Teacher Recruitment, Leadership and Development
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Today I am confirming that the Government have decided to transfer the functions of the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) relating to the recruitment of teachers, teacher development, and leadership into the core of the Department for Education. This will enable better delivery of the overall co-ordinated strategy to support and develop a strong high-quality teaching profession with continuous professional development at its heart.
The agency’s remaining functions and responsibilities will focus on the regulation of the teaching profession, including misconduct hearings, and acting as the competent authority for teaching in England. Its role will also include the recognition of the professional status of teachers from outside England. It will remain an Executive agency of the Department for Education and will be known in future as the Teaching Regulation Agency. The repurposed agency will be operational from 1 April 2018.
The Department will work with staff, unions, stakeholders and the education sector to finalise and deliver our plans.
Details of today’s statement will be published on gov.uk.
[HCWS243]
Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
In November 2013, Ofqual, the exams regulator, published a regulatory assessment of the potential cost and delivery impact of the reformed general qualifications. As part of its ongoing work, Ofqual is committed to overseeing the introduction of the new exams and to evaluating their effectiveness. I want to add that we have recently consulted on the future of primary assessment, setting out our plans to establish a settled and trusted system.
Rachael Maskell
The new vocational exam framework assessment will need to change. Those who study tree surgery can fell trees only in the autumn. Harvesting is likewise seasonal, and animal husbandry assessment periods do not match the assessment framework. Such assessments should occur at a time when they are appropriate, and other sectors are saying the same. Will the Minister relax the tight assessment periods, so that colleges can assess their students’ skills properly?
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I wonder what the Minister’s reflection is on the fact that in the maths higher paper for this year’s GCSE, the pass mark was just 18 out of 100. Does he think that pupils sitting that exam would have been given the confidence to go on to do maths A-level? I can tell him that as a 16-year-old, I was the only girl in my sixth-form college to do further maths and maths A-level. Had I sat a GCSE paper that was impossible—not rigorous—I would not have chosen those subjects.
Nick Gibb
The new GCSE is significantly more demanding academically. That is to ensure that there is a better fit with maths A-level and more preparation for students to go on to study it. The comparable outcomes system ensures that roughly the same proportion of students achieve grades 1 to 9 as achieved A* to G last year. That is why students might get a lower mark for a C grade or grade 4 this year, but as the students and schools become used to the new curriculum, I expect that figure to rise in future years.
Mr Speaker
There is a lot of nodding and shaking of the Huddersfield head, but let us hear the words out of the mouth of the hon. Gentleman.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I tried for many years when the Minister was on my Select Committee to get him to be more pragmatic and less ideological about these things. On this day of all days—the 25th anniversary of Ofsted—will he talk to Ofsted about what is going on? We are silo-ing so many young people in further-education colleges up and down the country. They cannot get on with their lives and cannot get on to apprenticeships because they cannot get a GCSE in English and maths.
Nick Gibb
Maths and English are key skills that young people need if they are to get on in life. There is a direct correlation between the income young people and adults earn if they have those GCSEs and if they do not have those GCSEs. The rules say that those with a D or grade 3 in those GCSEs are expected to continue studying them. Those with lower grades can take stepping-stone qualifications in English and maths at further-education college. That is the best preparation for a long-term, successful career.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Ofsted judged University Church of England Academy to be inadequate in June 2017. The west midlands regional schools commissioner has been working with the University of Chester Academies Trust to help improve academic standards at the school, and an educational adviser visited the school in July to provide support. The trust has appointed a new chief executive officer and chair, and an application for emergency strategic school improvement funding and support from a local outstanding secondary school has been submitted.
Justin Madders
This school, which his consistently failed to reach the required standard, has been letting down kids in my constituency for far too long. How long will the Minister give it before he steps in?
Daniel Zeichner
The salutary example of such schools is a warning to schools such as St Philip’s Primary School in my constituency that are being forced into academisation. Extraordinarily, although there is a consultation, parents have been told that it is a foregone conclusion. Why is the Secretary of State so opposed to parental choice?
Nick Gibb
Actually, the academies and free schools programmes are increasing parental choice, because parents now have a choice of provider. It is not just the local authority providing schools; up to 500 new free schools have now been established, by parent groups, teachers and educational charities, and they are raising academic standards right across the board.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Given the broadening of the question, may I tell the Minister that I have met constituents who are parents at Freeston school, in Normanton, which has been hit by the shocking collapse of Wakefield City Academies Trust? They were promised a consultation on the school’s future—they are worried about the future of special educational needs provision and about the school losing its name, its identity, its uniform—but all they have been offered is a meeting in another school in another town. They will have to travel miles and book tickets online—or else they cannot go. Does the Minister agree that that is not proper parent consultation and that Normanton parents need consultation in Normanton, at Freeston, before the consultation ends, and will he urge the Education Secretary to honour the commitment she made to me to meet me and other affected colleagues, because this is very serious?
Nick Gibb
Wakefield City Academies Trust had taken over many schools that had been underperforming for years. We were not happy with the performance of that multi-academy trust, which is why we took swift action, and why the schools in that trust are being re-brokered to more successful trusts such as Tauheedul Education Trust, one of the most successful multi-academy trusts in the country. We will not stand still while schools underperform; we take action. We re-broker academies, or we turn failing schools into academies.
Mr Speaker
Mr Davies, you seem to be in a state of great excitement. I call Mr Philip Davies.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
May I follow up the question asked by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)? As the Minister will know, owing to the spending moratorium that Wakefield City Academies Trust imposed on High Crags Primary School, which is in my constituency, the school built up a surplus, or balance, of £276,000. In recent days that money has been transferred from the school’s account, without its authorisation and without its prior consent, and transferred to the trust. Surely the Government cannot stand aside and allow £276,000 to be taken out of the budget of a school in one of the most deprived parts of my constituency. Will the Minister do something to ensure that the money is reinstated for the benefit of pupils at that school?
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. High Crags Primary School was put into special measures in June 2015, before it became a sponsored academy. In 2016, just 23% of its pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared to a national average of 53%. The school is now being re-brokered to be supported by the highly successful Tauheedul Education Trust, and Wakefield City Academies Trust will not be able to retain any of the reserves that it holds at the point of dissolution. Schools, including High Crags, will receive the resources and support that they need in order to raise academic standards.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Last week the Minister told me in a written answer that he would not publish a report on Wakefield City Academies Trust by the Education and Skills Funding Agency because it would be
“obstructive to the process of ensuring all the schools are placed with new trusts.”
Surely any financial issues are being disclosed to potential new trusts. What on earth is in the report that is so damaging to schools that it cannot be disclosed—or is it just so embarrassing to Ministers that they would rather hide behind excuses?
Nick Gibb
The issue of Wakefield City Academies Trust was not about finances, but about academic standards in the schools in that trust. That is why we are re-brokering all the schools in WCAT to other, more successful multi-academy trusts in the area. We are concerned not with making party political points, but with raising academic standards in each of the schools that serve pupils in those areas.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
We are reforming GCSEs and A-levels to make them more knowledge based and academically rigorous, to match the best education systems in the world and to keep pace with the demands of universities and employers. The reforms are intended to ensure that pupils, employers, colleges and universities can have confidence in the qualifications.
Theresa Villiers
A teacher came to my surgery on Saturday to say that while she was determined to provide the best teaching of the new history course, which has a tougher exam, she was finding it hard to do that when asked by the school to cover for a colleague on maternity leave whom the school did not feel that it could replace. Is there any help that can be given to schools as they face the twin challenges of budget pressures and the introduction of a completely new history course?
Nick Gibb
I am pleased to tell my right hon. Friend that help is available. While core school funding has been and is being protected in real terms, we understand that schools are facing cost pressures due to higher employers’ national insurance contributions and higher contributions to teachers’ pensions. We will continue to work to deliver the initiative set out in the schools buying strategy to help schools get the best value for their non-staff expenditure, such as through regional purchasing hubs, and we will support schools in managing their staff and workloads by implementing flexible working and by deploying support staff effectively.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
There is no single model for rigorous assessment. I recently held a series of meetings with year 12 and year 13 students in schools across my constituency, and one issue of concern to them all was the move away from coursework to closed exams. They believe that such exams provide an incomplete assessment of their abilities, discriminate against those who are unwell on the day of an exam, and are a contributory factor in the growth of mental health problems. Will the Minister agree to look at those concerns?
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
The free school and academy programmes are helping pupils from all backgrounds to achieve their potential. Pupils in converter academies are achieving top GCSE results and, together with pupils in free schools, are making on average more progress than pupils in other types of schools. Secondary sponsored academies have also improved, often from difficult circumstances, with more pupils achieving good GCSEs in English and maths this year.
Ms Ghani
I thank the Minister for his response. Crowborough’s Beacon Academy, which is in my constituency, has been named as the best school in East Sussex. It is in the top 3% in the country, with 77% of its pupils achieving five or more passes at GCSE. The headteacher, Anna Robinson, has taken this academy to the top of the league tables. Will the Minister join me in congratulating her and the schools’ students on a great job? Is this not another example of the Government’s education policies enabling our children to reach their full potential?
Nick Gibb
I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in congratulating Beacon Academy on its GCSE results this year. The provisional 2017 figures show that 56% of its students are entered for the increasingly important EBacc combination of core academic GCSEs. The pupils’ progress puts it in the top 12% of schools nationally on that measure.
Mr Speaker
I have been independently advised, and I can confirm, that today both questions and answers are notably long.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The Minister mentioned children of all backgrounds. What is the funding allocation for the coming academic year for counselling services and help for transgender children, which the charity Stonewall describes as being in a seriously bad state?
Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
Nick Gibb
One of the first things we did when we came into office in 2010 was to double the amount of capital for basic need funding compared with what Labour had spent. Basic need funding for school places is based on a local authority’s own data, and we fund every place that councils say they need to create. Local authority forecasts include key drivers of increased pupil numbers, such as rising birth rates and housing developments. Hertfordshire has already received £197 million for new places between 2011 and 2017, and it is allocated a further £57 million for the next three years.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Ryders Hayes Primary School in my constituency recently opened a new teacher training facility—it is in a fantastic wood cabin. What are Ministers doing to promote teacher training opportunities and to encourage more participation?
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I congratulate the school in my hon. Friend’s constituency. More than half of teachers are trained through school-led systems, which means that schools have more control over the quality of the training that their teachers receive, and that schools can look for graduates and undergraduates to join their staff in the most effective way.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The Support Our Sixth-formers funding impact assessment, which was published today, shows general sixth-form education under real strain. Bearing in mind that each sixth former is funded at £4,500, compared with £5,700 for a pupil aged between 11 to 16, will the Secretary of State take the opportunity of the Budget to use last year’s underspend and uplift funding by £200 for each student aged 16 to 18?
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
Last Friday, I held the Wiltshire festival of engineering, inspiring more than 3,000 children and involving more than 35 businesses and organisations. The Schools Minister kindly attended. The event highlighted that Wiltshire really is a hub of engineering. Will the Minister confirm that the new careers strategy will encourage a better link between schools and businesses, and prioritise sectors with severe skills shortages, such as STEM?
Nick Gibb
It was a real pleasure to join my hon. Friend at the engineering fair and I pay tribute to her for creating such a wonderful occasion. It was attended by thousands of pupils from years 6 to 9, who will be inspired to take up STEM careers. A-level maths is now the single most popular A-level choice for the fourth year in a row.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State has said a lot about extra money going to schools and classrooms, but Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which is run by the Conservatives and independents, is trying to claw back £3 million of the additional £4 million, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) alluded to. Will the Secretary of State meet us so that we can work together to ensure that the money destined for our classrooms and children actually gets to them?
Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)
Some 50% of schools and colleges, including Huddersfield New College in my constituency, have dropped modern foreign language subjects from their subject choices, citing funding as a reason. What is the Minister doing to reverse this trend?
Nick Gibb
The hon. Lady raises a very real concern, which is why the EBacc is such an important performance measure for schools. There was a significant drop in the numbers studying foreign languages due to the last Labour Government’s decision to end compulsion at key stage 4. Under this Government, the percentage of individuals taking a modern foreign language has increased from 40% to 47%, but we need to go further.
Mental Health Education in Schools
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on introducing the debate and on her excellent informative and powerful speech. I congratulate HeaducationUK and the Shaw Mind Foundation for securing more than 100,000 signatures—the first time a mental health charity has achieved that level of support on the petition website. I also congratulate other hon. Members and my right hon. and hon. Friends on their informed and powerful contributions to what has been a consensual and broadly united debate about some important and far-reaching issues.
The mental health of our children is a key priority for the Government. We want all children to have the opportunity to fulfil their potential and to develop into confident and happy members of society. In our manifesto, the Prime Minister set out a commitment to publish a Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health by the end of the year. The Department of Health and the Department for Education have been working together on the Green Paper to achieve a step change in the way we support the improvement of children and young people’s mental health.
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), who I congratulate on a moving speech, that the Green Paper will be bold. It will look at the roles of health and education in supporting the mental health of children and young people, how we can prevent mental illness from occurring and how we ensure that children and young people receive the right treatment in the right place at the right time. I confirm to hon. Members that evidence and recommendations from the joint report of the Education and Health Committees have informed the proposals in the Green Paper. I thank all members of those Committees for their work in producing that report.
A child’s attainment at school is linked to their mental health and wellbeing. We are determined to improve both by ensuring that children with mental health issues are given all the support required to allow them to focus on their education. Schools can play a key role in how they teach about the importance of mental health and in the prevention and identification of concerns. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North raised the issue of exam stress. Good teaching is one of the most important factors in helping pupils to achieve. Academic success is important and good headteachers know that positive wellbeing is necessary to support that achievement. Schools should encourage pupils to work hard, but not at the expense of their wellbeing. We have removed incentives for things that add to stress, such as the culture of multiple exam resits. We are helping schools to spot mental health problems through programmes such as mental health first aid training, and through resources such as the MindEd website, funded jointly by the Department of Health and the Department for Education, which has resources and information on mental health for adults working with children and young people.
We recognise that, as been said a number of times in the debate, teachers are not mental health professionals. When more serious problems occur, schools and colleges should expect the pupil to have additional support from elsewhere, including professionals working in specialist children and young people’s mental health services, voluntary organisations and local GP practices. To help with that, the Department ran pilots to look at how joint working between health and education could be improved by having single points of contact in schools and in mental health services. The evaluation found that the pilots led to increased satisfaction with working relationships, improved knowledge and awareness of mental health issues among school leads, and improved timeliness and appropriateness of referrals.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) asked about the future of the pilots. We are extending them to up to 1,200 more schools and colleges in 20 additional clinical commissioning group areas. Our survey, “Supporting mental health in schools and colleges”, found that 73% of schools and colleges provide specific lessons to help to promote positive mental health and that 64% of schools and colleges report that the promotion of young people’s mental health and wellbeing is integrated in the school day.
Robert Halfon
Is the Minister referring to the pilots of 1,200 schools that were announced by the former Children’s Minister, Mr Timpson, when he gave evidence to the Select Committees, or is it another tranche of 1,200 schools on top of that?
Nick Gibb
It is the same point that Ed Timpson made at that Committee, but it is important for this debate that we are extending those pilots to 1,200 more schools and colleges in 20 additional clinical commissioning group areas.
As well as the role of the wider teaching staff, many schools have staff with more specific roles in relation to mental health. Around half of schools and colleges have a dedicated lead for mental health; more than two thirds of schools have a designated member of staff responsible for linking with specialist mental health services; and 87% of institutions reported that they had a plan or policy in place for supporting pupils with identified mental health needs.
Evidence shows that a whole-school approach, established with a commitment from senior leadership and supported by external expertise, is essential to a school’s success in tackling mental health. A whole-school approach involves the work of all staff and students, with clear links to school policies, for example on behaviour, and a culture and atmosphere that promote good mental health. Tom Bennett’s review of behaviour in schools found that a consistently applied whole-school policy, with clear systems of rewards and sanctions, was key to securing good behaviour. He argued for the importance of a whole-school culture that is effectively communicated to all staff and pupils and stated that the best behaviour policies balance a culture of discipline with strong pastoral support. The combination of clear boundaries and known sanctions for poor behaviour with a caring atmosphere is fundamental to promoting good behaviour and wellbeing for all pupils.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow suggested a study of the impact of social media on children’s mental health. We are working closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the internet safety strategy, which includes working on online safety with experts, social media companies, tech firms, charities, mental health practitioners and young people. I am sure that that work will highlight gaps in the evidence, as he suggested.
My right hon. Friend also asked when we would next publish a survey on children’s mental health. The Department of Health has commissioned a new survey that will examine the prevalence of mental health and wellbeing problems among children and young people nationally. The new prevalence survey will enable us to make comparisons with the prevalence recorded in the 2004 survey and will be published in 2018.
A number of hon. Members asked about Ofsted’s role in helping to deliver these objectives in our schools. Under the current inspection framework, inspectors reach a graded judgment on pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare and consider their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. We will work with Ofsted on any implications that arise from mandatory relationships education and relationships and sex education.
My hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) raised the important issue of mental health and children in care. The forthcoming Green Paper will consider how to improve support for vulnerable children and young people, including children in care. This includes ways of improving access to support, better joint working among services and improved training for professionals. An expert working group has been established to look at ways of improving support and care for children and young people in care; it will report shortly and we will fully consider all its recommendations. We will pilot new approaches that draw on the group’s findings to improve the quality of mental health assessments for looked-after children.
Dr Cameron
Will the report also consider transition from child services to adult services? Transition is a crucial time: young people who may previously have received services often fall through the gaps and do not get the continuation of care that they need.
Nick Gibb
The hon. Lady raises an important point that will be considered in the Green Paper that we will publish shortly.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) raised peer-to-peer counselling. One of the pilots that we have just launched relates to peer-to-peer support for children and young people with mental health. We are working with the Anna Freud Centre on it, and have just invited interested schools and colleges to apply. The programme is being independently evaluated so that we can share its findings with other schools and colleges when the pilot ends in 2019.
We want to provide all young people with a curriculum that ensures that they are prepared for adult life in modern Britain. Most schools already use their curriculum and school day to support pupil wellbeing, for example through the personal, social and health and economic education curriculum and a range of extracurricular activities. Good schools establish an ethos, curriculum and behaviour policy that teaches children about the importance of healthy, respectful and caring relationships. The Government want to ensure that all children receive a high-quality education in that respect. The Children and Social Work Act 2017 requires the Secretary of State for Education to impose a statutory duty on all primary schools to teach relationships education and on all secondary schools to teach relationships and sex education. The Act also gives the Government the power, which we will consider carefully, to make PSHE a compulsory subject in all schools.
A thorough engagement process will be undertaken to determine what schools should teach with respect to these subjects. We will say more about that process shortly; we announced today that Ian Bauckham, an experienced headteacher, will lead that work. We are also carefully considering what support schools may need to adapt to changes and improve provision. I can confirm that relationships education will focus on teaching pupils about different types of relationships and the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships, both online and offline, which will help pupils to understand their own and others’ relationships and their impact on mental health and wellbeing. That knowledge will support pupils to make good decisions and keep themselves safe and happy.
When considering how to teach these issues in schools, we need to look at what the evidence says. To help with this, the Department is undertaking a programme of randomised controlled trials to assess the effectiveness of school-based interventions to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. We are also exploring, through pilots, how pupils can support each other with their mental wellbeing. The aim of these trials is to determine whether approaches such as mindfulness are effective and to make information available to any school that might be considering offering such interventions. Of course, it is equally important that we identify approaches that are not effective.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) asked about teacher training. Our randomised controlled trials include two international mental health programmes—Youth Aware of Mental Health, and the mental health and high school curriculum guide—and programmes that link physical and mental health through exercise, activities and routines. Those evidence-based approaches will ensure that schools can provide the right support to children and young people.
The Prime Minister has committed to a range of other activities with regard to children and young people’s mental health. The “Supporting Mental Health in Schools and Colleges” survey showed that 90% of institutions offered at least some training to staff in supporting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing, and that in most cases that training was compulsory. To support school staff further, the Department of Health is funding a mental health first-aid training offer for every primary and secondary school in England. That training, which 1,000 schools should receive by the end of the year, will help teachers to identify and support pupils with mental health issues as early as possible.
The Government have also committed to tackling the effect that bullying can have on mental health. The Department for Education and the Government Equalities Office are providing £4.6 million of funding over two years to support 10 projects to help schools prevent and tackle bullying. These include projects that target the bullying of particular groups, such as those who have special educational needs and disabilities and those who are victims of hate-related bullying; a project to report bullying online; and projects specifically to prevent and respond to homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools.
We are committed to supporting the positive mental health of teachers, in particular by alleviating the workload pressures that teachers tell us have an impact on their mental health and wellbeing. We have worked extensively with unions, teachers, headteachers and Ofsted to challenge practices, such as triple or dialogic marking, that create unnecessary workload. As a consequence of this work, we established three independent review groups to address the priorities emerging from our 2014 workload challenge: ineffective marking, use of planning and resources, and data management. Work is progressing to meet all the commitments set out in the action plan published alongside the 2016 teacher workload survey, and we remain open to other ways in which the mental health of wellbeing of teachers can be supported.
As I said, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex raised the issue of teacher training. We have strengthened initial teacher training, ensuring that teacher standards include the requirement for trainees to understand mental health and wellbeing. The Department’s 2017 provision survey found that 90% of schools and colleges offered staff training on mental health.
I hope hon. Members are reassured that improving and protecting the mental health of young people remains a key priority for the Government. In 2015 we allocated £1.4 billion over five years for children and young people’s mental health.
Sir Nicholas Soames
I am sorry to intervene on the Minister so late in his winding-up speech, but may I ask him to give the House an assurance that the very complex roll-out of all these new schemes will be properly co-ordinated, so that delivery throughout the system is even? It is often difficult to see that happening when new schemes are introduced, so I will be grateful if the Minister ensures it does this time.
Nick Gibb
My right hon. Friend raises a very important issue, details of which will be set out in the Green Paper that will be published shortly. The purpose of the various pilots is to ensure that we have an evidence base, so that interventions that we make in the future are effective and deliver what we all want, which is a generation of young people who are secure in their mental health and able to identify and deal with mental health issues as they arise.
I was talking about mental health spending, which has been increased to record levels by this Government, with 2016-17 seeing a record £11.4 billion being spent, with a further £1 billion planned by 2020-21. That clearly highlights the importance that the Government place on mental health and wellbeing in this country.
Crucially, we can see that mental health is already a key priority for schools themselves. The commitment that we have made to making relationships education and RSE compulsory in all schools, and to considering the case for doing the same for PSHE, will further ensure that pupil wellbeing is supported in our schools. That sits alongside the wide range of other activity to support schools that I have set out today, and I hope that reassures right hon. and hon. Members of the Government’s absolute commitment to this vital agenda for children and young people.
Education Funding: Wirral
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) on securing the debate and on her excellent speech.
I am delighted to be able to address this issue at a time when the Government have recently announced the outcome of our consultation on the national funding formula—an historic and necessary reform that will, for the first time, distribute funding on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country. This Government believe that all children should have an education that unlocks their potential and allows them to go as far as their talents and hard work will take them.
We are making significant progress. More schools than ever before are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, and 1.8 million more children are in good or outstanding schools today compared with 2010, including 90% of schools in the Wirral. The attainment gap between poorer children and their wealthier peers is closing; it has not closed totally. We have launched 12 opportunity areas to drive improvements in parts of the country that we know need to and can do better.
Those improvements have been made against a backdrop of an unfair and arbitrary funding system. Similar schools across the country get markedly different levels of funding for no good reason and resources are not reaching the schools that need it most. The funding system has acted as a barrier to improvement, when we need it to be a support. That is why we are delivering on our promise to reform the unfair, opaque and outdated school and high needs funding system, and introducing a national funding formula.
Frank Field
A prime way in which the Government have tried to direct resources to the poorest pupils, sometimes to schools in the poorest areas, has been through the pupil premium. As I said in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the data from housing benefit will be lost as universal credit is being rolled out. I ask the Minister to take away the idea, and talk with the Department for Work and Pensions, so that the data that is in universal credit will be made available on housing circumstances to councils, so that they can automatically offer registration for the school premium and free school dinners.
Frank Field
Will the Minister take the issue away and, when he has consulted his colleagues in the other Department, write to me please?
Nick Gibb
I am happy to write to the right hon. Gentleman, but these issues are being considered as we speak.
Given the significance of this reform, it was vital that we took into account as many views as possible, and the consultation process generated over 26,000 individual responses and responses from representative organisations, and we considered all of those views. The existing system is out of date. It is based on data and decisions from over a decade ago. Funding for each area has been determined by simply rolling forward the previous years’ allocation, adjusting only for changes in the total number of pupils in each area and ignoring all the other changes.
Ms Angela Eagle
I have read some of the right hon. Gentleman’s responses to other debates like this and he spends a great deal of time not responding to the actual questions that have been raised, by telling us in great technical detail about what the national funding formula is meant to do. Will he address some of the issues that I raised about the unfairness of Kingsway Primary School, which has 53% of pupils on free school meals, having a 19% cut in its funding, under the system that he is praising? How can that kind of result possibly be right or fair?
Nick Gibb
If the hon. Lady will be patient, I will come to each of those issues and specifically talk about the funding position of Kingsway Primary School, among the other schools that she mentioned, but I want to put this debate in the context of the reality of the situation that we are seeking to address.
When the proportion of secondary school pupils eligible for free school meals in London fell by more than 5% between 2007 and 2017, more than 25 times the decline nationally, the funding system did not respond to that change in the wealth level of London as the capital city. Addressing these damaging inequalities in the current system represents the biggest improvement in the school funding system for a decade, and from April 2018 we will introduce a national funding formula, which will, for the first time, put the funding system firmly on track to deliver resources on a consistent and transparent basis to every school in the country.
In September we published full details of the school and high needs national funding formula and the impact that it will have for every local authority. We have also published notional school-level allocations showing what each school would attract through the formula. This means that for the first time everyone can see what the national funding formula will mean for them and understand why. Alongside addressing these historical injustices, the importance of ensuring stability for all schools was also a consistent message throughout the consultation process. In recognition of that, over the next two years local authorities will continue to set their own local formula in consultation with the schools in their areas, which will determine each individual school’s budget. This will provide a small but important element of flexibility for local authorities, to allow them to respond to the changes as they come through.
School funding, as the hon. Member for Wallasey acknowledged, is at a record high because of the choices we have made to protect and increase school funding, even as we faced difficult decisions elsewhere, across Whitehall, to restore our country’s finances, and to address the historic budget deficit that we inherited in 2010. We understand that just like other public services, schools are facing cost pressures, and in recognition of this we announced in July an additional £1.3 billion for schools and high needs across 2018-19 and 2019-20—over and above the funding confirmed at the 2015 spending review. This additional funding means that the total schools budget will increase by over 6% between this year and 2019-20. As the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed, that will mean that funding per pupil for schools and high needs will now be maintained in real terms for the remaining two years of the spending review.
Ms Eagle
The right hon. Gentleman is taking as his baseline this financial year, yet there have been real terms cuts in schools for the last two years, as I thought I had explained, so he is trying to claim that there has been an increase, when in fact he is discounting the cuts that have already happened. He knows that it is not an accurate way of talking about what happened. Why doesn’t he just admit it?
Nick Gibb
There have been no cuts in funding to schools. There have been cost pressures, as I have acknowledged time and time again, that schools have absorbed, as have other parts of the public sector and parts of the private sector. There have been cost pressures of higher taxes, higher employer’s national insurance contributions and higher employer’s contribution to the teachers’ pension scheme, because we believe it is right that teachers’ pensions are properly funded, but I am telling the hon. Lady and this House that spending will rise in real terms on a per pupil basis.
I will now come to the issue she raised about her schools. As a consequence of the consultation process, we introduced a de minimis funding level for the very lowest funded schools. We introduced a de minimis funding level of £4,800 per pupil for the very lowest funded secondary schools in the country. St Mary’s College in the hon. Lady’s constituency received £5,625 per pupil, and that will rise by 1% to £5,680 according to the national funding formula. The national average under the national funding formula for a secondary school is £5,389. On top of that, the school will also receive £935 per pupil for every pupil who qualifies or has ever qualified for free school meals over the past six years.
Margaret Greenwood
Will the Minister clarify which school he is talking about?
Nick Gibb
I am sorry. I am talking about St Mary’s Catholic College in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wallasey. That school’s funding per pupil will rise from £5,625 to £5,680.
We also introduced a de minimis figure of £3,500 per pupil for the very lowest funded primary schools. Kingsway Primary School receives £5,376 per pupil, and that figure will rise to £5,422. On top of that, the school will receive £1,320 per pupil for every pupil who has ever qualified in the past six years for free school meals. The hon. Lady referred to 53% of pupils as qualifying at some point for free school meals—all those pupils will bring the school an additional £1,320 on top of the £5,376.
Nick Gibb
No, it is not receiving any cuts in funding at all. Its funding will increase from £5,376 per pupil to £5,422 per pupil. That is an increase of 0.8%. It is an increase in funding, not a cut. I acknowledge there are cost pressures facing schools, but to go around saying that schools have had their funding cut is simply not true. If I can refer to Eastway Primary School—
Nick Gibb
I will not give way again because we are running out of time. The hon. Gentleman seeks to cite the National Education Union’s schools cuts campaigning website, which says that schools are facing a cut in funding. Schools are not facing a cut in funding. Every single school across this country will get an increase in funding.
Nick Gibb
The hon. Gentleman cannot cite a website that claims there are cuts in funding when every school in this country will receive an increase in funding. There are costs that schools face, whether those be national insurance in 2015-16 or pension contributions, and there will be salary increases to pay in the future, but those are cost pressures that are being incurred right across the system.
I have put the record straight on these matters so that we can have an honest debate about the issues. Opposition Members would acknowledge that every school, including those in the constituencies of the hon. Member for Wallasey and the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), who cited Fender Primary School, will, like that school, see its funding increase. There is no cut in funding to Fender Primary School. The funding will rise from £4,649 per pupil to £4,690 per pupil.
Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Angela Eagle that she does have a minute or so at the end to wind up, so she has an opportunity
Nick Gibb
There is no cut in funding at Fender Primary School. The funding will increase, on top of which it will receive £1,320 per pupil in pupil premium.
We will also be able to go further than our manifesto commitment that no school would lose funding as a result of the national funding formula. Now, every school in the country will attract at least 0.5% more per pupil in 2018-19 and 1% more per pupil in 2019-20. Thirty five of the 111 schools in the Wirral will attract funding increases as a result of this decision to raise the funding floor, but all schools in Wirral will see an increase in their funding over the next two years.
Our formula will also rightly result in a significant boost directed towards the schools that are currently the least well-funded. I have said that the formula will provide for all secondary schools to have a de minimis per pupil funding of £4,820 in 2019-20 and for primary schools to have £3,500. My consultation confirmed the importance of funding for additional needs such as deprivation and low prior attainment. The consultation found that those factors were the best way to identify the children most likely to fall behind and to remain behind their peers. It is only right that we provide the greatest resources to the schools that are educating the greatest numbers of those children. In the Wirral, more students on average face these additional barriers, with greater than average percentages of children eligible for free school meals and living in the most deprived areas. Nationally, the formula will allocate £5.9 billion to additional needs funding and will distribute that funding more fairly. We have also protected the high needs budget, and there will be an increase in high needs spending in the Wirral.
In view of time, I will just say that for this Government, social mobility and education are a priority. The additional funding that we have announced, together with the introduction of a national funding formula, will provide schools with the investment that they need to offer a world-class education to every child in the country.
Global LGBT Rights
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Equalities (Nick Gibb)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) on securing this important debate and on a powerful opening speech. As the chair of the all-party group on global LGBT rights, he knows just how important it is that we tackle widespread violence and discrimination against LGBT people around the world. I pay tribute to him for the commitment and energy that he gives to this cause. This has been an excellent debate, with many powerful and moving speeches, including by my hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) and the hon. Members for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) and for Hove (Peter Kyle).
This year we are marking 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. Over the past 50 years, this country has made considerable progress, including by introducing same-sex marriage in 2013, equalising the age of consent and introducing the Gender Recognition Act 2004. The effect of successive Governments’ efforts in recent decades means that the UK has one of the strongest legislative frameworks in the world for LGBT people. Yet we also know that LGBT people still experience discrimination in their day-to-day lives. The Government are committed to eliminating all prejudice and discrimination against LGBT people in this country, wherever its last vestiges remain.
As the hon. Member for Livingston pointed out, achieving that begins at school. It is important that all schools are truly inclusive for LGBT pupils. The Government want to tackle the bullying of LGBT pupils that, sadly, happens all too often. That is why we are currently running a £3 million anti-bullying programme to tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. Young people should feel safe and able to be open at school so that they can focus on their studies.
Nick Gibb
We will consult on the content of relationships and sex education shortly, but we want to ensure that it is LGBT-inclusive.
We announced in July that the Government also want to consult on reforming the Gender Recognition Act to ensure that we are providing the best possible support for transgender people. We know that many trans people now find the focus on medical checks in the gender recognition process very intrusive and stigmatising. In July, the Government launched a national LGBT survey, to help us to understand the experiences of all LGBT people in the UK. The survey closed earlier this month and the response we received was unprecedented, with well over 100,000 responses. That makes it one of the largest surveys of its kind in the world. The survey will be hugely important in policy development on LGBT issues.
One area of focus for the all-party group was LGBT asylum seekers, an issue also raised by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald). We are focusing on building an inclusive society. An important element of that is ensuring that Britain is a safe haven for those who may be experiencing persecution and abuse because they are LGBT. We must ensure that LGBT people seeking to escape extreme discrimination are safe in this country while their claims are processed. In September last year, the Government introduced the “adult at risk” concept into decision making on immigration. This concept acts on the assumption that vulnerable people who may be at risk of particular harm in detention should not be detained. That builds on the existing legal framework already in place. We have worked closely with organisations such as Stonewall, the UK Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group and the UN High Commission for Refugees to develop guidance and training for staff in detention centres. We continue to liaise with these groups to consider what further improvements can be made.
As a world leader on LGBT equality, this country has a moral duty to work to improve the lives of LGBT people living in other countries. Sadly, homosexuality is still illegal in 72 countries and punishable by death in eight. The Government remain committed to working with like-minded countries and with the Equal Rights Coalition, of which the UK is a founding member, to stand up for LGBT rights internationally. At the very highest levels of government, we are challenging those who inflict or allow discrimination against LGBT people. We urge those countries that continue to criminalise same-sex relations to take steps towards decriminalisation, and we urge all countries to ensure that they have legislation that protects LGBT people from all forms of discrimination.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs raised the issue of funding of local LGBT groups internationally. We have committed over £1.6 million from the Magna Carta Fund for Human Rights and Democracy to projects working to promote and protect LGBT rights. That includes about £350,000 for the UN Free & Equal campaign. Last year, the UK supported the establishment of the UN’s first ever independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, and we vigorously defended his mandate when it was challenged by other states. We truly regret the resignation of the independent expert due to ill health and commend Professor Muntarbhorn for his work. It is vital that a successor be found quickly to continue this important work. We will continue to support that mandate.
My hon. Friends the Members for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) and for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) raised the issue of rainbow flags. We are proud to fly the rainbow flag on our buildings both at home and abroad for key events in the LGBT calendar, such as Pride. We work closely with our heads of mission around the world to ensure that flags are flown. We will continue to do so. I hope the flag will be flown in as many countries as possible.
Nick Gibb
I am sorry, but I am running out of time.
Turning to the Commonwealth, 36 out of 52 Commonwealth countries still criminalise homosexuality. The UK Government have a special duty and responsibility to help change hearts and minds in our fellow Commonwealth countries. Next April, we are hosting the Commonwealth summit in London and Windsor. We will be using this opportunity to make sure that we discuss the important issue of LGBT equality in the Commonwealth.
Many hon. Members raised concerns about particular countries and the tragic difficulties faced by LGBT people in countries around the world. This year, there have been numerous reports regarding the horrific situation in Chechnya for LGBT people. The UK was among the first countries that expressed concern about the persecution of LGBT people in Chechnya. We continue to lobby the Russian Government to investigate properly and to hold perpetrators to account. On 13 April, the Foreign Secretary co-signed a letter to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov calling on the Russian Government to investigate and ensure the safety of journalists and activists investigating those abuses. Officials at our embassy in Moscow have also raised concerns at a senior level with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
We are also concerned about the recent crackdown on LGBT rights in Egypt. The Egyptian Government are well aware of our position on LGBT rights and we have called on the Government of Egypt to uphold and protect the rights of all minorities in the country. We are concerned about reports which suggest that some LGBT people detained in Egypt have been tortured, and we are continuing to monitor human rights there. We also continue to urge the Egyptian Government to implement the human rights provisions in their own constitution, and to investigate all reports of abuse against detainees.
We are also deeply concerned about reports that some members of the LGBT community in Azerbaijan have been arrested and detained by the authorities. We are monitoring the human rights situation in that country closely, and we regularly press its Government to meet their international obligations to protect the rights of all its citizens, including those who are LGBT. Officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have raised those specific reports with the Government of Azerbaijan, and we have received assurances that those who were arrested have now been released.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) expressed his concerns about Tanzania. We are, again, very concerned by the increased anti-homosexual rhetoric and the deteriorating environment for LGBT people there. Our high commission, along with partners and international LGBT organisations in Dar es Salaam, are monitoring the situation closely. As a close friend and partner of Tanzania, we have conversations about this and many other human rights issues with its Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) raised the issue of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. In December last year, NHS England and Public Health England announced that up to £10 million would be made available for a three-year trial of PrEP to answer outstanding questions about future access and implementation. The trial is intended to establish the most effective way in which to distribute the drug in order to have the greatest possible impact on reducing the spread of HIV.
The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) referred to the action plan on business and human rights. Last year the Government published guidance for businesses to implement the United Nations guiding principles on business and human rights, and that update reaffirms the UK’s commitment to the implementation of those principles.
This has been a hugely important debate. It has sent a united message from this Parliament to all the countries that criminalise being LGBT to take steps towards the decriminalisation of something that is simply a part of an individual’s nature.
Education Funding (South Liverpool)
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) on securing this important debate. As she said, we recently met to discuss in detail the funding position of schools in her constituency, and I welcome this opportunity to continue that discussion.
Debating this issue is welcome at a time when the Government have recently announced an increase in school funding, as well as the details of the historic new national funding formula. The Government want to ensure that all children, regardless of where they live, receive a world-class education. Over the past seven years, we have made significant progress: more schools than ever before are rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding, and the attainment gap between those from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds is beginning to close.
That progress has been made despite an unfair national funding system that has failed to take account of significant changes in the challenges faced by schools in different parts of the country. For too long, the unfair distribution of funding between schools has acted, I believe, as a brake on the progress they have been able to make. That is why it is so important that we are delivering on our promise to reform the unfair, opaque and outdated school and high-needs funding systems and introduce a national funding formula.
Mr Howarth
I think it is agreed on both sides that the existing funding formula is unfair. Part of the case that my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and I have made is that the recent adjustments somehow succeeded in making it even more unfair for some schools. That does not seem to be a sensible way to deal with this.
Nick Gibb
Under the recent adjustments, according to the national funding formula, all schools will gain funding: no school will lose money or face a cut in funding, despite what has been claimed by the National Education Union, and despite what hon. Members have said during the debate. In fact, funding for schools across Knowsley will increase on average by 7.1%. I did not hear the right hon. Gentleman mention that in either of his interventions.
Nick Gibb
I will not give way because there is a very short amount of time left, but I will come to the hon. Lady’s comments shortly.
It cannot be right that local authorities with similar needs and characteristics receive very different levels of funding from central Government. Across the country, schools teaching children with the same needs get markedly different amounts of money for no good reason. At the heart of the problem is the fact that the data used to allocate funding to local authorities are over a decade out of date, leading to manifest unfairness in how funding is distributed. This year, Nottingham, for example, will receive £555 more per pupil than Halton, despite having equal proportions of pupils eligible for free school meals.
Funding for each area has been determined by simply rolling forward the previous year’s allocation, adjusting only for changes in the total number of pupils in each area and ignoring everything else. The proportion of secondary pupils eligible for free school meals in London, for example, fell from 22.4% in 2007 to 17% in 2017, compared with a decline nationally from 13.1% to 12.9%, but the funding system has paid no attention to that significant shift. That is not a rational, fair or efficient system for distributing money to our schools.
That is why the Government are reforming the existing system with the introduction of a national funding formula for schools and high needs. Informed by the consultation that we undertook, with 26,000 responses, we will introduce a national funding formula from April 2018, ending the current unfair postcode lottery system. For the first time, the funding system will deliver resources on a consistent and transparent basis, right across the country, reflecting local needs.
Last month, we published full details of both the school and high-needs national funding formulae and the impact they will have for every local authority. We have also published notional school-level allocations showing what each school would attract through the formula. It means that everyone can see what the national funding formula will mean for them and understand why. It is notional because we are taking the national funding formula as though it had been fully implemented in this financial year, 2017 to 2018, so that people and schools can see what the effects of that formula would be on their schools with those particular pupils this year. It is a very effective way of describing what will happen under the formula. The actual funding will depend on the actual pupils at that school next year, and we will make announcements nearer the time in the usual way.
To provide stability for schools through the transition to the national funding formula, for the next two years local authorities will continue to set their own local formulae in consultation with local schools and the schools forum. That element of flexibility will allow them to respond to changes as they come through and take account of local issues.
As well as a fairer distribution of funding, the total quantum available is also important. We want schools to have the resources they need to deliver a world-class education for their pupils. We understand that, just like other public services, schools are facing cost pressures. In recognition of those facts, the Secretary of State announced in July an additional £1.3 billion for schools and high needs across 2018-19 and 2019-20, in addition to the funding confirmed at the 2015 spending review.
The additional funding will be distributed across the next two years as we implement the national funding formula. Core funding for schools and high needs will rise from nearly £41 billion this financial year—itself a record high in school funding—to £42.4 billion in 2018-19 and to £43.5 billion in 2019-20. Overall, that means that the total schools budget will increase by over 6% between this year and 2019-20. That will mean that funding per pupil for schools and high needs will now be maintained in real terms for the remaining two years of the spending review.
The additional funding that we have announced means that we can provide a cash increase in respect of every school and every local authority area from April 2018. In the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood’s constituency, once the new formula is implemented in full, there will be an extra £1.3 million for block funding—an increase of 2.4%. Belle Vale Community Primary School will not face a cut in funding; it will have a 3% increase. Enterprise South Liverpool Academy will not face a cut in spending; it will have a 5.2% increase of £179,000. Gateacre School will not face a cut; it will have a 3.5% increase. Halewood Academy will not face a cut; it will have an 8.2% increase. Middlefield Community Primary School will have a 1.2% increase. St Francis Xavier’s College will have a 1% increase and Yew Tree Community Primary School will have a 5% increase in funding. None of the schools that I have not mentioned in the hon. Lady’s constituency will lose money; they will all gain about 1% or more.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) said that there will be cuts of £390 per pupil. In fact, in his constituency there will be a £1.1 million increase in funding, equal to 1.6%.
Nick Gibb
I will not give way, because we are very short of time now. As I said, across the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood’s constituency there will be a £3 million increase in funding. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) talked about cuts to funding in his schools. Croxteth Community Primary School will gain a 0.9% increase; Monksdown Primary, a 0.9% increase; St Edward’s College, a 1% increase; and St John Bosco Arts College—I enjoyed visiting that school—a 0.9% increase.
I can confirm that deprivation, mobility and low prior attainment are very significant factors in the funding formula. That is something that the Secretary of State was determined to have in the formula that we consulted on. Funding will increase by £0.6 million in schools in the constituency of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman)—some 1.2% according to the national funding formula.
The extra £1.3 billion that we are investing means we will be able to go over and above our manifesto commitment that no school should lose funding as a result of the introduction of the national funding formula. Now, every school will attract at least 0.5% more per pupil in 2018-19 and 1% more in 2019-20. That change will have a particularly positive impact in Garston and Halewood: 23 of the 32 schools will gain through the formula as a result of the decision to raise the funding floor. I trust that the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood will welcome those changes when she has a chance to consider them more reflectively.
Following the strong representations that we received during the consultation, the formula will also provide all secondary schools with minimum per-pupil funding of £4,800 in 2019-20 and all primary schools with £3,500. In 2018-19, as a step towards those minimum funding levels, secondary schools will attract at least £4,600 and primary schools will attract £3,300. That new minimum level will recognise the challenges of the very lowest funded schools, including 14 schools across Liverpool. The changes delivered by the national funding formula will mean both Liverpool and Knowsley will be among the 10 highest-funded local authorities per pupil outside London.
We are particularly focused on supporting children who face the greatest barriers to success. That is why we are also committed to reforming the funding for children and young people with high and special needs. We are finally moving towards a more rational basis for distributing funding for children and young people with high needs, taking into account an up-to-date assessment of the level of need in each area.
The additional investment we are putting in means that every local authority will see a minimum increase in high needs funding of 0.5% in 2018-19 and 1% in 2019-20, but for south Liverpool, a fair allocation of resources means an even more significant increase in funding. Once our formula is implemented in full, Liverpool will see an increase of 17.1%, compared with their planned high needs spending in 2017-18, with Knowsley gaining 4.5%.
Moving towards this full formula allocation, local authorities will receive up to 3% per head gains a year for the next two years. As important as the fair allocation of funding is how that funding is used in practice. We are committed to helping schools improve outcomes for pupils and to promote social mobility by ensuring that they get the best value from all their resources.
In conclusion, I thank the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood and other Members from the Liverpool area for taking part in this important debate. The Government will continue to support England’s schools by providing more funding than ever before, by making sure that that funding is distributed fairly and to where it is needed most and by helping schools to achieve more with that funding. That will help schools to sustain and improve the rapid progress our children and young people are making under this Government.
Introducing fair funding is an historic and necessary reform—one that previous Governments have avoided for too long. Thanks to the commitment of this Government to addressing issues of unfairness in our society, for the first time we have a clear and transparent system that matches funding to children’s needs and the needs of the schools that they attend. It will help all schools to deliver the high-quality education that their pupils deserve and it will ensure that all pupils are able to fulfil their potential.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered education funding in south Liverpool.
Higher Education (England) Regulations
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Wes Streeting
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier this week, I raised a point of order, because I believed that in Education questions the shadow Minister of State, Department for Education, the right hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), who is present in the Chamber, made an inaccurate statement—
Wes Streeting
Excuse me; it was wishful thinking. In response to my question in Education questions, the Minister of State made what I believe to be a factually inaccurate, possibly inadvertently misleading statement, when she said that Learndirect would no longer be providing apprenticeships. The following day, I rather forensically set out that that was not the case. As she is present, perhaps she might take this opportunity to correct the record and give us some reassurance that Ministers have an idea about what they are doing.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
8. What progress her Department has made on giving summer-born and premature children the right to start reception at the age of five.
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
We remain concerned that some summer-born children, particularly those born prematurely, are missing the reception year when the essential teaching of early reading and arithmetic takes place. However, it is important for us not to cause any unintended consequences elsewhere in the system, and we are therefore giving careful consideration to how we might make any changes. Further information will be available in due course.
Stephen Hammond
As my right hon. Friend will recognise, it is two years since we had an Adjournment debate on this subject, and there is increasing frustration about the fact that the code of conduct has not yet been published. Will he agree to provide a timetable showing when he might publish it, and will he also agree to meet me to discuss the unintended consequences?
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend has been a champion of summer-born and prematurely born children, and I pay tribute to him for that. He and I share the view that when the parents of such children exercise their right to delay their entry to school until they turn five, the children should be able to start school in reception if that is in their best interests. However, the issue is complex, and it is important for us to consider carefully the impact of changes on the earliest sector in particular. I should be delighted to continue our conversation and discussion about these matters.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Surely the Minister realises that, while it is true that the summer-born question is difficult and complex, it must be linked with a terrible stain on our education policy: the fact that little children who have been identified as bright up to the age of 11 are lost to the education system post-11. What is going on with the failed policies of a Government who cannot help kids who are bright at 11 and who disappear afterwards?
Mr Speaker
I thought that the hon. Gentleman had been born in August. He has done all right.
Nick Gibb
I wrote an open letter to all local authorities about the issue, urging them to take the wishes of parents very seriously, to act in the best interests of children when considering which age group they should start with, and to enable them to start school outside their own age group if their parents have elected not to allow them to start in the year in which they turn five. I believe that local and admission authorities are taking notice of that letter.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
As my summer-born son starts his first day in reception today, I am all too well aware that the big gaps in attainment among his classmates are related not to the time of year when they were born, but to whether they come from advantaged or disadvantaged backgrounds. That is still the biggest problem facing our education system. Does the Minister agree that it needs to be tackled? If so, how does he square that with findings that I published last week with the Social Market Foundation, showing that 75% of the extra money that the Government are pumping into the early years will go to better-off families and less than 3% will go to those who are disadvantaged?
Nick Gibb
We take the issue of social mobility very seriously. The attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children has narrowed by 7% in key stage 4 and by 9.3% in key stage 2, in primary schools. However, we continue to work hard to ensure, and believe passionately in ensuring, that all children, regardless of background and regardless of where they live, are able to fulfil their potential in our education system, which is why the pupil premium provides an extra £2.5 billion a year for children with disadvantaged backgrounds.
Mr Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
9. What assessment she has made of the effect on children's nutrition of the absence of free primary school meals in the school holidays.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
Disadvantaged children cannot get to university if they do not get the grades in the first place, so will the Minister ask the schools Minister to meet us in the Furness area who are looking at a major new initiative to get the private-sector local employees involved in closing the generations-long gap in GCSE numeracy and literacy attainment?
Joseph Johnson
I believe my right hon. Friend the schools Minister is confirming that he would be keen to take such a meeting.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
13. What recent estimate she has made of the level of teacher shortages.
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
There are more teachers in England’s schools than ever before. The vacancy rate remains low at 0.3% of all teachers and secondary post-graduate recruitment is at its highest level since 2011. However, we recognise that some schools face challenges, which is why we continue to invest in teacher recruitment—more than £1.3 billion up to 2020. In addition, our work in the 12 opportunity areas will ensure teacher recruitment and retention challenges are addressed.
Jeff Smith
That is a very complacent answer. The Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), said that the public sector pay cap is having a clear impact on recruitment and retention. Does the Minister agree with his right hon. Friend that the policy makes it harder to recruit the teachers we need?
Nick Gibb
We rely on the expertise of the School Teachers Review Body. It reported in July and we responded to that review. It has recommended increasing the pay bands in the main pay range by 2%, and by 1% for the remaining pay bands. Pay is of course important, but it is not the only factor that drives teachers in or out of the profession. Others include workload and pupil behaviour, and we also take those issues seriously.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Can more creative use be made of the price mechanism in those subjects with shortages?
Mr Speaker
I have previously exhorted the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) to circulate his textbook on succinct questions. It is now timely that he should do so.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) made a very good point, and the School Teachers Review Body, the Education Select Committee and the Secretary of State’s predecessor have all said that pay has contributed to the crisis in teacher recruitment, but—notably—not the Prime Minister. Last week, our research showed that the Government’s freeze and cap on public sector pay has left the average teacher more than £5,000 a year worse off. Will the Secretary of State get the cap lifted for schools or is she telling us that nothing has changed?
Nick Gibb
We rely on the expertise of the School Teachers Review Body and the extensive and thorough review carried out by it. It has made recommendations, which we have accepted, that the main pay bands should increase by 2%—the minimum and maximum—and that the bands for more senior teachers should increase by 1%.
There are 15,500 more teachers today than when Labour left office in 2010. We are meeting 93% of the target of recruiting graduates into teacher training. More returners are coming back into teaching in 2016 than in 2011, and more people came into teaching than left last year.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
15. What plans she has to help recruit and retain teaching assistants in schools; and if she will make a statement.
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Responsibility for the recruitment and retention of teaching assistants rests at the local level with headteachers and school employers, who are best placed to use their professional judgment to recruit and retain teaching assistants to best meet the needs of their schools and pupils.
Clive Efford
That answer is simply not good enough. Low pay is a barrier to the recruitment and retention of teaching assistants. Figures from the GMB’s pay pinch report, taking the consumer prices index into consideration, show that a higher level teaching assistant has lost £9,200 over the past seven years and that that will rise to over £12,000 by 2020 unless something is done about the public sector pay cap. Is it not time that we stopped hearing weasel words from the Government about how much they value those staff and that they started to pay them the rate for the job?
Nick Gibb
We do value teachers and teaching assistants. They do a good job of phenomenally challenging work in our schools, which is why we have 1.5 million more pupils in good or outstanding schools today than we did in 2010. The hon. Gentleman is wrong about the number of teaching assistants, which has been increasing year on year. Today, there are 265,600 full-time equivalent teaching assistants in state-funded schools.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
As I have said, we have written to local authorities to say that they should take the best interests of children into account when determining which year group summer-born children go into. It is important that children who start school immature or with other special educational needs get the support they need, and our schools are providing that support.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Broadfield House in my constituency was, sadly, the site of the first free school to be closed by the Department for Education, and the building has remained empty for far too long. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that the building will be brought back into educational or at least community use in the near future?
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
T8. Lewisham has the highest level of hospital admissions in London for self-harm among 10 to 14-year-olds. With an average of three children in each classroom currently suffering from a mental health condition, how long will it be before we see the publication of the promised Green Paper on children’s mental health? When we will see real action backed up by proper funding?
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The number of children being schooled at home has almost doubled over the past six years; we have 441 in Warwickshire, including children of my constituents. Is the Secretary of State convinced that each of these children is receiving an education suitable for their age, aptitude and ability?
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
T9. It cannot be right—can it?—that sixth formers are given 21% less funding than 11 to 16-year-olds, so will the Government respond to the constructive campaign by the Association of School and College Leaders, the Association of Colleges and the Sixth Form Colleges Association by fundamentally reviewing post-16 funding?
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
Personal finance education in schools is a key way of skilling up young people, so will the Minister meet me soon to discuss further plans to make available to schools a textbook on personal finance education through the all-party group on financial education for young people?
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
T10. At a time when 16-to-19 education is in dire need of additional investment, does the Minister agree that schools and colleges should at least receive all the Government funding set aside to educate sixth-form students?
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm whether the Government agree with local government-controlled multi-academy trusts?
Nick Gibb
There are limits to the influence and voting proportion that local authorities can have in multi-academy trusts. This is about a new independence for academies. I have been discussing with my hon. Friend the particular multi-academy trust about which he is concerned, and I am happy to continue to have those discussions with him and with my noble Friend Lord Nash.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
Flammable cladding has been found on university halls of residence and privately provided student accommodation throughout the country. With students returning to that accommodation in the coming weeks, what will the Secretary of State do to ensure their safety?
School Funding: North Northumberland
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on securing this important debate. I know she cares passionately about education in general and the schools in her constituency in particular, so it is a pleasure to be discussing these issues with her this morning—as I realise it now is.
This Government want to ensure that all children, regardless of where they live, receive a world-class education. Over the past seven years, we have made significant progress. There are now 1.8 million more children in schools that are rated as good or outstanding than in 2010, and the attainment gap is beginning to close. Since 2011, the attainment gap at secondary school has closed by 7%, and at primary school the gap has closed by 9.3% over the same period. This is important progress, but there is more to do to ensure that every child receives the education they deserve to fulfil their potential.
Thanks to a curriculum that ensures that all children are taught the core knowledge they need to be successful, the promotion of the evidence-based teaching practices such as Asian-style maths mastery and synthetic, systematic phonics, and the hard work of hundreds of thousands of teachers, standards across England are on the rise. According to the latest international figures, secondary pupils in England outperform pupils in the other nations of the United Kingdom. However, despite nearly nine in 10 schools being rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted, there are still more than 1 million pupils attending schools that are not yet good enough. While much has been achieved over the past seven years, there is a lot more to do.
One of the obstacles to providing a good school place for every child is the current anachronistic and unfair funding system, which sees different schools in different parts of the country receiving very different sums of money for pupils with similar characteristics. The data used to allocate funding to local authorities are over a decade out of date. Over that period, for example, the free school meals rate has fallen by around a third in Blackburn and has more than doubled in Lincolnshire, but the funding each local authority receives has not responded to these changes. That is why this Government are determined to reform the funding system, and we are well on the way to making that a reality.
In March 2016, we launched our first stage of consultation on a national funding formula. We asked for views on the principles that should underpin it and its overall design. Subsequently, in December last year we launched the second stage of our consultation, on the detailed design of the formula. As part of the second stage, to ensure maximum transparency we published detailed illustrative impact data for all schools and local authorities. This enabled us to hold a truly national debate during the three-month consultation.
Under those proposals, schools in Northumberland would have gained 1.2% more funding on average, and schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency would have gained 2.2% on average. Since publishing those proposals, we have been able to identify additional funding for all schools.
Throughout the consultation period on the national funding formula, the Secretary of State and I met headteachers, governors and many hon. Members from across the House, and I want to thank all those who contributed to the more than 25,000 consultation responses we received. Informed by that feedback, we will introduce a national funding formula from April 2018, as planned. This will put an end to the unfair postcode lottery system by ensuring that all schools in England are funded on a consistent and transparent basis.
I agree with my hon. Friend, however, that funding, while important, is only part of the issue, and what also matters is how local solutions are created and drive improvement in pupil outcomes; my hon. Friend has raised a number of important points regarding school transport, academy sponsorship, and teacher recruitment and career development.
On school transport, local authorities have responsibility for the provision of home to school transport. In consultation with schools, they are best placed to determine the specific needs of a particular local community. They already commission a range of free and subsidised transport services, spending around £1 billion each year on home to school transport. The existing home to school transport framework allows local authorities the flexibility and freedom to make transport arrangements which best suit the needs of pupils and offer value for money for their local communities.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
I am curious to know whether, when we have the examples of sparsely populated areas in Northern Ireland, Wales and the highlands and islands in Scotland, lessons could be learned for England, especially Northumbria, as the most sparsely populated county in England—I have learned something this evening and it was worth waiting for. Can we learn from examples around the United Kingdom that might help the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) in her quest to give a nudge to the education authorities in her area?
Nick Gibb
I am sure we can learn from the other constituent parts of the United Kingdom, as we learn from other countries around the world, on school transport and on how the funding system works, and on the curriculum and other issues. In our new national funding formula, we include an important element of sparsity as a key component. That will be reflected in the way that the schools in Berwick and Northumberland are funded—although not of course in other parts of the United Kingdom, as I am responsible with the Secretary of State only for school funding in England.
I accept that rural areas have their own challenges. In recognition of the extra costs that providing services in sparse rural areas can require, the Government have increased the rural services delivery grant to the most sparsely populated areas from £15.5 million in 2015-16 to £80.5 million in 2016-17. The Department for Transport is also supporting pilots in local rural authorities to determine how integrated transport services can offer value for money.
We keep the school transport framework under review. We have looked at different approaches to providing a national home to school transport framework and we have found that those do not offer better value than the current system, but that is not to say that local approaches will not do so. I encourage all local authorities to keep their transport arrangements under review and to identify ways in which they can improve the services they offer.
The Secretary of State has recently undertaken to review our guidance on home to school transport and I will ensure that this correctly reflects the flexibilities that local authorities have in providing it. I would be interested to hear more about Northumberland County Council’s proposals so that we can consider them in more detail.
On academy sponsorship in Northumberland, I understand my hon. Friend’s argument about the historical lack of sponsor and multi-academy trust capacity in the wider local authority, though I should point out that 13 academies in Northumberland are rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding. It is important to support and encourage local authorities to respond to their own challenges and opportunities, and local partners should work together in the best interests of their schools and pupils.
We must, however, ensure that schools that have become academies are able to enjoy the freedoms afforded by academy status. As such, there are constraints in place that prevent local authorities from establishing multi-academy trusts which mean that no more than 19.9% of trustees or members of an academy trust can be associated with the local authority, including serving councillors.
We are, however, making progress in developing local solutions and using the expertise of established trusts from neighbouring local authorities. The 13 academies I mentioned that are rated good or outstanding should also form the basis of new sponsors of multi-academy trusts in the future. In neighbouring authorities, for example, the Three Rivers Learning Trust—whose lead school is the King Edward VI Academy, rated outstanding by Ofsted—has recently been approved to sponsor underperforming schools. Although currently based in and around Morpeth, the regional schools commissioner’s team is working with the trust to provide further support in wider Northumberland.
Multi-academy trusts from other local authorities are also moving into Northumberland to provide support, including the North East Learning Trust and WISE Academies—two high-performing trusts with good track records in delivering school improvement. Janet Renou, the regional schools commissioner for her area, is fully committed to working with the county council and has already had a productive meeting with Wayne Daley, the new lead member for education, and his team. She is keen to work together to develop joint strategies to increase attainment and capacity across the county.
Lastly, my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed rightly acknowledged that teachers are fundamental to the education system. The quality of teaching is widely recognised as being the biggest in-school factor affecting the outcomes of children and young people. The effects of high-quality teaching are especially significant for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, which is why we need to ensure that we continue to invest in the quality of teaching and in the support and development that teachers get throughout their careers. The Secretary of State announced earlier this year that we would be exploring options to strengthen the qualified teacher status to establish a stronger sense of career progression for all teachers, including those at the beginning of their career and more experienced teachers seeking to excel in the classroom or to go into leadership. We intend to consult on those proposals later in the year, and I hope that my hon. Friend and the teachers and school leaders in her constituency will feel able to contribute to that consultation process. However, we recognise that there is more to do to support schools to attract and retain top graduates, and we are taking steps to understand and address school-level variation in teacher supply. Over the past six months, we have been working with schools, multi-academy trusts and local authorities to understand why some schools are facing more significant supply challenges and, crucially, to design and develop solutions to those challenges.
In conclusion, the Government’s record on education over the past seven years is a cause for pride. Last year, 147,000 more six-year-olds were on track to become fluent readers than in 2012 thanks to the introduction of systematic synthetic phonics. However we cut the numbers, England outperformed the rest of the UK in the OECD’s most recent PISA science assessments. The proportion of pupils studying the EBacc core of academic subjects at GCSE has risen from one fifth in 2010 to two fifths last year. The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers is shrinking at both key stage 2 and key stage 4. But we have more to do. We must spread opportunity and excellence to all corners of the country, so that every child—whatever their background and wherever they are from—receives the education that takes them as far as their talents will allow.
Question put and agreed to.
Post-16 Education
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Today the Government are publishing Professor Sir Adrian Smith’s authoritative and wide-ranging review of 16 to 18 mathematics education in England.
The Government are determined to give all young people the world-class education they need to fulfil their potential. This includes providing opportunities to develop the mathematical and quantitative knowledge and skills appropriate to their chosen careers. In an increasingly technological world this will be vital to ensuring that our future workforce will be productive and competitive in the global marketplace.
Sir Adrian Smith’s review identifies a strong economic and social mobility case for raising participation in post-16 mathematics and improving knowledge and skills at all levels. He presents clear evidence for the value of mathematical and quantitative skills to students, whichever route they take.
The report includes recommendations and challenges that are wide-ranging—for example, the need to address negative cultural perceptions of mathematics. These issues will require detailed engagement and action between Government, industry, universities, schools and colleges.
I have today written to Sir Adrian thanking him for the review and confirming that the Government will set out our plans across the range of Sir Adrian’s recommendations in due course. The letter confirms that work is already under way to address a number of the challenges highlighted in the report, and there are a number of recommendations where we have been able to take immediate action.
We agree with Sir Adrian that we must be ambitious and take greater action to encourage and support more young people to choose mathematics post-16, particularly in areas where take-up is low. That is why one of the immediate actions we are taking today is to announce a new £16 million level 3 maths support programme. It will build on the momentum created by the further mathematics and core maths support programmes, and will work with schools and colleges to improve mathematics education by sharing best practice, and delivering knowledge-rich curriculum materials, as well as working to increase participation and attainment in 16 to 18 mathematics. The programme will work to deliver focused intervention targeted to those who need it most.
The other immediate actions we have taken in response to Sir Adrian’s recommendations are set out in my letter. For example, taking forward work on the new T-level qualifications to ensure they include mathematics where employers identify this as a requirement for employment; working with the newly constituted Royal Society Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education to ensure appropriate expert advice. We are also working with institutions such as the Royal Society and British Academy to encourage universities and employers to signal the value of level 3 mathematics qualifications for entry to undergraduate courses with a significant quantitative element and for a wide range of job roles.
We have placed a copy of Sir Adrian’s report and our letter in the Libraries of both Houses and on the Government’s website.
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