Suicide Prevention and the National Curriculum

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for bringing this petition to us.

My constituent Mike Palmer’s daughter, Beth, died by suicide on 28 March 2020, in the first week of lockdown. She was just 17. She was a talented singer, with a vivacious personality. She was deeply loved by friends and family—a great character who belonged on stage. Indeed, Beth was the last person anyone would have thought would take her own life. She had so much to live for. Sadly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), the chair of the APPG, said, this is far too common: suicide is the biggest killer of under-35s in the UK, with around 200 school children each year taking their own lives.

Mike felt Beth’s loss so acutely that he was plunged into a suicidal spiral himself. A complex grief is left behind for families. The facts show that around 135 people are affected by one suicide and that those closest to the individual lost are 80% to 300% times more likely to take their own lives. However, through that despair, fate was to play a part. Mike was to team up with Tim and Andy, the fathers of two other beautiful young women, Emily and Sophie, who were also sadly lost to suicide, and so 3 Dads Walking was born.

For these men, a simple walk between their homes, raising funds and awareness for the charity Papyrus, which is dedicated to the prevention of young suicide, has turned into a life mission to prevent other families from going through the same lifelong agony that they face. Walking in 2021 and 2022, they covered over 900 miles and were on the road for 46 days. During the walks, Mike, Andy and Tim were joined continuously by other bereaved parents and those affected by suicide. Through conversations with those individuals, the same messages kept coming through: if our children had only known how to reach out, and had had an awareness of how to keep themselves safe, they might be here now. 3 Dads Walking believes that, if our young people’s greatest danger is themselves, we as a society should tell them and teach them, in an age-appropriate and sensitive way, how to keep themselves and others safe.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I put on record that many of my constituents in Weaver Vale have been inspired by 3 Dads Walking, and the clarion call to ensure that suicide prevention is integrated into the curriculum and that there is greater regulation. The call for greater regulation of online harm has come from my constituents who have been affected by suicide in their family.

[Mike Kane]

I thank my colleague for his intervention. I am sure that the Education Minister will have heard that fully. I know the Minister to be an extraordinarily honourable man who takes the education of our children seriously, as I previously shadowed him in the post for a number of years.

We should talk about mental health in schools more, building the awareness and coping mechanisms that will foster more positive mental wellbeing and resilience in young people and helping to lay the foundations that will keep young people safe and reverse the tragically high rates of young suicide. Mike tells me that some of the most powerful stories that the 3 Dads hear on their walks are from those who have experienced severe mental health episodes, and in some cases have attempted suicide, but who have overcome those struggles and are now living happily, with full lives. Those stories show that hope is always possible and that people, especially with support, can make different choices and overcome the worst mental health struggles. Is an alternative outcome for families affected by suicide not worth fighting for? Surely the testimonies starkly demonstrate what is at stake if we do not act and what we can offer if we do. By providing life-saving knowledge to our young people, we can give them and their families an alternative path—a path to hope, a path to a happy and full life for them and their loved ones. That is a path that everyone deserves.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on introducing the debate, but I pay particular tribute to Andy Airey, Mike Palmer and Tim Owen, whom we know collectively as 3 Dads Walking. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) summed it up brilliantly: there could be no greater tribute to your beautiful girls than the work you are doing in raising awareness, in fundraising and in getting this petition. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) that the Minister will probably not attend a more important debate in his career. We have already heard personal stories of people who have been affected by suicide, and I think we will be hearing more as the debate proceeds.

I fully support the proposals set out in the petition to make suicide prevention a compulsory part of the school curriculum. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central also made such an important point about converting walking to talking. I think we should bottle that phrase; it sums up where we need to go.

We know that 90% of suicides are associated with mental health issues but that 75% of people who take their own life had no prior contact with mental health services, so the earlier that children and young people are aware of and understand their feelings, but also where to access mental health services when they need them, the better. I would like to raise a few more points specifically in relation to deaths by suicide. In 2021, 5,583 people died by suicide.

[Mike Kane]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech, particularly in the light of her excellent health service background, long before she came to this House. I hope that I have now stood on my feet long enough to bring her back into the debate.

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is very kind, and I thank him.

Unfortunately, our much-loved 20-year-old nephew, Jack, died when he took his life. Jack was a lot younger than his 11 cousins and was doted on by all. At our regular Sunday morning breakfasts, he would be in the centre of the room, laughing at someone’s joke or telling everybody about the week that he had had at school. He was gentle, bright and kind. We are a very large family—my husband, John, is the eldest of seven and we all have our children; of course, Jack’s mum is John’s baby sister—but we are a very close one, and 19 months on from Jack’s death and a month after his inquest, to say we are all still devastated would be no exaggeration. This is absolutely nothing compared with the heartbreak his mum is going through. She has given me her permission to speak about the context of Jack’s suicide, in the hope that that may help others.

At 17 and without his mum’s knowledge, Jack was prescribed Roaccutane. Roaccutane is the trade name for isotretinoin, a medicine prescribed for severe acne, and has been available in the UK since 1983. It was also approved for use in the USA, under the trade name Accutane, in 1982. However, in July 2009, following the filing of thousands of lawsuits in which Accutane use was said to be associated with severe, life-changing health problems, both physical and psychological—in some cases many years after Accutane use—it was withdrawn from sale in the US.

In November 2020, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency announced that the Commission on Human Medicines had established an isotretinoin expert working group. This evidence review was prompted when the highest levels of fatalities associated with Roaccutane use was recorded in 2019 by the MHRA’s yellow card reporting scheme—an online portal for reporting adverse drug reactions. In total, 12 fatalities were reported in 2019—10 by suicide—and there were 85 serious incidents and 19 non-serious ones.

At Jack’s inquest last month, the coroner requested that the MHRA present evidence about the review’s findings. The scandal is that the review had been completed at the end of 2021, but the findings and recommendations had not been published because of “complications associated with Brexit”. It transpired that the recommendations, which 15 months on still have not been published, included requiring two doctors to agree to Roaccutane being prescribed to under-18s and prescribing it only after all other acne treatments had been tried. It is a serious drug, and it needs to be closely monitored.

The MHRA representative attending the inquest revealed that, since the completion of the review in 2021, there had been a further 81 adverse psychiatric events, including one suicide and one attempted suicide. On this issue, the family were pleased that the coroner had issued a prevention of future deaths report to the Health and Social Care Secretary, and the family looks forward to his early response and the publication of the 2021 review on isotretinoin. However, we believe that there needs to be an immediate awareness of the dangers of this group of drugs so that more of our young people and their families do not go through what we have been through.

The family also want to raise issues about the suicides of university students. Every year, three students per 100,000 will take their own life. Despite Universities UK’s “Suicide-safer universities” guidelines, there seems to be an ad hoc approach to how they are implemented. Prior to his death, Jack had been a first-year student at the University of York. In March 2020, he expressed concerns about his mental health to his departmental support officer, but although Jack was signposted to mental health support, this was not followed through. What Jack displayed was more or less word for word what was in the Universities UK’s guidelines on recognising signs and vulnerabilities, but it was not responded to as such, and it certainly was not flagged centrally.

We believe that, at registration, universities should get students to identify an individual—a parent, guardian or named advocate—for university staff to get in touch with if they have health concerns about a student. We also believe that there needs to be training for all university staff regarding suicide prevention. At this stage, I also pay tribute to Papyrus for its work on awareness training, particularly its campaign #SpotTheSigns, and similarly to the Samaritans for its training. That needs to be widespread not just in schools but in higher education institutions, so there is an understanding of the signs and symptoms.

We will never know exactly why our Jack took his life. We miss him every day, and want to do all that we can to prevent others from feeling that suicide is the only way out of the pain that they feel, because it is not.

Free School Meals and Child Poverty

Mike Kane Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

On behalf of the constituents of Liverpool, Riverside, I extend my heartfelt wishes to the Queen and the royal family and wish her a speedy recovery.

I am grateful to have secured this Adjournment debate on free school meals and tackling child poverty. This is a very urgent and timely call to action for the new Prime Minister, calling for the roll-out of universal free school meals. I believe no issue is more important than making sure that no child goes hungry.

I congratulate the Minister on her new position and the new Education Secretary—the fifth we have had this year. I hope the Minister is serious about tackling the very real poverty crisis that has exploded over the past 12 years of Tory rule. We know it is likely to get worse over the coming months, which will be the hardest winter for thousands of children growing up in poverty.

When I applied for this debate before the summer recess, I had intended to focus on how the benefits of investing in universal free school meals would help to reverse the long-standing and ever-deepening inequalities in health and educational attainment between poorer pupils and their more affluent peers. But the economic landscape has worsened significantly. Everything is going up except incomes for the worst-off. The cost of living crisis is set to plunge two thirds of the country into fuel poverty and three quarters of a million children into poverty. The call for universal free school meals has now become much more urgent.

If the new Prime Minister is to prevent children from freezing and starving this winter, rolling out universal free school meals must be a key cornerstone of any emergency support plan. Instead of a real living wage and a welfare system that supports people out of poverty, we have a crisis of insecure work and poverty pay, and a welfare system that drives people into destitution. Make no bones about it, we are facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Inflation and interest rates are going up, while the pound is plunging and a record rise in food prices is pushing millions more into food insecurity.

As pupils head back to school this week, nearly a quarter will be eligible for free school meals. That number has risen by nearly 50% since 2019 and is rising every single day. It is a clear indication of the explosion in child poverty that this Government have contributed to during the last 12 years of austerity. We have seen attacks on the welfare system and under-resourcing of the public sector. School pupils have already suffered setbacks during the pandemic, with inequalities in educational attainment widening, particularly between the north and the south. In my constituency of Liverpool, Riverside, 11 children in every class of 30 were already living in poverty before the current cost of living crisis.

Classroom hunger drives the education attainment gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers, leaving poorer children over 18 months behind their better-off peers by the time they leave secondary school. A-level and GCSE results this year showed regional and national disparities. The attainment gap between the richest and the poorest pupils is more pronounced than ever. Even before the current cost of living crisis, Government policies failed to level up and instead fuelled spiralling inequalities.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate on such an important matter. As a former primary school teacher for many years, I know what she is saying: a child cannot learn if they are hungry in school. Does she agree that the announcement in today’s energy statement does nothing to assure schools that are having to cut back their free school meal service to young people that those young people will not be going hungry in the weeks and months to come?

[Kim Johnson]

I do agree; children cannot learn on empty bellies. It is scandalous that, even at this young age, the futures of the most of them have already been decided. Their life expectancy, job opportunities, salary, housing and so much more have already been predetermined by their background—by situations that are outside their control.

The National Education Union’s campaign, “No Child Left Behind”, clearly identified child poverty as the biggest scandal of our time, with 4 million already living in poverty and a further three quarters of a million projected to be plunged into poverty in the coming months. In a recent NEU survey, over eight in 10 teachers said that their students demonstrate fatigue and an inability to concentrate as a result of poverty. Nearly three quarters said that their students were unable to complete homework and more than half said that their students had experienced hunger or ill health. Millions of children are going hungry every single day. The current restrictive eligibility, complicated registration procedures and the stigma built into a system that separates rich and poor mean that children are already missing out on existing support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. However, one of the benefits of the holiday activities fund is that the decision making is given to local authorities, so that they can design systems that meet the need in their areas and make sure that they design tailored programmes and deliver services to meet the individual needs of the people they serve. He should understand that the amount is £600 million over three years, so there is £200 million a year.

In my constituency in other roles that I held, I spent a lot of time working with families and young children before I became a Member of Parliament. I am very passionate about this role and am looking forward to working with Members across the House. I do not have children but I have nieces. However, someone does not have to be a parent to find the idea of a hungry child plain wrong, as I think we all agree across the House. We can do—and are doing—something about it and I promise hon. Members that child wellbeing and nutrition is right at the top of my priorities.

[Mike Kane]

I welcome the Minister to her position. Having worked with her on the transport brief at the start of the pandemic, I know that she will be diligent in the role.

Even though my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) is a Liverpool fan, she mentioned Marcus Rashford—one of the most famous child hunger campaigners in the country, and a famous son of Wythenshawe in my constituency. He grew up just down the road; one of us is a great footballer, one of us is a great politician, and I am neither. If it were offered, would the Minister be prepared to meet him in her new role?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I very rarely refuse a request for a meeting. I am hoping to have many months to meet stakeholders, interested parties and people who feel as passionate as I do about these areas.

I am confident that the safeguards we have in place mean that once a child is through the school gates in the morning, the one thing that they should never have to worry about is where their next meal is coming from. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside for her patience with my being new to the post, and I look forward to working with her.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Come on, I’ve got to get through these questions. I call Mike Kane.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

T2. The brilliant Sale High School in my constituency is in desperate need of refurbishment. To that end, I have been working with local partners to put a deal on the table. With the help of the Minister in the other place, the deal went to the Department’s playing field strategy committee in June. Will the Minister please apprise the House of the outcome?

[The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)]

I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has been pressing my noble Friend in the other place on this matter. The case for the high school did not go to the playing field panel in June, because queries requiring further information from the applicant were raised by the Department’s design team. The applicant has been fully updated on the request and the information required. The case should now be going to the panel in September and I will ensure we update him at that stage.

Children’s Education Recovery and Childcare Costs

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. We do want to see better take-up of the offers coming in, and the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), has been working hard on that. Perhaps he will say a bit more about it in his closing remarks, but I recognise the issue. Of course, we also provide a lot of direct funding to the disadvantaged through the two-year-old offer, as I think the hon. Lady will recognise.

We know that the covid pandemic has caused considerable disruption to the education of our nation’s children and young people. Evidence shows that that has been significant for all people, in particular the disadvantaged, reversing the years of progress we had seen in closing the attainment gap. The gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers had narrowed, both at primary and secondary levels, between 2011 and 2019, following the introduction of the pupil premium. Despite the impact of covid-19, the latest pupil progress data published at the end of March 2022 shows that we are now seeing good progress for many pupils, but we know that certain groups and age groups need more help.

Since 2021, the additional gaps in attainment created by the pandemic appear to have reduced in primary maths and secondary reading. Evidence shows that, on average, primary pupils recovered around two thirds of progress lost due to the pandemic in reading and around half the progress lost in maths. To mitigate the impact on secondary pupils in key stage 3, we committed to doubling the rate of the recovery premium for secondary schools for the next two academic years from 2022-23. That will help schools to deliver evidence-based approaches to support the most disadvantaged pupils, from small group support in reading and maths to summer schools.

We know that literacy is fundamental to children’s education. As mentioned in the schools White Paper, since 2010 the Government have placed the effective teaching of phonics at the heart of the curriculum, introducing the annual phonics screening check in 2012 for pupils at the end of year 1 and incorporating phonics into teacher standards.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Are you Nick Gibb in disguise?

[Mr Walker]

It is great to hear an Opposition Member paying tribute to my predecessor.

In 2018 we launched a £26.3 million English hubs programme dedicated to improving the teaching of reading, with a focus on supporting children who are making the slowest progress. In 2019, 82% of pupils in year 1 met the expected standard in the phonics screening check compared with just 58% when the check was introduced in 2012.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I recognise that my hon. Friend has consistently pressed the case for his old school in this Chamber and through meetings with myself and with colleagues in the Lords. The next round of our school rebuilding programme has now opened. We expect to select around 300 projects this year, and our aim is to prioritise those with the greatest condition needs. I welcome the fact that a bid has gone in from his school, demonstrating that condition need. Although I can assure him that he has done everything that he can to draw the attention of our Department to these issues, he will understand that I cannot commit to any individual school until the selection process is complete.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I cannot begin to describe how much Sale High School in my constituency needs a rebuild. There is a local financial solution on the table, which is being put at risk by Department for Education delays. Will the Minister commit to helping me bring this to a resolution today?

[Mr Walker]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I just gave. Of course I am happy to make sure that the Department looks carefully at any individual bid of schools, especially where there is particular condition need. If he would like to write to me, I shall have a look at that case.

Careers Guidance in Schools

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Rees, and to follow my parliamentary neighbour, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey). We share the second runway of Manchester airport; I could run from my end of it to her end of it, crossing the River Bollin quite smoothly, if they would let me through the security barrier. We should attempt it one day.

I do not want to make too much of a party political point, but I want to say, particularly with my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) in his place, how much Labour Members are beginning to take careers really seriously. At our party conference this year, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) pledged to reintroduce two weeks’ worth of compulsory work experience and give every child access to quality careers advice in school. When was the last time a leader of a political party of any colour used their flagship conference speech to talk about the importance of careers education? Indeed, I cannot remember a time when careers education was at the forefront of any keynote speech. It is clearly not a regular occurrence—perhaps once in a blue moon, but I would say that as a Manchester City fan.

Careers education is important to us, particularly for the Opposition, because it is vital for the future of this country, and vital for securing a socially just society. Social justice can be achieved only when we do everything in our power to ensure that our young people can find where their best talents lie and to empower them with the knowledge, skills and understanding to find the route that will help them to realise their potential and aspirations. Evidence shows that high-quality careers education is linked to improved academic attainment, both in academic motivation and in exam results; increased wages; and, after entering the workplace, reduced chances of dropping out and becoming NEET—not in education, employment or training. It creates a better alignment of careers aspirations with the jobs market.

A step change in delivering the best possible careers education for our young people would be ensuring that we do more to inform all our young people about apprenticeships and technical education, which is something about which I am passionate in my constituency. That is why I am encouraged to see the latest report from the Careers & Enterprise Company on trends in careers education, which says that progress is being made in the area. However, clearly, as the report points out, there is more work to be done.

I was shadow Schools Minister for over three years. I had the privilege of visiting many schools all over the country, but I am sure that hon. Members will agree that there is no feeling quite like going back to the school that you attended as a child. I was particularly pleased to visit Saint Paul’s Catholic High School, in my constituency, where I went to school, to see how it was using careers education to drive whole-school improvement. The school comes out as the poorest in England year on year, as it did when I attended it in the 1980s. I was inspired by how the school had embraced and embedded the role of a careers leader to drive forward its careers programme, and by how its career strategy was being supported by a senior volunteer from the world of business—at that time it was Jaguar Land Rover. It was making a real difference. This year, the school has also joined its local careers hub, which has been accelerating the quality of careers education across Greater Manchester, which includes my constituency.

During the visit, I had a chance to talk to year 8 pupils about my career, which ranges from digging roads as a labourer to selling tickets on a zero-hours contract at Maine Road—as a Manchester City fan, it was the lowest-paid, highest-status job I have ever had. I now have a quite well-paid job, but I will let Members in the room decide what they think its status is. The point that I wanted to drive home, however, was the number of options they have available right on their doorstep. As the right hon. Member for Tatton knows, we are fortunate that we have Manchester airport in our constituencies. I was able to unpack all the types of roles one could do at the airport alone. I was also able to name-check opportunities at local employers such as Chiesi, a pharmaceutical group; The Hut Group; Cardinal Maritime, a logistics company; and Broderick’s, a huge vending business, with lads I went to school with. The point is that there are many options.

It is vital that we link local employers to schools and colleges, and ensure that young people have the best chance of finding the best route possible for them. Every year, I host an International Women’s Day event where I invite young women to meet female business professionals in Wythenshawe and Sale East, so that they can meet people just like them, and find out how to get a foot on the ladder. They also make valuable links to those businesses, so when work experience or apprenticeship time arrives, they are confident in applying. It is one of the most rewarding parts of my role as a constituency MP.

I want kids in Wythenshawe and Sale East to know that behind the warehouse doors on the industrial estates in my constituency we have tech jobs, marketing jobs, legal and financial roles, research and development, engineering—the list is endless. I want those kids to have aspirations to take on those roles, and not just become a Member of Parliament. Owing to the work that has been done in my constituency in recent years, we are in a better position to deliver those aspirations for our young people than we have been for a long time. There is a long way to go, but I am pleased that my party, particularly, is stepping up locally and nationally at the moment on this vital agenda.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I am very happy to host a meeting, and I would enjoy discussing these issues in greater detail. The hon. Lady will know, of course, that permanent exclusion, at 0.1%, is extremely low, and is actually lower than it was in 2006-07. The research on the link between exclusion and knife crime shows it is more complicated than simply a correlation because, for example, 83% of 16-year-old knife-possession offenders in 2013 had been persistently absent from education at some point during their school career. It is absence from school that is the key factor, which is why this Government so emphasise the importance of children attending school.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The Minister mentions 0.1%, but the Education Policy Institute found that there were 69,000 unexplained exits from school in 2017 alone. Does the Minister really believe that our schools are getting better when there is a crisis of more and more pupils leaving the system? The Minister has yet to commit to implementing the report from the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson). Will he now commit to implementing all the recommendations of the Timpson review?

[Nick Gibb]

As I said in answer to the question from the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), the rate of exclusions today is lower than under the last Labour Government in 2006-07. We take the issues referred to in the Timpson report, such as off-rolling, very seriously. Off-rolling is unacceptable in any form, which is why we continue to work with Ofsted to define and tackle it. Ofsted already looks at the records of children taken off roll. Its new inspection framework, which came into force this September, has a strength and focus on off-rolling that we support.

School Admissions Process

Mike Kane Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. We have something in common. I was recruited to the Labour movement in the mid-1980s by someone who I think was a great mentor to both of us—Alf Morris, who was the MP for Wythenshawe between 1964 and 1997. The reason I bring that up is that 2020 is the 50th anniversary of his seminal private Member’s Bill that became the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, which was the first such legislation anywhere on the planet and has influenced legislators all over the world in recognising the rights of disabled people. I look forward later in the year to a calendar of events celebrating his great work. It is therefore a real pleasure to serve under you, Ms Buck.

I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on securing the debate. She is an absolutely tremendous advocate for Edmonton and Enfield and she spoke with real passion and power about the situation of her constituent John. There is nothing more powerful than bringing the real-life lived experience of your constituents to the heart of democracy in Westminster, and she has done that with aplomb and passion today.

This has been an interesting-themed week. We had a very similar debate on exclusions yesterday, when a number of London MPs in particular were talking about how exclusions ruin the life chances of young people. They fall into criminal gangs and county lines behaviours and are lost to our system, for a number of reasons. It is interesting that we are back here today talking about admissions.

I have been badly impacted by the market-driven admissions system in my own constituency. Just today, the Secretary of State has backed a decision to close Newall Green High School in my constituency. I am absolutely outraged by that, having written to the Secretary of State and the Prospere Learning Trust; they together have made the decision to close the high school. I have stood shoulder to shoulder with both parents and pupils to try to maintain the viability of the school—not just recently, but over a number of years. It is short-sighted on the part of the Government. They have rejected sensible, pragmatic proposals from Manchester City Council, which wanted to keep the school open and was prepared to put substantial revenue into the project. The city council has not had the courtesy of a response from the Secretary of State. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) talked eloquently about this issue in his intervention: why are councils so driven away from the schools process? They are responsible for spatial frameworks, responsible for admissions to a degree and responsible for the welfare of every child, but we do not seem to think that they are fit to be part of the school system. I will continue campaigning against the unjust decision in my constituency.

Schools matter. Pupils’ academic outcomes are heavily influenced by the school that they attend. Academic achievement in turn strongly influences life chances. The effectiveness of the school that a student attends can have lifelong implications. All state-funded schools in England are subject to the school admissions code. Schools and local authorities must follow the statutory guidance when carrying out duties relating to school admissions. That should mean that all school admission policies are fair and transparent, but that is often not the case, as has been pointed out today. Some schools act as their own admissions authority and so set their own criteria, subject to the code. Voluntary-aided and foundation schools have been able to do that for some time, but the rapid expansion of academies under this Government means that thousands of schools can now determine their own admissions policy.

The problems are obvious. First, there is no single body responsible for ensuring that admission policies comply with the code. Secondly, schools can engage in back-door selection. On paper the admissions policy looks compliant; in practice a school may be unlawfully selecting or rejecting certain pupils. Schools may do that because they believe that certain pupils might adversely impact on their academic results and hence their position in the school league tables, with knock-on impacts on their Ofsted results. That was a key argument yesterday when we talked about school exclusions. Tens of thousands of young people are off-rolled annually from our schools. In fact, evidence from the Education Policy Institute that I cited yesterday showed that 69,000 young people were excluded from school in 2017 alone. We do not know the reasons why. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton makes the point that schools should be responsible, even when children are off-rolled or excluded, for their future welfare. That has been clearly stated in our party policy, but has the support of many hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Selective admissions such as those I have described result in discrimination against certain categories of pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, those with English as an additional language and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Children from disadvantaged families attend schools that have a much lower proportion of children achieving the benchmark of at least good grades at GCSE. The average score for that cohort was 59%. That is 6.9 percentage points below the cohort of non-poor pupils. It is a substantial difference.

My hon. Friend referred to the research in a Sutton Trust report released today. It states that half of all secondary school headteachers say that social segregation is a problem in state schools, yet more than 40% of them do not consider the socioeconomic make-up of their communities when developing their admissions policies. When children are allocated to schools that are over-subscribed—higher performing schools—the criteria that they use often favour the wealthy. We have a system in which whoever can afford to live near the good school has a much higher chance of getting in. That results in high levels of socioeconomic segregation across our school estate.

I welcome the second report that the Sutton Trust has published, which makes several detailed and considered proposals for dealing with the injustices of our current system. It shows that there is clear support for a review of admission policy, which would be overseen most effectively by local authorities. Through that approach, a level of coherence, fairness and trust could be restored to how we provide for our young people locally in their schools.

I will finish by asking the Minister to now look again at school admissions policies and address the segregation to enable a more mixed and balanced student population in our schools and to truly level the playing field for our nations’ young people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

We are also concerned about the increase in the number of children in elective home education. That is why we issued a call for evidence on home education and we are looking at it carefully. We have consulted on the proposal to create a register of children not in school. A range of factors have led to the increase, but in my judgment, it is not due to a shortage of high-quality school places in our school system.

As of 1 February, 508 free schools are open, providing 275,000 school places. In 2019, the top seven of the top 15 progress 8 scores for state-funded schools in England were achieved by free schools, and three of those schools were in the top five: Eden Boys’ School in Birmingham, Eden Girls’ School in Coventry and the Michaela Community School. Each of those successful schools teaches a stretching knowledge-rich curriculum, has a strong approach to behaviour management and is committed to high academic standards.

This morning I visited West London Free School, for the second or third time. It has an excellent quality of education and superb behaviour. I was hugely impressed by what I saw. There were very high quality lessons in music and arts. Over 80% of pupils there enter the EBacc combination of GCSEs. Eden Boys’ School and Eden Girls’ School were opened by Star Academies, which has grown through the free schools programme from running a single school in the north-west to running 28 schools across the country. Ark John Keats Academy is an outstanding open free school. In 2019 its progress 8 score was well above average at 0.76 and 82% of students entered the EBacc.

At Michaela Community School, 84% of pupils were entered for the EBacc, and in its first set of GCSE results, the school reported that more than half of all grades awarded were level 7 and above, which is equivalent to A and A*. That school serves a very disadvantaged community. The London Academy of Excellence is a free school sixth form in east London that was set up in collaboration with seven independent schools. In 2019, the school had an average A-level progress score well above average. It recently reported that 37 students received offers to study at Oxford and Cambridge. King’s College London Mathematics School is a specialist maths free school. In 2019, 100% of its pupils achieved an A or A*.

[Mike Kane]

We are having a debate on admissions. I think the Minister has strayed some way off his brief. Perhaps his civil servants have given him the wrong speech today. Perhaps he could get back to addressing admissions.

[Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)]

Please stay on the topic of debate.

School Exclusions

Mike Kane Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Bone, and to follow the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), who is a fellow Manchester City fan. I am sure that he will be on the edge of his seat tonight for the quarter final of the European cup. Governments should walk the walk, not just talk the talk, and that was a clear offer to the Minister to begin implementing the Timpson review proposals on this subject.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) on securing the debate, her work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime, and her powerful testimony about the five-year-old who was excluded. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) on her work with mothers in Newham and my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), who spoke about Jacob in particular. These are real human stories of lives that are affected day in, day out.

Our children must have access to high-quality full-time education. The vast majority of our schools want the best for their pupils. A small minority engage in poor practice in excluding and off-rolling. As we have heard, for the children such practices have a devastating, lifelong impact on their chances. I had to question my researcher yesterday when he pulled out the following statistic, and I publicly apologise to him. The Education Policy Institute found that there were 69,000 unexplained pupil exits from school in 2017 alone. When he put that fact in front of me, I had had to pull him up and say, “Are you sure?” That is nearly one in 10 of the school population. What is going on, Minister? The number has risen by 12% between 2014 and 2017.

We have a duty to protect and nurture the most vulnerable children in society, but under this Government’s regime vulnerable children, who are already at an increased risk of low educational outcomes, are systematically over-represented among those experiencing unexplained exits from school. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea pointed out that among black and ethnic minority children the rate of exclusion is 40 times greater. The Government need to recognise the complex causes of difficult behaviour in their policies and guidance.

Schools should be supported to focus on prevention and early intervention. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the importance of teacher support. As a result of the culture that has been created and the huge funding cuts imposed, schools often struggle to focus enough resources on wrap-around care for vulnerable students, clearly resulting in an increase in exclusions. If we are to begin to address the school exclusion crisis, the Government must first reverse school cuts, which they are not doing.

The Government must also overhaul the assessment system. As the hon. Member for Eddisbury said, schools must use the exclusion mechanism consistently. The report of the APPG on knife crime, the EPI report, and my party’s manifesto all recommended that schools remain responsible for the pupils they off-roll. Schools must be accountable for the welfare and education outcomes of all pupils who attend, so that no children are lost to the system.

Schools must play an important part in turning around the growing number of exclusions, but the issue goes much wider, and cannot be solved by schools alone. Cuts in funding for local authority support, which has been mentioned, and for child mental health services are affecting the ability to support the children who are most in need. As Members of Parliament, our Friday constituency surgeries are now rammed with parents whose children are suffering in school and cannot access mental health support services. I do not think that any MP could deny that they are seeing an increase in their case load in this area. I hope that the Minister will come away from this informed and constructive debate, reprioritise, and commit to reducing the number of school exclusions in our system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and pay tribute to him for his work in his years as Secretary of State for Education. It was a pleasure to work with him during that period. He is right—the School Teachers’ Review Body has recommended a 2.75% pay rise for teachers across the board, and we are also proposing a £30,000 starting salary for teachers from 2022. In addition to the £26,000 tax-free bursary, teachers of maths, physics, chemistry and languages who start their training this September will receive early career payments of £2,000 in each of their second, third and fourth years of teaching. So this is a good time to start training as a teacher. It is a worthwhile profession and I encourage all graduates to consider teaching as a career.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The Minister surely knows that the pay rise he mentioned will only return starting salaries to where they were in 2010. Furthermore, the prospect of a pay rise in three years’ time will do nothing to help schools that are struggling now to recruit new teachers. Does not he accept that the so-called “pay rise” is nothing more than papering over the cracks in this recruitment and retention crisis?