Special Educational Needs

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane]

I taught in a school and I know that the plans cost money, but that money is not there. Schools are worried about employing cleaners and, according to The Times last weekend, we have headteachers cleaning the loos. I had a delegation from a special school for children with autism in Sheffield yesterday, and they are having to reduce the number of assistants and the ratios of children to people providing support are getting bigger. There is very little they can do.

At one point in their lives, more than 2 million children in England will have some kind of SEND, but shockingly only 3% of children in England have SEND statements or education and health care plans.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

In Plymouth and across the country, schools are closing early on Fridays. I have heard parents of kids with SEND saying that the disruption to schedules for kids who require structure and support during school hours is especially hurtful. Does my hon. Friend agree that this type of funding cut is really affecting some kids and that we need to ensure that schools are funded properly to give SEND kids, especially those who value structure and support during school hours, the support they need?

[Mike Kane]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Our hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle referred to a finite budget. There are limits to resources, but what are we doing? We are creating a lost generation. In 20 or 30 years’ time, we will say that this is the generation that went through the school system on this Government’s watch. It will be the lost generation: 10,000 children a year are off-rolled, and kids with special educational needs are not getting the assistance they need.

Local authorities have overspent their budgets over the past four years and, as has been highlighted, there is a catastrophic shortfall of more than half a billion pounds this year. The mantra from Ministers that more money than ever before—record investment—is going into education not only rings hollow, but shows a total disconnect between reality and rhetoric. As a further shocking indictment of the Government’s complete failure to provide adequate SEND support in schools, a UN report in 2016 concluded that the UK was guilty of

“grave or systematic violations of the rights of persons with disabilities”.

I came into politics because I was inspired by my MP, Alfred Morris, who introduced the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 as a private Member’s Bill. That was the first legislation recognising the human rights of disabled people in any legislature on the planet, and Alf Morris became the world’s first Minister for the Disabled. He would be spinning in his grave if he could see what state we have come to in this country and how we are now treating pupils with SEN and disabilities.

The Government must get a grip and fully fund and implement suitable SEND support in schools. Labour would do things differently. We have already said that we would give—[Interruption.] I am hearing muttering from the Government Benches, but the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) needs to hear this message, because things do not have to be like this. We would fund local government services adequately. We pointed that out in our manifesto. We would also replace what has been taken in cuts to our schools. [Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

As I said to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), there are areas where we need to continue creating new school places. That is why we have already created over 800,000 school places since 2010 and are on course for 1 million new school places over the decade.

On the free schools process, we expect to announce the outcome of wave 13 before too long.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Instead of increasing the number of free schools, will the Secretary of State look at how we could improve the quality of the free schools we already have? Plymouth School of Creative Arts does exceptional work in some respects, but it is failing in others. Will he look at investing more in making sure such failing and troubled schools give our kids the education they deserve?

[Damian Hinds]

That is at the heart of what we do. That is why we have Ofsted and a school improvement programme, and it is why we encourage schools to learn from one another. One of the main reasons we have multi-academy trusts is so that they are able to work together. I think the hon. Gentleman will be meeting my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards, who takes a close interest in Plymouth schools, to make sure the very best can be done.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable), but I take issue with him on one point: there is something Brexit-related about the debate, because Brexit is masking a crisis in special educational needs. If it were not for the focus of the media and politics on Brexit, issues such as the crisis in special educational needs and disability would be to the fore. More people would be talking about it, and there would be more pressure in Parliament—particularly on the Treasury—to give the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care the funding they need to make things work.

Frankly, kids are being failed by a system that does not have enough money in it, that is too complex for people to navigate, and that is taking too long to get the support kids need. Councils and child and adolescent mental health services need more money, and I support the call for an increase in the high needs block funding. We need to make that case in the comprehensive spending review, as well as to the Minister here, and to make sure that the fantastic staff in mainstream and specialist schools get the support they need.

We should also support parents. In a debate on children’s social care, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) told most powerfully a story about one of her constituents, who said:

“I am a warrior, but I just want to be a mum.”—[Official Report, 17 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 1416.]

Parents are fighting every day to get their kids with SEND the support they need. They are struggling with it, and that is why so many kids are now home-schooled. The support is not there in mainstream education—not because teachers do not work hard enough to deliver it, but because there is not enough funding. That is why we need it.

Constituents come to my surgery nearly every week to talk about the difficulties. I imagine that the story in Plymouth is no different from the story across the country. There is a crisis in SEND support, and we need to restore the safety net that these kids deserve. If we do not invest in them now, not only will they cost us more in the short term as taxpayers, but we will lose the potential of these young people to deliver benefits in the future; we risk paying more for them throughout their lives. That is why it makes good economic sense to invest in these children and their families now and to make sure they get the wraparound support they need and deserve. We must restore the safety net, and that means funding services properly.

Children’s Social Care

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise to speak about three matters in particular, but I first thank the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for his dogged pursuit of this debate. Waiting for it has been like a game of pass the parcel; it has been going around and around, and I am glad that we have had it today.

Contributions from both sides of the House have helped to show the seriousness of this matter. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) said, cuts to children’s social care have reached crisis point. I have been asked to speak in this debate on behalf of the councillors on Plymouth City Council, who want to raise the seriousness of the crisis around children’s social care—an area that has not always got the attention that it has deserved. Rightly, adult social care has taken the lion’s share of headlines and funding in recent years, but the crisis in children’s social care has been growing because of a mix of austerity, poverty, cuts and growing demand. It is a poisonous situation that has left some of the most vulnerable children in the country in the worst possible state.

As we have already heard today, analysis from the LGA shows that we need further funding of £3 billion if we are to keep children’s services standing still by 2025. There are more looked-after children being cared for than ever before, and that number is only going to increase. Early intervention is so important, but funding for early intervention programmes is being cut. The expertise of our social workers and charities at a local level is being removed by slow attrition and cuts. People are losing faith and confidence that this system is one in which they want to play a part. But we need the system to work like never before. In Plymouth, as in many other councils across the country, councillors—of all political parties, to be fair—are putting more and more money into children’s social care because there is more and more demand. There are more children in care in Plymouth than ever before, and that will only continue to eat up more and more council funding. Plymouth City Council has lost £350 million in revenue support since 2013, and losing 60p in the pound of funding means that the urgent care needs of our children are sometimes being neglected.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) said, we need to do more to care for the children, particularly 16 and 17-year-olds, who frequently get left out of the system, being put in semi-supported situations where they are left to fend for themselves without the wraparound care and support that they really need. Many of those young kids are at a crossroads in their lives. If they receive the support that they deserve, there is the potential for them to lead full and productive lives. However, far too many young people who have been in care and looked-after children in semi-supported states will not go on to fulfil their potential, because of cuts. Far too many of them will enter the criminal justice system. We can stop that if we take serious steps to do so. I welcome the extension of local councils’ responsibility for people who have been in care up to the age of 25. That is exactly the right thing to do, but it cannot happen unless the funding goes along with it, because having additional responsibilities without additional funding loads more and more pressure on to an already pressurised system.

I want to raise an issue that has not been spoken about so far—exceptionalism in our children’s social care system. One reason why funding for Plymouth’s social care system has been sunk in recent years is the exceptional costs of funding care packages for a very, very small number of children. I want to choose my words carefully, because it is really important that in discussing and debating these issues, at no stage is any blame attributed to the children who need multimillion-pound care packages. Plymouth City Council has lost legal cases about how those care packages are funded. I know that the Minister will be aware of that, and I would be grateful if he could agree to meet the council to discuss how the huge number of those exceptional cases is basically sinking our budget. It is exactly right that the children with the most complex and urgent care needs get that care, especially in a region like the south-west where complex care facilities are not our doorstep and children need to leave the area and the support networks in their locality. However, we cannot defund the needs of the many just to fund those of the few. That is really important. I fear that in a funding situation where there is more and more demand, difficult choices will need to be made. When local councils have lost so much of their funding, exceptional care packages risk really undermining the quality of care that can be given to every child. The Minister is nodding—I am grateful that he will meet to discuss that.

There are so many good people working so hard in children’s social care, and they do not get the praise or the thanks that they deserve. Sometimes in this place it is not fashionable to praise local councils, but I want to thank them. I thank local councillors of all political hues, who are going the extra mile to support urgent children’s social care issues. I thank the care workers and the charities that we heard about from my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith). I thank foster carers, who are the fundamental bedrock of this issue—I know that because my dad and my stepmother have been fostering children since I was at an early age. Since being a young boy, I have had around the house a constant stream of kids about yea high who have been beaten, abused, starved, neglected or ignored. We need to create a system where those children are given a chance to fulfil their potential. That can come only when the funding envelope for children’s social care is adequate for the urgent needs that we have, and when sufficient political priority is put on all aspects of the children’s social care debate.

There is an urgent need for us to continue this debate. I encourage the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham to secure another debate, because we need to keep this in the headlines and on the agenda. If we do not, it risks slipping off. Adult social care takes the headlines and the need. As we have an increasingly old population, adult social care will take up a bigger share of the pie, and we need to ensure that looked-after children—some of the most neglected in our society—are not ignored by this place in favour of other areas.

I want to thank all the people who work so hard on children’s social care, including our local authorities, careworkers, charities and the individuals and families who are trying so hard, but we need to do better, and the best way is by funding this work properly.

Plymouth Challenge for Schools

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Plymouth challenge for schools initiative.

It is good to see you back in the Chair, Mr Howarth. Funding good schools is the best investment we can make in our children’s future. Teachers, teaching assistants and support staff do a superb job, but Ministers cannot keep asking them to do more and more with less and less. With rising costs, a crisis in recruitment and retention, and the mounting costs of the growing crisis in our young people’s mental health, the urgent need for decent school funding is as stark as any warning can be. I will speak about Plymouth, our funding challenge and how, by working with the Minister, we can create an initiative of which he, I and teachers in Plymouth can be truly proud. The Plymouth Challenge is an initiative worthy of the Minister’s focus, his Department’s energy and the investment of public funds.

Hon. Members will know that I spoke in the debate about school funding last week. I plan to touch on some of the same themes, but the crux of the debate is the specific funding ask for the Minister to back the Plymouth challenge. I am pleased that the Minister has agreed to meet me and a delegation of cross-party councillors, teachers and headteachers from Plymouth next month, but I will not waste another opportunity to pitch this fantastic initiative, thank the teachers and teaching staff who do such a superb job in Plymouth, and call for the urgent funding for children in Plymouth and the far south-west to get our fair share.

The Plymouth challenge is an example of collaborative action by several educational specialists that are working together to improve educational outcomes across Plymouth. The Plymouth challenge has cross-party support from Plymouth City Council’s Labour and Conservative leaderships and is backed by headteachers, and the regional schools commissioner’s office and the Plymouth Teaching School Alliance. Its focus is on promoting aspiration and leadership in secondary schools and helping to support schools to improve outcomes, especially at the end of key stage 4.

The Plymouth challenge seeks to replicate the success of other challenges across the country, most notably in London, but elsewhere in places such as Manchester and Hull. In each case, standards and teaching quality were driven up by the considerable and focused investment of time, energy and money in our teachers and schools. Focused deep learning enables teachers to improve on their weaknesses, build on their strengths, grow in confidence, share best practice and know that their passion and commitment to the children they teach is matched by a similar commitment to their development by their employers, the Government and their city.

Plymouth is in the bottom 10 of all local authorities for secondary school performance. We have one type of every school thought of by Governments since 1945, so it is not the lack of diversity or competition that is hitting standards. Results at the end of key stage 4 are below the national average, and the percentage of students achieving a strong pass in English and maths is below four in 10. On average, by the end of key stage 4, students have made less progress than similar students nationally. A shockingly high number of schools are judged inadequate—four out of 18, and five out of 18 before the studio school was closed in the summer, as the Minister knows.

Pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and disadvantaged pupils are increasingly likely to be off-rolled or excluded not because of the work of staff and students, but because the support is not there for those pupils to function and succeed in a mainstream environment. Elective home education has nearly tripled in four years, and in some schools fixed-term exclusions have risen by more than 200%.

The contrast is clear when we compare Plymouth with London. In the capital, nine out of 10 children go to a good or outstanding school, and the national average is about eight in 10, but for children in Plymouth it is five out of 10. One in two—50%—of our kids do not go to a good or outstanding school as rated by Ofsted, which needs to change.

The Plymouth challenge has the potential to be a huge success, but at the moment it is a voluntary initiative that hard-pressed teachers must do in addition to a full curriculum—marking homework, preparing lesson plans, filling in paperwork and being surrogate mental health workers, social workers, mentors, leaders and role models. It cannot function simply on a voluntary basis. Plymouth City Council has said that only £900,000 to £1.3 million is required to implement the first phase of the scheme. That would be money well spent, and good value, too. In Plymouth, we have the will and the passion, but we simply lack the funding and time to make it work. Our teachers and teaching assistants need deep learning. That cannot be just one hour swapped out of a classroom for a quick update on skills; it must be deep, intensive learning so they benefit from the latest in teaching quality initiatives. The children who otherwise would have been taught by them must have a high-quality replacement to ensure that their education does not suffer because of their teacher’s participation in the scheme.

Training matters, because training and investment in a person’s development improves retention and reignites the passion for learning. I have spoken to countless teachers who have either left the profession or are considering leaving because of the pressure, the stress and the seemingly never-ending squeeze on spending and real-terms pay cuts. The Plymouth challenge could help to address that.

School funding has been a growing concern for a number of years, as schools in Plymouth and the far south west as a whole continue to be denied our fair share of resources. The hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) is dealing with an urgent constituency matter, in which he has my full support, but has asked that his support for this call be added to my remarks. If other Conservative Members had been here today, I am certain their concerns about education funding in Devon and Cornwall would also be highlighted. Although it is a particularly dodgy socialist standing in front of the Minister today, many Members not only in my party, but in his, too, share this concern and back this solution.

Two weeks ago, I met headteachers during my one of my regular pastries and politics roundtables in Plymouth, and the seemingly never-ending pressures on finances, cropped up time and again. As the proud son of a teacher, I know how hard teachers work. Each of them is full of love and passion for their subject, but too often today their spark is being put out. Too many are left frustrated and demoralised by the double-edged sword of a lack of support and an increase in pressure to do more with less.

Schools across my constituency have suffered consistent underfunding since 2010, and a vicious cycle of cuts—particularly cuts that that do not sit in the education budget but affect things that local authority budgets previously took care of—has worsened existing conditions. As class sizes have increased, the number of teachers and teaching assistants has decreased, and the vulnerable and poorest students in our communities are increasingly in the most underfunded schools.

Plymouth has one of the lowest education spends per head in the United Kingdom—£415 less per child than London and £300 less per child than the national average. That shortfall has had a damaging impact on students in Plymouth, who continue to fall behind the national average for academic attainment. Funding and attainment are linked.

When the national funding formula is fully implemented in about 2020-21, Coventry will receive £4,806 per pupil, compared with Plymouth’s £4,532. That difference of £274 per pupil equates to a loss of funding of £9.4 million for Plymouth. Coventry is a city similar in size, population and demographics to Plymouth, but it has very different education funding. I have no fight with Coventry—except when it comes to football—but I use that example to illustrate that not all children are being valued in the same way across the country.

The Minister will know from my remarks during the previous debate on this subject that I have particular concerns, one of which is the maximum gains cap. I would like the Minister to consider reviewing and removing the 3% maximum gains cap, which is part of the national funding formula. One of the key principles of the national funding formula was that pupils with similar characteristics should attract similar levels of funding, wherever they are in the country. That is a good idea, but the maximum gains cap prevents schools that have been underfunded for many years from receiving their fair share of their current entitlement because their gains are throttled. For example, under the funding formula, Plymouth is due to gain £10.6 million, but the maximum gains cap means that, in practice, schools in Plymouth will receive less than half that amount— £4.7 million in 2018-19 and £8.7 million in 2019-20. The gains cap means that they will get less than they should be getting under the funding formula.

Even with the additional funding formula, Plymouth continues to receive considerably less than the national average. I would be grateful if the Minister could review whether the gains cap is appropriate, and whether it could be flexed or removed to give places such as Plymouth, which have received lower funding deals historically, a chance to catch up more quickly. It seems to me that the schools that have lost out the most will be disadvantaged in their progress towards a fairer position because of that historical underinvestment. It does not seem fair, equitable or justifiable that the Government put in place this policy. To achieve the objectives that the Minister rightly wants and to have a fairer funding formula for all pupils, we need to address the maximum gains cap, which throttles that benefit.

I am certain that many of the teachers watching this debate will be alarmed that Department for Education rules have limited the fairer funding formula. I would be grateful if the Minister looked again at the role of the maximum gains cap, and perhaps lifted the cap for Plymouth. That would provide some of the money that the Plymouth challenge needs. I remember from what the Minister said in the previous debate that, although the figures for the period between now and the end of the fairer funding formula are limited, that important retrospective gap must also be addressed.

Many of the teachers who got in touch with me ahead of this debate raised concerns about mental health funding and the increased pressure that that puts on their role in the classroom. The Government’s warm words on mental health are to be welcomed, and I back many of them, but there have been cuts to mental health provision for young people in primaries, especially in the Plymouth excellence cluster—a body that pooled mental health funding for our schools—which lost its funding earlier this year.

The three-year mental health funding deal for secondary schools in Plymouth is due to expire this year, and no replacement funding has been identified. That cannot be right, and I would be grateful if the Minister gave urgent consideration to providing support, especially for young people who are receiving mental health support. If money cannot be found for them from existing school budgets to replace that funding, they will lose it. Our teachers are brilliant, but they cannot also be professional mental health workers. Many of them have raised that concern with me.

Rather than hear it from me, it is more fitting if the Minister hears this from the teachers themselves. When I secure a debate in this place, I often let people know about it on my Facebook and Twitter pages, and even on Instagram. Last week, I asked people to send in their stories and experiences. I am sure many of them will be familiar to the Minister. Flex wrote to me to say:

“I’m a Supply teacher and a product of the ‘Troops to Teachers’ scheme. Of the 50 teacher trainees that began the course and 2 years into teaching there are 12 of us left nationally. I have worked in many schools in the Plymouth area and many are seriously underfunded. TAs are invaluable supporting SEN or 1-1 children to simply keep a class running. I have worked in schools that have run out of books, paper or have a shortage of IT or Sports equipment. As a Supply, I regularly fund and bring my own resources into certain schools because I know some items will not be available such as pens.”

Plymouth City Council and many of Plymouth’s teachers wrote to me ahead of this debate to share the key asks. Unlike other challenge programmes around the country such as those in Manchester, London and Hull, there has been no targeted DFE funding, although it has provided official support on staff time. I would be grateful if the Minister committed to investigate what funding pots are available to support the Plymouth challenge and initiatives like it around the UK.

I would also be grateful if the DFE sent a clear message that all Plymouth children should expect to be able to attend a good or outstanding school, and set out a timeframe. At the moment, only half our children attend schools in that bracket. I would be grateful if the Minister set out a framework for working with Plymouth City Council and local schools and academies to support the Plymouth Challenge steering group to achieve that objective.

As part of our funding request, we seek resources to appoint a full-time challenge co-ordinator and for an outstanding headteacher or experienced professional from outside Plymouth to be seconded for at least a year to provide the professional challenge, curiosity and inquiry that is vital to making an initiative such as the Plymouth challenge work. I would be grateful if the Minister and his officials supported us in that endeavour.

The Minister knows that Plymouth has every type of school thought of by every Government since 1945. Diversity of provision is the daily reality in Plymouth, so lack of diversity is not the problem. The problem is the fragmentation to which that leads. I would be grateful if the DFE signalled a commitment to driving collective accountabilities instead of supporting that fragmented system. I recognise that there are challenges with that, but although there seems to be a belief that Plymouth has achieved the perfect level of competition that Ministers seek, it has encountered problems, perhaps earlier than other cities around the country that are progressing towards that.

Finally, given the growing focus on multi-academy trusts, I would be grateful if the Minister told us where there is intentional design of MAT development in the far south-west and Plymouth, and how successful MATs and school leaders can be secured to support the city. No school should lose out from the MAT process.

Let me read testimonies from two teachers who wrote to me ahead of the debate. Tom wrote:

“This is only my fourth year as a teacher and I am close to just about avoiding becoming one of those five year drop-out statistics. On a good day, it can be a hugely inspiring and rewarding job but the immense pressures involved mean that a remarkable number of passionate teachers have left.

I have been involved in one of the key elements of the Plymouth Challenge: the idea that local schools need to more efficiently collaborate with regards to curriculum planning, moderation, CPD etc. It’s a project with an admirable goal. However, rather than funding coming from the existing budgets of already struggling schools, the government urgently needs to provide an additional grant for the Plymouth Challenge as it did previously for other major cities.”

Nina wrote:

“I’ve been a teacher and leader for over 13 years and I love my job. I have also had a real terms pay cut again this year and seen amazing teachers leave the profession. I have been involved in Plymouth Challenge since early 2018.”

She stated that the main issue is that there is no funding,

“yet the expectations being placed on teachers to deliver results are significant. Schools, teaching staff, support staff and school leaders are keenly aware and can’t work any harder—but maybe we could work smarter.

Plymouth Challenge was sold to schools as a model by which subject specific hubs could be set up to organise training and develop and share expertise. But there’s no money and teachers who volunteered to help run these hubs were told we should think about what we could charge schools to attend and that we could have start up loans”.

Nina goes on:

“There is so much goodwill—so much expertise—but the lack of funding means there is a creeping scepticism and frustration. The Plymouth Challenge has immense potential but we can’t ‘maximise current funding streams’ to make it work – those funding streams are already maxed out.”

There is huge enthusiasm for the Plymouth challenge among teachers and teaching staff in the city. There is a window of opportunity in the next few months for us to secure it by getting to grips with funding it properly and providing wraparound support for teachers. The initiative can work, and it must work if we are to achieve the improvements in grades that we all want.

If austerity really is over, the Government have the opportunity by supporting this campaign to make up for historical underfunding in Plymouth and to improve the lives of children in my city in real terms. I say to the Minister: support teachmeets and online training courses focused on Plymouth priorities, support our young people’s mental health services, support our aspirations to empower disadvantaged students, and support co-operative models across Plymouth’s schools to look at how we can ensure that every child, regardless of their background, their parents’ jobs or their postcode, has a chance to fulfil their potential.

I genuinely look forward to working with the Minister. There is potential for us to work in a cross-party way to ensure that all our kids in Plymouth succeed and achieve their best.

School Funding

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this timely debate.

For some years, school funding in Devon has been a growing concern, expressed on a cross-party basis. My area in the far south-west is a true representation of the wider picture in Devon of not getting our fair share of resources. Last Friday I held my monthly “Politics and Pastries” roundtable, where I fed pastries to some of our hard-working headteachers and got information out of them about the state of education in Plymouth. They listed as their top concerns the pressure on finances, the lack of support for mental health and the urgent need to fund the Plymouth Challenge.

As the proud son of a teacher, I know how hard teachers work. Each of them is full of love for their profession, their students and the subjects they teach, but it is fair to say that at the moment our education system is being held together by good will. I thank Plymouth’s teachers, teaching assistants, support staff, other professionals and volunteers for all they do, but all too often their spark is being put out. Too many are left frustrated and demoralised by the double whammy of a lack of support and an increase in pressure to do more with less.

My argument today is a simple one: every child matters. All children, whether from the north, the south, the east or the west, from London or Plymouth, should be valued equally and have a fair slice of the funding cake. That children in one part of the country should be valued the same as those in another is surely a principle that we can all agree on, but schools across Plymouth have suffered consistent underfunding, especially since 2010. Plymouth has one of the lowest education spends per head in the United Kingdom. Each of our children, on average, is valued £415 less than a child in a London postcode, and £300 less than the national average. A Plymouth child is not worth any less than any other child anywhere else in the country, and the value for their education should reflect that and not treat them as being worth less.

Cuts have consequences; the shortfall has had a damaging impact on students in Plymouth, who continue to fall behind the national average in academic performance. That is not because our teachers are not working hard enough, but simply because the resources are not there to give those children the educational excellence they deserve under fair funding. Plymouth schools face a vicious circle of cuts and increased costs that worsen existing conditions. Class sizes have increased and the numbers of teachers and teaching assistants have decreased. It is worth remembering that some of the poorest and most vulnerable students in our communities are increasingly in the most underfunded schools.

The contrast is clear when we compare Plymouth with London. In the capital, nine out of 10 children go to a good or outstanding school, while in Plymouth only five in 10 children do so. If every child matters, why is it that children in the far south-west are worth less than those in other parts of the country? Why are schoolkids in Plymouth not being given a fair chance to succeed?

I have three simple asks for the Minister, to help our teachers and to stop our children falling behind. First, I would like him to consider reviewing and removing the 3% maximum gains cap that is part of the national funding formula. One of the key principles of the national funding formula consultation was that pupils with similar characteristics should attract similar levels of funding wherever they are in the country. That is a good thing, but the maximum gains cap prevents schools that have been underfunded for many years from receiving their fair share of their current funding entitlement.

To give an example, under the new funding formula, Plymouth is due to gain £10.6 million, but the maximum gains cap means that in practice schools in Plymouth will receive less than half that amount, £4.7 million, in 2018-19 and £8.7 million in 2019-20—less than they should be getting under the funding formula because of the gains cap. Even with that additional funding formula, Plymouth will continue to receive considerably less than the national average, so I would be grateful if the Minister reviewed whether the gains cap is appropriate for where we are and whether it could be flexed or removed to give places such as Plymouth that have received lower levels of funding a chance to catch up.

Secondly, I would be grateful if the Minister looked again at funding for mental health support for our schools. It has been mentioned a number of times, but wrap-around support for young people is especially important if they are to achieve their full potential. Plymouth schools are currently sharing a three-year mental health funding deal, but that money runs out this year and headteachers have told me there is no money to replace that funding when it expires. We know that mental health concerns are rising among our young people, with a combination of increasing pressure, social media, bullying and, sadly, for far too many of our children, the additional pressure of caring responsibilities as young carers. Mental health funding is not only an essential part of educational support, but vital if they are to achieve their potential.

Our teachers are brilliant, but they cannot also be mental health workers and professionals. We have seen cuts to mental health provision for young people in primaries, especially with the Plymouth Excellence Cluster—a body that pooled mental health funding for schools—losing its funding earlier this year. The three-year funding deal for secondaries is now due to expire. That cannot be right, and I would be grateful if the Minister gave urgent consideration to providing support, especially for young people who are receiving support at the moment and may lose it if money cannot be found within school budgets to replace that provision.

Finally, I ask the Minister to support the Plymouth Challenge. As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) mentioned, the challenge opportunities are incredible for coastal communities that have lost out on funding. Plymouth, unfortunately, was not deemed to be one of the Government’s opportunity areas, and so missed out on the social mobility package of funding that was recently announced, but Plymouth City Council, working with the Plymouth Education Board in partnership with the regional schools commissioner and officials at the Department for Education, has come up with the Plymouth Challenge, which aims to work with schools in Plymouth and the far south-west to raise standards, promoting leadership and aspiration.

There have been successful challenges right across the country, most notably in London but also elsewhere. In each case, standards and teaching quality have been driven up by considerable and focused investment of time, energy and money in our teachers and schools. In Plymouth we have the will and the passion, but we lack the funding and the time to make that work. There must be deep learning for our teachers—not simply one hour swapped out of a classroom for a quick update on skills, but deep learning, so our teachers and teaching assistants can receive the benefit of the latest in teaching quality initiatives—and the children who would otherwise have been taught by those teachers must have a high-quality replacement, ensuring that their education does not suffer because their teacher is being given additional training.

Plymouth City Council estimates that it requires between £900,000 and £1.3 million to implement the first phase of the scheme. It is supported by schools across the city, and I would be grateful if the Minister looked positively at the Plymouth Challenge and agreed to meet a cross-party delegation of teachers and political representatives from Plymouth at both national and local level, to look at how the DFE can support Plymouth in funding the Plymouth Challenge and ensuring that we can support our own teachers to do the best they can.

Those are three small asks for the Minister, but they would make a huge difference to Plymouth kids and their schools. Plymouth is unique, due to the diversity of our education provision; we have a school of every kind that every Government since 1945 ever thought of. It is not the range of schools that is the problem, but the lack of funding, and I would be grateful if the Minister met us to discuss that.

16-to-19 Education Funding

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on securing this debate. In Plymouth, the education funding cuts for 16 to 19-year-olds are taking a real toll on many of the most vulnerable and poorest in our community. The excellent work of sixth-form teachers and of the excellent City College Plymouth is being slowly undone by Government decisions to reduce funding. Having spoken to teachers and lecturers in Plymouth, I am concerned that funding is insufficient to give our young people the depth and breadth of study they need, especially those from the poorest backgrounds.

A lot of investment has been put into STEM subjects and training people for the marine jobs that Plymouth excels at, especially at City College Plymouth’s new STEM centre, but overall cuts to education funding for 16 to 19-year-olds are reducing the range of subjects across the city. As the son of a teacher, my starting point is that I want the Government to interfere less and to fund education better, and the latter certainly applies in Plymouth. Plymouth has a diverse tapestry of education, with every type of school, from nurseries and 19 free schools to private schools, FE colleges and academies. They have all shared concerns, privately or publicly, about the impact of education funding cuts on life chances, especially for those from the poorest backgrounds. Curtailing the breadth of study reduces their life opportunities.

The context of our education debate has changed. We need to look carefully at what the post-Brexit environment will mean for education. I would like the Minister to comment not only on the validity of the cases that hon. Members have made, but on how we can make true the rhetoric that I hear from Ministers about how Britain is to be a place of education, aspiration and skills. If the Government continue to cut education funding for 16 to 19-year-olds, we will produce less home-grown talent and will find it harder to attract international students to study from ages 16 to 19, as City College Plymouth does. Nor will we be able to fulfil the potential of the post-Brexit skills environment, which I hear Ministers talk about so positively.

I urge the Minister to look not only at funding schools and FE colleges properly, but at pay rates in the public sector, especially in education. An awful lot of excellent people are going above and beyond—I have seen that at first hand in Plymouth—by doing unpaid hours and working extra to support our young people, especially in areas where funding for special educational needs and expanding horizons has been cut. Will the Minister look at how Brexit will change those environments? Will she make sure that she does not forget about the far south-west, where our education funding is already among the lowest in the country?

[David Hanson (in the Chair)]

It’s a miracle; everyone got in.