Education Funding

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) for securing this important debate.

The issue of general funding is beginning to sound a bit like a broken record. The Government claim to spend record amounts on education, but claiming to spend a pound more this year than last year is irrelevant, because it is meaningless in real terms. That is the basis of the debate; per pupil funding is falling in real terms. It is widely known that it has fallen by 8.8%.

The Government have succeeded in delegating the risk and responsibility entirely to schools. Warwickshire is 120th of 140 in the funding per pupil rankings and is one of the worst-off areas in the country. Although Warwickshire does not have it as tough as what my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) illustrated, it has it tough none the less, and is a member of the f40.

I do not want to dwell on other areas of education—we have recently had debates about nursery education and further education, which have also suffered severe cuts—but will illustrate some of the challenges in our primary, secondary and special needs education sectors. Just 10 days ago, I visited one of the best primary schools in Warwickshire. The headteacher just sat there frustrated, saying, “This afternoon I will have to decide how to cut £50,000 from our budget. That is a further £50,000 and I am not sure who I will have to let go.” Those are the real challenges faced by the headteachers and leadership teams across our schools.

I spoke to one of my secondary schools a couple of months ago and it said that in the past three years it has had to cut 11 full-time teachers, leading to larger class sizes. The remaining teachers have to cover their colleagues who are off sick. The school has had to make cuts in associate staff in the back office and in frontline services, such as teaching assistants.

Schools face the consequences of austerity because of cuts to wider public services. Just this week, one school said that because of the cuts to the council’s children’s services, it has closed yet another case. The responsibility to pick up the pieces of a very challenging situation will now fall to that school, bringing ever greater pressures. It had to lose its school counsellor last term. It is faced with a dilemma: does it replace that counsellor or invest in support for students with the most complex needs?

One of our fine special needs schools in south Warwick has had to lose its comfort dog, half its playground and its minibus, which it cannot afford to replace, because of the cuts that it faces. Those are some of the most vulnerable children in our society, and they are being hurt the hardest. That is just not right.

Our sixth forms have seen cuts of 24% to their budgets and a reduction in their choices. One of my sixth forms has had to close. Education is an investment not just in our young people, but in our future. It is time that we invested in them, stopped the cuts and held a review of the fair funding formula.

Further Education Funding

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

I absolutely agree. The Minister, who is a former apprentice herself, is a huge champion for that, along with colleagues from across the House.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. Related to the suppression of pay in the sector is a casualisation of contracts, which are being put out to subsidiary businesses within college groups, and that has an impact on the morale and pay of staff. Next Monday and Tuesday there will be strikes at Warwickshire College Group in my area. That is not what students need, and the sector does not need it either.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting question. He is absolutely right that that is not what students need, and I am not sure that it is what colleges really need at the moment. Perhaps the Minister will touch on that.

We are looking for more funding, which is needed to ensure that good staff are hired and retained. Unused space needs to be used. Interestingly, around a third of the space in the nation’s further education colleges is currently unused, so there is a capacity opportunity, which could provide more space for more students to get those key skills.

We need more quality apprentices to be hired and trained. We all have stories from our respective constituencies about the importance of that. Colleges can make a huge difference in terms of the life opportunities apprenticeships offer. The key output from that will be a leap in business productivity, which we know is one of our country’s big, outstanding challenges.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

1. What steps he is taking to support schools to deliver a diverse curriculum to sixth forms.

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

We want young people to have a range of options so that they can mature and develop the skills they will need in adult life. There was a wide consultation on reforming A-levels to ensure that they meet the needs of the future, and the new T-levels will increase the options available. I should add that £600 a year for each additional student taking maths A-level to increase take-up is now on the table.

[Matt Western]

The Minister will be well aware that we have seen a significant reduction in the take-up of subjects at sixth form level, with a 57% reduction in German, a 38% cut in Spanish, a 35% cut in French and a 38% drop in science, technology, engineering and maths—STEM—subjects. This is down to a 21% real-terms cut in education funding for sixth forms. Does she not share my concern that the young people in the secondary schools in my area will not have the same opportunities as we enjoyed when we were at school?

[Anne Milton]

We recognise that there is an issue around languages, but when I think about some of the good work that is being done on STEM subjects in particular, I am very impressed with what is going on.

College Funding

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on introducing this Petitions Committee debate today. I will try not to repeat the many points that have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber.

On her first day, the Prime Minister promised to tackle the “burning injustices” of society, with the implication that everyone in Britain, whatever their background and age, would be able to succeed. Here we are confronted with another example of deed not following word: the cuts to our further education system.

In December, I visited West Thames College in Isleworth in my constituency, which was largely rebuilt thanks to the decision of the Labour Government in 2010 and now has amazing student and technical facilities from that major capital build. The college provides a wide variety of courses, including world-renowned specialist hair and make-up degrees, whose graduates get jobs in the west end and in the film and TV industry; a range of vocational courses designed in conjunction with local employers, such as in aviation and logistics, where we have a local skill shortage; and courses in English as an additional language to enable young people recently arrived in the country to make progress in education and employment. There is specialist support for those who need additional support to access mainstream courses, and specialist courses for students with severe or complex disabilities. There is also a programme for 14 to 16-year-olds who have not coped in school for various reasons, such as health or family problems.

When I visited in early December, I met a number of students on a variety of courses—students such as Page and Rosie, who were aged 18. Each had struggled for different reasons when younger and had missed a lot of school, but West Thames is providing them with the focus to catch up on their core skills and giving them career hopes—Page in bridal hair and Rosie in car mechanics. I met 32-year-old Katrina, who is doing an access to social work course. As the lone parent of a disabled child, she has struggled to pursue a career or even, at times, to get a job. She told me how the course will enable her to apply to university and hopefully achieve her dream of becoming a professional social worker.

Uplifting as their stories are, the students on the different courses raised concerns with me about problems they had experienced recently: cuts to the teaching hours that are needed to cover the breadth of the curriculum on their courses; cuts in courses such as employability, which are so important in helping them to get a job; concerns about the provision of up-to-date specialist equipment and software, because they are changing all the time and the college needs to keep up with the changing needs of employers; and overstretched special needs and mental health support. The college is also suffering from the decimation of adult learning, with fewer and fewer adults able to attend the college.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I was lucky enough to benefit in 2008 from retraining through adult education. Does my hon. Friend agree that the great benefit of further education is the richness and breadth it can provide, and the diversity of courses that does not exist anywhere else? We are seeing 30% cuts at Warwickshire College Group, which has 29,000 students and provides a huge benefit across Warwickshire.

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The decimation of adult courses has been brought about partly through the ending of student support for over-19s. The students and colleges are dealing with that cliff edge, which comes when students reach 19. Aviation and ICT course students told me that more than half the students left at the end of level 2, because they no longer got funding. They therefore missed out on level 3, which is the best gateway to jobs.

West Thames College, like many others, has lost 30% of its funding in the last 10 years, while costs, as other hon. Members have said, have been rising. Students told me that they respected their tutors greatly and could not understand how they earned £7,000 less than equivalently experienced schoolteachers. The West Thames principal, Tracy Aust, made it clear to me that this situation, with all these problems, is not sustainable and ultimately impacts not only on students but on staff, businesses, our communities and our wider economy.

How can Government Members wring their hands about UK productivity and then oversee the decimation of the education and skills training that is fundamental to the productivity that this country so badly needs? How can they wax lyrical about social mobility and then withdraw or underfund the options that enable people to aspire and achieve?

Social Mobility Commission

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I cannot speak for my right hon. Friend, but as I have said, we now have an opportunity to get some new people on to the board. A number of the existing members had been long-standing members of the board, and although I recognise the contribution they have made, a refresh that brings in new people will provide a good opportunity to increase the body’s diversity and experience.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm whether he or the Education Secretary has had the chance to speak to any members of the board since their resignation and to establish whether the wholesale closure of our children’s centres across the country, including the 25 in Warwickshire, contributed to their resignations?

[Mr Goodwill]

The Secretary of State spoke to Alan Milburn on 22 November. I understand that the other members who have tendered their resignations have written letters; they have not made them public, which I think is interesting.

Certainly one of the challenges for local authorities is how they deliver good services for children, and having children’s centres is one way of doing so. If I may say so, when I was at the children’s centre in my constituency, the lady in charge looked out of the window and said, “Of course, the real problem is that the kids we need in this children’s centre aren’t here; they are stuck at home because their parents won’t bring them in.” There are a number of initiatives around the country that will demonstrate better solutions for addressing social mobility issues for the most difficult to reach families.