Oral Answers to Questions
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
From this autumn, the levelling-up premium will provide early career teachers in maths, physics, chemistry and computing with a bonus of up to £3,000 tax-free annually if they teach disadvantaged children in disadvantaged schools. That is in addition to tax-free bursaries worth £24,000 and tax-free scholarships worth £26,000.
Claire Coutinho
Maths skills are one of the surest ways to ensure higher future earnings for students, so I welcome this package; it is the right thing to do to try to get high-quality teachers into disadvantaged schools. I also support the specialist maths schools agenda, which ensuring that aim in a different way. Will the Secretary of State update the House on its progress?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the work that she does to promote maths to girls. I believe she was previously a maths captain—we have a lot to learn from her. We have three great specialist maths schools, with some of the best A-level results nationally. We are on track to have 10 regional maths schools by 2025, including one in Surrey.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Secretary of State agree that in order really to deliver this provision, we need partnerships with local and regional universities? Does it disturb him that some universities seem to want to go back to the past and only teach science and engineering, and not the arts and humanities? If levelling up is to mean anything, we need universities to be there for local communities.
Nadhim Zahawi
I know that the hon. Gentleman is passionate about the topic, including through his think-tank’s work. He is right that universities, including the Open University, will play a key role. The work that I have witnessed in the collaboration between further education and higher education—the fungibility of both together—in our institutes of technology is equally important to ensure that we produce different runways from which young people’s careers can take off.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
We are committed to improving the cost, choice and availability of childcare. We have spent more than £3.5 billion in each of the past three years in the Department for Education on both education and tax-free childcare. On the childcare element of universal credit, we spend between £4 billion and £5 billion each year. Today, we have announced further measures to increase take-up of childcare support and to reduce the cost and bureaucracy facing both parents and providers.
Matt Rodda
The Secretary of State has described the Government policy very eloquently, but given the soaring cost of childcare and the enormous pressure on parents and, indeed, on the sector, would it not be so much better to introduce a childcare recovery plan to invest properly in the sector, giving it the resources that are needed and substantially increasing the funds available, rather than cutting costs and looking at staff to child ratios? Will he also look again at the funding of specific parts of the sector, such as the excellent maintained nursery sector; we have three excellent maintained nurseries in Reading. Will he also consider an independent review into this important sector?
Nadhim Zahawi
On the maintained nurseries, the hon. Gentleman is quite right. When I was children and families Minister, I saw the great work they do. We have announced £10 million of additional support for maintained nurseries. We are investing up to £180 million specifically on early years recovery to address the impacts of the pandemic. That includes £153 million investment in evidence-based professional development for early years practitioners, which are equally important for the sector, because, clearly it is a tight labour market at the moment.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State and his excellent Minister for their drive for quality in this sector. Those of us on the all-party parliamentary group on childcare and early education will study carefully the consultation put out today, but can the Secretary of State say what discussions he has had with Ofsted regarding the proposed changes to staffing ratios in early years settings that we have heard about today, and when the Department might be able to publish further details of the wider package of childcare reforms that the Minister for Children and Families alluded to on Sky News this morning?
Nadhim Zahawi
Ofsted has been central to our work and we are consulting on the ratio issue that he mentions. We are also looking closely at childminders, a market that could do with some tender loving care at the moment, and seeing not only how we can help childminders to come into the sector by helping them with fees, but, once they have registered, how we ensure that inspections are proportionate and that they feel they are well rewarded for the work they do so brilliantly.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Instead of delivering meaningful reform of their broken childcare system, the Government have announced a consultation on allowing staff in early years settings to look after more children. Pregnant Then Screwed reports that four out of five childcare providers said that changing ratios would not be of any financial benefit to their organisation, and only one in 12 said that any cost savings would be passed on to parents. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that this proposal will make a meaningful difference to the cost of childcare for families—yes or no?
Nadhim Zahawi
If the hon. Lady reads the announcement and the case study we put forward, she will see that if the cost is passed on to parents, it is about £40. Crucially, however, it is not a silver bullet. This is part of a package of measures we are taking, which includes making sure that the 1.3 million people who are not currently claiming their tax-free childcare, where they can get 20% of their childcare or up to £2,000 paid for them, or the childcare element of universal credit, do so. That will make a real difference to them, as well as the consultation—bearing in mind that the consultation is also about ensuring that we continue the drive for quality that this Government have delivered in the childcare system and that safety is paramount for every child.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
We will publish an ambitious implementation strategy later this year following three important pieces of work: first, the independent review of social care—the MacAlister review—and then the Competition and Markets Authority study on the children’s social care market, and the national panel review of the deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson.
Ms Brown
Many years ago, as a residential social worker, I saw the pain and despair of many children in care, alongside their talents, their ambitions and their amazing resilience. None of this has changed, and we know that the most dangerous and difficult time for a child is the transition into leaving care. Too often services are just cut off and the child is left adrift. Will the Secretary of State promise me today that he will look at what more can be done to provide care leavers with consistent, quality support during and beyond those transitions, enabling them to live with foster families into their adulthood?
Nadhim Zahawi
As the hon. Lady will know—and as she probably remembers from when I was Children and Families Minister—we launched the care leaver covenant, which has made a significant difference to many of our young people in care as they transition out of care. There is also the work we are doing to support those 300,000 families who need that additional support. The work of MacAlister will make a huge difference. The hon. Lady knows that we have “staying put” and “staying close” to help those young people as they transition through, but I give her a pledge that we are serious about implementing the MacAlister review.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
This weekend, as the Secretary of State will have seen, the Swedish Government announced a review into the profit motive in children’s education. Can he confirm, perhaps with yes or no, that the profit motive must be taken out of the care of our most vulnerable children?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. Part of why I mentioned the Competition and Markets Authority review to make sure that the system is working properly is that it is something I am concerned about. I would focus on profiteering rather than profit, because I think people will want to go into this sector to help children, and I do not have a problem with their making a profit. It is excessive profiteering that I am certainly concerned about.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
Councils from across the country continue to send children and young people on out-of-area placements to Blackpool, often with good reason—to keep those children safe—but they do not notify Blackpool Council or Lancashire constabulary that these children are in the area. Often we find out when it is too late and something has gone wrong. What more can the Government do as part of their review of children’s social services to make sure that out-of-area placements made by councils are communicated to the host areas’ statutory agencies?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend asks an important question, and he will know that we are looking at how we help local authorities to commission and buy places much more efficiently with the regional care co-operatives. There is also the work of the MacAlister review, after which hopefully out-of-area placements will become a rarity, rather than where we are today.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
The national curriculum states that pupils should read a wide range of books, poems and plays to appreciate our rich literary heritage and to develop a love for literature, as I did as a teenager. That includes pre-1914 contemporary prose, poetry and drama, Shakespeare and seminal world literature. Schools have freedom to select texts meeting those criteria.
Nick Fletcher
Does my right hon. Friend agree that caution is needed with books that encourage a child to question their biological sex and to believe they were born in the wrong body because of gender nonconformity and not conforming to society’s stereotypes? Parents should be able to see what is being shared with children, whether in lessons or the school library.
Nadhim Zahawi
I want to be clear: parents should know what their children are being taught in school. There are clear requirements on schools about providing parents with information about their school’s curriculum. We appreciate that parents have particular concerns about gender nonconformity, which is why we are developing very clear guidance for the frontline for schools to be able to deal with that issue.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
On 7 June, day two of Arriva’s bus strikes in Leeds, a group of year 10 pupils at the John Smeaton Academy in Leeds faced a dilemma. They had an exam, but their school bus was not running. What is more, they live in a hotel 4.2 miles from the school—that is because they are resettled Afghan refugees. They woke up very early and walked the 4.2 miles to school so that they could sit their exams. Those children are exemplary students. They are very welcome in Britain, and their example should inspire us all and shame those whose striking has jeopardised young people’s futures.
Kate Osamor
The Secretary of State has suggested that it would be unforgiveable for teachers to go on strike. What is unforgiveable is that teachers’ pay has fallen by a fifth in real terms in the past 12 years of Conservative rule. At the same time, they have been crushed under an unsustainable workload, hurting mental health and wellbeing. It is no wonder that seven in 10 have considered quitting in the past year. Will he commit to giving teachers the above-inflation pay increase they so richly deserve?
Nadhim Zahawi
I do not think that any teacher would want to strike after the damage that covid did with students being out of school. In my evidence to the pay review body, I talked about wanting to deliver almost 9%—it was 8.9%—for new teachers this year and a 7.1% uplift next year to take their starting salary to £30,000 a year. My recommendation for more senior teachers was 5% over two years.
Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Last week, the Secretary of State’s flagship Schools Bill was left in tatters as he pulled 18 out of 69 clauses. Will he explain whether that was because he was bamboozled by his officials, he did not understand his own legislation, or he planned it all along? Or was it just the incompetence that we have all come to expect?
Nadhim Zahawi
At least I am not missing in action. If the hon. Lady had looked at the detail of my White Paper rather than attempted to play politics with it, she would know that I always promised a review of clauses 1 to 18 because we are taking what is in contract with multi-academy trusts and putting it in statute. I have now launched that review to ensure that we get it right so that clauses 1 to 18 come to this place and the Bill gets through to deliver the outcomes that we all want to see for all children.
Bridget Phillipson
That really is quite hard to believe.
Parents will know that the cost of care is skyrocketing, yet even the Children’s Minister himself—the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince)—admitted that the changes the Government are considering are
“not going to significantly change costs”.
Labour has already set out how its children’s recovery plan would tackle this vital issue and provide immediate help to families now. What will it take for the Secretary of State to find some fresh ideas that actually address this growing crisis?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady again misses the point. The package is not just about the ratios. It is about looking at how we encourage and grow the childminder market, how we ensure the 1.2 million parents who are eligible to get tax-free childcare make that claim and, of course, how we support teachers, both in our brilliant maintained nurseries and across the system, to do much more for the children we want to see them deliver for.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
Nadhim Zahawi
Indeed, the Secretary of State will engage with my hon. Friend on his passion for this subject. He knows we are investing £17 million in the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme to improve language skills in reception-age children who most need that help. I would just like to also take this opportunity, because I know—
Mr Speaker
Order. Come on, I’ve got to get through these questions. I call Mike Kane.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I hope my right hon. Friend will see this book I have here, “The Children’s Inquiry” by Liz Cole and Molly Kingsley, about the damage to children during lockdown. The number of ghost children is still rising: it has risen by 100,000 to 1.7 million absent children. I know my right hon. Friend set up the Attendance Alliance Group, but the fact is that we need to get those children back to school, and the numbers are rising. What will he do to ensure those children get back to school in September?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee. Those are not just ghost children; they are flesh and blood. We must make sure that we do everything in our power to get them back into school. The national register will identify where those children are, so that we can really focus on that.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that improving the quality and depth of technical qualifications is vital to our levelling-up agenda and also to helping everyone improve social mobility?
Nadhim Zahawi
Yes I do. The more runways that we can build from which people’s careers can take off, the better.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. We will wait to see the work of the pay review bodies. We have submitted our recommendation, and we will wait to hear what they say about it.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
At a roundtable at Heathfield Community College last week, the Secretary of State’s adviser and I heard a number of great ideas from a group of headteachers and governors. One was that there is surely a need for the proposed parents’ pledge, to outline not only what parents can expect from teachers but what teachers can expect from parents. Would that idea help us to help teachers teach?
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
With the school holidays cantering up to us, can my right hon. Friend confirm that helping parents with the cost of childcare is a key priority for his Department? What impact does he expect the decision to pay up to 85% of the cost of childcare for those on universal credit to have, as opposed to the 70% that was provided under the previous regime?
Nadhim Zahawi
The purpose of the important package announced today is to ensure that parents on universal credit, or the tax-free childcare element, claim what is rightfully theirs. We are spending between £4 billion and £5 billion on helping parents with childcare.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Ministers keep telling us that it is important for parents to claim the tax breaks for childcare. Last year the Government spent just £150,000 on advertising them, saving the Treasury £3 billion. What additional funding has the Department secured for advertising child tax credit spending?
Child Protection
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
Today, the independent national child safeguarding practice review panel published its national review into the murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson.
The murders of Arthur and Star shocked the nation. It is incomprehensible that anyone could harm a child in this way.
I want to thank Annie Hudson, the chair of the panel, and her team for their hard work and commitment in setting out the learning from these horrific incidents. Arthur and Star’s extended families did as much as they could to protect them. Being involved in this process and reflecting on what happened must have been incredibly difficult. I want to thank the children’s families for their contributions to today’s review and the insights they have provided while grieving for their huge loss. I am also grateful to professionals across Bradford and Solihull for their engagement with the review. It is only through these open and honest conversations that we can truly learn from what has happened.
No Government can legislate for evil, but the panel’s recommendations look to address the problems that they have seen across child protection services, and to make such terrible incidents as rare as possible.
The national review pays tribute to the many professionals across our country who carry out effective child protection every day, whilst recognising that the child protection system needs to be strengthened. To this end, the panel has made local recommendations for safeguarding partners in Solihull and Bradford as well as eight national recommendations to strengthen delivery of child protection services.
I am committed, with colleagues across this House, to acting on these recommendations. No time can be wasted in learning from these tragedies, and I assure the House that we will do all we can to deliver significant improvements to child protection services.
We have already taken strong action in both Solihull and Bradford to drive up the quality of services. In Solihull, I commissioned a joint targeted area inspection, served an improvement notice, provided additional funding, and deployed an expert improvement adviser. Alongside this, the local authority has established an improvement board to drive progress and ensure multi-agency working between the police, health and the local authority to keep local children as safe as possible.
In Bradford, we are establishing a new children’s services trust. Evidence shows trusts can turn around failing services, delivering the care that every child deserves. This approach has worked well elsewhere, notably in Sunderland which improved from inadequate to outstanding in three years. Today I am delighted to announce the appointment of Eileen Milner as the chair of the new trust. Eileen is an experienced leader with a strong track record and will be working alongside our commissioner in Bradford, Steve Walker, and the council, to improve these critical services for children and families in Bradford as quickly as possible.
My Department’s broader investment in local authority intervention and improvement is already paying off: 53% of authorities are now rated good or outstanding, up from 36% five years ago. 42% more children in need are now living in local authorities which are rated good or outstanding than in 2017.
Yet system change on a national scale is needed. On Monday, we announced the publication of the independent review of children’s social care, led by Josh MacAlister. The recommendations align with those outlined in the independent review into children’s social care and look to address the problems that they have seen across child protection services and make such terrible incidents as rare as possible.
As the panel’s national review states, data and information sharing are essential to keeping children safe, and sadly weaknesses in information sharing hindered professionals’ understanding of what was happening to Arthur and Star. This is why we will take action to drive forward, from the independent review of children’s social care, three data and digital priority areas, ensuring local government and partners are in the driving seat of reform. Following the review’s recommendation for a data and technology taskforce, we will introduce a new digital and data solutions fund to help local authorities improve delivery for children and families through technology. More detail will follow later this year on joining up data from across the public sector so that we can increase transparency—both between safeguarding partners and the wider public.
My ministerial colleagues and I are fully committed to improving the national co-ordination of child protection. Today we have written to all safeguarding partners to emphasise the important messages contained in the national review and put out a call to action to take forward these important recommendations. Together with my colleagues across Whitehall, we will also form a new child protection ministerial group, to ensure that safeguarding is championed at the very highest levels. We are also developing further our offer of support to safeguarding partners and will clarify roles and responsibilities through guidance.
This is challenging and complex work, and I am sure colleagues across the House will agree with me that the vast majority of those working in child protection go to work each day to try to make things better. No one deserves to be the subject of abuse and harassment, let alone such conscientious, committed and capable professionals doing all they can to protect children from harm.
I will consider the recommendations from the panel’s national review and those from the independent review of children’s social care and respond in full before the end of this year when we will publish a bold implementation strategy incorporating the recommendations.
I am committed to driving forward progress with those across all safeguarding agencies to protect children, and with colleagues across Parliament as well as those with lived experience of the care system, to deliver reform.
I know that people in Solihull, Bradford and far beyond are deeply troubled by the findings of these reviews. I want to assure people across the country that this Government will not shirk our duty of keeping children safe, that the lines written in these reviews will be poured over, and steps will be taken to make sure lessons are learned so that we do not find ourselves here again.
[HCWS64]
Oral Answers to Questions
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
I am sure that the whole House will join me in sending our well wishes to the Minister for Higher and Further Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), as she is fighting covid and, I am sure, will defeat it.
To help all pupils to achieve their potential, I have increased core schools funding by £4 billion, which is a 7% increase in cash terms per pupil this year, in 2022-23; and I have directed—flexed—£2.6 billion of that funding towards low prior attainment children through the national funding formula.
Scott Benton
The additional funding that schools in Blackpool receive through our status as an opportunity area and an education investment area will make a real difference on the ground. However, headteachers often raise with me the problem of digital exclusion when pupils are at home due to a lack of IT equipment, which obviously puts pupils from lower-income families at a comparative disadvantage. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that pupils from low-income backgrounds do not lose out due to digital exclusion?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his excellent question. I am working to ensure that every school has access to high-speed broadband connectivity by 2025. Priority schools in education improvement areas will be able to access our £150 million programme to upgrade their internal network infrastructure. During the pandemic, as my hon. Friend highlighted from his teachers’ point of view, many children did not have access to technology for learning at home, so we provided devices, wi-fi and data to disadvantaged students to support digital inclusion at home.
Julie Marson
I am supporting my Bishop’s Stortford constituents’ “Turn on the Subtitles” campaign to improve children’s literacy across the board, but particularly in low-performing areas. Raj Chande, the director of Nesta’s “A Fairer Start” mission, said that the campaign’s evidence is compelling, and it has Nesta’s seal of approval—an important endorsement. Therefore, what plans does my right hon. Friend have to invest in the campaign by reviewing its mass of evidence, and will he encourage parents and children to turn on the subtitles?
Nadhim Zahawi
I have set out in the White Paper that we share the commitment to raising literacy standards, as I am sure the whole House does, and we want to ensure that all children can read fluently and with that understanding. I thank Henry Warren and Oli Barrett MBE for their commitment to improving literacy levels, and they have championed that campaign. It is a choice for parents and guardians whether their child watches television and whether they do so with the subtitles on, but it certainly makes a difference in the Zahawi household.
Paul Holmes
Does the Secretary of State agree that as well as funding, data and transparency matter so that we can monitor things, act quickly and see that the plans that we have announced are working to improve schools right across Eastleigh?
Nadhim Zahawi
I never tire of saying that data and transparency are our greatest allies in improving educational outcomes. We are absolutely focused on delivering against the ambitious targets that we have set for skills, schools and families, and on holding ourselves in the Department against them. Sharing our plans and performance data is a key lever to drive rapid improvement through the complex system that we oversee in education. I have committed to publishing a delivery plan setting out what we will achieve and a performance dashboard showing progress, and I want teachers and school leaders to do the same on behaviour, absenteeism and, of course, standards.
Nick Fletcher
Does the Minister agree that the future of children’s education in the now city of Doncaster has never been brighter due to the excellent steps taken by this Government, the fantastic schools in Don Valley and the roll-out of my role models project on the ground, which shows young people all the career opportunities? With that in mind, will the Minister agree to come to Don Valley and see for himself the good work that is being done?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend is certainly a role model in how he has celebrated Doncaster becoming a city. I am delighted that the role models project is connecting schools in Don Valley to local professionals; it is inspiring and informative for young people to hear about the career journeys of role models and to learn about all the excellent career opportunities available to them in Doncaster. I look forward to joining my hon. Friend and seeing the project for myself.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that any increases in funding for schools should be spent on teaching and learning, not on propping up failing energy companies? In an average primary school, £30,000 more—the cost of a teacher—is being spent on energy. What is the Secretary of State going to do about it? Will he include nurseries and early years settings in his assessment?
Nadhim Zahawi
The 7% increase on last year, in cash terms, that we secured at the spending review for this year includes significant additional funding that allows us headroom, but the hon. Lady is right to highlight the point. Energy represents about 1.4% to 1.5% of schools’ budgets, but because of the energy spike, schools that are out of contract have seen that proportion increase to 7%, 8% or 9%. We are keeping a close eye on the matter. The one message that I would like the hon. Lady and every other hon. Member to take away to their schools is to get in touch with us if they are close to coming out of contract, because we can really help.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
May I take the chance to congratulate Stockport children’s services on their “good” Ofsted rating?
I am really concerned at the lack of progress in educational attainment, particularly at secondary level, in schools in parts of my constituency across Stockport and Tameside. What action is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that all parents have the choice of schools with good performance and that children have the opportunities that a good education can bring?
Nadhim Zahawi
I know that the hon. Gentleman and I share the same passion in what we want for every child. I do not believe that children in Stockport are less talented than children in South Kensington; they have just not had the same opportunity of a great teacher in every classroom in every school. I am determined to deliver that through the White Paper.
I join the hon. Gentleman in celebrating the inspection result for Stockport children’s services; they have done a phenomenal job. I hope that he will be in the Chamber for the statement by the Children and Families Minister—the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince)—about Josh MacAlister’s very important review, which has been published today.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
You will understand, Mr Speaker, how disturbed I was to learn that Highland Council schools have been ranked as the worst in the whole of Scotland for numeracy and literacy among P1, P4 and P7 pupils. These children are our future. We used to be proud of Scottish education. Will the Government share their best practice with the Scottish Government so that this scandal is sorted out?
Nadhim Zahawi
That is concerning, I have to say, because although education is devolved, we care about the whole United Kingdom. I am very happy to share our work through the education White Paper and the education Bill, and what we are doing on skills, with T-levels and the lifelong learning entitlement. I worry that Scottish children are being let down. It feels as if Scotland is in freefall down the league tables of the programme for international student assessment.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I am more interested in the Government’s record on academic inequality than in their rhetoric. The annual review of education by the Institute for Fiscal Studies reveals that since 2010, the most deprived secondary schools have suffered a 14% cut in spending, while for the most affluent schools the figure is just 9%. The new national funding formula makes the disparity worse. The Government’s 10 years of further education cuts also fell harder on poorer students. We all know that the Government stand against aspiration for deprived children and are increasing inequality, as those figures show. Why do they not at least have the courage to admit it?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Gentleman makes some powerful points, but they are completely misguided. He speaks with great passion, but without looking at the evidence before us. The past 12 years demonstrate that schools have been on an improvement journey. When we came into office, only two thirds of schools could achieve a good or outstanding rating; the figure is now 86%. My predecessors’ work on skills has taken investment in the skills agenda up to £3.8 billion. When we talk to teachers and school leaders around the country, they know that the White Paper will deliver great outcomes for every child. We have set our ambitions high for children all over the country; we know how to get there, and we will deliver.
Mr Speaker
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Carol Monaghan.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I was sorry to hear about the Minister for Higher and Further Education, the right hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), and I wish her a speedy recovery.
I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will join me in wishing all the young people throughout the United Kingdom who are currently sitting their national exams the best of success.
The Secretary of State has praised private schools, including Eton, for building free schools in places such as Oldham, which, according to him, need that investment in education. Can he confirm that it is now Government policy to rely on private school investment where Government funds have been lacking?
Nadhim Zahawi
I completely agree with the hon. Lady that we should send our congratulations to the brilliant teachers who have delivered the 650,000 pupils who have taken their key stage 2 standard assessment tests this month. Students began taking their A-levels and GCSEs last Monday, and 3 million individual test scripts have been returned for marking. That is a great achievement after two years of being stuck with covid.
The hon. Lady asked about funding. This Government will be putting £56.5 billion into our school system. We have a plan, which is well evidenced, for delivering a great school with a great teacher for every classroom in the country. Scotland has no plan, and is in freefall in the international league tables.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
The law is clear that schools must remain politically impartial. I know that colleagues on all sides of the House relish going into schools for hustings during elections. Children need to learn about the yellow team, the blue team, the red team and the green team, but I recognise that some issues can be challenging to deal with, so my Department has recently published clear, comprehensive guidance to help teachers tackle sensitive issues in the classroom in a politically impartial way.
Gareth Bacon
In April this year, members of the National Education Union claimed that it was somehow impossible to teach history in a balanced manner. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that some children are at risk of being indoctrinated by political activists masquerading as teachers? Will he bring forward powers in the new Schools Bill to strike off those who repeatedly fail to comply with impartiality guidelines?
Nadhim Zahawi
Our knowledge-rich history curriculum requires teaching methods of historical inquiry. We should be teaching children how to think, not what to think, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims and discerning how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed. Our guidance supports this, and schools already have powers to take disciplinary action where teachers repeatedly breach their legal duties.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
We remain committed to delivering alternative student finance, and we are currently considering if and how it can be delivered as part of the lifelong loan entitlement.
Stephen Timms
It is estimated that 4,000 Muslim students a year do not go into higher education because there is no finance available that is compatible with their faith. David Cameron promised to fix this nine years ago. A good deal of work was done, but it seems to have run into the sand in the past few years. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for reaffirming the Government’s commitment to delivering on David Cameron’s promise, but can he give us an indication of how much longer Muslim students will have to wait?
Nadhim Zahawi
We will provide a further update on alternative student finance as part of our response to the LLE consultation, which closed earlier this month.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
Monthly student loan repayments are based on income, not interest rates, meaning that no one will see their monthly repayment increase due to interest rates. From September, we have reformed the student loan system so that new borrowers will not repay more in real terms than they originally borrowed—that is fair.
Simon Baynes
The level of student loan interest rates is of great importance to students, past and present, in my constituency, half of which is in the new city of Wrexham. Will my right hon. Friend provide further detail on how we can apply a sustainable downward pressure to student loan interest rates in future?
Nadhim Zahawi
That is an important question, and I fully recognise the concerns of students and their parents about increasing interest rates. I am looking actively at how we can mitigate that, and we will be setting it out shortly. I emphasise again that no one’s monthly repayment will increase due to higher interest rates, which is an important point to make when people’s budgets are tight.
Mr Speaker
The House will be in shock that Question 7 has been withdrawn.
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
Violence against women is unacceptable, and we must pursue a zero-tolerance culture. I have written to the Office for Students to make clear my view that it should make tackling sexual misconduct a binding condition of universities’ registration. I have also launched a pledge that commits universities to not using non-disclosure agreements to silence victims of sexual harassment. Fifty-three providers have so far made the pledge, and we expect many more to follow.
Fleur Anderson
We are far from zero tolerance at the moment. As a parent of two daughters who have attended or are attending two different universities, I have seen that universities are not safe spaces. Research shows that between two thirds and three quarters of female students, and 70% of female university and college staff, have experienced sexual violence.
The president of the University of Roehampton’s students union has been in regular contact with me about incidents there and about how the local police’s hands are tied because sexual harassment is not a crime, so they cannot take action. There are many factors. Will the Secretary of State go further and commission a review of sexual violence on campuses across our country and take more action to make our campuses safe?
Nadhim Zahawi
Universities UK published a report a couple of years ago assessing the sector’s progress on tackling gender-based violence, harassment and hate crime. It showed some progress had been made, but only 72% of responding institutions had developed or improved the recording of data on harassment. I need them to go much further, and we will keep everything on the table. I am determined that we get to where the hon. Lady and I both want to get. I am the father of a nine-year-old girl who will one day go to college or, I hope, take a degree apprenticeship. A zero-tolerance culture must be delivered.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
The Government maintain our commitment to the protection of free speech and academic freedom in universities with the reintroduction of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill following the Queen’s Speech on 10 May.
Sir John Hayes
As the Secretary of State says, it is right and just that we are in the vanguard of the fight for free speech. As the Bill that will ensure that progresses through the House, the backdrop against which we debate it is disturbing, with universities continuing to use the Equality Act 2010 to elevate the fear of disturbance or distress above the ability of free speech to inspire, enthral and move the academic agenda forward. The case of Dr Sarkar at the University of Oxford is a recent sad example, but it is by no means exceptional. Will the Secretary of State, before the Bill reaches the statute book, conduct a review of free speech policies at universities, and, if necessary, issue fresh guidance to ensure that academics and students in those universities can speak freely? [Interruption.]
Nadhim Zahawi
I shall attempt to be pithy, Mr Speaker.
The Government and I are clear that issues such as antisemitism are abhorrent, but universities and students’ unions must balance their legal duties, including freedom of speech and tackling harassment. The Bill will place duties directly on students’ unions to secure freedom of speech for staff, students and visiting speakers. No one should fear expressing lawful views.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
Our ambition, which I know my right hon. Friend shares, is that we will level up opportunities for all children and young people. That is why I have published the Schools White Paper and the SEND and alternative provision Green Paper, which sets out our plans to better identify children at risk of falling behind and then provide them with the support they need. That includes those with neurodivergent conditions
Matt Hancock
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer and for the work that he has done. The White Paper and the SEND review have gone down very well, but they are about the direction of travel; we need to get to the destination. Will he confirm the need for a universal approach to screening for neurodiverse conditions and will he also congratulate those who are doing good work already such as those at Laureate Community Academy in Exning in Newmarket, which I visited earlier this month?
Nadhim Zahawi
The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), will be hosting a roundtable meeting this summer to discuss the different approaches being taken around the country, where I hope we will learn from some of those people—as my right hon. Friend knows, I will always be the evidence-led Secretary of State. Early intervention is important, and the SEND and alternative provision Green Paper will deliver that. Moreover, the parent pledge in the Schools White Paper is a lever for teachers to identify those children with dyslexia and dyspraxia and to put that help in place.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
My schools White Paper and new attendance guidance set out how we expect schools and local authorities to support severely absent pupils so that they can attend regularly. We also recently launched a live data trial for schools, trusts and local authorities, enabling them to target support at pupils who need it most.
Robert Halfon
My right hon. Friend rightly says that he is driven by the data, and I thank him for the work he is doing to try to get these children back to school. The Centre for Social Justice suggests that 13,000 children in critical exam years were severely absent in the autumn term 2020, and FFT Education Datalab suggests that 5% of pupils were severely absent from September to May this year. What data are the Government collecting on children in exam years who have been severely absent, and what is being done to bring them back to school and to ensure that they get targeted tuition through the catch-up programme?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am delighted to confirm that, as my right hon. Friend knows, we are bringing forward legislative measures to establish a local authority registration system, but that is for the future. Those GCSE, AS-level and A-level students sitting exams this year have been given advance information to help them focus, and to give them the confidence to come in and take exams this year. We are also working to make sure that the alliance of national leaders across education is doing everything it can to deal with persistent absenteeism, and to make sure that all children are in school, which is the best place for them to be.
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
The United Kingdom’s education export was estimated at over £25 billion in 2019. I am delighted that 132 Education Ministers from 110 countries around the world are in town today to join us at the Education World Forum this week.
We all want to congratulate all those students sitting exams. Hundreds of thousands have already sat their exams, including 650,000 taking key stage 2 standard assessment tests. I am sure the whole House will join me in wishing them very well.
In the platinum jubilee year, 4.5 million primary school children in schools in England and Northern Ireland will receive a hardback book, as will those in schools in Scotland and Wales who opt in. In some homes there are no books, and those children will take home this beautiful book about Her Majesty’s reign and the Commonwealth.
Mark Fletcher
Last week I received an email from a parent on Holbeck Avenue in Bolsover, saying:
“There is no 6th form available at The Bolsover School and so pupils wishing to do A levels have an expensive bus ride in order to get anywhere. For instance it costs around £650 a year if your child is successful to get a place at St Mary’s High School in Chesterfield and the choice of courses at Chesterfield college are quite limited.”
Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State share my passion for ensuring post-16 education in the Bolsover constituency?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend and I met on 9 May to discuss access to the full range of post-16 education in his constituency. I asked my officials to look into the matters raised at that meeting. I know my hon. Friend is a champion of this issue and has looked at the evidence, and I will write to him very shortly.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
The Schools Bill gives the Secretary of State sweeping powers over the operation of our schools. Does that mean that he recognises that the Government’s approach to school improvement over the past 12 years has failed?
Nadhim Zahawi
Quite the opposite. The hon. Lady clearly does not follow the evidence. If she looked at it, she would see that families of schools in high-performing multi-academy trusts have delivered better outcomes for their students. Whether they are Church of England schools, Catholic schools or grammar schools, they are all joining us on this journey, and I invite her to do the same.
Bridget Phillipson
Headteachers are telling us they are having to cut back on staffing, school trips, and even pens and paper. As costs soar and the national insurance rise comes into effect, the Secretary of State is still failing to invest in our children’s recovery. Experts have lined up to tell him the damage his inaction will cause, not just to our children’s future but to Britain’s future success. What will it take to convince him to put our children first?
Nadhim Zahawi
I do not know whether the hon. Lady was listening when I talked about the 7% cash increase in the budget for schools this year compared with last year—that is £4 billion going to our schools. By 2024 we will be investing £56.5 billion in education. Of course money makes a difference, but if she visits Hammersmith Academy she will meet a great leadership team who are delivering for their students—60% of whom get the pupil premium—because leadership matters. I wish her luck in her leadership campaign.
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Gullis, I told you to be short, but you obviously cannot. Secretary of State.
Nadhim Zahawi
The Schools Bill will protect grammar schools. However, we have 165 grammar schools, and 90 of them are already playing their part in those families of schools in multi-academy trusts. We have a system with 22,000 schools. I mentioned Gary Kynaston’s brilliant leadership of Hammersmith Academy. My hon. Friend should go and have a look at Michaela and what Katharine Birbalsingh has done there. That is—
Mr Speaker
Order. Come on, let us be fair. Both of you have lined these comments up—that is great—but it is topical questions; they are meant to be short and sweet. Do not take advantage. It is not like you, Secretary of State; you are too nice a person.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Last Friday was the 36th anniversary of the rebel amendment in the House of Lords proposed by Lady Cox, which banned the indoctrination of schoolchildren with partisan political views. Does the Secretary of State accept that the concept of anti-nuclear education, and of anti-imperialist education, which led to that ban, are to be compared with the concepts of vicious identity politics and of the decolonisation of subjects, which rightly fall foul of the legislation he cited?
Nadhim Zahawi
My right hon. Friend raises a very powerful point, and he is quite right: children should be taught how to think, not what to think.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Church of England and the Catholic Church run a third of schools in England. How does the Secretary of State plan to improve that partnership even further for the benefit of all children?
Nadhim Zahawi
The Church of England and the Catholic Church have been partners on the journey of the White Paper. They are already making ambitious plans to deliver what we all want to see—great schools where children get a great education in the classroom wherever they live in the country.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
When a child experiences deep trauma, it can escalate their vulnerability and can display itself in many ways, including harm to themselves and others. Early intervention is key, but when residential placements are required, it is inexcusable when there are no places available locally or nationally. How will the Secretary of State rectify that as a matter of urgency?
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State support the chair of the Office for Students’ endorsement of Viktor Orbán, including his approach to academic freedom in higher education?
Nadhim Zahawi
I support the chair of the Office for Students for all the work that he is doing to improve outcomes for students in our universities.
Ian Levy (Blyth Valley) (Con)
Blyth Valley is at the forefront of the green industrial revolution, but we need to ensure that our young people are equipped to fill the skills gap in those industries. We need local jobs for local people, so will the Secretary of State visit to see how we can link schools and industry to deliver for young people?
Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
It is a great honour for me to open this debate on the Loyal Address. In Her Majesty’s jubilee year, I want to thank her for her dedication and service to our country, the Commonwealth and all its people. That includes young immigrants arriving on these shores, who feel her warmth and generosity; of course, some of them end up as her Ministers. I also thank Prince Charles and Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, for opening Parliament on her behalf.
During Her Majesty’s 70-year reign, this country has been the best place in the world to grow up and grow old, yet during these seven decades the British people have overcome major challenges, time and time again. We have just lived through what I am sure you will agree has been an incredibly difficult period, Madam Deputy Speaker. After years of sacrifice by people up and down the country, this Queen’s Speech focuses our attention exactly where it should be—on the future.
The future, full of promise, will not be without its challenges, both at home and overseas. Our country needed a Queen’s Speech that rises to the scale of the challenge we face, and we have delivered it. Our communities needed a Queen’s Speech that keeps them safe, secure and prosperous, and we will deliver it. Our constituents needed a Queen’s Speech that shows them that the door of opportunity is always open to them, and we will deliver it. Our relentless focus is on delivery, delivery, delivery.
Before I outline how our legislative programme will make sure that this country remains the best place to grow up and grow old, I reaffirm this Government’s solidarity with the people of Ukraine. I am pleased to say that all Ukrainian children and young people arriving in the United Kingdom have the right to access state education while in the UK. With memories of my own childhood, leaving Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and building a new life here, I know how important education is to helping young people integrate into their new communities.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Secretary of State is absolutely right to say that there is no better place in the world to live than this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—always better together. Can he confirm that through the Government’s policies and this Queen’s Speech, every step will be taken to ensure that every child in this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland achieves academic success; to improve the health system for every person who is on the waiting list; and to help every elderly person who depends on a better income for energy, food and heat?
Nadhim Zahawi
I think the hon. Gentleman speaks for the whole of Northern Ireland when he says that the focus has to be on the education, healthcare and public services that the people of Northern Ireland so badly need.
Not only do we need to make sure that Ukrainian refugees are well integrated, but we need to give them the same skills that we are giving our children, so that they can take on the challenges of the future.
Not only do we need to make sure that Ukrainian refugees are well integrated, but we need to give them the same skills that we are giving our children, so that they can take on the challenges of the future. I want to take this opportunity to commend schools and local authorities across England for rising to the challenge of welcoming and supporting children arriving from Ukraine, and offering thousands of them a school place, in the same schools that are at the heart of our plans to level up. One of the first Bills introduced this Session, in the other place, is the Schools Bill, which will deliver a stronger schools system that works for every child, no matter where they were born or live in our country. It will work alongside close to £5 billion of investment in our ambitious multi-year educational recovery plan, investing in what we know works: teacher training; tutoring; and extra educational opportunities, including of course extra hours for those who have the least time left in education—the 16 to 19-year-old students.
The evidence is clear that our plan is working and the recovery is happening, with primary pupils recovering about 0.1 months in reading and 0.9 months in maths since the summer. Combined with our £7 billion cash increase in the total core schools budget by 2024-25—this is compared not with 10 years ago but with 2021-22—this means we are giving schools the resources they need to focus on student outcomes. It is money that will help schools increase teachers’ pay, including by delivering on our manifesto pledge of a £30,000 starting salary. This is money that will help schools deliver resources for students and meet inflationary pressures in these uncertain times.
However, there is more to do, because too many children leave primary school unable to meet the expected standards in reading, writing and mathematics, despite the remarkable progress in the past decade. Through our Bill, 90% of primary school children will achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by 2030, and the percentage of children meeting the expected standard in the worst performing areas, which need the most help, will have increased by more than a third. To meet our ambitious targets, the Schools Bill will go further, taking steps to make children safe and addressing standards in attendance, with this all underpinned by a fairer and stronger schools system. Because our best multi-academy trusts—those families of schools—are delivering improvement in schools and in areas where poor performance had become entrenched, by 2030 we want all schools either to be in a strong multi-academy trust or to have plans to join or form one.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
The Secretary of State is making a powerful point. Is he aware that in my area the strong Odyssey Trust for Education, which runs the successful Townley Grammar School for girls, is already ahead of the game on this one and has taken over the failing Erith School and made it King Henry School, and is determined to make it a great success?
Nadhim Zahawi
I certainly am aware of the Odyssey Trust for Education, and indeed it is exactly that passion for transforming young people’s lives that we need on this journey; I know that that school and many other grammar schools—I believe it is 90 of the 165 grammar schools—have already joined those families of schools and will do the same.
Our ambitions are for all children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, who may need additional support, to reach their potential. The SEND and alternative provision Green Paper, published in March, sets out our ambitions for children and young people with SEND. Our proposals will build a more inclusive and financially sustainable system that delivers the right support in the right place at the right time for every child and young person. We want to establish a new single national SEND and alternative provision system and are investing now to secure future sustainability for that system. We have also set out clear roles and responsibilities, and of course accountability measures, for everybody working in the SEND and alternative provision sector. That includes the new national and local inclusion dashboards to give a timely, transparent picture of how the system is performing across education, health and care, which is what parents have asked us to do.
Children and young people are the future of our country, but they cannot succeed if they are not safe and secure at home. That is why under my stewardship the Department for Education has been laser-focused on families. With strong families, we can make a fairer society, one in which children can escape the quicksand of disadvantage. With strong families, we can help to ensure that every child can grow up happy and of course with that vital opportunity. We are taking steps to strengthen families. We are funding 75 local authorities—half of England’s local authorities—with the highest levels of child deprivation to create family hubs and transform that support for families. Our investment includes a focus on babies, children and families in the early years, with funding for breastfeeding, parenting and parent-infant mental health services. Where families need more help, we have expanded the supporting families programme so that up to 300,000 families with more complex needs can work with a key worker to help to resolve problems.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
Safety is at the heart of what so many parents think of when they send their child into these settings, and I welcome the family help. Last week a child died in a nursery in my constituency, and I send my heartfelt condolences to the family. It must be a heartbreaking time. Ten years ago two other constituents lost their child, Millie, in a nursery. Dan and Joanne Thompson set up Millie’s Trust in her name, and now Millie’s Mark accredits staff in nurseries who have paediatric first aid training. Does my right hon. Friend agree that safety in nurseries and other childcare settings is vital and that paediatric first aid is vital so that members of staff know how to deal with these emergencies? Would he join me in—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. A lot of speakers are trying to get into this debate, so interventions need to be very brief.
Nadhim Zahawi
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on Millie’s Mark, and of course child safety in nurseries is vital and non-negotiable. I am grateful to her for bringing that accreditation to the House’s attention.
As I was saying, where families need additional help we have expanded the Supporting Families programme so that those 300,000 families with more complex needs can work with a key worker to help to resolve problems.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Nadhim Zahawi
I will just make a bit more headway, then I will take the hon. Lady’s intervention with pleasure.
To improve the lives and outcomes of children with a social worker, we need to make fundamental changes to the current system. I look forward to seeing the recommendations from the independent review of children’s social care—the MacAlister review—which will be published in the coming weeks. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve outcomes for children and families. This Government are acutely aware of how important childcare is to both children and their mums and dads. In each of the past three years we have spent in excess of £3.5 billion a year on our early education entitlements, and we will continue to support families with their childcare costs. At the spending review last October we announced additional funding for early years entitlements worth £160 million in 2022-23, £180 million in 2023-24 and £170 million in 2024-25 compared with the 2021-22 financial year.
Providing quality childcare is vital for children to develop from the earliest opportunity, but there is another point to all this. We know that women are the most likely to shoulder high childcare costs. The aim of the Government’s universal credit childcare offer is to support parents for whom paid childcare is a barrier to work to overcome that barrier. This works alongside tax-free childcare, helping parents return to work and making sure it pays to work. For every £8 that parents pay into their childcare account, we add £2, up to a maximum of £2,000, in top-up per year for each child up to the age of 11, and up to £4,000 per disabled child until they are 17. Overall, the Government have spent more than £4 billion on childcare each year for the past five years in the United Kingdom through childcare offers led by the Department for Education, tax-free childcare and employer-supported childcare. Addressing the issue means that women can, if they wish, go back to their careers. That is fair to them and it is good for business and the economy.
Our long-term economic success will turn on our ability to nurture and utilise talent, including that of new mothers. Human potential—human capital—is the most important resource on earth. To steal a phrase from my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the Chair of the Education Committee, we are determined to build a skills-rich economy. We are committed to delivering those skills through massive investment in and reforms to skills and further education provision.
We have already embarked on revolutionising the post-16 education sector, transforming apprenticeships, driving up quality and better meeting the skills needs of employers through more flexible training models. We have launched T-levels, boosting access to high-quality technical education for thousands of young people, and, of course, creating our skilled workforce of the future. I pledge to the House that I will make T-levels as famous as A-levels—watch this space. In the previous parliamentary Session, we successfully passed the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 to do just that. That Act, alongside our wider reforms, including an additional £3.8 billion investment in skills over this Parliament, rightly places employers at the heart of the skills system, supporting our ambition for everyone to be able to access the training that they need to move into highly skilled jobs. There is, of course, a crucial role for our universities in making sure that our country remains the best place in which to grow up and, given the link to future earnings and opportunities, to grow old.
We will bring forward further legislation through a higher education reform Bill to ensure that our post-18 education system promotes real social mobility, is financially sustainable and will support people to get the skills they need to meet their career aspirations and help grow the economy.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for what he is saying, but will the Bill address the injustice that Muslim students face? At the moment, they cannot access student loans. Suitable loans were promised by David Cameron in 2014, and they are still waiting. Will he address that?
Nadhim Zahawi
I made that pledge to the Education Committee a few weeks ago. We are looking at how we deliver on that.
As I was saying, we will introduce further legislation through the higher education reform Bill to ensure that our post-18 education system promotes real social mobility and, as the hon. Lady has just said, is financially sustainable.
Alongside that, we are meeting our manifesto commitment to challenge any restriction of lawful speech and academic freedom. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill will strengthen existing freedom of speech duties and will directly address gaps within the law, including the lack of a clear enforcement mechanism.
For both universities and technical education, one of the most important policies that we are implementing as part of the Skills and Post-16 Education Act is the paradigm shifting lifelong loan entitlement. A new and flexible skills system, it will provide people with an entitlement equivalent to four years of post-18 education, to be used over their lifetime in modules or as a whole, and is worth £37,000 in today’s money. We are writing a new chapter—no, we are writing a new book in skills education. The entitlement will give people the ability to train, retrain and upskill in response to changes in skills needs and employment patterns. In a dynamic economy in which sectors can be crushed and reborn in double time, that has to be our priority.
The world is different now from how it was when I entered the world of work and business. It is different now compared with when I became an MP 12 years ago. We must not only keep up with a changing world but lead the change, and the Queen’s Speech lays out how we will do that. As I said at the start of my speech, we are focused on delivering against the ambitious targets that we have set ourselves across skills, schools and families, and on holding ourselves to account against them. The sharing of our plans and performance data is a key lever to drive rapid improvement through the complex systems we oversee.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The Secretary of State talks about skills, which are so important. Does he recognise the real crisis we face with skills in the health service, and particularly the number of people we lack as regards the prevention and treatment of cancer? Will he and his friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who is sat next to him, consider the amendment on the Order Paper in my name, which calls for a strategy to tackle the cancer backlog? More than a third of my constituents with cancer are waiting more than two months for their first treatment.
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention and have a couple of things to say in response. First, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will address this, but I know that his priority—his laser-like focus—is on dealing with the backlog. There is also investment in Cumbria and the University of Cumbria for clinical training and the needs of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents.
As I said at the start of my speech, I am focused on delivery. I am passionate in my belief that performance data is a key lever to drive rapid improvement through complex systems, whether in education or in health. On transparency, as we did with the vaccine we will do the same again with education and health. I have committed to publishing a delivery plan setting out what we will achieve and a performance dashboard showing progress so that the House and the country can hold us to account. I have already written to all schools stating that we will publish data on the uptake of the national tutoring programme this summer. Many schools have helpfully given us access to their attendance data, and I am conducting a trial over the coming weeks to share that data back in a way that prompts helpful actions in schools and local authorities.
The spirit with which our education sector responded to the pandemic demonstrated why this is the best country to grow up in.
Rachael Maskell
The Secretary of State is talking about the best place for young people to grow up; will he explain why not a single placement of special provision for children at risk is available throughout the country, as my constituent is experiencing right now?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady raises an important point. That is partly why the MacAlister review of children’s social care is so important. I shall say more on that in the coming weeks.
Let me return to praising the incredible spirit of our education frontline: those brilliant teachers, school leaders and, of course, support staff—we must never forget the support staff—demonstrated why this is the best country to grow up in. We see that spirit across our public and private sector, including, of course, in the work of the national health service with our great vaccine companies, which has led the way in protecting lives and livelihoods in the battle against covid. Thanks to the astonishing roll-out of the vaccine and booster programmes, we were the first European nation to protect half our population with at least one dose and, thanks to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the first major European nation to boost half our population, too.
Following the unprecedented challenges placed on the NHS by covid, we will spend more than £8 billion from 2022-23 to 2024-25, supported by the revenue from the health and social care levy, to clear the covid elective backlogs. But we must be honest: our NHS faces long-term challenges too, including an ageing population and people increasing living with multiple long-term conditions. At this critical moment, we must seize the opportunity to put our healthcare system on a more sustainable path for the future, while meeting the immediate urgent recovery challenges. The Health and Care Act 2022 has created the structures for that sustainable future.
At the same time, as my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary will outline later, we will publish draft legislation to reform the Mental Health Act so that patients suffering from mental health conditions have greater control over their treatment and receive the dignity and respect that they deserve. I know that the NHS is an institution that makes people proud to be British. I and this entire Government share that sentiment, which is why we are safeguarding its sustainable future.
In closing, this was a Queen’s Speech filled with substantial policies, not least those that give young people the education they need to succeed in life; policies that will provide more rungs on the ladder of opportunity, and opportunity for older people who want a chance to learn and retrain; policies that put skills at the heart of our economy to unleash its potential; policies that back our public services so that they can deliver what our country needs; policies that sustain the truth that this is the best place in the world to grow up and grow old.
Several hon. Members rose—
Education
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
That is why we are today announcing £1.4 billion—the first tranche of the £2.6 billion—for up to 40 new settings, which will see additional provision going into the system so that parents have the confidence that the provision will be there for their child.
[Official Report, 29 March 2022, Vol. 711, c. 713.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Education:
An error has been identified in the response to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson).
The correct information should have been:
Nadhim Zahawi
That is why we are today announcing £1.4 billion—the first tranche of the £2.6 billion—and plans for up to 40 new special and AP free schools, which will see additional provision going into the system so that parents have the confidence that the provision will be there for their child.
Nadhim Zahawi
Today, we announced the first tranche of £1.4 billion out of £2.6 billion for up to 40 specialist and AP settings.
[Official Report, 29 March 2022, Vol. 711, c. 717.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Education:
An error has been identified in the response to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden).
The correct response should have been:
Nadhim Zahawi
Today, we announced the first tranche of £1.4 billion out of £2.6 billion for up to 40 special and AP free schools.
Education
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
I remind the hon. Lady that there are now 217,000 teaching assistants in classrooms, a 6,000 increase since 2010.
[Official Report, 28 March 2022, Vol. 711, c. 582.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi).
An error has been identified in the response given to the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby).
The correct response should have been:
Nadhim Zahawi
I remind the hon. Lady that there are now 271,000 teaching assistants in classrooms, a 6,000 increase since last year.
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend raises a really important point. The frontline—the 461,000 teachers and 217,000 teaching assistants—and the support staff and leaders in our education system have gone above and beyond to make sure that schools reopened, stayed open and dealt with omicron.
[Official Report, 28 March 2022, Vol. 711, c. 588.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi).
An error has been identified in the response given to my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer).
The correct response should have been:
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend raises a really important point. The frontline—the 461,000 teachers and 271,000 teaching assistants—and the support staff and leaders in our education system have gone above and beyond to make sure that schools reopened, stayed open and dealt with omicron.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement about our mission to level up opportunities for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities in England. Before I do, I want to praise my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), the fantastic Minister for Children and Families, who has been supported by my hon. Friends the Members for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) and for Wantage (David Johnston). I thank them for the level of engagement they have had with Members across the House, as well as with many wonderful people from across the SEND and alternative provision system. I also thank all those working in early years, schools and colleges, including specialist and alternative provision, for their dedication to service in the face of ongoing covid difficulties. I am sure my gratitude will be echoed across the House.
This review has been shaped by children with special educational needs and disabilities and in alternative provision, by their families and teachers, and by the committed workforce across education, health and care sharing their experiences and stories. I send them huge thanks for their openness in sharing emotional, and sometimes difficult experiences with us. We have listened, and in response today I am publishing for public consultation the Government’s “Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and Alternative Provision Green Paper.”
In schools in England alone there are 1.4 million pupils with a diverse range of special educational needs, and too often they do not get the support they need. In 2014 we made far-reaching changes to support children with special educational needs and disabilities, and their families—indeed, in 2016 I was the Minister for Children and Families. Those reforms gave critical support to more children, but in reality the system is not working as it should. Too often decisions about support are based on where a child lives, not on what they need, and many have lost confidence in the system. On top of that, the alternative provision system is increasingly used to support children with special educational needs, but the outcomes for many of those children remain shockingly poor. We have therefore considered alternative provision within this review.
Despite unprecedented investment through a £1 billion increase in high needs funding, taking total funding to £9.1 billion in the coming financial year on top of the £1.5 billion increase over the last two years, the system has become financially unsustainable. Local authorities are in deficit and overspending on their dedicated schools grant, with total deficits now standing at more than £1 billion. The publication of the Green Paper is long-awaited, and I am proud to announce that our proposals will build a more inclusive and financially sustainable system, where every child and young person will have access to the right support, in the right place, at the right time.
To meet our ambitions, and the ambitions of so many children and their families, we propose to establish a new single, national special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision system across education, health and care, setting clear standards for how children and young people’s needs are identified and met. To enable effective local delivery, we propose establishing new statutory SEND partnerships, bringing together education, health and care partners with local government, to create a local inclusion plan. That plan will set out how each local area will meet the needs of children in line with national standards. We will also clarify the roles and responsibilities of every partner in the system, with robust accountabilities to build confidence and transparency.
Locally and nationally published inclusion dashboards will capture and track metrics to drive system performance, and mean that areas respond quickly to emerging local needs. Data and transparency are our allies on this journey. Parents should not need to fight the system; the system should be working and fighting for them. The proposed changes will help parents to know exactly what their child is entitled to, removing their need to fight and guaranteeing them access to mediation, leading to better, earlier and more effective interventions for their child.
I will always be on the side of children and parents. Wherever possible, I want our children to be educated close to home, near to friends and within local communities. Frustratingly for families, that is not happening consistently enough. Today, building on the schools White Paper published yesterday, we are committing to improve mainstream education through early and accurate identification of need, through high-quality teaching of a knowledge-rich curriculum, and through timely access to specialist support, where needed. Change will be underpinned by the increase in our total investment in the national schools budget. As set out in last year’s spending review, we will invest an additional £7 billion by 2024-25, compared with 2021-22, including an additional £1 billion in 2022-23 for children and young people with high needs.
I recognise the importance of a confident and empowered workforce with access to the best training to support this cohort of children, and many of my colleagues have made representations to me on that. We will consult on the introduction of a new special educational needs co-ordinator national professional qualification for schools and increase the number of staff with an accredited level 3 SENCO qualification in early years settings.
For some children and young people, specialist provision will be the most appropriate place for them to be able to learn and succeed. For those requiring specialist provision, whether in a mainstream or special school, we propose a simplified process. We will support parents to make informed choices by providing them with a list of appropriate placements tailored to their child’s needs, meaning less time spent researching the right school. To prevent needs from escalating, for children with challenging behaviour we want to use the best practice of alternative provision to intervene earlier so that children and young people are supported to thrive, and that the risk of these vulnerable children and young people being exploited or, sadly, involved in serious criminal activities is minimised.
At last year’s spending review, we announced an investment of £2.6 billion over three years, delivering tens of thousands more specialist places and improving existing specialist and alternative provision. Today, I can confirm that £1.4 billion of that funding will be capital spending for high needs for academic years 2023-24 and 2024-25, to help local authorities deliver new places quickly. We cannot wait for the Green Paper consultation; we need to do that now for those with additional needs. That means up to 40 new alternative provision and specialist settings. Taken together, these proposals will improve the special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision system, delivering the right support in the right place at the right time for children and young people.
Today, I am launching a 13-week consultation on the proposals set out in my Green Paper. This is the opportunity for children and young people, their families, and those working across the special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision sector to help shape the next stage. We will pay close attention to implementation so that the mistakes of past reforms are not repeated. These reforms are about outcomes, but they are also about fairness: fairness to families who have struggled to get support for their children, to the sector which has gone above and beyond for years, and to children and young people who deserve excellent support to achieve their ambitions. I commend this statement to the House.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
I start by thanking the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Children with special educational needs and disabilities and how we support them are subjects close to my heart, as they are to so many of us across the House. I had sincerely hoped to speak today with optimism and enthusiasm about the review the Secretary of State has set out today, because one in six children in England have a special educational need or disability—five in every class.
Supporting children and learners with special educational needs or disabilities is at the heart of our education system and the work that teachers and school staff are doing every day, and it should be central to the work of Government too. But right now children are being let down. Needs are going unmet. Children are stuck on waiting lists, for occupation therapy to speech and language support. Thousands of families are waiting months for education health and care plans. Children and families are facing a postcode lottery in availability and quality of specialist provision, and parents are increasingly turning to the courts to get the support that is their children’s right.
The system is broken. Parents know it, teachers know it, children know it and the Government know it, too. But we have not got here by accident. The Secretary of State says he is ambitious for young people, but where has that ambition been for the past 12 years? Where was that ambition when he was Minister for Children and Families? The Secretary of State cannot disown the legacy of 12 years of Conservative Governments which has left us with a broken, adversarial and aggressive system that is letting down young people and leaving families in despair.
Against that backdrop, it is hard not to be optimistic about any changes to the system. Early intervention, support in mainstream settings, changing culture, supporting families and making the system financially sustainable—who could object to those ambitions? However, just as we saw yesterday, those ambitions remain sadly hollow: hollow because there is no plan to deliver; hollow because other Government policies are working against those aims; and hollow because children and families are still waiting on a pandemic recovery plan. Too many parents told us that during the pandemic support for their children was removed, was not available and to this day has not been restored.
When Labour says it is ambitious for children, it means every child. Labour’s children’s recovery plan sets out the support it would put in place for children and young people now: mental health support in every school, wraparound activities that support every child’s development, and targeted learning support for the children who need it most. The pandemic was hard on us all, but for children with SEND and their families it was harder still. The long shadow of those months in lockdown is holding children back, so I ask the Secretary of State again when will he finally give children and families the recovery plan they need and deserve? At every school I visit, teachers and staff raise as one of their biggest concerns the broken system facing children with SEND. That is why we all want reforms to succeed: intervention earlier, children’s needs identified sooner and support provided more quickly.
Under the previous Labour Government, children’s centres were also crucial. With millions of families accessing those services, children’s needs were identified quickly and support put in place, but more than 1,000 children’s centres have closed. The family hubs that the Secretary of State announced are a pale imitation of that network of services, yet the evidence is even clearer now than it was then that early intervention and co-ordinated support for families transforms children’s lives. As the Minister is keen to consider the evidence—I know he is—will he not look again at the much wider support and services that families across our country are so desperate to see? Many parents who have had to fight for their children’s support will today also want assurances from him that there will be no compromising on care to cut costs. Can he say when he expects promised additional educational psychologists to be in place supporting children and schools?
Families have had to wait almost 1,000 days since the SEND review was announced for the Government to launch the consultation. Families will wait another 13 weeks for that consultation to close. They will wait longer for a Government response and then again before changes are seen on the frontline. Years have passed since reform was needed and children’s time in the education system is slipping away. Nothing we do in this place can be more important than giving children support to thrive and opportunities for the future, but over the past two years of the pandemic, and the past 12 years of Conservative Governments, all too often our children have been an afterthought. When staff across our schools have been asked to do more with less, they have stepped in and stepped up. They have plugged gaps, taken on more, delivered time and again for the children they are desperate to see succeed. They have put children first and done everything they could. It is long past time the Government did the same.
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady talked about recovery; she will know about the £5 billion announced for education recovery. We have consistently prioritised children and young people with SEND, including through additional weighting for specialist settings. The £1 billion of funding that was announced at the spending review to extend the recovery premium over the next two academic years—2022-23 and 2023-24—should be used by schools to prioritise support for children and young people with SEND.
The hon. Lady also spoke about family hubs. I am disappointed that she is not at least giving herself the opportunity to look at the evidence, which is clear, whether in respect of the Harlow family hub that I visited or the one not far from here in Westminster, where she can go—it is probably within walking distance—to see the great work of multiple agencies that are coming together to deliver the most important must-have services to the families towards whom we need to target help. That contrasts with the Labour plan, which sounded great on paper but did not work implementation-wise because it was obsessed with bricks and mortar rather than helping families.
I do not recall any other question from the statement that the hon. Lady made. Suffice it to say that, yet again, as she demonstrated yesterday, there is no plan from Labour.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
My father, like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s, was an immigrant who came here with very little. He worked hard to send me to private school, but I spent much of my childhood having operations and not being in school. I know very well what it is like to be a child with special educational needs and to have a disability, and I care about this issue very deeply.
I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is getting a grip on this issue, but it is wrong that it has taken almost three years for this Green Paper to come to fruition. It is wrong that for so long parents have had to wade through a treacle of unkind bureaucracy and that, as the Secretary of State has acknowledged, they have been subject to this awful postcode-lottery provision, whereby they wait for months on end to get the EHCP that they should have. There are not enough trained staff—an issue that I recognise the White Paper looks at.
Our Education Committee report made two key recommendations: that there should be a neutral advocate for parents to help them to wade through the bureaucracy—an idea that I urge the Secretary of State to look at again, so that everyone has a fair chance—and that the powers of the social care ombudsman should be extended beyond the school gates, to make sure that children are properly looked after.
The test for us all will be whether parents soon come to our constituency surgeries—I wish it did not have to take more months of consultation—and we no longer hear the awful stories of the struggles they face, and they no longer have to appeal to their MP to try to navigate their way through the system. I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to get this done as soon as possible and to sort it out once and for all, because it is a major social injustice in our education system that children with special educational needs do not have a level playing field.
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Education Committee; I will always listen to what he and his Committee have to say, because his Committee follows the evidence and works on a cross-party basis.
My right hon. Friend raised a number of important points that the Green Paper attempts to address, although there is of course a consultation. One of his points was about clarity for parents. Our proposal to establish a single national integrated SEND and AP system in England will help to inform parents wherever they live. If they move house, they will be able to find out what they should expect from the system for their child. It will help them to make informed choices from a tailored list of settings. It will strengthen mediation arrangements so that they do not feel they have to go to tribunal and line the pockets of expensive consultants or lawyers. All these things are addressed in the important Green Paper. Part of the work is to ensure excellent provision from the early years to adulthood and to build inclusivity into the system. We will always listen to what my right hon. Friend has to say.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
Following a number of emotional meetings with desperate families in Batley and Spen, I can confirm that the Secretary of State was absolutely right to say that people have lost faith in the system. Demand for EHCPs has soared, rising by 480% in the past five years, and almost half of all plans are issued outside the statutory 20-week period, which in my view is too long in itself. Why has increasing capacity and ending delays not been a focus of the review?
Nadhim Zahawi
Increasing capacity came before the Green Paper, deliberately. I did not want to publish the Green Paper and come to the House and say we were going to wait another 13 weeks. Today’s announcement of that first tranche of funding—the £1.4 billion—is all about increasing capacity. There is also, of course, the safety valve that we introduced at the spending review to help local authorities to cope. Over the past three years, the SEND and high-needs budget has increased by 40%, including the £1 billion that we announced at the SR. It needs to be put on a sustainable footing and that is what the Green Paper will do. We will of course always listen to parents, families and those who work so hard in the sector.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
I welcome the Green Paper, the new educational psychologists and the new SENCO qualification, but I was concerned to read that just 41% of regular teachers think they have adequate understanding to support young people with special educational needs. We need to make sure that every teacher has a base level of understanding of all types of learning disabilities and of how different brains work differently—as I know as somebody who is dyslexic and dyspraxic and generally a bit eccentric.
I welcome the fact that Ofsted will have a role in looking at the new local inclusion plans, but will the Secretary of State promise me that he will monitor the new Ofsted framework to make sure that it properly holds schools to account, and that if schools fail kids with special needs, that is reflected in their inspection reports?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend is a great champion of those with dyslexia and dyspraxia and has been a great advocate for the need to make sure that every teacher has the required knowledge. I visited Monega school yesterday; a school can be outstanding only if it is outstanding in all areas, including its SEND provision. I will always listen to what my hon. Friend has to say on that.
The White Paper that I published yesterday includes the parent pledge, which is that teachers will identify students’ gaps in reading and English language and share that with parents. That should get us to the place where my hon. Friend wants us to be: one where every teacher feels confident that they have the training to identify dyslexia and dyspraxia and deal with them in the appropriate way.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for finally publishing the Green Paper, which is long overdue. How will he ensure that when the system is standardised and simplified, standards improve and are not reduced and truly recognise the unique needs of children with complex disabilities?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that important question. We will make sure that the standards and the single national integrated SEND and AP system are co-created with families, specialists and the whole sector, to make sure we get them right.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
My mailbag—much like, I suspect, the mailbags of many other Members—is full of tales from parents who have had difficulty accessing the right care for their children. They say that the process has taken too long and often reaches an unsatisfactory conclusion. Some parents have been pushed into home education to try to meet their children’s needs. Will the Secretary of State reassure me and the House that such things will not happen again once his plan is in place?
Nadhim Zahawi
I had a similar experience with a parent in my constituency who got so frustrated that they chose to home-school. They do it very well, but nevertheless that should not happen. The single integrated vision for SEND and AP, the greater focus on the mainstream and the emphasis on early intervention should allow us to regain the confidence of parents. I hope that the ability of parents to navigate the system in a much clearer way, without having to research for themselves which provision is most appropriate for their child, will make that difference. Of course, the consultation means that we will continue to focus on parental rights, including through making sure that parents and carers will continue to express a preference as to which school—from a tailored list of settings, across mainstream, specialist and independent schools—they would like their child to attend.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Green Paper is welcome; it is better late than never. The Secretary of State will know about my great interest as chair of the Westminster Commission on Autism and because a family member has still not had a proper assessment after 15 years. Families need action now and they need resources, because provision is expensive for local councils and schools. It is expensive, but we have to be willing to pay for it. We will work with the Secretary of State to make his proposals into the finest piece of legislation in this policy area for a generation.
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; he has always been a champion for those with special educational needs and disabilities, not just in his constituency, but around the country. We have continued to provide funding for autism training and professional development in schools and colleges throughout last year and this year. We provided a further £8.6 million to strengthen the participation of parents and young people, including those who are autistic. We are strengthening and promoting the pathways to employment. Supported internships have been a great programme—Premier Inn in my constituency does a brilliant job—with £18 million of investment over the spending review period to increase the number of those who are participating to 4,500 from about 2,500 at the moment.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
If we were to read through the SEND reforms in the Children and Families Act 2014 and the accompanying code of practice, we would see that that is a blueprint for the system that we all want. This review seeks to address the issues with the implementation of the Act and the code of practice. To that end, I suggest that the national standards, which I welcome, should be based around quality rather than a de minimis principle. On alternative provision, will my right hon. Friend say more about how he will use the excellence within alternative provision so that early intervention, which we want to see more of in mainstream schools, can work more effectively?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Of course, we considered very carefully the recommendations from the Timpson review in regard to our recommendations for the AP system and, from that review, we developed our ambitious programme of reforms. The Green Paper sets out how we will improve early intervention and quality AP and learn from what is happening around the country, whether that is in mainstream schools, such as in Dixons City Academy in Bradford, or in some of the excellent work and case studies from the Green Paper of specialist AP that makes a real difference when it is identified early, and the help can therefore be put in early.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
I put on record my thanks to the Secretary of State for briefing me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) last week on today’s Green Paper and yesterday’s White Paper.
The Green Paper mentions that the SEND system is “bureaucratic and adversarial”, “not equally accessible”, and takes a
“heavy emotional—and sometimes financial—”
toll on parents. Parents in my constituency would very much identify with that. People have been waiting three long years for this Green Paper, which is a welcome step forward, but parents, school staff and children alike are dismayed that there will be a further 13-week consultation, with legislation some time after that. The Secretary of State has said that the review has been shaped by parents and teachers, so when will parents in Twickenham and across the country see the impact of the changes?
Nadhim Zahawi
It was good to brief the hon. Lady and the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton. The Green Paper has had a warm welcome from the unions the Association of School and College Leaders and the National Association of Head Teachers, with some challenges around implementation and how we do this well on the ground from the Local Government Association. Our work in early years and post-16 education has also been welcomed.
The hon. Lady asks when people will see the difference. The reason why I went to the Chancellor during the spending review and got the £2.6 billion, the additional £1 billion and the safety valve money is that I do not think we can wait until we have a consultation and get to a place where the whole Green Paper is a reality on the ground. That is why we are today announcing £1.4 billion—the first tranche of the £2.6 billion—for up to 40 new settings, which will see additional provision going into the system so that parents have the confidence that the provision will be there for their child. However, she is right: this has been a long time coming, and I will make sure that we move at pace on the further reforms that are outlined in the Green Paper.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, which builds on the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) and others in the Children and Families Act, in which I know the Secretary of State took a close interest when he was Children and Families Minister. However, is not the key point that without health in the room, everything falls down? Despite the best attempts to make that happen under EHCPs, that has not been happening enough, so I welcome statutory provision. Is not the other test that if the Secretary of State achieves anything, it must be a reduction in school exclusions? Too many young people with vulnerabilities and susceptibilities are exploited and end up in the system that I stewarded for a number of years. Can he make this as much an issue of justice as it is of education and health?
Nadhim Zahawi
I know that my right hon. and learned Friend is passionate about this issue. It is important to remind ourselves that the co-signatories on today’s Green Paper are myself and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and his ministerial team is here on the Front Bench with us. His pledge is that health will look at the local provision and local resources, and of course, we will publish the dashboard. I spoke about data and transparency, and the best way to reform complex systems is through data and transparency. However, we are going further by simplifying the EHCP process, because there is no consistency in that. That also needs to be identified and dealt with, and we will do that. My right hon. and learned Friend is also right to point out that we need to ensure that every school—this is what my schools White Paper dealt with yesterday—is a great SEND school, because we have an equal ambition for children with special educational needs and disabilities as for all the children in our school system.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I wonder whether the Secretary of State is slightly divorced from reality and is seeing the school system for what he wishes it was, rather than what it is. In many schools, SENCOs are also full-time teachers, deputy heads, subject leads and, often, the safeguarding leads in their schools. Although the additional training and qualification is welcome, if the SENCOs do not have the time, they are not able to do justice to the role in the way it deserves. Where is the additional funding, resourcing and support to give SENCOs the time to focus as much as they need to on that crucial role?
Nadhim Zahawi
I respectfully remind the hon. Lady that, in my opening remarks, I mentioned that, in early years, up to 5,000 new SENCOs will go into the school system to be able to do that work, and there is the support that we are putting in, including the £7 billion that is going into the school system, the £5 billion for recovery and the £2.6 billion in certain places. I also remind the House that change and change management are difficult. One area that I looked at, where we perhaps fell over in implementing the very good reforms that were introduced with the EHCPs, is how we deliver that change. I have £70 million going into change management to ensure that we have the resources in place, and I am confident that we can do this well.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
I welcome the statement, and I have two points to make. First, the fight—time and again, parents talk about the fight that they have had to have with the system. Will the Secretary of State explain how these changes will bring transparency? Secondly, he mentioned that we cannot wait for the Green Paper process to finish, and I have read that he would like to build a further tranche of new special and alternative provision free schools. When will that take place and when can Leicestershire have its fair share?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The changes that I spoke about include the single national integrated SEND and AP system; excellent provision from early years to adulthood; building an inclusive system; a single integrated vision for AP; setting out clear roles and responsibilities; and accountability, because the fight begins when parents are confused, when they do not know who is accountable or where to go, and they feel alone. That is not the way it will be, because they will be able to see—we will co-create this with the sector—what they should be entitled to anywhere in the country. I will wipe out the postcode lottery, which is part of the issue relating to the fight, and set out plans to support effective implementation. One of the lessons that I learned in vaccine deployment is that however ambitious we are, if we do not have the team and have not thought through how we are going to succeed on the ground operationally, we will fall over, and I promise to think that through.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, but as Members across the House have highlighted, this is an issue right across the country. I am contacted about it by Vauxhall parents, carers and teachers on an almost weekly basis. Just two weeks ago, a constituent contacted me about his two sons, who are 10 and 12 and have muscular dystrophy, physical disabilities and autism. They have been waiting for over 12 weeks to get support from the local authority. Many local authorities such as Lambeth are without funding.
The Secretary of State outlined in his statement that he is launching a consultation and wants the very same families, teachers and carers to engage with him. Does he appreciate that they are tired? I do not think that they have the energy to engage in yet another consultation, because they are still trying to provide a service for the very children we want to see flourish. How is the Secretary of State confident that he will get the right views to make sure that this works?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who I know is passionate about the issue and whose constituency I have promised to visit. She is absolutely right that parents are tired. My promise to them is that what we are doing here, and the consultation, mean that we will get this right—and get it right with them.
I urge the hon. Lady’s local authority to look around. Areas in London such as Barnet and Islington are doing incredibly well in local provision and in the ability to co-create with families what they need. Where the hon. Lady has a point is that that is not uniformly delivered across the country. That is what the Green Paper will do, but we are not waiting for it: in the meantime, we are investing £2.6 billion in thousands of additional places, both specialist and mainstream.
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
Publishing this Green Paper within six months of his taking office as Secretary of State demonstrates, alongside the resources that he won in the spending review, my right hon. Friend’s drive and determination in this critical area. I welcome the Green Paper’s focus on early identification of neurodiverse conditions and on the need for more initial teacher training, continuous professional development and support, but will he confirm that he believes that to get that early identification we need universal screening to get the data? It is only by basing decisions on data as well as on teacher observation that we can get the early identification that is so critical and is at the heart of the new Green Paper.
Nadhim Zahawi
My right hon. Friend and I share a passion for data and transparency. I know that he is looking at the evidence of what really works in the early identification of and screening for dyslexia, about which he is passionate.
The Green Paper is about a whole system review and, together with yesterday’s White Paper and our parent pledge that teachers will identify the gaps in English language, reading and writing and share them with parents, it is our greatest lever to begin to look at how we do this well. I am looking forward to working with my right hon. Friend on the evidence of best practice around the world.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The request for diagnosis of special educational needs is the beginning of a long battle for far too many families. Local authorities with stretched resources are often pushing in the opposite direction; parents can wait years for EHCPs, and requests for specific schools are often denied by local authorities for financial reasons. That all points to the need for independent advocacy from the very beginning for parents of children with special educational needs. We cannot assume that every parent starts with the same capacity to deal with the minefield of taking their child through EHCPs, and requests for support in the classroom and other support with educational needs. Will the Secretary of State commit to creating an independent advocacy service that supports parents from the very beginning and holds their hand all the way through the process?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s thoughtful question, which the Chair of the Education Committee also raised. Essentially, the Green Paper will make sure that we hold local authorities to account through the new funding agreements, through the local inclusion dashboard, which will provide transparency so that people can see how areas are performing locally, and through the new area inspection. As well as making sure that we do as the Minister for Children and Families did with the written statement of action in Birmingham, we want to learn from the best. Manchester is doing well; Dixons City Academy in Bradford is an excellent example of how this works well; Passmores Academy, a mainstream academy in Harlow, is doing incredible work. We learn from the best and scale it across the system.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his commitment to ensure that every child with SEND has the best opportunities and chances in education. Does he agree that many of those children’s needs are met well in mainstream schools by SENCOs and family support workers, but we have to go further and faster to ensure that every teacher has the opportunity, the skills, the support and everything they need to be brilliant teachers of all children with special educational needs?
Nadhim Zahawi
I could not have put it better myself—my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our proposals include the national professional qualification, up to 5,000 SENCOs in early years, and getting early identification in place. The schools White Paper and the parent pledge will also drive the thirst for knowledge to ensure that every teacher is confident in identifying the needs of their students.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
While this is a welcome move, I think that there is an issue with the maths. It does not seem that much newer money is coming in as a result of the Secretary of State’s announcement today. We know that there is an in-built cost to supporting our young people, so perhaps he could be very specific about the money for SENCOs and particularly for one-to-one support workers. Will more one-to-one support workers be recruited? They are critical for many children in making sure that their EHCP is properly implemented.
Nadhim Zahawi
I know that the hon. Lady is passionate about maths. She will know that over the past three years the overall budget has risen by 40% to £9.1 billion—a pretty big increase. She talks about SENCOs; today we have announced training for up to 5,000 more SENCOs in early years. The important thing to remember is that much of what is in the Green Paper has been produced through consultation with those in the system, with parents and with practitioners. All I ask is that colleagues read it carefully and engage with us on the consultation. It is a true consultation, because I want to get this right.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Having been a special adviser in the Department when the SEND review was launched, I remember it well. I am really glad that the public consultation is happening. It has also been great to see extra funding in the past couple of years.
I recently visited Villa Real School, a special school in my constituency. One issue that the school faces is that it was built for a smaller number of pupils than it now has because of the rising need for special school places. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the school? Will he also look at the capital building programme? It is essential that as part of the review we deliver the places needed for children in the environment they wish to be educated in.
Nadhim Zahawi
I will happily meet my hon. Friend. Today, we announced the first tranche of £1.4 billion out of £2.6 billion for up to 40 specialist and AP settings.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Parents and carers find it extremely stressful when there is a lack of school places, and a lack of choice of places, for children with special educational needs. In the meantime, it is the children who really suffer. It has been brought again to my attention that the exclusion rate for children with SEND is disproportionately high. That is just not acceptable. Can the Secretary of State say how that will be addressed in his review and what he will do?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady’s final point is absolutely right. The plans for supporting parents will lead to much greater transparency and improved choice through more local inclusive mainstream provision. The combination of the schools White Paper, the Green Paper and the children’s social care review that Josh MacAlister is carrying out for me will allow me for the first time, working with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, to knit together a system that really delivers for parents and delivers clarity on what they should be getting for their child, wherever in England they live.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
I am losing my voice—I apologise for that—but I wanted to contribute because these proposals are so important for parents in my constituency who have been battling for this, and also because our schools are so committed to children with special educational needs. I welcome the news that there is to be a new special school in Stroud.
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that he will work to eradicate the various financial penalties that schools suffer when they take on more SEND children? Some of them constitute very strange and up-front costs. Will he look into the way in which the league tables are communicated, to ensure that schools that are looking after children with more complex needs are not treated unfairly for doing so?
Nadhim Zahawi
I thank my hon. Friend for making it here today, and I am glad that her voice is holding up. I can absolutely reassure her. A couple of weeks ago, I visited Highfurlong SEN school in Blackpool, a brilliant specialist school which is doing incredible work. Some of the children there have end-of-life EHCPs. Some came in unable to walk and are now walking, and, of course, learning as well. We will learn from the best, but we also want to ensure that schools are not penalised for doing the right thing.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
A quick read through the Green Paper did not reveal much reference to higher education. I hope that that does not reflect a lack of ambition for these children. May I ask the Secretary of State specifically about the current procurement exercise relating to the disabled students allowance? How can he assure the House that it will not lead to a loss of expertise and understanding of the equipment and services needs of disabled students?
Nadhim Zahawi
I hope to be able to write to the hon. Lady giving her those details about the Green Paper, but suffice it to say that we have tried to look not just at early years provision but at the whole system, including further and higher education. The increased investment in supported internships has worked very well. When I was Minister for Children and Families, I visited West London College, which was doing brilliant work with L’Oreal, and I spoke about my own constituency and the work that was being done there with Premier Inn. I want to see the number of enrolments rise from 2,250 to 4,500. Supported internships give young people a fulfilling career, and give employers great employees who are loyal and strongly committed to their businesses.
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State and his ministerial team for the emphasis that they place on this vital area. In Sevenoaks and Swanley—and in the rest of the country—EHCP referrals shot up during the pandemic, and the extra money will help greatly in that regard, but can the Secretary of State confirm that where backlogs remain he will consider providing extra resources, and that he will monitor the position centrally, so that I can go back and say to the families in my constituency that these agonising waits are over?
Nadhim Zahawi
Part of the reason why the Chancellor was so committed to this area and made £2.6 billion available—as well as the £1 billion that took the budget up to £9.1 billion—is that we knew we needed to put additional capacity into the system now, rather than waiting until after the consultation and the Green Paper. We are also providing £300 million for a “safety valve” to help local authorities with a deficit of about £1 billion.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
I am not going to join in the festival of patting the Secretary of State on the back at this stage—
Mike Amesbury
After 12 years of Conservative government, we are seeing what is almost a scorecard of failure. Nevertheless, I will give the Secretary of State and his team the benefit of the doubt. What guarantees can he give that, for instance, a child with dyslexia who requires specialist equipment will be given that equipment quickly, that it will be fully funded and that it will not be about ability to pay?
Nadhim Zahawi
The drive behind the Green Paper is to ensure that we deliver across the board for every child with dyslexia, dyspraxia or autism, and that the system is sustainable and works for both the family and the child. The national SEND and AP single system will enable parents to see what they will get if their child has dyslexia. That will, I hope, give them a much better experience than what they are having today—which, as we have heard from many Members, is a big fight.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
Not surprisingly, there are some excellent proposals of real substance in the Green Paper. I think they will give people hope. I also think it important that the Secretary of State said people should not need to fight the system, but the truth is that, when it comes to access to child and adolescent mental health services in my area, people would love to be able to get hold of the system, let alone fight it. As a result, early diagnosis is often missing and children are falling further down the list, which means that the need for intervention becomes significantly more acute.
I am pleased to see that Health Ministers are present. The Government recently announced the My Planned Care website to keep patients up to date on their wait for NHS treatment. Many parents tell me that they are often instructed not even to ask about the wait that they face. Should not parity of esteem between physical and other conditions demand the inclusion of the wait for CAMHS on that site, not just so that parents can see what the national standard is, but so that they can see exactly where their child stands and how long they will have to wait?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his characteristically thoughtful and well-evidenced question. The Green Paper contains a commitment from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to local inclusion dashboards, providing transparency so that parents can see the position locally. It is all well and good having a national view, but parents want to know how they and their child, and the rest of the family, are affected. This transparency will mean reform of the system, and CAMHS delivering what parents and children really need. Early identification is important. The long wait is adding cost to the system in many ways, and disadvantaging children in doing so. The Health Secretary has also given a commitment that those in the health system will look at resources and provision to ensure that we deliver consistency throughout the country.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I know from my own experience how important it is to receive the right support at the right time, and I hope that when the Secretary of State is carrying out his consultation he will make a special effort to engage with parents and families of children who are blind and partially sighted. Surely, however, the purpose should be to ensure that we get the decision right in the first instance. We know that, in 95% of cases that go to tribunals, the finding is in favour of the parents. The Secretary of State referred to a new system of local dispute resolution through mediation, but how will adding a new process make the experience of families simpler?
Nadhim Zahawi
I know that the hon. Lady is a passionate champion for blind and partially sighted people. We will ensure that we consult them, as we have done already in formulating the Green Paper.
When things go wrong, parents will continue to have the right to redress. The proposals we have presented today are intended to resolve issues earlier. Parents will still be able to go to tribunals if they want to, but we are proposing to strengthen mediation overall so that we improve relationships locally and bring quick resolution. If we all agree that that early intervention is important, it is only right that we do this. We are of course consulting on mandatory mediation. There is evidence that all these measures work and that they improve the system, which is why I am launching the 13-week consultation.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
I know from visits to primary schools in my constituency—and the Green Paper underlines this—that the most common special need that people have in respect of speech and language therapy is access. Given the importance of communication skills to young people’s development, may I ask how the proposals in the Green Paper will improve access to those vital skills?
Nadhim Zahawi
As I have said, both yesterday and today, the combination of the schools White Paper and the parent pledge—whereby teachers identify gaps in reading, writing and speech and share that information with parents—will be the catalyst to ensure that early identification is working. Our work with the Department for Health and Social Care means we can create a system that, when it comes together, truly delivers for children and for parents.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I appreciate the Government’s honesty when they talk about the vicious cycle of late intervention, low confidence and inefficient resource allocation. Sadly, that is very much the experience of my constituents who have needed to access these services, so I appreciate the ambition to try to get away from that. My concern is similar to that expressed by a couple of Conservative Back Benchers about the lack of detail on the interaction with the health service, particularly when it comes to tier 4 CAMHS children who are in real crisis. What reassurance can the Secretary of State give us that those children will be helped as part of this initiative?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady raises an important point. Part of my ambition and that of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is to ensure that we knit together a system that delivers both elements, and I hope that the standards will provide clear guidance on when a child or young person needs that EHCP. We are simplifying the EHCP process overall to ensure that we improve efficiency, make it frictionless if we can, and reduce waiting times, including through standardising and digitising the EHCPs. One thing parents have told me is that if they move address, they suddenly have to make themselves familiar with a whole other EHCP. The work with Health will, I hope, make a real difference.
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)
Last week my constituent Holly and the National Deaf Children’s Society came to see me to discuss the need for better support for deaf children in school. In particular, they highlighted the incredible difference that their teacher of the deaf had made. Can my right hon. Friend outline how the Government will invest in teachers of the deaf, so that all deaf children can have more regular access to the brilliant support they provide?
Nadhim Zahawi
I know that my hon. Friend is a great champion of children who are deaf. When I was Children and Families Minister, I saw at first hand the incredible work that the stakeholders and charities do in this area. I want to see best practice, and we will ensure that we learn from the best and see how we can scale this up throughout the whole school system. The White Paper and the Green Paper will give us the opportunity to knit together a system that delivers for deaf children in our education system.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The success rate for parents at appeal is indicative of a system that is completely broken. Of course, parents should not have to go to appeal to get the education that their children deserve, and they should not feel that they have to fight every step of the way, so I hope that what the Secretary of State has announced today will begin to change that. I want to ask about getting children to school in the first place. The Secretary of State will be aware of reports over the weekend of a real crisis in special educational needs transport because of rising fuel prices. What will he do to address that issue?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that the success rate at tribunals is symptomatic of a system that is failing, which is why this Green Paper is long overdue, as I said earlier. We are keeping a close eye on school budgets, because energy prices are volatile and transport costs are going up because of energy costs. Energy costs are about 1.4% or 1.5% of the budget—the big spend is obviously on wages—but nevertheless, if energy costs are going up by 100%, that will put on additional pressure, so I will keep that closely under review and ensure that we work with the schools system. We have the £7 billion funding, of which £4 billion is front-loaded for this year and next, but I assure him that I will keep a close eye on this.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
As another dyspraxic Member of Parliament, I wholeheartedly thank the Secretary of State for his excellent Green Paper today. My constituency has many excellent mainstream schools, and also specialist schools such as St Giles in Retford. When parents choose a school for their children, they generally look not only at reviews from other parents but at the Ofsted reports. Can my right hon. Friend assure us that Ofsted will continue to play that key role in transparently assessing the performance of our schools, including SEND provision, so that parents can make an informed choice on what is right for them and their children?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend is a great champion of those who have dyspraxia, and he has real in-depth knowledge of the sector, as was discussed yesterday in the statement on the schools White Paper. He is right to say that Ofsted will continue, and from early years, all children will be taught a broad ambitious knowledge-rich curriculum and also have access to high-quality extracurricular activities. A school cannot be outstanding unless it is outstanding in its SEND provision as well.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The Secretary of State talked about the importance of early intervention, which many organisations that I work with, such as the Child Brain Injury Trust, are keen to ensure happens and that support is given. More generally, can he talk more about the local SEND partnerships and how parents can have a voice and a say in them?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. In that partnership, we are proposing to ensure that parents are an important part of the local SEND plan, as we have seen in the best co-created plans in those areas around the country that I mentioned earlier, such as North Tyneside and Manchester.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I am so grateful to my right hon. Friend for his work on this, and also to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who is unable to be here in the Chamber today. Too many parents in my constituency come to me broken by the system. They are tired of fighting and particularly tired of going to court. How will the system help with those issues? Will my right hon. Friend also take into account the difficulties of provision in rural areas and in small unitary councils, for which this can be a heavy and difficult cross to bear?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend speaks with passion and probably pain from having to consult those parents who have fought and feel that they are sometimes let down by the system. We have to ensure that the system works equally well in rural areas. Lincolnshire, for example, co-created the local system. It brought families and stakeholders in and said, “Look, we have got £50 million. How should we spend that to make sure the provision is the best we can make it?”
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
The Secretary of State has said that decisions about support are too often based on where a child lives and not on what they need. That is the problem facing children in St Albans and across Hertfordshire. The reason is that the Government’s flawed funding formula for SEND is based on historical spend, not current need. This has produced the problem that SEND people in Hertfordshire get only £549 per head, compared with the neighbouring authority of Buckinghamshire, where the figure is £823 per head. That is a whopping 50% more. I met one of the Secretary of State’s Ministers in December and he committed to look at the specific anomaly of Hertfordshire once the Green Paper was published. Now that it has been published, will the Secretary of State confirm that his Department will look at this specific issue in Hertfordshire, and will he write to me in the coming weeks to outline what steps the Department is taking to tackle this anomaly?
Nadhim Zahawi
Yes, I will write to the hon. Lady. I also want to remind the House that the national funding formula is where we are moving to, to ensure that there is fairness in the system for all schools, including special schools.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Having the right support in the right place at the right time is undoubtedly the correct approach to this. As part of the welcome consultation that my right hon. Friend has announced, will he ensure that his Department reaches out to charitable and private sector providers such as Autism Early Support at the Circle Centre in Middle Claydon in my constituency, not just to look through the lens of the excellence in provision that they supply, but to learn about the challenges, particularly in getting the right support to children in rural communities, who often have to travel considerable distances to get the SEND support they need?
Nadhim Zahawi
I can certainly give my hon. Friend the assurance that we will reach out to them.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Parents are battling and children are struggling every day in York, in that tug of war between the services, the available funding and the available practitioners. I was disappointed that the proposals do not contain a workforce plan covering the comprehensive range of services needed, including speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychological services and CAMHS. In the consultation, can the Secretary of State put a focus on workforce planning and ensure that at the end of that consultation, a workforce plan is published alongside the Government response?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s characteristically thoughtful question. We made a commitment in the Green Paper, and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has also made this commitment, to ensure the workforce provision is adequate. The best way to ensure that is through the transparency of a local data dashboard so people can see their child has consistency of support.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
The Green Paper highlights that many families find the current system bureaucratic and adversarial, which is exactly what I hear from incredibly frustrated local parents in Aylesbury. Can my right hon. Friend tell me how local parents can feel absolutely confident that these proposals will mean that everyone, whether in the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education or the local authority, is genuinely working together to secure one and the same thing: the best provision for children with SEND?
Nadhim Zahawi
I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful question. He is right that we intend to make a number of changes after consultation on the Green Paper, whether it is a national system so that parents can see exactly what provision they should be getting so that their area is consistent with every other postcode in the country, or whether it is a local plan co-produced with all stakeholders around the table—including parents—a local dashboard and consistency on EHCPs. In many ways, it is frustrating when parents say, “My plan and this person’s plan are completely different.” There should be consistency across the board to make the system as frictionless as possible for parents.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for his positive statement. Covid-19 has been a big burden on pupils, and especially pupils with SEND. It is estimated that 25% of children are in that category. Our education system is incredible, but today’s statement is only the first step. Will the Secretary of State give a confirmed date for a review of the money put in to achieve the goal of giving that extra bit of help and, if necessary, a different way of working and delivering? Will the extra moneys, £2.6 billion plus £1 billion, be subject to the Barnett formula?
Nadhim Zahawi
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his excellent question. He is right to say this is the first step. I can come to the House to share this Green Paper, but we have to make sure the consultation is delivered, and then we have to ensure the implementation is in place. I asked the Treasury for £70 million to support the implementation. When I look back at the lessons learned, we fell over because there was little money for the implementation to happen well. Of course, Barnett applies to the Chancellor’s announcement on the spending review in the usual way.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, and particularly his reference to ensuring children are educated closer to home. The Chairman of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), referenced how his education was interrupted because of the constant treatment he required. Many young people go through that, and they reach the end of their compulsory education without achieving all that they could have achieved. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State assure me that resources will be made available for them to catch up and to achieve all that they could achieve?
Nadhim Zahawi
I certainly can. We are putting the best part of £5 billion into recovery.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The prize for perseverance and patience goes to Holly Mumby-Croft.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I recently visited St Hugh’s, an outstanding special school in my constituency. I was shown around by Thomas and Spencer, and I was incredibly impressed by both of them—they made a big impression on me. They are brilliant tour guides, and I hope to pay them back by giving them a tour of this place as soon as it can be arranged. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State join me in thanking the staff and teachers at schools such as St Hugh’s for the brilliant work they are already doing, alongside the Government, to support our great young people like Thomas and Spencer?
Nadhim Zahawi
I certainly join my hon. Friend in thanking them. They go above and beyond. It has not been easy over the past couple of years, when they have had to deal with a global pandemic and, of course, deliver care and education for these children. I express my heartfelt thanks and gratitude for everything they do, and of course for everything this sector does across the country.
Madam Deputy Speaker
That concludes the statement. I thank the Secretary of State for answering so many questions so thoroughly.
National Funding Formula and School Improvement Consultation
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
Alongside the Schools White Paper, which will enable every child to fulfil their potential by ensuring that they receive the right support, in the right place, at the right time, I am providing an update on two related elements of the Government’s work: the national funding formula and school improvement.
National funding formula
The Department for Education will today publish the Government’s response to the public consultation on moving to a “direct” schools national funding formula (NFF), where the Department would determine funding allocations for schools directly, without adjustment through local authorities’ funding formulae.
The Government response summarises views raised by respondents to the consultation, and confirms that the Government will bring forward the relevant legislation, to move to allocating funding for all mainstream schools according to a single, national formula, when parliamentary time allows. In addition, the process of transition to the direct NFF will commence in 2023-24, through bringing local authorities’ funding formulae closer to the NFF; this provision will be included in the annual School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations. The Department will publish a second stage consultation with more detailed proposals on implementation in spring 2022.
The introduction in 2018-19 of the national funding formula for mainstream schools was a crucial step towards a fairer funding system and replacing the postcode lottery of the past. The changes set out in the Government’s response to the consultation will make the system fairer still, by ensuring that each mainstream school is allocated funding on the same basis, wherever it is in the country, and every child is given the same opportunities, based on a consistent assessment of their needs.
School improvement consultation
The Government’s 2019 manifesto set out a commitment to intervene in schools where there is entrenched underperformance. Building on this commitment, the Department for Education will today launch a public consultation seeking views on the introduction of a new measure to support schools that are not making necessary improvements. This will make schools that are currently rated as ‘Requires Improvement’ by Ofsted and were also rated less than ‘Good’ at their previous inspection eligible for intervention.
This new measure will enable the Department to support these schools, particularly those in new education investment areas, by moving them into strong academy trusts who can facilitate better collaboration, direct resources where most needed and enable our best leaders to support a greater number of schools.
The consultation will run for a period of eight weeks and will close on Monday 23 May 2022.
I will place copies of both the Government response on NFF and the consultation on school improvement measures in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS720]
Schools White Paper
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the publication of the schools White Paper.
Since 2010, we have been on a mission to give every child a great education. We have made huge strides, but we know there is still further to go on that journey, which my predecessors began and I am proud to lead today. Too many children still do not get the start in life that will enable them to go on and make the best use of their talents and abilities. Sadly, disadvantaged pupils or those who have special educational needs are less likely to achieve the standards we expect for them. Since 2010, we have been rolling out many changes to our education system—changes that have driven up standards, lifted us up the league tables internationally and given us measurable evidence of what works. We will now put that evidence to use and scale up what we know will create a high-quality system for children, parents and teachers.
We have an ambition that by 2030 we will expect 90% of primary school children to achieve the agreed standard in reading, writing and maths. In secondary schools, I want to see the national GCSE average grade in both English language and maths increase from 4.5 in 2019 to 5. By boosting the average grade, we show a real determination to see all children, whatever their level of attainment, do better. A child who goes from a grade 2 to a grade 3, or one who goes from a grade 8 to a grade 9, contributes to that ambition as much as a child on the borderline who may go up from a grade 4 to a grade 5. So every parent can rest assured that their child is going to get the attention they deserve, however well they are doing.
It goes without saying that every child needs an excellent teacher. This White Paper continues our reforms to training and professional development, to give every child a world-class teacher. The quality of teaching is the single most important factor within a school for improving outcomes for children, especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Our vision is for an excellent teacher for every child in our country, but if we are to do that, we need to make teaching even more of an attractive profession. To make sure that it is, we will deliver 500,000 teacher training and development opportunities by 2024, giving all teachers and school leaders access to world-class evidence-based training and professional development, at every stage of their career. We will also make a £180 million investment in the early years workforce. Teachers’ starting salaries are set to rise to £30,000, as we promised in our manifesto, and there will be extra incentives to work in schools with the most need.
A world-class education also needs environments in which great teaching can have maximum impact. Therefore, we will improve standards across the curriculum, behaviour and attendance. Making sure that all children are in school and ready to learn in calm, safe, supportive classes is my priority. All children will be taught a broad, ambitious, knowledge-rich curriculum and have access to high-quality experiences. We will set up a new national curriculum body to support teachers, founded on the success of the Oak National Academy. This body will work with groups across the sector to identify best practice, deepen expertise in curriculum design and develop a set of optional resources for teachers that can be used either online or in the classroom. These resources will be available across the United Kingdom, levelling up education across our great country. We will continue to support leaders and teachers to create a classroom where all children can learn in a way that recognises individual needs and abilities. In addition, we are going to boost our ability to gather and share data on behaviour and attendance. We will move forward with a national behaviour survey to form an accurate picture of what really goes on in schools and classrooms and, of course, to modernise our systems to monitor attendance. We will introduce a minimum expectation for the length of the school week to the national average of 32-and-a-half hours for all mainstream state-funded schools from September 2023, at the latest. Thousands of schools already deliver that but a number do not and that needs to change.
Too many children, especially those who are most vulnerable, routinely fall behind and never catch up with their peers. The awful covid pandemic has made that worse. Even though I am relieved to tell the House that the latest research on learning loss and recovery shows that pupils continue to make progress, there is still much more to do. That is why today’s White Paper sets out a really ambitious plan for scaling up that recovery, building on the nearly £5 billion of recovery funding that has already been announced.
My children are the most important thing in the world to me and I know that I am not alone in saying that. All parents want their children to be happy and to grow up to a future that is full of promise, so I am today making a pledge to parents; it is a pledge from me and this Government via schools to all families. The parent pledge is that any child who falls behind in English or maths will receive timely support to enable them to reach their potential. A child’s school will let parents know how their child is doing and how the school is supporting them to catch up.
Tutoring has been a great success and that is making a difference. It is here to stay and we want it to become mainstream and a fundamental pillar of every school’s approach to delivering the parent pledge. There will be up to 6 million tutoring packages by 2024.
We know that the approaches that I have outlined make a huge difference to pupils, so I have asked myself this. We have 22,000 schools in England; how do we ensure that these happen systematically in every school for every child? How do we get that consistency across the system? It has become clear from my six months in the Department studying the evidence that well-managed, tightly managed families of schools are those that can consistently deliver a high-quality and inclusive education. It is one where expertise is shared for the benefit of all and where resources and support can help more teachers and leaders to deliver better outcomes for children.
With that in mind, by 2030, we intend for every child to benefit from being taught in a family of schools, with their school in a strong—I underline the word “strong”—multi-academy trust or with plans to join or form one. That move towards a fully trust-led system, with a single regulatory approach, will drive up standards. We also want to encourage local authorities, if they think that they do well in running their schools, to establish their own strong trusts, and we will back them. There will be a clear role for every part of the school system, with local authorities given the power that they need to support children. We will set up a new collaborative standard requiring trusts to work constructively with other partners.
I know from my experience in business and in rolling out the covid vaccine that the hardest thing for any complex system, whether it is health or education, is scaling up, but I have faith both in the brilliant leaderships that we already have in our school systems and in our educationalists to be able to deliver on this White Paper. We want to spread brilliance throughout our country, levelling up opportunity and creating a school system where there is a clear role for every part of the system, all working together and all focused on one thing: delivering outstanding outcomes for our children.
Soon, everyone will see what we all know—that this Conservative Government are busy making our schools the very best in the world. We should be so proud of how far we have come and rightly hopeful about where we are going next. For that reason, I commend this statement to the House.
Bridget Phillipson
The Secretary of State rightly stresses the need to be evidence-led. Is that all he thinks the evidence supports, or is it all he could persuade the Chancellor to support?
The attainment gap is widening. Performance at GCSE for our most disadvantaged kids was going into reverse even before the pandemic. After two years of ongoing disruption, it is clear enough where the focus should be. The Secretary of State says that he has ambitions, but they are hollow—hollow because they are wholly disconnected from any means of achieving them, hollow because there is no plan to deliver them, but also hollow because there is no vision for what education is for, what growing up in our country should involve and what priority we should give our children.
We are two years into the pandemic. Two years is a long time, and an important time—half a lifetime for the children starting school in September. We can all see the impact that the years of disruption, botched exams, isolation and time spent at home has had on our children, yet time and again the Government fail to grasp the truth that time out of education for children and young people means more than time out in the rest of their lives. Instead, our children have been an afterthought for this Government—a Government who showed their priorities when they reopened pubs before they reopened schools, a Prime Minister whose own adviser on education recovery resigned in despair, a Department that closed schools to most children with little thought for how it would repair the damage or reopen them safely.
Labour listened to parents and young people and set out the children’s recovery plan that our children need and our country deserves—breakfast clubs and new activities, quality mental health support in every school, small group tutoring for all who need it. Our children have waited long enough. When will they see a recovery plan that rises to the generational challenge staring us all in the face? Only today, the Department published research setting out that in reading in particular, pupils are falling further behind and the disadvantage gap is widening.
It goes deeper than just the past two years. We see the value and worth of every child. We see them as ambitious and optimistic, with dreams for their future. We see the role of a Government as one of matching, not tempering, that ambition. Education is about opportunity; we want opportunity for every child, in every corner of our country, at every stage.
We want childcare that is high-quality, affordable and available, not a cost that prices people out of parenting. We want every parent to be able to send their child to a great local state school, which is why we would launch the most ambitious school improvement plan for a generation, focusing on what happens inside the school, not the name above the door. We want teachers supported to succeed, not leaving the profession as they are doing, which is why we have set out plans for career development and for thousands of new teachers: because the success and professionalism of our teachers enables the success of our children.
We want to see our children not just achieving, but thriving at school, with a rich and broad curriculum that enables them to flourish. We want to give children and young people real choices and see them succeed through strong colleges and apprenticeships. That is why we would deliver work experience, careers advice and digital skills for all our young people so that everyone leaves education ready for work and ready for life. That is why today’s White Paper represents such a missed opportunity.
However, for all the disappointment that we feel on these Opposition Benches, echoed by school staff and school leaders across our country today—and the Secretary of State, in his heart, probably feels that disappointment himself—it is our children, whose voices are rarely heard in this place, who are the real losers today.
Nadhim Zahawi
I was hoping for a plan, but none was forthcoming. The hon. Lady spoke about schools being closed. Labour, dancing to the tune of its union paymasters, wanted to keep them closed. If the hon. Lady thinks that that is a plan, perhaps she should go and visit one of those schools, as I did earlier today with the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). If she had been with me at Monega school in Newham and observed the brilliant leadership of Liz Harris and her team, she would know that our reforms are working. There is a family of schools in a high-performing trust which is delivering for those children, 24% of whom are on pupil premium. Great leadership and great teachers are being supported by a fantastic teaching hub within the group that is part of that trust, delivering great outcomes for children rather than playing politics with our education system.
I seem to recall that it was the leader of the hon. Lady’s party who wanted schools to remain closed—and, of course, wanted to pause the whole vaccination campaign so that we would lose three months before we could vaccinate teachers. Because we did not do that, and because so many of the Leader of the Opposition’s Back Benchers went against him, we continued to vaccinate, we protected teachers, and we got schools open again.
The hon. Lady spoke about our standing in the world rankings. I can share with her the information that England achieved its highest ever scores in both reading and maths in two international comparison studies, the 2016 progress in international reading literacy study and the 2019 trends in international mathematics and science study. In 2019, following the introduction of the phonics screening check in 2012, the proportion of year 1 pupils meeting the expected standard rose from 58% to 82%, and the figure rose to 91% among those in year 2. That is a record of real delivery for young people of which the Government are proud. Of course we have had a pandemic since then, but the £5 billion invested in our recovery is making a real difference.
The hon. Lady questioned that recovery, and questioned what the national tutoring programme was achieving. We have just announced that the NTP has delivered 1 million 15-hour blocks of tutoring. It will meet its targets. School leaders told us that they wanted a school-led pillar—as well as the other two pillars which are also delivering—and we have provided that for them. Evidence that we published today, to which the hon. Lady referred, suggests that since the spring of 2021, primary school pupils have recovered about two thirds of the progress that was lost owing to the pandemic in reading, and about half in maths. That is real delivery.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I welcome the White Paper. I think that we are seeing the beginnings of a long-term plan for education, especially given tomorrow’s publication of the special needs review and the publication of the care review. The Government have begun to provide a washing line for all the clothes pegs of different educational initiatives. The parent pledge and the catch-up plan are also important.
The White Paper refers to a knowledge-rich curriculum. I am thoroughly in favour of that, but what about a skills-rich curriculum to sit alongside it? I see that the skills Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), is paying close attention. Such a curriculum would prioritise skills including oracy and financial, technical and vocational education, reverse the huge decline in design and technology skills, and prepare students better for the world of work.
What does the White Paper do for children from care backgrounds, exclusion backgrounds and special needs backgrounds who underperform in GCSEs to such an extent in comparison with their peers? We know the grim statistics. How will this White Paper help them? How will the curriculum better prepare pupils for the world of work? Perhaps one of the most important priorities is the 124,000 Oliver Twist ghost children, who are possibly on our streets. What is he doing about those children who have not returned since schools reopened last year?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the Chair of the Education Committee. He raises a number of really important questions. He is absolutely right to identify that the schools White Paper, with the SEND Green Paper—which we will consult on and publish tomorrow and share with the House—and the children’s social care review by Josh MacAlister, will for the first time give us the ability to knit together a system that delivers for all pupils, especially those with SEND and those that are most vulnerable in the care system. On financial education, the Schools Minister is looking at how we can take that further and embed it in the education system. My right hon. Friend will also know that I walk around the country wearing on my lapel a TL badge, which stands for technical level. T-levels are a fusion of A-levels and the great work we have done on apprenticeships, and that is what we will do to ensure that children have the runways that their career path can take off on. He is right to remind us of the 124,000 children who are out of education. That is why, for the first time in our country, we will have a register to ensure that we know exactly where those children are. There are many parents who deliver great home education, some of whom are in my own constituency, but many children are lost in the system and we have to make sure we know where they are.
Several hon. Members rose—
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
It is good that the Secretary of State has clearly been listening to the concerns of the profession, of parents and of young people since he came into post, but I am afraid that his announcements today are underpowered because of the funding pressures that will continue in the system. Schools continue to face covid costs and they continue to face rising salary costs, which are not being fully funded by the Department. These include the increased starting salary for new teachers, which is still on the horizon and not yet delivered. Schools also face rising energy costs and all the other pressures that organisations are facing. In particular, the Secretary of State will know that there is particular funding pressure in relation to pupils with SEND. What is he doing to ensure that schools have the funds they need to rise to the ambitions he has set out today?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady is right to say that there are many pressures on schools at the moment. The funding we secured at the spending review was £7 billion, with much of it—£4 billion—frontloaded to this year and next year. Energy costs are rising—they are 1.4% of the schools budget. A big part of the budget is obviously wages. We are keeping an eye on what is happening to energy costs in schools. On SEND, we have put in an additional £1 billion, so the total budget now stands at £9.1 billion, plus an additional £2.6 billion to ensure that we deliver the specialist provision that we need in the system, because there has been a lack of confidence among parents as to whether their child will get the right provision. Today’s White Paper supports mainstream schools to all be great SEND schools as well.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
How will the poorly performing schools get the brilliant teachers and better professional development that the Secretary of State rightly wants, because that is what they need?
Nadhim Zahawi
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We endowed the Education Endowment Foundation when the coalition Government came into office, and I have just announced a further endowment for the next 10 years. It has evidenced the qualifications and quality of teacher training that are required, whether in the early careers framework, initial teacher training or later in life in professional development, and we are following that evidence and scaling up half a million teacher training opportunities. That has never been attempted, certainly in my time in Parliament; it is a huge scale-up of teacher training and that is what we will deliver.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
When he was confronted on yesterday’s “Sophy Ridge on Sunday,” the Secretary of State could not answer a question on the shocking fall in per pupil funding, particularly compared with private schools. My child, like thousands of children, started school just before this Government came into power and they are just about to finish. The Secretary of State talks about a parent pledge. Will he apologise to the thousands of parents and young people for what this Government have done to per pupil funding over the last 12 years?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am slightly puzzled by the hon. Lady’s question. As I described, standards have consistently gone up because we have introduced things such as the phonics screening check. We are investing £7 billion in education, with £4 billion frontloaded for this year and next year, to make sure that schools have the funding they need. Andreas Schleicher of the OECD was in my office telling me that, actually, the United Kingdom is in the top quartile for investment in our school system. That is what this Government are doing, and this White Paper takes the evidence for what works and scales it for every child in this country. I want to see every child have the opportunity I had to achieve to the best of their talent.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Teacher training has often been part of the problem. By what mechanism will my right hon. Friend prevent any return to the half-baked theories that proved to be a disaster in the classroom?
Nadhim Zahawi
We will be evidence-led. We are also launching the Institute of Teaching to deliver the high standards on which my right hon. Friend rightly focuses.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
In Cumbria, we have some of the best schools in the country, but we also have some of the smallest because the communities they serve are often half empty—homes are not lived in because they are owned by second homeowners. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree it is right to tax second homeowners at least twice the rate of council tax and to use that funding to make sure rural community schools have the support they need to do the job at which they are so good?
Nadhim Zahawi
We are supporting small rural schools through the national funding formula to make sure they have the funds they need.
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I welcome the White Paper, particularly its ambitions on literacy and numeracy. Will Ofsted reinforce those ambitions through data-led interventions where they are not being met?
Nadhim Zahawi
Ofsted’s 2019 framework has, in many ways, helped schools both to focus on literacy and numeracy and to have a knowledge-rich curriculum, from which this White Paper does not deviate. We are working in lockstep with our colleagues in Ofsted to make sure we deliver the highest-quality outcomes for children. If we focus on outcomes, we will not get it wrong.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I am not convinced that the Government are listening. They do not have the support of the National Association of Head Teachers, the Association of School and College Leaders or the National Education Union for this White Paper. If the Secretary of State is really listening, headteachers are telling me that they need the classroom support teachers who have been so drastically cut over the years by this Tory Government.
Nadhim Zahawi
I remind the hon. Lady that there are now 217,000 teaching assistants in classrooms, a 6,000 increase since 2010. I speak to ASCL and the other unions to share evidence and to share our work on the White Paper, and they have been engaging with us. The Education Endowment Foundation, which provides evidence in other areas, has an excellent review of how best to use teaching assistants. Every school should look at that review.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I had my latest session with Hampshire County Council on Friday to go through every school in my constituency. The Secretary of State will be pleased to know that every single one is good or outstanding—the last one will be there very soon.
I am concerned about access to child and adolescent mental health services, as children cannot learn if they are not in the right place mentally. I am also concerned about small rural primaries. The heads of such schools in my constituency will take some convincing that being part of a large multi-academy trust is the answer to their problems. Given what the White Paper says about all children being in an academy, can the Secretary of State convince me of why the evidence says that is the answer?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend asks a number of questions, which I will try to unpack. We will say more on our work with the Department of Health and Social Care in the SEND Green Paper tomorrow. Suffice it to say that local evidence, the dashboard and that transparency will lead to much better outcomes for families and children. He is right about rural primaries; I have similar high-performing rural primaries in my constituency. My message to them is that they do an excellent job and, if they feel that they want to get together with other rural primaries, we will support them in setting up a multi-academy trust. Alternatively, where local authorities think they do a great job supporting their schools, they can set up trusts. With the White Paper, I am trying to ensure that we take everyone with us on this journey because, ultimately, if we all remember what we are in this for—to deliver better outcomes for every child at the right place and the right time for that child— we will do the right thing.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I just need to reiterate that we need one question each, so that the Secretary of State does not have to answer a number of questions, and the questions need to be brief, not with long statements beforehand. Barry Sheerman will lead the way in how to do that.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you for those kind words, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State knows I have admired him in the past as a manager and a man with passion, but this is not much of a plan. Any plan needs people to lead and deliver it, but we now have weak local authorities, a weak central Government Department for Education and a weak Ofsted. If he really believes the leadership will come just from academy trusts, I do not think we will achieve very much.
Nadhim Zahawi
This White Paper will define the role of each of those stakeholders that the hon. Gentleman just described in the system. With that clarity, and the support for good leaders in local government, good leaders of multi-academy trusts and—to push back slightly, with respect—the great leadership in Ofsted, we will deliver for those children that we all want, and I know he wants, to see delivered for.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I welcome the White Paper and my right hon. Friend’s real focus on excellence in our schools, but we can only deliver world-class numeracy and literacy if schools are safe places to learn. The Government’s own inquiry last year pointed out that every school should assume that its students experience sexual harassment and online abuse at school, so will he include as central to his plans the culture in our schools and the roll-out of relationships and sex education?
Nadhim Zahawi
My right hon. Friend is right to highlight that issue. I was in the Department when we rolled out relationships education and relationships and sex education in the curriculum, teaching young people what healthy relationships are like and how to identify unhealthy and abusive behaviour. That is a priority for me and it is in the White Paper under paragraph 80.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State speaks about levelling up opportunity. In some of the most disadvantaged areas, including my own constituency, we have the excellent Hull and East Yorkshire Children’s University, which provides a rich source of experiences and support for pupils and schools. Will he say something about his plans to harness the expertise of organisations such as children’s universities and give them sustainable funding so they can get to work on that levelling-up agenda that the Government talk so much about?
Nadhim Zahawi
That is exactly what this White Paper will do and it is why the issue of teaching is so important to our plan. I will certainly have a look at the children’s university the right hon. Lady mentions. Anyone who wants to join us on this journey is most welcome, and we want everyone to come along because, if we deliver for every child, we will have done something great for the future of our country.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on his White Paper and thank him for the fact that Stoke-on-Trent is now an education investment area priority, which comes with additional investment for our local area. I also thank him for the fact that the levelling-up premium to recruit and retain some of the best teachers across the country has been adopted from the Onward and New Schools Network report that I did on levelling up education. Most importantly, we want some of the best multi-academy trusts, which for too long have been clustered in the south, to come up to Stoke-on-Trent. How does this White Paper enable that to happen?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend has always been a great champion for his schools and speaks with real experience as an accomplished teacher in his own right. He is right that we need our best, highest-performing multi-academy trusts to lift their ambitions. This White Paper will deliver that, including additional funding of £80 million to get that momentum going again. We are about to announce our 10,000th academy and we have 22,000 schools in England. I am ambitious for every part of the country, and we will deliver that ambition in Stoke-on-Trent as well as in other parts of the country.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his choice of Monega Primary School for his speech this morning.
Some multi-academy trusts are a bureaucratic mess at the moment. I welcome the proposal to allow local authorities to set up and lead trusts. Does he also have plans, as has been reported, to allow schools to exit MATs that do not suit them and to increase the accountability of trusts to local authorities?
Nadhim Zahawi
Yes, we do. The White Paper speaks to this. We will consult on the regulatory framework around trusts so that the best-performing trusts have the confidence to join us in making sure that we get that framework right.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
Some 15% of children have special educational needs and disabilities. How does my right hon. Friend intend to ensure that any conclusions on reforms from the SEND review are aligned with and implemented alongside the White Paper?
Nadhim Zahawi
That is exactly what we have done. I hope that we can demonstrate in today’s work, but also in tomorrow’s Green Paper, the knitting together of how we deliver support to parents of children with special educational needs in our mainstream education system, because every mainstream school should be a great SEND school. There is also the work we are doing on alternative provision. We will set out more details tomorrow.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
With the first schools White Paper in six years coming on the back of a pandemic that was so brutal for our children and young people, this really feels like a missed opportunity for children, parents and school staff up and down the country. Where is the ambition in this? This is a unique opportunity to broaden the offer in terms of the academic achievement and broader life skills that parents and employers want, as well as wellbeing. Has the Secretary of State had his hands tied by a Chancellor who is more focused on his own ambition than the ambitions of our children and young people?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am slightly surprised by the hon. Lady’s question, because I briefed her personally on the details of the White Paper. Nevertheless, if she reads the White Paper, she will see that we are ambitious for a knowledge-rich curriculum but have also made it very clear that we will have a strategy for everything from sport to music to culture, because the evidence is that everything from extra-curricular activities to pastoral care and behaviour makes the real difference in providing the high-performing school standards that I want to see in every part of the country.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
This is great news for the young people of our country. Specifically, it is good news for the people of Doncaster, as Doncaster is now a priority education investment area. That will give my young constituents the boost they need to level up their opportunities. My only concern is that while I welcome the half a million teacher training opportunities, will this not result in more teacher training days and therefore more days out of school for our young learners?
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
As a member of the Education Committee of just short of 12 years, I have to say that an evidence-led policy would be a welcome departure for this Government. On teacher recruitment and retention, there is a bit in the White Paper on aims to improve the workforce, but not on the “how” and the “what with”. There is no involvement by teaching universities in the Institute of Teaching. With recruitment and retention continuing to pose enormous challenges for many schools, particularly in disadvantaged areas, the White Paper pays scant attention to how schools in those areas will be able to recruit and then retain specialist teachers in, say, maths or physics.
Nadhim Zahawi
We are making sure that, especially in education investment areas, teachers in subjects like maths and physics have an incentive, with £3,000 tax-free. Many of them will want to go to those areas if they feel they have the support in place. That is why we want a strong family of schools working together in high-performing multi-academy trusts to offer the support that we saw so visibly during the pandemic.
Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for the focus on outcomes, which is so important for the children of South Ribble. Three of my constituency’s primary schools have joined with two primary schools in South Ribble borough to form the Axia Learning Alliance, a co-operative trust, which I confess to knowing little about. Will the Secretary of State and his Ministers consider such trusts as part of his future proposals?
Nadhim Zahawi
It is through the multi-academy trust—that family of schools that is tightly managed and high performing—that we think we can deliver the greatest outcomes for children. I will happily look at what my hon. Friend’s schools are doing, but outcomes are delivered through schools being strongly held together and really well managed, as well as through the sharing of evidence.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The White Paper says that it
“marks the start of a journey”.
Quite why it has taken 12 years to start a journey to raise standards will be beyond the understanding of most parents, staff and children. If the Secretary of State wants to learn from the evidence of successful and sustained improvement in schools, will he apply the lessons of collaboration and support from the London challenge, which transformed education standards in the capital and did not involve a name change on the badge above the door?
Nadhim Zahawi
I will look at any evidence and learn from it. The hon. Member speaks about what we have done. I remind him that in 2019, 65% of key stage 2 pupils reached the expected standard in all of reading, writing and maths, and we want to go much further—to 90%—but the 2019 figure was a seven percentage points increase in reading and a nine percentage points increase in maths since 2016. That is what we have done.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and, in particular, the focus on multi-academy trusts, of which we have some successful ones in northern Lincolnshire. However, education, like the rest of the public sector, finds it difficult to attract the best quality professionals to that part of the country. Will he reassure me that there will be focus on that and that he will work with schools and councils to achieve that?
Nadhim Zahawi
Yes, very much so. You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the most valuable resource on earth is human capital, and that is why we are flexing the system towards education investment areas and priority education investment areas. We will deliver high-quality, highly qualified teachers so that schools in those areas get the same benefit as others around the country. I do not believe that people are less talented in Knowsley than in Kensington; the difference is that they do not have the same opportunities. I am absolutely passionate about ensuring that we deliver on that.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Education is a big passion of mine, and I thank the Secretary of State for his recent announcement that Tameside will be an education improvement area. With that, the focus on skills, outcomes and opportunities is key, but that is not possible in substandard education buildings. It would be remiss of me not to mention Russell Scott Primary School in Denton, which has been dubbed Britain’s worst rebuilt school and for which a bid is in to the Department for Education. Can we have the new school that those kids so desperately deserve?
Nadhim Zahawi
I know that the hon. Member is passionate and appreciate that he wants to work constructively. I know that the bid is in—the Minister for School Standards is looking at all bids—but he makes a powerful point, and I will happily work with him, because I know that he will care about the evidence; unlike, sadly, his Labour Front-Bench colleagues.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Having married into a family of teachers, I know how talented and passionate many of our teachers are. However, many teacher training courses include very little content on learning difficulties or speech and language conditions. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that all teachers receive the special educational needs and disability training that they need through initial teacher training and continuing development to give every child the best possible start in life?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend raises a powerful point. We are considering a national professional qualification for special educational needs as well as early intervention. He will hear more about that from me tomorrow in the Green Paper announcement.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
Schools in Bedford and Kempston, like those everywhere else, have been through the most difficult period of disruption, and have had to do so on reduced budgets. Not once in any of the conversations I have had with heads, teachers or parents, who are desperate for support, has anyone asked for more targets. If targets were not being met before the pandemic, why does the Secretary of State think that increasing them is going to do anything but create more stress for children and drive more teachers from the profession?
Nadhim Zahawi
I hope the hon. Gentleman was listening when I spoke about England rising up the international league tables around the world. That is because we are so focused on making sure that we back our teachers, train them well and then, of course, target our efforts, including on such successful programmes as the phonics screening check. I respectfully disagree with the hon. Gentleman: we need targets. That is why the primary target of 90% for achievement in maths and English and the GCSE average grade target going up from 4.5 to 5 are so important.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Secretary of State and I both have excellent Warwickshire grammar schools in our constituencies; will he say a little about the role of grammars in the raising of standards?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that question. I have in my constituency three grammar schools, all of which are high performing. We want to spread the DNA of grammar schools across the system. There are 165 grammar schools in an education system with 22,000 schools. Many grammar schools have already joined and are leading high-performing, strong multi-academy trusts. I want more of them to do the same, and they will join us on this journey.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I am concerned that the Secretary of State may be underestimating the damage that has been done to some children by the isolation during the pandemic—that is certainly what I hear from schools in Cambridge. That damage can be addressed through more interventions and more resources; is there anything in the White Paper to address that in a county such as Cambridgeshire, which remains one of the most poorly funded in the country?
Nadhim Zahawi
Mental health is one of the areas we have been looking at with the Children’s Commissioner, including through her very good “The Big Ask” survey of half a million children. In May last year, we announced £17 million of investment to build mental health support in education settings. We have invested further to make sure that the mental health leads in more than 8,000 schools and colleges have the necessary support and knowledge to support young people.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
I welcome the White Paper and thank my right hon. Friend for his passion and drive to deliver the best possible education to all children throughout the country, no matter whether they live or what their background is.
This morning, I caught up with some of my local school leaders, as I do regularly, and although they were interested to hear about what was coming up in this announcement there was naturally a bit of trepidation about further change on the back of the covid pandemic. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to make sure the changes are streamlined so that they cause as minimal an amount of disruption for school teachers as possible?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend raises a really important point. The frontline—the 461,000 teachers and 217,000 teaching assistants—and the support staff and leaders in our education system have gone above and beyond to make sure that schools reopened, stayed open and dealt with omicron. We have looked carefully at the evidence, which is why one of the things we have not done is change the curriculum. A knowledge-rich curriculum is important to make sure we deliver the outcomes we so passionately want to deliver for young people.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
If the Secretary of State is to deliver on this package, which has been announced 12 years into a Conservative Government, he is going to have to fund it. If we want decent teachers at the front of classrooms, we are going to have to pay them, so where is the funding for decent teachers in this package? If we are to improve schools, they need the resources; is anything in this package going to increase per-pupil funding?
Nadhim Zahawi
We are investing £7 billion, with £4 billion front-loaded this year and next year, and there is £5 billion for recovery. That is the investment. That is the commitment that we make when we speak, as I did this morning, to great school leaders like the great head at Monega. She will tell the hon. Gentleman that this is doable. The team at Monega has turned the school around in five years and it is now an outstanding school. We want to spread that good practice and quality leadership across the system.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his ambition and for making Bedfordshire an education investment area, but I draw his attention to a particular point in his White Paper, which refers to work
“to scrutinise and challenge off-rolling”
from schools. He will know that, unchecked, off-rolling can undermine trust, even in the best systems, so will he pay particular attention to that?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and in knitting together a system between our White Paper and the SEND and AP Green Paper, I have the opportunity to make sure that such behaviour no longer happens and that alternative provision is not seen as a sort of warehousing for forgotten children, because high-quality alternative provision has a place and a role to play in our education system.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
Education is the joint top sector affected by long covid—joint with social care, and above healthcare—but I have not yet seen anything from the Department on how MATs will help teachers with long covid. For example, I am aware of a headteacher who has chosen to take early retirement because they kept getting written warnings from the MAT, rather than being supported. That is not going to help workforce retention. Would the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can support teachers and heads who have long covid?
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The ambition for all children that shone through my right hon. Friend’s statement is to be warmly welcomed, but at the start of his statement he rightly acknowledged that children with special educational needs are less likely to achieve the ambition we all want for them. In my constituency, time and again I hear too many heartbreaking cases from families, where one of the causes is the length of time it takes for an EHCP to be signed off. Can he give me an assurance that the action coming from this White Paper and tomorrow’s SEND review will tackle that barrier?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. The parent pledge that the Secretary of State delivered today is ambitious and entirely necessary. A report in Northern Ireland has shown that children are eight months behind where they would normally be. The White Paper today is for England and Wales, but the problem is UK-wide, so the solution must also be UK-wide. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with devolved counterparts to ensure that this is the approach in every area of the United Kingdom?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Member will know that education is devolved, but we happily share all the evidence. We share our strategy with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations, and in the spirit of collaboration I am happy to continue to share the evidence. England has in many ways been evidencing what works, and we are happy to share that.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
I very much welcome Stoke-on-Trent being announced as a prioritised education investment area, which will help to continue the significant work being done to improve standards in education that teachers have been working on in Stoke-on-Trent. Does my right hon. Friend agree that improving standards of education is absolutely vital both to levelling up standards and to unleashing the real potential of places such as Stoke-on-Trent?
Nadhim Zahawi
I thank my hon. Friend, and I absolutely agree. I am the beneficiary of great education, of which the greatest determinant is having a great teacher or an inspirational teacher in the classroom. That is why much of the focus of this White Paper is about backing teachers, and making sure that they get the qualifications and the professional development that they need to do their job properly.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
I very much welcome the positive and progressive statement from my right hon. Friend. I pay tribute to the pupils and teachers in my constituency of Penrith and The Border for all their resilience and tremendous hard work throughout the pandemic. However, can my right hon. Friend reassure my constituents that pupils will receive all the targeted and tailored support and tutoring they need and, more broadly, the mental health and pastoral support they need?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend raises two excellent points. The work we have done on the national tutoring programme has allowed us to make the parent pledge, because I saw the evidence of how, when an individual child has gaps in their knowledge, the focus on engagement with parents makes a real difference. Of course, his point on mental health I addressed earlier.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
As a parent and a former teacher, I wholeheartedly welcome this White Paper. It is ambitious, but it is also a common-sense approach. I particularly commend the use of common-sense, plain English in the White Paper, which is very accessible to parents. Perhaps my right hon. Friend could pass on some tips to other Departments. I want to pick up on a phrase that is mentioned a couple of times in the White Paper, which is that
“the quality of teaching is the single most important in-school factor in improving outcomes for children”.
I completely agree with that and I welcome the reforms to teacher training, but does my right hon. Friend acknowledge that children spend most of their time at home, rather than in school, so can he set out how this will work alongside the Government’s programmes on strengthening and supporting families, because that will have just as important an effect on improving outcomes?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend raises a really important question. I have focused the Department on skills; the skills Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and the Minister for Higher and Further Education are both on the Front Bench. Later today, we will vote through what will then become, I hope, the revolution in the skills landscape that this country so badly needs and deserves.
From skills to schools: the schools White Paper delivers on what we want to achieve—making sure that every child has the opportunity of a great education in the right place and at the right time for them. Then there is family: families are important, whether in mainstream education or when it comes to children and the social care system. My hon. Friend will hear more from us about the family hubs that we will deliver in half of England’s local authorities.
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
Since 2010, the number of good and outstanding schools in Burnley and Padiham has increased. We can see in pupil attainment the impact that has had. That is not just numbers on a page, but life chances improving in our local communities. That is why we need to drive even harder, because education is the heart of levelling up. Will the Secretary of State set out what the White Paper will do for pupils who need targeted intervention in individual subjects, to help drive them forward?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. He will, I hope, see in the annex to the White Paper the evidence that strong, high performing multi-academy trusts really do deliver the best outcomes. That is my vision for the whole country.
The parent pledge, yes, is about children who fall behind in English language and maths, but teachers who I have seen in those high performing multi-academy trusts also look at other subjects as well as pastoral care and curriculum work. That makes the difference.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his excellent statement today. I also endorse the words of my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Education Committee on the importance of oracy skills in schools; I went to see an excellent initiative in Serlby Park Academy in Bircotes, in my constituency.
The Government have a commitment to getting 90% of primary school children up to reading, writing and maths standards by 2030. Does my right hon. Friend agree that driving up those standards in primary schools improves outcomes not only at that stage, but throughout a child’s and young person’s entire educational journey and beyond?
Oral Answers to Questions
Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
It is wonderful that the hon. Lady has returned to the theme of families; I remember the passion she showed in her time as shadow Minister for Children and Families.
The Government are investing £300 million to transform family help services in 75 local authorities. That money includes funding for family hubs, the supporting families programme and start for life services.
Tulip Siddiq
The Labour Government built more than 3,600 Sure Start centres, which provided a vital lifeline for many families throughout the country. This Government proceeded to close 1,000 Sure Start centres and then undertook a review of the early years sector that found that every parent and child should have access to early years support. Frankly, I could have told the Government that without undertaking a review. The review was published more than a year ago and I have not yet seen any plans for or details on having a family hub in every community in the country. When will the Secretary of State’s Department publish details of the family hubs in every community in the country? Or is this another instance of the Government paying lip service to the early years?
Nadhim Zahawi
What the hon. Lady omitted to say was that Sure Start was a good policy that was badly implemented under the Labour Government. They focused on bricks and mortar rather than on actually reaching and helping the families we will reach with the family hubs. We will announce very shortly the half of England’s local authorities that will have evidence-led, multi-agency family hubs that will reach exactly those families—exactly like I saw when I visited the family hub in Harlow with the Chair of the Education Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon).
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
We are working across Government to support Ukrainian students in the United Kingdom by introducing a new humanitarian route; there will be a statement later today from the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on that. It will provide them with an opportunity to extend their leave to remain or switch to graduate visas. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is leading on work to ensure that UK students in Ukraine are encouraged to return.
Deidre Brock
The announcement of the UK sponsorship scheme and the news that the Secretary of State just mentioned are very welcome for Ukrainian refugees. However, as they are temporary visa holders, will the families of those students be included in the Home Office’s Ukraine families scheme? Will the Secretary of State consult his ministerial colleagues on that?
Nadhim Zahawi
Those Ukrainians who are here on temporary visas will also be able to bring family members.
Steven Bonnar
Of the 2.6 million people who have fled Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion, UNICEF reports that at least 1 million are children. A large proportion of the 200,000-plus Ukrainian refugees who will enter the UK through the Ukrainian families scheme or the homes for Ukraine programme will be kids. What plans has the Secretary of State put in place to facilitate the integration of vulnerable Ukrainian child refugees into the UK education system?
Nadhim Zahawi
We have been working hard in the Department to ensure that we have, certainly in the initial phase, a capacity of up to 100,000 children going into early years, primary and secondary education, and into further and higher education as well.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Has my right hon. Friend seen the investigation by Theo Usherwood on LBC exposing pro-Putinist propaganda at some of our leading universities? At Leeds, Professor Ray Bush, still publicly listed on its website despite retiring, suggested that the US had chemical installations in Ukraine. That is, as we know, a lie that is being spread by the Kremlin. At Edinburgh, Professor Tim Hayward retweeted a Russian representative to the UN describing the attack on Mariupol’s hospital as “fake news”. At Leicester, Tom McCormack talks about “ludicrous disinformation” on both sides and boasts about appearing on Russia Today. Will my right hon. Friend contact these universities directly to stop them acting as useful idiots for President Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the Chair of the Education Committee for raising this issue. The Minister for Higher and Further Education is already on the case and is contacting those universities. Putin and his cronies are a malign influence on anyone in this country buying their false narrative. I repeat: it is a false and dangerous narrative and we will crack down on it hard.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
As a result of Putin’s war in Ukraine, the United Kingdom can expect an influx of a large number of young students. In the long term, they will need proper education, of course, but in the short term, could my right hon. Friend see whether he can build in some flexibility and normality so that these young people can get into schools and make friends as soon as possible?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I know that he and his family are passionate about wanting to support Ukrainians who are so vulnerable. We are making plans to make sure, as we did with the Afghan resettlement, that every child gets into the appropriate early years, primary, secondary or further or higher education, but I will certainly look at this. I think what he is getting at is that if there is a gap they may be wanting to feel welcome at their schools. I am already getting anecdotal stories about many schools where there is excitement about some of the Ukrainian children who are coming in.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
In Ireland, Ukrainian teachers are being fast-tracked through the teaching registration process to enable them to support youngsters who will be attending school in Ireland. Obviously, language will be a big challenge for these youngsters initially. Has the Secretary of State considered replicating that Irish scheme to ensure that young people coming to school in the UK will be properly supported?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady raises a really important point. That is one of the things I asked my team this morning with regard to the Ukrainians. Clearly, it will be predominantly women and children who are coming over because the men are fighting the Russian invaders. It is a question of whether we can get more recognition of qualifications so that Ukrainians who are able to can get work as soon as possible.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
I was delighted to announced that the Isle of Wight will be an education investment area, which will receive a range of support to improve schools. We will boost the rate of children meeting reading, writing and maths standards by 2030, ensuring that opportunity is as equally spread as talent is in our country.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
The Island has made good progress in improving its education in recent years, which I am delighted about. I am very keen to get as much out of the education investment area as we possibly can, in order to drive up standards further. That ambition was evident in my recent visit, only a few days ago, to Christ the King College, where I talked to students and pupils. The Education Minister has had many invitations today, so will the Secretary of State please come to the Isle of Wight so that he can see the excellent work being done at the Isle of Wight College and at our schools?
Nadhim Zahawi
That invitation is far too tempting to turn down, so I shall make time to visit the Isle of Wight with my hon. Friend. Of course, I will be saying more about the work we are doing in the schools White Paper.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
The United Kingdom has a proud history of supporting refugees in their hour of need. In the last few years alone, we have committed to welcoming over 100,000 Hongkongers, 20,000 Afghans and now an unlimited number of Ukrainians, through an extended family scheme and of course the humanitarian route, for those fleeing the illegal and barbarous acts of Putin and his cronies. Work is under way across Government with charities and local authorities to ensure that people coming from Ukraine are properly supported, so that they can rebuild their lives. I know my Department is ready for this challenge because we have successfully found a school place for every Afghan child who has come here.
Gill Furniss
BTECs are a vital lifeline for hundreds of thousands of students, while A-levels and T-levels are not suitable for many because they are not able to achieve level 4. Why are the Government hellbent on cutting back on student choice, and how does that fit in with the Government’s levelling-up agenda and the aspiration for everyone?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am surprised that the hon. Lady is attacking T-levels, because they were the noble Lord Sainsbury’s idea in the first place. The important thing to remember is that this Government are committed to the ladder of opportunity for everyone, with much better choices and routes for people. This is not about getting rid of BTECs. High quality BTECs will continue, but where there is overlap, we are right to look at that.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State believe that Randstad’s delivery of the national tutoring programme has been a success?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady will recall that the national tutoring programme had two pillars—academic mentors and tuition partners—and that programme is run by Randstad. By the way, last week I announced that we have hit 1 million blocks of tutoring, which I hope she welcomes. Schools tell us that those pillars are important, but also that they wanted a school-led route. That is what we did, and more than half a million tutoring blocks have been delivered that way. We must look at the tutoring programme and make those opportunities available for every child, especially those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Bridget Phillipson
I think families and school staff will find the Secretary of State’s response staggering in its complacency, given the failures that we are seeing as part of that programme. Almost two years after schools were closed to most children, and given the immense disruption to their education that they face, it should have been a national mission to support all our children to recover the learning and experiences they have lost in that time. Our children’s future, and our country’s future, depend on getting it right now. When will the Secretary of State finally get a grip?
Nadhim Zahawi
I notice that the hon. Lady did not recognise, or at least celebrate, the 1 million tutoring blocks that have been delivered, the majority of which have been delivered by brilliant teachers in our brilliant schools, because people wanted a school-led route to deliver that. That is the right thing to do. We are at 1 million blocks, we will hit 2 million this year, and we will go beyond that and hit 6 million in total—then I hope the hon. Lady will celebrate that. It is right for every child to get that opportunity, which was available only to the fortunate ones before.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend has been a champion for those who do not have the privileges that others have, and of spreading that opportunity equally. It is vital that universities work in partnership with colleges and local schools, to raise standards so that students from disadvantaged backgrounds have more options and can choose the path that is right for them. That is this Government’s absolute priority.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Some of the most rapid progress in the world is being made by schools in all countries that use information technology and artificial intelligence to support classroom tuition. Is the Department investigating how we could use that?
Nadhim Zahawi
I know that my right hon. Friend is passionate in this area. It is not about replacing great teachers; it is about enabling teachers to do their job in a much more efficient way. We are certainly looking at that; I will say more in the schools White Paper.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Figures provided to me recently by the Department for Education showed that on average a staggering 27% of children were not at the expected reading age when leaving primary school. That figure was pre-pandemic, so it will undoubtedly be worse now, especially in disadvantaged areas. What work is the Department doing to review primary school reading standards and will the Minister commit to the full £15 billion catch-up funding recommended by Sir Kevan Collins?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady is correct in what she says. Some 65% of pupils leave primary school with the appropriate level of reading, writing and maths, but that still leaves one third who do not. The Government’s ambition in the levelling-up White Paper is that 90% of primary school students should achieve the prerequisite level in reading, writing and maths. The £4.9 billion I am putting into recovery is beginning to really make a difference, especially the National Tutoring Programme, which has just hit 1 million courses.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
A school in Darlington is concerned about its energy contract with Gazprom. It wants to do the right thing and step away from contracts with connections to the Russian state. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss the situation, which may affect many other schools across the country?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this issue. He will know that Gazprom is no longer on the roster of suppliers to the Government and the Department, but I am very happy to meet him about this particular case.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
The Secretary of State spoke about the importance of a ladder of opportunity for our children. Can we also have a ladder of opportunity for black children? Many ethnic minority children do well in our school system, but for other groups, particularly black boys, the statistics show that, year on year, they underachieve academically and have disproportionately high levels of exclusion. What is the Secretary of State going to do about that group of children?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful for the right hon. Lady’s question. The really important thing is to make sure we level up across the board. I was at Hammersmith Academy, which has 60% pupil premium and is a really ethnically mixed school, where every child is supported and stretched to be able to deliver the best they can do. That is the right thing to do and that is what we will do with the schools White Paper, which will be published imminently.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
The covid inquiry terms of reference have just a tiny mention of education, suggesting that it looks at “restrictions on attendance”. That is like calling a mortuary a negative patient output. Will my right hon. Friend write to the chair of the covid inquiry and make sure that education and children are properly reflected, looking at the mental health problems and lost educational attainment of children during lockdown?
Nadhim Zahawi
The Chair of the Education Committee raises a number of important points, especially on mental health. This is not lost on this Secretary of State. The terms of reference are extremely broad, covering preparedness, the public health response and the response in the health and care sector, as well as the economic response. The restrictions on attendance at places of education are set out in the terms of reference as well. Moreover, there are other broad areas of potential relevance for education.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I have constituents whose teacher-assessed grades during the pandemic were markedly different from the grades predicted, often by the same teacher just a couple of months previously. When I complain to the school, it says I should go to Ofqual, but when I go to Ofqual, it says I should go to the school. Can we please have a clear appeal mechanism to sort out these long-running problems?