Anti-bullying Week

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I thank the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) for securing this debate, which is timely after the last week. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), whose comments were most pertinent. I would like to address two aspects in my speech, but first I would be grateful if Members noted that I am a member of the Educational Institute of Scotland and a council member of the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

Bullying among young people has been mentioned. Bullying is a strategy and a symptom of society; it is the visible result of behavioural activities among lots of people. Unfortunately, it is a very negative activity, and it permeates our society from top to bottom. I have had the dubious pleasure of dealing with people categorised as bullies in nurseries, all the way through to people rightly categorised as victims high up in primary education.

I would like to express what huge strength all victims of bullying have. They show, display and have internalised strength in standing up to, fighting and opposing behaviours that attack the very fibre of who they are. I pay huge compliments to all those who have suffered at the hands of others. It is an enormous thing to expect anyone to put up with, but most of all our young folk who are growing up to be members of our society.

It is interesting, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) pointed out, that at the moment the House is only too aware of what happens if we fail to deal with problems by pretending that they do not exist, pushing them to one side or ignoring them. Those problems come back, and they need to be dealt with, because they are there. If we deal with them properly, we can come out a stronger and better society.

I would also like to express my huge thanks for the support given to all the victims of bullying who are able to cry out and receive help. A significant number of worthy charities, third parties and local authorities have excellent practices; I mention Place2Be, a charity that works within schools and with which I have had the great pleasure of working in two local authorities. It provides sympathetic and supportive help to young children, both victims and those accused of bullying. It deals with it not as a matter of blame but as a matter of support—a way of looking forward to what can be achieved and what can be better as a result of what someone has suffered.

I echo the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire on labelling; whether it is right to call someone a victim or a bully is fundamental to how we deal with it. A significant number of parents will rightly come to me and say, “Such and such has happened. This person is a bully.” We lack an agreed definition of bullying and, as a result, many activities are labelled as bullying and many people make assumptions about situations that sometimes aggravate those situations. We need to be incredibly careful about the language we choose, and we need a huge amount of work to be done to decide what the appropriate language is. That will come from research, from notification and from pooling information from good practice and otherwise, so that as a society we can accept when people are victims of a situation and need support and when people have occasioned a situation. In so many cases, those people also need support because we frequently hear that bullies were bullied. Certainly, my experience as a teacher reflects that wholeheartedly.

I have spoken a number of times in Westminster Hall and in the House about social media and the pernicious effect that it is starting to have. For previous generations of children, bullying might have been restricted to the playground, the changing rooms and transferring between lessons. Now, a significant number of children never leave the bullying situation. They get home and are pursued on their mobile phone. They log on to the computer to do their homework and are instant messaged. In our community, that is driving a wedge between people who suffer at the hands of social media and people who use it to perpetrate hideous messages.

It was interesting that only yesterday, the coroner in the Ann Maguire inquest, Kevin McLoughlin, told the Wakefield coroners court that,

“he wanted social media companies to introduce contracts that would make parents responsible for their children’s online activity.”

That is an enormous call from a coroner judge about the dangers of social media companies. I have discussed with social media companies the fact that having social media accounts ought to occur only from the age of 13 because of data protection and allowing someone’s data to be out there. I have asked about the reality that so many children in primary schools—well under 13 years old—operate social media accounts. Their answer to that, on three different occasions, has been that that is the responsibility of the parent—the parent has authorised it. I question that because from a practical point of view, with so many children under 13 operating social media accounts—many perfectly lawfully and kindly, but some using them for other means—the data that social media companies push out to others who fund them are clearly incorrect.

More importantly, as a society, we should expect companies that benefit from the social media revolution to be responsible for adequately policing social media and for ensuring that it is not enough to expect a parent to say, “Yes, my child can have a social media account” or to freely accept someone entering a clearly incorrect date of birth. If it has got to the stage where coroner judges are demanding a contract between the parents and social media companies to be responsible for the children’s actions, we need to step up and do that now to protect everybody. Social media makes a positive offering to society, but it has a dark side, especially if people cannot escape it 24 hours a day. I find that very worrying and I will be interested in the Minister’s comments on that.

Finally, I want to reflect on the messages that were shared so much last week for people who are suffering bullying. There was strong advice on the Anti-bullying Week website to:

“Show open body language. Try not to show your fear. Tell someone who will listen”—

which is very important, and:

“Keep eye contact with the bully.”

That advice is massively important in the playground, in the school corridor and, unfortunately, also in the workplace. On social media it is slightly different. The last piece of advice that was shared widely is something that we should all listen to and follow and that we should all become responsible for. That advice was:

“Do not be a bystander”.

Bullies only achieve what they do because other people stand by. As members of society, we owe a responsibility to everybody. Not being a bystander would lead to a great change in our society today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Buck.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) on securing this debate, and I thank all hon. Members and hon. Friends who have spoken so passionately here in Westminster Hall today. It was a particular pleasure to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), whose powerful speech will resonate with any child anywhere who is suffering from bullying.

The theme of this year’s Anti-bullying Week is, as we have already heard, “All Different, All Equal”. It was taken on board by the amazing children at Westoe Crown Primary School in South Shields, who this week made a cracking film about bullying. It is on YouTube and I urge everyone here to have a look.

Bullying can have a debilitating effect. For the victim, it permeates every minute of every single day, even when they are not in the presence of those causing them harm. When bullying happens in a school environment, it is intensified because—no matter what—in any given school day there will be times when a teacher or another member of staff is not present to spot that bullying is happening and stop it. However, bullying is not confined to physical space, with children reporting rises in cyber-bullying, where the bullying is all-pervasive and the victims are completely unable to escape from it.

I know that the Department for Education has produced guidance on preventing and tackling bullying for schools, headteachers, staff and governing bodies. That guidance reiterates:

“Every school must have measures in place to prevent all forms of bullying.”

However, in the context of what this Government have done to schools funding, does the Minister seriously believe that schools can give bullying the attention it needs? Cuts to education funding have led to schools in England losing more than £2.7 billion in funding since 2015. We have all seen the headlines about schools sending begging letters to parents, so that they can pay for essentials such as glue, paper, pens and other everyday items.

The Government’s response to this crisis was to introduce a new funding formula—one that led to 5,000 teachers endorsing a letter to the Chancellor to demand more money for schools, as well as warning of deep cuts to resources and soaring class sizes. Those teachers, including headteachers, will be greatly disappointed that their calls fell on deaf ears yesterday when the Chancellor, with much misplaced joviality, delivered a dire Budget that failed to acknowledge the crisis in our schools.

In light of the desperate situation that our schools find themselves in, can the Minister tell us what data the Department for Education collects on bullying in schools, such as prevalence levels and effectiveness of responses? I have a strong inkling that the Department does not collect such data, in which case I have another question. Can he explain how he thinks the Government can respond properly to an issue that they do not really have a full understanding of?

[Martin Whitfield]

On funding, I will make a point about the pressure on funding for schools in Scotland, as Scottish councils have to make choices about where their reduced funding goes. In particular, there are the problems that Anti Bullying East Lothian, an award-winning service, has suffered as a result of cuts. If such cuts are being made, how can we support both the victims and the bullies?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The reality is that if austerity measures and cuts continue, we will fail all our children.

Those of our children who suffer from depression, low self-esteem, anxiety and self-harm as a result of bullying should be assured that when they need professional help it is available. However, this Government’s total hash of child and adolescent mental health services has left some children waiting more than a year for help, with 28% of those who apply for such services being turned away due to lack of funding.

Just yesterday, there was an opportunity in the Budget to address the deepening crisis in children’s mental health, but the Government chose not to do so. Instead, the Chancellor announced that there would be a Green Paper this December, setting out the Government’s plans to transform mental health services for children and young people. In short, there is no action and more discussion.

Can the Minister please assure us today that this Green Paper will be forthcoming in December? How long does he expect the consultation to take, and when does he expect that we will see some action? Will the Government explore schools-based counselling, as recommended by the Labour party?

I ask these questions because children in need of mental health support need it now, and every day they wait is a day that they will struggle with their mental health. Their problems become more entrenched. The sad reality is that some children who need mental health support as a result of bullying will leave school and move into adulthood without ever getting the kind of support they needed, which greatly damages their future prospects and even leads some of them to take their own life.

Looked-after children are reported to experience bullying at a much higher rate than their peers. Almost every single looked-after child has already endured some form of trauma, with at least 45% of looked-after children entering care with a diagnosable mental health condition. As this Government are now presiding over the largest number of children in care since the 1980s, with that number reaching 72,670 in March 2017, can the Minister explain what the Department for Education is doing in relation to providing specialist support for these children when they are subjected to bullying?

Another group of children who experience bullying at a higher rate than other children are those with disabilities or special educational needs. However, it is little wonder that children with special educational needs or disability, or SEND, are treated unequally in comparison with their peers, when the Government’s approach to children with SEND has been one of segregation, whereby many children with SEND are still placed in specialist schools or special units within mainstream education. It has been a long-held view, going right back to the Education Act 1981, and it is a view supported by Ofsted, that well-resourced mainstream schools are best placed to improve the learning and social environment for disabled and non-disabled learners alike. Children with special educational needs are increasingly being pushed out of mainstream schools, and they are grossly over-represented in exclusion figures. Indeed, many of them are self-exclusions, due to bullying.

As I am in a generous mood, Ms Buck, I am happy to talk to the Minister about Labour’s approach to education, which is based on inclusivity not exclusivity, and where every child should be given the very best opportunity to reach their true potential, whether they have an educational special need or a disability. That is because, much like this year’s anti-bullying theme, we believe that our children really are “All different, all equal”.

I am conscious of the time, so I will not detain Members much longer. However, before I make my closing comments I will press the Minister on a very serious issue. Back in January 2017, I withdrew an amendment to the Children and Social Work Bill on the basis that the then Minister assured me that guidance regarding peer-to-peer sexual abuse in schools would be updated. Bullying is insidious in all its forms, but imagine being a young girl in a school, having been raped by one of your classmates. Despite that allegation of rape being upheld, you have to go back into that classroom, day after day, lesson after lesson, and sit next to the boy who raped you. We would never force anyone in the workplace or in any other scenario to go through that, but it is happening in our schools.

Children contacting ChildLine have described being subjected to inappropriate sexual touching in school, and to verbal threats on the bus, in the playground, in toilets, in changing rooms and even in classrooms during lessons. Many young girls have reported feeling vulnerable, anxious and confused as a result of being pressurised for sex by boys at school. Some feel they should consent, as their peers talk regularly about being sexually active. Others are threatened with physical violence if they refuse to have sex, and they have rumours and lies spread about them.

As with adult-perpetrated abuse, the victim often thinks that the act was normal, as they do not know about healthy relationships or assume that all children are being similarly abused. Often, they do not have the language to tell anybody what is happening to them and they fear they will get into trouble if they try to disclose it. Sometimes, they also think that they were the initiator and may have gone through the act voluntarily. They are left with unimaginable feelings of guilt, which no child should ever suffer on top of the harm they have already suffered.

It is safe to say we all agree that we have a responsibility to keep children safe, yet the current iteration of the “Keeping children safe in education” guidance lacks the detail to support schools where incidents of peer-on-peer abuse occur. Moreover, many schools do not have the appropriate processes in place to support children returning to school following a serious incident. We cannot just leave it up to schools to formulate their own policies and procedures, as that leaves the response to a potentially serious, life-ruining act at the discretion of an individual school.

Abuse is never the fault of the victim, yet in too many cases children are left isolated with no avenue of escape. I was recently advised that the public consultation on revising “Keeping children safe in education” would be launched later this autumn. Autumn is coming to an end, so will the Minister explain why the consultation has not begun? The delay here, like the delay in implementing personal, social, health and economic education, is beyond unacceptable. There has been a long fight for PSHE. All the evidence already exists on the positive impacts it will have on all children, so it should not be taking until 2019 to implement.

Just last year the Government were examined by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in relation to their compliance with the UN convention on the rights of the child. It found the Government failing children across the board in 150 areas. I have repeatedly asked for the convention to be in domestic law. That commitment was in Labour’s manifesto.

It is estimated that one child in every single class is experiencing severe bullying. I know the Minister will agree that that is one child too many. I hope he will acknowledge that to tackle bullying, the Government need to have a more holistic view and stop operating in these monolithic ways. I hope he will share with us today how he intends to do that. I hope that in summing up the Minister can answer all my questions and those of other hon. Members, because we are asking these question not for us, but for every child who felt physically sick this morning because they could not bear to go to school, for every child who sat in the toilet though their dinner break because being alone is safer than being with others, for every child sat right now in a lesson unable to concentrate because what follows is that terrifying journey home where the protection of the teachers disappears and it is just them and the bullies, and for every child sat at home tonight alone, scrolling through hateful messages from their peers on their phone.