Free School Meals

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for the work they do in this area.

Newham has been a pioneer in universal free school meals for over a decade now, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) has described. As has been mentioned, 900,000 children in England live in poverty but are not eligible for free school meals. Many of those children may well live in Newham, but thankfully at primary schools in our area they receive that important hot and healthy meal, even though the Government’s criteria seems to suggest that they do not deserve it. I continue to believe that our local universal free school meal offer is so important for child welfare because so many families in our communities are enduring hardship, thanks to incomes that simply do not pay the bills and a massive shortage of decent affordable homes.

We have the second highest child poverty rate in the country and the highest homelessness rate. More than 8,500 children in Newham are growing up in temporary accommodation, which is often damp, cold and mouldy—awful conditions. Last week, we learned that across the country that statistic has risen by 15%. Our families, whether they are technically in poverty or not, and whether they can pay their rent or are struggling to do so, have been massively impacted by the cost of living crisis over the past years. That has increased child hunger and stress caused by financial worries to simply appalling levels. The rise in child hardship and child homelessness makes that one free school meal a day all the more essential—sometimes it is that child’s only meal.

Teachers I speak to locally tell me ever-worse stories of how children are coming in hungry day after day and the strategies the children use to hide it. A hot decent lunch is a lifeline that helps children concentrate. It makes school the haven it should be, away from the stress and worry that often awaits them at home. But rising homelessness costs to the council create risk for Newham’s new universal free school meal programme. Without support, it could become less and less affordable, even as the need for it grows higher and higher. That is because just a fraction of free school meals in Newham are paid for by this Government, who have done so much to increase need by driving down council funding, eroding our stock of social homes and cutting family incomes from social security.

Our Newham programme has always been paid for by local people through our council budget and, in recent years, by our Mayor of London. Thankfully, that should continue following Sadiq Khan’s victory at the weekend, which ended the financial threat posed by the Conservative candidate. For Newham, widening national eligibility for free school meals would have a double impact on child poverty: it would free up resources to meet the wider needs, including those that have been caused by homelessness. The council and now the Mayor of London would save £6 million a year, which could be reinvested in other services if the free school meals programme was fully funded by the Government.

Healthy free school meals impact on many aspects of our children’s lives and on their opportunities. A University of Essex study, which included Newham, found that families receiving free school meals were saving £37 a month per child and that childhood obesity was reduced by 9.3% for children of reception age. That is obviously important for protecting children’s lifelong health and for reducing costs to the NHS for decades to come, particularly in Newham where almost 30% of year 6 children are affected by obesity.

Even small expansions in eligibility for free school meals are estimated to have economic, social and health benefits. A £1 investment has been found to recoup £1.38 in returns from higher educational achievement, savings to school budgets and reduced NHS costs from obesity. Ultimately, this is a debate about whether we have a Government that are willing to take a long-term view and make an investment in our children that would more than pay for itself in the coming years. Surely that is the kind of investment we need to build a fairer, healthier and more prosperous future for Newham and all our communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

The right hon. Gentleman has been in these positions himself, so he knows that, of course, we keep that under review. However, I gently point out that it has been under the current system that this much greater proportion of children and young people are eligible for free school meals than was the case when other Governments, including one of whom he was a very distinguished member, were in office.

Overall, more than 2 million pupils are eligible for benefits-related free school meals. In addition, as we have just been discussing, 1.3 million infants in reception, year 1 and year 2 get a free meal under the universal infant free school meals policy, which was introduced in 2014. Further to that, more than 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education receive a free meal at lunchtime. Together, this helps to improve the education of children and young people; it boosts their health and saves their parents considerable sums of money.

We have also introduced extensive protections, which have been in effect since 2018. They ensure that, while universal credit is being fully rolled out, any child eligible for free school meals will retain their entitlement and keep getting free meals until the end of the phase—in other words, until the end of primary or secondary—even if their family’s income rises above the income threshold such that this would otherwise have stopped.

We all know the saying that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and the evidence does back that up. It shows that children who do not have breakfast are more likely to have issues with behaviour, wellbeing and learning. That is why we continue to support the provision of breakfast, by investing up to £40 million in the national school breakfast programme. The funding supports up to 2,700 schools in disadvantaged areas, and means that thousands of children from low-income families are offered a free, nutritious breakfast, to better support their attainment, wellbeing and readiness to learn. I say gently to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North that we think it is important to target that breakfast investment where it is most needed, which does not mean only in primary schools.

[Ms Lyn Brown]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

I am going to ask the hon. Lady to forgive me, because we have less than five minutes to go, and I must reach the conclusion.

Further to that, we recognise that nutrition does not cease to be an issue outside of term time, and that holiday periods can be particularly difficult for disadvantaged and low-income families. That is one reason why we continue to support the delivery of enriching activities and provision of nutritious food through the holiday activities and food programme. It has been backed by more than £200 million in funding, and now sees all 153 local authorities in England taking part.

The success of the programme is plain to see. Since 2022, it has provided 11.3 million HAF—holiday activities and food—days to children and young people in this country. Across 2023, more than 5 million HAF days were provided during Easter, summer and winter delivery. Based on reporting from local authorities, over winter 2023 more than 290,000 children attended the programme, of whom more than 263,000 were funded directly by the HAF programme and more than 229,000 received benefits-related free school meals. In response to the hon. Member for York Central, there is a degree of flexibility for individual school provision for eligibility for that facility.

The HAF programme brings me to this point, which the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North made in a different way. Of course, we have to see everything in the round—the full support given to families. In that context, the wider package of support, particularly for the cost of living difficulties the country has been through, is very relevant. That has been worth more than £100 billion over 2022-23 to 2024-25. It remains the case that pursuing policies that facilitate work and create jobs is the single most important poverty-tackling policy that a Government can have.

Colleagues, including the hon. Members for Twickenham and for Washington and Sunderland West, brought up the important question of auto-enrolment. We do want to make it as simple as possible for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility and for families to apply. That is why we have the eligibility checking service. I am also aware of some of the innovative things local authorities are doing to look at auto-enrolment. We think there is merit in those projects, which we will look at closely. We know that historically it has not been straightforward to achieve auto-enrolment, but it is definitely something we want to study further and learn from.

I am running short of time, but the hon. Member for Twickenham asked about disability. We debated that subject in this Chamber a few weeks ago, with some of the colleagues here today, and that included reference to children receiving EOTAS: education otherwise than at school. I am pleased to reiterate that we have done what we committed to do: update guidance in that area, particularly regarding children with disabilities, to make clear the duty to make reasonable adjustments under relevant legislation.

I hope I have conveyed the extent of free-meal support currently in place under this Government, and how vital a role it plays, ensuring that the most disadvantaged children receive the nutrition they need to thrive. I again thank the hon. Member for Twickenham for bringing this important debate to Westminster Hall today and all colleagues for taking part.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the provision of free school meals.

Children Not in School: National Register and Support

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the number of young carers growing up in our country and going through our school system and the particular needs they have, issues that are directly relevant in the case of absence. We are working to improve understanding of where there are young carers, including through the school census that the hon. Gentleman mentioned and also through the guidance that we issue. As he will know, “Keeping children safe in education” is the main guidance on that subject that is issued to schools: it requires designated safeguarding leads to be aware of the needs of young carers, but trying to understand those needs is something that goes broader within school communities. Of course, dedicated professionals working in our school system seek to do exactly that.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is so generous of the Minister to give way. In my constituency, families struggle. The cost of living crisis is ever present, and the housing crisis forces many families to move from house to house. Children end up quite a long way from school because parents, understandably, want their child to have some level of stability and keep them in the school where they know their friends and their teachers. To be honest, my schools are brilliant and the teachers are really committed, but surely we need recognition that cuts to council budgets, combined with the massive increases in need that there are at the moment, are a contributing factor to children being out of school. Does he accept that?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. Can I just say to Opposition Members, first, that interventions should not be speeches; and secondly, that they are taking up their own time, and they will lose time on the second debate?

Safety of School Buildings

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I am sorry. Unlike the hon. Gentleman’s Government when they were in power, we actually did a conditions survey. We have done two conditions surveys and we have done a full RAAC survey, which we are now finishing with the responses that are coming in. We know the conditions; previously, the Labour Government did not know anything about the conditions and no decisions were made based on the condition of schools.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

St Francis’ primary school in my constituency identified RAAC problems way back in 2019. It had to fund its own survey to do that. Since 2019, St Francis’ has submitted two bids to make its roof safe, and both were rejected. They appealed both times, and both appeals were rejected. Can I ask the Secretary of State how she can justify the rejection of those bids, and how can she justify the potentially much higher costs that must now be paid from the public purse to make St Francis’ safe?

[Gillian Keegan]

The hon. Lady raises a good point, because of course the responsible body, St Francis’, has done the right thing by doing its survey. That is what everybody was asked to do in 2019 and in 2018, and in guidance since then. There are conditions and condition-based requests, and if the school wants to get in touch and give us the details, I am very happy to look at that case. I am very serious about making sure that we get rid of RAAC in our schools.

The school estate consists of over 22,000 schools and sixth-form colleges, with over 64,000 blocks. Of course, the condition varies across the estate, and a number of buildings are reaching the end of their useful life. That is why we have a 10-year rebuilding programme, and why the spending reviews in 2020 and 2021 allocated more than £7 billion for maintenance allocations for schools on top of that programme.

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

My hon. Friend reminds us all of the other legacy of the Building Schools for the Future programme: the PFIs that probably they are still paying for today. The Department has taken a different approach and has reduced costs by simplifying the design and construction, with more standardisation of design, and finding economies of scale by offering central procurement, and we have reduced the cost significantly of each school. On PFI, I will have get back to him, because I do not know how many of these, if any, have any remaining PFI—certainly not under our watch.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

In Newham, we have 8,363 children in temporary accommodation thanks to the Government’s housing policies. That is more homeless children in one borough than in three whole English regions combined. At the moment, we have one primary school confirmed with RAAC and several others, including a very large secondary school, still in limbo. School closures may therefore be a problem for thousands of children who, as during covid, will not have access to remote learning. Can I at least be assured today that, this time, this Government will prioritise children without access and provide particular and individual resources to support their education, so that they do not endure yet another blight on their life chances due to the continuing incompetence of this Government?

[Gillian Keegan]

I assure the hon. Lady that this is nothing like covid; it is going to be much quicker. We will reduce the impact on face-to-face learning as much as possible and of course we will prioritise getting children back and making sure that they are in school. On Newham, I am sure she is absolutely delighted that, due to the reforms of the Conservative Government, it is now one of the best-performing areas in the country.

Fair Taxation of Schools and Education Standards Committee

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am worried that this Government are becoming dangerously complacent about the situation in our schools. In Newham we have many bright and ambitious children who achieve so much despite all the difficulties, and I am going to talk about that today. Newham has the second highest child poverty rate in the country, but nevertheless attainment is well above the national average. We are seeing many brilliant young people going on to universities—top universities—and contributing so much to our economy and society. What a testament to the ambition of those families, to the ambition and commitment of those children and, most of all, to the commitment and ability of those teachers. However, one headteacher in my constituency told me just yesterday that she and every other headteacher she knows is either already running a deficit budget, or expects to do so, so that achievement is at risk. Let’s face it: the failures of 12 years of Tory policy are having the biggest impact on the most vulnerable individuals and families, with lifelong consequences for them, and a real cost to our economy.

Let me remind some Conservative Members what “most vulnerable” children means. This is about children going to bed hungry, in small, damp, mould-crusted flats. It is about children who are not able to learn in school because they do not have the support they need with their special educational needs or disabilities. It is about children who are vulnerable and who, in the absence of support, can sometimes be disruptive to the learning of others. When class teachers do not have specialist staff to help with those children’s individual needs, that forces them to work even harder, and the learning of all the children suffers as a result.

In Newham there is a backlog of up to 18 months for children who need an assessment for an education and health care plan. One of my constituents was told that they would have to wait two years—a completely unbearable length of time—while their child struggled at school without the support they needed. So my constituent went to family members and borrowed money to pay for a private assessment. It is just like with private healthcare—the consequences of Tory failure can be avoided, but only for those who can somehow find the money to pay their way out of the system. In many areas such as Newham where poverty is rampant, children and schools are having to do their best without specialist support or the much-needed resources attached to EHCPs. Even when a family manages to get that assessment and an EHCP is drawn up, funding falls well below what is needed to meet assessed needs. I have been told of one local case where the actual cost of meeting a child’s needs was estimated to be almost four times higher than the funding on offer for their plan, and it is the same for other social care needs.

Our schools have a massive role to play in getting children early help against gang grooming and county lines. But children’s services are so overstretched that when our schools make referrals, they tell me they are being turned away unless the situation has already escalated to the point of police involvement. That is a waste of money, if nothing else, and it is certainly a waste of my children’s lives—literally. I hope that all hon. Members will understand that waiting for police involvement means that it is often way too late to stop a child’s life spiralling out of control into further chaos and crime. Instead, schools are told they have to support needs that have little to do with learning, and they simply do not have the expertise or the resource to be able do so.

When we look at these issues, we see that of course they are about teacher shortages and crumbling school buildings, but we also need to look at the wider social and economic barriers that are so damaging to children’s learning. What about housing? In Newham, 8,363 children are without a stable home—they are in temporary accommodation. Lower quartile earnings in Newham are £1,451 a month, but the lower quartile private rent on a two-bedroom home is £1,400 a month. Someone could spend all of their earnings just on getting a roof over their head without even thinking about energy or all the other bills that are massively increasing. So, according to the Government’s own data, we have almost 3,500 families without a stable home and in temporary accommodation.

From schools, I hear about children who are effectively living in one heated room, with the whole family huddling together for an evening. Obviously, trying to do homework in those circumstances is impossible, so we have children staying at school as late as they possibly can. It is so different from when I was growing up. I can say with confidence that without the stability of my family’s council flat, I would not be standing here today. We were not having to move constantly or to travel long distances because we had yet again been kicked out of a house.

What about food? Food insecurity has tripled from pre-pandemic levels, which in Newham were appallingly high. I am hearing directly from schools about children whose one decent meal a day—possibly their only meal a day—is coming from their school lunch. Why are we not providing that? Why are the Government not providing free school meals to enable children to concentrate throughout the school day without that constant nagging hunger? This is a wealthy country—I am told. How can we justify children’s life chances being held back because their families cannot afford food?

Even though Newham’s children come from London, they face many barriers. We need to tackle all those factors if we are ever going to truly level up. Instead, the social problems get worse because of Tory failures that go way beyond their failure with the school system.

Looking at all these additional stresses and needs, we come to the fundamental issue of core funding for schools. My understanding is that more than 8% of our state schools were already in deficit before the cost of living crisis, and the pay rises needed to manage it are having to be met from existing budgets. My schools tell me that they simply cannot afford to recruit new staff. That is affecting all our children, but particularly those with special educational needs and disabilities, whose needs simply cannot be met within existing resources. Let’s face it: the situation with staffing was already difficult before the cost of living crisis. In 2020, Newham had the second highest rate of spending on secondary supply teachers. How can we expect the skilled workforce that we need to come forward from circumstances like this? How can we expect our hard-working, dedicated, professional staff to struggle on?

Earlier today the Prime Minister said:

“Everyone should have the opportunity to succeed.”

But to will the ends, he must provide the means; otherwise, those are simply empty words, signifying nothing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

I will not give way now, I am afraid; there is no time left.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) gave the debate the key quote that

“education is a necessity, not a luxury”.

He is right, and he was right when he said that Labour’s policy in the motion was simply about the politics of envy.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) was right to describe Labour’s education policy as divisive. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), in a moving speech, challenged Labour’s motion for breeding

“antagonism between the independent sector and the state sector”,

which is unhelpful and does not help young people with learning difficulties.

Independent schools have long played a part in this country’s education system, allowing parents to choose the education that is right for their child. The majority of the sector is made up of small schools, including those providing education to religious communities or catering for special educational needs, and the latter provide much-needed special school and alternative provision places, which are state funded. The Government believe the state education sector can and does benefit from collaboration with the private sector.

The hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) spoke about the London Borough of Newham, which is one of the poorest boroughs in the country, but thanks to this Government and the work of the former mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales, Newham is now one of the highest-performing education authorities in the phonics screening check and regularly appears in the top 10 local authorities for key stage 2 results in reading, writing and maths. She failed to mention Brampton Manor Academy in Newham, which last year sent 85 of its pupils to Oxbridge and 470 to Russell Group universities.

[Ms Lyn Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

I will not give way—there is no time left, I am afraid.

The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) cited the partnership that Reach Academy Feltham has with two prominent local private schools. That is, of course, one of 7,000 such partnerships with 936 primary schools.

The Government are committed to raising standards in our schools, and we have succeeded in raising standards in our schools, although there is more to do.

[Ms Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

I will not give way.

The Government are committed to education as the key to every individual’s ambition. We want every child to fulfil their potential. This Government—despite all the competing pressures and the fiscal and public finance challenges facing this country—allocated in the autumn statement an extra £2 billion of funding for schools next year and the year after, in addition to the extra funding allocated for those two years in the 2021 spending review. With this year’s £4 billion increase and next year’s £3.5 billion increase in school funding, that is a 15% rise in just two years. By 2024-25, school funding will be at its highest ever level in real terms as well as in cash terms.

That is the focus of the Government. The Opposition may focus on private schools and on constitutional reform, but our determination is to make every local school a good school. We are concentrating on ensuring that all pupils catch up after the challenges caused by the pandemic, which is why we are spending £5 billion on tutoring and other support for pupils to help them catch up.

The Government are committed to continuing to drive and raise academic standards and standards of behaviour in our schools. That is what parents want, it is what pupils want, and it is what our economy needs. I urge the House to reject Labour’s divisive motion and, by doing so, to endorse the Government’s approach to delivering a high-quality education for all our children.

Question put.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

7. What steps he is taking to reform children’s social care services.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

20. What steps he is taking to reform children’s social care services.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

We will publish an ambitious implementation strategy later this year following three important pieces of work: first, the independent review of social care—the MacAlister review—and then the Competition and Markets Authority study on the children’s social care market, and the national panel review of the deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson.

[Ms Brown]

Many years ago, as a residential social worker, I saw the pain and despair of many children in care, alongside their talents, their ambitions and their amazing resilience. None of this has changed, and we know that the most dangerous and difficult time for a child is the transition into leaving care. Too often services are just cut off and the child is left adrift. Will the Secretary of State promise me today that he will look at what more can be done to provide care leavers with consistent, quality support during and beyond those transitions, enabling them to live with foster families into their adulthood?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

As the hon. Lady will know—and as she probably remembers from when I was Children and Families Minister—we launched the care leaver covenant, which has made a significant difference to many of our young people in care as they transition out of care. There is also the work we are doing to support those 300,000 families who need that additional support. The work of MacAlister will make a huge difference. The hon. Lady knows that we have “staying put” and “staying close” to help those young people as they transition through, but I give her a pledge that we are serious about implementing the MacAlister review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robin Walker]

I very much welcome the success of the school that my hon. Friend has highlighted and will be happy to meet him to discuss the issues further.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

T5.   Our further education colleges in Newham give real opportunity to children from the second poorest part of the country, but now our colleges face increasing national insurance contributions and skyrocketing utility bills. What is more, pay increases may be essential for the recruitment and retention of school staff. What are the Government doing to engage properly with the Association of Colleges to keep these engines of social mobility and growth going?

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that FE colleges are engines of social mobility, and we are well aware of the pressures that they are under. We are engaging constantly with the Association of Colleges, principals and colleagues across Government to make sure that we can help them.

School Exclusions

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.

Some hon. Members here will know that I have spoken a number of times in the past year about county lines and the difficulties facing many young people in my constituency. In my experience, school exclusions are a significant event in the awful and traumatising experience of county lines exploitation. Far too many of my young constituents in Newham have been subjected to county lines or its consequences. I am therefore very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) for giving us the time and space to talk about this crucial issue.

I think, as my hon. Friend does, that the change of tune that we have heard from the Government about exclusions is truly worrying. I thought that across the House we were moving in the right direction. We had the Timpson review and repeated statements by Home Office Ministers and others with whom I have worked closely on these issues—we often find common ground and agreement—and I really started to believe that the Government were beginning to get it. I was starting to pick up a bit of hope, but that hope was dashed, because the Conservative party manifesto pledged to continue fragmenting the education system with academies and free schools, pledged to

“back heads to use exclusions”

and pledged, as we have heard from my hon. Friend, to expand alternative provision—presumably to cope with the inevitable increase in exclusions that would be the result.

I suspect that the Government know that there is already no way in which local authorities can do their duty and ensure that the local school system is inclusive. They are supposed to ensure that no student is excluded without a genuine route back into mainstream education, but this Minister must know that, often, once young people are excluded from our schools, there is absolutely no way back—none at all—into mainstream education. I am worried that the Government’s apparent direction will make that situation much worse.

I remind the Minister again why this issue is so important to my constituency. Exclusion is clearly linked with the horrifying rise in violence and the deaths of so many of my local children on the streets of Newham. When I have talked to the mums of the children who have been groomed and got caught up in the drug dealing, carrying of knives and violence, they tell me loud and clear—they will tell anyone who wants to listen—that their son’s exclusion from school was a tipping point. It did not create the problem, but it made it worse—it made it completely worse.

I talk to parents and young people and I am clear that the bad behaviour comes as a result of real and unimaginable fear. It comes from seeing things and knowing things that I would not want to see as an adult. They have seen people stabbed or shot, or their friend has been stabbed or shot. The fear that they experience is real and has real causes. The world around them is frightening and hostile—it is terrifying. They do not see the police or other adults around them as able to protect them. They do not think it is possible to protect them, so they have to protect themselves. They have to find coping mechanisms, and sometimes that involves going along with the person who is abusing, manipulating and grooming them, because they see no alternative. If collectively we do not protect them, we do not understand that they are acting out of fear and we simply punish the behaviour rather than dealing with the root causes, we will make things worse. There is no doubt about that. The young person understandably will not trust us, and we will fail them.

As my hon. Friend said, the St Giles Trust found in relation to 100 teenage boys who had become involved in county lines that every single one of them had been excluded from school at some point or had spent time in a pupil referral unit. I have spoken before about the impacts of exclusion. I have talked about how children are cut off from their friends and teachers and plunged into an environment poisoned by gangs and how that makes them accessible to groomers. When a child is excluded, it is not some short sharp shock. It will not enable the young person to rethink their life and behaviour and make a change, because there is no way back. Basically, they are left at the PRU, even more vulnerable to the groomers who are sitting outside the gates. The young person cannot escape, because the people grooming them and using them are sitting there, waiting for them to walk through the gates. The groomers are really clever: I have spoken to mums who told me how the groomers managed to manipulate their child into getting excluded in the first place, because it made access to the child even easier.

If a child is excluded, alarm bells will not ring because of truancy. Teachers who have known them as they have been growing up in the school will not see that their behaviour has massively changed, so an alarm bell about the child’s direction in life just is not rung. There is nobody to notice that they have several mobile phones, which is often a massive indicator that the child is involved in illegal drug dealing.

Let us be clear that the children we are excluding are often really quite able children. They are bright and very articulate, and why? It is because they make great salespeople. When it comes to county lines, they have the nous to know how to deal with the circumstances and situations in which they find themselves, and they can chat to their mate and encourage their mate to join them. As I said, they are good salespeople, but these are the children we are leaving alienated, angry and vulnerable. Then we put these children—they are children—with their challenges and vulnerabilities all together in the same place, and provide easy access to them for the people who want to exploit them.

As we know, pupil referral units do not provide the support that vulnerable children need. They are supervised for only a few hours a day; the rest of the time, the young person is often unsupervised and on their own. There is little mental health support, so the trauma that the kids have gone through just is not worked on in any way. There is little chance of their getting back into mainstream education. The buildings are basically like prisons, but the children we are sending there have not been accused of any crime.

Some of the children believe that they are actually involved in an alternative economic model. They have seen their mums and dads going to work and doing two jobs—the lowest quarter of wages in my constituency does not cover the lowest quarter of rents in my constituency. They have seen the adults around them basically with nothing. Then we exclude them from school, and we know that there is no way back into education, so what do they do? They think that there is only one way forward for them, and that is to carry on. We are basically giving the groomers an endless supply of victims. The kids get off-rolled—it happens illegally, but we know it happens—and then they have nothing to do and nowhere to go.

I have heard about that from some courageous women, the mums of the children involved in county lines, who are trying to stand up to the groomers. They have to make hard choices—tough choices—that I could not make about my children’s future. We need to learn from their experience, but too few people listen to the experience of Newham mums. I think that is part of what has gone wrong.

The truth is that exclusions ruin lives, create vulnerability to exploitation by organised criminals and fuel violence in our communities. We desperately need big changes to the school system to achieve a rapid reduction in exclusions. If the Government do not reverse course, and if they do not listen to Newham’s mums and the experts—please listen to the experts and not to the Daily Mail headlines—we will see more lives ruined, more crime, more murdered children and more traumatised communities with wounds that take a very long time to heal.

Equality of Funding: Post-16 Education

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Unusually for me, I want to start not by talking immediately about Newham—I shall get to it later: I want to talk about further education cuts and how they can affect our towns.

In my role as a shadow social justice Minister, I had the privilege of visiting Leigh and my friend Jo Platt, who was its MP until December. I heard how unless young people could afford to travel for hours every day once they left school, all they were offered were courses in beauty and social care at the local college. It is a bit like when my mum left school and was offered a choice of two careers—dressmaking or hairdressing. That was almost 100 years ago. I am not decrying those professions, which are both incredibly valuable, and many young people have a real passion for them, but others have different ambitions, and rightly so—they should not have to travel for hours to access the learning or training they need to achieve their dreams. There cannot be any doubt that putting these barriers to different careers in front of young people will hold them, their communities and our economy back.

As we know, across the country some crucial subjects are simply not available anymore. We know that 50% of our schools have dropped modern foreign languages—global Britain? Almost 40% of schools and colleges have felt the need to drop STEM subjects, and almost 80% of schools have removed extracurricular activities and support services. More than 80% have to teach in larger classes. Does the Minister honestly believe that will not affect the quality of learning for those students? I do not. This is not global Britain; this is going backwards.

I see these struggles in the sixth-form colleges in West Ham, where there are fabulous teachers, bright young students and real, real ambition—there is no doubt about it—but those ambitions and aspirations alone cannot replace the money that has been lost. Newvic—Newham sixth-form college—is just down the road from where I live. The head, Mandeep Gill, the staff and the students are an inspiration. They work well together and they work so hard, but, as in so many sixth-form colleges around the country, it is having to make really difficult decisions.

I know how agonising the college’s decision was to stop teaching modern foreign languages and the arts classes because there simply was not the money. Mandeep has also been forced into galling decisions about which students’ services to cut. One of the toughest decisions was to cut back on some of the counselling and wellbeing staff, including very recently a mental health adviser. The college simply could not afford to keep that support, even though it recognises it is sorely needed. Many of its students will already have been let down by the waiting lists and absurdly high criteria to access child and adolescent mental health services in an area that has massive problems with youth crime and knife crime in particular.

Frankly, the failure to fund colleges properly is storing up problems for the future. It is not creating potential and it is not assisting the future of our society. The young people in my constituency are already suffering in so many ways after a decade of austerity. Child poverty is at 50% locally, youth services have all but disappeared and violent crime, as I said, is tragically a common feature of our lives. College counselling services provide the only adults that some of our young people can have access to and confide in. Those have been cut away as well.

I genuinely believe that the Minister can recognise just how dire the funding situation is. It is helping to create geographical inequalities, and it is selling our future short. If my young people cannot access mental health services and other services to get themselves out of gangs, what will that do for their futures and our futures? For heaven’s sake, raise the rate!

History Curriculum: Migration

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary, and it is a real honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), who made a passionate and pertinent speech. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for securing today’s debate, and for her superb opening speech.

Three of my four grandparents were Irish, and my much-loved brother-in-law is of Jamaican descent. Without him, I would not have my very beloved niece. Migration is central to who we are as a family, and it is also central to who we are as a nation. Only by understanding where we come from can we truly understand where we are going and where we are now. Including stories about migration in our history lessons is a central part of that, and I am proud that Labour has committed to creating an emancipation educational trust to support that work.

It is hardly news to many of us that migration has shaped our country for centuries, because we have grown up in diverse communities and have ourselves been shaped by that history. However, the history of different types of migration is not taught as widely as it should be. So many people do not know that there were hundreds of free African people living and working during the Tudor period, and some were even at Elizabeth I’s court. We seem to think that migration is only a very recent thing, but that is a nonsense. We need to embrace and understand our history much better than we currently do.

I am going to take a different approach from that of the other Members who have given speeches so far, because I will talk about West Ham. In my maiden speech in 2005, I talked about one example of how migration has helped in Newham. In the 1980s, we were suffering from the dying docks and the ravages of Thatcherism. Green Street was dying on its feet; the only two things that were doing well were West Ham United football club—which had its best ever season in 1986—and, sadly, the local jobcentre. However, a few traders got together, who were overwhelmingly Asian and African-Caribbean, and took a risk. They got some money together and started rejuvenating the area through their businesses. First they sold food, then fabrics—things that the big chains would not touch—and then businesses focused on designer fashion and jewellery came slowly on to Green Street.

Now, Green Street is a one-stop wedding shop, serving not only the local community but people from all over the country and, indeed, much of Europe. Without migration, those community-spirited and canny traders would not have been in Newham, and our local economy would have suffered an even worse decline. My kitchen would have certainly declined, because there was nowhere that I could buy turmeric, chillies, coriander, cumin or the other exotic items in the new cookbooks that were stocking my shelves at that time. On Christmas day, I remember having to pop out a number of times to grab that thing that I had not managed to put in my basket before. That is a recent history, but none the less an important history, and one that risks being lost unless we make an effort to ensure it is remembered and celebrated.

Whenever I think about stuff like this, I think about Eastside Community Heritage, led by the redoubtable Judith Garfield. Eastside has always been clear that letting people own and tell their stories is the best way of collecting testimonies and engaging communities in their past, and that is exactly what they do. Unsurprisingly, many of their projects are focused on the contribution of migrants—people such as Kamal Chunchie, who was born in Sri Lanka and served in the Army’s 3rd Middlesex Regiment during the first world war alongside members of my family, witnessing horrifying conditions in the trenches. He was gassed twice and shot once, and served right up until the end of the war. After the war, he came back to Canning Town and served that community for the rest of his life. He established the Coloured Men’s Institute and provided solidarity and means of support for black and Asian families living around the docks. Disgracefully, racism was common at that time, and many living in and around those docks were denied a home and a living. Kamal’s institute became a community centre that served all the poor and needy in Canning Town, providing shelter, regular meals, Christmas celebrations and toys for children. Over the course of the 1920s and 1930s, his work prevented destitution, alleviated poverty and built solidarity. For that, he was greatly and rightly loved.

Eastside has created a number of projects, including those on the Ugandan Asian community; on the role of nurses from the Caribbean in building our NHS, such as my brother-in-law’s mum, Lucy; and on historic communities in Newham, such as the Chinese and Bengali communities. I have attended lots and lots of Eastside’s events, which are wonderfully informative, telling stories that would otherwise be simply forgotten. Several of those projects have been created in collaboration with our schools, including Sarah Bonnell and Forest Gate, so that our children understand the rich diversity of their history. Students helped create exhibitions about African and Caribbean fashion and the role it has played in the local economy, our culture and our lives. I would have loved to take part in projects like that, growing up; I was always really excited by the beautiful clothes that my Asian friends wore, and I remember learning how to dance in the sixth-form common room. Such projects bring our history alive for children from all backgrounds, and help us to understand the current social problems that we have.

One pressing social problem today is that across the world, we are witnessing a resurgence in far-right politics—a politics of hatred and division, which offers only scapegoats, not solutions. All too often across the world, migrants—even asylum seekers, the most vulnerable of us all—have been targeted. I do not have to remind people in this Chamber about Trump, whether it is his nonsense about Sadiq Khan, his attempt to enforce a Muslim ban, or his constant scaremongering about central American families fleeing to safety. I do not have to remind people in this Chamber about Netanyahu, who describes African refugees as,

“illegal infiltrators flooding the country.”

Brazil’s Bolsonaro described the residents of a black settlement as,

“not even good for procreation.”

It happens in so many ways in so many places, and all of it is linked. It is more important than ever that our young people understand the bits of this country’s history that we do not celebrate enough and the rich diversity of our home’s past and future. We need all of our citizens to understand the contributions and the lives of the people that migration has brought, and we have to build solidarity among the different parts of our communities, just as Kamal did in the 1920s.

In my constituency, Newham Council has done wonderful work to counter and prevent the rise of the far right. It has done it for decades and it set up a holocaust memorial exhibition as a response to the rise of the far right in the 1980s and ’90s. It celebrates Black History Month and still makes sure that the children’s education focuses on Holocaust Memorial Day.

[Chris Evans]

As usual, my hon. Friend makes a powerful speech. Will she join me in encouraging everybody to visit the Mary Seacole statue, which is just across the road outside St Thomas’ Hospital, to see the wonderful contribution that she made as a British Jamaican woman to nursing in this country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lyn Brown]

Mary Seacole is somebody that Lucy, my mother-in-law, speaks of regularly, and she does not understand why she is not recognised as fully as Nurse Nightingale. So, yes, I would encourage people to explore and discover parts of our history that are not as prevalent and as in your face as some of the other stuff.

The work of the council continues today. As we all remember, the theme for the previous Holocaust Memorial Day was “Torn from home”. Schools in Newham not only used it to reflect on the experiences of the Jewish community who were forced to leave everything behind, incredibly important as that absolutely is, but used it as a theme for creative inspiration—for the writing of poetry, performances of plays and the composing of songs about the lives of their families and the communities that they had come from, which, in many cases, had also been torn from home. Their experiences today are reflected sadly in our history.

Many have forgotten that Irish migrants were subjected to terrible xenophobia and discrimination during the 19th century and into the 20th. We forget that Jewish migration was represented as a real threat. We have learnt not to think of the Huguenots from France as refugees. The world did not come to a stop when those communities joined us; our world was enriched instead. What I am trying to say is that we sometimes fail to make the connections that we should because we have simply forgotten our history—or our geography.

[John Howell]

I will not pick the hon. Lady up on that point, but has she seen the BBC’s “Born Abroad” pages, which take a fantastic look at diversity in Wembley?

[Lyn Brown]

I have not, but I certainly will. As soon as I get back to my office, I will have a quick butcher’s.

Constituencies such as mine have been blessed with diversity. We include Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, Africans, Caribbeans, Irish and many others in our number. When we hosted the Olympic games—it was not a London Olympics, but a West Ham Olympics—we believed that we had a resident representative from every participating country living right there in West Ham. Many in my community have immigrant backgrounds, as do some of my closest and dearest family. It simply would not be the place that I love so dearly without them; and we would be much poorer, not only economically but creatively, in terms of the ideas and perspectives that we can draw on. We would be able to communicate so much worse if we did not have those communities living with us, talking with each other and learning from perspectives. Imbibing the cultures and the stories helps us to communicate so much better as a society. That is why it is really important to me that children are taught to see migration for what it is—not just economically beneficial and not just a charitable act, but unreservedly good for our communities and absolutely essential for our future.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front-Bench wind-up speeches, after which Helen Hayes will have the final two minutes.

School Funding

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

The pressures that schools face are growing. We know it across this House, and we hear it from heads, teachers and parents alike. The message—just like the message that many of us have heard about the climate crisis this week—could not be clearer. As some hon. Members have said already, the special educational needs of pupils are increasingly challenging. Heads have told me directly that they do not know how their secondaries will cope when the numbers of younger children who are now being diagnosed start to come through. I have heard estimates that genuinely shock me.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that perhaps worse than the headline figures—millions and billions of pounds—is the fact that a commonplace discussion with every single head- teacher, when we visit schools every week, is how they are making fundamental cuts to their staffing, special needs and other budgets? Should not the Minister look at that?

[Lyn Brown]

I absolutely agree.

As many as a third of pupils in some local nursery classes are now thought to need some support. That is massive. In Newham, the challenge for schools is only likely to get bigger. Hundreds of local children who need an education, health and care plan or a statement do not yet have one. Official statistics show that EHC plan and statement rates for Newham are currently five times lower than for any other inner-London borough. The council is working hard to turn this around, but these current low rates mean that the challenge for local schools is just beginning, and they are struggling to keep up. The funding for the specialist, trained support that large numbers of children now need simply is not there. The average funding available for each child with an EHC plan has fallen by a fifth over the past five years.

I want to raise just one example—I would have given many more if we had had longer. Adam is nine. He has complex behavioural and emotional challenges. He has an EHC plan and is supposed to receive speech and language therapy and psychological help. He simply does not get it. The support services have been cut far too much. Most of the speech and language staff are now temporary or agency workers, so there is no consistency, and there are long gaps in Adam’s access to services. Cuts to the psychological services mean he has not had any of the support he needs for his emotional and behavioural challenges, and his ability to learn and grow as a healthy member of his community will obviously be hugely affected.

Adam’s primary school in Newham has got to the point where it simply cannot meet his needs. Between 2015 and 2018, it lost more than £100,000 from its budget every single year—more than £400 for every pupil. How foolish will Adam’s generation think we were because we did not invest in them or him and left his and their potential unfulfilled? Like climate change, this is an issue where we are letting our children down. What kind of country are we living in?

The achievements of Newham’s young people are extraordinary, given the circumstances, and our teachers are amazing—I see it on so many school visits—but the achievements of our children are made against the odds, despite the barriers and with no thanks to this Government, who will have cut Newham’s schools by £37.5 million since 2015—a cut of £445 for each and every pupil. The Government need to wake up to the long-term damage they are doing. They need to give Newham’s schools and other schools the funding they need to keep up with rising pupil numbers and inflation, to reduce the impacts of the poverty and inequalities their policies are increasing and to pay for proper support so that pupils with increasing needs can fulfil their potential as well.