GCSEs

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend puts her finger on a really important issue. One thing that I am anxious to do is to secure, with the help of the regulator, a proper understanding that can help us to encourage those responsible for qualifications in Wales to recognise which changes are appropriate and which are not.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

As the Secretary of State knows, we have some of the best secondary schools in the country in Hackney, where rigour is very important. As the Secretary of State’s approach to education policy seems to be that it is in one day, out the next—he is playing hokey cokey—can he assure head teachers, parents and pupils in my area and around the country that there will not be a lot more changes down the path?

[Michael Gove]

A clear direction of travel has, I hope, been set today and we will of course consult and listen, but the hon. Lady is absolutely right. In Hackney, a high level of ambition has been embedded for years, and I know there are head teachers and teachers in Hackney who welcome the direction we have set today.

Child-care Ratios

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Our policies are all about giving parents more choice over the type of child care they receive. I, like him, am very supportive of childminders. Their number halved under the previous Government because of the additional rules and regulations that were put in place and how they were managed.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister was piling them so high and wanting to teach them so cheap that things were bound to come crashing down at some point. She cited economists in favour of the proposals, and she cited the head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, as being in favour of better qualifications—but not, I note, in favour of higher ratios—but what about parents and child carers themselves? Can the Minister tell us which parents and child carers supported her proposals?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The whole point of our proposals is that they give parents more choice. If parents want their child to attend a nursery that is more structured and that is teacher-led with larger groups, they should be able to have that choice. The excellent écoles maternelles and nurseries available in France simply could not run in this country because of the regulations we have at the moment. If parents would rather have a smaller group size and a less well-qualified staff member, that is entirely up to them—it is about choice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who highlights a key component of our early years intervention programme, which will see a rise from 20% to 40% in the number of two-year-olds from low-income families benefiting from the statutory duty. We anticipate that it will ensure that they get high quality care at a much younger age so that their future outcomes will be much more positive. That can only be a good thing for the people and children of Blackpool and across the country.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

First we had the pile ’em high, teach ’em cheap approach to child care, increasing ratios for child minders. Today, the children’s Minister was reported talking about chaos in nurseries for two-year-olds. Meanwhile, in my constituency, parents wait two and a half years for a place for their baby. What are the Government doing to increase the supply of child care for working parents?

[Mr Timpson]

I think what the hon. Lady said towards the end of her question is exactly why we need to push hard to create a high-quality child care system that is both affordable and flexible. Less than a third of nurseries currently employ graduate teachers, yet the importance of qualified staff is clear; it has a direct link to the quality of child care and therefore outcomes for children. The hon. Lady should welcome the moves we are making to increase flexibility and improve quality and affordability, so that more parents can have better child care.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

A Minister will certainly meet my hon. Friend.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

First, we had the pile ’em high, teach ’em cheap approach to child care and in the Children and Families Bill, there is a move towards agencies, but there has still been no unveiling of the supposed policy on tax breaks for working parents. Will the Secretary of State let us know when that is coming and whether it will replace the tax credits that parents already get?

[Michael Gove]

All tax issues are a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His policies are always right and should always be announced when he wishes to announce them and not, however beseeching the hon. Lady’s questions are, when she wants them to be announced.

Children and Families Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend share my fear that agencies may cream off a profit and add costs to parents rather than supporting better child care? We have seen that happen in the older care sector.

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend has raised a legitimate concern that has been expressed by a number of other people. I hope that the agencies will provide a genuine opportunity for the raising of standards and improvement of quality in the child care sector, but I think that if the system is not managed and co-ordinated carefully, with a continuing role for local authorities, there will be a risk of our going down the path described by my hon. Friend. The quality and cost of child care, as well as parental confidence in childminders, must surely be at the centre of any changes.

Since 2010, the Government have moved away from the last Labour Government’s emphasis on children’s well-being and early intervention. We welcome the additional funds that have been allocated to adoption, but why do the Government always raid the early intervention budget for such new forms of funding?

We are halfway through a Parliament during which the Prime Minister told us that we would have the most “family friendly” Government in Europe. What have we seen instead? We have seen a £l.1 billion cut in early intervention funds, a 10% reduction in the child care element of working tax credit, and cuts in Sure Start as a result of which there are now 400 fewer Sure Start centres than there were in 2010.

Labour Members welcome the opportunity to debate the children and families agenda, not least because it has been sidelined by the present Government. We will work throughout the Bill’s passage to reach a cross-party consensus on lasting reforms. Our policy will be led by evidence, and by what is in the best interests of the children and families of this country. I think that the Bill gives Parliament an opportunity to reaffirm the principles of Every Child Matters, and to send the Government the message that inclusion and children’s well-being go hand in hand with high standards of education for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I represent one of the youngest constituencies in the UK: over 20% of the population of my borough is under 16. Between the last two censuses, the population in the borough of Hackney grew by 30,000. That included a large increase in under-fives, and many people in their early 20s and 30s, many of them parents. Child care is therefore of great importance in my constituency, as well as up and down the country.

The Bill deals with many important issues, but I want to focus on child care. The muddle of Government child care policy is not helped by the child care clauses. They make nothing clearer; in fact, they make the chaos worse. First, the Bill repeals the local authority duty to assess child care provision. I am against that, because it is important that we provide an accurate assessment of the availability of, and demand for, child care in an area, and it is reasonable to expect that to be done locally. I am greatly in favour of local authorities having more say on the subject, but if we remove that statutory duty, in areas unlike mine, where there are not that many children, that may be something that falls off the edge of a local authority’s area of responsibilities. That is another example of the Government’s small-state-is-good ideology, this time on a local level, and with working parents as the victims. It does not square with the Government’s desires—all our desires, indeed—and need to encourage people into work.

There is also a huge issue to do with the proposed ratios between children and their nursery carers or childminders. The policy is unworkable. It beggars belief. It does nothing to reduce costs, but if one were to say, on a generous reading, that it did, it would be at the cost of quality. So that Members are absolutely clear, let me explain that the Government propose that the adult-child ratios for nurseries should go from one adult per three children to one adult per four children for one-year-olds and younger—for the baby room in a nursery, as most of us would know it—and from one adult per four children to one adult per six children for two-year olds. They propose changing the childminder-to-child ratios from 1:1 to 1:2 for the under-ones, and from 1:3 to 1:4 for children aged two to five.

I am the second of 10 children, so I do not have a problem with lots of children being looked after, but imagine taking six toddlers through potty training, or to the park. A constituent wrote to me on the subject. She is just one of the many parents, childminders and professional child carers in Hackney who are really concerned about the proposal. Her child is looked after by a childminder, whom she values greatly. She says:

“If this ratio had come in before I had gone back to work I may not have gone at all. I didn’t want my baby in a nursery. I feel very strongly that parents need the option of leaving our children in a safe, caring home environment”

with a childminder. She speaks for so many parents up and down the country, and indeed for childminders.

That brings me on to the proposals in the Bill relating to the setting up of childminder agencies. I mentioned my concerns about this in an intervention. I am not alone in my scepticism. It is unclear from the Bill how the proposals will work. Among other things, I am concerned that the concept of an agency is different to different people. It might mean one thing to the Minister who made the proposal, and another to others. Is it a children’s centre or a local authority effectively acting as an agent for Ofsted and professional development locally—something that I could support, with the right safeguards—or is it the relentless march of the private sector, supported by the Government, who are enabling it to turn a profit from the relationship between child- minders and parents? We have had no further clarity on that from the Minister today. Will the agencies be able to allocate any childminder to any family, or will the parent have a say? The local, very specific negotiation about a child is vital to the relationship between parents and childminders.

Will there be the recreation of what we could laughingly call the paradigm of the agencies that manage domiciliary care for older people? As someone who has been a carer for two older people, I would hate to see child care go down that route—to see agencies creaming off a profit while providing inadequate care—when we have a very good childminder sector that has improved immensely thanks to the Ofsted badge of quality, which is prized by childminders and valued by parents.

That is not to say that I do not support any change. Sometimes there are challenges arising from Ofsted inspecting such a range of childminders, but I would prefer that to be done through the local authority, or possibly the local children’s centre, both of which already have a relationship with the childminder, rather than through new agencies being set up.

I want to touch on special educational needs, which are a big issue in my constituency. Of course I welcome the principle of improving provision; I think we would all agree on that. On all these issues, I seek to work with the Government to try to improve what they have to offer, because we have no great desire to make a political battleground of an issue as important as the future of our children, but where are the safeguards around special educational needs, and the measures to ensure that the new education, health and care plans include proper, joined-up working to make life easier for parents and to deliver swifter, fairer outcomes for children?

At the moment, there is no single point of accountability for parents seeking redress, and that is a big challenge in areas such as mine. Parents with deep pockets who care for their children can find the money to challenge the provision that is made—or not made, more likely—for their children, and to argue the case. However, many families in my constituency—the majority—cannot afford to pay for their own private support through the SEN minefield. Although there is a lot of good talk about the new provisions, there is no detail on how they will work. A single point of redress is very important if there is to be a level playing field for all parents—and, more important, all children, as they seek the educational support that they need.

For all that I want a cross-party approach on the importance of quality child care and proper SEN provision, my worry is that the former Children’s Minister, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), was correct when he said to the Select Committee on Education a month ago that the children and families agenda was being “downgraded” by his colleague, the Secretary of State for Education, and was “a declining priority” for the Government. I hope that is not the case. I hope that the House can send the message to the Government that we care very deeply about making sure that the Bill really delivers for parents, and for the children in my constituency who will be paying the pensions of the rest of the country in years to come.

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I recognise what the Minister is trying to do in seeking to reform important areas of law affecting children, young people and their families. New as I am, however, I am beginning to learn that the devil is in the detail when it comes to many of this Government’s Bills. I am not alone in that view. The Children’s Commissioner for England, Maggie Atkinson, said that she supported

“the objectives of the Children and Families Bill”,

but was

“concerned about some of the detail. Some measures proposed could be interpreted as overriding the principle that all decisions are to be made in the best interests of the child”.

In preparing for today’s debate, I was deeply disappointed by the lack of an impact assessment of the full effects of the Bill. I found one on business, but I did not find any relating to how the provisions would affect the groups of children and their families to whom the Bill applies. I feel that that is deeply disturbing. Again, my views are shared by others, including the Association of School and College Leaders. Because of the Bill’s complexity and the range of areas that it covers, there is concern about whether proper parliamentary scrutiny can be given to ensure that it has no unintended consequences. I think we should listen to such organisations.

The Bill’s positive elements have been recognised, but a number of concerns have also been raised, and I would like to focus on a couple of them. Although the steps forward on adoption have been recognised, we have heard concerns about adoption and about the importance of ensuring that the interests of children are paramount in the family justice system and of the need to strengthen the independence and powers of the Children’s Commissioner for England.

If I may, I will focus in my remaining time on part 3, which deals with special educational needs. These provisions have been heralded as the biggest reforms to SEN provision in over 30 years. Replacing the dual system of assessment for children and young adults with a single system and the education, health and care plans is a positive change. I am mindful of what colleagues on the Education Committee said in their pre-legislative scrutiny. The Committee observed that

“the legislation lacks detail, without which a thorough evaluation of the likely success of the Government’s proposals is impossible”.

Although some proposals, such as the pathfinders, have been supported and taken forward, Scope and other disability charities in the Special Education Consortium have continued to express their ongoing concerns, particularly about clause 30 and the local offer. The real concern is that, as the provisions stand, they allow for no more than a directory of services, with no duty on local agencies to provide what is set out in the local offer or to define service standards, although there has been some movement there. The risk is that the Bill’s objectives in seeking to improve educational outcomes for children with SEN and disabled children and their families will not be met. There is also concern that children with less complex needs will fail to reach the threshold for new education, health and care provision in much the same way as only the adults most in need of care services are able to access them.

[Meg Hillier]

One concern I have encountered a lot in my constituency is where a child has something that is difficult to diagnose or put a name to. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that unless we get this right in the Bill, those children, their parents and their teachers will not have any better provision than is currently on offer?

[Debbie Abrahams]

I do indeed share that concern. Similar issues have been raised with me in my discussions with different charities.

We know that one in eight families has a child with SEN, and it is estimated that one in six will not be provided for under the Bill. We already know that 1.4 million children with SEN do not have a statement and will not be eligible for EHCP—education, health and care provision—under the Bill. Approximately 87% of all children with SEN are currently supported through school action or school action plus—in the provision of speech and language therapy, for example. With the abolition of these programmes, those children will rely totally on the local offer, so we must ensure that it is strengthened.

I want to refer quickly to accountability, which is still an issue in respect of these services. We need to make sure that children and their families can hold people to account and be engaged in the provision of their services, and the monitoring review of those services. Simply publishing the comments of parents and young people does not really do what is needed. We need to ensure that the engagement is meaningful, as reflected in the UN convention of the rights of the child.

This Bill is inadequate not only in the proposals it puts forward, but in its failure to recognise the policy context that surrounds it. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) spoke about that context, which includes complex legislation on welfare reforms and health system reforms, as well as massive cuts in local authority funding. It remains to be seen how well those local authorities will cope with that.

I want to conclude with a reference to one of my constituents: the mum of an eight-year-old son with Down’s syndrome. She says that taking him to all the various appointments he needs, whether for physiotherapy or speech therapy, or even for accessing an appropriate shoe service, given that he needs to wear corrective boots, has proved to be a full-time job in itself. Such demands on her time meant she was forced to give up work. As the household income has dropped with her loss of earnings, her husband has taken a higher-paid job in Scotland to make ends meet. Now the family is together only for the occasional weekend. Joanna says:

“I am not naive, I don’t expect services to exist just for me, or facilities to be for my convenience. The frustration comes from the possibility of services being made easier.”

This is an example of the stress experienced by families across the country in raising children with disabilities and special educational needs. Positive though some elements of the Bill are, it does not reassure us that the particular pressures that these families face will be addressed. I hope that the Government will look again at how to strengthen the provisions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

We are certainly prepared to consider that further. My hon. Friend will know that in the simpler code that was introduced on 1 February 2012, we clarified some aspects of the admissions situation and made parents’ rights on deferral much clearer. The Department is also meeting parents who are affected by such issues to consider any further changes.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Earlier, the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), hinted again about changes to child care. A week or so ago there were major trails in the Sunday papers about imminent announcements. Has she been thwarted in her ambitions by members of the Government who do not wish to see women back in the workplace and contributing to the Government’s tax take?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

We will shortly announce proposals on child care. As I mentioned earlier, we are not getting value for money for the £5 billion that we spend. In the mid-term review, we said that we would put forward a new offer for working parents. At the moment, our parents pay more than those in virtually any other OECD country, after 13 years of Labour creating a system that does not work. We are going to fix it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that high-speed broadband is important so that students can access the best-quality teaching materials from around the world. That is why, as a Government, we are pursuing high-speed broadband across the country.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Bridge academy in Hackney and our university technology college, among other schools in Hackney, provide proper digital learning for jobs for five years hence. Given the Minister’s words about the importance of learning in this field, what is she doing to make sure that the school curriculum is preparing students for the work force for businesses such as those in Tech City which require this home-grown talent?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are working with leading figures in IT and computing to develop a programme of study that will encourage children to learn to code and programme from an early age. The problem with the previous information and communications technology curriculum, as everybody agreed, is that it was focused on using programmes instead of understanding how to programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

14. What assessment he has made of the 2012 GCSE English results; and if he will make a statement.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

16. What assessment he has made of the 2012 GCSE English results; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

On 18 October, provisional national and local authority level GCSE results for 2012 were published. The percentage of pupils achieving grades A* to C in English had fallen by three percentage points to 66.2%. The independent regulator, Ofqual, continues its investigation into the awarding of English GCSEs this year, and is now looking into why some schools achieved the results that they had expected while others did not. The final report will be published shortly.

[Michael Gove]

I share the concern felt by the hon. Gentlemen. We must wait to see the Ofqual report before we can be more certain about what went wrong this year, but it is clear that there were a variety of factors consequent on the design of the examination, and that we need to take steps to remedy them.

[Meg Hillier]

In Hackney, 103 pupils received D grades in English in June. In some cases, classmates at the same schools achieved lower scores in January, and received C grades. In each of the five schools affected in Hackney, at least 85% of ethnic minority pupils received Ds rather than Cs. The Secretary of State talked about looking into why some schools had achieved less than others. Will he look into this very serious matter as well?

[Michael Gove]

I certainly shall. Hackney has an exemplary record of educational improvement, and when there are inconsistencies such as this, we must look at the evidence to work out what has happened.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

Absolutely. I completely agree with what my hon. Friend has just said.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend hit the nail on the head when he talked about abolition by stealth. Anyone who has ever had cause to take an issue to the Equality and Human Rights Commission knows that going to an independent body that has rights over other bodies to take action is vital. Taking an internal route through an organisation is sometimes too slow and inadequate. Will he make a commitment about what the Labour Government will do when we are back in power in 2015?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

It is absolutely true. The Minister should check Hansard.

With this latest new clause, the Government are doing precisely what they said they would not, and we oppose it, as do more than 70% of those who responded to the Government’s consultation.

[Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend is making his point very powerfully. My worry is that under the umbrella of saying that they want to get rid of regulation, the Government are affecting some of the most vulnerable workers in our society, who do not have the protection of a well-paid job and education to argue their case but rely on the law in question. Without it, they will just have to shut up and put up with the harassment that they face daily, often in domiciliary situations such as the one that he described.

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head and identifies the Government’s real motivation. We are in the third quarter of a contraction, which we will hopefully come out of in the next quarter. We were promised many things in relation to the economy that have not turned out to be the case. In their desperation to get the economy moving, and with their complete refusal to stimulate the economy, the Government are now doing the traditional thing and looking to water down people’s rights at work as a substitute for a proper growth plan.

New clause 13 would abolish discrimination questionnaires, which employees can submit to their employers to obtain further information and make up their minds about whether to institute proceedings, or maybe to assist them in reaching a settlement with their employer. I know those questionnaires well, because I was professionally involved in drafting them on behalf of employees. I was also involved in drafting the responses on behalf of employers.

From the employees’ point of view, there is no doubt that those questionnaires help them access evidence at an early stage, which is incredibly important so that, as I said, they can determine whether to litigate or precipitate a settlement. They will now be all the more important because of the large fees that the Government are levying on people who wish to institute claims in an employment tribunal.

Turning to the employers’ point of view, the Government’s own Equalities Office carried out research on the questionnaires and found that only 2% of private sector employers had had to complete one in the past three years, and that most of those who had done so agreed that responding to them had been straightforward. We do not need to abolish the questionnaires, and I do not accept the reasons for doing so that have been put forward by the Minister. I say that not only from a political point of view but in the light of my professional experience of working for a number of years on these matters.

Exam Reform

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. One of the things that I am delighted by is that, under the leadership shown by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the number of apprenticeships has increased. In addition, thanks to the work put in place by the former skills Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), we have seen a growth in the number of university technical colleges and studio schools. The Wolf report, which has also been referred to, has set us on a path where we can ensure that high-quality vocational qualifications are offered to all students who believe that that is the right course for them.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Under the Secretary of State’s proposals, it seems that the experimental generation who will have gained qualifications in 2016 will have either two different qualifications or none. I am not clear—perhaps the Secretary of State could provide an answer—as to whether there will be an age cap on achieving the English baccalaureate. What happens to those who do not get that grade?

[Michael Gove]

I see no age cap, and I stress that one of the things that has been very encouraging during the course of today is that a number of schools have suggested that they would like to pilot this qualification even earlier than the planned start date. I hope that we can build up a degree of consensus behind exactly what it is that we propose to introduce and that the schools that are enthusiastic about it are able to make sure that students who do not get a good pass at 16 have the chance to do so at 17 or 18.