Government’s Childcare Expansion

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)]

With permission, I will make a statement on the Government’s plans to deliver additional places in school-based nurseries, and a clarification on Government action on so-called top-up fees for funded childcare hours. I will also update the House on the Government’s response to the consultation on safeguarding requirements in the early years foundation stage framework.

The Secretary of State has promised a new era of child-centred government, working alongside the sector to deliver meaningful long-term reform of the early years system. The Government believe that all children deserve access to a brilliant early education, regardless of who they are, where they come from or their parents’ income. Today marks a significant step for thousands of families, as we begin the first stage of the Government’s plan to deliver 3,000 new or expanded school-based nurseries. From today, primary schools can apply for a grant of up to £150,000 from a £15 million capital funding pot to make the changes needed for their site to accommodate a nursery.

The new or expanded nurseries are set to open across England from the start of the next school year. We have chosen to expand school-based nurseries because schools are at the heart of our communities. School-based nurseries cater for a higher proportion of children with special educational needs and disabilities, and offer a higher share of nursery places in the most deprived areas. To support our most vulnerable children and build on the existing market, the funding will be available for projects that are either school-run or delivered on the school’s site by private and voluntary providers or childminders. Schools will be asked to work with local authorities to demonstrate local parental demand for places. If there are primary schools that are interested in this programme but are not currently ready or eligible to host new nursery places, we encourage them to register an interest for the future. We expect funding to be allocated to successful schools in spring 2025 to support delivery of the first nursery places from September 2025.

As we expand the childcare system, it is crucial that early education and childcare remains fair and accessible to all parents. That is why we are taking action to address situations where parents are facing high and additional charges on top of the funded entitlement hours. Those charges, which may include mandatory fees for nappies, lunch, or additional hours, should not be a condition for accessing a funded place. The vast majority of providers are working hard to make sure that parents can access their entitlements, but any sort of mandatory additional charging or preferential treatment towards parents who purchase optional extras is not acceptable. Over the next few months, my Department will engage with local authorities, providers and parents to develop and clarify guidance on this issue, including on so-called “top-up fees”. We will support local authorities to protect parents from overcharging.

I turn to new childcare entitlements. In September, working parents of children aged nine months and above were able to access 15 hours per week of Government-funded early education for the first time. I can confirm that over 320,000 additional children are now accessing the new entitlement. Delivering the scheme has not been without difficulty and owes much to the collaboration between local authorities, providers and the work of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, who has made ensuring the roll-out a priority. At the same time, we are helping the sector to deliver the necessary places for September 2025. This final, more challenging phase of the roll-out will increase the funded childcare entitlement of working parents to 30 hours per week.

Trust matters in politics, which is why I want to reiterate this Government’s commitment to honouring the promise made by the last Government to deliver these entitlements, but the House should be in no doubt that this will be an extremely difficult task. There remains a significant shortage of staff and places. The Government’s spending watchdog has said that, in order to deliver the roll-out, in some parts of the country we will need to double or even triple capacity in order to provide the additional hours. There are substantial gaps to fill, left behind knowingly by the Conservative party. We must be honest with families about the fact that in some parts of England, while parents may receive the hours they were promised, they may not get their first choice of nursery or childminder.

I assure the House that we will continue to work tirelessly to bridge the gaps in time for next September, and our plans to expand primary school-based nurseries will help us to deliver these entitlements. Our priority is to provide high-quality education and care for children while ensuring their safety, in order to give every child the best start in life.

Today the Department published its official response to the consultation on proposals to strengthen safeguarding requirements in the statutory early years foundation stage framework. These reforms are set to be implemented from September 2025. The changes to be made to the framework are based on lessons learned from tragic past events, responses to our consultation, and feedback from safeguarding experts and the sector. The consultation received 1,470 responses, with strong support for all the proposals. The Department will therefore implement all the proposals, including those on safer recruitment, child absences, safer eating, safeguarding training, and paediatric first aid training. There will also be new proposals on providing employment references and supporting whistleblowing. These changes will formalise existing best practices, and will ensure that all early years educators have the knowledge and support that they need to deliver safe, high-quality early education and childcare.

As many parents know, childminders are a key part of the early education and childcare market, providing choice and flexibility. We are already delivering childminder start-up grants to help new childminders with the costs of registering, and on 1 November we will introduce new flexibilities for childminders to help them join and stay in the profession. These changes will create a new category of childminder who can work entirely from non-domestic premises. The total number of people who can work together under a childminder’s registration will increase from three to four. Childminders will also have more flexibility to operate for more time outside domestic premises, for instance from a community hall or school. These new flexibilities will further support the Government’s commitment to rolling out expanded childcare entitlements and giving children the best start in life.

Parents’ need for childcare does not stop when their children reach primary school age. Since July, we have allocated more than £130 million to local authorities to begin delivering these new places to parents of primary school age children as part of the national wraparound childcare programme. Initial delivery plans indicate that this programme will deliver up to 200,000 new childcare places, at either end of the school day, available in over 50% of all primary schools. However, we want to go further to support hard-working families and tackle disadvantage, which is why we committed ourselves in our manifesto to introducing free breakfast clubs in every primary school.

Breakfast clubs can have a tremendously positive impact in helping children to arrive at school on time and ready to learn, while also helping working parents to have more choices in the workplace. From April 2025, free breakfast clubs will be available in up to 750 early adopter schools. That will be part of the test-and-learn phase, but new breakfast clubs, once rolled out nationally, will be available to every state-funded school with primary school age children, and will give parents more affordable childcare choices while also helping families with the cost of living. Children will be able to start the school day ready to learn, which will give them the best start in life and in their education.

This Government are determined to break down barriers to opportunity. That must start before school, with high-quality early education that is both available and affordable. We inherited a pledge without a plan, so this Labour Government must work to deliver the change that families need. We will deliver places in new nurseries, tackle unfair “top-up fees”, and ensure that every child can have the best start in life. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I should explain to newer colleagues that interventions are not made during statements by Ministers or responses from shadow Ministers. I now call the shadow Minister to respond to the Minister’s statement.

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[Stephen Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her tireless work speaking up for children, young people and parents up and down the country. As she rightly says, we are working hard with the early years sector to recruit the staff we need, including through the extended recruitment campaign Do Something Big, so that we attract more people to work in the early education system and ensure there are good training pathways into careers in early education. We are resetting relationships with staff across the education sector to ensure they are respected and valued for the important work they do. School-based nurseries currently have lower turnover and have the option to use some staff flexibly between reception and early years in primary schools. I am looking forward to cracking on with delivering on those commitments.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, who has two minutes.

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I am suffering because of the length of time that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) took earlier. I will try to stick to two minutes, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I thank the Minister for sight of his statement. The Liberal Democrats believe that flexible, affordable childcare and early years education is a critical part of our society. High-quality early years education is the best possible investment in the future and contributes to economic performance in the present as well. Most importantly, it is the most effective way to narrow the gap between rich and poor children.

Broadly, we welcome the Government’s promise to expand access to affordable childcare and early years education. Under the previous Government, we saw what happens when big promises on childcare are not backed up by the funding and resources needed to deliver them. The Conservative Government’s plans risked exacerbating the problems that parents already faced: a lack of childminder places and eye-watering fees.

The number of childminders in England fell by an estimated 26% between 2018 and 2023. Last year, a report found that 35% of nursery managers would limit the number of places they offered unless the Government helped with recruitment. I note from the Minister’s statement that the Government are taking steps to improve recruitment and retention in the childcare and early years sector, but does the Minister agree that a career strategy is also needed for those working in early years, including a training programme, so that all those working with young children are properly trained and supported? Will he give assurances that the places announced today will be properly supported by committing to a full review of the rates paid to providers for free hours, to ensure they cover the actual costs of delivering that high-quality childcare?

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[Stephen Morgan]

Childminders are a key part of the childcare market, providing more choice and flexibility for parents. From next month, the Government plan to implement new flexibilities to help childminders join and stay in the profession. That will include enabling childminders to work from non-domestic premises, as I mentioned in my statement, and increasing the number of childminders who can work together; that will improve children’s access to new experiences out of the home and encourage socialisation. As we seek to deliver a sea change in our approach to early years, we want partners, including childminders, to work closely with us to push for better.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

There are countless millions of free childminders available. The love between a grandparent and a grandchild is the purest love: love without responsibility. I declare a personal interest. Will the Minister assure me that he will incentivise grandparents to look after their grandchildren, and that nothing in the tax or benefits system will discriminate against mothers who want to look after their children full time? Will he build on the Conservatives’ scheme of transferrable allowances?

[Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)]

As a former school governor and a dad, I see the amazing work that preschools and nurseries do up and down the country. These measures will be a key way to break down barriers to opportunity and get the country growing, as the Minister says. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that children in care and the children of those in the armed forces are prioritised for the additional care places? Will he reassure childminders that we are on their side, because childminders in Telford have missed the memo from the Government on this set of improvements?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I remind hon. Members to ask short questions.

[Stephen Morgan]

Since joining the House, my hon. Friend has already become a champion for children and young people in his constituency. He raises a number of points—about childminders, support for children in care, and military families. As I represent the heart and home of the Royal Navy, I take those matters very seriously. I will certainly consider the points that he raises as we design a system fit for the future.

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[Stephen Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question; he is absolutely right. The pandemic had a huge impact on children’s lives, and our investment in early interventions around speech and language is absolutely key. I look forward to working with him to deliver that successfully in his constituency.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The final zinger of a question is from Josh Simons.

[Josh Simons (Makerfield) (Lab)]

We’ll see! I am intrigued to hear Conservative Members’ attempts to defend their record. Moments ago, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) said that the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) is “preoccupied with her children” and cannot be the Leader of the Opposition while spending time with her family. This comes after she herself said that maternity leave has “gone too far”. Does the Minister agree that whereas this Government are working hard to back the hope that children represent, Conservative Members are, in the end, the same old Tories?

Sustainability and Climate Change (National Curriculum)

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. This can be done either at the testing centre in the House, or at home. Please give each other and members of staff room when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.

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[Derek Thomas]

Again, that is a great intervention. I met with the Secretary of State and eight head teachers from my constituency a couple of years ago, and we had that very discussion about how we could actually do this in schools. Interestingly, half of the heads said, “Let’s just use what we have now to get it through every part of our education and curriculum,” and the other half said “No, we need a specific resource and tool to be able to teach it,” as the hon. Lady said, potentially as a GCSE.

I am not an education expert, although I have three children going through the system at the moment. I would argue that, particularly in primary school, we should just look at every pot of learning and attach it to how we live on the planet. The connection is then how we care for the planet. We can do that in everything we teach in primary school. In secondary school, I think there should be an opportunity to continue that, but also the opportunity for students to learn and to take a particular interest.

I am trying to demonstrate that this is about the skills need across the country to deliver what we have committed to, and that must start with preparing children and young people for the work they will do when they leave. Education in schools should address the link between our demands and the carbon in the supply chain. We often talk about wanting to take the necessary measures in our own lives to reduce our carbon footprints but we quickly find that we go and order stuff online without necessarily knowing where it comes from or the carbon footprint attached to that item. If we helped our young people to understand that better, when they look at their careers, they will look at how they can be involved in the food chain, in clothing and in all of those things that we need, but where carbon miles can be reduced.

I appreciate that you are trying to get me to shut up, Ms Ghani; I will be very quick now. We must look at what skills are needed to meet the higher skilled job opportunities in renewable energy, construction, mining, technology, agriculture and environmental and marine management. A tip from a meeting I went to this morning is that if we want our children to have great careers, we should send them down the heat engineer route. We have an opportunity, not just to enable our young people to deal with the great challenges facing them as they grow up and the challenges we should be addressing now, but to seize the opportunity, and to have the high-paid, high-skill jobs that we talk about. That means that the choices we make to do the right thing for the planet are actually choices that are good for us.

Choices in the interests of the environment are rarely negative or sacrificial choices set against their positive aspects, such as better homes, healthier air, high-skilled jobs, and so on. This is a timely debate. It is critical to get this right. I support getting education in the curriculum across every school, so that every child is equipped to live, flourish, and embrace the world that we have been given, which we are privileged to have.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

To ensure that we can incorporate all speakers, could they please be mindful of keeping their speeches to around five minutes?

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[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Ms Ghani. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) on securing this really important debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to it.

This topic has long been very close to my heart. In March 2013, I tabled an early-day motion to oppose the Government’s plan at that time to remove climate change from the national curriculum guidelines for key stages 1 to 3. That EDM cited the former chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir David King, who maintained that the exclusion of such issues represents an abdication of our duty to future generations. It is with that duty to current and future generations in mind that I will make the case for not just defending and strengthening the existing curriculum but, as others have argued for, going further, particularly with a natural history GCSE.

Lots of the focus so far this morning has, understandably, been on the climate. I will focus a little more on nature. Nearly half of all species in Britain are in decline. Species vital to our survival, such as the bee, are in catastrophic decline. In the past decade alone, we have lost a quarter of our hedgehogs and 30% of my favourite birds, swifts. How many people know that a single swift can fly up to 4 million miles in its life? How extraordinary is that? It can stay on the wing for two years; it does everything on the wing until it stops to mate and start a family. I could wax lyrical about the swift for the rest of my time, but I will not. It is that kind of love of nature that is so crucial for young people, both in its own right and because, as the wonderful writer Richard Louv said, “We won’t protect what we don’t love and we won’t love what we don’t know”. Here is an opportunity to really get to love the nature that we have around us.

The scale of the destruction of our wildlife is terrifying, and it is accelerating. Scientists warn that the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is happening right now, bringing with it the real risk of a collapse of civilisation. A new GCSE in natural history, first proposed by the writer and naturalist, Mary Colwell, in 2011, will clearly not turn that around on its own, but it is a start.

I have quoted Richard Louv’s words, but many children today do not necessarily know nature. A survey in 2018 found that more than half of UK children are unable to identify a stinging nettle, and earlier research showed that nearly 10% had not visited a park, a forest or a beach for 12 months or more. With half of all species in the UK in moderate or serious decline, there is a real danger that many of the next generation will grow up unable to recognise the wildlife on our doorsteps until it is gone, so there is no doubt in my mind that bringing climate and natural history to the school curriculum is long overdue.

At the same time, there is a growing awareness of the nature and climate crises among many children and young people and I believe that many of them would seize this opportunity if it was provided on the curriculum. Indeed, the hugely inspiring youth climate strikers are demanding that the education system is reformed so that every child can learn about the urgency, severity and scientific basis for the climate emergency, with a whole-school approach that mainstreams that through education. I do not see any contradiction between, on the one hand, mainstreaming this through all subjects on the curriculum and, at the same time, having a dedicated GCSE in natural history. I think those two things are complementary.

The early feedback from teachers to a worked-up proposal from the examination board, OCR is full of enthusiasm. There is interest from schools in remote rural areas and inner cities, as well as from schools with cultural backgrounds. Studying natural history is not about a sentimental preoccupation with a bucolic past; it is about engaging with the realities of an environment under intense pressure, how different species are responding and how nature plays out in urban settings, so it is hugely welcome that the Department for Education is considering that as an option. I urge it to work with us to make that a reality.

When the natural world on which we depend is facing such catastrophic loss, it is vital that the school curriculum gives young people the tools to understand what is happening so that we can act before it is too late. The OCR examination board has developed a course focusing on field study that also includes an exploration of our relationship with nature and how it has shaped our culture, art, literature and music. It would foster scientific, practical and emotional connections to the natural world and thus provide a unique contribution to the GCSE offering. It would teach children to name, record, monitor and collect data on the wildlife all around them and relate that wildlife to the wider countryside and internationally. It will teach vital field skills on how to process and evaluate data. In short, it will teach young people to be naturalists.

Earlier this year at the launch of Professor Dasgupta’s review on the contribution of nature to global economies, he ended with a plea to put nature into the heart of education and he highlighted the need for naturalists of the future. Re-engaging future generations with the natural world has never felt more important. As the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), said, that Committee has also unanimously supported the idea of a far greater focus on climate and nature education, including the GCSE.

In this crucial year of COP15 on biological diversity and, of course, COP26 on climate change, as Mary Colwell said:

“The establishment of a GCSE in natural history is far more than just another subject to choose. It signals an intent to take the nature of Britain seriously and to put into practice what we believe to be the right way to live on this earth, and this could inspire others to do the same.”

I urge the Minister to respond favourably to our points this morning. This really is a cross-party priority, as he can see, that can only bring about positive outcomes. There is huge enthusiasm for this from young people and schools; all we are waiting for is a green light from the Government. I urge the Minister to give it to us.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

I do not doubt that if you called for a debate on the swift, that would be just as well attended.

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[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) on the way she introduced this debate and on her good fortune in securing it. I also congratulate young people—not just the young people that are here, but young people everywhere, in that they are not angrier. They seem remarkably good-humoured, yet they should be extremely angry with the way that successive generations have left them a world that they are going to have to cope with. The problems that we have created are the problems that they will have to deal with. Certainly, if I look back to the things that angered me when I was in my teens and early 20s, had I been facing the sort of climate and environmental catastrophe that young people now are facing, I think I would have been even angrier than I was then.

What is good is that this debate has been cross-party and consensual. Nobody has stood up and said that there no need for us to teach about climate as an integral part of the curriculum. I echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said about the need for this to be holistic and to become an integrated way of teaching, not just a tick-box exercise within schools. It is vital that the relevance to people’s lives is made apparent.

Today we have the Budget, and I want to look to one element of hope, which is that the Treasury has finally come up with the Dasgupta review. This is an economic review commissioned by the Treasury to look into the integration of biodiversity and the natural world with economics—something that is long overdue. The report speaks about the way that we treat the environment as an “asset management problem”. What is perhaps most extraordinary about the Dasgupta review, apart from its length—at 605 pages, it is quite dense, with lots of formulae—is that, as an economist, having gone through all the economics and asset management problems and used all the formulae, he concluded that the oppressing issue was education. It is a Treasury report, yet Dasgupta concluded that the important issue was education: educating our children and educating the public. He talked about education on nature stretching from early years to university, with all universities mandating students to attend a basic course in ecology, and extending it beyond schools to adult workplaces and organisations, as everyone needs to recognise their role in restoring the natural world, and about a new GCSE in natural history, which was first proposed way back in 2012.

We must not treat the need for education about climate and the environment as separate from everything else the Government do. If it is seen in the Treasury as a driving force of our economy, then that is how we, as politicians, should regard it. That is why it is so important to integrate it into all that we do.

The right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne)—who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East said, has guided the Environmental Audit Committee so brilliantly as its Chairman—has said that the Government have not yet stepped up to the plate in terms of the necessary skills. We know that the Government’s 25-year environment plan and the measures in the Environment Bill will need much greater ecological expertise at a local authority level. Biodiversity net gain for new developments and the creation of local nature recovery networks are good steps, but they cannot be delivered without the necessary in-house ecological expertise.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for nature, I wrote earlier this year to all local council chief executives to ask for their assessment of their in-house ecological expertise. I am afraid that, based on the overwhelming response we received, local authority leaders do not believe they can deliver on the Government’s ambitions. The situation has not changed significantly since 2013, when a study by the Association of Local Government Ecologists, ALGE, found that only one in three councils had access to the necessary expertise.

We need to develop the education and skills necessary for that expertise. The Government cannot impose obligations on local authorities and in the planning system without the capacity to deliver on those targets. If we do not train the necessary people, those targets will be meaningless and we will fail. It is vital that we see education as the pump-priming part in the delivery of the targets set in the Environment Bill and the net zero strategy.

In the Government’s response to the Dasgupta review, they mentioned the newly established sustainability and climate change unit under the Department for Education. However, as the chairman of the EAC said, the Committee’s latest inquiry on green jobs was quite clear that the Government are not grappling with the skills gap needed to achieve net zero. I hope the Minister prioritises the new unit and that it will be able to bridge the gap between the skills shortage and the demand, including through education and retraining of the current workforce, who will be affected by the changes, and where we need a just transition.

I cannot pass up the opportunity to meet the swift mentioned by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and the skylark that my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North mentioned, and to raise them with an Arctic tern, which of course flies from the Arctic summer to the Antarctic summer. It actually traverses the globe once a year, flying 55,900, and in a lifetime flies many times the distance to the moon and back. It would be good to debate the amazing function of our birdlife and the loss of birdlife that we have seen in this country.

To pick up on something that my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North said, many of us remember as children being able to go into the countryside and see so many different species. In a sense, we have raised a generation of battery-reared children who have been cosseted and protected, with parents afraid to let their children go out and play on their own. That is a great loss to the world. An environmental premium for schools, as spoken about by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), is a really good idea.

Teach the Future asks for a Government-commissioned review of how the whole English formal education system is preparing students for the climate emergency and ecological crisis, the inclusion of the climate emergency and ecological crisis in teacher training and a new professional teaching qualification, and an English climate emergency education Act. I hope the Minister will respond to those three asks.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

We have the Arctic tern, the skylark and the swift. Mr Jim Shannon, it is over to you now.

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[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I should just say that I am not the shadow Minister on this subject, but the shadow Schools Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), is on a Bill Committee, which is why I am covering today. I want to thank him and the shadow Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for their help in preparing for this debate. I will pass back any points made today, so hon. Members can rest assured that everyone’s comments have been heard and noted.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) for securing this important debate, which is also very timely, as everyone has mentioned. I pay tribute to her for the work she has done to highlight the importance of embedding climate change and sustainability in everything we do, including education, and for all the organisational work she has done for this campaign, not least bringing a delegation of young, bright people from the Teach the Future campaign to Parliament yesterday. I am delighted that some of them are in the Public Gallery: Scarlett, Stella, Tess, Yasmin and Charlie are very welcome to Parliament, but we also need them to educate us, as many Members have said during today’s debate.

My hon. Friend made many good points, but I particularly want to pick up on one of them, which was about how the education system is not preparing children for climate change. It is failing them, which is a damning verdict on the education system that we are living with, and of what the future holds for a lot of our children. I also want to take a minute to say that my hon. Friend may be generation Z, she may be the youngest Member of the House, and she only joined in 2019, but we can already see the impact of all the work she has undertaken. When Opposition Members start paying tribute to her for her work on the Environmental Audit Committee—that does not always happen in this House—we realise the strength of her capabilities, so I give her a huge “Well done” for having secured this important debate.

My fellow millennial Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), talked about the importance of teaching not just young people, but adults as well, about climate change and sustainability. That point was echoed by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), who said that a lot of adults do not even know what we are talking about—I know that I could do a crash course on this topic as well.

Turning to the topic at hand, many Members from both sides of the House who spoke today talked about how we need to do more to embed climate change within the curriculum. When I go to my local schools, teachers and school leaders are already aware of that need, and some amazing work is going on around the country to engage with pupils about climate change. However, the onus cannot just be on them, which is another point that has been made in the debate. The Government, and we as politicians, have to help them.

One example of that is the Eco-Schools green flag programme, which many schools, nurseries and colleges are a part of. It consists of seven steps that education institutions can take to focus their communities of pupils and staff on the climate emergency, including putting environmental issues in learning plans and choosing texts in subjects such as English that will explore those issues. That work has been supported by education unions, who to their enormous credit have been pushing the Government to recognise that we are in a climate emergency, and that we have to pay more attention to it and put it at the top of our agenda. I pay tribute to the National Education Union, the National Union of Students and the University and College Union in particular for all their hard work on this issue, including promoting Climate Learning Month in the run-up to COP26, which as we all know starts next week.

There was a lot of talk about schools in this debate, and how they are being innovative in their teaching of environmental issues. From school veg patches that teach children about sustainability as well as healthy eating, to planting trees to mark achievements and celebrations, our schools are leading the way in creating a more sustainable, greener future. Our curriculum should empower that work, and we should be supporting those schools. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) talked about local gardening projects in schools in his constituency. I join him in paying tribute to Islington Council, which is doing an enormous amount of work on this, as well as the councils in my constituency, Brent and Camden Councils, which are doing similarly impressive work.

At the risk of this debate sounding like a north London takeover, I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), who talked about taking a holistic approach to this issue. I wholeheartedly agree: we cannot just have a box-ticking exercise, but have to look at this properly and make sure there is an integrated way of teaching. I also pay tribute to him for his important work on the APPG for nature, which does not get recognised so much in this House, but is a crucial part of the work we do in Parliament.

If we are going to transform education, we must support our educators to do so. Embedding climate change within the curriculum will mean new training for teachers and teaching assistants. At Labour conference, the shadow Education Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston, announced that we would give all teachers a right to continuing professional development, with £210 million extra per year for CPD, which could certainly be used to deliver this kind of training. I would like the Minister to pick up on this issue and say whether that proposal is something his Government might consider.

However, we have to recognise that this is not just about the curriculum. We should be looking to make our school estate and all our school environments eco-friendly and fit for the future. That point was eloquently made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) also spoke about young people demanding that their school buildings be sustainable. If any Members have been to speak in schools, they will recognise young people’s passion about that.

What does concern me—I wonder whether the Minister will answer this—is that at a time when we need to be upgrading our school buildings as part of our national effort to get to net zero carbon emissions, since 2010 the capital spending on schools has been cut by 44%. That worries us. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) said, our education system must prepare children and young people for the jobs of the future, which will be shaped by our transition to net zero.

The Labour party has announced plans for 400,000 green jobs. It is essential that we equip young people to develop the skills for those employment opportunities as we go into the future. That cannot happen only in schools, but it does require climate education and green skills to be embedded in further and higher education. That is why we welcome the new report from the Association of Colleges, “The Green College Commitment”, which recognises the need to go much further to embed those skills across courses. Will the Minister consider that carefully?

The leader of the Labour party has described climate change as

“the biggest long term threat we face”,

and from this debate it sounds like many Members agree. Tackling climate change is at the heart of our agenda and our manifesto as we move forward. However, the reality is that those who are most affected by the impact of climate change are those who are going through schools, colleges, nursery and early years education right now. We must act more strongly if we are to stem the tide of climate decline and protect the younger generations from catastrophic consequences. I really hope that the warm words we are hearing from the Government are finally translated into tangible progress at COP26 next week.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles also spoke about the brutal cost that young people will bear. There is a harsh reality to that. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about leaving something behind for his five grandchildren. That is how I feel about my children; I feel that we need to leave something of the planet behind, and to prepare our children and young people for the challenges of the future.

That is why embedding learning about climate change and sustainability into our curriculum and our education system is vital; that is why this debate is vital; that is why we must equip young people with the skills they need to work in the green industries of the future. Far more innovation is needed from the Government when it comes to education and skills. It is crucial if we, as a country, want to leave the world in a transition to net zero. I hope that the Minister has been listening to the many important points raised in this very good debate. I also hope that the Minister will meet my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East, as she requested.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

May I remind colleagues that for any messages that need to be shared with other Members, it is best to do so through the doorkeepers or the Parliamentary Private Secretaries rather than the Clerks.

Education

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2021 Ministerial Corrections

[Gavin Williamson]

The reason we are rolling out and expanding our devices package is that we realise how important it is for all children, especially those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. In the previous situation where schools had to be closed, during the months of March, April and May, children who did not have access to digital devices were able to access education in school if they were considered vulnerable by their school or local authority, and I can confirm that we are issuing the same standard and the same guidance today.

The following is a further extract from the statement.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I share my right hon. Friend’s concern over schools being closed, especially for children in Wealden who do not have access to technology. Can he double confirm that those children without access to tech are now seen as vulnerable, and can immediately access physical education—I mean, attend school—and will not have to jump through hoops to be able to get into school?

[Gavin Williamson]

I can absolutely confirm that. That was issued in our initial guidance on school closures back in March last year. We have repeated that self-same guidance all the way through where schools have been in an unfortunate position, because we have had to recognise that during the latter stages of last year, there were schools that were closed, and even during that time children who did not have access to that type of education were able to access education settings.

[Official Report, 6 January 2021, Vol. 686, c. 783.]

Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson).

An error has been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani).

The correct response should have been:

Covid-19: Educational Settings

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I gave some moments ago.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I share my right hon. Friend’s concern over schools being closed, especially for children in Wealden who do not have access to technology. Can he double confirm that those children without access to tech are now seen as vulnerable, and can immediately access physical education—I mean, attend school—and will not have to jump through hoops to be able to get into school?

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

As the hon. Lady should know, the next spending review process is yet to get under way. Of course school budgets, alongside every other budget across government, will be agreed as part of that. We had a question earlier about the fact that money and results are not necessarily correlated, and I have to say that if there is one part of our United Kingdom where a Government are failing their children, it is Wales—where Labour is in charge—not England.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

14. What assessment she has made of the effect of the free school and academy programmes on recent GCSE results.

[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?

Schools Update

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be reassured to know that we have already done a survey across all our schools to identify any that have or think they might have that particular sort of cladding. We have had a good response from schools, and we have been in contact with the handful of Members who have a school in their constituency with cladding that has needed testing. I reassure the House that we were clear to schools with such cladding that fire inspections should be done ahead of any testing of the cladding. We have been through that process now and, for the two schools with positive test results, the fire inspections had already shown that they were safe to continue operating. However, the hon. Gentleman is right to identify the importance of the matter, and I assure the House that working with schools on this has been uppermost in our minds over recent weeks.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I welcome the extra funding for schools in my constituency, especially the extra investment in the core schools budget and the higher per-pupil funding. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the new formula will address the unfairness that has seen some schools in Wealden and across East Sussex remain underfunded for many years?

[Justine Greening]

Yes, it will. My hon. Friend speaks up tirelessly for her local community on this, and today’s announcement will mean more money for that community. I have no doubt that her local authority will now want to ensure that it spreads that money fairly and will set out the notional allocations for schools in the autumn.

International Women’s Day

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow that passionate speech by the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq). The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “Be Bold for Change”, so that is the theme of my speech.

In medieval times, a women who killed her husband was guilty of not only murder but petty treason, because she had betrayed someone superior to her. Her punishment was to be drawn and burned alive. In comparison, a husband who murdered his wife was hanged. Why was the woman’s crime worse than the man’s? Because she threatened the established social order, in which each person had, and knew, their place. By killing his wife, the man did not threaten that order.

The law was changed in 1828, and four years later the Reform Act 1832 gave the vote to 300,000 more people, but none of them were women. Between 1870 and 1904, women’s suffrage was debated 18 times in this House. In every vote on the matter from 1886 onwards, a majority of MPs were in favour of allowing women the vote, but we did not get it until 1918.

I shall read out some of the arguments that were made against women being given the vote—arguments that we probably still hear when we are going about our business, delivering public service. They included that women are by nature subordinate to men; that men are made for public life and women for private; that allowing women to vote would, heaven forbid, allow them to think that one day they could become MPs—an idea that was self-evidently absurd; that only men should legislate for women because only men know what is good for women; that we have no grievances, and if we do, they can easily be put right by men; that politics would get women over-excited and lead to nervous breakdowns; and that if women had the vote, they would be pestered on polling day.

Political parties had their own motivations. For the Labour party, votes for women would just enfranchise more of the propertied classes; for the Conservatives, women voting would lead to socialism; and for the Liberals, women were too conservative by nature, so the Liberals would lose elections.

Not everything has changed, but some things have. I want to put on record the women we must acknowledge who came to this place before us. The first female MP to take her seat was elected in 1919. We got our first female Cabinet Minister in 1929, our first female Prime Minister in 1979, and our first female Speaker—the legend that is Baroness Boothroyd—in 1992. Yesterday, in 2017, when my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) was sworn in, we got our 456th female MP, finally surpassing the number of male MPs currently.

It has taken us close to 700 years to reach this stage, and we still have a long way to go. With only 30% of our MPs being women, we are behind Italy, Germany, Norway and Rwanda. I want to send out a message today to any young girl or woman who is listening and wants to enter politics. I want her to hear loud and clear that everyone in this House will welcome her wholeheartedly.

We have moved on from the medieval age; we are now in the technical age. We are among the first generation of parliamentarians who have had to deal with modern technology and the access it gives the public to their politicians. Those of us who use social media know what it is like occasionally to go on to Twitter and Facebook and see a barrage of abuse from trolls. These faceless and nameless cowards need to be called out and challenged. When the Minister responds, will she say what more can be done to put pressure on social media companies and search platforms to encourage them to take down the hate and abuse that is focused on women just because of their gender, faith or heritage? It would be a grand day if, when all the women in this House saw a fellow female parliamentarian being abused just because of who she was, we all went on to social media and drowned out that hate.

I shall finish by thanking some of the female leaders in and around my constituency. Five of the eight East Sussex MPs are women: my right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd); my hon. Friends the Members for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) and for Lewes (Maria Caulfield); the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas); and me. We have a female chief executive of the county council, Becky Shaw, and a female police and crime commissioner, Katy Bourne, as well as dozens of fantastic female councillors at county and district level who have mentored me and are inspiring leaders in their communities. They are the ones who show, each and every day, that politics is very much the business of women.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Lady will have looked at the consultation document and seen that a very high proportion of the national funding formula is allocated on the basis of disadvantage—it is based on pupils’ low prior attainment and things such as English as an additional language. The difference is that we are basing the national funding formula on today’s data, not the data as they were in 2005. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put in place something that the Labour party neglected to do: a fair national funding formula that is based on a clear set of factors and principles, and on up-to-date data.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

In East Sussex, funding per pupil is £193 lower than the national average. What more can be done for my schools in Wealden, which are both small and rural?

[Mr Gibb]

We have ensured that sparsity is an important factor in the national funding formula and we are increasing funding for the sparsity element from £15 million to £27 million across the system. East Sussex sees an increase in its funding overall and my hon. Friend should welcome this much fairer system. It is fairer to schools in East Sussex and right across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

As I said in an earlier answer, this Government welcome strongly the contribution that EU and international students make to our higher education institutions. There is no plan to introduce a cap on the number of international students. We continue to welcome EU students.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

The superb schools across my constituency of Wealden face the double financial whammy of being both rural and small. Under the new funding formula, only eight schools will get an uplift. May I urge Ministers to look again at the schools in Wealden that do not regularly hit the traditional markers of deprivation?

[Justine Greening]

We have kicked off a consultation on introducing a national funding formula. As my hon. Friend points out, we have tried to make sure that it reflects factors that affect schools in more remote locations, as well as those with higher cost bases under the additional costs allowance. She has obviously looked at the impacts on her local schools and I am sure that she will want to provide input into the consultation.

National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The right hon. Lady should welcome the formula, because at the moment the flow of money into our schools is unfair. For a community such as hers, our proposed architecture for the national funding formula will make sure principally that funding is fair and there is an equal amount for children in primary and in secondary; then our main drivers of additional funding will be deprivation—as I said, £5 billion a year for that—and low prior attainment. That is the right way to structure the formula. Although we have seen progress in many schools in many parts of our country, we now need to make absolutely sure that resources flow towards those areas that need to lift.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

The Minister for schools was kind enough to meet me recently to discuss funding for schools in Wealden and East Sussex, and I am very grateful for that. My pupil funding is just £4,433.58. My small rural schools face severe challenges because of their small size and location, and a heavy weighting for sparsity in the formula is therefore vital if we are to ensure that Wealden’s superb schools can carry on providing a brilliant education.

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When we looked at the national funding formula mechanism, we saw that some local authorities do not use the sparsity factor. Our sparsity factor will go to all schools that should get additional support. That is why the formula should be welcomed.