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.

Awarding Qualifications in 2021 and 2022

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

In my recent visits to secondary schools in Twickenham, year 10 and 12 pupils told me how anxious they are because of the lack of clarity on exams in 2022—whether they will even go ahead, how they might be assessed and what they might be assessed on. Teachers told me that, with all the disruption, they want to focus their precious face-to-face teaching time on parts of the syllabus that will definitely be assessed next year. Can the Minister please commit to putting pupils, parents and teachers out of their misery by providing a clear steer on 2022 assessments, and not sometime in the autumn but by the beginning of September?

[Nick Gibb]

We published the consultation, jointly with Ofqual, on 12 July, and it sets out our proposals for how we will conduct exams in 2022. The Secretary of State has made it very clear that our plan is for exams to go ahead, and we want schools to teach the full curriculum. The purpose of the adaptations is to make the exams as fair as possible for students and to give them confidence in taking those exams, given the disruption they have suffered over the past 16 months.

Covid-19: Education Settings

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Today’s announcement about the scrapping of bubbles and self-isolation for pupils will be welcome news to many parents, pupils and teachers across the country. The Secretary of State made passing reference to the importance of ventilation. We know now about the importance of ventilation because it is an airborne virus. Therefore, what more is he doing to support schools to put better ventilation in place? Yesterday I visited Richmond upon Thames School in my constituency, which has spent £15,000 alone on improving ventilation. Many schools simply cannot do that, as they are already struggling to balance the books. What more support will he put in place, following the example of Germany and New York City?

[Gavin Williamson]

At every stage during the pandemic we have provided support for schools to put in place the measures needed to restrict the transmission of covid and ensure that they can open. We recognise that good hand sanitising and good hygiene, along with ventilation, are important. We continue to offer schools advice on how best to deliver that.

Covid-19: Impact on Attendance in Education Settings

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Over the past few weeks, I have been touring secondary schools in my constituency. The current self-isolation policy, which, incidentally, resulted in a Twickenham secondary having to close its doors entirely last week for several days, combined with lockdowns is not just impacting academic progress; the No.1 issue, according to heads and safeguarding leads, is the mental health impact. As well as ensuring support for academic catch-up, may I urge the Secretary of State to do everything he can to speed up the roll-out of mental health support teams in schools? Will he also please speak to the Health Secretary to provide urgent additional capacity for tier 4 child and adolescent mental health services beds because too many children are being turned away? From the evidence that I am being presented with, it is not exaggeration to say that children’s lives are at risk because teachers and school counsellors just do not have the skills to deal with those cases.

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady raises a very thoughtful and important issue. I am very much with her in that I want to see the roll-out of mental health support in schools as quickly as is feasibly possible. That also plays an incredibly important role in tackling some of the further pressure that is then put at the door of CAMHS services. I am very happy to take up the point that she raised with the Department for Health and Social Care, which runs CAMHS, as to how best we can support children in those early stages and, if there is a need for clinical intervention, how that can be best supported and swiftly supported in order to be able to deal with the problem early on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

The Government are committed to working with school leaders, governors and teachers to improve how they can better recognise the effects of sexual harassment and abuse, and better support victims. We expect the issues raised by LGBTQ+ pupils to be addressed as part of this really important work.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

If he will take steps to ensure that pupils who opt out of GCSE geography receive education on climate change.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)]

It is vital that pupils are taught about climate change, which is why related topics are included throughout the geography and science curriculums from five to 14 and five to 16, respectively. That is mandatory in state-maintained schools. Academies must offer a broad and balanced curriculum, as exemplified by the national curriculum.

[Munira Wilson]

I hope the Secretary of State will join me in welcoming my hon. Friend the new Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) to the Chamber today. I am sure he will agree that it is critical that children and young people learn about the scientific causes and consequences of climate change, and that they are equipped for the future in terms of practical action and the impact on jobs and future careers. With fewer than 50% of GSCE pupils taking geography, what consideration has he given to creating a standalone subject that properly prepares and empowers our young people to engage with climate change?

[Gavin Williamson]

Of course I join the hon. Lady—and, I am sure, all Members—in welcoming a new Member to the House. It is a shame that the few Liberal Democrat MPs who are left could not be bothered to stay for Education questions. Perhaps that shows the priority that the Liberals put on education, compared with Conservative Members and Labour Members as well. It is nice that there is a lone voice on behalf of Liberal England.

It is incredibly important that climate change is taught, and it is vital that it is a key part of the geography curriculum. It is also an incredibly important part of the science curriculum. We know that science is critical to understanding climate change, and all Members of the House are deeply indebted to the former Member for Finchley, and her amazing work in highlighting global climate change in the 1980s, when she was Prime Minister. She was not just speaking to the United Kingdom; she was speaking to the globe. I am sure many Members, including Opposition Members, recognise the amazing work she did in ensuring that we understand climate change and can act on that.

Education Recovery

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

From conversations I have had with my hon. Friend I know about the importance of Buckinghamshire UTC to his constituency, and the many youngsters who go there and get such a quality education. I reassure him that the interventions we have announced, and the additional funding, will benefit Buckinghamshire UTC and those youngsters who wish to pursue a brilliant technical education that opens doors to so many opportunities and incredibly high earnings—often much higher earnings than from pursuing a graduate route. Those youngsters will benefit from that, as will all schools across my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Anne Longfield, the former highly respected children’s commissioner, said in her final speech this year that there is an “institutional bias against children” in this Government, especially in the Treasury. Does the paltry education recovery package that has been announced, and the rejection of the ambitious plan put forward by the Prime Minister’s hand-picked adviser, prove that Anne Longfield was absolutely right?

[Gavin Williamson]

I know the hon. Lady was not a Member of the House at the time, but since we got rid of Liberal Democrats in Government we have invested far more in education than we were ever able to do when they were there. Perhaps that is a result of having a Conservative Chief Secretary to the Treasury rather than a Liberal Democrat one.

Special Educational Needs

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing this important debate.

Let me start by putting on the record my thanks to the Minister and her officials at the Department for Education for working closely with officers and councillors at the London Borough of Richmond to agree a settlement for the enormous historic funding gap in special educational needs and disability support. The local high-needs budget deficit hit a staggering £18 million and risked putting general education funding, and indeed wider council services, at risk.

When I was elected in 2019, I pledged to make adequate funding for SEND provision in Twickenham a priority, and I am very grateful for the engagement that the Minister has had with me and the council over the past year to address this important issue. I know that Richmond Council is looking forward to continuing to work with the Department to increase local provision for special needs and ensuring that our most vulnerable children receive the support that they need and deserve, through the promised annual 8% increase in funding. More broadly, I urge the Minister to ensure that the review of SEND that her Department is currently undertaking looks holistically at how the system is funded, so that the best interests and the needs of every child are at the heart of the system.

Too often, children are caught between the competing priorities of school and council budgets. Just recently, the chairs of governing bodies of local schools told me how stretched they are financially because of covid. Many costs are not being reimbursed, and they are losing thousands of pounds because income from lettings and fundraising has dried up. Those mainstream schools that are particularly well placed to provide SEND support for children are very conscious of the £6,000 that they have to find from their core budgets in order to offer this invaluable support, unless the family are able to apply successfully for an education, health and care plan, which will bring its own funding. The decision-making process on the level of support provided should not be driven by funding streams or disincentives to do the right thing, but entirely by the needs of the child.

The Minister is aware that I take a keen interest in children’s mental health and have repeatedly raised my concerns about the impact of the pandemic on children and young people’s mental health, and the critical importance of supporting social, emotional and developmental catch-up, not just academic catch-up. I know from talking to carers in my constituency that that applies even more to disabled children, who have been disproportionately affected, as we have already heard from other hon. Members, through both social isolation and lack of access to therapies. According to the Disabled Children’s Partnership, 91% of the parents it surveyed said that their child was socially isolated through the pandemic. Six in 10 parents reported observing symptoms associated with anxiety, and almost three quarters of parents report that their child is often unhappy, downhearted or tearful. There is a knock-on impact on the mental health and wellbeing of parents and siblings.

As other hon. Members have said, we need a bespoke covid recovery plan for disabled children. That must include, as well as social and developmental catch-up, additional support for the mental health and wellbeing of children and families and access to activities to overcome the social isolation that many have suffered during lockdowns. The Government recently announced a £79 million package of mental health support, but none of it was specifically allocated for disabled children and their families. Every single child deserves the best possible start in life, and that includes every child with a special need or disability.

Education Route Map: Covid-19

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing this debate. It has been a pleasure to work with him and the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who stepped in so ably at short notice just now.

Nelson Mandela said:

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.”

Yet too often in this pandemic, I fear that children have been an afterthought for the Government.

I very much welcome the prioritisation earlier this week of schools in the road map, and I pay tribute to September for Schools, a nationwide campaign group, founded by my constituent Fiona Forbes, which has relentlessly sought to ensure that parents’ and pupils’ voices are heard on this issue. The welcome funding commitment to children’s recovery is between 3% and 4% of the annual schools budget, which was already under significant strain and now, strangely, yet further under strain. Many schools in my constituency are out of pocket from covid expenses, which are not being reimbursed by the Department, and have lost income, so there is a real danger that some of the catch-up premium could be diverted into the funding gaps. The extremely worrying educational attainment and disadvantage gaps that have grown through this pandemic must be addressed as a priority, but they will not be tackled in one or two terms and a summer holiday. We need a long-term plan spanning several years, and it needs to be holistic, addressing children’s academic and also social and emotional recovery, taking into account extracurricular activities such as art and sport.

There absolutely must be a greater focus on supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. We know there has been a significant increase in the number of children with a diagnosable mental health condition—one in six in 2020, up from one in nine in 2017. I have heard from young people in my constituency the anxiety that they are struggling with during lockdown. Despite that, the vast majority of the Government’s catch-up funding is focused on academic catch-up. Only £8 million is specifically committed to wellbeing, but all the evidence suggests that children and young people will not be able to catch up academically if they are not in a good place emotionally. To maximise the value and impact of the academic catch-up plan, wellbeing support is critical, as well as accelerating the roll-out of both mental health support teams and training for the designated mental health leads in schools. I urge the Minister to look very seriously at a ring-fenced resilience fund that allows schools to provide bespoke mental health and wellbeing support packages, as appropriate to their pupils and their context.

I want to end by paying tribute to the amazing school staff in my constituency. They are delighted that children are coming back to school in a couple of weeks, but they are exhausted, stressed and burnt out. They have been juggling classroom and remote teaching, testing and implementing new guidance at short notice. A long-term plan for schools must put children at its heart, but focus on staff morale, wellbeing and development as well as pay.