Education Return and Awarding Qualifications in 2021

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that point. We have made a substantial financial package of support available to schools in case they need to bring in extra resources to roll out the testing programme. We have the one-week period starting from the 8 March, where schools can bring in those year groups so that they can get tested and straight back into class, but we have also given them the flexibility to enable students to come in earlier than 8 March if they wish to, so that they can get tested prior to the official start of the new term.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The pandemic restrictions have caused much damage to our children and young people across the country. The Secretary of State has made bold assertions in the last 24 hours that no child’s life shall be blighted, and says we have

“never valued education as much as we do today”,

yet his spending commitment to children’s recovery is the equivalent of between 3% and 4% of the annual schools budget. Compare that to the spending on the discredited test and trace system, which was almost half the annual schools budget. Why is he not being more ambitious for our children by putting forward a more generous, longer-term package that focuses on their wellbeing and emotional, as well as educational, recovery?

[Gavin Williamson]

That is very much part of our overall plan for raising standards in education. We wanted to give schools a sense of what they will be able to do and to plan for over the coming weeks and months; we wanted to give them that immediate notice. We saw over £1 billion being funnelled into helping our schools and students straight away, topped up by a further £700 million. As I said, our ambitions do not stop there. We want to go much further, making sure that we deliver the reform and change that is so crucial to ensuring that children get the very best of everything in their education and that it is focused on them. That is what we are going to be delivering not just over the coming months, but over the coming years.