National Tutoring Programme and Adult Education

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I could not agree more. I have seen the work of Manchester Council in this regard and I think that it should be replicated throughout the country. More families would benefit as a result, particularly disadvantaged families.

Parental engagement is critical and the family hubs should follow a model of best practice. Feltham Academy, for instance, takes a “cradle to career” approach. When I was in Nottingham last week, I met the headteacher of a school that trains parents to act as mentors in the community for other parents who would otherwise be disengaged from the school. That really works.

I should like the Government to consider, in the spending round, its funding of early years entitlements. I do not understand why the three or four-year-old child of an MP, when both parents are working and earning up to £100,000 each a year, qualifies for 30 hours of childcare, while the three or four-year-old child of a single parent in my constituency—or elsewhere in the country—who may not be able to work because they have that young child to bring up qualifies for just 15 hours. I cannot see how that can be the right decision on the Government’s part. I know the Minister will tell me that some poorer families qualify for extra benefits and extra hours, but the fact remains that that is the position.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Robert Halfon]

I always give way to the hon. Lady and I promise to do so if she will allow me to finish this paragraph.

I am not necessarily asking for more money, but I do ask the Minister to work with colleagues and consider reducing the generous threshold that exists for parents to claim tax-free childcare, a subsidy that does not capture society’s most disadvantaged families. One way we could do this is by dropping the eligibility cap to £65,000 from the existing £100,000 mark. That could free up £150 million, which would go some way towards covering the additional outlay.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his excellent speech. On his point about childcare, I declare an interest as he is talking about MPs with children who qualify for the 30 hours free childcare, as my three-year-old son does. We can have a good debate about who should and should not be eligible for that, and I agree broadly with the point he is making. Does he agree, however, that those 15 or 30 free hours are not actually free because most childcare providers cannot afford to provide childcare at the rate the Government are giving them? Parents are therefore regularly asked to top it up. I can afford the top-up, but many people just cannot afford it and therefore cannot make use of childcare, which is preventing them from going out to work.

[Robert Halfon]

I absolutely accept that where there are strains for providers of early years education, the Government should look at that and fill in the holes, but I think it varies. Some providers have found it very hard and some have managed to provide that service, but I accept the point the hon. Lady makes.

In conclusion, education recovery and the catch-up programme must be the immediate spending priority. I have previously described the Education Secretary as someone who can get mangoes in the Arctic and Brussels sprouts in the desert. He is that kind of person, and I am not surprised that he has managed to wangle all these extra billions from the Treasury for the catch-up and for an overall budget growth of almost 3%. That is a significant achievement in the current climate, and it has to be acknowledged. The House will have noticed that I have not necessarily been asking for lots more money; I have been asking for the Department to spend the money more wisely. It needs to demonstrate, above all, that the catch-up programme is providing value for money. When the Minister goes back to the Treasury, it is going to say that it is not working, and the evidence out there is that it is not necessarily working for the most disadvantaged. There are serious issues regarding the catch-up programme and questions to be asked about whether children are fully recovering from the lost learning in the pandemic. There are long-term issues of social injustice that need to be tackled, and of course early years must be supported, as I have just set out.

I hope the Minister will recognise that these are the priorities for the Government and that education will finally get a long-term plan and a secure funding settlement. We can have a debate about how much it is, but if the NHS can have a 10-year plan and a long-term funding settlement and the Ministry of Defence can have a big funding settlement over the next few years and a strategic review, I do not understand why Education cannot have a long-term plan and a secure funding settlement, at least over a few years. That would give a lot of stability to everyone working in education, to schools, to colleges and to universities, and that would make a huge difference.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I find myself in a happy position, because normally I am furiously trying to cut down my speech to three minutes. I do not think that is going to happen today, however. I am really quite surprised and shocked at how few people are here for this debate. To my mind, education and our children’s future, particularly given the impact of the pandemic, is one of the most important issues facing us, and given that this debate is meant to be partly focused around the national tutoring programme, which is key to the recovery plan, I would have thought that Members on both sides of the House would be interested, given that children in every constituency are affected. I thank the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for his speech and congratulate him on securing the debate.

When I looked at the estimates and saw that they had been reduced from the beginning of the financial year, I was a little surprised. I know that there are explanations as to why that has been the case, but given that we have just been through one of the biggest crises that has faced our country since the second world war, which has had a massive impact on children’s learning, their lives and their mental health, I would have thought that, if anything, there would have been a surge of spending through this financial year. I would have expected to see the estimates go up, not down, so I am a little surprised by this. Maybe the Minister will explain more when he responds. Certainly in my constituency, where I am visiting schools week in, week out, every school is really struggling to make ends meet and increasingly relying on fundraising and parental donations, which I find quite shocking.

I see spending on children and young people as an investment, not a cost, and I would urge the Government to do the same. That investment should be made wisely, but the national tutoring programme, which was set up with the very best of intentions and ambitions, risks proving to be “a disaster”, to use the words of Lee Elliot Major, the professor of social mobility at Exeter University. As the right hon. Member for Harlow has already said, even the Department’s own annual report published in December stated that the risk of catch-up efforts failing to address lost learning was “critical or very likely”.

The concept of small group or one-to-one tuition is an intervention that is well supported by evidence and welcomed by many schools, yet we know that the Government’s contractor, Randstad, has met only 10% of its targets for delivering this sort of tuition. I am surprised that when I challenged the Education Secretary in this Chamber a few weeks ago, when we were in the heat of omicron, on why we were not putting air purifiers into every school, he told me—as he told Sophie Raworth on “Sunday Morning”—that he is laser-focused on ensuring value for money. If Randstad is meeting only 10% of its target, I question whether that is value for taxpayers’ money. I particularly look forward to the Minister’s comments on that.

The national tutoring programme was particularly aimed at tackling the learning loss that has been felt most keenly by the most disadvantaged children. As the right hon. Member for Harlow said, all the evidence seems to be pointing to those children having been failed miserably. The National Audit Office questioned whether the programme is reaching the most disadvantaged, and the Education Policy Institute found a marked disparity in the take-up of the NTP between the north and the south. In the south, upwards of 96% of schools are engaging with the programme, compared with just 50% of schools in the north.

It has been reported that tutoring providers will no longer have to ensure that their catch-up reaches at least two thirds of poorer pupils after the target was ditched, even though this was stipulated as a key performance indicator in Randstad’s contract. How does this all fit with the Minister’s levelling-up ambitions?

The feedback from those on the ground trying to access the programme is damning. The leadership team of one academy trust told me they would give NTP a generous two out of 10. There are concerns that the tutoring partners strand is sucking teachers out of schools, and particularly the supply pool, which the Minister will know has come under significant pressure from omicron. Although all the restrictions have been eased, there are still staff and pupil absences in schools. There are many stories of lessons being cancelled at the last moment and tutors not turning up. Schools have had a mixed experience of the tutors with whom they are partnered.

The administrative complexity and burden have left many schools wondering about the value of opting into the programme. One teacher described the admin side as a farce, telling me, “There’s no way you’ll actually get paid if you try to put in honest information. It’s obvious no meaningful records are being kept. To get paid the first time, I had to do six hours of admin over a weekend. There appears to be no evaluation or feedback on what’s going on.”

With schools having to pay a contribution towards the school-led strand of NTP, how does that work for schools that are struggling financially given the huge disparities in school funding in different parts of the country? I know that at least two primary schools in Twickenham have a budget deficit. They lost fundraising money during covid and were unable to claim for many of their additional covid costs. They rely on parental donations and parent teacher association fundraising for some of the basics, with one school having to ask parents for monthly donations to be able to employ teaching assistants. Many schools are having to fundraise to fork out thousands to switch to one of the Department for Education’s mandated phonics providers.

A DFE survey last year found that just 29% of schools are planning to use the NTP in the current academic year, with 30% being unsure. That statistic speaks for itself. The national tutoring programme, if not failing, is severely struggling. It is time for a fresh approach. The Liberal Democrats have been calling for an ambitious package of support for our children and young people as we deal with the consequences of the pandemic. Sir Kevan Collins’s recommendation of £15 billion should be honoured, with the majority of that money being put directly into the hands of schools and a third going to parents and carers in the form of catch-up vouchers, as they are best placed to know what each individual young person needs, whether it is academic or social. That could include counselling support and so on.

The Education Policy Institute suggests that the economic impact of school closures during the pandemic could run into the trillions over the next few decades. A £15 billion investment in our young people would deliver a far greater return than most infrastructure projects.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

The Minister referenced the various funding announcements for the national tutoring programme, but the House of Commons Library briefing says today:

“It is not clear how much has been spent on the NTP so far.”

For the record, can he clarify exactly how much has been spent to date and on the three individual strands: the school-led, tutor-led and mentoring parts of the NTP?

[Mr Walker]

I do not have those figures to hand, but it is important to state, as in a number of debates, it has been suggested that there will be a major underspend in the programme, that I do not necessarily anticipate that to be the case. I think that we can spend the money and do so effectively, and part of the reason for that is the flexibilities we have introduced to ensure that this can be delivered across all three strands of the programme.

I turn to adult education. My ambition for schools is matched by that of my ministerial colleagues with responsibility for adult education. That ambition is backed by our investment of £3.8 billion more in further education and skills over the course of this Parliament.

Apprenticeships are more important than ever in helping businesses to recruit the right people and develop the skills that they need. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow for his work over a long period to raise the profile and esteem of apprenticeships. We are increasing apprenticeships funding, which will grow to £2.7 billion by 2024-25, and we have already seen more than 164,000 starts in the first quarter of the academic year, which is roughly a third—34%—higher than in the same period in 2020-21 and 5% higher than in 2019-20, before the pandemic. We encourage people of all ages to consider apprenticeships. There is now more choice than ever before, with 640 high-quality standards across a range of sectors.

I note my right hon. Friend’s interest in and continuing passion for teacher apprenticeships and agree that apprenticeships should give a route into a range of professions. I am assured that there is a range of apprenticeships in education, including a level 6 teaching apprenticeship. But we should continue to look at this area while of course maintaining the esteem of teaching being a graduate profession. His suggestion is absolutely in line with that.

I note that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) had to leave the debate earlier than we might have anticipated. She has been passionate about advocating the importance of apprenticeships for the early years. She has done fascinating work in that space in championing the value not only of the early years but of its workforce. I was pleased that, at the spending review, the Chancellor announced a £300 million package to transform services for parents, carers, babies and children in half of local authorities in England. That includes £10 million for trials of innovative workforce models in a smaller number of areas to test approaches to support available to new parents. With that work, we can look at some of the areas she has championed such as early years mental health support, breastfeeding support and the early years development workforce as potential areas for the development of new apprenticeship standards.

We are also supporting the largest expansion of our traineeship programme to ensure more young people can progress to an apprenticeship or work. We are funding up to 72,000 traineeship places over the next three years. As part of our post-16 reforms, as set out in the skills for jobs White Paper, employer-led local skills improvement plans will be rolled out across England. Those will help to ensure that learners are able to develop the critical skills that will enable them to get a well-paid and secure job, no matter where they live.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Selaine Saxby]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and I spend much time discussing the opportunities of universal credit on the Select Committee on Work and Pensions.

Unlike the cities, remote rural and coastal locations such as those in my constituency face particular challenges in raising aspiration, improving educational outcomes and enabling adults to upskill. It is vital that more acknowledgement be given to the needs of these communities, which do not always fit well into a city-centric system. I very much hope there will be opportunities to work with the new education team to further develop this vital Bill, so that it works even better for remote and rural constituencies and really does deliver equal opportunity across communities such as North Devon.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

We know that a Bill is flawed when not one, not two, but three previous Education Secretaries and Ministers from across the political spectrum seek to amend it. The Lords Baker, Blunkett and Willetts worked hard to stop the ending of funding for BTECs, qualifications taken by more than 250,000 students last year, so it is a shame that the Government sought to remove the Lords amendment. I back amendment 15 in the name of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), which supports funding for BTECs for a further four years.

The Liberal Democrats support T-levels, but the newer courses are only 25% practical and 75% academic, which puts them out of reach of some students who achieve lower grades in their GCSEs—exactly the cohort who flourish on the employment-focused BTEC pathway. We need to allow T-levels extra time to bed in. Frankly, an extra year for BTECs, as proposed by the Secretary of State, is simply not enough.

New clause 11, which is in my name, seeks to address a gap that we have identified in support for 16-year-olds as they transition within the education system. This gap exacerbates inequalities. Some young people face making life-changing decisions on the spot, with no clear idea about their options and the likely consequences. One example I heard from my constituency involved two boys who did not quite make their expected GCSE grades. Their chosen very popular local school for sixth form refused to offer them a place on their choice of A-level courses, because others with higher grades were prioritised ahead of them, and only offered them places on under-subscribed, less academic courses. A decision had to be made immediately. One of the boys had parents who had not been to university, and who struggled to provide him with appropriate advice; he was not offered advice from elsewhere. That cannot be right.

Unlike reception, 11-plus, and even university admissions, there is no oversight of 16-plus admissions, yet arguably it is the most crucial point—a time when a student’s options are permanently narrowed. There is no central body managing the process, no appeals process, and no data gathered to track whether the local offer matches what the learners want to study. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and I have tabled an amendment that would give local authorities the powers and resources to run admissions for this crucial 16-plus transition in the same way that they do for primary and secondary education, and it would include a full register to ensure no young person slips through the cracks. Although I will not press this amendment to a Division tonight, I hope Ministers will look seriously at this important issue, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

There are many good amendments on local skills improvement plans, and it is important that recommendations be taken on board from bodies such as the Local Government Association, who would require LSIPs to be developed in partnership with local authorities and further education providers. The views of interested parties such as local employers, and other education providers including universities, must be taken into consideration, too. Also, the needs of disabled people should be front and centre when developing all these plans and policies, as one of the amendments suggests.

Finally, on universal credit, I am incredulous that a Government who claim they want to make work pay and move people from welfare into high-quality, well-paid jobs—which all of us across the House would support—have removed a Lords amendment allowing students to keep their universal credit entitlement while studying. Education is the pathway between unemployment and fulfilling, interesting, valuable employment, so why would any barriers and disincentives be placed in the way? I urge the Government to reconsider their position on this issue and to support new clause 5, which comes from their own Back Benchers.

In conclusion, this Bill gives us the chance to realise that education should be an opportunity for life, whatever people’s circumstances. That opportunity should be freely available, whether to a young person starting out in life, a parent who is ready to go back to study, or someone who wants to retrain to improve their job prospects. Given the immense skills shortages this country is facing, and the green and digital revolutions we are experiencing, this Bill is a very welcome step forward, but it has serious flaws. It is a shame that some excellent amendments from the Lords have been thrown out, and that a number of those in today’s amendment paper are not being considered or accepted by this Government. I urge them in particular to look again at the defunding of BTECs, transitional arrangements for 16 year-olds, and barriers to education for those on universal credit.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Early Years Educators

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine]

It is funny how often, in my almost 12 years in this House, people say, “That is amazing; I was just about to come on to that in my speech”, and funnily enough, I was. The hon. Lady led on this subject when she led the all-party group, and she is absolutely right. Far too often we have seen early years practitioners presented as well-meaning amateurs who are good at changing and plasticine. They are good at those, but they are also educators, so she is absolutely right. Following on from what she said, I think a major contributing factor to the fact that we are losing people from the profession and not attracting them into it is that early years educators have been subject to so many misconceptions about their role that it has affected how their profession is viewed and then how it can attract people.

First and most commonly is the notion that early years educators somehow do not hold the same status as those who work in the subsequent parts of the education profession. That could not be further from the truth. The first few years of early education is the foundation on which lifelong learning, health and wellbeing are built. Handling this phase of a child’s life requires specialist knowledge and specialist approaches from trained, qualified practitioners. Early years educators are highly trained professionals and they hold specialist qualifications accordingly. Despite that, many settings are struggling to pay competitive salaries, and providers have therefore reported that staff are increasingly moving into sectors such as retail.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I apologise because I cannot stay for the full debate, either. On the point about pay, is it not linked to the fact that so many providers simply cannot cover the cost of their staff and their settings with the amount that they get from the Government for the so-called free hours of childcare—the 15 hours that is universal for three and four-year-olds and the 15 hours additional? We could have a whole debate on whether somebody like me should be entitled to those hours, which is a separate point, but I speak from experience as the mother of a three-year-old who gets only 27 hours of childcare a week, yet I still pay half of what I paid before he turned three. The providers simply cannot make ends meet, and that is why they cannot pay the staff properly and cannot train them well enough.

[Steve Brine]

The hon. Lady is right. The early years settings that we hear from in the group report that funding for the hours offered under the flagship 30-hours entitlement, which of course I support, has not kept pace with the rise in minimum wage and all the other costs, so the gap between the cost of providing each hour versus what comes in has narrowed and narrowed, and the lines have crossed. That is why we are seeing a squeeze and settings closing. I thank her for that point.

Competitive pay is the least that any qualified professional should expect. I hope the funding announcement in the spending review, as I mentioned, will help to address that. However, the pandemic has added stress for everyone. It has added to the stress of skilled staff, including with the increased risk of exposure to infection that our early years professionals face. A loss of skilled staff means that the early years sector cannot deliver high-quality early education, which will especially affect the most deprived areas and the most disadvantaged children. I want to stress that point to the Minister; I know that he is acutely aware of it, and I hope he can address it in his closing remarks.

The early years workforce needs a step change in wages. The Government have gone far, but they need to go further. The Minister has my full support to take up our cause inside Government; we will back him all the way. Being a former junior Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care, I know that Under-Secretaries of State do not always have the swing vote on decisions in Her Majesty’s Treasury, which is why the Minister will need all the ballast we can provide. I think that I speak for all of us present in saying that we are there to provide it.

Urgency in addressing this area is underlined by my next point. Most early years places are delivered through private, voluntary or independent childcare settings. Maintained nurseries, such as Lanterns Nursery School in my constituency, play a vital role as well, but PVI providers deliver more than 80% of childcare places. PVI providers have a consistently good reputation across the board; like their maintained counterparts, PVI settings are overseen by Ofsted, which is good. In 2020, Ofsted ranked 96% of PVI providers as good or outstanding—up from 72% in 2012.

Most PVI providers—about 57%—have only one site. Only 9% of PVI providers are what we would call a chain, with 20 or more sites. Most of those settings are hard-working small businesses that employ people exclusively from the local community. They invest any surplus they have into upgrading the nursery environment and, crucially, developing their most important asset—their staff. We are not talking about people lining their pockets with those ever-dwindling surpluses. They are simply seeking to make a fair living while pursuing the brilliant vocation of shaping young lives, which brings me to my next point.

Earlier, hon. Members heard the story of how one parent and their child benefited from the support and inspiration offered by their early years educator, which is a tale that is replicated time and again across the country; I suspect other hon. Members will refer to it. Early years educators provide support, advice and guidance to parents, caregivers and families, including on nutrition, play, schooling and health. They are educators in the widest possible sense of the word. They often form great teams with parents and provide families with valuable insights into their child’s development. We know children form multiple attachments at an early stage, and one of those can be with those working with them in a nursery setting.

Crucially, as policymakers, we all understand the importance of early intervention in making a difference to life chances. For every £1 invested in early education, about £7 would be required to have the same impact in adolescence. Every £1 spent in early years saves about £13 in later interventions.

One parent and NHS worker captured it best when they said that, while

“nurses, doctors and other healthcare staff got most of the accolades,”

and rightly so, early years settings and their workers

“selflessly continued to open to look after keyworker children such as ours, even though it potentially put them at risk so we could continue to work.”

At the end of last year, there were press reports of adjusting staffing ratios in early years settings as part of an aim to lower the cost for parents, which I would gently caution the Minister against. Safe, secure and necessary monitoring in early years settings requires a higher staffing ratio than in schools. Leading voices from across the early years sector, including the Early Years Alliance and the National Day Nurseries Association, have warned against it.

I believe that early years professionals deserve pension contributions and pay increases that can keep in line with increases in the cost of living—a very hot political subject at the moment—which must be delivered through more investment and better recognition of the work of the early years workforce. We are in a position where the Government require early years settings to be open in order to deliver the 30-hour funding entitlement, but, as I have said, there is a shortfall in funding, and that situation can only go on for so long. The result of that shortfall is that many early years settings run at a loss and even face closure, especially those in disadvantaged areas. As a Conservative, I of course want small businesses—I mentioned how many of these early years providers are small businesses—to thrive: indeed, I believe that all Members in the House, from all parties, would want that. As a parent, I want all children to have access to the very best early education, wherever they live.

In the case of PVI early years settings, those two things are not mutually exclusive. Those who pursue a career in early years education do so because, above all else, they believe passionately in making a difference in children’s lives, and that is because early years education is vital in tackling inequalities. We know that the first five years of a child’s life are the most formative. However, when providers in the most deprived areas report themselves as being twice as likely to close as those in more affluent areas, we must acknowledge that something is going seriously wrong in the sector.

The Early Years Alliance has said that poorer families are more likely to lose access to early years settings because of what I have described as a market failure. I am sure that colleagues will speak about other experiences from their own area, but it is important to set the context. If we are to deliver on our promises and level up all parts of the country that have been left behind, the early years workforce is a vital tool in that project.

So what can we do? We can begin squaring the circle here today by supporting the APPG and our call for the early years workforce to take their rightful place as educators. I encourage colleagues to take advantage of the relaxation of covid restrictions to meet local early education providers in their area; I am sure that everybody who is participating in this debate already does so. We can all show our support for the work of those providers by thanking them during this debate.

However, it is to the Minister I look. I have sat in his seat many times. He is most welcome to his post, which I know he is still relatively new in, and I hope that he can find time to come and speak to us on the APPG in short time. We know that there is a lot in his in-tray, but we also know that he is a parent and no doubt a lot of what I have said today will resonate with him.

Before coming to my conclusion, I just need to qualify one point that I made earlier when I said that this issue is not all about money. I meant that, but so many of the challenges facing early years educators can be addressed by more targeted investment. We must address the workforce challenge that our early years sector faces. In my opinion, that can only be done by paying our early years educators the same amount as those working with the reception year group. The present system is inequitable and unfair. That change would be transformative for our valued early years workers. It is the cornerstone of what the Government can do to deliver for our early years professionals and the families they support.

Extra cash will be meaningless, however, unless it is accompanied by the wider transformation that I have spoken about, regarding how we view the early years workforce. It is a problem best encapsulated by the fact that they are highly skilled but low-paid professionals. We trust them with our most precious resource—our children—in the very early years of their lives, when so much attachment is formed. It is only right that we view them for what they are, which is educators.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Chairman, for calling me to speak.

It is, as always, a pleasure to speak in a Westminster Hall debate, but it is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine). I will put on the record, as others have, my thanks to him for all he does in relation to early years education. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind—I suspect that there is no doubt in the minds of any of us here today—that he has a deep passion and interest in this subject matter. That was illustrated in his speech today. He often raises crucial issues that impact our early years educators and I value—to be fair, I think we all value—his continued efforts in that regard.

I appreciate that, as the Minister will know, the early years system in England is different to that in Northern Ireland. Regardless, it is great to be here in Westminster Hall and to hear the view of others, and perhaps I can compare some of the things that happen here with what happens back home.

Particularly during the pandemic, our early years educators have had to deal with an unprecedented number of stresses, staffing being one of them; the hon. Gentleman referred to that in his contribution, as others did in their interventions on him. In a survey conducted by the Early Years Alliance in the autumn of 2021, 84% of respondents said that they were finding it difficult to recruit suitable new staff. No big surprise there, really; it is the same in Northern Ireland. Early Years has stated that

“Before Covid-19, Northern Ireland’s childcare sector worked hard but was under-resourced. Now it faces huge challenges, and shortages could hamstring our economic and social recovery from coronavirus.”

Thankfully, there is some hope and we in Northern Ireland have taken some action, including financially. The Health and Education Ministers have issued a £12 million support package for childcare providers. The two Ministers responsible in Northern Ireland have recognised the issue and responded in a constructive and physical way, to ensure that finances are there.

There were long-term issues prior to the pandemic, including the retention of staff, especially those who are highly qualified. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) referred to the wage structure, as did the hon. Member for Winchester. There is a need to have a wage structure in place, so that people involved in early years education can feel they are being reimbursed accordingly for all their hard efforts.

There are also ongoing issues relating to provision for special educational needs. SEN children rely heavily on routine and consistency; without it they risk a major hindrance in their development. I have regular contact on that in my constituency; I am sure others have the same. The role of early years is crucial for young children’s development. Positive benefits are dependent on several factors, including the quality of care, the nature of activities, relationships that children develop in their settings, group size, child-to-teacher ratios, staff retention, and teachers’ training and professional development. All those things collectively are critically important.

[Munira Wilson]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is concerning that a report by the Education Policy Institute found that more than 40% of staff working in early years settings did not have access to training for speech and language? That is a growing area of concern, particularly as a result of the pandemic, and exacerbates the attainment gap for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. I am sure the Minister will say that the Government are putting money into early years training but, when that is worked out, it is about £460 per head of those working in the sector, and it will not cover the amount of need if we want to professionalise the workforce.

[Jim Shannon]

The Minister heard that request from the hon. Lady. I know the Minister is very interested in the subject and, when it comes to answering the requests from the hon. Lady, others and myself, he will be able to say what the Government are doing, with time to put that in place.

Most early years settings are private, run through unions and independent organisations. It is essential that they are given sustainable funding to carry out their role to the best of their ability. I am sure the Minister has engaged, as he always does, with his counterparts in the devolved nations, to ensure that the correct funding is going to the correct sectors of early years. When the Minister has responded in previous debates, I have always been very impressed by his interaction with the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Minister has been very up to speed on the matter. I am sure when he replies he will be able to confirm again that that is the case. I thank him in advance for his answer, ever conscious that it will be positive.

In relation to back home specifically, there are 1,200 local early care and education providers, 30,000 parents and a workforce of more than 10,000. The past year has demonstrated how essential high-quality education and childcare provision is for families and children in Northern Ireland, and that has been echoed in this debate today. Addressing childcare must be a key priority. If parents cannot access the childcare they need in order to work, we will not be able to rebuild fully our economy. The Minister responsible for that task is not here, but the work of Government to address and rejuvenate the economy is self-evident in the unemployment rates and job opportunities that we have heard about in the past few days. There is some good stuff being done there.

All discussion in relation to childcare and education starts with early years, and the importance of early learning for young children. Childcare settings have closed due to the pandemic and other factors, which may be purely financial, but Ofsted data show that there has been an ongoing decline in the number of childcare settings since 2015, due to the lack of childminders. From August 2015 to 2021, the decline levelled at 17%.

I will conclude with this comment, because I know a number of others wish to speak, and the Minister will be keen to have time to respond. I also look forward to the contribution from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). I would like to thank each and every early years employer who goes above and beyond to help the development of our young people. I have met some of them, and I am greatly impressed by them and their vocational commitment to their jobs. Their role in society is admirable, but they undoubtedly face struggles, especially with staffing, with closures and sometimes with their wage structure, so we must do more. As I have said, I hope that further discussions between the Minister and his counterparts across the UK will enable us to exchange ideas and thoughts on how we can do better. We can all learn; we can learn from the Minister and, I hope, the Minister can learn from us.

Education: Return in January

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank my hon. Friend for her remarks. It is a huge team effort by many of my brilliant civil servants in the Department, and of course the frontline teachers and headteachers, but also the support staff in schools. We must never, ever forget that the support staff in schools have done an incredible job; they have gone above and beyond. It is absolutely clear to me that the best place for children is at school learning with their friends, classmates and inspirational teachers. We saw that in the Children’s Commissioner’s brilliant Big Ask survey, to which half a million children responded: they said they wanted to be back at school. It was brilliant teachers who helped me when I came to this country without a word of English. So I will do everything in my power to make sure that schools, colleges and nurseries remain open and that we begin, I hope—I have said this many times at the Dispatch Box—to be the first major economy to demonstrate to the rest of the world how we transition this virus from pandemic to endemic and live with it in the future.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

We have known since early on in the pandemic that air purifiers are one of the most effective and cheapest ways of reducing covid transmission in the classroom, as shown by countries such as the US and Germany, which implemented them many, many months ago. The Secretary of State’s defence today for the very belated announcement of only 8,000 air purifiers for over 300,000 classrooms in England is that they do not need them. Will he publish the data from the CO₂ monitors that show that only 8,000 classrooms need them? Why is his Department recommending Dyson air purifiers when actually there are far cheaper ones available on the market?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I think it is worth just taking a step back. We delivered 350,000 CO₂ monitors. The majority of schools did not report any issues with the atmosphere in the classroom. The reason why we ordered 8,000 purifiers was that the data we received, the feedback from those schools using their CO₂ monitors, demonstrated to us that there are probably classrooms that cannot mitigate easily and will therefore need air purifiers. That is the funnel that we go through, otherwise we waste public money—taxpayers’ money—on buying 300,000 air purifiers for classrooms that simply do not need them. I am sure the hon. Lady can understand that.

[Munira Wilson]

Why Dyson?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Why Dyson? Because my civil servants also set up a marketplace for other schools that want to buy air purifiers, and they have looked at what is available in the market and recommended more than just the Dyson brand in that marketplace.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker]

My hon. Friend is right that parents should have up-to-date assessments of the quality of education at their child’s school, which is why, from the start of this term, Ofsted resumed routine inspections of the full range of schools, with the aim of each school having at least one inspection by summer 2025.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Covid-related pupil absences have risen by about 47% over the past fortnight and many schools are struggling with staff absences, too. Given that we know that good ventilation is key in schools, can the Minister give us an update on the Bradford pilot that was started earlier this year? What is going on with regard to air purifiers, when will that trial report and will he implement its findings?

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady is right about the importance of this issue. As we heard in the Secretary of State’s update, CO² monitors are being rolled out successfully across the school estate. The Bradford pilot is owned by the NHS, so, of course, we will work closely with it on interpreting, and implementing action on, its findings.

Arthur Labinjo-Hughes

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, the sentiments expressed within it and the actions he is taking. Like everyone else, I have found the details of this case harrowing, not least because Arthur was the same age as my daughter. It is just unbelievable, and my thoughts are with all those who knew and loved him. Given that we know that among the social worker workforce there is a high turnover rate, a 7.5% vacancy rate and a quarter of that workforce is due for retirement in the next 10 years, will the Secretary of State commit, whether through this review or the MacAlister review, to looking at the recruitment, retention and training of social workers? Given that their workload has gone up while there have been some £2.2 billion of cuts to social services over the past decade, will he commit to whatever resources it takes? We cannot put a price on a child’s life.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Member is absolutely right that we need to ensure that we continue to retain the more experienced social worker leadership, and I hope that the MacAlister review will make some operational recommendations on that. Of course, we had two successful schemes with Frontline and Step Up to Social Work, which resulted in thousands of people coming into the social care profession and the number of social workers going up by 10% since 2017. She is right that if we look at the system overall, we have far too many agency workers, which I think is her point. We want that experience and leadership to be working full time in a local authority system rather than on an agency basis.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Munira Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I welcome the fresh focus from the Government on skills and further education. FE has long been the forgotten sector in education, with adult education funding having been halved over the past decade. Vocational training and qualifications have for too long been incorrectly treated as inferior to academic qualifications, which is why the Liberal Democrats have long promoted the policy of personal education and skills accounts, also known as skills wallets, which take a grant-based approach to support lifelong learning throughout adulthood. Vocational skills and lifelong learning have never been more important than now, in our post-Brexit—and soon, hopefully, post-pandemic—economy, as our country faces immense skills shortages in a number of sectors. However, I fear that the Bill introduced in the other place lacked ambition and attempted to slip under the radar the devastating assault on BTECs about which we have heard.

I want to touch on three points, all of which concern areas where non-Government amendments were made in the other place. I hope that the Government will not seek to overturn those amendments. As many Members have stated, BTECs are immensely popular, with more than a quarter of a million students taking these qualifications in any given year. They are disproportionately taken up by students from poorer backgrounds and ethnic minorities, and those with special educational needs and disabilities. It was therefore pretty shocking that the defunding proposals were slipped out at the start of the summer holidays, alongside a shocking impact assessment and in the face of opposition—with some 86% of respondents to the Government’s consultation opposing the plans. Even the former Conservative Education Secretary, Lord Baker, described the plan as “absolutely disgusting” in the other place, saying that it would deny “hope and aspiration” to many people from more disadvantaged backgrounds.

I urge the Minister to retain in full the amendment made in the other place to phase out the funding over four years, rather than over one as the Secretary of State announced today. Withdrawing funding sooner would narrow choice and force students into unsuitable qualifications. The Conservatives claim to be in favour of choice and competition, so I find it surprising that they want to force BTECs out of the market by defunding them. Lord Willetts made a similar point in the other place.

Let me turn to another amendment that I hope the Government will not overturn, regarding the penalty for benefit claimants who choose to continue their education to improve their job prospects. I very much hope that the Government will retain the Bishop of Durham’s amendment on universal credit conditionality, which is now clause 17. In taking away the £20 universal credit uplift and reducing the taper rate, Ministers have made much of the importance of making work pay, and getting people off welfare and into high-quality, well-paid jobs. However, the current system puts in place a range of barriers and disincentives to education for those on universal credit, which flies in the face of the Government’s ambitions. I therefore hope that they will retain the amendment.

Finally, I turn to the local skills improvement plans. I very much welcome the Government’s amendment in the other place to ensure that climate change and the environment are at the forefront of local skills improvement plans. That is critical if we are to be at the heart of the green industrial revolution. However, I urge the Government to keep in full the amendment made in the other place on the involvement of local authorities and regional government in the development of local skills improvement plans alongside ERBs.

I welcome the Bill, but I hope that the Government will go further and maintain a number of excellent amendments made in the other place.

Budget Resolutions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

On Wednesday, the Chancellor said in his speech that a good education is the birth right of every child. I wholeheartedly agree, yet his announcements absolutely do not live up to that commitment. The Budget and spending review should have been a children’s Budget, focusing on their recovery from the pandemic, and giving every single child in this country the opportunity to flourish and reach their full potential. Not only is it the right thing to do to provide every child with the best start in life, but children and young people are at the heart of our future economic success.

The additional education catch-up funding announced last week amounted to merely £1 per pupil per school day, whereas the tax cut for bankers in the Budget amounts to some £6 per day. I was, frankly, amazed to hear the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami)—he is no longer in his place—make an impassioned case for the bankers’ tax cut and lament the fact that the Chancellor did not go further. That gives us a flavour of the priorities of Government Members. Those are certainly not aligned with the priorities of my constituents in Twickenham—I can tell him that—who want to see more spending on education and on our schools because they are scrimping and saving and struggling to get by.

With close to a billion days of face-to-face schooling lost over the pandemic, the Government’s education recovery tsar set out the need for some £15 billion of investment in education recovery, yet even with last week’s announcement, this Conservative Government’s commitment is only a third of what Sir Kevan Collins recommended. It amounts to only £490 per pupil in England. Compare that with the Netherlands, where they are spending £2,100 per pupil on education recovery, and the US, where they are spending some £1,800 per pupil. Where is the ambition to address the lost learning? Where is the ambition to address the social and developmental impacts of being locked up at home and away from friends for months? Where is the ambition to stem the huge tide of mental health needs and poor wellbeing among children and young people?

The Education Policy Institute estimated that each child could lose up to £46,000 in earnings over their lifetime as a result of the impact of the pandemic. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated that the long-term impact to the economy of lost learning could be around £350 billion, yet the Treasury has committed to just £4.9 billion for school catch-up, while giving tens of billions to other sectors of the economy. As the former Children’s Commissioner put it earlier this year, this shows an “institutional bias against children”.

Liberal Democrats are calling for the Government to honour Sir Kevan’s recommendation, giving £10 billion directly to schools for a holistic package of support. But critically, we propose that £5 billion should be put directly into the hands of parents and carers in the form of catch-up vouchers to be spent on tutoring and extracurricular activities, such as sport, art, music or counselling support, depending on what each parent or carer knows and thinks their child needs. Every child would benefit, but the poorest children, those with special educational needs and looked-after children, would get more.

The latest survey from Parentkind, the charity that champions parental involvement in education, shows that one of the top priorities for parents for additional education spending is children’s mental health and wellbeing. I know from talking to headteachers and school governors at schools across my constituency that that is their top priority, too. Child and adolescent mental health services are overwhelmed with children experiencing a mental health crisis, often ending up in A&E and then unsuitable general paediatric wards, or with school staff having to manage conditions that they are simply not trained for.

NHS data confirms that the number of children and young people with a probable mental health condition has jumped from one in nine to one in six between 2017 and 2021. Referrals to mental health services between April and June this year were close to double that in the same period in 2019. Social isolation, uncertainty, grief and trauma have all taken their toll on children’s wellbeing, yet there was nothing announced for children and young people’s mental health in the Budget.

Alongside boosting acute service provision, we need to focus on prevention and good mental health support in schools as well as in the community. All the research shows that it is difficult for children to learn if they are struggling with their mental wellbeing. Ministers need to accelerate the roll-out of mental health support teams in schools. A target of 35% of schools by 2023 is simply not ambitious enough; our children deserve and need better. I suggest that the Government look very seriously at—I have called for this before—the proposals from YoungMinds and other charities on early support hubs: a one-stop shop in the community where children can get all sorts of support for their mental health, help from sexual health services and employment support. This has been proven a success elsewhere in the world.

Children and young people are our future. The former Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield, laid down the gauntlet to all politicians. She said that

“these are your children now. You have a chance to put them centre stage. When you do build back better, make sure you do it around them.”

This Budget fails to do so. I and my Liberal Democrat will keep fighting their, and their parents’, corner.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I call Munira Wilson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I was shocked to learn on a recent visit to St James’s Catholic Primary School in Twickenham that parents were being asked to donate to fund pupils’ recovery from the pandemic. Although last week’s announcement was welcome, it is still only a third of the amount that the Government’s own adviser recommends for education recovery. Will the Minister commit to the additional £10 billion?

[Mr Walker]

As the hon. Lady says, the additional £1 billion of investment in recovery is welcome. More importantly, it is also evidence led. We need to ensure that we follow the evidence to the interventions that make the most difference, and that is exactly what we are going to do.

Sustainability and Climate Change (National Curriculum)

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) on securing the debate. As hon. Members have said, when I tour schools in my constituency and do Q&A sessions, the No. 1 topic that I am quizzed about is the environment—whether that is climate, biodiversity or action on waste. In fact, when I visited St James’s Catholic Primary School in Twickenham two weeks ago, every single question was on this topic—to the point where I was struggling to answer some of them, so I think climate education needs to start with me alongside pupils and in the curriculum.

As the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) said, I also get lots of correspondence from schoolchildren on the subject of the environment, which we all have to answer and sometimes struggle to answer. There is a keen interest there. They are desperate to know more and to know how to take action to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises. Yet, we know that 75% of teachers feel ill-equipped to deliver that education and knowledge, so there is a serious training gap. As has been said, this is the single biggest issue facing all of us, but particularly for our children and young people who will have to live with the consequences of our actions today long after we have gone. It will be a bigger crisis for them over the next 10 years than the pandemic we are currently going through.

We know the majority of the public want to see more in the curriculum on climate change and the environment. I recently ran a local petition on my website about making climate education a stand-alone subject. We can have a discussion on whether it should stand alone, but just locally I got over 300 signatures, so there is definitely a desire out there. We have heard that the UN has asked that climate change education plays a central role in updated nationally determined contributions in terms of the Paris agreement pledges. Now we are going into COP26, so I hope we will see new pledges on climate change education.

I am concerned that there is a lot of eco-anxiety among young people. We need to move to empowering and equipping them to channel that concern and energy in a positive way, so they are not just learning about the causes, but thinking about the mitigations. That is why education is so important: it will equip them for the jobs of the future and help them come up with innovations to tackle the challenges of the future.

As I touched on already, we can talk about whether there is a sustainability thread running through everything and whether we have a stand-alone subject or a stand-alone GCSE. Children starting secondary school are already asking this. One of the first questions that the daughter of one of my members of staff asked was, “Can I take a climate change GCSE?” We should be offering that. Climate change education is split across science and geography, but fewer than 50% of pupils are taking geography GCSE, so a core part of that curriculum is not being taught to many young people. The Liberal Democrats have talked about having a curriculum for life taught in schools, with climate change being part of that. These are details to discuss, but we are all united in saying that this needs to be a core part of the curriculum.

I will end by saying that alongside the educational piece, it is important to talk about the experiential side of climate and biodiversity education. The hon. Member for St Ives talked about the beauty of Cornwall; when someone is out in a rural area like that they are surrounded by it. However, as we have heard, if someone lives in inner-city or urban areas, or even in suburban constituencies like mine where we have beautiful Royal Parks, there are pockets of deprivation and dense housing where young people do not necessarily go out and enjoy those parks—and certainly do not get out to the countryside.

A Natural England survey last year showed the income and racial inequalities in terms of access to the natural environment. As with so many other things, that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. We know that fewer people from ethnic minorities and fewer people from lower income backgrounds have managed to get access to outside space. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) has been campaigning for a nature premium for schools to boost outdoor education. There are mental wellbeing benefits, there are physical wellbeing benefits, and there are educational benefits, so we need a joined-up approach to climate education in the curriculum. I hope the Minister will respond positively given the cross-party consensus. This needs to go beyond COP26; it is great that we are having these discussions now, but we need long-term commitment and action.