Free School Meals

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am delighted to participate in the debate as a former recipient of free school meals. I know how important they are to support learning and attainment for children. I am extremely proud that in Scotland we have the most generous free school meal provision anywhere in the UK by some significant distance, with universal provision for all pupils in primary 1 to 5 and eligible pupils who are older. Last year, free school meal provision helped feed 231,967 children. With 29% of children in my constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran living in poverty, free school meals could not matter more.

Despite our progress, however, we in Scotland are not content. We are going to expand free school meals to all primary children, and that is actively in the works. The Scottish Government is working with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to prepare primary schools and their infrastructure for a full, universal roll-out of free school meals for all primary children, which should be completed in 2026. That is supported by £43 million in capital from the Scottish Government in 2024-25 and an additional £6 million in resource spending, with local authorities benefiting from £21.7 million allocated to support eligible children during the school holidays. This support saves families £400 per year and far outstrips the free school meal offers in any other part of the UK. That matters, because hungry children do not learn. Ensuring that children receive a nutritious free school meal is therefore a fundamental part of supporting attainment. How could it not be?

By contrast, the incoming Labour Government have ruled out universal free school meals despite previous commitments to that, just as so many of Labour’s commitments have been dropped the more certain it becomes of forming the next Government. You would not know this from the comments made today, but in a matter of months we can be pretty sure that there will be a Labour Government with a significant majority, and we know, because we have been told, that there will be no movement on free school meals.

The arguments that Labour Members have made today to the Minister would be better directed to their own leadership, which refuses to deliver on free school meals. Indeed, that reminds me of the debate we had after the UK Government’s Budget, when Labour MP after Labour MP condemned the Budget and then refused to vote against it. I think that may be what some people call gaslighting.

We cannot leave the matter there because, in a somewhat grotesque development, we have the incoming Labour Government committing to leaving bankers’ bonuses uncapped. That appears to be sacrosanct. So, we appear to be balancing children’s hunger against rich bankers’ bonuses, and that, for the new Labour Government, which we can be pretty sure will be arriving, seems to be the way things are going to be. It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Meanwhile in Scotland, we have a Scottish child payment of £26.70 per week per child for the poorest children. The cumulative impact of that, alongside other policies such as free school meals, seems to have reduced child poverty by 10% from what it would otherwise be. In other words, 10% of those children have not fallen into relative poverty as a direct result of those policies. Indeed, the Child Poverty Action Group referred to the Scottish child payment as “a game changer” when it comes to tackling child poverty.

One of the basic tasks of the state is to ensure that every child has access to opportunity, regardless of their family circumstances. Tackling child poverty and child hunger is a fundamental of that. We know that Labour speak with forked tongue on this issue, and frequently so in Scotland. The reality is that when it comes to supporting redistributive policies designed to create a fairer, more equal Scotland, the Labour party in Scotland continues to ape and mimic the lines from Labour in Westminster and fulfil its role as a branch office.

Austerity hits children hardest. People do not like to talk about this, but we suffered austerity under the previous Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and that has only been continued under the Tory Government. We know that it will be embraced yet again by the incoming UK Labour Government. There is no respite from austerity when Westminster is a parcel that is passed between two parties devoid of any so-called vision beyond austerity.

Scotland’s children are faring better because the SNP Scottish Government choose to use their power to support them, and to govern is to choose. Sadly, neither of the Westminster parties today will choose universal free school meals for children. I am proud that in Scotland we are making a different choice for children in Scotland. I fear for the children in England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this important debate on an issue that affects so many of the poorest and most vulnerable children in our country.

We have heard powerful speeches from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), and my hon. Friends the Members for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter), for West Ham (Ms Brown), for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), and for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana). They all touched on the impact of the cost of living crisis on families in their areas, the shocking levels of child poverty, which is a scourge on our society, and the rampant inequality in our communities, which is holding our country back.

The cost of living crisis is making more and more families worry about how to make ends meet. Energy bills, rent, and the cost of clothes and basic essentials are leaving far too many children going hungry. School leaders, teachers and support staff are increasingly bringing food and supplies into schools and even washing uniforms to ensure that children have what they need and are ready to learn. In 2024 it is a national scandal.

Currently around 2 million pupils are known to be eligible for free school meals. The eligibility rate has increased sharply in the last few years—an indication not of the Government’s generosity but of appalling economic failure—and now represents around a quarter of children attending state schools. There are significant regional variations: in my local authority of Newcastle, 39.6% of children are eligible; in Wokingham, fewer than one in 10 are. Labour in government will focus on lifting those children and their families out of poverty, making sure that families have the dignity and peace of mind to be able to provide for their families.

An important first step towards that will be Labour’s plan to fund free breakfast clubs in every primary school, paid for by clamping down on tax avoidance and closing the tax loopholes in the Tories’ non-dom plan. It will give all primary school children not only a healthy start to the morning, but additional time in school to play, socialise and be ready for the school day, because it really is as much about the club as it is about the breakfast. Crucially, it will also help parents to save money on childcare. It will put money back in parents’ pockets directly and give parents greater flexibility at work so they can earn more for their families.

With clear evidence that our breakfast clubs would also improve children’s attendance and attainment, they will be central to our determined drive to narrow the attainment gap as well as tackle child poverty. We are prioritising breakfast clubs and have a plan to fund them at a cost of £365 million a year, which includes Barnett funding to the devolved Administrations.

In a report last year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies argued that making free school meals universal for all primary school pupils would cost £1 billion a year; offering them to all children from reception through to year 11 would cost £2.5 billion a year. In the current economic environment, we must focus on more targeted measures.

The Conservative Government have done precious little for children from the poorest families. The failure to develop a good childcare and early years support system means that children eligible for free school meals are already five months behind their peers by the time they start school. Once in school, the attainment gap between children on free schools meals and their peers is the widest it has been for a decade. That is why Labour has committed to ensuring that inclusivity is a new focus for Ofsted, ensuring that inspections look at how schools support the attainment and inclusion of pupils eligible for free school meals, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, to ensure that they do what they can to break down the barriers to opportunity.

[Patricia Gibson]

Does the hon. Lady agree with me that one aspect of inclusivity is universalism when it comes to free school meals? She is quite rightly talking up the benefits of breakfast clubs and the importance of children starting the day not feeling hungry, but does she share my view that feeling hungry after lunchtime, if they have not had a lunch, is also a problem, and some children will miss out unless free school meals are universal?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Yes. I have focused on the role that Ofsted should have in ensuring inclusivity for children who are eligible for free school meals, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, but the focus of Labour’s policies is to put money back into parents’ and families’ pockets, so that we can break down the barriers to opportunity that far too many people in this country face.

I also want to comment on the quality and, in some cases, quantity of school food, as I know that concern is also expressed up and down the country. The Government produce guidance on school food that looks at issues such as foods high in fat, sugar and salt, healthy drinks and starchy foods. However, there are still concerns around schools and the quality of school food, and there is an evident need to ensure that all schools and food suppliers are ensuring that the highest standards of school food are in place. Especially considering our breakfast clubs policy, Labour would look at the guidance for school food again to ensure that they truly deliver the healthy start to the school day that we know children need.

I thank every Member who has contributed to today’s debate and assure them that the next Labour Government will be committed to reducing child poverty, which is a blight on our society that must be urgently addressed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

In addition to working with Gloucestershire, we work with Shropshire on its capacity. We have already announced 41 new special free schools with a further 38 in the pipeline.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

8. Whether she has had recent discussions with her counterparts in the devolved Administrations on the potential merits of providing additional financial support for school pupils in the context of increases in the cost of living.

[The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)]

I agree that, given all that the UK has in common, it is vital that we talk about policy issues frequently, including on devolved matters. The UK Education Ministers Council last met in June last year, when it was hosted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in Liverpool. I understand it is for the Scottish Government to issue the invitation for the next one—we await their missive with anticipation.

[Patricia Gibson]

Expanding free school meals has a direct impact on children’s health, promoting cognitive development and improving test scores and concentration. The Scottish Government are rolling out universal free school meals for primary school children. What additional financial efforts will the Minister make to address educational inequality, such as supporting and following the example of the Scottish Government to improve outcomes for all pupils?

[Damian Hinds]

We await the Scottish Government’s full programme, but I will say that, in recognition of the benefits of free school meals and targeting them where they can have most effect, one in every three pupils in England are now eligible for free school meals, compared with one in six when Labour was in Government.

Support for Bereaved Children

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am delighted to participate in this debate and thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine for securing it. She and I do not agree on many things, but I absolutely agreed with what she said in her excellent opening speech.

Like many people who have spoken today, I wish to focus my remarks largely on children who are bereaved by the loss of a parent. And I, like many others here, declare an interest, because I come to this debate having been bereaved twice as a child, as the youngest of eight children: my father died in 1969 when I was 15 months old, and my stepfather died when I was 17 years old. Both events had a huge impact on my family. When my father died, the eldest child in the family was 14 years old. I am perhaps the only member of the family who has no memory of my father. I have never even seen a photograph of him, because of the poverty in which we were raised—photographs were a luxury, far beyond our reach. My father was a labourer and died very suddenly of a heart attack, while waiting for a minibus to pick him up for his shift at Hamilton Cross, which was far from home. I have no memory of that, but the shockwaves that went through my family were significant.

As an immigrant, my mother had no idea of what support—financial or otherwise— could have been available to her, so she struggled on with no more support than her own resilience and family allowance. I well remember my stepfather dying at home in 1985, also of a heart attack. I was there when it happened, and it was truly traumatic. My mother never really recovered from the shock and she died a short five years later.

On both occasions, my family’s reaction took the lead from my mother who, at the best of times, could never be described as a tactile woman. The way to deal with this was to simply plough on and get on with things. Loss was not discussed. Certainly, when my father died in 1969, my mother, left alone with eight children, dealt with it by making sure that everybody was shod and fed as best they could be and looked after with the basics. I have to say, that stiff upper lip approach to loss—I hate to use that phrase—from when I was a child growing up has very much shaped how I have dealt with subsequent bereavements in my own life.

In 1974, when I was a child at school, two children at my school—a brother and sister—were murdered. One of the children in the family survived. The story attracted huge publicity. The papers at the time showed that children were frightened. I remember that, as a school, we went to the funeral service and sang hymns. I was eight years old at the time, and remember being very traumatised by the sight of these two little white coffins. I cannot even begin to imagine how the surviving child felt. When the service finished, we were all marched back to school and immediately the workbooks were given out and we were back to our work with nothing said. Nowadays, that would not happen. The way that loss and bereavement is dealt with for children actually shapes how they then go on to process grief as an adult. I think that that is why I have dealt with grief subsequently in the way that I have. I am not aware that it has done me any harm, but I know that, for many children, it can be very, very destructive. Debating and discussing how children should be supported in managing grief really matters, and that is why this debate is so important.

I have spoken a great deal about bereavement in this House. I introduced the Bereavement (Pay and Leave) Bill, which asked, very modestly, for two weeks’ paid bereavement leave for anybody who loses a close family member. I did so because there is much evidence that the cost of that would be offset by the benefits to society. That Bill mattered, and it still matters even though it did not pass. It matters because we need to look after the bereaved. We need to support bereaved parents who have to look after their grieving children as well as trying to cope with their own grief. We know that how a child copes or does not cope with grief can have a long-term impact on their own mental health, their wider outcomes and their general wellbeing. How Government are able to support those grieving, especially bereaved children, alongside surviving parents really matters. Getting it wrong—I do not know that we are getting it right—has a huge social cost, which outweighs any economic cost. Put simply, we cannot afford to fail bereaved children.

As we have heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), the Childhood Bereavement Network estimates that 26,900 parents die each year in the UK, leaving approximately 46,300 dependent children aged up to 17 years of age. By age 10, 62% of Scottish children will have lost a close family member. By the age of 16, up to 7% of children in the UK will have lost a parent. We must remember that, when children lose a parent, there is another parent who somehow has to navigate their own grief and the grief of their child.

A few years back—I think it might have been in 2017—we had a debate when the Government brought in changes to payments for bereaved parents. I criticised that move, but it is done now. The argument is over because the litigation has gone through, and the changes have been made. The reason I was concerned about that change to legislation is that those who are grieving need support, and unless that support is adequate the social fallout is significant, and we all pay the price for that. At the time, I expressed real concern about the consequences of the so-called streamlining of these payments for children, and the potential detrimental consequences for their emotional and mental wellbeing, as well as for their educational outcomes.

We all understand that the bereaved need time to process and somehow come to terms with their grief. How long a person needs to emerge from the fog of bewilderment, shock and disbelief, as well as the pain of the grief that the loss of a loved one brings with it, varies from person to person. We know what that is like, but also how much worse it is for children. Cash payments for bereaved parents are now limited to 18 months. I feel that that means that grief has been given a sell-by date, when it is not like that; if only it were.

When a parent has been bereaved, and left to bring up their children on their own, we know that the surviving parent wants to be around to support, listen and help their children to make some sense of the irreplaceable loss that they have suffered. That is where bereaved parents want, and ought, to be—not stuck in an office or on a shop floor, having to put in extra hours to make up their income shortfall due to the death of their partner, and hoping that friends and neighbours will step in.

My fear is that the recent streamlining cuts to the bereavement payment regime disproportionately affect women. Working-age women are more likely to claim bereavement allowance, with recent figures showing that most people who claim it are women. Nobody wants or expects to claim bereavement support, but its existence is vital for bereaved parents who are left to bring up children with one parent missing, with all the grief and distress that that can bring.

Some people have mentioned this in the debate, but having been an English teacher for 23 years before I was elected I can personally testify to the terrific and extremely sensitive support that young people can receive in schools following the loss of a parent or close family member. That kind of support is essential in helping children to process and come to terms with their loss, but it is not always available and is not always of the same standard. I have alluded to the fact that when I was at school, in the ’70s and ’80s, if somebody lost one of their parents or a close family member, it was never mentioned or discussed. That is not particularly healthy for every child.

In the early days of grief, a child will be in the fog of disbelief and bewilderment, and the surviving parent is not always able to help them to navigate and process that grief, because they are suffering with their own grief and trying to navigate their own bewilderment and loss. That is where outside agencies such as schools, though not just schools, can provide vital support to bereaved children, and why an appropriate level of financial support is necessary and crucial, so that the family unit can work through their grief with less financial pressure interfering with that process.

Everybody in this debate understands that we need to do more to support children who are struggling with bereavement, as well as bereaved parents who lose a spouse, who will also struggle but have to continue to be the responsible parent and meet their child’s needs. They will need support with that. This debate is extremely helpful, as too often grief and its corrosive impact are not discussed as openly as they should be. We need to get better at talking about dying, because death touches every family and we all experience it.

We need to do better at supporting children through the death of a close family member and helping them to make sense of it in a way that is suitable for that child. If we can do that, we will have healthier, happier and well-balanced children who in turn will be better at supporting their own children through such loss. That is where we need to get to as a society. We are not there yet, and we need to get better at supporting bereaved parents, because the bereavement that a child suffers is inherently linked to their other parent, if it is a parent who has been lost.

Ultimately, this is about ensuring that, despite the confusion, trauma and bewildering impact that grief can cause children who lose a close family member, the children affected can and will, with support, recover and go on to live healthier, happier and more fulfilled lives. It is really important that we have this debate and keep on pursuing this subject, because there is a lot of work to do here.

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I will look at the hon. Lady’s free special school, but we announced seven new free special schools in the summer holidays. This is very much part of our building of more places for special educational needs, which we know are badly needed in many constituencies.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I wish to impress upon the Secretary of State the fact that repairs must not come from current education budgets, since in Scotland these budgets are already reeling from Labour’s appalling private finance initiative legacy, which sold out the taxpayer. Can she offer me an assurance that the UK Government will provide all necessary additional financial support to all affected schools in Scotland, such as the PE block in Ardrossan Academy in my constituency? While she is weighing up the funding issue, can I ask her to bear in mind that, in the last financial year, Scotland’s capital budget was cut by £185 million in the face of soaring inflation?

[Gillian Keegan]

I do sympathise with the hon. Lady. The PFI deals that were put in place all over the country, and which still blight the public sector today, are a hangover legacy of the last time Labour was in power. There is a very good reason why we should not trust it with our public services again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

We cannot talk about attainment at any level without also taking into account child poverty. The link between undernourishment and lower reading standards and, therefore, attainment across the board is irrefutable. When children are hungry, they cannot focus on learning. The Scottish Government are currently rolling out free school meals for all primary school children. When will the Minister take decisive steps to combat child poverty and emulate the actions of the Scottish Government?

[Nick Gibb]

Under this Government, the number of children receiving free school meals has increased hugely. About a third of children are now eligible for either benefits-related free school meals or the universal infant free school meals introduced by our 2010 Government. However, the hon. Lady should be careful when talking about reading and education standards, because standards in this country have risen significantly, and I am not sure that the same can be said for Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the spokesperson for the Scottish National party.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

Today, headteachers in England have spoken of an unprecedented struggle to recruit teachers, because teachers in England feel undervalued and underpaid. To combat this, when will the UK Government match the offer made by the Scottish Government, which will see most Scottish teachers’ pay rise by 14.6% by January 2024, delivering a starting salary of £39,000, which is much more than the £30,000 that the Secretary of State has boasted about today for teachers in England?

[The Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb)]

In England, standards are rising. We have a record number of teachers in our profession: 468,000 teachers, which is some 27,000 more than in 2010. We value education in this country, standards are rising and they will continue to rise, provided we have a Conservative Government.

Children's Access to Books

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alexander Stafford]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend; reading is incredibly important. Personally, I enjoy reading with my two daughters immeasurably. As a young child, I was read to by my father and other family members, and such reading creates the stories and images that set you up for later life. I will address that as well later in my speech. We have a long way to go, my friend, so we will continue and go back to my point about the pandemic unfortunately holding—

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alexander Stafford]

But before we do that, I will happily give way again.

[Patricia Gibson]

I just want to make a quick intervention on the point about reading together. I was an English teacher for 23 years, so I can say that children and young people are never too old to love being read to; they love it when they are read aloud to, no matter what age they are.

[Alexander Stafford]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. Reading aloud is not just a pleasure for the people who listen to the story but for those who read the story. After all, we are all politicians here and we love hearing the sound of our voices. Indeed, I am telling a story today; we are doing storytelling for the future.

Before I continue, I wonder whether there are any more interventions. No? Then, I will happily continue to discuss the pandemic, but first I will comment on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell). I congratulate him on writing a children’s book—unfortunately I have yet to receive a copy, but I look forward to receiving one tout suite and I thank him very much for that.

I return to the effect that the pandemic has had on literacy rates. What is most concerning is the effect on the 10% of children who spent the pandemic at home without books. When they returned to school, they would have been further behind their peers who had books at home. Children on free school meals are not only much less likely to own books but are much less likely to enjoy reading with their friends—a statistic that has doubled over the pandemic, as children spent long periods without access to books or other reading material due to schools being closed.

As I mentioned in the previous debate that I secured, which focused on the importance of improving access to libraries, something that has been recently reinforced to me is the data that shows that 30% of parents were borrowing more books from libraries than ever before. Clearly, that is paying dividends in my area, with the announcement of a new library in Thurcroft. However, accessing books can be made easier, making it more likely that people will do that than only going to a library.

In my local area, Labour-run Rotherham council has spent millions of pounds on building a new central library, but we are still paying upwards of £5 million a year in rent for Riverside House, the council offices and library, which opened just 10 years ago, few of my constituents in Rother Valley will ever visit it and fewer still will want to borrow a book from the catalogue, which is in dire need of updating. Spending just a fraction of the money that the Labour-run council has spent on putting books into the hands of the children of Rother Valley would be a far more efficient way to improve those children’s lives.

Rotherham, as we know, has the second lowest reading attainment levels for key stage 2, something that the data shows us can easily be solved by helping children to access books more easily. That is where Rotherham council should be spending money instead. Luckily, there are easy solutions to these issues, both locally and nationally. One of this Government’s greatest legacies will be investment in areas that have been left behind for many years. In some cases, levelling up can mean direct investment and change to infrastructure, as we are pleased to see in Rother Valley with the Dinnington high street project and Maltby skills academy. However, providing books is undoubtably one of the simplest and most cost-efficient ways of improving the lives of 1.2 million children up and down the United Kingdom, giving them the best possible start to their lives and careers.

As was mentioned in the interventions, something that is becoming clearer is the fact that we must embrace technology in our pursuit of improving access to books. Across human history, the first true literacy revolution was the invention of scrolls and paper, allowing quicker, lighter and more accessible reading and writing away from the stone tablets of old. The second innovation was the printing press, bringing books and literacy to the people, as William Caxton did only a few hundred yards from where we sit today.

Many of us have lived through a similarly important revolution in the development of e-books and audiobooks, reinventing the way we read and get information. These new technologies will be game-changers for our children’s access to books and for how they read. E-books, which can be as simple a concept as a PDF saved on a phone or on any number of e-readers, allow for quick and free access to books, which was unattainable outside of a library just a few years ago. Not only can a phone or e-reader hold thousands of titles, it is nearly always cheaper than its printed counterparts, often for the simple reason of having next to no unit cost, meaning that they are far more accessible for younger readers in less well-off households. Indeed, many of the classic books that we may want our children to enjoy like we did are available online for free through sites like Project Gutenberg, which boasts over 70,000 e-books free to download, with titles from Marcus Aurelius to Sun Tzu—anything a child would want to read.

For children, there are other advantages to reading technology. A trial programme points to a huge uplift in reading enjoyment across the board when reading on screens. That is backed up by an increase in pupils’ reading outside school. Not only do children enjoy reading electronic devices, they enjoy it so much that they do it in their own time. It may be better for their development and preparedness for their careers, with jobs these days often involving reading text from a screen rather than a piece of paper.

Audiobooks should share the stage, given their proven results, encouraging those who might otherwise not read to do so. In the first instance, audiobooks have huge reach among younger readers. A 2022 survey tells us that 40% of those aged between 12 and 15 are regular users of audiobooks, whereas only 24% of those aged above 55 responded in the same way. What is more, audiobooks bridge disparities that we usually see in reading and writing among children. For example, the National Literacy Trust reports that listening is the only form in which boys have higher levels of engagement and enjoyment than girls. Audiobooks are an invaluable way of making books and the benefits that come with reading more accessible to those who might normally miss out.

Given that these new ways encourage reading and make books even easier than ever to access, how should we support them? As I mentioned, Yorkshire has the lowest rate of children’s book ownership, but given the ubiquity of smartphone and computer ownership and the availability of e-books and audiobooks, the answer is right there. We touched on some of the charitable endeavours in this area, and I am pleased to report that many other excellent charities are helping to spread e-book ownership, including from public libraries.

Increasing access to books means making them as accessible as possible. For more than 350,000 children with some form of learning difficulty, reading may present more of a challenge. How can reading for pleasure even be considered if reading is a constant struggle for these children? I have talked about how e-books and audiobooks greatly increase reading enjoyment, but that is especially true when looking at the impact on children with dyslexia or any other educational support needs, as well as those who simply struggle with reading. One in 10 children have some form of dyslexia. That should not be overlooked as an area that needs focus. Like other areas in life, technology can provide easy ways for many to overcome hurdles. In this case, e-books can be more beneficial than printed books, such as by being able to quickly change font or sizes or access the dictionary to find out the meaning of new or difficult words—a real step forward in helping those most in need of encouragement. The British Dyslexia Association has many excellent suggestions on how to help children with dyslexia to read and write, and agrees that e-books and other such technology are clear game changers for children with dyslexia.

As well as technology, another central suggestion is paired reading, which we have already talked about. A child and their parent reading together for 10 minutes a day is a perfect example. Unfortunately, when looking at the bigger picture, if 10% of children in my area do not own a book, and 10% of those children have dyslexia, that means that 1% of children—nearly 135,000 children across the UK—simply do not have the resources to overcome their learning difficulties, blighting their career and life prospects.

Over the course of this debate and the last, I have had a particular focus on younger children, such as those in primary school. That may be because of my own personal bias with my two daughters, Persephone and Charlotte. Unfortunately, however, it seems to me that the same is true of our education system, which focuses literacy education on younger children at the expense of older children. Over 75% of children aged between five and eight say that they enjoy reading, but sadly that number trends downwards over the next years of education, with only 45% of 14 to 16-year-olds saying the same. That means that somewhere in our schools children lose their passion for reading. Secondary school—for some, the last years of formal education—can be an invaluable time to fall in love with reading before life’s other worries take over. We must do more to encourage our teenagers to read and enjoy reading.

The point could be made that because so many forms of entertainment are instantly available to our children—and to teenagers in particular—we should do more to make books relevant and accessible. Here, again, we can look to technology to solve those issues. As I have mentioned, with e-books and audiobooks, children can have thousands of stories in their pocket, but how do we actually get them to open the e-books and read them? The rise of social media phenomena, such as bookstagram and BookTok, have undoubtedly led to more teenagers reading, with some books’ dustjackets now proudly marketing themselves as being TikTok favourites.

Social media platforms provide a social aspect to books, allowing users to give and receive recommendations from peers with similar interests, as well as connecting with those who have a passion for a genre or a series of books. The BookTok hashtag has over 143 billion views worldwide, with some of the most watched videos highlighting, for example, books by black British authors or what to put on a summer reading list. Those videos and social groups are reconnecting teenagers to books, albeit in a very different way from previous generations. It is engagement that should be encouraged, and helps to make books and reading as accessible as possible to teenagers. Whatever other concerns may plague social media, this is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with in the battle for teenage literacy.

Now that I have outlined the importance of better access and accessibility to books, how should we look to achieve that access for our children? The best way to manage it would be through a British book strategy, with the ultimate goal that every child should have many books of their own to cherish and enjoy at their leisure. That would work hand in hand with the overall education strategy, and complement both the Government’s education White Paper from last year and the Prime Minister’s numeracy campaign. I believe this debate will go some way towards outlining what might be contained in that strategy, and I make the following points to the Minister.

First, we must examine seriously the ways in which technology can help children gain access to books, rather than looking at technology as somehow at odds with reading. I have extolled the virtue and benefits of e-books and audiobooks, given their lower cost and the universal access technology capable of reading or listening to them. They must be front and centre of any book strategy. There are, of course, other ways in which technology can improve access to books that I have not had time to discuss, such as apps for public libraries or technological support for the teaching of phonics.

Secondly—and perhaps a related point—we must work to ensure that reading is not seen as a struggle or challenge for those children who find it more difficult than others. With the right processes, even those with the most severe learning disabilities can be shown the joy to be found in reading for pleasure and so reap the same benefits as those without such difficulties.

Finally, we cannot forget to continue to stress the importance of reading as children grow up. Perhaps, given the proven rewards, reading or library time should be a continued presence in our children’s timetable throughout their educational career, regardless of what they are studying, to prevent the terrible decline in reading enjoyment that we are currently seeing. Perhaps encouraging reading-friendly social media may help to give books relevance to our digital society, and help in removing the barriers between teenagers and reading. That is especially true for those leaving formal education as they turn 16.

In conclusion, the Government’s excellent schools White Paper promises to

“do more to ensure every child can access cornerstone literacy and…give them the tools to lead a happy, fulfilled and successful life.”

Better access to books is the simplest and best way to manage that. The only tools children need are the books themselves. We know that high literacy and more reading ensure longer, happier and more fulfilled lives, and there is no better way to achieve those things than to put a book in the hands of every child. Next year, World Book Day will be on 7 March, a date by which I hope every child will have a book of their own to celebrate it with—a book to love and to share with their friends and family.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I begin, as others have, by thanking the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) for bringing forward this debate. I stand to speak as a former English teacher of 23 years, an avid reader and somebody whose life story has been shaped and transformed by the power of reading.

Through a difficult childhood, books were my solace and comfort, and I do not think it is overstating the case to say that books were my life support. No matter what was going on around me as a child, while I was growing up, books gave me an escape, without which I really do not know what would have become of me. Every child should have that escape, comfort and access to building literacy, which cannot be just about what happens in a classroom. The ability to read the words on a page is one thing, but it is another thing entirely to understand how language works, how meaning is created and how language can be used to persuade and manipulate. That can be taught, but ultimately it is inherently linked to someone’s experience of reading and the written word; that is the true meaning of literacy and we should want it for all our citizens.

I have discussed this subject with Members from across the House and I confess that I have never understood why folk in England, and MPs in this House from England, do not trumpet more loudly their wonderful literary heritage and canon, as it is hugely impressive; I do not understand why they do not make much more of Dickens, Trollope, Shakespeare and Collins, because I certainly would if I were in their shoes. As an English teacher, I always made sure that every class, from the first year to the sixth year, regardless of ability level, had the opportunity to enjoy a Shakespeare play—I persuaded them that it was an opportunity and they really did not have any choice. I understand that Shakespeare plays were written to be performed, but they are also extremely important in terms of the written word.

I grew up in a home without books, as too many children still do, as we have heard. However, I was lucky, because I was the youngest of eight children and I was often able to top up the three books I was permitted to check out of the local library at a time, as I was able to use the library tickets of all my older siblings. I could also use my primary school library, in which I took such an interest that my primary 7 teacher used to consult me about what books he should buy with the library school budget allocation.

Many other children are not so lucky as I was. It almost goes without saying that children who do not have access to books, are not exposed to them and are not provided with the opportunity and encouragement to cultivate the habit of reading will not reach their academic potential. The evidence on that is stark and unequivocal: reading improves outcomes for children across the board. As a former English teacher, I know that when the new S1—secondary 1—intake arrives, the first piece of short writing we ask them to do immediately tells us which children read and which do not. That is immediately apparent in their level and sophistication of expression, and it is very clear to see. There is no downside to encouraging and supporting children to read—unless we count the numerous rows I got into at primary and secondary school for hiding in the changing rooms during PE so that I could finish the chapter of whatever book I happened to be reading.

Many Members have talked today about the importance of supporting literacy in the very young, which is self-evidently the case. In Scotland, our Scottish Book Trust delivers two universal book gifting programmes funded by the Scottish Government, Bookbug and the “Read, Write, Count” initiative, which supports families in playing, reading and learning with their young children. It helps to instil an early love of reading. Through that programme, all children in Scotland receive six free bags of high-quality books between birth and the age of eight, with 16 books across the six bags, and an additional two books gifted to expectant parents in the baby box. It is thought that Scotland has the largest universal book gifting offer in the world. Given my lifelong relationship with books, I am deeply proud of that and the transformative potential it provides for children. However, across the UK as a whole, 19% of five to eight-year-olds do not own a single book, according to the National Literacy Trust. That is deeply sad.

In Scotland, millions of pounds have been provided to support our libraries through the Scottish library fund and other such schemes. I wish there was more funding—I genuinely do—but what is important is the commitment and recognition of the value of access to books and promoting reading. That has been established as an important principle. We can build further on that, and we certainly should. I also appreciate the comment from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about Dolly Parton, which we all applaud.

Cultivating the habit of reading is important. Over the years, people have come up with various ways to do that, but I am quite old-fashioned. I do not think we need to rely on children dressing up as their favourite character and such, although I know they take great pleasure from that. If they want to, that is fine; it does not hurt anybody, but a love of reading need not require such dramatic pursuits. Ultimately, it is learned through appreciating the calm, quiet and powerful joy that is found in the gentle unfolding of an exciting narrative captured between the covers of a book, or on a Kindle, or even—as Members have said—through an audiobook, in a way that cannot be replicated through the passive, although enjoyable, activity of watching a film.

As has been said, our public libraries are a real prize in our communities. Aside from the opportunities they provide for social interaction, warm spaces and digital inclusion, which are extremely important, public libraries are integral to our quest to raise attainment. In order to close or narrow the attainment gap, one important thing we need to do is provide access to books for not just children, but their parents. We need to bring parents with us on that journey to narrow the attainment gap. Some of them may have grown up with no access to books, and may not have cultivated or discovered the powerful joy that reading for pure pleasure can bring.

We need to create a wider culture of reading. If we want parents to read to and with their children—as I say, my 23 years as an English teacher tell me that even at the age of 17 or 18, young people love being read to—we need to get parents reading. We need reading as an enjoyable pastime to become normalised in households. Very often, it is not, and we cannot tackle that issue properly or seriously without access to public libraries. In many households, it is now unusual for the TV or the music to be switched off, and for people to sit and spend an hour either reading in the same room or reading the same book together. It is frankly uncommon—I will put it no stronger than that, but it is less common than it ought to be. The role of teachers and school libraries is of course vital, but public libraries allow children and parents to actively and literally discover and explore the pleasure of books together.

Access to books matters, but instilling a love of reading also matters. As an English teacher, I often found that children were very happy to respond to the encouragement to read, and to read independently. However, around the age of 14 or so, the cultivation of a reading habit seemed to plateau or fall away altogether. There are a number of things that schools, teachers and English departments can do to tackle that, which I do not have time to tackle now, but we need to support and encourage children, and model to them the fact that reading is a joyful way to spend our time. It can be an escape, a solace and, importantly, a companion to us throughout our entire lives.

We should continue to ensure that there are the best, most accessible and richest opportunities to read, but we need to take parents with us. We need to reach out to the parents we have not yet taken with us. In a digital age, reading and literacy has never been more important. Coincidentally, the digital age is also a very important tool to support reading and get our communities between the covers of a book.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again, Sir Christopher. The subject of the debate is of enormous importance, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) for securing it, for the way in which he introduced it, and for his work as an active champion for literacy in his constituency.

I totally agree with the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) about the importance of children of all ages being read to, instilling in them a love of reading and improving their vocabularies. I look forward to visiting the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) later this year to see “Get Witham Reading”. I pay tribute to her passion in ensuring that children in her constituency read well and have access to books. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) for his commitment to high-quality education in his constituency, about which we talk regularly—not just general education, but reading in particular.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley says that we should improve children’s access to books. I wholeheartedly agree. That is why we have strengthened the national curriculum to focus on developing reading, and putting phonics at its heart, to ensure that children can read. Reading is the principal way to acquire knowledge, and the national curriculum encourages pupils to develop the habit of reading widely and often, both for pleasure and for information, and to develop a love of reading.

The texts that young people read play a significant part in their wider development, broadening their horizons and introducing new ideas and perspectives. As a child, I loved C.S. Lewis, C.S. Forester, E. Nesbit and L.P. Hartley, and today, I am ploughing my way through the 97 books that have won a Pulitzer since the introduction of the fiction prize in 1919. Charities such as World Book Day and the National Literacy Trust work tirelessly to raise the profile of reading for pleasure in our country, and for that I thank them and recognise their enormous contribution.

The Government are committed to continue raising reading standards. We place great focus on ensuring that early reading is taught well from the very beginning of a child’s time at school. Following that focus, and the commitment of hundreds of thousands of teachers up and down the country, England came fourth of 43 countries that tested children of the same age in the 2021 progress in international reading literacy study. The results were published only last month, and I am grateful to all the primary schoolteachers and teaching assistants whose commitment to reading and embracing the phonics approach introduced by the Government made that possible. Indeed, the strongest predictor of PIRLS performance was the year 1 phonics screening checkmark, with higher marks predicting higher scores. England’s average PIRLS score of 558 was significantly above the international median of 520 and the European median of 524, and significantly higher than all other participants testing at the same age, with the exception of Singapore, Hong Kong and Russia. There were very high PIRLS scores in Northern Ireland, and I pay tribute to teachers there for their achievement in the study.

That success in PIRLS follows the Government’s greater focus on reading in the primary curriculum, with a particular focus on phonics. It also follows reforms such as the English Hubs programme, the introduction of a phonics screening check in 2012, the reading framework, and the leading literacy national professional qualifications for teachers. My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley mentioned the importance of children having books at home, and the correlation between book ownership and educational success. In the 2021 PIRLS, overall performance was strongly associated with the number of books that pupils had in their homes. The average score of pupils in England with fewer than 10 books in their home was 507 points, compared with an average score of 591 points—down from 598 in 2016—for those with more than 200 books at home.

The English hubs programme is designed to spread best practice in how schools teach their pupils to read. So far, it has supported 1,600 schools intensively, with a focus on supporting children who are making the slowest progress in reading, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds. That includes schools in Rother Valley, which are supported by two of our English hubs: Learners First and St Wilfrid’s. Between them, those two hubs have supported more than 100 other schools in the area. Schools supported intensively as partner schools by English hubs outperform non-partner schools by about seven percentage points when comparing the change in the year 1 phonics screening check. We have also introduced the reading framework, which is guidance for schools that was first published in 2021. Over 90% of schools have read the framework, which provides guidance to schools about how to improve the teaching of reading.

My hon. Friend also raised his concerns about provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities, particularly children who have chronic fatigue syndrome or Addison’s disease and who suffer from migraines. The next reading framework will include guidance on supporting children who are struggling to read, including those with special educational needs, and we regularly speak to experts, including SEND specialists, specialist schools and English hubs, about the way in which the Department can support teachers to ensure that children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties can progress well in their reading and meet the expectations by the time they leave primary school.

[Patricia Gibson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not, because there are only four minutes left in the debate.

The hon. Member for Strangford raised the important issue of children with visual impairment, and I will ask my officials to engage with the RNIB about the most effective way of harnessing the power of digital media to improve literacy, including through the use of audio books.

The Department also recognises the vital importance of the teaching profession and is committed to offering the very best professional development. As part of our long-term education recovery plan, we announced £184 million of funding to deliver 150,000 fully funded training scholarships for national professional qualifications by the end of 2024. To incentivise small schools to participate, the targeted support fund provides an additional grant for every teacher who participates in the national professional qualifications in the next year. We also have a national professional qualification for leading literacy, which was launched in October last year, to train existing teachers to become literacy experts who will drive up standards in the teaching of reading in their schools and improve outcomes for every child.

The Government believe that all pupils deserve to be taught a knowledge-rich curriculum that promotes extensive reading both in and out of school. The national curriculum promotes reading for pleasure, and evidence shows that that is more important for children’s educational development than, for example, their parents’ level of education. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson) about the importance of libraries in increasing children’s access to books and promoting reading for pleasure, whether in schools or through public libraries.

Libraries are particularly important in ensuring children have access to books during the current difficulties surrounding the cost of living. A national literacy survey conducted in December last year, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley referred, reported that nearly 30% of parents stated they were borrowing more children’s books from libraries and that a quarter said they were asking their children to borrow more books from school libraries. Of course, it is for individual schools to decide how best to provide and maintain a library service, which is something to which my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire alluded. I enjoyed working with him at the Department for Education for a few years; we worked very well together, and I pay tribute to him for his time at the Department for Education. Many headteachers recognise the important role that school libraries can play in improving literacy by ensuring that suitable library facilities are provided.

There are several schemes that look to improve reading for pleasure and children’s access to books in school and public libraries. First, the Reading Agency’s summer reading challenge, to which hon. Members referred, is the biggest reading-for-pleasure programme for primary school-aged children. Each year the challenge motivates over 700,000 children of all abilities to read for enjoyment over the summer holidays. I also highlight the National Literacy Trust’s primary school library alliance partnership, which aims to bring partners together to transform 1,000 primary school libraries by 2025, providing them with books, training and support. Partners include World of Stories, the Marcus Rashford Book Club and “Raise a Reader” Oxfordshire. The partnership reported in November last year—a year after launch—that it had worked with over 330 schools and reached over 120,000 children across the country.

The Department is committed to improving literacy for all pupils, because unless children learn to read, they cannot read to learn. Reading is an essential foundation of success in all subjects, and we are determined to drive progress still further in the years ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

1. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of changes to student finance rules on young people’s social mobility.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

We have always believed that anyone who wants to, and can benefit from it, should get access to a world-class higher education. Since we took over from Labour, 18-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds are 82% more likely to enter full-time higher education—that is for 2021 compared with 2010. Our reforms will make student loans more sustainable and fairer for graduates and taxpayers, and will help to boost learning across a lifetime, not just in universities. A full equality impact assessment of the changes has been conducted and was published on 24 February.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

In his autumn statement, the Chancellor spoke for nearly an hour but failed to mention students once. The Office for National Statistics reports that three in 10 students are skipping lectures to save money and a quarter have taken on new debt because of the dire economic situation. Why are the Government neglecting students who are buckling under the pressure of the cost of living crisis?

[Gillian Keegan]

I assure the hon. Lady that the Chancellor did mention teaching and all our teaching staff, which of course includes university teaching staff. My Department continues to work with the Office for Students to ensure that universities support students in hardship by drawing on the £261 million student premium. Any student who is struggling should speak to their university about the support it offers. Many universities are doing a fantastic job to provide further support: the University of Leeds has increased its student financial assistance fund almost fivefold to £1.9 million; Queen Mary University of London has a bursary scheme for lower-income families; and Buckinghamshire New University has kept its accommodation rates for halls of residence at pre-pandemic levels, so a lot of support is on hand for students.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Nick Gibb)]

Thanks to my hon. Friend, I am very aware of the serious issues affecting the condition of the Trentham Academy building, and as always he continues to make representations on behalf of the schools in his constituency. We plan to confirm further schools for the school rebuilding programme later this year.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

Children growing up in poverty have poorer school outcomes and disadvantage, which often blights lives into adulthood. The autumn statement funding announcements, much vaunted today, will only restore real-terms per pupil funding to what it was in 2010, at a time when experts are urgently calling for a new child poverty strategy to tackle that widening gap. Given the Government’s so-called commitment to levelling up and social mobility, when will they announce that new strategy?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Lady should know that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that the additional schools funding announced in the autumn statement— some £2 billion extra on top of the money already announced in the White Paper—and £3.5 billion in the spending review will fully cover expected school costs up to 2024. As she rightly says, it will take spending per pupil back to at least 2010 levels in real terms, which she will recall was the highest ever level of funding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I can confirm that the SEND and AP Green Paper—the SEND review—was not and is not an opportunity for us to reduce the support that children with special educational needs require in this country. As I have already outlined, we have increased our high-needs funding by 13% to £9.1 billion, and we have also designed a package to support the delivery of any of our reforms. That is a £70 million programme that will test and refine measures in order to ensure that children get the support and education they need, and that parents feel that they have a choice in the matter and are well supported.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Kit Malthouse)]

This week we are celebrating National Care Leavers Week. As we celebrate the many success stories, we must also keep working to identify and stamp out any and all abuse. I was therefore shocked and saddened as I started to read the report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse last week. The scale of abuse and exploitation suffered is horrifying. The courage of those who came forward will help improve services to protect children. The inquiry was established by the Government seven years ago. Since then we have taken action to make sure that children are better protected, and I am determined to continue to improve children’s social care so that every child has a safe and loving childhood. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will make a statement on the matter shortly.

[Patricia Gibson]

There have been four Secretaries of State for Education in the last year, and nine out of 10 schools in England say that they will run out of money this year. The dogs in the street know that the Government are so unstable as to be unfit for purpose. Does today’s Secretary of State for Education agree with me and the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) that the new Prime Minister will face an “ungovernable” and “riven” Tory party and that a general election is the only answer, otherwise things will go from very bad to much worse?

[Mr Speaker]

What does that have to do with education? I do not think it has anything to do with education, so let us go to Elliot Colburn.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of (a) student and (b) graduate finance in the context of the cost of living.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

21. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of (a) student and (b) graduate finance in the context of the cost of living.

[The Minister for Higher and Further Education (Michelle Donelan)]

We have frozen maximum tuition fees for the fifth year in succession, saving a typical full-time student finishing a course in the 2022-23 academic year over £3,000 in fee loans for the three-year degree. Maximum grants and loans have increased by 3.1% for the current academic year, with a further 2.3% increase announced for the next academic year.

[Michelle Donelan]

As I said, this will be the fifth year in succession that maximum fees have been frozen, saving a full-time student finishing a course over £3,000. With median non-graduate salaries at £25,000, it is right that we work to make the system sustainable and fair for the taxpayer, including those who do not choose to attend university, especially when only a quarter of those currently starting a course will actually fully repay their loan.

[Patricia Gibson]

Despite what the Minister said, the fact is that the Government have broken yet another promise that the student loan repayment threshold would be frozen. That means that, when student loan repayments are taken into consideration, together with the national insurance tax hike, graduates earning just over £27,000 a year will pay a marginal tax rate of an eye-watering 42.25%. Will the Minister explain to the House why she thinks that is fair?

[Michelle Donelan]

It is important that we strike a fair deal for students, graduates and the taxpayer. Only a quarter of those who take out a loan now will fully repay it, and as the hon. Member knows, the terms of these loans are very different from commercial loans. For instance, if someone loses their job or their salary reduces, their payments will change immediately.

Support for Children Entitled to Free School Meals

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for children entitled to free school meals.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.

The UK is a rich country. As a G7 nation with a GDP that many countries can only look at in envy, we simply must do more to provide for our own citizens and combat the ever-increasing levels of child poverty. With huge wealth in many parts of the country and an economy with the most potential in Europe, we can do far better than we are, and MPs should not need to apply for debates such as the one we are having today. However, across the country and in this very city, the richest 1% live a gilded life, a handful of streets away from the most deprived neighbourhoods in the most unequal areas. We live on the same streets; we walk the same streets; but we inhabit different worlds. We are a deeply unequal society, and the fact that so many families rely on the meagre support available from the state to feed their children is nothing short of a national outrage. It is a clear demonstration that our economic system is not working for so many.

In some local authority areas, child poverty is reaching 50%, while the wealth of the richest 1% has grown exponentially. As per The Sunday Times’ rich list, printed last Sunday, the richest man in the country saw his wealth grow by £7 billion last year, while in my own borough of Haringey, some 8,000 children—a staggering 29%—rely on free school meals. That figure has increased by 1,700 over the past year. The Trussell Trust has said that over 50% of those using its food banks had never used one before this year, so we are seeing a huge increase. Some 1 million eight to 17-year-olds visited a food bank in the months of December and January—I would like the Minister to dwell on that for a moment. We see this stark inequality among many families in every part of London, and not just in London: people are relying on state support to feed their children, not through any fault of their own but as a damning indictment of the soaring cost of living and the broken economic system. Families are facing above-inflation increases in water and fuel bills and the Government’s council tax increases, and family budgets are at breaking point.

Outside London, Labour analysis has shown that the number of children eligible for free schools meals has increased in nearly every region and nation of the UK. It would be wrong to say that this rise in entitlement is purely down to the pandemic. Analysis released in March by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown that child poverty had been increasing for six years before the pandemic hit, with three quarters of children growing up in poverty being from a working family. That is because many people are being paid paltry national minimum wage levels. Where families get the London living wage, or the living wage outside of London, it increases the likelihood that they will be able to pay for nutritious food. The shadow Education Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), is right to say that feeding kids is not a half-time activity—a reference to Marcus Rashford.

What is also clear beyond any doubt is the wider and life-long impact of the poverty and deprivation faced by children eligible for free school meals. While these children will have support during school hours, for other parts of the week and throughout the year when they are not in school, they face going hungry and their attainment, health and prospects will suffer. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), has shown in this House over a number of years, statistics have repeatedly shown that this has a serious impact on the rest of a child’s education, with far lower numbers of those on free school meals attending university, compared with their peers who are not.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady has outlined the fact that child poverty is rising, and has been rising for a number of years. In light of that, does she share my shock and disappointment that today at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that child poverty was falling, showing that he does not actually understand the scale of the problem, much less how to fix it?

[Catherine West]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am not sure whether it is ignorance, or not wanting to tell the truth. All who have signed up to this debate know what our inboxes are showing, what our constituents tell us when they walk in the door, and we know that things are getting worse. One of the poor health outcomes is on people’s teeth. Research from the British Dental Association has shown that 11% of children in England have tooth decay by three years old, which rises to 23% by the time they are five and reaching school. Even though this is completely preventable, it continues to be the No. 1 reason why children aged five to nine are admitted to hospital in the UK. With a rise in free school-meal entitlement because of grinding levels of child poverty, this is no surprise.

Problems with teeth can have an impact on a child’s ability to sleep, concentrate in school or develop good speech and language skills. We need to take action and be bold in our approach through a less threadbare welfare system and a more generous system of school meals provision. We also know the importance of action before school, such as breakfast clubs. As a former council leader, I wanted to know which schools did not have a breakfast club so I could ask them to put one on. Not only do they help working families to have children in school on time and have an early start, they also show that where breakfast is of a high quality, it helps enormously with academic achievement and concentration. Teachers say that, with good nutrition, children’s behaviour is good right through into the afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), who used to be a teacher, will confirm that. Likewise, after-school activities should provide healthy options because, for some children who are in school for many, many hours, this could be the only hot meal—at lunchtime and then in the afternoon—that they might have, so it is incredibly important.

Members in this House have championed the need to address school holiday hunger, and I hope that the national food strategy will focus the minds of Minsters on that, so that we address what is going to be a very long break this summer, with many people on really low incomes.

I will conclude soon, but I am sure the points that I have made are abundantly clear. In response to the very good debate earlier this week on a similar topic, I will make a short point. We do not want to make this particular topic very party political. We want everyone to pull together, but sadly when the Prime Minister mentions that child poverty is reducing, and we know that child poverty is not reducing, that is when it becomes political. When a footballer has to lead the charge because many MPs vote against children having nutritional food during the school holidays that is when it becomes something that really hits home, and something we must do something about.

In conclusion, this is the prescription for the levels of child poverty that we are seeing: first, to make the £20 universal credit uplift permanent; secondly, more help for families with fuel bills, water bills and council tax; thirdly, high-quality debt advice—too many households rely on buy now, pay later financial products, which quickly become unaffordable; fourthly, help with housing costs—too many families spend over a third of their income on expensive rent payments. Shelter, the charity that specialises in housing, recommends no more than 35%, but far too many families are spending way over 35% on housing payments, which does not leave enough to pay for food. Fifthly, childcare costs: if a family has two children in childcare, the cost is often more than rent, so that needs to be urgently addressed.

Britain’s children deserve better. We have the wealth in our society to deliver a better society for all our citizens. We need a Government with a heart to act. I implore the Minister to do her utmost to address this full-on. We must not sit on our hands; it cannot take any further debates or votes in Parliament. Do what is right. Work with us and implement the policies that we need to be a real and noticeable help to families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am glad to be able to participate in today’s important debate about support for children in receipt of free school meals, and I thank the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) for securing it. What we are really talking about, of course, is child poverty, and only on Tuesday, we had quite a similar debate to the one we are having today. During that debate, I pointed out the chilling similarities between welfare arrangements as they are today and the kind of support that was offered to the poorest in society in the 1834 new Poor Law. I know that some people will scoff at that comparison, but I am willing to sit down with anybody and talk them through the similarities, which are striking.

As delighted as I am to see the Minister in her place, it is quite telling that when we have debates about child hunger and child poverty, no Minister from the Department for Work and Pensions is prepared to stand up and defend the policies of their own Department. Those watching, as well as those participating, will draw their own conclusions from that fact.

We know that for some children, the free school meal that they receive during the school day may be the only proper meal—the only hot meal—they will have on that particular day. We also know that only one third of children who claim free school meals achieve five or more good GCSE grades or equivalent, compared with two thirds of children whose families are in better circumstances. This is not surprising, given that underneath the free school meal figures is the more pernicious challenge of child poverty, which free school meals alone cannot even begin to address.

In Scotland, the SNP Government are expanding free school breakfasts and lunches to every primary school pupil and every child in state-funded special schools. That way, there is no stigma, and no child will fall through the net. Best Start food payments across Scotland are increasing to £4.50 a week, and eligibility will increase by about 50%, to all in receipt of universal credit.

There is a tale of two Governments here, because while the UK Government scrapped targets to reduce child poverty, the SNP Government in Scotland have set ambitious targets to work towards eradicating child poverty. The Scottish child payment of £10 a week per child for those on qualifying benefits will increase to £20 a week per child, assisting 450,000 children across Scotland, a measure that the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland has paid tribute to.

Meanwhile, the UK Government’s mean-spiritedness is laid bare as they refuse to commit to retaining the £20 uplift in universal credit for the poorest families, and scrap targets to reduce child poverty while presiding over a rise in it, with a Prime Minister who—it gives me no pleasure to say this—does not even seem to be aware that child poverty is rising. That will not inspire confidence in my constituents in North Ayrshire and Arran, nor, I would imagine, in any other constituency.

While the SNP Scottish Government are doing all they can to tackle this social ill with all the limited powers that they have, 85% of control over welfare is reserved to the Westminster Government. That is where the real solutions can be found, if there is the political will to implement them. However, we know that the current welfare system does not fulfil its avowed aim. Apart from the fact that in the past year, the Trussell Trust delivered a food parcel every 2.5 minutes, if the goal of welfare is to support and assist those who are able to work to re-enter the job market, it seems that the system is not fulfilling that goal: otherwise, there would be no five-week wait for support. There would be no advance payments, which force those who eventually receive universal credit and are therefore living on, or beyond, the breadline to be deemed capable of paying back these advance payments, throwing claimants further and further into financial despair and further and further away from the job market.

I have said this to the Minister before, so it will not surprise her to hear me say it again: no reputable lender would lend money to somebody on universal credit, because they understand that they do not have the means to repay that loan. However, the DWP is quite happy to lend money to claimants in the full knowledge that their attempts to repay it will put them in deep financial distress. Why on earth would anyone design a system along those principles?

Even now, in 2021, we know about the disgrace of children in our communities going to school hungry. We know that free school meals are really important, but we also know that we need to do more to address the deep poverty too many children currently live in, and we know it goes well beyond the material. Most children living in poverty have at least one parent in work, and I wonder whether the Minister is at all disturbed by that.

Although we lack the political will in the Westminster Government, we also know that there are things we can do to address some of the really pernicious problems that are aggravating and fixing child poverty in a very stubborn way. We could replace advance payments, which are loans that people cannot pay back without real hardship. We could get rid of the five-week wait. We could also actually talk about a real living wage as opposed to the wee, pretendy living wage currently trumpeted by the UK Government.

I do not know whether anybody in this debate shares my shock and horror about the Prime Minister saying today in Prime Minister’s questions that child poverty is falling. One of the many reasons why that is so disturbing is that, only this week, the DWP released figures showing that 4.3 million children were living in relative poverty in the UK in 2019-20—an increase from 4.1 million in the previous year. That amounts to one in three children —31% of children—living in poverty. Those statistics predate the pandemic, so we know that the figures are even higher as we sit in this Chamber.

We also know of the serious impact that living in poverty has on children’s wellbeing. Disadvantaged children are four and a half times more likely to develop severe mental health problems by age 11 than their well-off peers. Children in poor housing are more at risk of respiratory illnesses and meningitis. Those in the most disadvantaged areas can expect 20 fewer years of good health than children in places with more resources and affluence. I wonder whether the Minister finds that as disturbing as I do.

We know there is a direct correlation between poverty and under-attainment at school, so if we do not tackle child poverty with every weapon in our armoury, we can forget tackling the attainment gap. As we have heard, school closures during the pandemic have hit the most deprived children hardest, and will undoubtedly widen an already worrying attainment gap, especially in the short term. I look forward to hearing what new and additional poverty measures the Minister thinks can be brought forward in view of the decisive impacts that poverty has on educational attainment.

Not tackling poverty is a significant cost to the state, so I hope that the Minister’s plans for preventive spending to tackle child poverty will be revealed to us today, because that would be the wisest and most humane course of action.