Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

There is a great deal of cross-party consensus on this issue and how important it is. Often, people approach schools as almost the first port of call—the easiest way to access services. It is about how we integrate health services with educational services ever more closely. We have put in an additional £5 million-worth of mental health support, but we do recognise that in lot of areas we can make sure that interventions come earlier so it does not get to crisis point.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab) [V]]

The first weeks in school are really important for helping four-year-old children settle in and form positive relationships. University College London’s study of the Government’s pilot of the reception baseline assessment last year found that the test caused anxiety, stress and a sense of failure in many children—and we are talking about four-year-olds here. Will the Government do the right thing and abandon their plans to bring in reception baseline assessments?

[Gavin Williamson]

No, we will not.

Post-18 Education

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I agree entirely. That is why we have such bold ambition for what we will do on apprenticeships—not just the numbers, but with the Institute for Apprenticeships, and moving from frameworks to standards to ensure that they deliver what business needs.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

The creative industries generate more than £90 billion for the UK economy. Assessing the value of a university degree course on graduate salary or outcomes risks undermining that important sector. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that we support universities in producing world-class arts graduates?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady makes an important point and, of course, we do produce world-class arts graduates, and we have some of the finest institutions in the world doing that. On what she calls valuing degrees, I have said that at least three different considerations need to be taken account of: the cost of putting on the course, the value in earnings to the individual, and also the value to our society as well as our economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I will of course meet my hon. Friend.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Wirral Metropolitan College failed to secure funds for non-levied apprenticeships from April this year, despite a positive Ofsted report in October 2017, which highlighted the fact that it is a key player in economic and social development in the region. Concern has been expressed about a number of colleges that are currently meeting the needs of employers but have missed out in the procurement process. Will the Minister ask the Education and Skills Funding Agency to look again at the application from Wirral Met, to ensure that the college can continue to work with employers to deliver vital skills training in Wirral?

[Anne Milton]

We are looking into how we can ease colleges and independent training providers through this process. I should point out that we received more than 1,000 bids totalling £1.1 billion. There will always be providers who are disappointed, but we will be working with those colleges to smooth the transition and ensure that they can provide the valuable training that will ensure that young people have the skills that they need.

Education Funding: Wirral

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) on securing this important debate.

According to the Government’s own figures, funding for schools in Wirral under the new formula will rise from £194.7 million in 2017-18 to £197.8 million in 2018-19, and then £199.3 million in 2019-20. Funding in Wirral in 2019-20 is scheduled to be 2.4% higher than in 2017-18. However, the average national increase for that period is 3.2%, so it is clear, even from the Government’s own figures, that Wirral is set to miss out.

Figures from the National Education Union tell a different story, showing that funding for schools in Wirral is to fall by nearly £4.8 million between 2015-16 and 2019-20, and revealing a loss in per-pupil funding of 2%—£111 per pupil. It predicts that, as a result, schools in Wirral will lose more than 100 teachers overall. It has also pointed out that school cuts have not been reversed, and that the vast majority of schools will have less money per pupil next year and in 2020 than when the Government took office in 2015. As a former schoolteacher college lecturer myself, the quality of education we provide to our young people is a subject very close to my heart. I know only too well, from first-hand experience, what happens when schools struggle with cuts by Conservative Governments, because, of course, we have been here before.

The loss of 100 teachers from Wirral schools will have huge implications for pupils and teachers. Cuts are likely to lead to increased class sizes, the loss of subject choice and curriculum areas—especially in the arts, which are so important to ensure the development of a rounded education—and increased pressure on the remaining staff, who will have to teach the same number of pupils. All of that matters because education is vital to the development of the next generation and to the future of our country, and I believe there really can be no shortcuts. The National Education Union has said that high-needs, early years and post-16 education have suffered the biggest cuts and are not being fairly funded.

Headteachers of schools in my constituency have told me that they face a real challenge in supporting children with special educational needs. In one school, Fender Primary School, 39% of pupils have special educational needs, compared with the national average of 13.5% for primary schools, while more than 50% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals. That presents particular challenges, but the school’s most recent Ofsted report noted that

“The school’s commitment to ensuring all pupils equally succeed is strong. All pupils achieve well, and some outstandingly so, including disabled pupils and those with special educational needs.”

I pay tribute to the school’s staff, its pupils and their parents. The report also said:

“The headteacher has high ambitions for pupils’ personal development and academic achievement”,

and that she is “driving improvements”. High levels of support are important for children with special educational needs, whether provided by teachers or classrooms assistants, who of course can often be very highly qualified.

In some cases in which a child is experiencing special difficulties, one-to-one support may be necessary; for other pupils, smaller class sizes may be sufficient. It can take considerable time for an education, health and care plan for a pupil to be approved. During that time, schools have to fund that extra support themselves and are not compensated for it, even though some pupils may actually have moved to another school by the time the plan is in place. In 2017-18, 145 pupils out of 244 at Fender Primary School qualified for the pupil premium. It is clear that extra funding, whether through the pupil premium or SEN funding, is vital.

Fender Primary School works hard for the community it serves. It remains open for four weeks in summer and all of Easter to support the families of its children in a range of ways that go beyond the purely educational, such as emergency food parcels and furniture for families who need it. However, despite the clear high level of need, according to the School Cuts website, Fender Primary School is predicted to lose £109,500 per year by 2020—amounting to £452 per pupil and the loss of two teachers. I will be grateful if the Minister sets out what action he will take to ensure that Fender Primary School and others like it get the funding they need, particularly for SEN, and what he will do to drop the planned cuts to Wirral’s schools as a whole.

Staff in schools across Wirral show immense dedication to their pupils. One such school, which works with children in their early years, which we all know are so important for everything that happens in the rest of their lives, is Ganneys Meadow Nursery School. Around 20% of the children there have special educational needs and/or a disability, including autism, epilepsy or mobility problems. The families of a number of the children are on low incomes, and some children may be quite vulnerable. The Ofsted report published this month judged it “outstanding” in every respect, and said of the children:

“Their joy at being at Ganneys Meadow is evident from the moment they walk through the door with happy, smiley faces.”

Ganneys Meadow’s chair of governors even voluntarily teaches GCSE maths to mothers, such is the level of commitment at the school. However, like many other maintained nursery schools, it is under extreme financial pressure. We all know how important the early years are, and it is essential that the Government give the sector the funding it needs to give children the very best start in life; the Government should match the immense dedication shown by teachers by giving them the funding needed.

Post-16 education has also received severe cuts. In his March Budget, the Chancellor announced an extra £500 million a year in funding for technical education reforms. Wirral Metropolitan College, which sits in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), has provided technical education for people in Wirral for more than 160 years, but it, too, has been hit hard by a severe squeeze in funding, like so many colleges. The National Education Union’s website reports that funding for 16 to 19-year-olds fell by 14 % in real terms between 2010-11 and 2014-15. The Government announced in November 2015 that 16-to-19 funding would be protected in cash terms between 2016 and 2020. However, taking inflation into account, that is still likely to mean a real-terms cut of around 8%.

There is also the introduction of adult loans. Since their introduction in 2013-14 for students aged 24 and above, and their extension to 19 to 23-year-olds in 2016-17, 58% of the total budget—£910 million—has been left unspent, according to the Student Loans Company. In other words, people have not been taking out loans. I used to work in a further education college, and although the sector can often be overlooked, it has to be recognised just how hugely important these colleges are for people as they progress from their school years through to their workplace—particularly for people who may have struggled during their time at school, due to something happening in their family, such as a bereavement, or because they were ill. It is a massively important sector, and the Government should look at it very closely.

Wirral Met serves a diverse population in Wirral, including many people from deprived backgrounds, who may be less likely to take out loans because they are already at higher risk of being in debt, which the head of the Financial Conduct Authority recently stressed as an issue. There has also been a fall of nearly 40% in the number of levels 3 and 4 learners since the loans were introduced, which the then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills actually predicted back in 2012. I will be grateful if the Minister outlines his plans to address the clearly detrimental impact that cuts to post-16 education and the introduction of loans is having on the education and training of young people in Wirral.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

There have been no cuts in funding to schools. There have been cost pressures, as I have acknowledged time and time again, that schools have absorbed, as have other parts of the public sector and parts of the private sector. There have been cost pressures of higher taxes, higher employer’s national insurance contributions and higher employer’s contribution to the teachers’ pension scheme, because we believe it is right that teachers’ pensions are properly funded, but I am telling the hon. Lady and this House that spending will rise in real terms on a per pupil basis.

I will now come to the issue she raised about her schools. As a consequence of the consultation process, we introduced a de minimis funding level for the very lowest funded schools. We introduced a de minimis funding level of £4,800 per pupil for the very lowest funded secondary schools in the country. St Mary’s College in the hon. Lady’s constituency received £5,625 per pupil, and that will rise by 1% to £5,680 according to the national funding formula. The national average under the national funding formula for a secondary school is £5,389. On top of that, the school will also receive £935 per pupil for every pupil who qualifies or has ever qualified for free school meals over the past six years.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Will the Minister clarify which school he is talking about?

[Nick Gibb]

I am sorry. I am talking about St Mary’s Catholic College in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wallasey. That school’s funding per pupil will rise from £5,625 to £5,680.

We also introduced a de minimis figure of £3,500 per pupil for the very lowest funded primary schools. Kingsway Primary School receives £5,376 per pupil, and that figure will rise to £5,422. On top of that, the school will receive £1,320 per pupil for every pupil who has ever qualified in the past six years for free school meals. The hon. Lady referred to 53% of pupils as qualifying at some point for free school meals—all those pupils will bring the school an additional £1,320 on top of the £5,376.

Budget Resolutions

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Education has a key role to play in breaking cycles of poverty, but we know, too, that poverty has a profound impact on a child’s ability to make the most of any educational opportunity available. Yet this Budget did nothing to tackle child poverty, which stands at about 4 million in this country—that is a shameful figure, and it is set to rise.

According to the Child Poverty Action Group, by the age of three, poorer children are estimated to be on average nine months behind children from wealthier backgrounds. Department for Education statistics show that by the end of primary school, pupils receiving free school meals are almost three terms behind children from more affluent families. By 14, the gap grows to over five terms, and by 16, children receiving free school meals achieve on average 1.7 grades lower at GCSE.

We know, too, that the early years are crucial for child development. Maintained nursery schools do an important job for children in their early years and many are struggling financially, yet the Chancellor chose to find £320 million for 140 new free schools. I strongly question his sense of priorities. Some 65% of maintained nursery schools are in the most deprived areas in the UK, and 97% of them are rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted. No other part of the education sector can match that, so their value cannot be in doubt.

Ganneys Meadow nursery school in my constituency has received outstanding judgments in its last three Ofsted reports, and it provides a vital service to families in the local community. Around 20% of the children there have special educational needs or a disability, including autism, epilepsy or mobility problems. The families of a number of the children are on low incomes, and some of the children might be quite vulnerable. The school gives those children the very best start in life, yet despite that service, based on the specialist expertise of highly qualified, trained teaching staff, it is funded at the same rate as all childcare providers. Local authorities can top up that funding, but we all know that they have had their budgets severely cut by central Government.

The Government have announced extra funding for nursery schools but, in practice, schools such as Ganneys Meadow will see their overall income rise by only a very small amount, and they will remain financially squeezed. If the Government are really serious about improving the life chances of the most disadvantaged children in our society, they should back the maintained nursery schools and ensure that they get the funding that they need to secure their future. At secondary school level, funding per pupil in my constituency is expected to fall by 10% between 2013 and 2019, which will mean a loss of £309 per pupil in cash terms between 2015 and 2019. That will inevitably be to the detriment of pupils’ education and staff morale, and it is wholly unacceptable.

The arts in education are particularly at risk at the moment. Uptake of creative subjects at secondary level fell by 14% overall between 2010 and 2015, and the Government have so far failed to respond to the consultation on the future of the English baccalaureate, which included a consideration of the place of arts subjects in the core curriculum. A survey of teachers by The Guardian in January found that 9% of respondents reported that either art, music or drama was no longer offered at their school. About 20% said that one or more of those subjects had been given reduced timetable space. Yet studies here and in the United States have shown that students from low-income families who have the opportunity to engage in the arts at school are significantly more likely to go on to get a degree and are also more employable overall, so these cuts to school funding really are damaging the prospects of our young people.

There are also real issues around adult literacy and numeracy. The latest Government studies, published in 2011, found that nearly 15% of 16 to 65-year-olds were functionally illiterate and that 23% of the people surveyed lacked basic numeracy skills. This is a real crisis, and the Government should tackle it as a matter of urgency, for the sake of not only the individuals involved but their families. When we educate the mother or the father, we educate the child. We need real investment in adult education and lifelong learning. The Chancellor announced £40 million in funding for 2018-19 to test different approaches to helping people to retrain and upskill throughout their working lives, but there have been cuts of more than £1 billion in the sector since 2010. I also question the need for pilots. As a former teacher in adult education schools and someone who has close knowledge of the work of the British Education Research Association, I can assure the Government that there is plenty of expertise out there that they could tap into to put together a really robust programme of adult education and lifelong learning.

I also urge the Government to think beyond retraining and upskilling. Those are important in providing vital training opportunities to help people to move on in their employment, but it is important to provide education for education’s sake. On TV, we see the huge popularity of programmes such as “The Great British Bake Off”, “The Great Pottery Throw Down” and “The Big Painting Challenge”. It is clear that there is a real interest in discovering arts and skills areas that might have nothing to do with employability, but everything to do with creativity and learning. I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) in his call for the reintroduction of night schools. They are inexpensive places where people can learn and socialise, and they can help people to grow in confidence and make friends. They also provide an effective way of tackling social isolation. They can be quite transforming for individuals and communities, and I believe that they have a particularly important offer in our ageing society.

In the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech, when setting out the Government’s negotiation objectives for exiting the European Union, she said that the Government would aim

“to build a stronger economy and a fairer society”

in which

“every child has the knowledge and the skills they need to thrive”.

If the Government are sincere in that, they should make it a priority to fund early years education. They should also be ambitious in their plans for lifelong learning and make a real priority of tackling child poverty so that children are healthy and able to make the most of the educational opportunities on offer.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Maintained Nursery Schools Funding

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on introducing the debate. I never fail to be impressed by the passion she brings to her speeches or by her campaigning zeal—I have campaigned with her since before I became a Member.

We know that this debate is of great importance; that is why we have had such a high turnout of Members and such a high-quality debate. I join the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) in praising nursery staff throughout the country for their commitment. He spoke more articulately than I can about all the work that goes on.

The Minister will be aware that Members here know the importance of maintained nurseries for sure, and the role they play in our early years system. They are invaluable. In fact, they are absolutely irreplaceable. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) spoke about Scartho Nursery School with such passion, because he knows that that sort of provision cannot be replaced in any constituency up and down the land if it is lost.

Maintained nurseries operate overwhelmingly in disadvantaged areas and, as has been pointed out, 98% of them are rated “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted. If 98% of them are rated so highly, why do we feel that they are suddenly being so undervalued by the Government, and why do they face this funding crisis? We are at the point now where there is no turning back.

Research by the all-party parliamentary group on nursery schools and nursery classes, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who is no longer in her place but does astonishingly good work in this area, shows that dozens of nursery schools—I think she said 67—look like they will be forced to close by July this year. That is more than one in 10 nursery schools.

Almost 60% of those nurseries say that they will be unsustainable once the Government withdraw transitional funding support at the end of this Parliament, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) pointed out. She talked about educational attainment across the north and referred to the debate that Jo Cox secured about Yorkshire and the Humber. However, we should remember that in London 55% of kids on free school meals get five good GCSEs. If we take the area from the Mersey estuary to the Humber estuary, that figure for kids on free school meals declines to 34%. The Government produced the Nick Weller report about educational attainment in the north, but unfortunately it is now just gathering dust on a shelf somewhere—there is no evidence that any of its recommendations have been implemented.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I apologise for not being able to be here for the whole debate, because of a prior engagement. However, I just feel so strongly about this issue that I want to put on the record how well Ganneys Meadow Nursery School in my constituency is doing. It is located in one of the 20% most deprived lower-level super output areas in the UK, but it received three “outstanding” judgments in its last three Ofsted reports. Nevertheless, it is really struggling financially and anything that the Minister can do to mitigate that situation would be hugely appreciated.

[Mike Kane]

My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point, as she defends the maintained nursery in her constituency. It has three “outstanding” judgments, yet it is under all that pressure. What sort of society are we living in when that is happening to professional staff, as well as to parents and their young children?

With so many nursery schools likely to rely on the transitional funding, this debate is of huge importance. In her eloquent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) said that the order of the day at the moment is survival or closure for most of these operations. So can the Minister tell us how the transitional funding will be awarded, which nursery schools will benefit, and how will she ensure that it is used in a way that supports our nursery schools up and down the land? I ask these questions because providing transitional funding is not the same as providing certainty. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) also pointed that out. We need long-term sustainability.

Right now, nursery schools across the country support some of our most disadvantaged communities and they are highly valued by parents, as my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) said. He was also absolutely bang on the money about the quality of training provided in these nursery schools. I remember being a PGCE—postgraduate certificate in education—student and spending two, three or four weeks at a nursery school, and I understood that those nursery teachers knew with 95% accuracy what the kids at that nursery would attain at their key stage 1 standard assessment tests and at their key stage 2 SATs, because they knew that what they could do was make the most important intervention in a child’s life.

The Minister and her colleague, the Secretary of State for Education, have said—rather frequently—that the Government are investing a record £6 billion in early years and childcare; we will see if she comes to that figure today. However, that assessment does not tell us the whole story. For instance, it does nothing to consider the impact of changes in the early years funding formula, and nor does it consider the impact of the savage cuts to local government funding that the Minister’s party has pursued for nearly seven years in government.

I will just turn to the situation in Scotland. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) said, “Nursery education is the crème de la crème”, and I agree with her that nursery education is the best start in life. However, the Scottish National party Government are taking £150 million a year out of Glasgow City Council’s budget. How do we think that will impact on nursery schools in Scotland? And that is after Glasgow Labour had rebuilt every new school of the campus at £600 million over the last 15 years. What do we think those sorts of cuts will do for disadvantaged children in Glasgow? Let us also be absolutely clear that the SNP Government are failing to inspect nursery schools, with inspection ratios going up to years and years before the equivalent of Ofsted goes in and inspects those schools. I am afraid that the SNP Government have a record of failure in Scotland.

School Funding

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We said that we would protect the core schools budget in real terms, and that is exactly what we are doing. In relation to the hon. Gentleman’s local community, the change in the funding formula partly reflects the fact that, for a long time, we have used deprivation data that are simply out of date. It is important that we use up-to-date deprivation factors. For example, in 2005, 28% of children in London were on free school meals. That percentage has now fallen to 17%. It is right that we make sure that we have consistent investment for children from deprived communities, because that is where the attainment gap has opened up. It is also important that funding is spread fairly using up-to-date information.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

When I was a schoolteacher under the Thatcher Government, I remember my school running out of paper in about February. A colleague and I had to go into the attic of the library and tear pages out of books from the 1970s so that our children could write on them. I remember wondering how we could expect children to write in those circumstances. Is the Secretary of State proud of that record, and what does she think that the scale of these cuts will do to staff morale in schools up and down the country?

[Justine Greening]

I was actually at school during that time period, and I felt that Oakwood comprehensive gave me a great start in life that set me up to be able, hopefully, to make a meaningful contribution to both the economy and my local community.

We are introducing the national funding formula. I accept that it is complex and challenging, and there is a reason why such a thing has not been done for a long time: it is difficult to ensure that we get it just right. That is why we are having a longer consultation. We have provided all the details so that colleagues can see how their local communities will be affected, and then respond.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

We will be announcing the response to the primary assessment arrangements shortly. It was important that we raised academic standards in our primary schools, and that is why we had a new curriculum introduced by 2014, after two or three years of preparation and consultation. We are raising standards in reading—there are now 147,000 more six-year-olds reading more effectively than they otherwise would be—and we are raising academic standards in maths and in grammar, punctuation and spelling. That is very important, and we will make further announcements about the details of the assessment soon.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

T2. In the Higher Education and Research Bill, the Government will allow universities simply to shut down if they fail in the HE marketplace, as though their role in local communities was a matter of no significance or concern to Government. That takes no account of the impact that closures will have on students and lecturers or the businesses and communities around them. Will the Government think again?

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)]

The Higher Education and Research Bill will make student protection plans mandatory for the first time, putting in place systematic protection for students, which at present is very patchy and partial across our higher education system.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The Bill is about strengthening our capacity to do world-beating research. The money will follow where the excellence is. I have no doubt that there is significant excellence in Wales. That is why there has been significant funding for some of our world-class research that is taking place in that part of the UK. The Bill is about enabling the seven research councils to add up to more, as Sir Paul Nurse said, by bringing them under one umbrella.

The Bill will ensure that the UK is equipped to carry out more multidisciplinary research and to better respond with agility and flexibility to the latest research challenges. By bringing Innovate UK into UKRI, we will harness the opportunities across business as well, so that business-led innovation and world-class research can better come together and translate our world-class knowledge into world-class innovation. Innovate UK will retain its individual funding stream and continue its support for business-led technology and innovation.

We are protecting in law, for the first time ever, the dual-support research funding system in England—a system that many people consider to have underpinned universities’ confidence to invest in long-term research and that has contributed to our well-deserved global reputation for excellence.

The formation of UKRI will provide crucial support during this period of change in our relationship with the European Union. As we face new challenges, we need a strong and unified voice to represent the interests of the research and innovation community across Government, across Europe and around the world.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Unison, the union, has about 40,000 workers in higher education institutions, which represents a great range of staff. It is very concerned, as am I, that the vote to leave the European Union has produced real uncertainty that will create challenges in terms of funding, research, staffing and students. It asks a question that I would like to put to the Secretary of State: why is there a rush to do this? Should we not look at the new landscape, think very carefully and then decide what we should do?

[Justine Greening]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady, but I recognise the challenges that she talks about in making sure that the universities sector and the higher education sector more broadly come out of the process of Brexit stronger. That is why we are engaging in a structured way across Government and outside Government in sectors such as HE to ensure that we have a smart approach to taking Britain through the Brexit process. I refer her to the point that the University Alliance made earlier today about the Bill being

“a raft that can take us to calmer waters”.

The Bill is how we will provide the security, vision and direction for a strong higher education sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marsden]

No, I will make some more progress.

The higher education White Paper emphasises repeatedly that the driver for the changes is that half of job vacancies from now until 2022 are expected to be in occupations requiring high-level graduate skills, but there is little clarity on what that means. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) asked earlier, does that include levels of technical professional competence? If so, why is there no strong linkage with the skills plan released by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills just two weeks ago? There is an obvious need for crossover between the skills plan and the higher education Bill, but the disconnect between them makes even less sense now that the Department for Education will be taking on skills and further education policy. If the opportunity for students at 16 and beyond to switch between higher education and vocational routes is to be real, why is the skills plan not linked directly with the HE White Paper?

A recent University and College Union survey showed that less than 10% of respondents recalled learning anything in school about higher education before year 9, or having any contact with a university. The Education Committee I served on and Peter Lampl at Sutton Trust have said for a number of years that it is imperative we give young people the aspirations they need at a much earlier age, so that they can make more informed choices about their future educational plans. I would like to see much more about that in the Bill, as I am sure would the rest of the House.

There are also huge question marks, following the changes to the mechanisms of government, about where the money is coming from. Will it all transfer over from the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy? With the existing cuts across that Department, where will the resources to implement these wonderful changes come from, especially since the Department has huge school funding issues to fix?

The Government strategy for expanding HE and skills rests on their “loans will cure all” philosophy. As we have already seen, however, that is no guarantee. Less than 50% of the money allocated to the 24-plus advanced learner loans was taken up because of resistance from older learners. BIS had to return £150 million unused to the Treasury. On top of that, students have already been hit in the past 12 months by the triple whammy of scrapping maintenance grants for loans, freezing the student loan threshold and removing NHS bursaries. That has damaged social mobility for the most disadvantaged students.

The Bill places immense faith in the magic of the market. Central to its proposals are a concentration on creating a brave new world of what the Government are calling HE challenger institutions, which are likely to be private and for-profit. Before any Government Member jumps up, let me say that we are not in any way, shape or form opposed to new institutions. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State has had her say. I speak as someone who taught for nearly 20 years in what was a new institution, the Open University, which is one of the proudest boasts of the Labour Government under Harold Wilson. We will take no lessons from Conservative Members on that. The Government propose that new providers could be given degree-awarding powers straight away. Students would in effect be taking a gamble on probationary degrees from probationary providers. Who is going to pick up the pieces if it all goes wrong? It is still unclear what resources the proposed office for students will have to police this progress. What if the problems are not picked up until students have been working for their degrees for, say, 18 months? As I have said previously, the White Paper chirrups about the

“possibility of exit being a natural part of a healthy market”,

but students are not market traders and they do not easily slip a second time into the womb of higher education when they have been let down by that new shiny market.

Cutting corners in the process of becoming a higher education provider also poses a serious risk to staff and students, and increases the risk of public money being misused. We know that in 2011 concerns around BPP and the Apollo group caused the previous Secretary of State, David Willetts, to pause a major extension. Previous expansion of private providers in other jurisdictions has already affected the reputation of their higher education systems, with reports of phantom students, fraud and low quality of education. As Research Fortnight argued in May:

“The government’s proposed reforms are being billed as bold and innovative but in fact they are no such thing.”

It says the wording

“proportionate for the Bill’s regulatory aspects”

is “code for light touch” and that

“instead…the UK government has instead decided to emulate a model from which many in the rest of the world want to escape.”

Encouraging universities or new providers is important, but

“the title of university needs to be seen as a privilege…not an automatic entitlement”

and,

“in the long term it is quality that is at risk if the proposed legislation becomes law.”

One example of a potential threat to quality, which concerns a number of universities, might be the proliferation of private medical schools. Three new medical schools will be opened in England by 2017 and possibly as many as 20 may seek to enter the market in the next few years. These schools will be able to operate free of some of the restrictions facing publicly funded medical schools, in particular around the recruitment of home, EU and international students. That will create a distorted playing field, where existing institutions are unable to expand home or international intakes without penalty. It is also feared that they will have limited engagement with research, lowering the standard of medical education in the UK.

Baroness Alison Wolf was a part of the excellent Sainsbury report to which the Secretary of State referred earlier. In June, fresh from a stay in Australia, which has had its own provider controversies, she urged caution on the back of the experiences in higher education she had found there. She said:

“The Australian experience confirms the madness of the removal of caps on enrolments. I think it is morally outrageous that we encourage young people to take out these big loans and give up years of their lives when it is increasingly becoming obvious that in some universities the average earnings of graduates is lower than the average salary of non-graduates.”

UCU added its concerns, not least about the removal of minimum student numbers from the criteria for university title. So why are we scrapping the right to confer title by the Privy Council? In the rest of the world that might be seen as a symbol of excellence and scrutiny. The problematic unfolding and development of the office for students, certainly in its early years, means it will not be able to have the same sort of international clout, and it removes the role of Parliament from either approving or disapproving the university title as a backstop.

The alternative White Paper, produced by a broad group of researchers and academics—it is a good read—has also done us a service by reminding us of the history and chequered process over alternative providers under this Government and their predecessor. In December 2014, the Public Accounts Committee robustly criticised officials from BIS for repeatedly ignoring warnings from the Higher Education Funding Council for England about the for-profit sector. In the report published in February 2015, the Chair reported that

“Between 2010-11 and 2013-14, there was a rise in the number of students claiming support for courses at alternative providers, from 7,000 to 53,000. The total amount of public money paid to these students…increased from £50 million to around £675 million. The Department pressed ahead with the expansion of the alternative provider sector without sufficient regulation in place to protect public money.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) has already referred to the famous photographed private memo casting doubt on BIS’s ability to solve this problem.

The Secretary of State talked about past objections. I think it was a recycling of something the Minister said recently to the Higher Education Policy Institute conference, although she did not go quite so far back as the Minister, who took us back to the 1820s and the “cockney universities”. When the Minister was asked what these new institutions would look like, having already had a lukewarm response from Google and Facebook, he could only say that a lot of them were interested.

The concern is for students whose institutions are forced to close. It is still unclear what resources the proposed office for students would have to police this or how affected students could be financially compensated and given a clear plan for completing their education. The White Paper says that all institutions will have an exit plan for their students, but how will it work? The Government’s own equality assessment admits:

“Ethnic minority students are more likely to come from a disadvantaged background which may mean that they cannot access the same financial or social resources as white British students in the event of a course or campus closure. We therefore expect”—

not “demand” or “will organise”—

“protection plans to have a greater impact on this group.”

[Margaret Greenwood]

On potential closures, does my hon. Friend agree that this is of particular concern to mature students choosing to study in universities in their immediate locality? Because they have to continue to work, support children and family members and so forth, a closure would create extreme difficulties for them.

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to bring us back to the nub of the issue, which is the family circumstances of the people affected.

In those blithe phrases from the equality assessment lurks the potential for hundreds of broken careers and dashed hopes of social mobility. As serious is the reputational damage that failed challenger institutions or scandals associated with them could do to universities as a UK international brand. The Government’s White Paper was already blasé about the potential knock-on effects for UK plc of their sweeping changes. HE providers across England and the devolved nations of Britain are internationally competitive because they are seen as part of a tried and trusted UK brand. There needs to be a UK-wide strategy in place to safeguard that. As we emerge into a post-Brexit world, it will be even more vital, if we want our UK brand to shine as brightly as possible, that we reassure Scotland and Northern Ireland, especially where there remain unresolved tensions over research between UKRI and the new England-only bodies.

The Government say that the office for students will cover access and participation, but what concrete action there will be to match the rhetoric remains unseen. There remain major concerns about how quality assurance will be affected by the merger of the functions of HEFCE and the QAA. The Government have consistently undermined their own rhetoric on widening participation with cuts to ESOL—English for speakers of other languages—adult skills and social mobility funding for universities, alongside their disastrous decision to scrap maintenance grants for loans, for which we held them to account in this Chamber in January.

Peter Lampl and the Sutton Trust, who have championed that access for more than a decade, repeated their fears in their briefing on the Bill, including, specifically—this has been alluded to but the Secretary of State was unable to give an answer—the fact that English students have the highest level of debt in the English-speaking world. The figures are: £44,000 on graduation and over £50,000 for those requiring maintenance loans.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marsden]

I am always happy to applaud excellence in the secondary sector, but it is a little rich coming from the right hon. Gentleman, given that he and his predecessor presided over a system in which level 4 schoolchildren were denied automatic access to work experience, which would have built up their skills and capacity to take some of these positions.

[Margaret Greenwood]

On quality in schools, does my hon. Friend agree that there is also the issue of access to further education, particularly adult education? I used to teach on an access to higher education course in a college for adults. When it comes to accessing higher education, that sort of provision is invaluable, particularly for people from disadvantaged backgrounds, but sadly the Bill is very short on anything to do with lifelong learning and part-time education.

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I intend to remedy that as best I can in my remaining remarks.

In the briefing for the Bill, the Office for Fair Access emphasises that it needs to retain the ultimate authority to approve or refuse access agreements. It is timely to emphasise that OfS board members should have expertise around social mobility and fair access. The Bill’s introduction of a transparency duty for higher education applications is positive, but as the Sutton Trust said in May, the Government’s record on improving social mobility is poor. We agree with the National Union of Students that the Government need to create a requirement for an annual participation report.

If we want the office for students to be a genuine office for students, there also needs to be a designated place on the board for a student representative. However, it is not only students who are key stakeholders but people working at all levels in our institutions, and that is why I particularly underline what Unison said about the lack of accountable strategic decision making around employers and students remaining a concern. That is something else that the OFS needs to look at.

We cannot get away from the fact that the student position is nowhere near as rosy as the Government are saying. For 20 years, the official position has been that maintenance support is not meant fully to cover the annual costs of living for full-time students. The loans are supposed to be supplemented by earnings or contributions from family. Too little attention has been paid to the other debts that students contract. The debate around increases to tuition fees is important, but the fundamental problem of sustainability also lies in maintenance support and student cost of living. That is why student dissatisfaction levels are so high and so alarming.

I turn now to the issues around the separation of regulation and funding between teaching at OFS and research at the new UKRI body. GuildHE says that it risks undermining some of the positive interaction between teaching and research. I have already set out the risks that allowing challenger institutions degree-awarding powers from day one could have on the quality of our institutions. The regulation needs to be robust, rather than just proportionate, but as I have emphasised when we debated the Government’s scrapping of student maintenance grants earlier this year, FE colleges are a key driver of social mobility. They deliver more than 10% of all HE courses in this country, often to the most disadvantaged students and often in places with a dearth of stand-alone HE provision and a history of low skills in the local economy. They span the country, from the NCG in the north-east to Cornwall college and my own excellent Blackpool and the Fylde college.

Last year, 33,700 English applicants were awarded maintenance grants for HE courses at FE colleges. One would have thought, therefore, that the Government would have seen them as a key element for expansion as part of their array of challenger institutions, yet hidden away in the annex to the impact assessment for the Bill is the Government’s forecast for the number of FE colleges that will be delivering HE as a result of the Bill. The forecast figure for 2027-28 is exactly the same as that projected for 2018-19, whereas other alternative providers are projected to more than double in number. It is true that the Bill will make it easier for FE colleges to get degree-awarding powers, but what comfort will that bring when systematic cuts to colleges’ ESOL provision, adult skills and other areas have reduced the capacity of FE to participate in HE expansion?

In addition, many key HE programmes on which both FE colleges and modern universities rely could be scrapped if up to £725 million of EU money currently going to local enterprise partnerships is lost—money that produces jobs and skills for them and their communities and on which hundreds of courses and staff depend.

Teachers Strike

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I accept that the changes implemented in the past five years have been radical. They have taken many years to prepare. The primary curriculum was published in 2013 and became law in September 2014, and the first assessment of it took place in May 2016. The first teaching of the English and maths GCSE reforms began in September 2015, after four or five years of preparation, and the first teaching of a number of other subjects will take place this September. I understand the work involved in preparing for a new specification and a new curriculum, but the changes are hugely important and they will have a dramatic impact on the standard of education in our state schools in the year ahead. That is a prize well worth delivering, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support higher academic standards in our state schools.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

In encouraging people to go into teaching, what reassurance can the Minister give to those who want to teach art, drama and music that there will be departments that require their services in the years ahead?

[Mr Gibb]

There was a Westminster Hall debate on this issue yesterday, during which I set out the figures for art and design and for music. They show that the take-up and entry figures for those subjects have remained stable, notwithstanding the introduction of the EBacc combination of core academic subjects. It is important that more young people take those core academic subjects of maths, English, science, a humanity subject and a modern foreign language at GCSE. That is what happens in a number of high-performing jurisdictions around the world. We want our young people to be competent in a foreign language. That is why we set a target that 90% of pupils will be taking the EBacc combination by 2020, but that does not mean that there is no space or time in the school curriculum for those important creative arts subjects.

Bill Presented

Digital Economy Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary John Whittingdale, supported by the Prime Minister, Secretary Sajid Javid, Secretary Stephen Crabb, Secretary Greg Clark, Secretary Nicky Morgan, Secretary Amber Rudd, secretary Elizabeth Truss, Matthew Hancock, Mr David Gauke and Mr Edward Vaizey, presented a Bill to make provision about electronic communications infrastructure and services; to provide for restricting access to online pornography; to make provision about protection of intellectual property in connection with electronic communications; to make provision about data-sharing; to make provision about functions of OFCOM in relation to the BBC; to provide for determination by the BBC of age-related TV licence fee concessions; to make provision about the regulation of direct marketing; to make other provision about OFCOM and its functions; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 45) with explanatory notes (Bill 45-EN).