale of the impending crisis. Simply put, there are not enough foster carers to meet the demand.

There are two main reasons behind the shortage. The first is the rising number of children entering care. We have touched on some of the reasons for that today. A 2021 report by the Social Market Foundation found that, based on an average of 2.9% year-on-year growth in the number of children requiring foster care over the last five years, the number of children in need of care could rise by 33% by 2030. Combined with that is the equally pressing issue of the number of foster carers leaving the system, with 30% of deregistrations taking place within the first two years of approval for foster care. Those issues are as significant in County Durham as they are in local authorities across England, and we now face a huge deficit in foster carers.

Research by the Social Market Foundation suggests that more than 63,000 new foster carers need to be recruited in England by 2026 to meet the demand of the rising numbers of children entering care and to replace the foster carers leaving the system. Estimates suggest that fewer than 40,000 new foster families will be recruited in that time, leaving a recruitment deficit of around 25,000 foster care families. I truly worry that we are sleepwalking towards a foster care crisis.

With those issues in mind, it is clear to me that much more needs to be done to improve the recruitment of new foster carers as well as retain existing ones. Although there is much that can realistically be done, I want to state my support for two measures in particular. On the issue of recruitment, it is worth noting that there is not necessarily a lack of interest. In 2021, 160,000 individuals inquired about fostering, yet only around 2,200 were approved as foster carers. It is important that we recognise that not everyone who withdraws from the fostering process does so because they are disqualified. Many do so because personal circumstances make them temporarily unsuited to the role, yet they remain open to foster caring. We cannot allow those people to believe that they are unwanted by the system. We should make it clear to them that the door is not closed to them. It would therefore be useful if the Government could work to develop mechanisms for keeping in touch, with the permission of those involved, with those who inquire about becoming foster carers.

On the issue of retention, we should all be concerned by the fact that a third of former foster carers aged 18 to 54 cited a lack of training and support as the reason they stopped fostering. At the minute, the quality of the training provided to foster carers lacks consistency, and often fails to prepare people for the specific challenges of the children who will be placed in their care. It is therefore important that the existing training process is improved, both during the assessment period and throughout people’s time as foster carers. The training and support must be tailored to the needs of the children in their care so that foster carers feel valued and supported by the system and not forgotten about.

To finish, I want to reiterate my concern that the Government are sleepwalking into a crisis in foster care. People get into foster care for many reasons, but chief among them is a desire to provide a safe and nurturing environment for vulnerable children. Yet instead of that desire being nurtured by the authorities, foster carers are too often met with a lack of support and are weighed down by the challenges of the role. If we do not treat this problem with the severity it deserves and take steps to tackle the issues now, it is the most vulnerable children in society who will suffer the most.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front-Bench speeches. I would like to leave a couple of minutes at the end for the mover of the motion to sum up.

Multi-academy Trusts: Ofsted

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Ofsted inspection of multi-academy trusts.

There is much excitement, as we are expecting to hear the Division bell. I will speak slowly at the beginning of my speech, and say that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again in a Westminster Hall debate, Mr Robertson. I am grateful to the Minister and welcome him to his new role. I spent time with him on the campaign trail, as well as working with him when he was in the Northern Ireland Office. I am delighted to see the new Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston), with whom I served on the Education Committee for over a year and a half. He brings a lot of experience to the Department of Education. I also welcome the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle)—I thoroughly enjoy exchanging a few heckles with him across the Floor of the House, but I also know the passion he has in this area and I am pleased to see him in the Chamber.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

Order. The sitting is suspended, as previously advised.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

The debate can now run to 5.56 pm.

[Jonathan Gullis]

Thank you, Mr Robertson, for calling me to speak again, and I thank everyone else in Westminster Hall for coming back swiftly after the Divisions. I will not repeat all the love-ins that I gave before the Divisions; instead, I will go straight on to saying why we are having this very important debate.

When the people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke lent me their votes in 2019, it was because they wanted change after 70 years of Labour neglect. A Conservative-led council, Conservative MPs and a Conservative Government are finally levelling up our fantastic city and unleashing the boundless opportunity that it has to offer, while Labour Members are still trying to find Stoke-on-Trent on their Ordnance Survey maps.

As a former teacher, I believe that the most important way to continue levelling up our city is to transform education across Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. It is unacceptable that children from Stoke-on-Trent simply cannot access the same standard of education that is on offer elsewhere in the country. Where we are today, in Westminster, there are eight secondary schools rated outstanding, with a further 16 outstanding schools in Camden, Kensington and Chelsea, and Southwood. By contrast, there is only one outstanding secondary school in Stoke-on-Trent, with another outstanding school shared between the neighbouring local authorities of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire Moorlands and Stafford.

Such examples show why I firmly believe that if levelling up means anything, it means that each and every child, no matter where they live in our United Kingdom, has the chance to attend the best schools, where they can receive the education they need to attend first-class universities or gain skills via an apprenticeship or vocational training. As a former teacher who taught in academies for eight years, I think that academies are one of the keys to spreading educational opportunity around the country. Multi-academy trusts back great teachers and, most importantly, they enable our children to reach their potential.

As the “Lost Learning” report that I co-authored earlier this year with Onward and the New Schools Network year argued, we should

“much more aggressively use multi-academy trusts as the engine of school improvement, by…holding them to account for their ability to turnaround underperforming schools”.

Since 2010, the Conservative Government have invested in multi-academy trusts, and throughout my teaching career I saw at first hand how that investment acted as a vehicle for school improvement by advancing the education that our children receive.

That has been reflected in the Ofsted rating of schools. Between 2010 and 2020, the proportion of schools that Ofsted rated as good or outstanding rose from 66% to 86%, while 2018 figures showed that at converter academies open for one year, 65% of pupils reached the expected standards in reading, writing and maths—that figure rises to 71% in converter academies open for seven years or more.

Coupled with the drive for academisation, the free school agenda has been at the heart of the Government’s impressive record on education since 2010. At free schools, 10% more disadvantaged pupils achieve a pass between grades 5 and 9 in their English and maths GCSEs than their peers at other types of state school.

I firmly believe that free schools and academies are key to our mission to level up around the country, and therefore it is only right that pupils in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke should benefit from a free school opening up in the community. I look forward to the Minister announcing that wave 15 is finally coming down the track, so that we can bid for a disruptor free school. I have very much enjoyed talking to Star Academies and to Michaela Community School, which has the fantastic Katharine Birbalsingh, to see if she will endeavour to come to Stoke-on-Trent and shake the apple tree.

On top of their role in driving up school standards, multi-academy trusts are vital in turning around failing schools. To take a local example, the inspirational Learning Academies Trust has transformed the fortunes of two schools in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. Norton-le-Moors Primary Academy became part of the Learning Academies Trust in 2015, following an Ofsted inspection that rated it as inadequate. After the takeover, it received its first good grade from Ofsted in 2017, and in 2019, 13% of pupils, which is higher than the national average, were achieving beyond the expected standards for reading, writing and maths. I will give a big shout-out to Jack, who was a runner-up in my Christmas card competition. It was a pleasure to visit him with Councillor Dave Evans and award him the prize of the card, as well as Port Vale football match tickets—Stoke’s first team, of course, unlike that team further south, Stoke City.

We also have Whitfield Valley Primary Academy in Fegg Hayes, which joined the Inspirational Learning Academies Trust in 2016. It is now not only rated good by Ofsted but has achieved an above-average progress score in maths, as well as above-average scores in reading and writing.

To look at another example, the Shaw Education Trust recently took over Kidsgrove Primary and Secondary Schools, following inadequate Ofsted ratings under the former multi-academy trust, the University of Chester Academies Trust. That shameful trust has been slammed by Ofsted for failing in its school improvement strategies and below-average standards in some of its schools. In May 2018, it received a formal warning from the Education and Skills Funding Agency to get its finances in order, after racking up a £3 million deficit. The trust confirmed that it was considering cutting 24 support staff and 19 teaching roles across its schools.

Since then, thanks to the Shaw Education Trust, Kidsgrove Primary and Secondary have partnered in launching a new digital strategy, allowing pupils to be taught with up-to-date technology. That follows my “Silicon Stoke” agenda, a new prospectus setting out the ambition for a digital transformation of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, enabling it to become a smart city, attracting new national and international businesses, and being at the heart of the UK video games sector.

“Silicon Stoke” ensures that Stoke-on-Trent takes up opportunities through digital connectivity, and the Shaw Education Trust has ensured that our primary and secondary students at Kidsgrove and Talke are kept up to speed with the new digital age through the digital strategy. Since July this year, all classrooms in Kidsgrove Primary, for example, have been equipped with the latest Promethean boards for teacher and pupil use, and since September, there has been a measure for all students across both schools to receive an iPad, to support school and home learning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Kyle]

This is something that I have been deeply concerned about since the start of the autumn term in September. On 19 July in the Chamber, when I raised concerns about the vaccine roll-out among children aged 12-plus and argued that it should be rolled out over the summer months, so as to use the mass vaccination existing infrastructure, so that schools could be protected come autumn and stabilised, but also so that they did not become targets for anti-vax protests, the then Vaccines Minister, the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), told me that children were protected by a “wall of vaccinated adults” and therefore it was not a priority. He was wrong. Now he is Secretary of State for Education and we are picking up the pieces.

The principal of a school told me recently that he feels his job is no longer primarily that of leading an institution for schooling, but of running a logistics centre: twice-weekly testing in school, organising the logistics behind a vaccine roll-out in school, dealing with local outbreaks, and dealing with the need to control the flow of students. He said the first, second, third and often fourth items on the agenda of his daily senior management team meetings were about logistical challenges, not teaching and learning. That is the price of not seeing this coming down the road. It was predicted and predictable and was not dealt with.

The Labour party has tried to be constructive about this. Last month the Leader of the Opposition proposed a solution—to update the legislation around public spaces protection orders. They are unwieldy at the moment and could take several weeks to implement. However we believe that, with a very simple amendment to the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, the process could be streamlined so that an order could be brought into force in just one hour, with one phone conference between a school principal, the local authority and the local police force. They could bring into the order the powers to keep anti-vax protesters away from school gates for the duration of the vaccine roll-out programme. We offered that suggestion, but sadly the Government have not responded. The Secretary of State for Education said in response to my oral question just two weeks ago that he was in conversation with the Home Secretary, and that all powers would be implemented. Again, nothing happened. I cannot see that that conversation actually took place in a meaningful way.

However, there is another opportunity, and it is great that I have been given the opportunity to put it on the record. Tomorrow, in the House of Lords, Lord Coaker will table an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that would amend the 2003 Act to give schools the powers that I have just described to instigate exclusion zones for anti-vax protesters within one hour, and they could do so pre-emptively; if one school is facing disruptive anti-vax protests in which children are being bullied, harassed and intimidated, in all likelihood the same will emerge down the road when the protest moves to another school, so schools need those powers to prevent that protest from happening. The Government have an opportunity to give them those powers. We would get this through in a heartbeat. The Labour Opposition in the House of Lords stand ready to table that amendment tomorrow.

I will have my say on another issue, because I feel as strongly as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, and we have another 25 minutes of debate, so I am sure I can get this on the record before I sum up the debate. In my constituency, anti-vax protesters have gone on to a school bus to tell children that they will become infertile if they take the vaccine. Outside schools in my constituency, there have been so many harassing, bullying and intimidatory protesters that schoolchildren have had to detour out into the busy main road in order to go through the driveway into the school. A child was grabbed by the collar and told that he could endanger the lives of his teachers and his parents.

I bring those experiences and my anger about that kind of behaviour because, let us be clear, these people are not just anti-vax. Six months ago, they were anti-face masks. A year or two ago, they were anti-covid altogether, believing it was all fake news. If they were alive 350 years ago, they would have been calling for Galileo to be burned at the stake for saying the earth revolves around the sun. We went through the scientific revolution, we went through the Enlightenment, in this country so that we could not base policy on superstition. We did so by bringing the best of scientific understanding to the heart of Government. Let us not allow these people to determine how public health unfolds in this country. I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and for giving me the opportunity to put that on the record. I feel very strongly about it.

People leading schools and teaching in classrooms through the pandemic lack resources for catch-up support and tough action to clamp down on anti-vaxxers outside school gates. In contrast to the Government, the Labour party is on the side of pupils, teachers and leaders. Our goal is a well-functioning school system, backed with resources, direction and inspection, that prepares students for the world of work and the world of tomorrow that they will encounter. Under the new leadership of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), we have updated our positions on key issues in schools policy to meet the new challenges that schools and trusts face. The Government have not. We innovate; I am afraid that the Government stagnate.

What is the Minister’s assessment of the strength of the current inspection regime for MATs? What plans does he have to expand Ofsted’s inspection powers with regard to MATs, and does he intend to support any greater powers with the required resources? What other steps is he taking to support schools that wish to exit their trust if that is in the best interests of pupils? Will he commit to a new era of strong leadership from the Department for Education? This is a fantastic opportunity, as we hopefully see the finish line of the pandemic in sight, and with a new ministerial team, to commit to new, strong leadership—one that trust leaders, school leaders, teachers and students can at last trust, replacing the years of drift and decline.

As I made clear at the start, ensuring robust standards for all MATs is crucial. It would matter if they educated just one child; it certainly matters when they educate so many thousands. A young child has only one shot at their education; the state must do all it can to make that shot a success.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

I would like to leave two or three minutes at the end for the mover of the motion to respond.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

Order. We are actually on a wind-up speech about multi-academy trusts. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North has 30 seconds to respond to the intervention, but he must then wind up.

[Jonathan Gullis]

Apologies, Mr Robertson. The hon. Gentleman asked me to picture 1997 and put my head back in that time; I was seven years old when Tony Blair came to power, so it is hard for me to fathom and picture that. Obviously, I had to suffer through the Labour doldrums in that education system, but I am grateful that I had a fantastic school and an inspirational teacher there, who was, by the way, a Labour councillor in Tamworth and who is a role model for me.

Finally, on the subject of the “not education union”, Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney need to resign with immediate effect. They are an abomination to the profession. I will come up to their offices, pack their stuff and send it to their houses. The National Education Union is a disgrace.

Going back to the most important point in the debate, Ofsted want there to be inspections of multi-academy trusts and there is cross-party consensus on that. As we have heard from Members, multi-academy trusts that are really well run are not afraid of this. I hope in the White Paper, the Zahawi-Walker legacy document, we will see some fantastic innovation to turbocharge these schools and multi-academy trusts, and ensure that kids in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke are no longer forgotten and left behind.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Ofsted inspection of multi-academy trusts.

Covid-19: Impact on Education

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice to support the new hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will also be suspensions between each debate. I remind Members participating physically and virtually that they must arrive for the start of debates in Westminster Hall, and they are expected to remain for the entire debate. I must also remind Members participating virtually that they are visible at all times, both to each other and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks’ email address. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and before they leave the room.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, and to speak in this debate, covering a number of petitions about both the return to school and this year’s assessments.

Obviously, the impact of covid on our schools, and therefore on our children and young people, has been huge. I would argue that it is perhaps still being underestimated. As I have said before in this place, personally I would not have closed schools. Being out of school for months has had a huge impact on the more than 1,000 vulnerable children in Nottinghamshire—that is just the county, excluding the city, so the number might be twice as high—who are known to children’s services for one reason or another. There was a spike in the number of abuse referrals to children’s services following last summer’s lockdown, and I have no doubt that that will happen again now. We owe it to those children in particular to put them at the heart of our plans for recovery.

This is not just about vulnerable children; the issue has affected all children. I am lucky enough to be the father of two primary aged boys—

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

I am sorry to interrupt, Mr Bradley, but your voice is not coming through very clearly. Could you try to speak a little more loudly or move a little closer to the microphone?

[Ben Bradley]

I will hold the microphone closer to my face.

It is not only vulnerable children who have been impacted by the lockdowns. I am lucky enough to be the father of two primary age boys, and they have been lucky enough mostly to continue to attend school, as my wife has worked on a supermarket shop floor throughout, but even they have missed their social lives and have missed out on a lot of experiences. They have seen both their education and development impacted. This time in the lives of our children and young people is hugely important, whether it is early development as a primary school student mastering the academic basics, learning to make friends, understanding the school environment and how to act around other people, or whether it is a teenager studying for major qualifications while also coming out of their shell and becoming an adult and finding themselves. How much more difficult must it be for them to begin to find their independence and their own self separate from their parents when they are forced to spend every day at home with them and they do not get to go and do anything else?

In terms of what we do about it—this is the key going forward—the Government have talked a lot about academic catch-up and tutoring, which is welcome, but the biggest challenge that parents and teachers have raised with me is a social one, not an academic one. Teachers have told me that children have forgotten what it means to be in school—how to act and behave—and having to relearn all of that after having changed those behaviours as they are not used to being around groups of people, seeing their friends or being in the classroom. They have shrunk back into their shells after having spent so much time on their own, and it is a challenge now to draw them out again. That means we need to focus not only on academia but on the social side of things.

We should offer more support to extracurricular activities, including sport. Let us not forget the health and fitness impact, too, and the inequalities that will have grown as a result of lockdown and the inactivity that came with it. We could start by looking seriously at how we can open up our sports facilities. Some 40% of our nation’s sports facilities remain locked behind school gates at evenings and weekends.

We have to focus on transitioning children back into the classroom when they need it, and supporting teachers to do that. Children moving to secondary school this year, for example, will have missed so much of the transitional process that they normally would get. The Government could promote and support things such as nurture provision at both primary and secondary level to help children adapt and ease into school life at their own pace, rather than being chucked in at the deep end. I hope the Government will be able to support schools to deliver some year 7 transition as much as possible for the end of this year.

A few years ago, the then Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), launched a programme of introducing and expanding mental health support in schools. I spoke to the Schools Minister recently about that. Will he update the House on any discussions about whether that plan, which at the time seemed wide ranging and positive, is considered still to be adequate, or can we speed it up and extend it in the light of the struggles that many will face as a result of the pandemic?

On the issue of academia, the Prime Minister’s idea of one-to-one tutoring could be great if it could be done as an addition to the social support that is needed. It will be important to work across schools, colleges and universities to ensure that there is a recognition of the challenges that young people have faced and of the difference between grades given this year compared with other years, because clearly nobody should be disadvantaged as they seek to move on to the next stage of their lives.

All of that calls into question some of what we do around our assessment. I am no detractor from testing at all—I think it is important—but we saw the major challenges faced as a result of so much of our assessment being built only on exams at the end of the year. In the absence of those, there have been all sorts of problems. Obviously, other countries have different systems. Some have an ongoing system of teacher-led assessment as a matter of course. I wonder how the Minister feels those countries might have compared in terms of the challenges of assessment through this period.

I particularly question whether there is really a need to formally assess year 2 students, for example. Also, in the light of covid, perhaps we should be more willing to trust our teachers and to rely on their ongoing assessment as to what children in their care need. They are better placed to assess the ability and the support needed by children at a young age than an exam paper is, particularly if the needs of those children at four, five or six years old are more social as opposed to academic. Perhaps that is something we could look at. Teachers’ knowledge of what their students need will be more important than ever as we seek to recover from the pandemic. Both teachers and students would benefit from having that trust in their relationship within schools to help support children.

There are lessons to take from online learning, too. Although some have struggled, others have loved it and have excelled. They have attended, whereas they might not have done before. There may be a role for using remote learning permanently in some instances. My local college reported excellent attendance among some of the students who had not been engaged or showing up before; it reported excellent work and excellent progress by, for example, many students with autism, who might have struggled in a classroom environment but found online learning really positive. Across the board, but perhaps particularly for post-16 and with SEND pupils, we should review how remote learning could benefit young people. I know that is part of the Prime Minister’s plan for independent and individual tutoring.

Finally, I will touch on skills. I welcome the Government’s further education White Paper, which has some excellent proposals for boosting and supporting further education. The Minister knows my view that many children would benefit from more access to technical and vocational education as part of their curriculum within school or from being allowed out to college earlier in their school life. I have always felt that is an opportunity for the 18% who currently leave school with no qualifications at all to do something different, and to fall in love with education through learning in a way that is directly linked to the world of work or to things they enjoy.

Given the impact on so many children who have been out of education for so long and the challenge of getting them back into the classroom and comfortable in the classroom again, I hope the Minister will give consideration to how that might work, not only as a chance to get young people back into learning after covid, but to complement the FE reforms that have been brought forward by the Government and to help all our young people to get the most out of education in the long term, including that 18% who previously have not managed to get those qualifications through traditional schooling.

With that, I will wrap up. I finish by saying that this is hugely important and, as I said at the start of my speech, we owe it to all our young people and our children to put them at the heart of our recovery plans. Ultimately, they are the ones who will have to deal with this for the longest, for the future of our country, our economy and all of us, and they should be front and centre of every decision we make as we look to recover from this pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wes Streeting]

The problem with the BTEC handling back in January was that the Department was saying two things at the same time. It was saying that these BTEC exams were going ahead, but then, following an outcry and concerns about whether that would be safe, it said:

“In light of the evolving public health measures”—

I am quoting from the DFE statement—

“schools and colleges can continue with the vocational and technical exams that are due to take place in January, where they judge it right to do so.”

That just added to the confusion and chaos. The issue was not just pupils sitting at home, trying to prepare for exams that were taking place literally the next day or in the coming days; it was also that their teachers were unable to give clear answers. This goes back to the point that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North raised about the invidious position that school leaders and teachers have been put in by the chaos and confusion and dither and delay that have come out of the DFE. They were not clear on what was going on—the communication was poor for them—so the very people to whom students usually look to provide clear answers and strong advice and leadership simply were not able to provide it, through no fault of their own.

That left us in the absurd situation in which, according to the Education Secretary, about a third of colleges chose to continue with exams in January, while the rest did not. He then backtracked and cancelled BTEC exams in February and March. Again, he eventually got to the right decision, but why did he not see it coming and why could he not take decisive action in a way that told all students and all staff exactly where they stood and what he planned to do about it?

Let me turn now to some of the other challenges facing us ahead of assessments this summer. The first is on private candidates. There has been concern, throughout the changes to examinations, that about 20,000 private candidates not affiliated with schools and colleges this year will be disadvantaged. Many students have been told that they have to pay hundreds or even thousands of pounds for local exam centres and schools to assess them, and schools do not necessarily have the resources to do that. Again, more for the benefit of people watching the debate than people in the Chamber, I point out that we are not talking about privately educated students; we are talking about private candidates, who are entering themselves privately for examinations. Many of these private candidates are students who were not happy with their centre assessed grades last year. They feel that they are being denied the opportunity to take exams and prove that they deserve better grades. They are worried about whether they are even going to get a centre to take them on.

I acknowledge that today there has been an announcement from the Department that schools will receive a subsidy for every private candidate who is entered for a qualification. I think that that will go some way to incentivising centres to take these students on. I am concerned that, in relation to a very small number of subjects but none the less a number of subjects, the fees to enter students for these exams are more than the £200 that I think the Department is offering. Could the Minister speak to that point in particular?

I wonder, because this is the question that we are getting from students, what consideration the Department and Ofqual gave to allowing private candidates to sit some form of exams. The Minister will understand that the concern of these students is that a system that relies on teacher assessment will be inherently disadvantageous or, perhaps, practically impossible if the centre does not have a relationship with the private candidates.

These are just some of the quotes that I have from private candidates expressing their concerns. One told PoliticsHome:

“With the promise of 2021 exams, I was hopeful that I could redeem myself in my other two A Levels…It’s clear that the government thinks of us as afterthoughts…We’re not just going to sit back whilst they toy with our futures. We want a solution that works for everybody.”

Another student who was downgraded last year said:

“I decided to put my life on hold for another year and resit my exams this summer as the university kindly reinstated my offer. I made the decision not to give up on my dreams and not settle for a grade I strongly believed was too low. I put an extreme amount of effort into revising everyday so that I am able to move on…I am absolutely devastated for private and resit candidates that exams have been cancelled again this year as they are, in vast majority of cases, not able to get a [teacher-assigned] grade.”

Will the Minister explain to those students the practical challenges of their being able to sit an exam? What reassurance can he provide that they will be able to sign up with another school, college or assessment centre and receive a properly validated grade that reflects their abilities and efforts in the way that they hope, as students who are resitting?

My final point about this year’s exams is about the immense pressure that we are already beginning to see inflicted on teachers and headteachers as a result of the appeals system that seems to have been outlined in the guidance. One of my own secondary schools wrote to me quoting the guidance, which says:

“To reduce the number of errors made and, in turn the volume of appeals, centres will be expected to tell their students the evidence on which their grades will be based, before the grades are submitted to exam boards. This will allow issues associated with, for example, absence, illness or reasonable adjustments to be identified and resolved before grades are submitted.”

There is something to commend in the approach that students must understand the basis on which they are being judged—of course, that is absolutely right. It is also absolutely right that mitigating factors ought to be taken into account, and in a transparent way. However, I think we are all concerned about the implication that pupils or pushy parents with sharp elbows will be able to—picking up on reasonable adjustments in particular—effectively demand from teachers and headteachers different grades from the ones the teacher has judged to be right. That puts schools in a really invidious position.

By the way, this should be regarded as a gentle warning to those who regularly make demands for a whole series of exams to be scrapped that the grass is not always greener on the other side. This is not to say that teacher judgment cannot play a role, but leaving a system significantly to teacher judgment in the way that this has been puts enormous pressure on teachers. My concern is that it will also bake in deeper disadvantage because sharp-elbowed middle-class parents will be in there demanding adjustments to grades, and other parents will not. I wonder what the Minister might say in response to that, in terms of the approach to this year’s exams.

Finally, on next year’s exams, if the Education Secretary has not learned from the absolute fiasco last summer and the absolute fiasco in January, and the completely last-minute way in which he made a decision about exams in 2021, please, for the love of God, I hope he has made some judgments about exams in 2022. We already have students on GCSE, A-level and BTEC courses expecting to sit exams in 2022. There is simply no good reason why the Department for Education and Ofqual should not be able to tell those students what exams in 2022 will look like.

Indeed, Ofqual’s acting chief regulator, Simon Lebus, told the Education Committee last week:

“So far as 2022 is concerned, the thinking at the moment is about adaptations along the line that had originally been contemplated for this year, when exams were still to go ahead.”

Furthermore, the Minister for School Standards said:

“We are working now on what decisions we will take for 2022, because we know there has been disruption, but we will have more to say on that later in the year.”

I am afraid that “later in the year” is really not good enough. It is really inexplicable—these issues and the choices available to exam boards and Ministers about mitigations and adjustments to exams are well known and were debated and discussed ahead of exams potentially taking place in 2021. Why are these decisions not ready to go? Why are we not providing clarity and certainty to schools, teachers and students, who are crying out for them? I find it unfathomable that we are not providing clear instruction and guidance to students who are on these courses right now, wondering what they should be studying for and towards, and what their exams will look like.

Of course, adjustments are necessary. Looking at the Department’s own data, we estimated that year 10 pupils have missed one in eight days of GCSE teaching. The situation may not be quite so severe at A-level because we always expect there to be a greater degree of independent learning, but none the less there will be some degree of learning loss, and we know that the challenges faced by students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds will be greater.

Last week, I met school leaders from Newham sixth forms. Both the principals present were very clear that scant information is coming from the Government and that they need certainty now. Uncertainty is piling on the pressure facing pupils and their teachers. The longer Ministers dither and delay, the harder it will be to make meaningful adjustments for exams to go ahead in a way that is fair to all pupils.

Ministers need to learn from their mistakes and act sooner, rather than later. If the Education Secretary did not feel battered and bruised from his previous encounters with exams, and motivated to do something different, something earlier and something decisive, there really is no hope for him.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

Minister, you will need to leave a couple of minutes for Mr Hunt to wind up.

Educational Settings: Reopening

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Member failed to mention of course that the Government have purchased hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine from a range of different providers, and that we were one of the first countries to begin rolling out the vaccine process. She failed to point out that we have already purchased 1.3 million laptops for disadvantaged children in our schools who may not have a device, on top of the 2.9 million laptops and tablets that already exist in our schools. So far, we have delivered to the hands of children, local authorities and schools 876,000 laptops, purchased in a demanding global market, built from scratch, imported and distributed. It is an amazing logistical exercise, and it would have been nice if the hon. Member could have paid tribute to the work of hundreds of staff in Computacenter and the Department for Education for such an amazing achievement.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con) [V]]

I am sure the Minister will join me in paying tribute to the two special schools in my constituency, Alderman Knight and Milestone, as they carry out such amazing work with pupils who are very challenged. Those pupils are less aware of social distancing requirements, and school staff need to work in close proximity and come into frequent physical contact with them because, for example, of the disabilities that some of the pupils may have. Does the Minister agree that vaccinating teachers and staff at all schools, and particularly at special schools, would bring great benefits?

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I pay tribute to all staff who work in our special schools. They remain open for vulnerable children and do a wonderful job. For children with special educational needs and disabilities, attending their educational setting is crucial so that they can receive high-quality teaching and the specialist professional support they need. He makes an important point about vaccines. The priority for the first phase is on mortality, but in the second phase the JVCI will be looking at different occupations. The Department for Education will be pressing the case for the education workforce.

Early Years Settings: Covid-19

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Robertson. This important debate has been characterised by a high degree of cross-party consensus and interest across the nations of the UK. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) on introducing the debate so eloquently, and I thank all colleagues who have contributed and emphasised the crucial importance of the early years and the people who work in the sector.

This is a worrying time for families and early years staff, as well as a perilous moment for the whole of the childcare sector. Colleagues’ efforts to raise the concerns of the sector will not have gone unnoticed. Many more colleagues would have liked to have participated today, including the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), but they are not able to attend Parliament in person. As we have heard, a motion to halt Westminster Hall debates for the time being is before the House, but I very much hope that alternative arrangements will be put in place swiftly, so that all hon. Members can take part in all future debates.

When the Prime Minister told us last week that early years settings in England would remain open to all children in lockdown, he was essentially asking nursery workers, childminders and others to provide a fourth emergency service: an emergency childcare service for working parents—particularly key workers—and vital early years education for their children. However, although those early years practitioners deserve our greatest respect, they feel that their concerns have been disregarded. Ministers have failed to publish the scientific evidence for keeping early years settings fully open when primary schools are moving to online learning for most children.

Labour believes passionately in the importance of early years, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and others have said, staff are anxious about their safety and the risk that they will transmit infection to their families. Someone who works in a pre-school in Leeds—my hon. Friend will be interested—accurately summed up the situation in an email to the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn, last week. That person wrote:

“there were lots of assurances in the press that early years settings ‘are safe’ but no actual data or studies, so we are expected to trust ministers. This a few days after we are…told primary schools are safe and then the next day a national lockdown is called because primary schools are vectors of transmission…Frankly I don’t trust ministers telling me my workplace is safe with no actual data to back that up.”

May I repeat the request of my hon. Friends the Members for Putney, for Leeds North West and for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), as well as the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford)? Will the Minister commit to publishing today the evidence underlying the decision to keep early years settings open?

Anyone who has had a young child or worked with young children knows that enforcing social distancing among them is impossible. We heard that graphically, for example, from my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah). As the same pre-school worker in Leeds put it,

“two-year olds do NOT sneeze into the crook of their elbow no matter how many times you might remind them. They wipe their nose on us!”

The Government do not recommend face coverings in early years settings and say that PPE is rarely needed, but we can see why the workforce is worried. Can the Minister explain why regular mass testing has not been rolled out in all early years settings yet? When will it be? Is the Minister considering changes to the early years guidance and allowing providers to claim additional support for safety, testing and staffing? What is the Government’s plan for vaccination of early years and all education staff?

Despite safety being everyone’s primary concern right now, as we have heard, the early years sector is also operating under implicit threat to its funding—“Stay open for as many children as possible in lockdown or lose cash.” My hon. Friends the Members for Putney and for Bradford West outlined some of the funding pressures that settings are facing, including pressure in covering staff absence, additional covid costs for which schools were funded but early years settings were not, the lack of access to business grants and business rates relief, and the lack of catch-up funding, which was given to schools and colleges.

As we heard from colleagues around the House, in the first lockdown, providers were funded at pre-covid levels, but from this month they will receive funding only for children who attend. The hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) pointed out that we are still waiting for new guidance in this respect. With everyone now advised to stay at home where possible, demand for childcare is set to plummet further than its already low levels. Evidence suggests that many parents are keeping their nursery-age children at home.

Highlighting the dilemma that providers face, one provider asked:

“Should I be encouraging those parents to bring their child to us so we get the funding to help us survive?”

As we heard, there are places that cannot stay open because too many staff are ill, self-isolating, shielding or caring for their own children. One setting manager told the National Day Nursery Association that

“60% of my workforce is unable to come to work because they must remain at home to look after their own children who are not attending school”.

They added:

“if I reduce the number of children allowed to attend according to staff availability, then I will be unable to claim funding for the children I cannot accommodate.”

As we have heard, surveys, including one by the Early Years Alliance, found that 25% of early years providers may close within six months, due to this month’s changes, which link funding to occupancy. Nearly 20,000 providers could be lost before the summer as a direct result of this policy. That survey was done before the lockdown, which will drive down occupancy further. The situation is, as we have heard, affecting providers up and down the country. Providers in my constituency have raised their concerns about the risk of closures and the impact on children—especially the most disadvantaged children. I am sure that that will be the same for all colleagues. I know that that is exactly not what the Minister wants to happen, so I urge her and her Treasury colleagues to rethink the misguided funding changes and give the early years sector the targeted support that it so badly needs to survive.

The covid-19 outbreak has been devastating for an early years sector that already faced a £600 million-plus funding gap. Coronavirus has shone a light on the fragility of the sector and pushed tens of thousands of struggling nurseries, pre-schools and childminders to the brink of collapse. Throughout the pandemic, early years providers have been asked to take on the responsibilities of schools and the liabilities of businesses, with none of the additional support that they need with safety, testing and staffing. Now, the 300,000 brilliant, dedicated people who work in the sector, the vast majority of whom are women on pitifully low wages, are once again being asked to provide an emergency service at an extremely scary time without any scientific evidence or even a plan for their safety, and are being faced with the prospect of losing their job at the end of it. It really is not right to treat an entire workforce in that way—especially in a sector as important as early years. It is a sector on which the economy and the life chances of the next generation rely.

My challenge to the Minister is this: do the right thing. Keep early years workers safe, rethink financial support for providers, and do everything possible to ensure that a vital sector does not become one more casualty of coronavirus.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

We have quite a bit of time, but I need to leave a couple of minutes at the end for Ms Anderson to respond.

Education Settings: Wider Opening

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

We have had an unprecedented package to support nursery and early years provision. There is the continued commitment to paying money through local authorities to support them, there is the furlough scheme and there is rates relief. We constantly talk with those in the sector about how we can do more to support them and how we can support them in the long term to achieve our aim of delivering a rich environment in which children can learn in those early years. Whether they are in the charity sector or the commercial sector, those providers should continue to be able to succeed and create a stable environment for all children.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con) [V]]

A number of schools have got quite a few pupils who are children of critical workers or the children themselves are vulnerable. As a result, it is difficult for those schools to accept other pupils. Is there anything the Government can do to help those schools and any advice they can give them? They are anxious to move on, but are having problems doing so.

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend highlights an issue that a number of schools are facing, and we are looking at working with them to add extra flexibility. They can perhaps look at using different facilities and different resources that may be available to them in order to be able to expand provision within a school.

School Funding

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. When I was first elected to the House almost 22 years ago, the problem in Gloucestershire was that we were underfunded due to something called the area cost adjustment. It has taken a long time to start to correct that, as this Government have done. We lost out not just to inner-city areas, which received a lot more money per pupil, but to other rural areas that got much more than Gloucestershire did.

I was very pleased that this Government agreed to set up the national funding formula. That was good news, but we need to start to see the fairness of the formula coming through a bit more quickly. If we continue at a very slow pace—let us say that it takes 20 years for there to be an equalisation of funding per pupil—three or four generations of pupils will lose out. I say to the Minister, “Well done so far, but perhaps we need it to happen a little bit quicker than it is happening at the moment.”

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we have the wrong Minister responding to this debate? That is in no way a personal criticism of him—quite the opposite. I believe that he and his colleagues in the Department for Education are listening, but they can allocate only the funding they are provided by the Treasury. Is it not the Chancellor who should be answering our requests for more funding for our constituencies? Should not our key request to the Minister be to ask him to take back to the Chancellor our calls for more funding for our constituencies?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and am absolutely delighted that the schools Minister is here to listen. He and his colleagues have an open-door policy: they are always prepared to meet hon. Members and listen to their concerns. I take the point that the Education Secretary and his Ministers can divide the cake only in certain ways, and it is their decision. Perhaps we need to grow the cake, which is the point my hon. Friend correctly makes.

I want to turn to higher needs funding. I welcome the fact that, again, the Department listened to many of us who said that higher needs requires more spending. Several colleagues did that, and more money was forthcoming, which is very welcome. Although I welcome recognition of the problem, even after receiving more money, Conservative-controlled Gloucestershire will have a shortfall in higher needs funding this year, and it will increase next year. We need to see more money going into that.

I have two absolutely excellent special schools in my constituency—Alderman Knight and Milestones—and I recognise that mainstream schools are also struggling with this particular issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) made the point that when we were at school many years ago, class sizes were bigger and there was no such thing as a teaching assistant—that was also the case when I was the chairman of governors at a primary school. However, I accept and recognise that there are now greater and more complex higher needs, and more pupils with them, than there were in those days. I fully accept that we need to do more in that respect.

I met about 40 or 50 school governors on Saturday morning, along with my hon. Friends the Members for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) and for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew). It was a very good debate, but one teacher said that a teacher at her school had been assaulted by a pupil. I have seen that happen in other schools, and one of the problems is that there are not enough staff in schools. I asked them, “If you had a load more money, what would you spend it on?” The answer was more staff and perhaps better facilities in schools.

I recognise that the Government have given more money for capital spending, but also that there are problems in schools. Fairly recently, I had a school that was actually dangerous—there was asbestos in it and the windows were very dangerous and almost literally falling out. The Government came forward with emergency money for that. It is an issue that we have to recognise.

I started by saying that when I came to this place, there were different reasons for concerns about school funding. Although we are getting absolutely excellent education in our schools—the ones I visit are amazing in the work they are doing, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) is right to point out that outcomes matter at the end of the day—I have never known the concern about school funding to be as strong as it is now. That is not in any way to deny what the Government have done, or to deny the progress that has been made; it is recognising that there is a real problem.