Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman is going to have to be more specific about what his objection is. I would be happy to take it up with him at another time, but I am not in a position to answer a question that has not been formulated in a way that allows me to provide an answer.

I want to turn briefly to the question of sibling contact for looked-after children. I am sorry that the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) is not here today, and I am sure that the whole House will send her their best wishes. We both agree that allowing reasonable contact between looked-after children and their siblings is absolutely right, where that is in the best interests of the children involved. This is reflected in the current law. However, the hon. Lady has helpfully pointed out an anomaly in the current legislation whereby the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 provide for sibling contact with a sibling who is also looked after but do not refer to contact with siblings who are not looked after. I will therefore ask my officials to start the work needed to amend the regulations to address that question, and I will happily keep the hon. Lady informed of progress.

Finally, I should like to mention the support provided to care leavers who have their own children removed from them. Hon. Members are right to emphasise how important it is to support young parents who have had a child taken into care. They need the right kind of intervention to help them to cope with this challenging situation, so that they can be effective parents to any children they might have in the future. Statutory guidance is already clear about the arrangements that must be followed to ensure that the needs of children in care and care leavers are assessed and that appropriate support is put in place. The statutory guidance includes the need for comprehensive assessment of a young person’s needs in relation to their emotional and mental health, including whether they need access to specialist health and therapeutic services. So, given the existing statutory guidance, I do not believe that it is necessary or appropriate to incorporate the proposed new clause into the Bill. I do, however, understand the importance of the issue, and I can confirm that I will ensure that the statutory guidance is strengthened to make clear the importance of providing appropriate support in the specific circumstances when a looked-after child or care leaver has a child of their own taken into care.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I have never seen the House so crowded to discuss amendments, which shows the importance that we attach to the Bill. I fear that we may not get to my amendment about the welfare of all children, so may I come and talk to the Minister at some point? It deals with compelling local authorities to carry out an audit of all their policies and of Government policies on the welfare of children.

[Edward Timpson]

I am happy to commit to meet the right hon. Gentleman to see what we can do on that.

Soft Drinks Industry Levy: Funding for Sport in Schools

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Justin Tomlinson]

Actually, that was the very first time I rebelled—I was rewarded by sitting on some obscure European committees thing for five years to think carefully about my actions. The funding was not scrapped. There was a change and initially a proposal to remove the ring-fencing, but the money was then once again ring-fenced, though schools were allowed to choose how to spend it on sports-related programmes. I supported that because we have got some fantastic school sport partnerships that are still thriving today—including my local one—but there were also some pretty poor ones, which have gone by the wayside, and those schools have now spent that money on individual sports coaches, sports clubs and things like that. We got there in the end, and funding has increased in this area since 2010.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the issue of sport, no one is against using some of the sugar tax revenue for encouraging greater sporting activities, but does he not accept that in his constituency, in mine and in everyone else’s, during the school holidays large numbers of children who would have free school dinners during term time do not get any food from the school or free school dinners? Might not one of the ways of making the sugar tax progressive be to earmark part of the revenue to ensure that schools could at least lay on the facilities for voluntary bodies to provide school dinners during the holidays?

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is a powerful point, and I agree with the sentiment of it. I would not necessarily use the sugar tax money, but that is something that the Government could consider as a wider point. It is a fair point, and actually some of the head teachers in some of the more deprived parts of my constituency have raised similar concerns about what happens to the children not just with regard to eating, but on wider issues throughout the holidays.

As it stands, there will be £285 million to extend the school day in secondary schools in relation to sport, £160 million to double the primary school physical education budget, and £10 million to expand breakfast clubs. That was welcomed by Emma Boggis, the chief executive of the Sport and Recreation Alliance, who said it will

“deliver more opportunities to get children of a young age active”

and

“to stay active in later life.”

That is an important point. We must recognise that the opportunities we create must be regular and sustainable, because we also recognise that if the Government’s intention for the sugar tax works out and all the manufacturers reformulate their products and customers switch from full-sugar versions to zero-sugar versions, the amount of money will diminish. We must therefore ensure that the money is spent to seed regular sustainable activities. This is where I bring forward my rather reasonable—in my unbiased opinion—asks.

This has all come about from a visit to Oakhurst Community Primary School, which hosts the Draycott sports camp, run by Mark Draycott, a PE teacher at the school. The school runs after-school clubs, weekend clubs and school holiday clubs. There are lots of sports camps and I am sure that all of us as MPs have visited them at some point, but this one sets itself apart by a country mile. More than 200 primary schoolchildren were being active each and every single day in the last summer holidays, of whom slightly more were girls than boys—that is something for Sport England and the Sport Minister to recognise and celebrate, because that is a particular area of challenge—and they were engaging in all sorts of different sports.

A summary of how the camps work is that they run during every school holiday from 9 am to 6 pm, costing £12.50 a day, which is probably the cheapest childcare that a parent will find. They create an active environment that is inclusive and engaging for all abilities. That is vital, because a particularly sports-minded child probably has sports-minded parents and will already be signed up to a football, rugby or netball club. The camps are for the vast majority of children who are not necessarily sports-minded and who are the most likely to become obese.

The camps focus on helping children to be more active and introducing them to new sports—not only football and netball, but cricket, athletics, golf, lacrosse and so on—so that they can replicate what inspires them on the television. I visited a camp during the Olympics and saw them recreate the things that were inspiring them on the TV—it was amazing. Because Mark Draycott is a teacher, and because the majority of his support staff have connections to the school or are teachers themselves, they have the expertise to identify and support those children who are starting to fall by the wayside, and who are not naturally gifted or naturally enthusiastic about sports, to make sure that they remain engaged. They concentrate on killing the fear factor that some children have when playing sports and ensuring that they enjoy the activity. They are increasing participation among girls and bucking those national trends.

I highlight that because we have an opportunity to replicate this. As Mark Draycott said when he was interviewed on “BBC Points West” this morning, the camps should be not only at Oakhurst in Swindon, but all over the country; there should be hundreds and hundreds of them. They are sustainable, because the taxpayer is not paying him to do this—he is running the camps as his own organisation. However, the Government can help. First, anybody who wishes to set up one of these camps will need to build up numbers. We could therefore look to incentivise other people to do the same sort of thing as Mark by reducing the charge for hiring the school facilities at the beginning, until they build up the numbers and become sustainable in their own right and can keep going.

We also need to attract more good quality physical education teachers into the profession. We had a chronic shortage of PE teachers, although more are beginning to come in now. The beauty of this situation is that Mark Draycott came from a sporting background—he was a non-league sports player. The coalition Government tried to attract troops to become teachers, but it turned out that there were not millions of troops who wished to become teachers. However, there are many non-league sports stars who are minded and who, with the right incentives and the right instructions, could go on to become very good PE teachers in schools. I urge the Minister to look at that potential wealth of talent from whom, if we advertise to them, we could potentially recruit some very good people.

There could be lots of Draycott sports camps all over the country, which would be fantastic for those who wish to pay and can afford to do so—as I have seen, for 200 children every single day. That is something that we can replicate. However, I wish to go even further. I would also like to see all school facilities made available for free between 4 pm and 6 pm to any voluntary organisation that wishes to use them. For example, if some parents get together and wish to put on a netball, football or basketball club—I do not mind which, so long as it is a constructive activity for young people—between the hours of 4 pm and 6 pm, we should not charge them. Some of the sugar tax money can then be used to compensate the loss of income to schools. That is not a peak time for school hire fees, because school sporting facilities are generally used when offices and factories shut at 6 pm, which is when schools would expect to make their income. I therefore suspect that compensation would be only a modest part of that income, but it would remove the barrier that many enthusiastic parents find.

I know that, because I spent 10 years as a borough councillor in Swindon representing a new build area with private finance initiative schools. There were limited leisure facilities, yet there were fantastic sporting facilities that the taxpayer was paying for but which we could not afford to access at a time when they were simply not being used. That does not make sense. We can find people willing to give up their time; there are hundreds of sports clubs across all of our constituencies that would seize the opportunity to provide constructive opportunities that will make our children active, that will remain in place once the money starts to diminish and, crucially, that will help busy parents.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that very sensible, measured question. The Schools Minister or I would be delighted to meet him and those representatives. When I go around the country, schools say to me that they understand that the direction of travel is for academisation. We want to work with schools. I suggest that the relevant schools speak to their regional schools commissioner, but also of course to the Department, to make sure that we are able to help them to academise in a way that continues with excellent education and continues to transform the lives of young people, because that is what we all want to see.

Let me turn to the longer school day. We know the difference that positive character traits can make to the life chances of young people, including the resilience to bounce back from life’s setbacks, the determination to apply themselves to challenges, and confidence in their own ability to improve themselves. Such traits also include persistence and grit—the sorts of characteristics that some Labour Back Benchers might need to demonstrate as they face years in the wilderness under their current leadership. With those traits, we know that young people are more likely to achieve their potential and make a positive contribution to British society.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I thank the Education Secretary for giving way and rewarding character and grit. Although most of us agree that the extension of the school day is welcome, there are schoolchildren who are hungry and therefore find it most difficult to benefit from any reforms. One welcomes the Chancellor’s sugar tax, which will give more children the ability to start school with food in their bellies, but will the Education Secretary break convention and lead a cross-party group to meet the Chancellor, who is sitting next to her, so that we can lobby for some of that sugar tax to feed the poorest children during the school holiday?

[Nicky Morgan]

I and the Chancellor would be very happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss that. One of yesterday’s announcements that has not received attention—I will come on to it—is the significant additional funding for breakfast clubs. Of course, the Government have also committed to continuing the pupil premium, which is another way in which schools are able to support those most disadvantaged children. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the need for holiday funding and feeding, and I am certainly prepared to look at that.