Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

What steps he is taking to ensure that all pupils have laptops and internet access when required to learn from home.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

What steps he is taking to ensure that all pupils have laptops and internet access when required to learn from home.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

We are making over half a million laptops and tablets available for disadvantaged students across the country by the end of the year. Since September, over 100,000 devices have been delivered to schools, building on over 220,000 delivered in the summer term. Where children lack access to the internet at home, we have also delivered over 50,000 routers.

[Maria Eagle]

Knowsley is one of the most deprived boroughs in the country and has had its allocation of laptops cut from 1,065 to 282 since the Government’s 80% cut in allocations. Fifty-six of the 61 schools in Knowsley have at least one bubble self-isolating and one primary school in Halewood in my constituency which currently has 60 children self-isolating has been allocated six laptops. Half the children in that school have no access to technology at home, so how exactly are headteachers meant to comply with the Government’s regulations that schools must provide immediate access to high-quality, remote learning for pupils who are self-isolating?

[Nick Gibb]

Any school where pupils are self-isolating, and which has disadvantaged students who do not have access to a computer, is able to contact the Department to acquire extra computers beyond those allocated. I am told that it takes 48 working hours to have those laptops delivered to the school. In the context of significant global demand for laptops and tablets, we have updated the process of allocating those devices to schools to align more accurately with the number of students typically self-isolating. This will help to ensure that those who are self-isolating and need a laptop or a tablet are able to receive one.

Free School Meals: Summer Holidays

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I am very glad that the Government have reversed their decision not to continue to fund free school meals through the long summer holiday, despite the amendment on the Order Paper, which I am glad they are not moving—we would not have thought that it was even there, listening to some of the interventions from Government Members. That was the least that they could do.

I would like to thank and congratulate Marcus Rashford, the talented young footballer who has spoken so powerfully from his own experience and who has repeatedly put his money where his mouth is, supporting FareShare financially during the covid crisis and writing to all Members of the House to urge them to support reinstating free school meals over the summer. He has just won his first political campaign.

I know how much football fans in my city of Liverpool —through the efforts of Fans Supporting Foodbanks, led, inter alia, by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne)—have done to support those facing hunger. They have been at the forefront of efforts to alleviate the spiralling increase in hunger and food poverty caused by austerity and the covid crisis. They have been supported financially by players during the covid crisis too, to ensure that they can continue to do their work and be the bulwark against hunger that they are.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the great activities of AFC Wimbledon, whose fans stand outside 22 stores a day and deliver 1,300 food parcels each week? They are a small team with an incredibly big heart.

[Maria Eagle]

They always have been that. I was not aware of those numbers, but I am now.

For many years—from the Front Bench when I was on it, and now from the Back Benches—I have highlighted the ever increasing food poverty crisis that my constituents have been enduring, driven by savage cuts in public spending and support for families. The nature of the job market, which is dominated by insecure work, low pay, short-hours and zero-hours contracts, has been one of the drivers of increasing food poverty, but it has been made much worse by the covid crisis.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

I thank my honourable and sororal twin for giving way. Does she agree that the state of the labour market and the precarious nature of much work is one of the most shameful legacies of the Conservative party?

[Maria Eagle]

I do agree with that analysis, as it happens, but I would have to agree in any event in order to keep the peace in the family, even at a distance. My hon. Friend is correct. Precariousness in the labour market—particularly under-employment, as it used to be called, with zero-hours contracts being a prime example—is one of the main causes of the financial instability that leads to the food poverty that I have seen increasing in my constituency over the past 10 years to a remarkable degree. It has been made much worse by the covid crisis. Children are the most innocent victims of that. In the past three Parliaments, I have repeatedly seen incomprehension on the faces of Ministers. They have not seemed to accept that there is a real problem of hunger out there when I and other hon. Members on the Opposition Benches have pointed it out to them, but there is. It was real and growing before covid. It is bigger and starker now.

Free school meals are a direct way to tackle food poverty for children in normal times, but what if the schools are closed or the parents’ income has been removed while their bills remain or are at best deferred? That is what the covid crisis has done. Some 18,000 children are eligible for free school meals in Liverpool, including more than 3,500 in my constituency. Some 29%—close to a third—of all children in my constituency live in poverty.

There are two other problems: first, that things are getting worse, and secondly, that the capacity of local authorities to assist has been systematically undermined and is diminishing rapidly because of Government policies. Before the covid crisis, unemployment in my constituency was at 4.5%. Today’s figures show that the claimant count has almost doubled in two months to 7.9%, which is above the national average. A further 11,500 jobs are furloughed, which is some 18% of the working-age population in my constituency, and 2,600 people are taking up support from the self-employment income support scheme.

Those schemes are valued and important, and I congratulate the Government on instituting them, but many of those livelihoods will be severely at risk over the next two to three months as the Government schemes are brought to an end. Liverpool city region research and other research into the job situation in the Merseyside area suggests that up to a quarter of all jobs are at risk as a fallout of the economic consequences that we are suffering because of covid. The reality is that unemployment in my constituency is likely to be even higher soon.

Unemployment over 10% and a quarter of jobs at risk of going—that reminds me of something. It reminds me of the early 1980s in Liverpool, which was truly the worst of times. I remember it; I was there. Many of my constituents are now in desperate need, having found themselves unemployed with bills still to pay and a financial reckoning heading straight towards them.

In many areas, queues formed quickly outside retail outlets yesterday, as non-essential shops began to reopen, but I am told that the longest queue that formed in Knowsley was outside a local pawnbrokers. There has been a 389% increase there in universal credit applications since before covid. As universal credit is a passport benefit to free school meals, the need is obviously increasing hugely.

Meanwhile, the ability of Liverpool City Council and Knowsley Council to respond and provide extra help is being removed by a Government who have not even kept their own promise at the beginning of the crisis to pay councils the full cost of covid. Far from being paid back what they have paid out, both councils in my constituency have received only about half the costs incurred. That is a recipe for removing their ability to further help children in need as the crisis of child hunger worsens.

In Liverpool, the council was spending £108,000 a week funding a £10 voucher for children eligible for free school meals. It is a good job that it did, because the chaos engendered at the beginning of the Government’s scheme meant that Government vouchers were not forthcoming for weeks. Last year, the council spent a quarter of a million pounds providing city-wide play schemes that included food for the children using them across the city. It is not clear if it will be able to do that in 2020 because of the financial shortfall. In Knowsley, the council has spent £360,000 funding meal vouchers for children, which it will not get back from the Government.

During the lockdown, local councillors in Knowsley and Liverpool have overwhelmingly used their discretionary funds and their volunteering time to feed people, including children. That is all in addition to the food provided, eventually, by the Government’s shielding scheme. The Torrington Drive Community Association in Halewood has delivered more than 2,000 meals and is currently delivering 120 meals, three times a week, including 150 packed lunches for children. In Belle Vale, 2,600 food packs have been given out at three distribution centres, with new families still coming in and asking for help. In Cressington, local councillors have spent £9,000—all of their discretionary funds—simply feeding people, including children, who need support, with the help of Can Cook kitchen, a food poverty charity, whose work I have highlighted before. Yes, I am glad that the Government have seen sense, and have decided to give help that will feed children over the summer holidays; it will be given directly to their parents in the form of vouchers. The Government should not, as some of their Members were close to doing, equate poverty with fecklessness. It is wrong to do so, and I know that the Secretary of State will not fall into that trap.

The Government need to step up to the challenge of making sure that the next few years in Liverpool are not a rerun of the early 1980s. They could begin by giving Liverpool City Council and Knowsley Borough Council the full costs of covid, as they promised they would. In the longer term, they must address the underlying causes of holiday hunger, child poverty, low wages and insecure work. It is only when they do so that this problem will truly be solved.

School Funding

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist]

As I have said, the debate is about having enough funding for all schools to provide the education that children deserve.

The second part of my speech is about what the figures mean for our schools. At the start of the debate, we should establish the facts about school funding. It is right that more money has been allocated to education, following pressure from hon. Members on both sides of the House who know the pressures that their local schools face. It is also right to acknowledge that the Government have offered additional funds to support increasing pension costs, which have hit schools badly.

The Minister must know, however, as I do, that those measures do not go anywhere near far enough to meet the real-terms cuts that schools face year on year. The statistics from the School Cuts campaign, which were verified by the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir David Norgrove, show that 91% of schools across England have experienced real-terms cuts in per-pupil funding since 2015.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

One of my primary school headteachers, who has been a teacher for 30 years and a headteacher for 15 years, tells me:

“I’ve never experienced a time when the range of needs has been so complex and the financial support so thin.”

She is the head of a school in one of the most deprived parts of my constituency and faces an overall deficit of £70,000 this year. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is not adequate to enable her to do the job that she has been doing for so long?

[Liz Twist]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend’s assessment of the situation. That is a real problem, as it is for Mr Ramanandi and schools in Gateshead.

As I was saying, the Minister must know that schools face real-terms cuts year on year. It is simply not right to say that funding per pupil, which is the measure that really matters, has gone up. The Government’s statistics show that England’s schools have 137,000 more pupils in the system. The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies acknowledges that schools have suffered an 8% real-terms reduction in spending per pupil, despite growing numbers of pupils coming through the door.

With increasing numbers of pupils, and decreasing funding in real terms, schools have had to make cuts that have resulted in 5,400 fewer teachers, 2,800 fewer teaching assistants, 1,400 fewer support staff and 1,200 fewer auxiliary staff. If funding per pupil had been maintained in value since 2015, school funding in England would be £5.1 billion higher than it is now.

Like the petitioners, school leaders across England are concerned that the Government have not kept their promise to increase school funding in cash terms this year. The Secretary of State for Education promised that

“all schools would see a modest rise in funding”.

However, 4,819 schools have not received the Education Secretary’s guaranteed cash increase, meaning that one in four primary schools and one in six secondary schools have had their funding cut in cash terms this year. Locally, 71 schools in Gateshead have suffered Government cuts to per-pupil funding since 2015, losing out on £14 million. In my constituency, the average cut is about £45,000 per primary school and £185,000 per secondary school.

Headteachers in my constituency tell me that, as funding has become tighter, schools have had to cut back on essential resources: teaching and non-teaching staff; support staff who work with vulnerable pupils; small group work; interventions with children who are not thriving; teaching resources; subject choices; classroom and extracurricular activities; repairs for buildings, including asbestos management; and renewal of equipment.

Unison, which represents support staff in many of our schools, forecast that over the next year one in four schools across Gateshead borough will see redundancies. We know that, on top of that, many schools are not replacing staff who leave, so the reality is much worse for them.

Support staff are disproportionately affected by the redundancies. These are mostly part-time or term-time-only jobs, low-paid and generally taken by women living close to the school. By 2021, all but three schools in Gateshead are expected to be in budget deficit, so it is likely that further redundancies are on the horizon. How do we expect our schools to plan for the future?

Draft Social Workers Regulations 2018

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 General Committees

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I eagerly disagree with that sentiment. As I hope to share with the Committee, professionals in the sector and many stakeholders support and applaud the steps we are taking to create the regulator.

In December 2016, we established the Social Work England advisory group, which has representatives from sector organisations, social workers, employers and, of course, service users. In October 2017, we established the regulator expert group, which brings together experts from the world of professional regulation to shape and challenge our thinking. Those groups have been invaluable in advising us on this complex task.

We consulted on the regulatory framework for Social Work England in February and March, and we received nearly 200 responses that were overwhelmingly in favour of our proposals, including 43 from sector and regulatory organisations. We also held 11 events to consult directly with social workers, education providers and interested parliamentarians. I welcome those contributions.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

It is useful to hear the litany of events that have taken place to inform the policy making and regulations before us today. Will the Minister tell the Committee how the proposed changes will improve protection for the children most in danger because of their home circumstances?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. The new regulator will, as I hope to convince her today, improve the quality of outcomes for the most vulnerable children. This is not the only thing we are doing. As I have articulated, we are also making sure that through joint agency work locally, bringing together local government, police, education and social care, we will deliver the most robust safeguarding for children.

The valuable points raised during the consultations have helped to shape the draft regulations that we are discussing today. The 2017 Act establishes Social Work England. However, to operate as the regulator, Social Work England also needs a secondary legislative framework that sets out the framework for how its regulatory functions will operate. I have spoken about the importance of creating a modern regulatory framework for Social Work England. In this respect it is important to emphasise that these draft regulations draw on a range of evidence and recommendations, including those from the Law Commission’s review of health and social care regulation, the Professional Standards Authority’s “Right-touch reform” report, and the Government’s own reform proposals for healthcare regulation. The provisions demonstrate our use of the very best evidence to enable proportionate, targeted and efficient regulating, setting Social Work England at the forefront of modern regulatory standards.

An accurate, transparent register is crucial for effective registration, keeping the safety of the public at its core. We consulted on a range of provisions, including powers to register social workers with conditions; introduce English language controls; and annotate sanctions and additional qualifications, specialisms or accreditations. Attaching conditions is linked to the individual’s ability to meet eligibility criteria. The provision might be used effectively, for example, where a social worker has a time-limited health condition. Attaching conditions will allow continued registration while recognising that the individual might not meet the standards of health for a period of time. We are confident that that will enable the regulator to adopt a proportionate response to concerns and maximise retention in the workforce while protecting service users.

We have also provided for Social Work England to annotate additional qualifications and specialisms on the register. Recording post-qualification information will provide more transparent and meaningful information on the breadth and depth of a social worker’s skill levels to employers and the public. It will allow for the annotation of established, approved mental health professionals and best interest assessors’ roles, creating for the first time a national list of those qualified to carry out those roles. Better data on the scope of practice can also be used to support practice improvements and proportionate and targeted regulation.

Current fitness-to-practise outcomes will also be recorded on the register, which is also critical for public protection. Following the Law Commission’s recommendation, Social Work England will be able to annotate expired sanctions for specified periods. The regulations are clear that the power must be used proportionately, ensuring public protection while not unduly penalising registrants. Social Work England, in line with some of the other health and social care regulators, will introduce proportionate English language controls as a registration requirement. Proficiency in written and spoken English is fundamental to safely and effectively engaging with service users.

I will now turn to the provisions relating to the approval of social worker education and training. As many Members know, some high-profile incidents have seen the social work profession face greater scrutiny and challenge over the quality and capability of the workforce. The 2014 reviews by Sir Martin Narey and David Croisdale-Appleby found that too often, social workers are poorly trained and not ready for frontline practice. This is not good enough for social workers, and it is unacceptable for the children and adults who desperately need their help. I am confident that Social Work England will make a significant impact in this area by setting new profession-specific standards, and improving initial education training courses and qualifications for social workers.

[Maria Eagle]

Does the Minister agree that one of the issues faced by social workers is the high case load they have to deal with with their particular employer? Does he anticipate that these new regulations will include a limit on the number of cases that each social worker should have to take on?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Social workers are ultimately answerable not only to their employers, but to the young people and adults they serve in the work that they do. The level of cases has to be appropriate, but it is decided by the practice leaders and those professionals who work with them. I have discovered in my six months in the job that those social workers who perform at the highest quality are the ones that are the best supported. I have seen it in Hackney, Doncaster and other parts of the country, where the profession has been really effective by being supported well by its leadership and having the confidence to make those decisions that are crucial in safeguarding children, certainly in my area.

Maintaining the quality of professional education ensures that students meet the necessary standards for registration and public protection. That is crucial for both initial education and post-qualifying courses. Importantly, Social Work England will be required to reapprove courses over time, and be able to consult on and determine its own role in the post-qualification space. Legislative provisions allow the regulator to approve post-qualifying courses through existing approval processes set in regulations and rules.

An effective fitness-to-practise system is also critically important, both in public protection and public confidence in social work as a regulated profession. As the PSA has pointed out, existing fitness-to-practise systems can be expensive and overly adversarial. We have taken account of this and the PSA’s and Law Commission’s proposals for reform, by designing a more flexible and proportional fitness-to-practise system for Social Work England. This system ensures that investigatory and adjudicatory functions—it is a bit of a mouthful, Mr Pritchard—remain separate, while providing the regulator with new tools to deliver public protection more flexibly and efficiently. That includes streamlined approaches, such as automatic removal where registrants are convicted of serious criminal offences, such as rape or murder, and swifter processes where registrants have been convicted of criminal offences with custodial sentences.

Social Work England will also be able to resolve cases without a hearing where the registrant accepts the facts of the case and the outcome proposed by the regulator. The regulations make it clear that this can only be used where it is in the public interest and the registrant has provided explicit consent, thereby ensuring adequate safeguards. The PSA has been clear that it wants oversight of such cases and I am pleased to confirm that that will be provided as soon as a legislative vehicle can be found to amend the PSA’s primary legislation. We will also explore extending such oversight to other regulators operating similar accepted outcomes consensual disposal systems.

I want to provide reassurance about the role of the Secretary of State in relation to Social Work England. Social Work England is a separate legal entity in the form of a non-departmental public body, operating at arm’s length from Government. The Secretary of State will, therefore, necessarily have a role in two specific areas. The first is oversight of regulatory rules and powers in the event of default by the regulator in the performance of its functions. We have provided Social Work England with flexibility on how it makes those rules—the detailed procedures and requirements that set out how its functions will be carried out. That will allow Social Work England to change its operational processes efficiently. Rules will be subject to public consultation and to oversight by the Secretary of State. The flexible oversight procedure in the regulations, which has been refined drawing on feedback received through the consultation, provides for a 28-day review period for the Secretary of State. The rules come into force automatically if no objection is raised, or earlier if the Secretary of State agrees. Social Work England is also able to specify a later date to provide maximum implementation flexibility. The Secretary of State may also draw on independent advice from the PSA.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Again, respectfully, I disagree because, as I hope I have demonstrated, we have taken on board the views of the Law Commission and the PSA and have consulted deeply to ensure that the new regulator is modern and meets the demands and requirements of the profession.

[Maria Eagle]

Many other professions, such as the legal profession, have regulators that are independent of the Government. The SWE is an NDPB. Is it not also the case that the Secretary of State will have power over the budget of this organisation, simply because it is an NDPB?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. The Government are funding the setting up of Social Work England, but we envisage that ultimately it will become self-financing and will not require Government funds to carry out its remit.

Default powers ensure that someone can intervene in cases of regulatory failure. That includes giving remedial directions and taking over functions where the regulator fails to comply with a remedial direction. The regulations clarify the Secretary of State’s role in that respect, established under the Children and Social Work Act, which was debated in this Parliament and voted for in this Parliament. They provide that the Secretary of State, or a person appointed by the Secretary of State, cannot make,

“a decision about whether to make, amend, remove or restore an entry in the register”.

That deals with any potential for political interference in decisions about the registration of an individual social worker. On a day-to-day basis, Social Work England will operate independent of Government. The oversight role of the PSA and the use of default powers only in the most serious circumstances of actual or likely failure to perform regulatory functions will ensure its continued independence.

[Maria Eagle]

I have thought of another question. I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way again—he is being incredibly generous. Can he give us an example of another NDPB that is technically under the remit of a Secretary of State but, in time, gets no budget whatever from the Department? I cannot think of another example. Can he?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

As I said, the Government will be funding Social Work England and covering all its costs for set-up, but ultimately, in the long term, we expect it to be self-funding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Knowsley for raising some important points, on which I hope to satisfy him.

On the question of a power grab, which I think was also raised by the Member for St Helens North, I am clear that the system needs to support every social worker to qualify to the highest standard and to continue to develop their skills and knowledge throughout their career, so that they can, in turn, support those in need. During the passage of the Children and Social Work Act, we heard about and recognised the importance of maintaining an appropriate distance between the regulator of social workers and, of course, Government. We have therefore changed the nature—

[Maria Eagle]

On a point of order, Mr Pritchard. I apologise to the Minister for interrupting, but is it correct that the Minister gets to reply now? He has introduced the regulations. Does he not reply to the whole debate at the end? When is my Front-Bench colleague going to get her speech? I have never been in a Committee where this has happened.

[The Chair]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who has been here a long time. First, this is not a debate; this is a Committee. The Minister is replying to specific questions that have been raised. Then I was going to call the shadow Front-Bench spokesperson. This is a Committee, not a debate. If the shadow Minister wants to speak now, that is entirely up to her, but I understood that she was going to make a personal statement ahead of it anyway, so I was giving her a bit more time. It is entirely up to her.

[The Chair]

I do not know whether the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood was aware of the conversation that I had with the shadow Front-Bench spokesperson earlier.

[Maria Eagle]

I was not.

[The Chair]

Well, I am now going to ask the shadow Minister to speak. She might have wanted a little more time.

A-Level Provision: Knowsley Metropolitan Borough

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered A-Level provision in Knowsley Metropolitan Borough.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am pleased to welcome all my fellow Knowsley metropolitan borough MPs to the debate, plus others from nearby who clearly have an interest in education. I also welcome the Minister, who has a long-standing interest in the matter. Indeed, I think we first had a meeting with him on this very issue sometime in June 2016. The matter is therefore not recent; it has concerned my colleagues and I—and, I hope and believe, the Department—for well over two years.

Knowsley is now the only sizeable English metropolitan authority that does not have A-level provision within its borders. It is a matter of some disgrace that young people living in such a large borough, with such a large urban population, cannot take A-levels within the boundaries of the authority. Those who wish to do so—and many do—have to leave the borough. That is not good, and it should not persist any longer than it has to. Indeed, only two other English authorities that have some responsibility for education have no A-level provision within their borders: the Isle of Wight, which has its own issues as an island, and the City of London, which does not have that many residents.

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

In Carmel College, 400 pupils—just under 25%—come from Knowsley. That is exactly the same position as two years ago.

[Maria Eagle]

My hon. Friend has dug out some interesting numbers from Carmel College, a sixth-form college in St Helens. It is some miles away from Knowsley. It is fair to say that it is not the easiest place to get to. It is on the edge of the green belt on the edge of St Helens. If I had to get there without my car, it would not be immediately obvious to me how to do that. For young people from Knowsley or Halewood—the part of Knowsley in my constituency—having to go to that college presents significant extra difficulties, costs and barriers to their ability to take up A-levels.

Halewood Academy sixth form was closed in the summer of 2017. The closure had been mooted from the previous spring. That was when my colleagues and I first sought meetings with Ministers in the Department. The Minister here today first met with us about the issue back in May or June 2016. The sixth form closed, notwithstanding the fact that it left the entire borough without A-level provision within its borders. Any young people who did well in their GCSEs at Halewood Academy were then required to leave the borough to take up A-levels and post-16 education. It is not acceptable for young people anywhere to have to do that, particularly not when those born in Knowsley begin life with greater disadvantages than most pupils who might go on to study A-levels and post-16 education.

Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council is second on the list of most deprived local authority areas on the indices of multiple deprivation, with 45% of its neighbourhoods in the highly deprived category. Despite many efforts by Governments of all persuasions, it has a long-standing history of educational under-attainment. The Government have had initiatives—not enough in my view—that have led to extra support going to Knowsley. Previous Labour Governments of which I was a member also had many initiatives, including building new schools and new educational establishments. None of those things has thus far resulted in educational attainment being sufficiently improved. It has gone up and it has gone down, but it has consistently been below average, and that is still the case.

Knowsley is precisely the kind of place where we need to ensure that educational opportunities are available and present in every community. They need to be easily accessible. We should encourage young people who have the potential—many do—to study post-16. In particular, we should encourage them to do academic A-levels, which provide such an excellent route into better chances in life educationally, such as going on to higher education and university in the traditional way. It also offers job opportunities and economic activity that can lead to prosperity later in life. Knowsley is just the kind of place where A-levels need to be accessed by as many people as possible. It is not the kind of place where that opportunity should be difficult to access.

There have been some improvements over the past year, for which I congratulate schools, but Knowsley’s performance is currently among the worst on some educational attainment measures at GCSE. It is still below average, although things have improved over the past year on the attainment 8 measure, which is the one that is often cited. Good education is a right for all in a civilised society, no matter the circumstances of birth of an individual. We should judge ourselves as a nation and as a society on whether we can ensure that people born in Knowsley—with all the disadvantages that that often carries with it and implies—have just as much chance of meeting their potential in education and life as anyone born with greater advantages living elsewhere.

In addition to that being the right thing to do—in their rhetoric, the Government say they wish to do it—it is the key to the future economic prosperity of the English regions, such as Merseyside and the wider north-west. Our success as a region absolutely depends on us having available a highly educated workforce and developing the full potential of all our children and young people academically and economically. If we do not manage to do so, it is very likely that our area and region will fall further behind some of the other regions in our nation that manage to fully develop the potential of their young people.

Doing A-levels and going through the academic route on to university is one tried and trusted method by which those born with disadvantages in life can meet their potential academically and economically. That improves social mobility in our communities, our region and our society more generally, helping to improve the economy of the nation as a whole. It is for that reason, among others, that I am particularly concerned about what has been happening with post-16 education in Knowsley. I fear that the Government are not doing as well on that measure as I wish they would and as I hope they wish they would. They are inadvertently letting down my constituents who live in Halewood.

The Government’s approach to these matters fails because it unfortunately has no analysis of the impact of deprivation on educational attainment and no analysis of the disadvantage that results. As a consequence, Government educational policy does not seek in practice—it often does so rhetorically—to counteract disadvantage. It simply assesses numbers and standards and applies money on the basis of numbers and judges on the basis of standards. While that is one way of doing things, it does not do the job in an area such as Knowsley, which has deep-seated and long-standing issues with disadvantage and educational attainment.

As the Minister well knows, my colleagues and I have been raising this issue since March 2016, when I wrote to the then Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). In addition, I have had a number of meetings with Ministers in the past two years, usually attended by my colleagues. There has been a dizzying array of Ministers before us—it has been like a merry-go-round—although I am very pleased that the Minister with us today is still in his post. His memory reaches back to those early meetings, so he knows how seriously local representatives have taken this matter. I know how seriously he takes his responsibilities, and I am glad he is answering the debate today.

I do not think I am misrepresenting the Government if I say that they accepted from an early stage in the meetings that the current situation—having no A-level provision within the borders of an entire metropolitan borough—is unacceptable and unsustainable. At a meeting a year ago with Lord Nash, who was then one of the Minister’s colleagues, we were promised that a new and excellent provider would be brought into Knowsley to restore academic A-level provision and that capital money would be provided to facilitate that if necessary. Since that time, I think the Department has backtracked from that commitment. It has supported reintroducing A-level provision, possibly including some academic A-levels, through the merger of Knowsley Community College and St Helens College at the Stockbridge Lane site in Huyton. I understand that that will happen; such a merger was on the cards anyway.

We have also been told, following an assessment by the Education Funding Agency, that there is no need for any new provision on the basis of its usual criteria. My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) and I could have told the Ministers responsible that anyway. Indeed, we did tell them in meetings that the situation does not fit into the Education Funding Agency’s usual criteria for providing extra support and provision, because the issue is not that there has been a sudden boost in population or increase in the number of people wanting to study A-levels in the borough. The issue is that the available provision has simply disappeared, been closed and been taken elsewhere, for various reasons none of which has to do with the situations of the students and potential students themselves.

The situation was therefore never likely to fit the usual criteria that the Education Funding Agency applies, and I do not believe that it was particularly useful to go through that process, although of course the local authority did so, along with officials in the Education Funding Agency. Surprise, surprise, it decided that there was no real need for new provision. That was not what we had been promised in the meeting with Lord Nash. We were promised the introduction of an excellent provider, so that A-level provision, including academic A-level provision, could be brought back within the borough boundaries and expanded.

Let me be clear: I welcome the new provision being introduced as a consequence of the merger of Knowsley Community College and St Helens College. It is an entirely good thing that that will be available, but I worry about the extent to which it will solve the problem, for a number of reasons. I understand from parliamentary answers from December, and from the college itself, that there have been 113 applications so far for the new provision mooted at the merged college, and that a set of 21 subjects, including some academic A-levels, might be available in the curriculum of the new merged college. No one can really enlighten me—perhaps the Minister might be able to in his reply, or subsequently—about whether all 21 subjects will be run, or whether that depends on how many people apply; it would be unusual for the subjects to be run regardless of how many people do so.

[Ms Rimmer]

The advice is that there has been an impressive number of applications so far, suggesting significant aspiration among school leavers in Knowsley to study A-levels, and an offer of 21 subjects, many of them A-levels. Is my hon. Friend concerned that people may be applying thinking that everything they want to do will definitely be on offer?

[Maria Eagle]

I think if one looks at a curriculum and is given 21 subjects to choose from, it would not be unusual to expect that, if one chooses a course, it will be run. However, it is not clear to me that they will be. When I asked the chief executive at the college about that, I was told that

“the number of subjects that will run will of course depend on demand.”

I was not told what the minimum number of pupils is that will guarantee that one of the A-levels on offer will be run. As far as I can see, there is no guarantee that any of the courses will be run from September of this year. We hope that they all will be, but I can see no guarantee of that in the answers that I have received, nor have I had any indication of what the minimum number of pupils required will be to ensure that a course is run.

When I was at school, which admittedly was a very long time ago now, I was told at my local comprehensive that I could choose any A-level subject and the school would put it on, which is indeed what happened. We are not in that game any more, unfortunately. I do not know how many or how few people have to apply for A-level English language, or A-level politics for that matter, for that course to be run. I also do not know whether that course, if and when it is run, will be run at the Knowsley site in Huyton, because St Helens College has links elsewhere. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston has already referred to the so-called partnership plan with Carmel College, which is a long way outside the Knowsley borough boundaries.

The provision is welcome, and I do not wish to sound churlish, but if it results in no opportunity for local young people over the age of 16 to study academic A-levels and other A-levels within the borough boundaries, we have not moved any further. My difficulty is that it is harder for young people born and brought up in Knowsley, owing to their educational disadvantage, family circumstances and deprivation, to do A-levels than it is for people with a more advantaged family background. Such people may have had a more advantaged upbringing, more of an understanding in their family of the value of academic study, and a more supportive environment at home. It is easier for young people in those circumstances to take on and do A-levels than it is for young people examining their options in Knowsley.

It is doubly difficult if doing A-levels and academic A-levels means an additional cost of getting to college, or the additional barrier of having to get to this or that campus, five to 20 miles away. That can make the difference between a young person taking on the A-level study or not. When there is disadvantage already, having that additional barrier makes it much less likely that a young person will take up the A-level provision available. I fear that the double disadvantage that faces young people in deprived areas puts more people off studying than would be the case if they could just go to the sixth form in their local school. Those who take that option end up having to leave the borough, and even that has the additional barriers I mentioned of extra cost and time. They may also have to travel in a way that is not easy, perhaps if the family does not have a car or if the bus routes are not very good and do not go frequently to the place where A-levels can be studied.

To the credit of St Helens and the merged college, and Knowsley Community College, they have put on a bus that will take young people from my constituency to the site in Huyton. The Minister knows that we have geographical challenges in Knowsley because of the shape of the borough and the fact that there are three very distinct centres of population, none of which is particularly well served by buses running between them, which presents practical difficulties.

A bus is to be put on, but a young person from Halewood would have to get on that bus at 7.25 in the morning in order to get to the site in Huyton more than an hour later, going around the houses and through most bits of Liverpool on the way—the congested bits, I noticed, looking at the route—and would not get back to the pick-up point in Halewood until 10 to six. As the Minister knows, A-level studies are not eight hours of lessons every day. If someone has to get on a bus at 7.25 and does not get home till 10 to six, with perhaps one or two hours of study on site, that is not a tremendously practical way to convince a young person to think that it is a good option. What else might the Department and the Minister do to deal with that additional barrier—that extra disadvantage of having to wait for a bus, which is free—that young people from my bit of Knowsley and Halewood have in getting to the site in Huyton, if the A-levels are all to be taught there?

How many young people in Huyton will simply decide that there is some option other than A-levels that they will do instead? How many will decide that A-levels are not for them? What is the consequence of that over time? It makes it look like young people and communities such as Halewood are not interested in higher education or in post-16 studies that lead to job and economic opportunities in later life that might help their social mobility. That is not a good thing and will not tackle the ingrained disadvantage I have been talking about.

The relative widening of the gap between the educational opportunities available to those who are better off in areas that are better off, and those who are not, is a great worry for the future of social mobility in our society, and for economic opportunity. Analysis by the Centre for Cities has shown a widening gap in educational opportunities between northern and southern cities. Places with the weakest economies have less access to quality higher education, which compounds existing economic divides and makes them grow.

The Government recognise that trend because they introduced opportunity areas to try to counteract precisely that effect by supporting better educational provision. Inexplicably, they have not awarded that status to Knowsley. Inexplicably, Knowsley metropolitan borough was so far down the list on the criteria that I do not see how it could have been awarded that status. I would suggest to the Minister that there might be something wrong with the criteria. If a borough such as Knowsley does not come out pretty high up on that kind of measure, I do not understand the criteria.

Nothing I am saying should be taken as critical of the local authority, which literally has almost no levers left to pull in respect of secondary schooling in Knowsley. There are no directly controlled local authority maintained secondary schools, only academies or church schools. All of them are part of multi-academy trusts based outside the borough. The only thing that the authority can do is try to persuade and cajole. They have no power or levers to pull. The Minister knows that financial imperatives apply to multi-academy trusts and academies that give them little leeway to do things in the interests of local communities—that might cost money that the academy wishes to use for something else.

I am also not criticising Halewood Academy. Once it was forced into academisation by a bad Ofsted, it had no option but to close its sixth form for financial reasons, no matter what the consequences for the almost 100 pupils who were studying for A-levels at the time. Since that unfortunate event, it has taken welcome strides towards improving its GCSE results, which I welcome very much. Pupils, teachers and governors have worked very hard at that school, and I congratulate them on their work and the progress they have made.

Knowsley borough council is implementing a local deal for improving access to A-levels, along with its partner organisations; trying to improve links between primary and secondary schools; celebrating and highlighting school achievements; and trying to boost mentoring programmes and other useful and worthy initiatives. But let us be honest: they are tinkering at the edges of a major problem in educational opportunities faced by our communities. The council no longer has the power to intervene as directly as it once did.

I have a few questions for the Minister, and would ask for a response, if not today, later, if he needs a bit more time to consider them. Will he guarantee that academic A-levels will be taught within the borough boundaries from September this year, as a consequence of the merger between Knowsley Community College and St Helens College? What is the minimum number of people accepted on a course for it to be run, rather than for it to be on the curriculum but not actually taught, and for us to be told that not enough people have applied? Will the Minister guarantee that candidates will not be expected to travel to additional sites to do their courses if they accept places at the Knowsley Community College site, because some of the sites they would have to travel to are a long way away, which would present another difficulty for those pupils?

Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us about what the partnership with Carmel College consists of and its implications. If people will have to travel to that site, that does not put us in a different position to the current one in terms of A-level provision within the borough boundaries.

Will the Minister tell us what extra money the Government are putting in to assist in solving the ongoing problems with A-level provision in Knowsley? I have set out some of the additional challenges and disadvantages. Given that Knowsley did not fit the criteria for opportunity areas, perhaps the Minister will tell us what additional support his Department can give.

What plans does he have to recognise deprivation and educational disadvantage in the how he funds post-16 provision? It worries me that the problem we have in Knowsley now might be something that we see in other areas, such as the south Liverpool part of my constituency. We are already seeing newly built schools closing because they had a bad Ofsted, and other newly built schools being forced into academisation—it is not clear who the sponsors will be and what will happen to their sixth forms. I fear that, because of how the Department funds post-16 education, where standards tie in with forced academisation, for example, and the financial imperatives on academies, we may, over time, see developing deserts of post-16 opportunity in places that are already blighted by disadvantage. A number of our sixth forms and newly built schools will be forced to close because of the interaction between standards and numbers at post-16, leading to the closure of provision, which can be even more detrimental for areas already disadvantaged in accessing opportunity.

I am not convinced that the Department and the Government’s policy goes far enough to understand, recognise and do something about entrenched disadvantage and the lack of educational attainment. Instead, it looks simply at standards and numbers. An area such as Knowsley will never be advantaged if one looks simply at standards and numbers, because of the existing long-standing disadvantage. That is quite enough from me, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

I thank the Minister for his response, the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), for his contribution, and my colleagues for their support and contributions. I know that the Minister understands that this issue matters a great deal to those of us who have the honour of representing communities in Knowsley. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) and I will want to take him up on his offer of regularly reviewing the progress of schools and provision in Knowsley.

I am also sure that, although we wish schools well, we will want to look closely at what happens between now and September, to see how many young people apply for the new provision and what it means in practice, in terms of what A-levels are put on and how many people it takes to ensure that a particular course is run. Only by meeting the needs of pupils as they consider their future and ensuring that they can maximise their potential in life—their academic potential, as well as their economic potential later in life—can areas such as Knowsley hope to improve their economies and social mobility for the families in their communities, many of which are deprived, and in due course achieve a better future for all.

I thank everyone for coming along to the debate. We local representatives are not willing to let this matter pass. I welcome the Minister’s interest and I hope that, between us all, we can ensure that improvements in provision in Knowsley do not stop here, that there is no backsliding into an unacceptable position and that in due course all our young people can indeed take all the opportunities available to them to progress post-16 in education and in life.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered A-level provision in Knowsley Metropolitan Borough.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Lady has misunderstood the budget process. We have not cut £1 billion from the capital spending of schools. What we have done is convert an element of the healthy schools budget into revenue spending, to ensure that schools are properly funded on the frontline, because we believe that schools need to be properly funded and that is how we have managed to allocate an extra £1.3 billion to school funding—something that she and the school system have called for.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

4. What steps she is taking to ensure that academic A-levels are taught in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

Knowsley Metropolitan Borough will benefit from an initial A-level offer in September 2018 through Knowsley Community College’s imminent merger with St Helens College. The 2018-19 prospectus has now been published, setting out the A-level offer available, and the Department is also working with Knowsley’s local authority to ensure the implementation of Knowsley Better Together, which is the wider local plan for improving access to A-levels in Knowsley.

[Maria Eagle]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but in a number of meetings with Knowsley MPs over the past year, her Ministers have promised to bring in a recognised excellent provider to restore academic A-level provision to Knowsley. The provision of some college vocational A-levels is a welcome development, but it is not enough. What progress has the Department made on delivering the promises made by her Ministers to local MPs over the past year?

[Justine Greening]

I was happy to meet the hon. Lady and her colleagues, and I am sure she will remember from the letter I sent her following that meeting that I have asked my officials specifically to convene a further meeting locally to agree an approach on the maths support programme, which will focus on improving level 3 maths, and on the English hub roll-out for Knowsley.

Education Funding (South Liverpool)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered education funding in south Liverpool.

I am grateful to have obtained this debate about education funding in south Liverpool. I intend to discuss a situation in my part of the Liverpool City Council area and in Halewood, which is in the Garston and Halewood constituency but falls within the Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council area. Some of my Liverpool and Knowsley colleagues will talk a little about the experience of schools in their bits of south Liverpool, and I welcome the fact that they are here to do so.

In February, I began receiving correspondence from headteachers in my constituency about the dire financial situation they face. I sought to get a broader picture by contacting headteachers to see whether the complaints I was receiving were representative of all or most schools, and it soon became clear to me that the budgetary crunch of which those headteachers complained was a widespread concern for headteachers across my constituency. I have been seeking a meeting with Education Ministers to discuss this since the beginning of March, and I am grateful to say that I was finally granted my half-hour meeting with the Minister earlier today—well over seven months later. It took his Department 10 weeks even to reply to my request for a meeting, which I think is rather too long for an MP to have to wait to see a Minister about an urgent problem, although I am glad to see that he has decided to respond to this debate himself. I welcome him to his place.

Following the Conservative election victory in 2015, the then Chancellor decided to cut the schools budget as part of the never-ending policy of austerity and public expenditure cuts, which he was left with as a result of his failure to meet the Lib Dem-Tory coalition Government’s deficit reduction targets, and he duly did so. Despite assurances that core school budgets would be protected, figures showed a planned 8% real-terms reduction in per-pupil spending between 2015 and 2020, and the National Audit Office found that school budgets have been cut by more than £2.7 billion since then. The cost pressures that schools face in addition to those cuts were and are considerable. They include the removal of the education support grant, the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, increases to employer national insurance and pension contributions, the requirement to fund pay awards to staff without additional funds, and the prospect of having to pay for shared services and support services, which local authorities previously provided for free.

Cuts to local authority funding have hit particularly disadvantaged areas such as south Liverpool hard when it comes to shared services and support services for schools, because they have been much larger than those in more affluent parts of the country. Furthermore, the number of pupils who need such services is much higher in areas such as mine. Between 2010 and 2020, Liverpool City Council will have had to face a 68% cut to its available resource, and it still has to find a further £90 million from its already denuded budget over the current spending review period. That is a considerable challenge. Meanwhile, Knowsley’s budget will be slashed by 56% between 2010 and 2020, and it has to find a further £17 million in cuts over the current spending review period. That means that both authorities have been forced either to cut back completely or to charge schools for services and support that used to be provided for free. Unsurprisingly, schools have generally not budgeted for those charges in advance.

On top of those challenges, which were already causing headteachers to worry, there are the Government’s changes to the national funding formula. Although they have the stated aim of making funding fairer—I am sure the Minister will explain how they do that when he gets his chance to speak—they seem to disadvantage the vast majority of schools in my constituency.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. As she is outlining, this is a funding attack on schools not just in south Liverpool, but across our city and beyond. The education unions have calculated that, after the last revision of the funding formula and the extra money announced before recess, my constituency alone will lose £4 million, or £300 per pupil, by 2020. I hope she will push the Minister for a response to that.

[Maria Eagle]

I will indeed—and I think my hon. Friend has himself just pushed the Minister for a response. I am sure the Minister will want to make some points in reply and set out his understanding of the impact of the national funding formula, which seems not to advantage schools in our area as much as I would like.

Liverpool City Council told me that, according to its calculations, the Garston and Halewood constituency will lose £390 per pupil—a cut of more than £4.5 million between 2015 and 2020—which is not dissimilar to what my hon. Friend said is happening in his area. That is the equivalent of a cut of 125 teaching jobs. The local authority told me that across Liverpool as a whole the loss is £487 per pupil, or a 9% cut overall, and a cut of almost £28.5 million between 2015 and 2020, equivalent to 778 teaching jobs.

The Minister may well say that the revisions that were made to the national funding formula in July and September, with the finding of savings from his Department and the raiding of various capital budgets for £1.3 billion, will make a difference to that, but many of the schools in my constituency have reported to me that they have or are planning to cut teaching and support staff posts. One headteacher of a local primary school, which the Minister’s letter tells me will see an increase of 0.9%, told me that

“the current staffing levels are unsustainable due to the differentials between school income and school expenditure on staff… The Governors are currently planning a staffing review to identify how we can reduce staffing costs by making teachers and teaching assistants redundant. We need to lose three teachers by 2019 if we are to manage our school budget without going into deficit. This will mean we will not have a qualified teacher in each class, which by law we must have. We are looking ahead at troubled times in schools.”

That is not the only school to have told me it is planning staffing reductions. One school, which has already seen a significant cut in teaching and support staff and a narrowing of the breadth of its curriculum as a result, is now contemplating further reductions to the curriculum, to pastoral staffing and to the length of the school day and the school week.

Some of my schools have been hit particularly hard, according to Liverpool City Council figures. Springwood Heath Primary School in Allerton is a unique school. It is a mainstream primary with enhanced provision places, which integrates children with significant physical and medical needs into its community. The city council projects that it will lose more than £719 per pupil—a 14% cut. Although that may be ameliorated by the changes to the national funding formula, which the Minister will no doubt tell us about later, it is already losing teachers and support staff, and to lose support staff at Springwood Heath is to put at risk the ability of some pupils to continue to attend because they depend on those support staff, who enable them to attend that mainstream school. That would be a particular concern to me. It might be said, “Well, so you lose a few support staff,” but if those staff are ensuring that severely disabled children can attend a mainstream school, that is more than simply losing support staff; it is losing a richness and quality of education that no other school offers. If the Minister comes to Liverpool, which I invite him to do, I hope he visits Springwood Heath Primary School. Then he could tell me whether in his experience there is another school like it. I am not sure that there is.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

A few moments ago my hon. Friend made the point that the evidence is that the funding formula adjustments announced in the summer have not really resolved the problems in south Liverpool. As she is aware, my information is that all bar three of the schools in Knowsley—so this affects her constituency as well—will have either no change or further reduction to their funding. The sort of situations that she described in that one important school will then be played out across Knowsley, to the detriment of the education of the children concerned.

[Maria Eagle]

My right hon. Friend is correct. He and I, as representatives of the borough, know that there is an issue of attainment in Knowsley schools. It is a long-standing one, which we continue to try to tackle, as Governments of all stripes have tried to do. It is certainly not ameliorated and improved by taking money away from schools. That will just deepen and worsen the attainment gap that is already there. If that were to happen, it would be a very great worry.

Liverpool City Council figures also tell me that Stockton Wood Primary School in Speke, one of the most deprived wards in the country, will lose £659 per pupil, which is a 13% cut; Garston Church of England Primary School will lose £616 per pupil, a 12% cut; and Childwall Valley Primary School, in Belle Vale, will lose 12% or £671 per pupil.

Lest the Minister believe that only schools in the most deprived wards are being hit, I can tell him that St Julie’s Catholic High School in Woolton is facing a £555 per pupil cut, which is a 10% cut, and St Francis Xavier’s College—the school that first contacted me to express worries and about which I wrote to his Department in February—is facing a cut of £508 per pupil, or 10%. Given that the school told me at the time that its financial situation was unsustainable and that it has made 13 staff redundant, with a further six posts unfilled, I wonder what the Minister thinks will be the impact on it of the revision to the national funding formula. The revised figures from the National Education Union suggest that SFX will still lose 5% per pupil. His letter tells me that the school will have an increase, but since the new figures were produced no one has told me—certainly not the headteacher, to whom I have spoken—that it will be able to avoid painful decisions about what to do in respect of its provision.

I note that the Minister sent me a letter—as I am sure he did to many other Members—dated 14 September about the impact of his revisions to the national funding formula on schools in my constituency. For the life of me, I cannot work out how he has come to the conclusion that he came to, which is that every school on the list will have an increase in its funding. The Minister’s letter refers to “illustrative figures”, stressing that they are “not actual allocations”, which might provide some clue as to what is going on. There is also an assumption that the new formula is being implemented in full this financial year, without any transition. The baseline figure is from a year subsequent to the one in which the £2.7 billion cuts were implemented, so it is not clear how realistic the figures produced are. All that sounds like a way of saying that the table the Minister has produced contains fantasy figures that bear no relation to what is happening, and that those figures are all mysteriously going up, even though schools and headteachers still tell me that they are facing budget shortfalls that necessitate their cutting teachers and having to consider other painful decisions in order to balance their budgets.

The National Education Union has revised its own list of the impact of the new funding formula to take into account the extra, recycled £1.3 billion of Department for Education money that the Secretary of State announced in July she had found and expanded upon in her statement in September. The NEU figures at least have the merit of setting out their methodology in full: based on the core schools budget, which represents 75% of school spending, and using block funding allocations for 2015-16 as the baseline, the NEU figures compare the 2019-20 amounts for schools in the Government’s NFF document, apply the Office for Budget Responsibility estimate for inflation, and take pupil numbers from the most up-to-date school census. On that basis, 29 of the 31 schools in my constituency lose out, some seeing a cut of up to 12% and many of those with the highest number of pupils receiving free school meals losing the most.

To my mind, that is one of the most pernicious effects of the Government’s new way of funding schools. How can it be right that Middlefield Community Primary School, where 68% of pupils are entitled to free school meals, is set to lose £558 per pupil, a cut of 10%, and that even Enterprise South Liverpool Academy, where 81% of pupils are entitled to free school meals, is losing £61 per pupil, a cut of 1%? I do not call that fair funding; I call that hitting the most deprived communities the hardest.

Providing a good and rounded education for all citizens is one of our society’s greatest benefits and achievements. It also has the merit of being a great leveller, enabling people to make their way in life, to succeed and to make the most effective contribution they possibly can to our society, no matter what the circumstances of their birth. I want all my constituents to be able to benefit from an excellent education. That must start, however, by enabling those born with disadvantages to overcome them and to flourish.

In many of the schools I visit in my constituency, I see teachers and staff striving to deliver those life chances to children and young people who face significant barriers to learning. However, I increasingly see disadvantage being reinforced rather than eliminated. That is being exacerbated by the policies being implemented by this Government. In the Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council area no academic A-level provision is now available—none. That has happened because of funding arrangements that effectively require the same density of pupils who want to study academic A-levels in the most deprived areas as in the most affluent, when in reality there are likely to be fewer, at least until the attainment gap is closed, which in practice has proven stubbornly difficult to achieve.

Last year the last sixth form providing academic A-levels in the borough—Halewood Academy in my constituency—was closed because the school could not attract enough pupils to make it pay at a time when the forced academisation of the school meant that it had to balance its budget. I do not blame the headteacher or the governors for what happened, and I am glad that the academic achievements of the school improved this year—including, ironically, at A-level—but it is not right to make it harder for pupils from deprived areas to get easy access, in their local communities, to the opportunities that studying A-level subjects provide.

The barriers to success are already formidable, without making pupils travel out of area when they are less able to do so because of their families’ financial circumstances. In addition, I do not think it right that multi-academy trusts, all based and run from outside Knowsley MBC’s area, should be able in effect to choose which local pupils they wish to offer opportunities to with no accountability to local communities.

[Mr Howarth]

My hon. Friend is generous in giving way again. She, my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) and I have been pressing the Government to provide support for sixth-form A-level provision in the borough. Does she agree that if we do not get that, the effect on other secondary schools will also be detrimental?

[Maria Eagle]

I believe it will be—my right hon. Friend is correct. That is essential. I hope that we can make a difference and that the Government will come through to help us get academic A-level provision back in the borough, because if that does not happen, in due course—this will not take long—young families will not locate themselves in Knowsley. They will not think it is a place to bring up their kids unless there is a good chance of their staying in a school all the way through to do their A-levels and to go on to university from there.

Where is the accountability to local parents and communities in the existing arrangement? Knowsley no longer has any community secondary schools and all the academies are controlled by different MATs, all based outside the borough. The local council still has the obligation to provide for education in its area, but it has no levers whatever to pull to affect the provision, except for persuasion. The multi-academy trusts are all controlled elsewhere and will make decisions based on factors that may or may not matter to Knowsley communities but will certainly relate to the financial circumstances of their own organisations. In addition, when the council controlled schools, local people could vote out their councillors if they did not like developments. Now, there is no way for them to affect provision. The MATs have no accountability to the communities whose future they influence so greatly.

I worry that the school provision and funding structure developed by the Government can soon go wrong in areas where there is an attainment issue and can be hard to put right. I worry that provision is now being determined by financial considerations above all else. Communities such as those in my constituency need greater local provision to enable everyone to reach their potential, but that provision is in retreat. I worry that the phenomenon of the loss of sixth forms and academic A-level provision in Knowsley could continue to spread, and that young people soon will have less chance to go down that route if they do not live in a more affluent area that can easily meet the increasingly high numbers of pupils needed to provide academic A-levels.

I would like the Minister to assure me that he is aware of those problems and is determined to reverse those trends, so that young people from the communities of south Liverpool have no fewer chances to reach their potential than those who come from more advantaged areas. If he cannot do so, our education system will have lost one of its great features: the ability to facilitate social mobility and life chances for those whose family circumstances may not give them such opportunities. We will all be poorer for that.

Schools Update

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is right. We will set out more of those details in September. Today, we are setting out the fact that we recognise that there is an issue of minimum funding levels in secondary education, and we would expect that to be reflected in primary education.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Figures from the Secretary of State’s Department showed that 21 schools in my constituency were to lose out under her plans for the national funding formula before her announcement today. I am concerned that they still will, so will she guarantee today that those schools that were going to lose out on the basis of the formula no longer will, and that they will actually see gains?

[Justine Greening]

I think I have been very clear that every school will see gains from the announcement that I have made today, which I hope is good news. It is a reflection of the need to strike a balance between bringing up traditionally underfunded schools and recognising that those receiving higher funding need help to some extent to get on to the national funding formula.

Education and Local Services

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has endured a torrid few weeks—she has gone from Wonder Woman to the Joker in one spectacular electoral pratfall. We see the parlous state of her diminishing authority and of her Government’s capacity to govern in this damp squib of a legislative programme. Apart from the preparations for implementing our exit from the EU, for which almost half the country did not vote and which is a major cause of division and rancour in Britain today, there is little to it, and there is to be no legislative programme at all next year.

When a Prime Minister at the apogee of their power writes the Queen’s Speech immediately after a general election, they should be writing about the big policies and ideas that will take the nation forward and improve people’s lives, but this speech is more about what the Government Whips think they can get away with and about trying to limit the damage to our economy, future prospects and international influence following the UK’s vote to leave the EU—something the Prime Minister does not believe in and did not vote for.

I want to discuss what the Prime Minister could have done in the Queen’s Speech to help my constituents. I am talking about keeping them safe from gun crime, and educating their children. Merseyside police have faced a cut in resources of almost £87 million since 2010, and on current Government plans are being forced to cut a further £18 million over the next three years. They have lost a quarter of their staff—more than 1,000 officers and civilian personnel—and are due to lose 540 more. The challenges they face are great, as neighbourhood policing is largely gone. The Matrix unit, which tackled organised crime so successfully on Merseyside is gone as a single unit, yet we on Merseyside are facing a surge in gun crime, which has seen more than 100 shootings in the past 18 months, including five murders. Chief Constable Andy Cooke blames the impact of these cuts for the increasingly reactive policing his force is having to adopt as a replacement for the highly successful proactive policing for which they are so well known.

There are now more guns circulating on Merseyside, and the injury rate is becoming more serious, with firearms incidents up from 33% to 50%. The community safety initiatives that Liverpool City Council and Knowsley Borough Council provided to divert young people from involvement in crime have dwindled away thanks to a lack of money. Liverpool City Council has lost 58% of its resource, rising to 68% in three years, and Knowsley will have lost 56% at the end of another three years.

In January, I wrote to then Minister of State for Policing, Fire and Criminal Justice seeking a meeting about this worrying increase in gun crime, and it took place on 9 February—indeed, you were there, Mr Deputy Speaker, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd). Although the Minister did not bother to turn up, we were assured by the Under-Secretary of State that a bid for extra resources would be considered sympathetically. The chief constable has recently revealed that the bid has been turned down, yet I have not had the courtesy of a letter from Ministers following up on the meeting of 9 February, or a letter explaining why the bid that was invited has been rejected, which is disgraceful.

Andy Cooke said:

“Have I got sufficient resources to deal with gun crime? No I haven’t...If I had more staff, would I put them to deal with gun crime? Yes I would.”

This Queen’s Speech could have done something about that, but it has not.

As you well know, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is now no academic A-level provision in the borough of Knowsley, part of which is in my constituency and the rest of which is in yours. Since the closure of the sixth form at Halewood academy, young people in Halewood have to leave the borough to access opportunities that should be readily available for every child in their own local community. In areas such as south Liverpool and Halewood, we have a constant battle to increase educational attainment. The Queen’s Speech could have tried to do something about that, but it did not. It does not even guarantee that no school will have its budget cut, as the Tory manifesto purported to do.

I have been asking local headteachers what the new funding formula will mean for their school. Some have already cut teachers and support staff. One of my schools has lost 26% of its teaching staff. Others see redundancies next year as inevitable. Schools are cutting back on the curriculum; one has removed drama and cut back on modern foreign languages and music. All are now having to use school budgets to pay for shared support services, such as special educational needs outreach, educational psychology and family support services, which were once provided by Liverpool City Council. Others are forced to ask parents for money to make their budgets work. This is a catastrophe and will further disadvantage those pupils who already face barriers. This Queen’s Speech will do nothing to help my constituents who need to be safe from gun crime or who want their children to have a fair chance in education. It is the last desperate effort of a Government who seek only to cling on to office. We will make sure that they do not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I can, as a result of the formula that has been put forward. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made that very clear today.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) mentioned social mobility and the importance of education in our primary schools. She said that we now have more good and outstanding primary school places than we did seven years ago. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) mentioned the importance of tackling domestic violence and welcomed the measures in the Queen’s Speech to do so.

My hon. Friends the Members for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) and for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) made important speeches in which they referred to the opportunities that we have as we leave the European Union. In particular, they said that those opportunities are about not just the trade in goods but the trade in services, which is also critical.

The role that local government plays in providing services is also essential to the smooth running of our society. Despite challenging financial conditions, councils continue to deliver, and council tax is expected to be lower in real terms in 2019-20 than it was in 2010-11. Councils have embraced innovation and transformed the way they work to deliver services for their local areas.

[Maria Eagle]

I accept the Minister’s point that councils provide important services, but can he explain why Liverpool City Council will have lost 68% of its resource by 2020-21?

[Mr Jones]

The Government have had to look extremely carefully at funding in a number of areas over the past seven years, because when the Government the hon. Lady was part of left office in 2010, they left behind a deficit of £150 billion—the country was spending £150 billion more than it was earning every single year.

We have also given councils financial freedoms and flexibilities to manage their own budgets. In 2015 we provided them with more certainty and stability through the offer of a four-year financial settlement, and 97% of eligible local authorities have accepted that. It enables them to plan service delivery, transformation and more effective collaboration with local partners.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Two elements of the proposed fair funding formula can help in this regard. One relates to mobility, about which a question was asked earlier, and will involve children moving in-year. The second relates to demographic growth, to which the right hon. Lady referred, and will ensure that we can respond faster to enable local authorities and schools to cope.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

In Knowsley metropolitan borough, part of which is in my constituency, there will be no academic A-level provision later this year. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that many of the young people who live in Halewood can aspire, and afford, to take A-levels? At present they have to travel so far, and they have no money to do so.

[Mr Gibb]

As the hon. Lady will know, because we have had meetings to discuss this very issue fairly recently, we are working with the regional schools commissioner to ensure that there will be provision in Knowsley for those who want to study for A-levels without having to leave the borough.