National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I have set out a very clear timetable today. In spite of the fact that the Labour party clearly has no interest in having fair funding or funding that goes to the most disadvantaged children—the children who need to catch up—we will press on with this process.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is to be congratulated on grappling with this issue, but, as she has indicated, the devil is in the detail, and I look forward to looking at it. The education of 16 to 19-year-olds, who are in schools as well as in colleges, had a cut of 14% during the coalition Government. There is a big difference between what they get and what four to 16-year-olds and those at university get. What will she do about that funding crisis?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman and I share a deep interest in technical education and a passion for improving it. As he will know, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills is looking at how to implement a skills strategy that will make sure that our technical education system is at the same gold standard level that we are steadily ensuring our education system is reaching. We have protected per pupil core funding post-16, but we want to look at how to make sure that further education improves its attainment levels in the way that has happened across the broader schools system.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We have been clear that we do not want children to be left behind by not getting a GCSE in maths or English when they could have achieved one, so we want those who score a D to take resits. For others, however, there is the option to study for functional skills qualifications, and it is important for employers that we make sure those functional skills qualifications work effectively.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

rose—

[Justine Greening]

I will make a little more progress. I will definitely let the hon. Gentleman intervene but, as he will know, I have some way to go as I introduce the Bill.

I was setting out how most young people will not necessarily go down an academic route, but choose more a technical educational route. Despite that fact, the technical education route open to those young people for decades has often lacked sufficient quality and failed to offer a proper pathway into the world of work. That is not acceptable. If we are to create a country that works for everyone, it is time that we gave technical education the focus its deserves, alongside our school and academic education reforms, so that people who choose to pursue this route have as good a chance at getting a high-skilled career as someone taking an academic route.

[Nic Dakin]

I think that everyone applauds the direction of travel for technical education. In response to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) about GCSE maths and English, the Secretary of State focused on functional skills. Is she saying that those functional skills will remain as an equal qualification in the future, because I do not think that that is being said to institutions or students?

[Justine Greening]

What we are saying is that we want an education system, particularly at the primary and secondary level, that really stretches our young people to get through their GCSEs and to come out with GCSE qualifications that are well recognised and respected by employers. Alongside the resit policy, we want strong functional skills qualifications that can, in conjunction with a broader offer for technical education, enable young people to demonstrate their attainment in both maths and English. No young person should leave our education system without something to show for all their time spent on maths and English. It is important that they are able clearly to demonstrate their level of attainment to employers. At the same time, we need to make sure that people achieve as high a level of attainment as possible to recognise their potential in maths and English. STEM subjects, especially maths and English, have been a strong push for this Government so that we ensure that we give young people the critical building blocks that are important not just for their future careers and work but, much more broadly, so that they have a chance of being successful in life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We want to make sure that young girls get exactly the same opportunities as young boys. We know that part of the challenge relates to the kinds of industries that might offer apprenticeships. The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) asked me about the engineering profession. It is important to ensure that the technical education route is as desirable for young women as it is for young men, and among the ways we will do that is by steadily changing its image, by ensuring that it is of high quality, and by making sure that people know that if they follow this route, they will come out with experience and qualifications that employers truly value. That is why part of the Bill’s purpose is to put employers at the heart of our technical education strategy.

University technical colleges have also been established to address skills gaps in local and national industries. They provide technical education that meets the needs of modern businesses. Indeed, they also give a much different offer to young people who are interested in specialising through a technical education route.

[Nic Dakin]

rose—

[Justine Greening]

I would like to make a little more progress. I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s long-standing interest and expertise in this area, but let me get on to the Bill itself.

Alongside our wider education reforms, the Government’s work on technical and further education over the past six years represents a firm foundation on which we can now build a really strong technical route in this country. The Bill serves to do exactly that. Part 1 focuses on technical education. It extends the role of the Institute for Apprenticeships to give it responsibility for classroom-based technical education in addition to apprenticeships. It will be renamed as the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. The measures take forward and support the reforms set out in Lord Sainsbury’s report and the skills plan so we can truly streamline the technical education system and ensure young people can follow clear routes to skilled employment. That will ensure that we have strong standards as part of an employer-led approach on technical education so that courses and apprenticeships develop knowledge, skills and behaviours in individuals that meet the needs of employers and improve overall productivity.

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[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), who rightly set the Minister a series of challenges around pathways, transparency, equivalency and all those sorts of things. She raised very important issues.

Drawing on the Association of College’s key facts and figures, I will begin by reminding the House of the value of colleges and their contribution to the country. Colleges provide a range of education and training, helping to provide skills and qualifications to students entering the workforce. Colleges educate and train 2.7 million people, including 1.9 million adults, and 744,000 16 to 18-year-olds choose to study in colleges. Almost every general further education college offers apprenticeships, with 306,000 people choosing to take one in a college. Some 153,000 people study higher education in colleges, and students aged 19-plus in further education generate an additional £70 billion for the economy over their lifetimes. It is worth reminding ourselves of the great contribution that colleges make.

I declare an interest as someone who has led a college—back when I had a real job—and therefore knows the nuts and bolts of doing that. John Leggott College in my constituency, which I was privileged to be principal of, is still doing a cracking job locally, as is North Lindsey College, the general FE college. These colleges make a real difference to people’s lives day in, day out. However, the funding challenges that colleges face are very real: a 17% cut in sixth-form college funding since 2011; and a significant squeeze in adult education funding, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) set out earlier.

I have high hopes for the Education Secretary, the first Secretary of State to have been educated in a comprehensive sixth-form college, but when she says that area-based reviews are already putting the sector on a sustainable funding footing for the future, I fear that she is being over-optimistic. The area-based reviews have reported, but nothing has really happened as a result. Indeed, if the funding cuts continue and the autumn statement does not contain a commitment to the 5% increase in college funding that the AOC is calling for, the challenges facing colleges will remain significant. I therefore do not think that area-based reviews will be the cavalry coming over the hill.

We have seen under this Government a plethora of confusion in post-16 provision. Area-based reviews did not look at the new university technical colleges or post-16 provision in schools. We have a complete hotch-potch: free schools, studio schools—a whole mess has replaced the preceding coherence.

I am in favour of university technical colleges where they are needed, but if a college is established as additional capacity in an area that does not need it, that creates much more inefficiency. It is not good enough for the Government to continue to fund such colleges more generously on the basis of estimates rather than real numbers. We see problems in these areas that we all know about as politicians—even in times of austerity, we can fund our pet projects—but it should not be like that, because that lets our young people down.

The insolvency scheme introduced by the Bill is probably not necessary, but we will need to see how it develops. The Sixth Form Colleges Association is concerned that it might create unintended consequences in the way banks lend to the sector, so we need to make sure that the right conversations take place between the Government and the banks. We would not want the policy to make it more difficult for colleges to go about their business.

Let me pick up one or two issues that hon. Members have raised, starting with the debate over GCSE C grades in maths and English, and the matter of functional skills. When I was principal of a college, all our students did either English and maths GCSE, or functional skills. They are both good, solid qualifications, but overall it was the opposite of the holiday postcard: there was a very different feeling from “Wish you were here” in maths and English classes. Thankfully, however, and thanks to great maths and English teachers around the country, the situation has been transformed, and people now do quite well when they resit maths or English post-16. The post-16 sector has always had bespoke qualifications that are appropriate for an older age group studying additional qualifications alongside them, rather than a system of merely repeating what was done at the pre-16 level. I ask the Minister to think carefully about functional skills because it seems that they are being put to one side. If the Minister is going to correct that, it would be very helpful, because that is certainly felt outside this place.

The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) is pursuing a good campaign on getting apprenticeships for young people with learning challenges, which I support. He cited the example of what is happening in the hospitality sector. My example would be a young constituent who recently contacted me. She has level 2 functional skills, which she achieved with great effort during her time in college. She is now doing a level 3 apprenticeship, but she has been told that she has to get a grade C in English GCSE and that her level 2 functional skills will not count. I hope that the Minister will confirm that he will brush that aside, because that seems like unnecessary repetition for a young person who has worked extremely hard. Instead of following the route suggested by the hon. Member for North Swindon, things seem to be going in the opposite direction, so I encourage the Minister to find ways to address the situation

That brings me to the key point I want to focus on: the nature of applied general qualifications. As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central said, those qualifications are crucial so that young people can work towards the professions and jobs that will be needed when an ever-changing workforce face ever-changing challenges. Paragraph 2.18 of the “Post-16 Skills Plan” states:

“We plan to review the contribution of—

applied general qualifications—

“to preparing students for success in higher education; what part they can play in a reformed system; and the impact any reform would have on the government’s ambitions on widening participation. We will announce our decisions later in the year.”

Well, it is quite late in the year already, and those qualifications are crucial because of the way in which they work. They are combined with other qualifications: a student might study for a BTEC alongside an A-level, for instance. That combination gives students flexibility, enabling them to gain applied general qualifications as well as academic qualifications, and to move forward positively and successfully.

I know from my own experience that those qualifications have allowed young people who might not be suited to a full programme of three A-levels to find a successful model in an area in which they are interested and to which they are committed, with good, strong progression routes. I am anxious for us not to end up, in the course of our entirely proper search for more rigorous and effective technical education, throwing the baby of strong applied general qualifications out with the bathwater.

I know that the Sixth Form Colleges Association has been convening round tables of practitioners and arranging for members of the Department to visit sixth-form colleges to see the good work that is going on there, but I urge the Minister to champion applied general qualifications and the role that they can play for young people in driving up standards and developing progression routes. I hope that he will also give us some idea of when the review mentioned in the skills plan will take place, and when it is likely that a report will be produced.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

As I said, I think we all condemn all forms of bullying, from wherever it comes and for whatever its purported reasons, but we also need to make sure that we educate our children to understand the effects that bullying has on others, so that, as they grow older, they do not repeat the mistakes of those who have gone before them.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

12. What assessment she has made of the effect of recent changes in the level of (a) funding and (b) costs on the provision of education to 16 to 19-year-olds in England.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

16. What assessment she has made of the effect of recent changes in the level of (a) funding and (b) costs on the provision of education to 16 to 19-year-olds in England.

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)]

We are committed to protecting the base funding rate of £4,000 per student for the rest of this Parliament. Moreover, the proportion of young people participating in education or training is now 81.6%, which is higher than ever before. Following reforms to qualifications, the system is delivering better quality provision to prepare young people for jobs and further study.

[Nic Dakin]

Sixth-form colleges have suffered a 17% cut in their funding since 2011, which has had a real impact on the quality and breadth of curriculum they can offer. Will the Minister, with the Secretary of State, commit to evaluating how much funding is necessary for 16-to-19 education so that it is of the global quality we deserve?

[Robert Halfon]

The important thing is that we have equalised the funding and that the money now follows the student, not the qualification, to ensure a fair balance between sixth-form colleges and further education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

Of course I will be pleased to meet my hon. Friend and the organisation he mentions. We are investing heavily in skills and construction and doing everything we can to improve the quality and quantity of apprenticeships.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

T8. Nursery providers have been contacting me because they are very anxious about the changes that are likely to result in reduced funding per child. The Minister has been very clear today that that will not happen. Will she meet my local providers so that we can have an exchange of information?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)]

I will be more than happy to.

National College for Wind Energy

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the National College for Wind Energy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I wish that this debate was not necessary, but with the autumn statement in just three weeks’ time, once again the Government look set to omit a deal for the proposed national college for wind energy, meaning that the project will stay stalled. The college was first announced in December 2014 by the then Business Secretary, the former Member for Twickenham. Three other colleges were aimed at addressing existing or forecast skills shortages in particular industries, and the policy included £80 million of Government funding to be matched by employers. However, difficulties at the due diligence stage of developing the bid with the private sector meant that the funding application could not be submitted in time, and the project was not included in last year’s autumn statement.

The original proposal was for a hub-and-spoke model. The college located in the Humber area would deliver training, allow partners to use the site for expertise that was not available elsewhere, and act as a co-ordination point for other skills providers located elsewhere in the country in order to maximise access. Following the failure to develop a funded plan for that before the deadline, alternative proposals were suggested, including one whereby there would be no physical college, but merely a national college badge for training providers as a guarantee of quality. I am glad that that idea no longer seems to be under consideration.

I will come to the various barriers that are preventing the deal, but it is important to note that this proposal was a pre-election promise by the coalition Government to invest tens of millions of pounds into the Humber region and to boost our local offshore wind industry. As it stands, that is a broken promise, which can be added to a pile of pre-election northern powerhouse funding commitments that quickly unravelled after last May.

Clearly the Government need to take the wheel if the college is ever going to be delivered, but I am now really concerned that the new Government are neglecting this proposal. When I and colleagues representing constituencies in the Humber, who I am delighted have joined me here today, met the previous Ministers for Business and Energy—the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom)—back in March 2016, they assured us that they remained committed to delivering the college, but now it simply does not seem to be on the Government’s radar. Following the appointment of the current Cabinet in July, I wrote to the Secretary of State for the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, calling on him to work with the Education Secretary to ensure that a suitable proposal for the college was ready in time for this year’s autumn statement. I am still waiting for a reply.

The Prime Minister sent an awful signal to the energy industry when in one of her very first acts she scrapped the Department for Energy and Climate Change. She now has to show the industry that she is serious about giving it the attention that such an important sector of our economy requires. The day after my application for this debate was granted, my office received a call from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It wanted to know whether it or the Department for Education needed to send a Minister to respond today. That suggests that there has been absolutely no communication between the two Departments on this subject for four months, and that is incredibly disappointing. I say to the Minister here today that when he goes back to his office, he should pick up the phone to his colleagues in the BEIS and get to work on delivering what was promised.

When the college was first announced less than two years ago, the then Business Secretary said:

“The UK can no longer afford to lag behind countries like France and Germany, which have invested heavily in technical skills at the highest level for generations. The National Colleges will function on a par with our most prestigious universities, delivering training that matches the best in the world. They will help build a strong, balanced economy that delivers opportunity across all regions in the UK.”

That all remains true today: skills provision in this country does not match its ambitions and there is still a need to support industries such as offshore wind that provide good jobs outside London and the south-east. As a relatively young and fast-growing industry that demands high levels of skills, it is no surprise that offshore wind sites have sometimes struggled to find workers already equipped with the necessary capabilities for the jobs. Mike Parker, who was chair of the Humber local enterprise partnership’s employment and skills board, said that the national college would be

“a major step forward in helping the UK bridge that gap.”

RenewableUK, the trade body for renewable energy, has highlighted some of the challenges specific to offshore work in training employees. Personnel need to receive training in real working environments, and it has to be done safely; such conditions are difficult to replicate. That accounts for the need for advanced skills training in the construction and operation of turbines offshore. It takes four years of training to become a wind turbine technician.

A RenewableUK study from two years ago found that more than a third of wind and marine energy firms were having difficulty filling certain positions. The TUC argued in its “Powering ahead” report that the skills gap in renewables requires training to be given equal weight to what are currently described as the three pillars of energy policy: security, affordability and sustainability.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. The Humber local enterprise partnership has prioritised skills and training and it has done a good job. Does she agree that a Government commitment to deliver and complete their promise on wind energy, by agreeing to get the college moving forward, would be a real, much-needed vote of confidence in the Humber LEP and the Humber region?

[Melanie Onn]

I could not agree more. The significant skills gap across many industries has been noted and recognised in the local area. The Humber region is particularly eager to capitalise on the growth in the offshore industry, whether we are talking about Siemens, DONG Energy, E.ON, Centrica—I could go on. The number of international companies that are choosing to base themselves in the Humber area is increasing by the week and we must have the local workforce skilled to meet the requirements of industry.

The report argues that not only are apprenticeships and further education courses needed to provide opportunities for young people to access the renewable energy industry, but we need institutions such as the national college in order to give workers in the oil and gas industries the skills to transfer over, as high-polluting industries are gradually replaced by those in the green economy. I do not think that the issues that made the college necessary two years ago have altered that much in the past two years. I would argue that the only major changes we have seen since 2014 make it more important that the college is developed.

As foreign companies are looking at whether to invest further in the UK, the uncertainty over future immigration policy makes it vital for the UK to be able to offer workers with the necessary skills and training to do the job. Following through on the national college for wind energy would be a commitment to the future of the industry, assuring energy companies that Britain is committed to the offshore wind sector for the long term and therefore providing the certainty they need to continue investing in our economy.

Developing the college is also of regional and local importance. The Humber region was due to be the location for the college under the original plans for a really good reason: thousands of people across the energy estuary are employed to work on the wind farms and in the supply chain, with the Hornsea, Race Bank and Triton Knoll sites all set to employ hundreds more in the near future.

Organisations within the region have welcomed the new industry with enthusiasm. The Humber LEP, for example, set an ambition in 2014 to make the region

“the national centre of excellence for energy skills.”

We have already seen investment in training and opportunities for young people. Indeed, an apprentice from a local firm was at an event in the House of Commons today, so apprentices I have met in Grimsby are making the journey to champion their organisations here in Parliament. They have the opportunity to take advantage of the fantastic new £10-million training facility that AIS Training built last year. That investment shows the confidence that local business has in offshore wind.

An apprentice I have had the pleasure of meeting is Michael. I have told his story a number of times but I am going to do so again, because it made a significant difference not only to me and the way I view the offshore wind industry, but to hundreds of people in a room at a skills fair that I held earlier in the year. Michael was 19 at the time, and his ambition was to be a skipper on one of the North sea service boats that go out and maintain the turbines. I invited him along to the skills fair; he thought he would be telling a small group of young people in a classroom a little bit about his job, so having never spoken to an audience before, he was rather surprised to be in front of an auditorium of about 200 people, who were all very keen to hear about how he found his way into an apprenticeship in the wind industry.

The significant thing about Michael, in his own words, was this:

“Seven months ago I was on jobseeker’s allowance, and had no plans and nothing to bring to the table. North Sea Services didn’t judge me for all my tattoos and took me on. Seeing the wind turbines close up is mind-blowing. The work that goes into them is unbelievable. I’m trying to show them that I’m worth keeping on.”

Happily, North Sea Services did keep him on, and Michael was part of the vessel crew that took my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and I out to visit the Humber Gateway turbines in June. His story shows why it is so important that this industry continues to grow and that the college is developed: so more young people in towns such as Great Grimsby have a chance to make something of their lives, and to have a job they can be proud of.

Great Grimsby was one of three sites in the Humber region that were originally touted to host the college. I want to say why it would be so important for the development of my town, and I hope that my neighbouring colleagues will excuse me for championing my town as the host town for the college. For more than a century, Great Grimsby was a one-industry town. Fishing not only employed thousands of local people but gave them their identity, their community and their pride, and we are still feeling the effects of its decline. My constituency has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and because of the lack of opportunity one in three of our children grows up in poverty.

I have said it before, but it is true: offshore wind has brought a renewal of hope to Grimsby. It is playing an important role in redefining what my town offers not just to our own people, but to the rest of the country. We are already the renewable energy capital of England and being home to the national college for wind energy would be vital for the same reason. It would also give more local people the opportunity for a proper career, with high-skilled work—something that until recently young people felt they would have to go to the big cities to find.

The Prime Minister said last month that the Government’s industrial strategy was

“about identifying the industries that are of strategic value to our economy and supporting and promoting them through policies on”,

among other things, “training” and “skills”. She also spoke about the importance of economic revival in parts of our country that have lagged behind London and the south-east for too long. If this Government are to live up to the Prime Minister’s conference speech, they need to show leadership and get this project moving again. If industry is now reluctant to commit funds to the project, citing greater risk, lower growth, and a lack of clarity on skills policy, the Government should assuage those concerns by committing to support the industry.

We have seen in the past week that the Government are willing to support specific industries and even individual companies, as with Nissan. It is good news that Nissan’s future in Sunderland is secured, but it is just as important that the Government meet their commitments to the wind energy industry. The Government should also remind the energy companies that they have a stake in this. They have received large subsidies from taxpayers and have a responsibility to ensure that their business benefits the towns and cities in which they operate, and it is in their interest to build a workforce for the future. I hope that the Minister gives us, at the very least, an assurance that the Government have not given up on this project and will set out how he plans to move forward with it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Technical education clearly needs to be aligned better with business needs. We are building on the apprenticeships reforms, whereby employers are designing the new apprenticeship standards to meet their needs, by giving employers a strong role in setting the standards across the 15 technical routes. They will advise on the knowledge, skills and behaviours that are needed, so that technical education has value for employers and learners alike, and is responsive to the requirements of the economy and employers.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

BTECs are challenging and rigorous. It would be quite concerning if we had an over-focus on technical education, pure and simple, without maintaining a strong applied route through BTECs. Will the Minister give us a commitment about the future of BTECs?

[Robert Halfon]

Clearly, we had to reform technical education, because there were far too many qualifications. There were over 13,000 qualifications, and engineering had something like 500. We are looking to offer students a technical pathway if that is what they choose, and we will look at the best qualifications for those technical pathways.

Schools that work for Everyone

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I was in one of the many high-performing comprehensives in my constituency on Friday, and I asked the headteacher what the real challenge is. She told me that it was those young people who are struggling academically but are from families with low aspirations. The Secretary of State’s proposals do nothing to address this issue. Why does she not experiment in the areas of the country that have grammar schools, make them take 25% free school meals students as a pilot and see what happens there before she meddles with everybody else’s education?

[Justine Greening]

I encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at the consultation document proposals, as I think he will welcome some elements of them. We have to remember that we are coming from a position of there being no conditionality on grammars whatsoever and far less push on them to reach out into more disadvantaged communities. That push is precisely what we are setting out in this consultation document, while also setting out our intention to give parents more choice.

New Grammar Schools

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is right. The scrums around good schools are not just around good grammars; they are around good and outstanding schools more generally. That is why our focus surely has to be on opening up the system as much as we can to make sure that we absolutely maximise our ability to get good schools and more places at such schools for children in their local areas. Many of our colleagues talk about how children come from miles away to attend the good school in their constituency. Perhaps if we already had a good school closer to where those children live, they would not need to spend their time travelling, and losing out on homework and study time.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the comprehensive-educated Secretary of State to her post and wish her well in this new challenge.

The

“age of 11 is too early to make final decisions about a child’s future.”—[Official Report, 8 July 1970; Vol. 803, c. 683.]

So said Margaret Thatcher, the Secretary of State who oversaw the greatest expansion of comprehensive education. Does the current Secretary of State really want to increase the number of children taking the 11-plus and to bring back secondary moderns and grammar schools, with the negative impact on achievement predicted by Her Majesty’s chief inspector and the negative impact on social mobility predicted by the Government’s social mobility adviser?

[Justine Greening]

I have a great amount of respect for the hon. Gentleman. I know he spent a career in education before coming into this place. I would simply say to him, as I have said to many other colleagues, that he should wait for the policy options to come out. I will be interested to hear his response to them in due course.

Mindfulness in Schools

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered mindfulness in schools.

It is, as always, a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. It is good to be able to highlight the work of those bringing mindfulness training into UK schools. I pay tribute to all those supporting the ongoing work of the all-party parliamentary group on mindfulness. In particular, I pay tribute to the enthusiasm and passion of our former colleague, Chris Ruane, who continues to be an outstanding ambassador for mindfulness.

Childhood is a time for acquiring life skills alongside academic knowledge. Good schools teach young people how to keep their bodies fit, and encourage regular exercise and a healthy diet to promote good physical health throughout life, but mental health is equally important to a child’s long-term wellbeing, academic success, behaviour and eventual life outcomes. The training of attention is a foundation on which the cultivation of good mental health rests. A growing body of scientific evidence shows the benefits of mindfulness to resilience, concentration and the relief of anxiety. An evidence-based approach to mental wellbeing should have a vital part to play in the way we prepare our children for life. It makes sense, therefore, for mindfulness to be taught more widely in our schools.

In my professional and personal life, I am aware of the need to be present, focused and grounded to face all that life and work throws at us—at the moment, that is quite a lot. I am one of about 130 MPs and peers who have taken a mindfulness course in Parliament in the past three and a half years. Like many of my colleagues, I found the course compelling, with personal benefits for everyday life.

Abundant research shows that attention is fundamental to mental functioning. The eight-week mindfulness course undertaken by parliamentarians taught us how to train our attention to remain more focused and engaged in the experience of the present moment. By steadying one’s attention in that way, one can learn to respond in more clear-headed, versatile and creative ways to daily choices and challenges, instead of being driven by habit and impulse. Those simple, accessible mental skills can be taught to everyone, but, as with so many things, the most effective time to learn is during childhood.

Children and young people are under tremendous pressure in today’s society. According to Government figures given to the all-party parliamentary group, 32.3% of 15 to 25-year-olds suffer one or more mental health difficulty, and 11% suffer mild, medium or severe forms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Only last week, the Children’s Society published disturbing evidence in its annual “Good Childhood Report” that levels of unhappiness are rising among 10 to 15-year-olds. It called for more mental health and wellbeing support to be made available in schools to tackle low wellbeing early. Mindfulness has a role there.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He rightly talks about the level of the alarming mental health crisis. Some 10% of children experience mental health issues between the ages of five and 16, and half of those who experience mental health issues as children go on to experience them as adults. Given the scale of the problem, does he agree that there is a real urgency to innovate?

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely on the money. If this issue can be tackled in childhood, it will be less of a problem in adulthood. At the moment, the picture in adulthood is not very pretty either. The use of antidepressants among adults has increased by 500% in the past 20 years in the UK. The World Health Organisation states that by 2030, the biggest health burden on the planet will be mental ill-health. Many factors have been suggested as explanations of the apparently massive increase in mental ill-health among the young, including family breakdown, school-related stress, bullying, cyber-bullying, information overload, watching too much TV and digital technology rewiring our very brains.

Mind with Heart, which runs teacher-training workshops on mindfulness, has shown that teaching children mindfulness helps to reduce bullying, which is a significant contributor to youth depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies. Much of that stress and mental ill-health can be avoided or alleviated. The possibility of prevention or effective management is greatly increased if skills for managing one’s mind through life’s challenges are learned early. That is why it is vital that schools and colleges play their full part, not only in spotting and addressing mental ill-health, but in teaching the basic life skills of good mental health. A growing body of research suggests that mindfulness could have a foundational role to play in providing evidence-based mental training for children and young people.

Following the publication of more than 50 promising pilot studies, the Wellcome Trust is currently funding a £7 million research project into the effects of mindfulness training on pupils aged 11 to 18, led by Oxford University. It is likely to confirm and strengthen the existing scientific evidence base for the adoption of mindfulness education programmes in schools around the world. Staff from the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University have introduced a curriculum for seven to 11-year-olds and are developing a course for three to seven-year-olds. The university is also researching the impact of mindful parenting programmes.

One of the fathers of modern psychology, William James, said in the 1890s that,

“the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No-one is”

master of himself

“if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. But it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical directions for bringing it about.”

The courses and curriculums I mentioned not only define but deliver that ideal. There is promising evidence that mindfulness training enhances executive control and emotional regulation in children and adolescents, in line with adult research. Those crucial contributors to self-regulation underpin not only emotional wellbeing but effective learning and academic attainment.

Research highlighted by the prominent American psychologist, Daniel Goleman, show those capabilities to be the biggest determinants of life’s outcome. They improve concentration, response to stress and meta-cognition, all of which are crucial skills for learning. They support effective decision making and creativity. In other words, the soft skills are the foundation of the hard skills.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that those soft skills also provide a brake between thought and action? In the case of self-harming, which seems to be increasing exponentially, they are an important brake on action and on injuring oneself—particularly for girls. Some of our schools are becoming the biggest procurers of mental health services outside the NHS.

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. The opportunity for reflection, attention, thought and pause is encouraged through mindfulness training.

At the launch of our all-party group, it was wonderful to see 10-year-olds and teenagers showing an impressive understanding of the workings of the brain, demonstrating absolutely the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). They knew about the role of the tiny reptilian part of the brain, the amygdala, which hijacks higher psychological functions such as kindness, creativity and compassion; they spoke about practising regular mindfulness meditation in order to remain anchored in the present, rather than being swept away by strong emotion; and they explained the difference that such training made to their lives, with the ability to make considered responses, rather than being the victim of impulsive reaction—in many ways, exactly the point made by my hon. Friend.

[Jessica Morden]

To back up my hon. Friends, I should say that many hon. Members, including me, have visited mindfulness programmes in our constituencies. I was struck by how highly the programmes were talked of by people, and by how enthusiastic they were about them and the techniques. Does my hon. Friend agree that we would welcome hearing from the Minister that he is willing to visit some such programmes?

[Nic Dakin]

That is a very good idea. I suspect that the Minister will be delighted to seize the opportunity when he responds to the debate. I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention—she is right that seeing such programmes being delivered is inspirational.

Teachers need the training to deliver the courses. This week, one teacher contacted me to say that she had paid for herself to become a qualified mindfulness teacher, and she has seen a remarkable impact on her students from the courses she teaches. As she rightly points out, however, we need courses to be run for the teachers themselves, because they need to embody mindfulness before it can be taught effectively. We then need teachers to be taught how to teach it.

In the context of education, our all-party group on mindfulness is concerned not only with pupils and students, but with those who work in education. Sadly, according to the statistics, the challenges that they face are compelling. According to an NASUWT survey, half the teachers polled had visited their doctor with work-related physical or mental health issues; more than three quarters of them had reported anxiety; and 86% had suffered sleeplessness. Mindfulness has the potential to tackle such issues.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nic Dakin]

I will give way—

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady was not present at the beginning of the debate. I will let her make an intervention, but please, colleagues: you have been here for a year and a half. You know the rules.

[Margaret Ferrier]

I had a view of some research in a 2014 Clinical Psychology Review. Researchers at Montreal University, who looked at 209 studies covering more than 12,000 people, concluded that mindfulness is especially effective to reduce anxiety, depression and stress. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that mindfulness would be extremely beneficial for young people to use as a tool to cope with stress and anxiety, be it social, exam-related or otherwise?

[Nic Dakin]

The hon. Lady, though late, makes a good contribution. Unions such as the National Union of Teachers in Wales offer their members massively discounted rates for mindfulness classes.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way? I, too, apologise for not being present at the start—

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Gosh: we now have a free-for-all. I will be less generous next time, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to give way—

[Nic Dakin]

I will give way.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He is making a powerful point that mindfulness is extremely useful throughout life. For example, it can also help with transition when people have long-term health conditions, which is beneficial for the person and for our public services.

[Nic Dakin]

Absolutely—another intervention that was worth taking, although my hon. Friend was a little tardy in arriving.

Before the recess, I chaired a meeting in Parliament at which Professor Craig Hassed of Monash University, Melbourne, informed MPs about work he has been doing for 25 years to introduce trainee doctors and teachers to mindfulness as part of their curriculum. It would be good to see that practice emulated in British professional training.

To conclude, in the past few years we have made real progress in the field of mindfulness in education, but a great deal more can be done. A strategy that considers how best to train the attention of young people from childhood through adolescence and early adulthood would help to stem the tsunami of mental ill-health that is enveloping the youth of the western world, while simultaneously supporting learning and helping to tackle behavioural issues.

Mindfulness training offers preventive strategies to grow resilience in our young people. With mental health issues on the rise in schools and colleges, and CAMHS—child and adolescent mental health services—under pressure throughout the country, it is imperative for us to seize the opportunity to make that resilience training a natural part of our children’s education. I am proud to be working alongside mindfulness advocates, educationalists, academics, scientists and fellow politicians, across party, in taking the issues forward for the benefit of the next generation.

The all-party group has had consistently positive responses from Education Ministers, who have been keen to work with us. For example, in 2014 the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), then an Education Minister, met the group and we had a useful discussion; and last October the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), then the Secretary of State for Education, spoke at the launch of our APG report, “Mindful Nation UK”.

I thank the Minister present for already agreeing to meet a cross-party delegation in the near future to discuss issues further. Meanwhile, I would be interested if he took up the offer so well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden): to visit a school where mindfulness is being taught, so he may see that at first hand. Will the Minister commit to support the growth of mindfulness courses in schools for children and staff? Will he also work with his ministerial colleagues to look at the latest research into, and best practice for, the wellbeing of teachers to ensure that they have the psychological and emotional resources to provide world-class teaching for our children and young people?

Teachers Strike

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State to make a statement on today’s teachers strike and its impact on children, parents and school communities.

Let me first declare my interest as a retired NUT member. Not only have we had the first junior doctors strike on this Government’s watch, but today we have failure in another public service, with a teachers strike. Sadly, this Government have relished attacking—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not wish to disrupt the flow of the hon. Gentleman’s eloquence or the eloquence of his flow, but at this point all he needs to do is ask his urgent question. His more detailed supplementary will come after he has heard what the Minister has to say, in which I am sure he is extremely interested.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

There is absolutely no justification for this strike. The National Union of Teachers asked for talks, and we are having talks. Since May, the Department for Education has been engaged in a new programme of talks with the major teaching unions, including the NUT, focused on all the concerns raised during the strike. Even before then we were engaged in round-table discussions with the trade unions, and both the Secretary of State and I meet the trade union leaders regularly to discuss their concerns.

This strike is politically motivated and has nothing to do with raising standards in education. In the words of Deborah Lawson, the general secretary of the non-striking teacher union Voice, today’s strike is a

“futile and politically motivated gesture”.

Kevin Courtney, the acting general secretary of the NUT, made it clear in his letter to the Secretary of State on 28 June that the strike was about school funding and teacher pay and conditions, yet this year’s school budget is greater than in any previous year, at £40 billion—some £4 billion higher than 2011-12. At a time when other areas of public spending have been significantly reduced, the Government have shown our commitment to education by protecting school spending.

We want to work with the profession and with the teacher unions, and we have been doing that successfully in our joint endeavour to reduce unnecessary teacher workload. With 15,000 more teachers in the profession than in 2010, teaching remains one of the most popular and attractive professions in which to work. The industrial action by the NUT is pointless, but it is far from inconsequential. It disrupts children’s education, inconveniences parents, and damages the profession’s reputation in the eyes of the public, but our analysis shows that because of the dedication of the vast majority of teachers and headteachers, seven out of eight schools are refusing to close.

Our school workforce is and must remain a respected profession suitable for the 21st century, but this action is seeking to take the profession back in public perception to the tired and dated disputes of the 20th century. More importantly, this strike does not have a democratic mandate from a majority even of NUT members. It is based on a ballot for which the turnout was just 24.5%, representing less than 10% of the total teacher workforce.

Our ground-breaking education reforms are improving pupil outcomes, challenging low expectations and poor pupil behaviour in schools, and increasing the prestige of the teaching profession. This anachronistic and unnecessary strike is a march back into a past that nobody wants our schools to revisit.

[Nic Dakin]

Not only have we had the first junior doctors strike on this Government’s watch, but today we have failure in another public service with the teachers strike. Sadly, this Government have relished attacking education professionals, undermining them and describing them as “the blob”, instead of engaging with them and celebrating their role in driving up individual child and school performance. At a time when people have a right to look to Government for stability and security, a breakdown of trust among teachers and a strike of this nature is most unfortunate.

At the heart of this is concern felt by people on the frontline, be they teachers, head teachers or parents, about future school budgets. Everyone knows that despite the Secretary of State’s protestations, school budgets are going to fall in real terms, year on year, up to 2020. Head teachers know it, parents know it, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed it. The only person who is shoving her head in the sand in total denial is the Secretary of State. That failure of Government has resulted in what we are witnessing today—massive disruption, classes cancelled and pupils sent home.

The Chancellor has made it clear that he is tearing up his fiscal rules. As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) asked yesterday, will the Government now commit to securing our children’s future by reversing the planned cut in funding and securing the necessary cash for our nation’s children? As I asked yesterday, will the Minister commit to publishing the Government’s response to the School Teachers Review Body by the end of this academic year so that head teachers can plan effectively?

It is clear that the Government have lost the plot. They have a problem with teachers—they cannot recruit or retain enough, and they have lost teachers’ confidence in large numbers. It is clear today that our children, who are our future, are paying the price of Tory education failure.

[Mr Gibb]

It is nice to hear from the shadow shadow Schools Minister on the fourth row of the Opposition Benches. The only people who are undermining the teaching profession are the leadership of the National Union of Teachers. I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman is jumping on this dispute to make cheap political points, instead of joining the Government and condemning this unnecessary and pointless strike. Will he now say that he opposes this strike by the NUT, which is disrupting children’s education and inconveniencing parents?

Finally, just to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s point about the School Teachers Review Body report, we will publish the report, together with our response and a draft revised school teachers pay and conditions document, as soon as we have completed our consideration of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

What I am saying is that, with the new freedoms academies have, they are able to pay salaries to attract the best teachers. That is a very good policy; it enables them to retain and attract the graduates in maths, physics and modern languages that schools and headteachers are telling us they need to recruit.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

The School Teachers Review Body reported a very long time ago, and we are nearly at the end of the academic year. What is holding up the Government’s response to this report?

[Mr Gibb]

Ah, so there is my shadow, sitting on the Back Benches. He is very welcome. I wish he were sitting on the Front Bench and not there. However, in answer to his question, we are currently considering the STRB report, and we will publish it shortly, together with the Government’s response.