Oral Answers to Questions
Max Wilkinson Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend is a strong advocate for special educational needs in his community. We know that SENCOs perform a vital function in making sure that children and their families get the support they need to access the education they deserve. He is right that they deserve support as well. We need to encourage more people to be trained up in and understand the needs of children with special educational needs so that everybody can play their part in creating an inclusive education system.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
Businesses report that cyber-attacks are increasing, as is the amount of time they have to wait to employ someone to deal with those cyber-attacks. What is the Department doing to fill that skills gap?
Bridget Phillipson
The hon. Member is right that there are skills gaps in cyber, digital and tech overall. That is why Skills England will drive forward our work in addressing those skills gaps as well as in ensuring that our young people have great careers in the years to come. That is one area in particular where I know there is lots of opportunity for young people to enjoy a fantastic career.
Higher Education: Financial Sustainability
Max Wilkinson Excerpts(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson) on securing this important debate. University funding is undoubtedly in crisis. We have heard mentions of universities around the country, and there is a very similar story at mine, which I will tell later.
The previous Government broke the sector’s finances. That left the country with a system that is unfair to students, while pushing many institutions to the brink. We should not forget, in among that, the lecturers who work so hard in our universities too, as well as all the support staff. On the other side, we have students who increasingly feel burdened by the cost of living crisis and the long-term repayment of loans. When I speak to students today in my constituency of Cheltenham, it is a very different picture from the one that existed when I went to university in the early noughties in terms of how much they pay for rent, food and energy bills.
The previous Government made the tuition fee system unfair. The Liberal Democrats, however, cannot support simply raising fees at this stage without substantial reforms. At this stage, the right thing to do would be to undertake a full review of finance in the sector to consider ways to improve access to, and participation in, degrees, as well as the quality of courses, because value for money for students remains extremely important.
While the sector is struggling, we must absolutely not lose sight of the key challenge—removing barriers to entry for new students. That is why the Liberal Democrats believe that the reintroduction of maintenance grants is a vital first step, and I was heartened to hear the hon. Member for Erewash raise that in his opening remarks. Maintenance grants were scrapped by the Conservatives in 2016, which makes it so much harder for young people from less well-off backgrounds even to get to university in the first place. It is regrettable that the new Government are not yet committing to the full restoration of maintenance grants, and we urge Ministers to consider them as a way of bringing fairness back into the system. Scrapping maintenance grants was not the only way in which the Conservatives made the system less fair for students, lecturers, universities and everyone else. They stretched the repayment period so far into the future that some of today’s students will be paying back their loans until 2066. They also lowered the repayment threshold, leaving students paying back an extra £206 a year.
The earlier mentions of foreign students by the hon. Members for Erewash and for Luton South and South Bedfordshire (Rachel Hopkins) were pertinent, and I will now move on to that issue. The combination of the visa crackdowns and the rhetoric about foreign-born students placed further stress on the sector. The upshot is that the Office for Students suggests that about 40% of universities are likely to run a deficit this year. Locally, the University of Gloucestershire—based in my constituency and those of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Alex McIntyre) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas)—tells me that, of a turnover of £85 million, £65 million is from tuition fees, and around £20 million of that is from foreign students, but this year it has reductions in foreign students for both the January and autumn intakes. As I said, this is not just about the visa issue; it is also about rhetoric. The university tells me that its agents who recruit students from abroad say that the feedback from those students is that they are perhaps not quite so wanted in the UK as they once were, so they are selecting degree courses in Australia, America, Canada—elsewhere, where they feel more welcome.
The result is a £4 million hit to the University of Gloucestershire’s tuition fee revenue. That is significant. As a result, the university is closing some courses and consolidating others, reducing student choice. Some courses combining multiple humanities are the first to close; fashion is likely to go as well. That said, the university is doing what the Liberal Democrats have suggested too—cutting non-teaching costs and innovating.
The university is also taking advantage of Cheltenham’s cyber-security future. It recently opened a new £5.8 million cyber and digital centre, which will help cement Cheltenham’s position as the cyber capital of the UK. That places the university in the same sphere as CyNam, the local industry group, and alongside high-performing small and medium-sized enterprises that drive the local economy.
That kind of innovation has to be at the centre of what universities do in the future. However, the university warns that the benefit of the £300 tuition fee increase the Government offered this year is likely to be wiped out by the changes to national insurance for employers. I would like the Minister to respond to that point later.
The challenge for the new Government is to put things right, change the rhetoric and reinstate as much fairness in the system as they possibly can. We know that that is not going to be easy—we have all had challenges in the past, haven’t we?—but the Liberal Democrats cannot support an increase in fees at this stage. Reports now suggest that fees are to break the £10,000 barrier fairly soon and rise to £10,500 over the next five years. Before we could support that, more work is needed to undo the failures of the previous Government and restore fairness to the system.
SEND Provision
Max Wilkinson Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Munira Wilson
I thank the hon. Member for her intervention and I agree that, where possible, we need to be as inclusive as possible. Equally, there are children whose needs cannot be met in a mainstream setting and we need to have special provision for them—I will touch on that in a moment.
The funding for special needs has fallen so far short of what is needed that local authorities across the country now have a cumulative high needs deficit of approximately £3.15 billion. Many local authorities’ financial viability is being put at risk by these growing deficits. Although the safety valve programme that my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) mentioned, of which my own borough of Richmond upon Thames was an early member, has provided some relief, it is a sticking-plaster solution, kicking the can down the road. Once the agreements run out, those local authorities are projected to start racking up big deficits again.
As well as the cost of providing the support to which children are legally and morally entitled, councils are also seeing their SEND transport bills skyrocket. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) pointed out in the case from her constituency, we know that the number of children having to make long journeys has increased by almost a quarter over the past five years. Vulnerable children are having to travel ever further distances because specialist provision is not available locally for many.
Two thirds of all special schools are full or over capacity. The last Government was incredibly slow in building the special schools that they promised, and they turned down many applications from councils to build and open their own SEND schools to make that provision available. Councils face a double whammy: not only are they paying transportation costs, but they are having to buy in private provision.
Many independent SEND schools are brilliant not-for-profit charities, but there is also obscene profiteering from some special schools run by private equity firms, which are bleeding councils up and down the country dry. I hope the Labour Government will look at that because my calls to the Conservative Government fell on deaf ears.
I want to pick up a point made by the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) about the many families whose children are not eligible for EHCPs or who cannot face the gauntlet of trying to secure one. They turn to mainstream, small independent schools to better support their child because larger mainstream schools cannot support that need, but those families will be penalised by the new Government’s plan to slap VAT on independent school fees from January. Those who will not be able to afford the additional cost will turn to the state sector, putting more pressure on, as we have heard, a system in crisis.
Furthermore, the proposal to have a VAT exemption for those with EHCPs will incentivise even more parents to apply through the system. I have heard from a constituent just this week who will probably have to do that, which will put yet more pressure on a system that cannot cope with more. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about the 100,000 children who have SEND and are in the independent sector.
All of us recognise that SEND provision is an enormous challenge that will not be resolved overnight despite what the Secretary of State hopes to be able to do. I stand ready to support her in any way I can to make sure that we tackle the issue. The recent Liberal Democrat manifesto set out several ideas that I hope the Minister will look at.
First we propose that a new national body be established for SEND that would be responsible for funding the support of children with very high needs. The national body for SEND would pay for any costs above £25,000 for children with high needs. It would reduce risk for local authorities and help to tackle the postcode lottery that we have heard about.
Munira Wilson
I am not sure I have the time; I am so sorry. The national body for SEND would also act as a champion for every child with special needs or disabilities and promote widespread inclusive practice. Additionally, Liberal Democrats would like to see councils funded to reduce the amount that schools pay towards the cost of a child’s education, health and care plan. The current £6,000 threshold acts as a disincentive in the system, which can hinder schools from identifying and establishing a need before it impacts the child’s schooling. We cannot wait for things to go wrong before we fix them.
As the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) said, early intervention is key. That is why, as we have heard from many Labour Members, boosting training for teachers and for early years practitioners, so that we can identify needs early and support early, is so crucial.
Behind every statistic and case study we have heard about today, there is a child who is struggling, with parents and carers who are under stress. We have a duty to act. Liberal Democrats believe that every child, no matter their needs and background, deserves the opportunity to thrive. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments and to working with the Education Secretary to fix our broken SEND system. The children deserve it.