School Funding

Debate between Pat Glass and Graham Stuart

Thursday 5th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass]

Before the election, Labour also promised to introduce a review of school funding. We want to support the Government as they move forward with their review, but we are clear that funding has to be fair and just. It cannot simply be a recycling or shifting of existing resources within the system from those with greater needs to those with less great needs. One or two people said that children with the same levels of need must receive the same levels of funding. We support that in principle, but we want to see new money in the system.

The basic inequalities in the system go back a long way. My right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter was absolutely right when he said that its roots lie in the old standard spending assessment. I read the Hansard from the previous debate just before the election. The then shadow schools Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), said that the formula was known only to three people and

“one was dead, one had gone mad and the other one had forgotten”.—[Official Report, 10 March 2015; Vol. 594, c. 260.]

I am not sure where I fit into that, but there are advantages to being around the education system for a long time and having some degree of shared memory of all this.

[Graham Stuart]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pat Glass]

I will just finish this point and then I will be happy to give way.

Historically, local authorities that prioritised education and spent above standard spending assessment—sometimes a great deal above SSA—were often metropolitan authorities that had their funding simply rolled forward into the schools block of the dedicated schools grant, and those authorities, often counties, that spent at or under—sometimes significantly under SSA—had their underspends rolled forward into the schools block of the SSA. Those are the roots of why we are where we are today.

[Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for giving way and I congratulate her again on her post. She said she would expect new funding to come into the system. Was she ruling out redistribution? It is politically difficult. The previous Labour Government did not want to go there: although many Labour areas would benefit, perhaps more would lose. I recognise the political difficulty, but surely similar children in similar schools in similar circumstances should get similar funding. If we accept the principle and accept that it is wrong now, we have to accept redistribution. Does she accept that principle and support those of us who, like the Minister, will have to take the difficult decisions?

[Pat Glass]

I will address that point as I make my argument.

It has been made clear today that however we came to be where we are, we all now agree that pupils with similar or the same needs throughout the country should not receive such different levels of funding. It is less clear how to resolve that, and it will not be easy to achieve. The Prime Minister has decided not to protect the entire education budget in real terms. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has highlighted that over the course of this Parliament per-pupil funding will fall for the first time since the mid-1990s, which will make it that much harder for the Government to deliver a genuinely fair funding system.

The Secretary of State told the House last week that the Government remain committed to implementing their manifesto pledge to make funding fairer. She told us that she will protect the schools budget, which she has promised will rise as pupil numbers increase. The IFS says that that is not going to happen, but we will give her the benefit of the doubt. She also highlighted the progress she has made in providing the additional £390 million this year for those areas with the lowest levels of funding, and said that that will continue next year.

But that is the rhetoric. As the hon. Members for Beverley and Holderness and for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) said, the reality in schools is very different. According to the latest National Union of Teachers survey, 60% of school representatives stated that teaching posts have been lost in their school; more than 60% stated that classroom support posts had been lost; and 55% stated that other support posts had been lost. Nearly 60% reported larger class sizes; more than 65% reported a reduction in spending on books and equipment; and nearly 45% stated that teachers were paying more for materials than they were previously. Of particular concern to the Members who mentioned it in their speeches will be the fact that 50% reported cuts in support to pupils with special educational needs. Respondents also noted a greater reliance on non-qualified teachers and teaching assistants.

Although we all agree with the principle that pupils with similar levels of need should receive broadly similar levels of funding, the Minister should reflect on some of the very real concerns that Members have raised today when he is considering the matter and ensure that any further changes are not only fair but just. Like the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), I am interested to hear how it is going to happen, how it will be paid for, and what the time scales will be. I want to hear the what, the when and the how.

Schools are grateful for the additional £390 million allocation, but we must be clear that it is not new money and has come largely from a 25% cut in funding to the 18-plus pupil-funding stream and from the massive cuts we have seen to further education funding, with further massive cuts to come. Pupils who access FE or remain in school over the age of 18 are often pupils with SEN, vulnerable children, or children who simply learn more slowly and need an extra year or two to get to the level of their peers. They are the children closest to being NEET. It is neither fair nor just to take funding from that group of children to distribute across the rest of the sector, and it is not fair to take funding from other less well-off parts of the education sector. We particularly do not want to see another smash and grab on the FE sector.

I agree with fair and transparent funding in principle, but I repeat that new money is required. Funding must be fair to other parts of the system, especially those parts supporting children with SEN, looked-after children and other vulnerable children. It needs to be fair to the higher education sector, and particularly to the FE sector, given what has already happened. It must be fair to rural areas with small schools, which have been mentioned by a number of Members. My constituency is rural and has a school with just 12 children. The very existence of such small schools would be threatened by a system that makes no financial allowance for size. There will have to be transitional arrangements to ensure that no area or school loses out heavily.

I want to give the Minister the benefit of my experience, which I feel I will be giving him quite a lot in the months to come. I have a little time, so I will give him two examples. I remember being involved in a local authority where we wanted to change the funding system to make allowances for children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. We made what we understood to be a small tweak to the system that resulted in a big change, with funding going to a school that was educating the children of the directors and senior managers of a Japanese car factory. They clearly did not need the money. The Minister should be aware that there can be unintended consequences.

More importantly, I do not know whether other Members remember, but in around 2005, schools started to scream that their local authorities were not handing over funding—that it was being top-sliced. The Blair Government at the time responded by naming and shaming local authorities, which then started to scream that it was unfair and was not happening. Someone had the bright idea that it was SEN funding: “SEN funding has gone up massively; that’s what’s causing this.” There was an investigation, and it turned out that an accountant in the Treasury had tweaked a tiny bit of the formula here, which had a massive impact over there. Whatever happens, the Minister must be clear that the changes are properly consulted on; that we know exactly who will be the winners and losers, and by how much; that they are piloted; and that there are transitional arrangements over a period of time.

The Chancellor and the Minister are in real difficulty. Perhaps Government Members did not see, but the Secretary of State’s face was a picture when the Prime Minister promised to continue the infant free school meals programme at PMQs last week. We hear a lot every week about the promise of 30 hours of free childcare, but that is already under-funded by £l billion. I have sympathy for the Minister, because I have been in his position, albeit to a lesser extent. I have been the person who has had to deliver good and outstanding services, but who had to balance the budget amid all the cries for additional money.

I ask every Member present who has called for fairer funding for schools to remember where the last tranche of funding came from—a smash and grab on FE. Every one of us has an FE college in our constituency. We know that they have been hit massively already and are facing a further 24% cut in funding. Our colleges have been more than decimated by cuts, and we do not want to see more. All Members present will want to see a new funding system that is fair and just to all children and all sectors. With that, I am happy to sit down and let the Minister try to square the financial circle.

Young People in Care

Debate between Pat Glass and Graham Stuart

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for making time for this important debate. As the Chairman of the Education Committee said, the report came out of an earlier inquiry in which we found that older children are neglected in the care system. I pay tribute to the Minister for the real interest he has taken in these areas and for the way in which he has tried—and often succeeded, I think—in bringing about improvements for this group of vulnerable children. There is no doubt that he cares about these young people, and it is in that spirit that I make my speech.

In my former life, I managed many areas of education that are closely linked to social care, child protection and safeguarding, but I was always careful to stay removed from managing those areas directly, arguing to myself that I did not have the necessary expertise, and that issues such as safeguarding and child protection were better left to those who had been trained to manage them. In reality, however, there was always a healthy dollop of fear in there as well: fear that some actions that I had caused to be taken, or had recommended, would result in further harm to a child who had already been harmed by those who should have cared for them the most.

Even as an MP, when I first entered Parliament, I tried not to become too closely involved in children’s social care, but, in practice, that has proved to be impossible. Along with my fellow members of the Education Committee, I felt that, given what appeared to be a lack of interest in the Department for Education, I had a duty to ensure that 50% of our time was spent on scrutinising and challenging Government policy on children’s social care. I recognise the Minister’s input, but it often seemed that he was a lone voice in a Department that is focused almost entirely on education.

When we discuss these matters, I like to put them in context. The United Kingdom probably has one of the best records in the western world when it comes to safeguarding and child protection: we are much better at it than most—not all, but most—European countries, and we have a far better record than the United States. Even in that context, however, we still do very poorly in some areas and in respect of some children.

I think that what shocked me the most during the Committee’s investigation of areas of social care and child protection were the findings of our short inquiry into 16-plus care options. We saw placements that we considered to be unsafe. Close as I am to this subject, I did not quite realise how difficult life is for these children, and how little support they are given by us—by, for instance, the Government, Parliament and local authorities. Like others, I listened in horror to the stories of young people leaving the care system about what had been done to them and how little support they had had. That comes on top of what we are now learning about what was done to young people— many of whom were living in the care system at the time—in places such as Rochdale, Oxford and Rotherham; and we know that many other cases have yet to become public.

One of my lasting worries following the inquiry is that, while the public are shocked and morally outraged when they hear stories about such places as Rotherham, the bottom line is that we—the Government, Parliament, MPs, local authority officers, the press and the public—simply do not care enough about the children involved. If we did, these things would not happen. It is easy to blame hapless, overworked officials who often work without structures, support or adequate resources, but we are all responsible for those children, and we do not, as a society, take our responsibilities for them seriously enough.

One child, a care leaver, said to me that not only should we be providing additional funding for the education of such children, but if every child who went into care at the age of 10 was given the vote, people like us would take what happened to them seriously. Because they do not have that leverage, I doubt whether things will change very much for them—even given the recent press coverage and the moral outrage—but I always try, at least, to travel in hope.

Two facts motivated our inquiry into 16-plus care options: the fact that “other arrangements” are unsuitable, and the fact that the current “Staying Put” policy is inequitable. My fellow Committee members and I call on the Minister to address three issues as a matter of urgency. First, we ask him to outlaw the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for 16-plus care leavers. We have heard all the arguments from the local authority officers, and even from the Minister himself, about the need for it as a provision of last resort and for emergency use only, but we believe that, while it remains an option, it will become the default provision in far too many cases. Local authorities can plan not to use bed and breakfast for this purpose. Some of them have put real effort and resources into doing something else, something better and, in the long run, something more cost-effective for those young people.

I remember exactly the same arguments being used when the Government of the day were pushing local authorities to provide full-time education for young people who had been excluded from school. At the time, local authorities were saying, “We can’t possibly do this, we need to be able to provide part-time education in emergencies,” but the fact is that the default position then was that most children who were excluded got less than 10 hours of education and many got none. It took a Secretary of State really to lose patience with local authorities and to make it illegal, and I am glad that he did. I am a great believer in the saying that we are never as swift as when we are chased, and I am absolutely sure that some local authorities still provide hours that are below the legal limit, but the vast majority got their act together and did some proper planning, and the situation is much better as a result. Now that the situation is very clear and we have outlawed providing less than full-time education for excluded children, those children have redress. If bad local authorities are not providing that education, there is redress, and there is also a role for Ofsted.

Secondly, we are calling on the Minister to regulate 16-plus care provision. I find it unbelievable that we have stronger regulations to cover the provision of dogs homes than we do for homes for children leaving care at 16. The Minister has argued that he does not want to drive the best providers out of the market with regulation, but that is simply not going to happen, because this is lucrative. It is so lucrative that hedge funds are getting into it, but I think it is fair to say that the bottom of this market, as the Committee has seen, is not merely inadequate—that is a huge understatement—but dangerous, and it is unsafe. It puts children who are at risk—the most vulnerable of our children—at greater risk and we simply cannot allow that to continue.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. Does she share my concern that in a market of supported accommodation, where there is no real and effective regulation, entirely unqualified people can sit there supposedly supporting some of the most vulnerable young people? When we were doing our inquiry, we heard of such people sitting boarded up in their office while the young people were rioting outside. That is the situation we are putting some young people in by failing to regulate these individuals.

[Pat Glass]

I absolutely agree and we did see some of that when we went on visits across the country.

Finally, we are calling on the Minister to extend “Staying Put” to all young people in care. It is great—and I again have to pay tribute to the Minister—that young people in foster care can remain beyond the age of 18, but in many respects those young people are the ones who are the least vulnerable and who arguably have the best outcomes, and it is now time to do the same for the others.

We are talking about a surprisingly small number of children each year. It has been said that £75 million is the sum required to deliver this. We should contrast that with the £2 billion overspend on the academies and free schools programme. If the Department can spend that virtually without comment, surely it can find the money to provide this desperately needed safety and security for this group of young people, if those young people want it—I am not saying they have to have it.

We are pleased that the Government have taken forward many of our recommendations and we ask the Minister to look again at the rest, as they are necessary steps to ensure that there are improvements in providing stability and support for young people as they move to greater independence.

Nursery Schools

Debate between Pat Glass and Graham Stuart

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass]

I will discuss leadership in nursery schools shortly, but the Education Committee model suggests that nursery schools should stand at the centre of the hub-and-spokes model, providing good practice out to nursery classes across their region.

I expect the Minister to tell me in his response that primary schools are judged as a whole, that there is no separate Ofsted inspection of nursery classes in a primary school and that nursery classes cannot therefore be judged against nursery schools, but I remind him of what I just said: 90% of nursery schools are judged to be good or outstanding, with the same results in disadvantaged and affluent areas. That goes beyond what we can say about the primary sector across the country.

Of nurseries inspected between 1 January and 31 March 2014, 55% were judged outstanding in comparison with 8% of primaries and 14% of secondaries. The disparity is huge. I also remind the Minister that I do not have to rely solely on statistics to support my case; I can draw on 25 years of direct experience in education, and I know what I have seen over and over again in nursery schools.

Of nursery schools judged by Ofsted up to 30 June 2013, 58% were rated outstanding in leadership and management, which compares with 20% in primary, 29% in secondary and 39% in SEN. Nursery school provision is extremely well managed and is recognised as such by Ofsted. I ask the Minister to consider that 62% of nursery schools are in 30% of the most disadvantaged areas in England, so we are getting outstanding results and leadership despite the fact that the schools largely operate in such areas. There are a higher proportion of nursery schools in the north-east—it appears that there may be slightly fewer in future—than we would see nationally, and those nursery schools are concentrated in the most disadvantaged areas of the most disadvantaged region. Yet we are seeing incredibly good results.

Nursery schools admit children from many different backgrounds and give priority to children in social and medical needs categories. That is confirmed by the Department for Education’s survey statistics: at least 11% of children at 47% of nursery schools have special educational needs. No other category of school, except special schools, comes anywhere close to that level of admission and yet no other category of early-years provision comes close to the outcomes that nursery schools achieve with SEN pupils. Ofsted has highlighted that nursery schools have particular expertise in the teaching of young bilingual children. Children from BME backgrounds make up 33% of nursery school pupils and yet have outcomes that outperform BME children of a similar age attending nursery classes, even in the most affluent areas. The statistics really highlight the quality of the provision that nursery schools provide.

A significantly higher proportion of maintained nursery schools offer wrap-around day care provision than any other form of maintained early-years provision—just the kind of provision that the Government say that they want to support working parents and parents training for or looking for work. Nursery schools often provide it much cheaper than can be achieved in the non-maintained sector, which is one of the reasons why parents like them so much. Why on earth have successive Governments not recognised the value of nursery schools and stopped the threats to their future? It is beyond me. The Government say that they want good schools and these are the best in their sector by far.

In her last appearance before the Education Committee on 18 June, the previous Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), appeared to give just two reasons why she was not wholly supportive of nursery schools. She told me that

“49 local authorities do not have any maintained nursery schools at all”

but I reminded her that that meant that 153 or 154 local authorities have at least one and that many have more. It seemed sensible to the Select Committee that local authorities and the Government should use these highly-specialised beacons of excellence to build good practice across authorities. The Minister also told me that nursery schools are expensive, and they are—this is where things do become slightly political, because it is about priorities—because they employ a head teacher, a higher proportion of graduate staff and qualified teachers. That, too, is why they are so successful.

Yes, these tried and tested, highly successful schools may be slightly more expensive than nursery classes, but they are nowhere near as expensive as the experimental, untried and untested free schools programme that the Government are pushing so hard and that has a budget overspend, at the last count, of well over a billion pounds. It is not only me who recognises the value of nursery schools and is concerned about Government policy. The British Association for Early Childhood Education described them as “beacons of high quality” and as playing

“a leading role in developing the early years work force”.

The Ofsted chief inspector’s first annual report in 2014 on early years noted:

“The only early education provision that is at least as strong, or even stronger in deprived areas compared with wealthier areas is nursery schools”.

If we are concerned about narrowing the gap and, like the Education Committee, about outcomes for white working-class children, nursery schools in deprived areas seem to be the most successful model.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the best early visits that a new Education Minister could conduct would be to the Pen Green centre, which the Committee has visited, to see the masters and PhD courses? It not only provides an excellent local service to children, many of whom are from deprived backgrounds, but also acts as a beacon of best practice and education for a much wider area—nationally and internationally. The Minister would be spending his time well.

[Pat Glass]

I agree. The Minister smiled at that, so I am assuming that he has heard of Pen Green, which is known internationally for its outstanding provision. Margy Whalley will make him feel very welcome.

Nursery schools right across the country are providing outstanding outcomes for young children and I could give the Minister a long list that would start with Pen Green, but I want to mention just two. The Rachel Keeling nursery school is situated in one of the most deprived parts of London and yet has been identified in the “The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education” report as providing high-quality early education that has a continuing influence on its young pupils’ intellectual and social development and their subsequent progress in school.

Oxclose nursery school in Washington is another one that I know well. When I was working with parents in Sunderland in the early 1990s to include children with special needs in the mainstream, we thought, rather foolishly, that we would start with the easy end of SEN—children with less significant SEN and perhaps younger children—but it never works out that way. As soon as it became known that we were looking at inclusion, I received two phone calls. One was from a 14-year-old child who had spent her life in a special school because she was in a wheelchair and had brittle bones. We would think that amazing nowadays, but it was the norm in the 1990s—it appears that if someone stepped off a path and twisted their ankle, they would end up in a special school. The girl told me that she wanted to go to university and recognised that that was much less likely to happen if she continued to attend a special school.

The second phone call was from the parent of a two-year-old with quadriplegia—he had a little bit of head movement. He was a delightful little boy and he is a delightful young man now. His mother wanted, as was absolutely her right, mainstream school provision for her child. We definitely started with the more difficult end of SEN.

I worked closely with the head teachers of the Oxclose cluster, comprising the nursery, primary and secondary schools. The only thing that they had going for them at the time was that they were on the flat and close together. By far the most important factor, however, was that the head teachers of the three schools shared my vision of what inclusive provision should be.

If the Minister goes to Pen Green, which is halfway up the country, will he please go a little further and visit the Oxclose cluster in Sunderland? If he wants to see truly amazing, inspirational and outstanding provision that will move him, he could go nowhere better. Oxclose nursery school was truly inspirational then for all its pupils and is truly inspirational today. I strongly advise the Minister to visit any of the schools mentioned or any of the 400-odd nursery schools across the country if he wants to see outstanding early-years provision. Do it quickly, because that provision is under threat.

The very future of nursery schools is under threat in an era of local authority cuts, Government pressure on schools to expand reception classes, rising infant class sizes, the expansion of foundation provision and relentless Government pressure to push more and more children into schools earlier.

Nursery schools are facing constant pressure to merge with local primaries. A recent survey of nursery schools highlighted how maintained nurseries are on a knife edge, threatened by cuts in local authority funding, based on the flawed premise that they are simply one more form of child care and pressure from Government that funding levels for all providers should be the same, with no recognition of the special provision offered or of the way in which nursery schools can and do outperform every other form of early-years provision.

More than three quarters of nursery schools in the survey said that they were concerned about their immediate future viability or that they faced imminent loss of their independence. None faced immediate closure, but many said that they were at risk of closure in future, while only 12% said that they were optimistic about their future. Yet the Department for Education’s own child care and early-years parents’ survey for 2012 to 2013 highlighted that the value of nursery schools was beyond the number of children enrolled, acknowledging the vital role that they play in training early-years professionals throughout the sector.

The number of nursery schools has gradually eroded over the past 10 to 15 years. The Government need to look at that carefully. Ministers go all over the place to look for good practice, but seem to fail to recognise that we have outstanding practice in this country and we are letting it wither on the vine. I am calling on the Government to wake up before it is too late. They must recognise how good nursery schools are and the vital contribution that they make—not only to the children whom they admit, but to the training of early-years specialists throughout the sector. I call on the Government to stop the financial and educational neglect that is leading to an unstable future.

The right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) mentioned the financial pressure on nursery schools. In 2010 the Government rolled 14 different grants into the single funding formula and they have subsequently rolled more grants into the early-years funding formula. That is what is putting nursery schools under pressure: the refusal to acknowledge that not all nursery provision can survive on the same amount of money. It is not about being equitable across the system but about recognising where good practice is and accepting that it does need to be paid for. Let us recognise that nursery schools offer the best and most successful provision in the early-years landscape and build on that.

16-plus Care Options

Debate between Pat Glass and Graham Stuart

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stuart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his hard work and commitment in this area and others on the Committee. I know he would join me, as would Members across the House, in recognising the personal commitment of the Minister to make a difference in this area, and that significant improvements have been made under this Government. None the less, outcomes for young people in care in this country for far too long have been bleak, as my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) puts it. When we look at how many people who have been in care end up in prison, in prostitution, or struggling with drug and alcohol dependency, that does not say a lot about the parenting that we have put in place for those young people, and we know that other countries manage to do a lot better, both educationally and in broader terms, to prepare people for adult life.

What better test of a civilisation than how it looks after young people whose families may have disintegrated and failed to provide them with support? What better way to judge that civilisation than by its ability to meet the needs of those young people and make sure that those most vulnerable people get a fair crack at life and are supported all the way into adulthood, rather than too often abandoned at a young and vulnerable age?

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I associate myself with the comments of the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker). I am particularly proud of this report, which I think is one of the most important that the Committee has produced over the past four years. It contains many recommendations, and I am looking for positive responses from the Government on all of them, but I will mention the two that I think are most urgent. First, we recommend that Ofsted should inspect provision for children leaving care at 16. As the Chair of the Committee said, we would not allow schools, further education colleges or children’s homes not to be subject to inspection by Ofsted, so why should we allow provision for our most vulnerable children leaving care not to be? Secondly, we recommend that Staying Put should also be available to children in children’s homes, who are often taken into care late and are often the most vulnerable. They are the most likely to end up unemployed, homeless, in prison, subject to substance abuse and so on. I am particularly concerned that we get a positive response to those two recommendations and hope that the Chair of the Committee will support that.

[Mr Stuart]

I very much agree with the hon. Lady. I am pleased to see the newly promoted Financial Secretary to the Treasury on the Front Bench. Even if we were to view that group of people in the driest economic terms, we would see that investing to save by ensuring that they get the stability and support they need when they are at their most vulnerable, which is when they are young, would pay off in the long term. That would reduce the number of people in prison or calling on other services because their lives have not worked out right. I know that Treasury Ministers are always told to invest to save, but here we have a moral need to do the right thing by those young people but also, when we consider how catastrophic the outcomes are for so many of them, an overwhelming economic case. Even in these tough times, we should find the resources and focus them on that group, because we will make proper improvement on every front, as the hon. Lady rightly points out.

Qualified Teachers

Debate between Pat Glass and Graham Stuart

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

I recognise and respect that. I therefore expect to see the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the Lobby with us tonight.

When the Deputy Prime Minister spoke at the weekend, he talked about schools being set free to set their own school holidays and the times of day when they open and close. Well, I have got news for him: maintained schools have always had that ability. They do not need to be a free school or an academy to do that, nor to employ unqualified teachers. Maintained schools have always had the ability to bring in non-QTS specialists. The person delivering the lesson at the front of the classroom does not need to be a qualified teacher, but the person who designs, differentiates and manages the curriculum, manages the lesson plans and is responsible for individual pupil assessment does need to be a qualified teacher. On that, I absolutely agree with the Secretary of State.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

rose—

[Pat Glass]

I am not going to give way any more because there is so little time.

The history of Labour in office and unqualified teachers shows that in the vast majority of cases, great non-QTS teachers went on to become qualified through the licensed or the classic routes. Government Members say that free schools and academies are now free to employ teachers who have a master’s degree or a doctorate, and is that not a good thing? I am not altogether sure about that. I have a master of science degree, but a working knowledge of maths and statistics does not make me a teacher. Without a bachelor of education degree I would not have the skills and knowledge to understand child development, the science of teaching and learning, how children learn, and classroom management and managing behaviour, or to identify the needs of children with special educational needs and how to meet them. I would not know about differentiation, delivering a programme of study across a range of abilities, or assessment—that is, knowing what a child can and cannot do, and what they need to do next. Important as those things are, I would also not have the credibility and trust of my professional colleagues, of parents, or, more importantly, of young people themselves. Pupils know very quickly who is qualified and who is not, and who is experienced and who is not, and that affects their behaviour and how they learn in the classroom.

The problem with this Government is that they think anybody can teach. I know from experience that as soon as we move away from the classroom it looks really easy, but it is not. Teachers are people who stand up in front of classrooms every day and deliver great lessons. I do not pretend to be a teacher in terms of that definition. Being qualified does not make a great teacher; it takes more than that. [Interruption.] I am glad that Government Members agree with me. As has been said, this is not necessarily about the qualification of teachers. Every teacher does not have to be qualified to deliver a great lesson, but surely good qualification is the basis of a state-run system. [Interruption.] Having anything else leaves our children open to—[Interruption.] Does my hon. Friend want to intervene?

Careers Guidance

Debate between Pat Glass and Graham Stuart

Thursday 16th May 2013 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Mr Benton, I recall that you chaired the very first Westminster Hall debate I ever took part in, when I first arrived here in 2010 and had absolutely no idea what was going on. It is, therefore, a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, when I hope I know a bit more about what is going on—we will see. It is also a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), and to welcome him back to Parliament and witness his speedy recovery.

I want to talk today about the Committee’s report, and a little about the Government’s response. In taking evidence from many of those involved in the education of young people, the Committee visited careers services and schools, looking at what good practice was emerging, and identifying where deficiencies were most acute. Most importantly, perhaps, we also spoke to young people themselves about the services they received. The crux of our findings is wrapped up at the start of our report:

“The Government’s decision to transfer responsibility for careers guidance to schools is regrettable.”

We had a lot of discussion in the Committee about using “regrettable”. We could easily have used much stronger language, but we were looking for something that would be helpful to the Government rather than something that would be seen as lecturing.

Secondly, we found that international evidence suggests that a school-based model does not deliver the best provision for young people, and we concluded that the weakness of that model had been compounded by the Government’s failure to transfer any budget to schools with which to support the service. That led, predictably and perhaps inevitably, to a drop in overall provision, with fewer than one in six schools providing anything like a reasonable service.

In its inquiry, the Committee was very realistic about the historical performance of career services and Connexions, and did not see the previous service provided to young people as good or not in need of considerable reform. It was clear to us that the Connexions service had fallen well short of expectations in most areas, with the probable exception of its services for vulnerable children, where I think that the level of provision and service was at least reasonable if not good. It was also clear that the service delivered far from the high expectations that the Government had of it on its creation.

However, the Government’s response has been not to reform the Connexions service but to abolish it altogether, transferring the statutory duty to schools, and not providing any of the £196 million of funding that was previously available for the service. That is leaving schools and pupils high and dry, and it is clear that young people will make less informed decisions and choices about their future education and training as a result. That will have a major, negative and long-term impact on the lives of some young people, and it will be those who do not have access, within their families and family circles, to well-informed professional advice who will be hardest hit and lose out the most.

It is fair to say that we were dismayed by what we found, but we chose our wording carefully. We spent a long time discussing what we wanted from the report. We wanted the Government to recognise that the current situation could not continue, and to take action to improve it. We wanted to agree on language that did not solely focus on the problems or lecture the Government about what was going wrong, but provided an honest analysis of what we found, and offered positive recommendations about how the current situation could be improved. We were particularly disappointed, therefore, by both the tone and content of the Government’s response.

The Government’s response tells us:

“While the Committee’s report does acknowledge the failings of the Connexions service we are disappointed that the Committee describes our decision to transfer responsibility for careers to schools as regrettable.”

We found it regrettable not because of the transfer, or even because it happened against international evidence that suggested it was the model that was least likely to succeed, but because responsibility was transferred with all its limitations but without any funding. It was surely bound to fail, and the failure would be regrettable.

Instead of acknowledging that they might have got it wrong, and considering the Committee’s recommendations for improvement, the Government’s response appears to focus on criticising how the inquiry was carried out, stating that we cited evidence of one survey carried out by the careers sector that suggested a reduction in service. I want to tell the Minister that we based our findings not just on one survey: we listened to a huge amount of evidence from schools, local authorities, careers specialists, employers, sixth-form college representatives, further education colleges, teachers’ representatives and head teachers’ representatives, and we listened to what young people told us about the service they received. If that is not enough, I suggest to the Minister that he look at what is happening in schools now. Careers provision for schoolchildren has largely collapsed.

I was a member of the Education Bill Committee more than two years ago, and we discussed at length what was happening then. The then Minister, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), at least acknowledged that there were problems, recognised what was happening and promised to look at the matter, but I understand that he was subsequently blocked from doing so by the Secretary of State for Education. That is regrettable. If the Minister is not convinced by our report, I suggest he talk to the people we talked to and come back and tell us that the system works well.

The Government’s response also complained that the Committee chose not to highlight examples of good practice. I disagree. We went to places such as Bradford, and looked at where local authorities and schools were working together, pooling resources and delivering a good service. It was clear, however, that even where there was good practice, they were doing it on very little funding, or by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul—taking money from other parts of the education service to deliver the bones of a careers service for young people.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Does the hon. Lady recall that in Bradford, where nearly all the schools signed up, money was taken from each of them, but the bulk of it was still provided by the council? Adding all that up, if I recollect correctly, the service provision of careers guidance—in a place such as Bradford, where the council had made it a priority—was still lower on the ground in schools than it had been.

Services for Young People

Debate between Pat Glass and Graham Stuart

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I am not entirely sure how to follow that last speech, but I will definitely get a copy of Hansard tomorrow and read it. I am sure that it will be even better the second time round.

I have never spoken in a Westminster Hall debate on a Select Committee report before, and I was not sure what to expect. So far, however, it is exceeding even my wildest imaginings. I am pleased to speak in this debate. Having seen what happens, it is now clear to me that the purpose of such a debate is not for members of the Committee to get together—in a sense, we could have had this debate in a bar—but for us to duff up the Minister verbally, and hopefully get a response from him that will satisfy some of the recommendations that came out of an incredibly well researched and evidence- based report.

It is difficult, particularly in my part of the country, to speak in a debate about youth services without seeing them in the wider context of, for example, youth employment and unemployment. The timing of this debate is particularly opportune, given that youth unemployment currently stands at more than 1 million.

In my constituency of North West Durham, unemployment has doubled in the past two years, and 13% of all jobseeker’s allowance claimants are aged between 18 and 24. In human terms, that is 1,290 young people aged between 18 and 24 in my constituency who are not receiving any form of education or training and are not in employment. That is a human tragedy for them, but from my point of view, it is a case of déjà vu. It is like a rerun of the 1980s. We are in danger of creating yet another lost generation, with all the costs that that has for society.

I know that the Government are concerned about the issue. They talk about families living in dependency and they launch initiatives to deal with the most complex and costly families, who collectively, across the country, are costing us billions of pounds in benefits and in terms of health. They take up the vast majority of the time and resources of housing services, the police and justice services. Much of that has its roots in mass youth unemployment—what we saw in the ’80s and ’90s.

I see families in my constituency who do not work, and my constituency is not so different from many others. It is a large rural constituency, with an urban population in one corner—

[Mr Graham Stuart]

The hon. Lady is very fair-minded and will want to recognise the fact that mass youth unemployment has been a reality for the entirety of the time that we are talking about. From the beginning, it was pretty solid. It did not move in the boom years of the previous Government. After the financial crisis, it went up. Although there was a temporary drop before the last election, the upward movement was there. It is a systemic issue, which we need to tackle. It is certainly not the result of any immediate policies of a Government who have been in power for 22 months.

[Pat Glass]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. Youth unemployment was not invented by the current Government, but it clearly has not been helped in the past two years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

As an education funding geek, I have an answer for that. There was an element for small schools. For small rural schools, most local authorities had an element of funding for vulnerable and poor children that was separate from AEN funding. Those schools were already catered for by other parts of the funding formula.

[Mr Stuart]

The East Riding of Yorkshire was, for a long time, the fourth lowest funded authority in the country and is now the eighth lowest, despite the demonstrable increase in the cost of delivering education in a sparsely populated rural and coastal area. It is not obvious, however one looks at the complex formula, how to work out whether it properly recognises the needs of an area. The pupil premium has the elegant benefit of directly targeting an additional sum to help schools provide educational support for children on free school meals.

[Pat Glass]

The beauty of the education funding formula—it is complex and if we tweak one end of it we cause a huge tsunami at the other end—is that it was locally driven. Each local authority looked at its funding formula and had the opportunity to take into account things such as small schools, rural schools and small areas of deprivation. No one, I think, would accept that it is good to take money away from schools in which more than 50% of the kids are on free school meals and share it out among schools in which only 2% or 3% of the children are on free school meals; it does not make sense and it is certainly not what was intended. The scheme was well intentioned, but it is driving money from those schools that have high concentrations of poorer children and moving it to schools with small concentrations.

Everything that is happening in youth services and careers services, and everything that has happened with EMA, young people’s funding and higher education, where participation from poorer young people from the poorest regions has collapsed in parts of the country because of the tripling of tuition fees—when the Chairman of the Select Committee gave the audience in the Guildhall in York the benefit of the Government’s policy on this, it was clear that people had glazed over and were not listening—has a cumulative effect, and it will take a generation to replace and restore services for young people.

[Neil Carmichael]

rose—

[Mr Stuart]

rose—

[Pat Glass]

My greatest fear is that we are creating for ourselves and our young people a further legacy of long-term unemployment and what comes from that—welfare dependency and its massive cost to the country for generations to come.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Pat Glass and Graham Stuart

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

I would argue that academies serve poorer neighbourhoods and it is more difficult to get into an academy in the first place. People may argue that academies take a higher proportion of children with SEN than maintained schools, but as I argued earlier it is up to academies to define who is SEN and who is not, and they may have a very different tolerance level from that of maintained schools—that has certainly been my experience.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I mean no disrespect to the hon. Lady’s expertise or passion in this area, but she suggests that the existing academies make it harder for children with SEN to get in than other schools. However, the only data that we have suggest that that is not true. She suggests that academies may block children with real SEN getting in and then falsely nominate children as having SEN afterwards. She needs to substantiate that, because it is a serious allegation and if true should be looked into in more detail.

[Pat Glass]

I accept that that is what the data suggest. I stand here with 25 years of experience and I am simply giving the Committee the benefit of that experience.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Pat Glass and Graham Stuart

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

My hon. Friend is right. When will we realise that children with special educational needs need specialists? That is why they are special—they require specialists. It is foolish to say that anyone in a school whom the head teacher chooses to act as an unqualified support assistant can take the part of an SEN co-ordinator.

Currently, cases where an academy decides that it does not want to take a child or cannot meet the child’s needs go to an adjudicator. That takes valuable time and seems designed to put off all but the most determined parents. Parents of children with SEN already have difficult lives and we seem to be putting up additional, systematic barriers to prevent them from securing a place at a local academy that they believe can meet their child’s needs. I fear that that will lead to selective admissions through the back door in the new breed of academies and will make the situation that much worse for so many more children.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

The hon. Lady is making a persuasive case and I share some of her concerns. If my memory of the equalities impact assessment is correct, existing academies take rather more statemented children and those with school support and school support plus—I think that I am getting my terminology wrong—than the average school. On the evidence so far, it does not look as if academies fail to take on their fair share of children with special needs.

[Pat Glass]

The picture varies throughout the country. Some schools in some parts of the country take a larger percentage of children with special educational needs, but some schools in other parts of the country—I think that it is particularly true in London—do not. It is another postcode lottery. It depends on how good the system is across the piece.

[Mr Stuart]

Does the hon. Lady think that the pupil premium model might be useful in ensuring that children from the poorest families have additional resources to go with them, which in some ways makes them more attractive to schools? Does she agree that a system that provides incentives for schools to attract and look after the most vulnerable is better than one of bureaucratic diktat and fiat that forces children on schools that are reluctant to have them? Could not the former prove more productive in the end?

[Pat Glass]

That is the problem—we simply do not know. We have not got the detail. I do not know what the pupil premium will bring. I was talking to a head teacher today who told me, “On the face of it, the premium looks attractive. However, I suspect that when I get it, I will actually lose the standards fund and lose additional educational needs funding. I may end up with less, not more funding for my vulnerable children.” That is the problem. The devil is in the detail and we do not have the detail. The Bill is being rushed through, without giving us the opportunity to look at those matters.

I am concerned that academies will be reluctant to admit vulnerable children because, through no fault of their own, they do not perform as well as their peers. The likelihood of vulnerable children gaining admission, particularly to outstanding schools, will therefore be reduced. I could see nothing in the Bill—I have looked at it carefully—about making the admission of vulnerable children a must. I know only too well that telling head teachers and governors that they should admit is very different from telling them that they must do so. I would like further reassurances that academies’ admissions policies will ensure that children with special educational needs are not disadvantaged.

I am concerned about the accountability framework, particularly for children with SEN. There is no clarity in the Bill on where a parent goes for redress if an academy fails to deliver on SEN, whether the child is statemented or not. Currently, parents can go to the local authority if a school fails to deliver, and ultimately to the SEN tribunal. If a school fails to deliver, a parent has redress through judicial review, but there is no clarity on whether such redress will be available under the Bill, so parents simply will not know where to go if an academy fails to deliver.

It is unclear who will monitor the progress of SEN children in academies. If we have learned anything in the past 10 or 15 years, it is that when the spotlight is put on the performance of vulnerable children, they improve. We have seen that with looked-after children. If there is no clarity on who is monitoring the performance of SEN children, they will simply be lost in the system.

Before my voice packs up altogether, I shall move on to exclusions. I have worked in a number of local authorities, in each of which I have analysed permanent and fixed-term exclusions. The pattern is the same. In my experience, 75% of children who are excluded on a fixed-term or permanent basis have special educational needs. Of those, my analysis shows that 100% have either behavioural difficulties linked to autistic spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

TreeHouse, a charity that works with children with autism, has found that SEN children are nine times more likely to be excluded from school, and the situation is more acute in academies. If we massively increase the number of academies, we will increase the problem.