Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

This goes to the heart of the Office for Fair Access and what the Office for Students will do, but it is also really important that universities—particularly selective universities—continue to redouble their efforts to make sure that they are reaching out directly, so that they are tapping into the full range of talents that are on offer throughout our country.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

If the Secretary of State is serious about improving access to top universities for students from poorer backgrounds, why is he not doing more to enact the findings on the National Audit Office report on higher education, which urged the Government to do more to provide high-quality, independent careers advice to 13 and 14-year-olds?

Post-18 Education

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is right and he has only to look north of the border to see how that works.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

The Secretary of State spoke about choices made at and after 18, but he will know that many students make those choices at 13 when they choose their GCSEs. The National Audit Office report on the higher education market identified high-quality careers advice and financial education as part of how we can fix the system. Will the review include that?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady is right to talk about the choices that are made early. That is why drawing attention to the so-called facilitating subjects can be useful for keeping people’s options open for higher education. The point also highlights why we need to make clear early in school the routes to technical and vocational as well as higher education.

Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Not only is the Department spending the £275 million from the sugar levy; we are going over and above that. We are spending over £400 million on making sure that students are healthy.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

14. What assessment he has made of the effect of Ofsted inspections on teachers’ workloads and morale.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Schools have always been subject to inspection by Her Majesty’s inspectors and, from 1992, by Ofsted. Since 2010, we have simplified inspection, reducing graded judgments from 27 to just four. We have freed our best schools from routine inspection and introduced lighter-touch inspections for good schools.

[Layla Moran]

We face a teacher retention crisis in this country. One head in Oxford recently described to me how she and her staff felt “criminalised” after a devastating Ofsted inspection. What is the Minister doing to change the “culture of fear” caused by inspection, which his own Department’s workplace survey identified as one of the biggest burdens on teachers?

[Nick Gibb]

The workload challenge identified a range of drivers of high workload, including accountability and perceived pressures from Ofsted. We took steps to address that in our 2017 action plan, including through Ofsted’s commitment to reducing unnecessary workload around inspections, by dispelling myths about inspection and by training inspectors and monitoring inspection reports. The winter 2016 teacher voice omnibus survey showed that 39% of headteachers had used advice from Ofsted to change practice to reduce unnecessary workload.

Presidents Club Charity Dinner

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

Yes, I think they were employed to be a great deal more than harassed. We will look at all aspects of this in relation to employment law. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) said earlier, this brings into sharp light the women leaders—the people who run the businesses that employed these young women. We need to look at it all, and we will take robust action. Have no fear about that.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

As a former teacher, I woke up this morning thinking, “What on earth will my former students be thinking this morning about the state of the world?” It is absolutely disgusting. I press the Minister on the point already made about bringing sex and relationships education into schools for the upcoming academic year. Sex and relationships education has never been more needed. Please can we have it sooner rather than later?

[Anne Milton]

We have an ongoing call for evidence. [Interruption.] I think it is extremely important to hear the views of young people themselves, because they are very aware of what sort of relationship and sex education is needed. There is no doubt that the Department will make sure these guidelines are out as soon as possible, because there is clearly an urgent need. It is absolutely right that we hear the views of young people on how they feel this should be delivered.

Sanitary Products

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the provision of sanitary products.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I am delighted to have secured this debate on an important topic that—let’s face it—remains taboo and is still a bit embarrassing for many people. It is precisely because no one wants to talk about it that I believe it is so critical that we do, so I will start by putting my money where my mouth is and telling the House one of my most embarrassing moments.

I was in the first week of a new school. I was 12. I was feeling very out of place and very lost. I saw a teacher beckoning me from the top of a stairwell. I walked towards her and said, “Yes, Miss? What did I do wrong?” I was convinced something was wrong. She said, “Don’t worry—everything’s fine, but I wanted to let you know that you have a stain of blood on your skirt.” Of course, it was not fine. I looked behind and on my light blue uniform there was indeed such a stain. My face went red, and then white. I remember going to the bathroom and crying, and when I stopped crying I called my mum. She came and we went home; I told the school that I wanted to go home to change. In fact, she had brought me another skirt, but I was just so mortified by how many people might have seen it and not said anything.

For me, that was a one-off and I was better prepared the next time, but for thousands of girls in this country, missing school because they cannot afford sanitary products is a regular occurrence. It is an outrage that in a country as wealthy as Britain we let that happen. Thanks to the double whammy of the stigma attached to both poverty and periods, we simply do not know the scale of the problem.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing this important debate. Does she share my intense frustration about the fact that when I asked the Secretary of State for Education about period poverty just a few weeks ago, her response was ambivalent at best? She appeared to be in denial about period poverty even existing.

[Layla Moran]

Yes, I share the hon. Lady’s frustration. I hope we will hear something different on this important issue from the Minister.

Food banks are now actively asking for donations of sanitary products. Teachers are dipping into their own pockets to keep supplies of sanitary products in their desks.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

As a former teacher, I have heard lots of stories from teachers about keeping a supply of sanitary products in the classroom so that girls do not miss out on education because of poverty. Does the hon. Lady agree that that should not be the responsibility of teachers? The Government should do something. The Secretary of State for Education is also Minister for Women and Equalities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

Speaking as another teacher, I completely agree. On the meagre salaries that teachers are now paid, they should not be asked to fork out themselves for sanitary products.

Many of us first realised that period poverty was such an issue for young women when it came to light that teachers in Leeds had got in touch with a charity called Freedom4Girls that provides sanitary products to women in Kenya and had asked whether it would be willing to give them a supply for girls in their school. They had noticed that girls were missing class at around the same time every month, like clockwork. Given the substitutes, including rolled-up toilet paper or old socks, that girls from low-income families are using, it is no surprise that they choose to stay home. Now, I admit that the rolled-up toilet tissue trick has served me well, but I can go and buy some products or go home. For these girls, it is a regular occurrence. It should not be.

Period poverty affects not just girls, but women. Charities and campaigners tell me that it is rife among asylum seekers, refugees, women in refuges, and indeed any vulnerable women who cannot afford to buy the products they need. As a nation we must do better, and as a society we need to get better at talking about this. Given that 52% of the population menstruate, or have done at some point, is it not ridiculous that it has taken until 2017 for an advert for sanitary products to show red liquid rather than blue? I assure hon. Members that it is never blue. The more we talk about periods and normalise what is a completely natural and healthy function, the easier we will make it for young girls to talk about this.

[Paula Sherriff]

When I was at school and we were given a very brief talk about periods, boys were sent out of the class. It is important that menstrual health is covered in detail in statutory sex and relationships education, but does the hon. Lady agree that boys need education about periods, too? Many of them will go on to be husbands, fathers, teachers or doctors. Just as women should understand the signs of testicular cancer, men should understand about periods and period poverty.

[Layla Moran]

I completely agree. School is exactly the right time for that education. I have delivered those lectures myself, and although they may be embarrassing for the boys, it is very important that they understand how this works, and that it is completely natural. That is the point.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech. Period poverty also has an impact on homeless people. Not only do they need to be supplied with sanitary products, which the Lunar Project in York supplies, but they need access to public toilets. Surely that needs to be a Government priority. It is a public health issue.

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I visited St Mungo’s last week, and that was raised as an important issue that it needs help with.

Very little research has been done on period poverty in schools in the UK, but what we do know is shocking. In a Plan International UK survey of 1,000 girls, 49% said that they had missed an entire day of school because of their period. Critically, of those, 59% had lied about why, claiming that something else had caused their absence. Meanwhile, 82% of the girls surveyed admitted that they had hidden or concealed their sanitary products, while nearly three quarters said that they felt embarrassed even buying them. Again, I will admit to that: during the 2015 election campaign, I was approached for a chat about politics in Boots, where I had just bought some tampons. I remember standing with them behind my back because I was a bit embarrassed. I would not have done that with toothpaste. That shows how desperately we need to talk more about the issue.

Plan International’s campaign to normalise periods—including with a period emoji—is brilliant, as is all the great work that businesses and charities are doing up and down the country. Boots and others have introduced drop-in donation points. Bodyform has promised to donate 200,000 packs of sanitary products by 2020. There are grassroots campaigns such as the Periodical Diary, which has a website on which girls can talk frankly about their periods; it also goes into schools and delivers workshops. However, we should not leave it to charities and business to pick up the Government’s slack. How can it be okay for a mother to be forced to choose between food and sanitary products? That is exactly the choice that far too many women in this country face.

I was disappointed that the Chancellor did not make funding available in last week’s Budget to ensure that schools could stock sanitary products for those who need them. Let us focus on that small issue. Such a small, simple step would restore dignity, save embarrassment and reduce the number of girls who are missing valuable days of teaching and learning.

It is not too late. The Minister could offer something to these desperate women. I hope that she and others are feeling the political pressure mount. Last year, the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) tabled amendments to the Finance Bill that were rejected by the Government—shamefully, I might add. I thank and commend her for her excellent work on the issue. In March, the Education Secretary—who is also Minister for Women and Equalities, as we have already been reminded—said in answer to the then Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North West, Greg Mulholland, that she would look at the issue of period poverty “carefully”. I look forward to an update from the Minister on where that assessment is, and when the Government plan to publish their work.

I also ask the Minister: did this issue even get a mention in the discussions with the Treasury over the last weeks and months? I sincerely hope that we will not be spun the line that the reallocation of money from VAT on sanitary products to women’s charities is enough, because it is not.

[Paula Sherriff]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again. Does she share my concern that £250,000 of the tampon tax fund went to a pro-life charity called Life, which confirmed to me on the radio that if a woman it was helping with housing then decided to have a termination, or indeed had a miscarriage, it would withdraw its services? It is absolutely obscene that money that women pay is going to a charity or organisation that does not provide choice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

That is indeed shocking. This money should be available to all women, no matter their choices, especially if those choices are legal in this country.

We estimate that the small measure of providing sanitary products in schools would cost in the region of £5 million, which is a drop in the ocean compared to the £1 billion found for the Democratic Unionist party. I mention that simply to point out that when an issue is important enough, somehow money seems to be found.

Finally, I also plead that responsibility for this issue not be passed on to schools. Yes, schools have budgets, but those budgets are ever squeezed, and schools still need to find a further £1.7 billion, according to the National Audit Office. I ask the Minister not to pass the buck today on this issue, and to find the small amount of new money that is needed to fund these very important initiatives. Period poverty is a hidden plight, and it is time that it was taken seriously by all. I thank all Members in advance for their contributions, and of course I thank the Minister, who I have much respect for, for listening intently to the arguments put forward in the short time that we have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne Milton]

Sorry, Mr Sharma. I will put it back in my handbag. I do not go on marches as a point of principle, but I will be interested in the feedback of the hon. Member for Dewsbury from that event. I do not feel under political pressure, because although we may argue about welfare benefits and poverty—we obviously do—and the route out of those things, we do not disagree on periods and sex education. It should be noted that the Department for Education does not issue specific guidance to schools on the provision of sanitary protection, but it is without doubt the case, and always has been the case, that the school office will have supplies for children who are caught short.

[Layla Moran]

Will the Minister give way?

[Anne Milton]

If I give way now, I will not have time to make all my points. I ask the hon. Lady to bear with me for a minute.

Members are aware of the long-running campaign for sanitary products to be exempt from VAT and the Government’s commitment to zero-rate such products once our leaving the EU offers us the discretion to do so. There are good and bad sides to Brexit, and that is perhaps one of the good sides. In anticipation of that development, we set up the £15-million tampon tax fund, which is equivalent to the amount of VAT paid on sanitary products each year. The hon. Member for Dewsbury raised an issue about one of the organisations, but I was not involved in that. The majority of funding has been grants to frontline charities that aim to improve the lives of disadvantaged women and girls. Those charities include health, wellbeing and education initiatives and support services for vulnerable women. I understand that some of the money has gone to women’s refuges. As a former health professional, I can say how superb some of those organisations’ work is. While the tampon tax fund is not currently open for applications, we can look forward to updates on that in the near future.

More generally, I have to talk a bit about poverty. I have talked about periods, and poverty is the other side of the issue. We know that children do worse in households where no one is in work. Children in such households are five times more likely to be in poverty than those in households where all adults work. They are also almost twice as likely to fail at all stages of their education than children in working families. The number of households where no one is working is just short of being 1 million lower than it was in 2010, which means that there are 608,000 fewer children in such households than seven years ago.

[Anne Milton]

I have seven minutes left, so I will not at the moment. I will give way if I have a bit of time at the end.

We have increased the national living wage, which means that a full-time worker is now £1,400 a year better off. We have increased the personal allowance again, meaning that a basic rate taxpayer is now £1,000 better off than they would have been in 2010. We have doubled the childcare entitlement for working parents of three and four-year-olds in England from 15 to 30 hours, introduced tax-free childcare and supported the right to request flexible working, which enables parents to arrange care in a way that works for them. We have a returner programme going on. It is easy to dismiss all that in the arguments that we want to have across the House on benefits, but it is important to recognise that those measures will make a difference to those families.

[Layla Moran]

On the point of money, this is a women-only issue, pretty much by definition; does the Minister not agree that we need new money to tackle the problem? It is all very well us all agreeing with each other, but without the new money, we are not going to get where we need to go.

[Anne Milton]

What we need is credible and robust evidence about the issue. There are a number of other issues, such as young men in school who possibly have to be clean shaven. There is an issue about razors for boys, which are very expensive. They are probably the item in the supermarket that is more frequently shoplifted than anything else. As a former public health Minister, I know that toothpaste is an issue. People with low incomes are perhaps not spending money on toothpaste when they should. There is a clear correlation between that and dental caries, given the fluoride in toothpaste. There are a number of issues. What things are families doing without because they feel that their finances are too tight for them to afford them? Sanitary products are separate, inasmuch as they are a sensitive issue that can increase the stigma that young women face about their menstrual cycle and their reproductive system. I accept that there are additional issues there, but sanitary products are not the only issue.

It is important to find out about school absences and how many children are not buying sanitary protection because they feel too poor to do so. Only then can we think about possible solutions. I thank Members for attending. I am sure that this will not be the last time that we discuss periods. SRE and RE are critical. What matters to me is that we have lessons that include boys and girls, because it is important for boys to understand. It is important to debunk some of the myths that some makers of sanitary products exploit. Saying that sanitary products are meant to keep someone odour-free is complete nonsense. There is no specific odour associated with menstrual blood; it is not like anything else.

There is a great deal more that we should do. Young boys need to hear about menstruation in the same way that young girls do, but I also feel strongly that young girls need an opportunity to have structured discussions on their own, without boys present, for the simple reason that someone going through puberty might feel very uncomfortable discussing things in front of people of a different gender.

I thank you again, Mr Sharma, for your excellent chairmanship, and for bearing with me when I produced an item in the Chamber. I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon for securing this debate and everyone for their contributions.

Question put and agreed to.

Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

As others have done, I thank the House for debating this extraordinarily important issue. I have been a secondary school teacher all my adult life, and the change that we have seen in young people’s day-to-day interactions over time has caused me deep concern, on a professional level, for several years. That is particularly true of the rise in online bullying, which is linked to the harrowing subject that we are discussing.

The statistics in the Select Committee’s excellent report make awful reading, but it is terrifying to think that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I completely agree with the sensible recommendations on improving child safeguarding, which include rewriting the Government guidance and allowing Ofsted to inspect how well schools are dealing with sexual harassment. Those measures are necessary to protect children from abuse, but they do not address how to prevent people from being abusive in the first place. I especially endorse the report’s recommendation that all children must be given personal, social and health education that includes sex and relationships.

I used to pride myself on being an accessible teacher. “Don’t smile before Christmas” did not last even an hour for me on the first day of school. I welcomed groups of teenagers hanging out in my classroom and chatting while doing homework and very often asking for help with their very personal problems. But I always called out inappropriate banter. I taught sex education in my role as a science teacher and PSHE as a head of year. In the school I worked at, we used to ask the 13 and 14-year-olds—my favourite age group, I should add—to put anonymous questions into a hat, and we would then draw them out over the course of weeks to talk about them. The questions were extraordinary at exposing how wide-ranging young people’s views of the world are at that age. I used to find myself shocked at both what they knew—as has been alluded to, the sort of porn and destructive relationships that they thought were normal—and what they did not know. Most harrowing was the fact that so many of them did not know when it was okay to say no.

The conversations I had, with younger girls especially, unsurprisingly centred on their relationships and especially on sex. Some were confident, and some very insecure. We talked about consent and mutual respect. We would teach them to try to see things from other perspectives and never to assume that someone else was thinking the same thing as they were. Many reported that it was really hard to talk to their parents about such things, and they all appreciated the fact that we had helped to create a safe space where they could talk about what they wanted.

I am sorry to say that, sadly, not all schools are able to do that, and I recognise how lucky I have been to work in schools that do. The fact is that, as has been mentioned, sex education in England is unfit for purpose. It is part of the national curriculum, but the academies and free schools programme means that 70% of schools do not have to teach it. Government guidelines have not been updated since 2000 and are unfit for the digital age, failing completely to address issues such as online pornography, LGBT+ relationships and the importance of consent.

That is not to say that schools do not see the value of PSHE or do not want to teach it, but school funding pressures mean that teachers have more and more subject contact time, leaving less and less time to have informal pastoral conversations. I should add that not all teachers are comfortable leading PSHE and difficult conversations, and that the right training is critical. The fact is that the picture is far too much of a patchwork and not at all well enough resourced.

The academies programme means that parents have no minimum guarantees about what their child will be taught, and that is why I have been campaigning for a minimum curriculum entitlement—a slimmed-down curriculum—that all state schools, no matter what type, would have to teach. That would include not just sex and relationships education, but all aspects of PSHE as well as citizenship and financial education.

I was heartened to see MPs from all parties join forces to ensure that the Government changed the law, so that sex education will—eventually—become compulsory for all secondary schools. However, I echo the calls from across the House for the Government to move faster. They have not brought the new law into force. We were told that the first students would study the new sex education curriculum in September 2019, but as we have already heard, we need the consultation process to start and move quickly. While they are at it, the Government should also make the other aspects of PSHE compulsory.

We have a duty of care to our next generation so that they do not make the same mistakes as our own. I also echo what others have said in the Chamber about how disheartened we have felt this week. Children deserve to flourish, and to know what it means to respect their peers and be able to enjoy healthy relationships, not ones characterised by misogyny and exploitation. We owe it to them to do much better.

Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) can come in now if she wants.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

14. Thank you, Mr Speaker. In Oxford West and Abingdon, many schools are struggling to meet the needs of pupil premium students in particular. The funding formula has historically been especially low in my constituency. What will the Secretary of State do to address this issue?

[Justine Greening]

We are bringing forward the funding formula because there is a long-standing inequity in our schools funding that many Governments have dodged tackling. We cannot expect all schools to achieve the same high standards when so many of them are funded on a very different basis from one another. I believe that we are doing the right thing in bringing forward this fair funding formula. I will set out the final terms of that formula shortly. I am very proud that we have finally been able to take this step. I thank the many Members of this House who have given their input and feedback to the consultation.

Free Childcare Entitlement

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not all providers were offering the 15 hours. Of those that do offer 15 hours, about 80% are going to offer the 30 hours. We understand that we might need to increase capacity in some areas, which is why we have made £100 million of capital funding available to provide another 18,000 places for 30-hours placements.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I absolutely welcome the policy. After all, it was a Liberal Democrat policy that we started implementing while in coalition so I would like to see it succeed. However, I invite the Minister to come to Oxford West and Abingdon because I am afraid that the suggestion that the policy is absolutely fine and working on the ground is simply not correct. In my constituency, the places are not available and they are being heavily subsidised by early and late pick-up fees, and extra money for nappies and lunches. Those costs simply were not there before. Please will you look again at the funding in different parts of the country? The total figure does not matter. It needs to be available where parents are. Have you looked at this and what are you going to do about it?

[Mr Speaker]

I have not done so and I have no plans to do anything about it, but I have a feeling that the Minister might; we will see. Let’s hear the fella.

Free Childcare

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

(Urgent Question) To ask the Secretary of State for Education to make a statement on the process for applying for free childcare hours from September 2017.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing the urgent question. It gives me an opportunity to highlight the Government’s determination to invest a record amount in childcare, supporting early education and helping parents financially. That amount will total £6 billion annually by 2020.

My Department is committed to ensuring that three and four-year-olds have access to free early education. All parents, regardless of income and employment status, are entitled to 15 hours of free early education for their three and four-year-olds, and for parents who are working we are providing access to an additional 15 hours of free childcare from September 2017. Parents who want to take up 30 hours of free childcare can apply through the digital childcare service. They can access the application via the Childcare Choices website, which provides information on all the Government’s childcare offers. The application process takes about 20 minutes. I have recently had a walk-through of the service myself; it is straightforward, and the format will be very familiar to parents who have used other Government digital services.

The childcare service is a complex IT system, which checks parents’ eligibility in real time by interfacing with other Government IT systems. The vast majority of parents will receive an instant eligibility response, but there will be a delay for some parents whose eligibility is not immediately clear—for example, for some self-employed people. The service has also experienced technical issues which have meant that it has been unavailable to parents on a small number of occasions. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which has developed the service, has been working hard to resolve those issues, and as a result the customer experience has improved.

The application has been open to the parents of under-fours since 21 April, and today my Treasury colleagues will make a written ministerial statement informing the House that the service has been further rolled out to the parents of under-fives, the so-called summer babies. Parents whose application is successful will receive a 30 hours eligibility code to take to their provider in order to claim their childcare place. As of today, more than 145,000 codes have been generated from successful applications. That is an increase of almost 5,000 codes since Friday 14 July and an increase of almost 25,000 since Friday 7 July. Increasing numbers of parents are successfully applying. It is great news that so many families will benefit from 30 hours in September because, as we have seen from our early implementer and early roll-out areas, the support can make a positive difference to the lives of hard-working families.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before we proceed to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and to subsequent questioners, I must make it clear that I granted the urgent question because of the narrow and specific focus on the issue of the accessibility, or otherwise, of the Government’s website. This is not an occasion for a general debate about childcare policy. If Members want just—this is not unknown in politics—to score political points and to ask rhetorical questions, that is not what this exchange is about. It will run for 20 minutes and it will focus on the particular issue that the hon. Lady identified in her application.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the Minister for his response, but as some may be reading in their end-of-year reports due this week, “Good effort; just not good enough.” The process for applying for free childcare is confusing both for parents and nurseries. As one parent said to me:

“getting the code was the most complicated process that I have ever endured. I would imagine that many parents would give up!”

They explained that

“you get passed from pillar to post between different areas of the website, each asking you for a different password, sent to you by SMS or email. Is this really necessary?”

As Members will attest, setting up two-factor authentication on our phones was difficult enough, and we have a well-resourced IT department. Who is helping the parents at home who are juggling this with jobs and caring for their young children? As a result, parents have not been able to open accounts to pay their nursery, playgroup or pre-school. Even some of the providers, particularly in the voluntary sector, cannot register.

The Government’s roll-out of 30 hours of free childcare is welcome, but only if it is of high quality and if parents can access it readily. Therefore, I ask the Minister: why is the Department for Education website still sending parents a holding response when they finally submit an online application? How long is the Department taking to confirm eligibility? What proportion of children eligible for the free childcare have been able to access it? Moreover, with the end of the school term rapidly approaching, how can nurseries plan for the upcoming year if parents cannot provide them with their voucher details? What support can the Government provide to nurseries to plan and budget effectively for an as-yet-unknown number of children who will be joining them on 1 September? Finally, what will the Government do to review the matter and the accessibility of the online registration process so that this does not happen again next year?

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you.

Social Inequality (Children’s Centres)

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the role of children’s centres in tackling social inequality.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. This issue is close to my heart. I am a secondary school teacher—at least, I used to be—and a primary school governor, and I have a burning desire to ensure that every child, no matter what their background, gets the best possible start in life. I keep reading that the Government agree, but where is the consultation on children’s centres that we were promised in late 2015? A recent ministerial written answer said that the details will be published in due course. I start with a simple plea: please do not wait. We are days away from the summer holiday. In new, young lives, one year without intervention squanders many years of potential rewards.

I will make the case for why children’s centres are worth investing in. The accelerating demise of access to children’s centres across the country over the last seven years is one of the saddest outcomes of austerity. The evidence showed that they worked. If we are serious about creating a society where every child fulfils their potential, we need to get serious about breaking cycles of deprivation. We must not just listen to the evidence but act on it.

It is a sad fact that a child’s parents’ circumstances remain the best predictor of how that child will do as an adult. Well-respected organisations such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Save the Children have presented evidence over many years showing that, if we want to break that cycle and create a fairer society, we must not only focus on the bottom 5% but cast a much wider net to avoid stigmatisation and build community resilience.

Every single one of the children’s centres in my constituency closed last year. In fact, Oxfordshire County Council set out in 2013 to close all 44 children’s centres in Oxfordshire, explicitly to save £8 million from the early intervention budget as part of a £22.5 million saving across the department as a whole. Following a big grassroots campaign, the Liberal Democrats proposed a £l million transition fund, which was added to a cross-party budget in 2014. It has led to support for 29 community-led schemes, including in Kidlington, Cutteslowe, Botley and soon South Abingdon. However, they will provide only some of the services previously provided by the children’s centres, and one is run entirely by volunteers—I thank those volunteers especially for their hard work and service. There is no clear plan for what will happen after three years, and no long-term, sustainable solution.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Lady will know that I have some involvement as Chair of the Select Committee on Education at the time that children’s centres were established. She is right: all the research shows that early interventions such as Sure Start and children’s centres are the answer, but up and down the country, children’s centres have closed, and there is no policy and no money for early years intervention. I am glad that she is taking up the cudgels.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

These stories demonstrate why it was a big mistake to remove the ring fence from the Sure Start budget. What we have seen across the country is that the seemingly more urgent issues of older children, such as behaviour management and preventing teenage pregnancy and drug use, win out. The older a child gets, the harder it is to intervene, and the more expensive the interventions become. Given the difficult choices and the reality of cuts, it is no wonder that measures provided by children’s centres have not been given the prominence that they deserve. After all, those children have yet to impact others.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. Clearly, there is a lot of evidence that investment in the early years is good for children’s future life chances, but does she also agree that the issues are not entirely mutually exclusive? Unwanted pregnancies and the issues facing single-parent families can be dealt with through effective interventions linked to children’s centres. They work well. That is an important point for investment.

[Layla Moran]

I agree entirely. Joined-up thinking in early intervention is important.

Parents tell me that children’s centres are a lifeline. The services that they provide, such as parenting support and breastfeeding and baby health advice, are valued by many, but almost as important is the sense of community that they create. Families who would never normally interact bond over the common challenge of making it through the day with a delightful but occasionally demanding toddler. How many parents have met friends for life at Stay and Play? It takes a whole community to achieve such aims, and there should be no stigma in asking for help.

In the past, the Government have accused those who raise the issue of being obsessed with the number of buildings. I am not, but I am obsessed with outcomes and access, and I can tell the Minister that we have a problem, especially with access. The impact on access comes from a double whammy: the remaining centres are far apart, and local transport links have been reduced. The convenience of getting to a site is a key factor for the families who need the services the most. I believe that we are at risk of leaving behind the same families that the Government purport to want to target.

I met a lovely woman a few weeks ago in Kidlington who explained that the new centre there has reopened but on a different site, and that it offers fewer services than the original centre. She had recently given birth to her seventh child, in a family that already included two sets of twins—I told her I thought she was a saint. Both she and her partner work full-time to support them all, but they are just getting by. Because the centre has moved out of walking distance and there is no direct bus link, she feels she can no longer get there. She said, “I can’t face the journey, and also when I get there, they can’t cater for everyone. I used to be able to go and there was something for all of us as a family to do. I really love to go, but it’s just too much hassle.”

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Lady is being generous. Did she see the Children’s Commissioner’s report, launched yesterday, on how many children in this country are vulnerable on all the criteria? Will she please talk to the Children’s Commissioner about her campaign? At the moment, there are so many vulnerable children out there, and given the cuts in local government finance, local governments are unable to run proper children’s services?

[Layla Moran]

I imagine she was quite busy with her seven children, but I will encourage her to do so.

One anecdote should not policy make. As motherhood and apple pie as this all sounds, I believe that education policy should be firmly evidence-based, so let us consider that. More needs to be done to ensure that all services provided by children’s centres are evidenced and effective. I applaud the work of the Early Intervention Foundation as one of many organisations adding to that body of evidence. We need much more of it. I also believe that all staff should be well-trained and properly qualified, and that allowances need to be made for differences in population. What works in one setting does not always work in another. We need to give credit to the professionals who can make an in-depth judgment, in the moment, of what works for the families in front of them.

The Government’s own evidence shows that interventions for one to three-year-olds play a vital role in life chances, especially for the poorest children. The Oxford University children’s centres study that was instigated by the Department for Education reported last year. It backed up what countless studies before it had showed: the benefit of interventions such as baby health and parenting support. Not only do they give value for money by improving outcomes for families as a whole; down the line, they help to reduce the chances of bad behaviour or smoking and raise educational attainment. The study further extrapolated that interventions will reduce joblessness and raise incomes for children in the future. What is there not to love?

As we have seen in Oxfordshire, the problem is that there is no budget. We need real long-term thinking at central Government level. The results of these interventions will not be seen again by the Exchequer until the children themselves start to pay it back in decades to come, but in my view it is worth the wait. Part of the answer is money. Hon. Members ask where it will come from. Frankly, it will come from the future. We borrow to invest in our own finances at home to reap rewards later, and the same principle applies. There is no single magic wand, but several magic wands waved early enough can make a big difference.

I look forward to the Minister’s reply and to contributions from colleagues. In my view, nothing is more important than the wellbeing of the next generation. Children’s centres are a proven and cost-effective way of promoting just that. Let us give our children everything we can and invest in them now, as a down payment on a more equal and fairer society in future.