Nigel Evans
Main Page: Nigel Evans (Conservative - Ribble Valley)Department Debates - View all Nigel Evans's debates with the Department for Education
(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
I am always keen to hear from the Chair of the Select Committee, who I know cares very deeply and passionately about these issues. What I would say in response is that, rather than disagreeing over the nature of that additional time, why do we not focus on trying to get the right outcome for all our children in this country? The block to that rests with the Treasury. It feels at times that we are arguing at cross-purposes. That was not the position that my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) set out. I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s assessment of the situation.
We all want to make sure that children have the time they need in school to catch up on that lost time, but in addition to that, we want to make sure there are fully funded extracurricular activities as part of an extended day within the school premises, so that all children—not just those who can afford extra clubs, music, activities or book clubs; whatever it would happen to be—have access to that kind of provision. The block right now and the reason we have not got to that point, I am afraid, lies on the right hon. Gentleman’s Benches.
Last week, the Government could bring themselves neither to support nor to oppose our alternative. Perhaps today they will tell the House why the Treasury blocked the plans that the Prime Minister’s chosen adviser sought to develop, comparable in scope and scale to those of the Opposition.
Children do not vote, and their voices are rarely heard in this place, but we have a moral duty to them none the less: a duty to their future, both theirs and ours. Labour has set out, at length and in detail, the sort of plan that we believe our country needs. The Government’s own education recovery commissioner set out, at length and in detail, the sort of plan that he believes our country needs. Today, our request is simple: that the Treasury explain to parents and families why it believes that our country does not need its own commissioner’s plan.
It is not too late for the Government to change course. What we want, what Sir Kevan wanted, what the people of this country want and what the children of our country need is a properly funded long-term plan for educational recovery. We have set one out. There is still time for the Government, even now, to rise to the challenge and deliver that brighter future that we all want to see.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
As Members can see, the screens say that there is a three-minute limit, but for Alison McGovern and Robert Halfon the limit will be four minutes. It will then revert to three for the duration of the debate.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I can see how popular that was: Robert Halfon is now having to add to his speech.
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no substitute for pupils being in the classroom with their teachers and friends.
This month, we published a report from Renaissance Learning and the Education Policy Institute, which presented a sobering reminder of the ongoing scale of the recovery challenge. Clearly, there is much work to do and we do not shy away from it, because the Government will always do whatever it takes to support children. That is why schools were the last to close and the first to open in tackling the spread of covid, because we know that getting children back in the classroom is vital to supporting catch up.
That it is why schools have access to both a catch-up and a recovery premium to enable them to assess what will help their pupils to catch up their missed education and to make provision available to ensure that they do so. It comes on top of our £200 million investment in summer schools, which is creating the opportunity for up to 600,000 pupils to take part in educational and enrichment activities. Over 80% of eligible mainstream schools have already signed up and a £220 million investment in the expansion of the holiday activities and food programme, which will operate across England over the summer and Christmas holidays, will provide eligible children with enriching activities and nutritious food.
Owing to the swift action that we took last June, children are already benefiting from the newly established national tutoring programme, with the £1 billion announcement in June last year, a further £700 million announced in February and, two weeks ago, a further recovery package of £1.4 billion. That brings our total recovery package to more than £3 billion. The next stage of our recovery plan will include a review of time spent in school and 16-to-19 education, and the impact that that could have on helping children and young people to catch up. Schools already have the power to set the length of the school day, but there is a certain amount of disparity in approach across the sector. The findings of the review will be set out later in the year to inform the spending review.
We all know what a superb job our teachers and support staff are doing and have done throughout the crisis, supporting and continuing to educate children and young people despite all the challenges that the pandemic has caused. We owe them our gratitude. Our teachers are the single most significant in-school driver of pupil attainment, which is why we have taken steps to give them more support and access to the very best training and professional development. We are investing £400 million to help to provide 500,000 teacher training and development opportunities across the country, alongside the support for those working in early years.
Some £153 million will provide professional development for early years staff, including through new programmes that focus on key areas such as speech and language development for very young children, and £253 million will expand our new teacher development reforms to give school teachers the opportunity to access world-leading training tailored to whatever point they are at in their careers, from new teachers to leaders of school trusts. That is a significant overhaul of teacher development in this country, giving teachers and school leaders the knowledge and skills that they need to help every child to fulfil their potential.
We are determined to ensure that children and young people catch up on the education they missed as a result of the pandemic. We have announced more than £3 billion to date, and the Prime Minister has been clear that there is going to be more coming down the track. We will do what it takes. While the Opposition are chasing papers, we are getting on with the job of reforming England’s education system, empowering teachers to transform lives through a knowledge-rich and rigorous curriculum in calm, disciplined and supportive schools. We want every child to attend a great school. It is a bold, audacious ambition. We have begun the journey. We have made great progress. We have further to go. We will not give up.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The limit is four minutes for Alison McGovern and Robert Halfon, and three minutes from then on. May I ask those who are participating remotely please to have a timing device if you cannot see the one on your screens? We cannot extend it beyond the three minutes because a lot of people want to participate in this debate. Everybody else physically here of course has the timers in the Chamber.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I welcome the debate, although I find it a bit mystifying that we are debating the same subject two weeks in a row. I wonder whether the decision is more about politics than policy.
As I said in the Opposition day debate last week, I firmly believe that the Government investment is a hefty starter in terms of catch-up funding. To recap, there is the £3 billion in total for extra tuition, the £220 million for the holiday activities and food programme, the £63 million for local councils to help with meals—everyone knows my views on free school meals—and supplies for struggling families, and the £79 million for young people’s mental health, and the pupil premium has increased to £2.5 billion.
We should be fair and recognise that we are investing a sizeable sum of taxpayers’ money in education, even though I will continue, obviously, to campaign for more in terms of a long-term schools plan. The Schools Minister made it very clear that recovery funding was just the beginning and not the end of the road for catch-up, and that more would be coming down the track. Anyone looking at my record will have no doubt that I look forward to further funding, greater resources for catch-up and a longer school day, on which, as I have said, the Labour party’s position is very confusing.
I want to mention a couple of things before I conclude. First, at present, disadvantaged pupils are 18 months behind their better-off peers by the time they sit their GCSEs. We know that poorer children are less likely to attend schools with an “outstanding” Ofsted rating, and that even in schools where there are good results, the gap between free school meals students and their peers is as wide as elsewhere.
I have been working closely with Professor Lee Elliot Major, who is an adviser to the Government. In a joint article in the Telegraph, we wrote that in order to reduce that attainment gap, measures should be taken to ensure that Ofsted awards “outstanding” ratings to schools only if they can show that they are
“making efforts to attract the poorest children in their neighbourhoods”
and working to narrow the attainment gap between those disadvantaged pupils and their better-off peers. We wrote that schools should work with neighbouring schools to raise standards, and that teams of inspectors
“should include at least one headteacher who has led a school with high numbers of poorer pupils.”
Secondly, I believe that the Government must look to reform the pupil premium. It is not ring-fenced, and the Sutton Trust has reported that a third of schools use it for other things, such as fixing a leaky roof. It is not just about ring-fencing; there should be much more micro-targeting of disadvantaged groups, particularly those who suffer from long-term disadvantage.
I mentioned last week that although I am fully supportive of the catch-up fund, I am worried that it is not reaching the most disadvantaged. Figures suggest that 44% of students receiving pupil premium funding were missed. The Government must ensure that the money is targeted at the most disadvantaged, because they are the ones who have learned the least during the pandemic.
Nevertheless, I give credit where it is due: the Government have given well over £3 billion, and they have said that more is yet to come. I would rather that, instead of just having these political debates, Members on both sides of the House worked with the Government to ensure that the long-term plan for education is deep-rooted and repairs the damage from covid-19 while also addressing social injustices in education, particularly the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and the better-off.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
There is now a three-minute limit. I call Barry Sheerman.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. At least I have a claim to fame that not only did I teach for a living for some part of my dim and distant past, but I taught you at university.
I am participating in this debate because I was absolutely furious when I saw that Sir Kevan’s recommendations had been so watered down. He had every reason to resign. I was also very angry because Yorkshire did so badly out of even the measly amount of money that the Government are putting in. We face a national education emergency following a national health emergency, but the Government are not bringing resources forward for this emergency; they are not doing the job properly. Those resources, and the sense of this being an emergency and fixing it for kids who will never get another chance at education, seem to be utterly lacking from the Government’s determinations.
Secondly, there is a lack of leadership. Where is the Secretary of State when we want him? Why isn’t he, in the Cabinet, really doing the job for education? Dare I say it, we need a big beast in education. I would have been happier with Ed Balls; I would even have been happier with his successor on the Conservative side, because they were both big beasts. We have not got a big beast in education. We have a run down, truncated, demoralised Department for Education, and we have education departments in local authorities that have also been run down and sidelined. The fact of the matter is that we have not got the leadership; we have not got the imagination. I am sorry, but even though the Minister was a member of the Education Committee when I chaired it, he is part of the problem: he has been there too long. He is a time-server and has lost the imagination to understand what it was like.
There is real opportunity here with the right leadership. We could co-operate across the Benches. What about having a national volunteer scheme that volunteers retired teachers and retired sportspeople? The people who care about our education would come out of the woodwork like never before and do something for kids who need that help, support and backing at this very moment.
We are lacking the essentials because this Prime Minister and this Government do not care about the education of our children in the state sector.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Thank you, Barry, and yes, you did teach me at Swansea University—and what an incredible job you did.
I call Christian Wakeford.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) [V]
Just four months ago, we heard the Government make promises that every young person would be supported to catch up on their education and gain the skills and knowledge they need to be able to seize opportunities in future. After the catalogue of errors in dealing with the pandemic, with schools going back for just one day in January after the Prime Minister could not decide whether they were safe while hospitals were filling up with covid patients, it was encouraging to hear that the Prime Minister had hired the highly respected Sir Kevan Collins to step in and oversee the recovery from the biggest crisis our schools have ever faced.
Sir Kevan, knighted for his services to education, did exactly what was asked of him and led a comprehensive programme of catch-up aimed at young people who had lost out on learning during the pandemic. He estimated, with a strong evidence base, that £15 billion was needed to ensure that the nation’s children were not blighted by the huge hit to their education. Teachers agreed, parents agreed, but unfortunately the Prime Minister and the Chancellor did not. They gave away millions to friends and Tory donors for contracts that did not deliver, and they wasted billions on a test, trace and isolation programme that was a total failure when we needed it most, but when it comes to our children’s education, the purse strings are pulled tight, with just £50 per pupil per year to make up for the last 18 months.
Even today, because the Prime Minister failed to protect our borders, children are being sent home to isolate because of the delta variant. They are still being affected. The Government have offered just £1.4 billion, a pitiful offer to our children, who have had so much of their lives impacted. Their mental health and wellbeing have been severely challenged. Sir Kevan’s resignation letter to the Prime Minister says it all, really. He made it perfectly clear:
“I do not believe it will be possible to deliver a successful recovery without significantly greater support than the government has to date indicated it intends to provide.”
Certainly the teachers I have spoken to in Bedford and Kempston have told me that the funding announced by the Government will not scratch the surface in helping children to catch up. A primary school headteacher I spoke to yesterday told me that he is already trying to provide a quality, broad and balanced curriculum and to make up for the children’s time away from school on reduced funding. That was hard already, but the challenges posed in trying to provide what each child and family needs following the pandemic are monumental. That headteacher is ready, willing and able to offer interventions to give our children the best chance in life—
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
For many children, especially in my constituency of Easington, home learning has been very difficult. I point out that 36.9% of children in my constituency were classed as living in poverty in 2019-20. The effects of the pandemic have not been felt evenly, with disadvantaged children in the poorest areas hit hardest.
Despite the existing inequalities and challenges, and our schools in many areas being at breaking point, Ministers seem to have found new ways to cut school funding, and that is something I take the opportunity to highlight. The north-east could lose up to £7 million due to administrative changes to how pupil premium funding is calculated and allocated, with the Government switching from using the January schools census to using the October census. What that means is that schools with children who became eligible for funding during the pandemic will not receive any additional funding for another year.
Using the October census date rather than the January date is significant, because many children were not at school then, so it was not such a priority for parents to register. In my constituency of Easington, 20 out of 28 primary schools will be affected. The average loss will be about £9,400. When we are talking about the additional sums—I heard the Minister’s opening statement—I believe it is about £6,000 for the average primary school. The average loss will be £9,400 in my constituency, but the worst-affected schools will lose nearly £30,000. The total loss to schools in my constituency is £180,000.
It is absolutely reprehensible to remove resources from schools at any time, but to do so after the biggest public health crisis for a generation, when more funding is urgently required, is unconscionable. Funding education is an investment in our children, and society will reap dividends today and in the future. The Government have had an opportunity to make a statement of intent by implementing the recommendations that Sir Kevan Collins, the Government-appointed education tsar, made. He gave them the evidence. That would have helped every child. I hope parents will reflect on the decision and think about the loss of funding for schools in areas such as mine when they hear Government Members talk about levelling up.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The reason I did not interrupt you, Grahame, is because we have had a few withdrawals and we are able to put the time limit to four minutes for every contribution at the moment.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Well, I didn’t stop you, Grahame. I call Ben Everitt.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) is welcome to intervene if he wants his extra minute. It is a definite pleasure to follow him, because he ended with the phrase “levelling up”. Education is about levelling up, so today’s debate is really important, despite the déjà vu from debating the same thing as last week. Why, oh why, are the Opposition using these debates to say the same thing? It is good news for us, though, because education is at the heart of levelling up.
Even prior to the pandemic, we introduced our new 10-year plan to transform schools across England, with 500 new projects over the next decade and spending prioritised to the schools with buildings in the worst condition. We are cracking on with it, and we were before the pandemic. Work started this year on the first 50 projects, backed by £1 billion of Government funding. Before the pandemic, we had already delivered the biggest funding for schools increase in a decade—£14.4 billion over three years, with the core schools budget up last year to £47.6 billion, rising in 2023 to £52.2 billion.
Of course there are those on the Opposition Benches who will always call for more and say, “It’s not enough,” but even before the pandemic we had been working on levelling up educational opportunities—giving every child in England a funding boost, with a minimum £5,150 per pupil in secondary and £4,000 per pupil in primaries. Now, faced with the damage to children’s learning that the pandemic has caused, we are taking even more action, targeting funding at children who need it the most. So far, we have committed a total of £3 billion to fund targeted interventions for students who need it now, focusing on those who have found learning tough during the pandemic.
Too often in this place, we are guilty of using the word “investment” when what we actually mean is “spending”, but in this area, there is a business case for saying that we are investing in our children; we are investing in our future. Britain—the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—is the greatest country on planet Earth, and its citizens are the best people on planet Earth. We owe it to future generations to provide a quality education to children. That is why there are elements of the support package that are rolled in to the impacts that it will have on future generations—training and development for teachers, language skills, resource investment, giving children the digital skills needed to compete on the global stage and to be the pioneers for global Britain. We are delivering the right targeted interventions to those who need them the most. We will have a generation of brilliant young minds. Building back better means nurturing those minds to be leaders—the leaders of global Britain in future years.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Barbara, I don’t know if the good news has reached you, but we have put the time limit up to four minutes.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
I start by again thanking the teachers who work in my constituency; the people who work in and around schools and early years; those who work at our university, Royal Holloway; and everyone who is involved in supporting, looking after and educating our children. It has been a very difficult year for everyone, in particular for our young people and everyone who works in the education sector. I just want to say thanks to them again.
I really enjoyed last week’s debate, so I was absolutely delighted and surprised that the Opposition seemed to enjoy my contribution so much that they wanted to hear it again. Here we go:
“Education is one of the best opportunities”—[Official Report, 9 June 2021; Vol. 696, c. 981.]—
but if Members wish to see my speech, they may go to Hansard or to my website, where it is up and subtitled; the very daring may subscribe to my newsletter for regular updates.
This groundhog day debate gives me the chance to say something that did not make the cut of my education debate speech version 1.0, so I will try a different ending. We have talked a lot about education, and it is said that irony is a very difficult concept to teach, perhaps best taught through example. This past year, we have moved heaven and earth to keep schools open. We tried to reopen them as soon as possible, but the Opposition and the unions pushed back. Now, they complain that the support is not enough. The irony, a lesson to us all!
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thought a few more were before me.
Paul Howell
That is probably why I have a couple of minutes more.
The £1.4 billion is the next instalment. That is on top of the previous sums poured into education, including £400 million into remote education. They total more than £3 billion. Given the large figures that have been flying around for the past year in the wake of the crisis, we need to remember that £3 billion is a lot of money. It is a huge amount of money that will fund huge improvements, and I am sure that the Treasury will find more funding, should it be convinced that the plans are fully understood and costed.
The proposals from Sir Kevan included huge sums to increase the school day. Sir Kevan’s job was to advise what would help children to catch up, and he did, by suggesting that they literally make up the hours lost. Having met brilliant local schools, such as Ferryhill, Woodham, Bishopton and Wellfield, I absolutely confirm that schools have been working full throttle in the past year.
In fact, to go back to Wellfield School for a second, I had the pleasure of going there last week. It is a school that has turned around over the past 10 years, from completely failing with no intake—an intake of 78, instead of 180—to now being oversubscribed. That is just a shout out to an incredible school that has done some incredible work over the past few years.
The school bell ringing at 3 pm does not equate to a teacher’s day, or the school day, finishing. Teachers take home marking, lesson plans and extra tutoring. The rest of the school staff are dealing with the many complications of a covid world throughout this pandemic. They have regularly needed to enable teaching and learning simultaneously in the classroom and online. Schools and teachers need our thanks and engagement, not the imposition of more work under a misguided assumption that they have anything left in their tank. At the very least, if we are to consider extending the school day, surely a consultation is imperative.
With a little more time than I anticipated, I also make a shout out for some certainty, please, on the school sport premium funding, which I saw at first hand at Walworth and Sedgefield primary schools recently. We also need to ensure that teachers are working more effectively, rather than longer and harder. We simply cannot afford teacher burnout. That is largely where the Government’s plan focuses.
Teacher training with £153 million will provide the opportunity for evidence-based professional development for early-years practitioners, while a further £253 million will expand existing teacher training and development and give 500,000 schoolteachers the opportunity to access world-leading training. Having access to such training, teachers will be able to ensure that their teaching time is even more effective and efficient, and strikes the balance between providing excellent education and not overstretching our teachers.
We need to trust that, having been given that training, teachers are the most qualified and best placed experts to teach children and to get their education back on track. That is the job that they have spent years of their life readying themselves for.
Getting funding approved for those methods that are widely agreed to be most effective, such as teacher training, while looking to consult on the effectiveness of less conventional areas, such as extending the day, reflect on a Government whose own methodology is to get on with it and not to sit on the fence. At times like this, we need to deliver the obvious and not let perfection frustrate progress. Should robust evidence be presented in favour of less-obvious educational methods, I have no doubt that the Treasury will take another look at them.
To conclude, I reiterate my thanks for the school and all the staff who have worked tirelessly and selflessly this past year. I will continue to support the Government’s initiative to have them working smarter, not harder, and I hope that they manage to have a break over what I hope will be a lovely, covid-free summer.