Disadvantaged Children

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat). He has given the coalition Government a proper test, and rightly so, because it is important that they should have such a test. The phrase “disadvantaged children” is not an attractive one, and we should be embarrassed by the fact that we have to talk about it so often in this country. It certainly embarrasses me and often has. The experience of meeting a young person who is unable to communicate properly, or read and so forth, can be heartrending. One has only to think of the waste that we allow to happen, with so many people who could do so much being left behind. We really need to address the whole issue of disadvantaged children.

Social mobility is critical. We want a mobile society, and that mobility depends on everyone being able to move around. They cannot do so because there are too many roadblocks. I shall refer to a few and suggest some ways in which we might deal with them.

First, we have rightly talked about education, but too many children leave the education system without being equipped to communicate properly and without the confidence to get around and about their lives. Therefore, we must ensure that the education system makes sure, at the very least, that all children can read, write and communicate properly. If we do not do so, we will obviously fail them, but we will fail society as well, and, as a member of the Education Committee, one thing that I constantly worry about is how we ensure that our schools system delivers such results.

The pupil premium and so forth are very important, and we must encourage all those who are entitled to collect it to do so. The question of stigma often arises, however, so we need to think about that in terms of the policy. The very fact that we need the pupil premium is a measure of our failure, but we have talked about measures throughout the debate, or at least while I have been present, so let us recognise that we have to deal with a big measure.

Secondly, education is critical, but there are other roadblocks. I am struck by the fact that we do not deal holistically with early years issues. That is why I was so impressed by the work of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). Alongside all the usual issues, the health of a young person also matters, so we have to ensure that, in the foundation years, as described in the right hon. Gentleman’s review, we consider not just education, but health care and other factors. We need an holistic approach at that level.

My third point, which strikes me every time I go abroad, especially when I focus on planning and housing development, as I did before becoming a Member, is the importance of a child’s environment. That includes the quality of their homes, the way in which they play and interact with each other, and how families interact with each other. I have been to some fascinating places, in Rotterdam for example, where local communities with really well designed housing developments come together, look after each other, spot problems, allow families to develop and ensure that fewer children are disadvantaged. It is, therefore, important for us to think about the environment. Too much of our housing just does not allow such family life or social development between families, so I want to ram home the point that we have to improve our planning system.

I have talked about education because I am on the Education Committee, but we need to highlight a few more issues that have cropped up during its work. One issue is the number of children who care for somebody else. We cannot expect that to be good for them or for anybody in their near neighbourhood; it is totally wrong. The hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who is also a member of the Committee, rightly rammed home the point that it is unacceptable to ignore that group in the context of school discipline, but it is unacceptable to ignore it in any context. We have to calibrate the problem and ensure that we start to do something about the fact that more than 10% of children scuttle back home after a day at school to look after somebody in their household. We need to address that problem, do we not?

Also on the subject of education, we have to think about the early years and encourage proper care and attention for the child as well as where they come from and the family framework in which they are involved.

That brings me to another example from Europe that we need to consider. On the continent we often see the extended family approach, but we do not see it here. We should be encouraging people to think more in terms of their whole family and its different generations. That is linked to other points that I made about planning, health care and education.

We have to be far more inclusive and holistic, and much more demanding that our institutions and charities co-operate with each other to share information more effectively and ensure that local government stops being so silo-based.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I should like to draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the charity OXPIP, with which I have been involved for a long time and which works well with the children’s centre in Oxford. There is great potential for the voluntary sector to work closely with statutory agencies to deliver exactly the sort of help to which he is referring.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank my hon. Friend. That is a very important example of what is necessary, but we need to see it across the piece.

Government can talk about what they want to happen, but ultimately we have to ensure that it does happen. Delivery is crucial, as is measuring, assessing and understanding the problems. If we do not know what is happening after we have said that something should happen, we are failing completely. We must be holistic, check up, and never, ever take our eye off the ball.