Child Food Poverty
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I have been misgendered in better places than this, Mr Bone. I am delighted to participate in this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for her comprehensive exposition of the shocking issue of child poverty. It should be a cause of shame and embarrassment to us all that, in 2021, across the UK some of our children are still going hungry.
It is clear that the current welfare system simply does not fulfil its avowed aim, which is to assist those who are able to work to re-enter the job market. It seems that the route to achieving that has been woefully misunderstood. Otherwise, there would be no five-week wait for support. There would be no so-called advance payments, which those who eventually receive universal credit, and who are already on the breadline, are forced to pay back, throwing them further into financial distress and consequently further away from the job market. No reputable lender would lend money to those living on welfare because they do not have sufficient means to repay, yet the DWP is content to lend money to claimants in the full knowledge that repayment will cause even further financial distress and reduce their means of returning to the job market. Why on earth would someone design a system in that way?
As a great admirer of Charles Dickens, I think it is worth remembering that he criticised the new Poor Law of 1834 as being unable to elevate the conditions of the poor, and was concerned that the law pushed the poor further into poverty while the rich became richer. It is all starting to sound very familiar. In Dickens’s times, we had philanthropists and public donations to relieve hunger. Today, we have replaced that with food banks. Even now, in 2021, we know that there are children in our communities who turn up to school hungry. We know that the poverty in which they live goes well beyond the material.
Material poverty is the midwife to so many other privations that our children suffer as well as hunger. It brings with it poverty of self-esteem, poverty of opportunity, poverty of cultural experiences, poverty of family support and poverty of potential. Children who grow up hungry sadly lose their innocence long before they should, yet it seems to be the case that those with the power to address that are content in the belief that they are doing all that they should to address it, as did those on the Poor Law boards during the 1800s.
The logic seems to be that if someone is poor they could improve their poverty if they really, really tried. Therefore, to some extent their poverty is a choice. The only folk who could believe that are those who have never gone without. For a variety of reasons, not everyone is able to dig themselves out of the pit of poverty. Sometimes the obstacles are simply too great, and most children living in poverty are in homes where a parent is working.
To improve matters, we could fix elements of universal credit, which traps families in poverty and keeps them out of work. We could replace advance payments, which are in reality loans provided to those with no possible way of repaying them without being driven into a pit of debt. We could replace those payments with loans that are not repayable, or we could get rid of the five-week wait so that claimants can be paid more quickly and can look after their families, and we could do more to promote the real living wage instead of the pretend living wage that we currently have.
In Scotland, the SNP Government are expanding free school breakfasts and lunches to every primary school pupil. Best Start food payments across Scotland are increasing, and eligibility will increase by about 50% to all in receipt of universal credit. Alongside that, we have a UK Government that scrapped targets to reduce child poverty, but in Scotland we have ambitious targets to eradicate child poverty. The Scottish child payment of £10 per week per child for those on qualifying benefits will increase to £20 per week per child, assisting 450,000 children across Scotland. Meanwhile, the UK Government refuse to commit to retaining the £20 uplift in universal credit. They are scrapping targets to reduce child poverty while presiding over a rise in the same.
Despite their limited powers, the Scottish Government understand that with the Trussell Trust handing out a food parcel every two and a half minutes, the status quo is not an option. More can and should be done to tackle child poverty and hunger. Hungry children are robbed of the opportunity to be happy children and are scarred in ways that we cannot always see. The Minister can forget trying to close the attainment gap if childhood hunger is not tackled. Hungry children’s education suffers. Their life chances and health outcomes, even in later life, suffer. Their self-esteem suffers, and their ability to reach their potential and contribute all they can to their community suffers. The cost of hungry children is far more expensive to the state than that of feeding our children. The social cost is almost incalculable. The UK Government’s welfare policies are hard for Scotland to swallow since they are served up to us on a plate by a Government we have repeatedly rejected.
As someone who grew up in grinding poverty, I can testify personally to the ill effects that it brings beyond what can be seen on the surface. In Scotland, real efforts have been made by the Scottish Government, with their limited powers, to tackle child poverty and child hunger, but more can and should be done by the Westminster Government. Some 85% of welfare powers are reserved to Westminster, so I urge the Minister to ensure that ways to tackle child poverty and child hunger that will actually improve the lives of children and their families are implemented as a priority, otherwise, just as Dickens pointed out with regard to the new Poor Law of 1834, the current system will not elevate the conditions of the poor, but push people further into poverty while the rich become richer. Despite what anybody else might say, these decisions are political decisions.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)
We have worked with the sector on the steps it needed to take following the transition period. This included questions around participation in European Union programmes, migration and student support arrangements. We are replacing the European social fund via the UK shared prosperity fund and introducing the new Turing scheme.
Patricia Gibson [V]
Before Brexit, EU students contributed £1.2 billion to the UK economy annually, boosting the profile of UK universities globally and helping to support the pipeline of talented science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates and medical graduates. With the reality of excessively high international student fees, many EU students will choose to study elsewhere, so how will the Secretary of State ensure that the Turing scheme, a poor replacement for Erasmus, is as effective in encouraging inward student mobility?
Gavin Williamson
The Turing scheme is not a poor replacement, but a brilliant replacement for Erasmus. It is about us looking around the globe as to how we can expand opportunities for students. Yes, there are many, many brilliant higher education student institutes right across Europe, but there are so many more right across the world, whether in the United States or Canada, whether in India or China or whether in Australia and so many other places. That is what we are going to be giving young people the opportunity to release, and they will have the opportunity to go and study there as well.
Free School Meals: Summer Holidays
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Rebecca Long Bailey
I thank the hon. Member for his comments.
These children are not just statistics. The vast majority are children in working families, where parents are working around the clock to cover bills but where there is never enough. They are the children of parents who perhaps cannot work, through no fault of their own, for reasons such as chronic ill health. They may be the children of communities that have suffered from generations of unemployment and who feel their hopes and dreams are unachievable, no matter how hard they try, because the jobs simply are not there.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I am sure the hon. Lady will agree that it is quite distasteful that the Government have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to this point. I note she said earlier that it is ultimately about not just holiday hunger but the ingrained childhood poverty we see all around us. She talked about other measures being needed. Does she agree that one thing the Government might consider is replicating in England the Scottish child payment, whereby lower income families are given extra help and additional funds to pull them up so there is less need in the household?
Rebecca Long Bailey
I welcome the hon. Lady’s comments. We take these small wins where we find them, but this campaign has demonstrated how the Government can be encouraged to change their position when we bring together our communities and key figures in sport, entertainment and so on, around an issue that our communities are passionate about. Let us move on as a House, tackle the root cause and move on together, united, to make lives better for these children.
Marcus was right in his letter yesterday. He spoke emotionally about his own story. He stated:
“My story to get here is all-too-familiar for families in England: my mum worked full-time, earning minimum wage to make sure we always had a good evening meal on the table. But it was not enough. The system was not built for families like mine to succeed, regardless of how hard my mum worked.”
He is right. The shameful reality is that for so many people in Britain today, no matter how hard they try, they cannot make ends meet. Opportunities are too few, wages are too low and bills are too high. Before the pandemic, more than 4 million children in the UK were living in poverty—that is nine out of every class of 30— and that is expected to rise to 5.2 million by 2022. Child poverty is a pandemic of its own in this country and one that has got far worse, unfortunately, over the last few years. Child poverty reduced by 800,000 under the last Labour Government, but the TUC found that, in 2019, that progress had been completely reversed, with the number of children growing up in in-work poverty alone having risen by 800,000 since 2010. Some 47% of children living in lone-parent families are in poverty, 45% of children from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are in poverty and 72% of children growing up in poverty live in a household where at least one person works.
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend is correct in her assessment: the best place to really benefit children is school. She is also right to highlight the amazing work that is done by so many voluntary organisations throughout the country.
Patricia Gibson
The Secretary of State will perhaps recall that last year the Children’s Future Food inquiry was published. One of its recommendations was that an independent UK watchdog for children’s food should be established immediately, so that we have committed and energetic leadership to deliver for children. Such a watchdog has not been established; are there are any plans to establish one? What are the obstacles to doing so?
Laura Farris
There is an opportunity, and in fact an imperative, to involve wider civil society in getting kids back into school.
While I saw the force in the Minister’s plans, the simple truth to me was that they introduced a layer of bureaucracy and administration, and I was concerned that there was a risk that some of that funding would be delayed, or it might vary or be uneven between local authorities. The fact of the matter is that 1.3 million children are eligible to receive free school meals. They have been identified; their eligibility has been confirmed. They are already receiving the meal or a voucher if they are not in school at the moment. If we have the capability and the will to help children through this period, it is incumbent upon us to find the most direct and accessible means of doing so.
My second point is that it is absolutely right that 12 weeks into the lockdown, we fix our focus very firmly on children. I have thought about the sequencing of how we proceeded through this period. The Government’s starting point, which was absolutely right, was the extremely clinically vulnerable and their protection, and, in fact, the provision of food was an integral part of that. I think that 2 million food boxes—I may be wrong; it may be more—have been distributed in the last 12 weeks.
We then turned our focus to workers and the unprecedented package of support for the 9 million people benefiting through the furlough scheme and the 2.5 million people benefiting through the self-employed income support scheme. We then looked at charities and businesses across every sector, whether it was in terms of grants, business interruption loans, bounce-back loans, future funds or discretionary loans. There was such an array of options, and yet the category of people that we know the very least about are children, and particularly, disadvantaged children, because the fact is that their emails do not fill our inboxes.
Patricia Gibson
To refer to the points that were made in the previous intervention, we all have very important charitable groups in our constituencies. We could all reel off their names and they do fantastic work, but does the hon. Lady agree that essential services, particularly regarding children’s hunger, cannot be contracted out to charitable groups? That is surely the Government’s job, and the reason that these charitable groups have grown up is that the Government have failed.
Laura Farris
I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. I do not agree that the Government have failed, but I do agree that it is desirable that we provide free school meals, and I hope that she has understood that that is the tenor of my speech this afternoon.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s Department made arrangements for vulnerable children to attend school, but we know that take-up has been relatively low. Arrangements were made for children to learn from home, but the evidence suggests, certainly from heads in my constituency, that this has been quite patchy. Although the Government took unprecedented steps in relation to domestic abuse, the truth is that we do not really know what happens behind closed doors. None of this is a criticism of the Government. The lockdown was an imperative and it was right that schools closed when they did, but in my view it underscores the urgency of prioritising the needs of particularly vulnerable children going forward, and I see continuing to fund free school meals during the holidays as a fundamental part of this.
To turn to my final point, I think that the provision of free school meals places a value on many of those parents whom, historically, we have not really valued enough. I think of my children’s friends at schools they have attended, who have received direct support from the Government, either in the form of the pupil premium or through free school meals. Those children’s parents have been cleaners, bus drivers or hospital porters—what we now call frontline staff, but even six months ago we might not have used that term about a cleaner. They are people who have been doing low-paid and sometimes, in the context of covid-19, dangerous work. That is my experience of one school in one city, but I think that we can transpose those families’ stories across the country.
I know that when the summer holidays come, they are challenging at the best of times, particularly for families on low incomes, and particularly when you do not have the resources of perhaps grandparents to pick up the slack of childcare or camps in the usual way. In my view, it is right that we get on the front foot by providing direct support for families like that at this exceptional time.
Naz Shah
I will not be giving way; I will make some progress.
Bradford West has one of the highest rates of child poverty. It is in the top 10 according to the charity End Child Poverty. Its findings show that 50.9% of children in my constituency live in poverty after housing costs. The Government’s own statistics show that almost 40,000 children across the Bradford district are living in poverty. Those children are not mere statistics. Each one of them is a Marcus Rashford, except the cycle of deprivation will mean they may never get out of poverty.
Marcus Rashford epitomises what happens in spite of, not because of, poverty. One of the reasons he felt the campaign was needed was that poverty was his experience. One of the reasons my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray) tweets about it and talks about it is that he also experienced life as a child of a single parent on free school meals, just like I did and just like my siblings did. Will the new yardstick in this place to get the Government to do the right thing be a campaign by a footballer or by somebody who has a social media following? Is that what the yardstick is going to be? That would be a crying shame.
Yes, the Government can say that they are running pilot schemes in constituencies such as mine—
Patricia Gibson
I am thankful that the hon. Lady has shared her experience today with the Chamber. I intervene as someone who grew up benefiting from free school meals. Does she share my real disappointment that a year after the Children’s Future Food inquiry, which was about childhood hunger across the UK, the UK Government still have not formally responded to its report?
Naz Shah
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. We need to continually raise those points in the House. The Government can say that they are running a pilot scheme in constituencies such as mine, rolled out by the Department for Education, but such schemes simply do not go far enough.
The fight against child poverty and desperation needs much more intervention. In 2018, the programme reached 2,000 children in Bradford. Although I welcome it reaching every single one of those 2,000 children, what about the other 38,000? Businesses, charities and grassroots organisations in my constituency have been working tirelessly on that, but I am sorry—funding the NHS, protecting our streets and feeding hungry children are not the responsibilities of our charities; they are the responsibilities of democratic Governments of the first world. They are our responsibility. Perhaps those in government do not know how it feels to live in poverty, but they sure know how to make U-turns. For once I can say that I am glad about the U-turn the Government have made today.
Claudia Webbe
Indeed, I praise all the voluntary organisations, particularly in my own constituency, that have stepped up to provide food banks at a time when poverty has been stark, and the many faith organisations that have stepped in to help during these times.
I know from my own experience what it is like to be a child on free school meals despite both parents working, and what that means for survival, progress and opportunity. In communities like mine, this Government have normalised hunger, poverty and hopelessness. Some 42% of children in Leicester East live in poverty. Years of austerity combined with insecure employment means that an estimated 44,000 children in Leicestershire are living below the poverty line, even though the vast majority—31,000—have at least one parent who has a job. The fact that a job no longer provides a route out of poverty, or even guarantees that our children will be fed, represents an unforgivable breakdown of our social contract.
Before covid-19, 51% of children in one area of my constituency were in child poverty—and that was before this unprecedented crisis. Nearly 6,000 households in Leicester East are in fuel poverty, meaning that 14% of schoolchildren in my constituency are living in a situation where parents are forced to make the impossible choice between keeping their family warm or going hungry.
Beyond school meals, this Government have completely failed young people in Leicester in terms of education.
Patricia Gibson
It is clear from the Order Paper that the Government were not intending to support this motion today. We were told that one of the reasons was that the approximate cost would be £120 million and that it might set a precedent. Does the hon. Member agree that feeding hungry children at school is quite a good precedent to set?
Claudia Webbe
I do.
I want to make the link between poverty and achievement. Central Government funding per pupil has dropped by 8.4% since 2013. At the same time, my constituency has a lower than average GCSE attainment level, and only 6% of our students%—less than half the national average—achieve AAB at A-level. Do this Government not believe that young people in my constituency deserve the same opportunity to receive a good education? Do they not believe that it is a national scandal for any child to go hungry while billionaires and big corporations make ever-increasing profits? Two thirds of the current Cabinet were privately educated, yet they systematically deny working-class young people the opportunities that they were afforded.
That this Government of the super-rich by the super-rich and for the super-rich could have listened to these figures and still even thought about denying vulnerable children the security of a daily meal is beyond callous. The Government would have known from their own equality impact assessment that their plans would have impacted black communities worst. Therefore, they would have lent themselves to the charge of institutional racism. They would have known that the right thing to do was to take the data, follow the evidence and change the outcomes towards the transformational change that Black Lives Matter demands. Instead, it was left to Marcus Rashford and young people such as Dev Sharma from Leicester to present the case for humanity.
Children’s Future Food Report
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I am pleased to have this opportunity to participate in the debate, although I agreed absolutely with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who is a long-time campaigner on these issues, when he said that this debate should give us cause for shame.
The children’s future food inquiry has done a considerable amount of work, gathering evidence from workshops with nearly 400 children across the UK, alongside polling young people’s views and academic research on food insecurity to produce the report that we are debating today. Much of what it tells us, as well as being shocking, is, sadly, unsurprising. I know that the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) means well, but I am afraid that I had to disagree with her when she said that in previous generations things were not quite so bad. I may not be old enough to have a memory of the generations to which she is referring, but I suspect that things were equally bad if not worse, and people just talked about it less.
Fiona Bruce
I am not saying that there was not poverty, but what I am saying is this. My grandmother was born in 1900, and what I witnessed was that she knew how to make a little money go a long way in cooking nutritious meals that fed a family. That seems to be something that we have not passed on from generation to generation, but it is one of the solutions that we could seek to achieve for today’s generation.
Patricia Gibson
What I will say in my speech may explain more fully why, although I respect very much what the hon. Lady has said and understand the point that she has made, I do not agree with it. I think that the problem of children growing up in hunger has always been with us, regardless of what generation we are talking about, but in this day and age we are no longer willing to accept it. That is why we have debates like this, and why the report was undertaken in the first place.
We can go back even further. I am a great lover of Charles Dickens. A mere glance at his work tells us that every single novel he ever wrote features a deeply neglected child in challenging circumstances. That is a direct result of his having been sent out to work at a very young age himself, an experience born of necessity to keep hunger at bay. He understood that the sanctity of childhood was lost for ever through poverty, hunger, and an uncaring society. Indeed, his childhood experience —his own truncated childhood—scarred him to such an extent that he never forgot it, which is why he always included in his novels a child who was a victim of a society that did not do enough to protect its children from poverty and want.
In her moving speech, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) shared with us some real-life and very sobering examples from her constituency, which sounded as though they could have been lifted directly from a Dickens novel. That, in this day and age, is utterly and truly appalling. I agree with the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who said that the Government’s role was critical if we were to face down hunger in our children. That view was echoed by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
We know that parents want to do the best for their children, but we also know that it is much easier to do the best for our children if we have a reasonable standard of living and enough money to live on, which in turn will give us enough food to eat. In my constituency, child poverty levels average about 30% across each of the distinct towns. We know that that figure is set to rise, just as the figures will in every other constituency in the United Kingdom, which is absolutely disgraceful. My local authority area has the third highest rate of child poverty in Scotland, which is indeed sobering.
Let us not forget that poverty is not just about money. Today we are talking about the importance of food for children, but poverty does not just rob children of access to proper, nutritious, healthy food; it robs them of self-esteem, it robs them of opportunities, it robs them of hope, and it robs them of the secure sense of wellbeing that every child has the right to enjoy. That casts a shadow over them for the rest of their lives.
I know this, because I myself grew up in poverty, the youngest of eight children. After my father’s death, my mother endured struggles with poverty that no one should have to endure—although, to her credit, I had no idea just how poor we were until I was grown up. That is not a hard-luck story. I share it as a way of showing that I understand, as many in the Chamber do, what poverty can do to a family. I know about the barriers that it creates for parents and, in turn, for their children.
The austerity agenda, which a number of Members have mentioned today, and the fact that families all too often feel punished for their poverty, only adds to the damage, the hopelessness, and the erosion of the idea that life could be so much more. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead spoke of people who have not only been condemned to hunger but all too often been condemned to destitution.
We know it is hard for parents to source healthy and nutritious food on an extremely tight budget that can hardly stretch over a normal week. This kind of hunger does not affect just those children whose parents are on benefits; we must face up to the fact that the working poor exist and many of their children are living in poverty.
To help combat this I am proud to say that the Scottish Government have expanded the provision of free school meals to those eligible for free early learning and childcare and free school meals for infants, and plan to monitor food standards in schools. I am pleased that the children’s future food inquiry report acknowledged that.
In addition, there is to be more funding for more children to have access to healthy food during the school holidays. A six-week holiday for Scotland’s schoolchildren with no free school meals can place an intolerable strain on families who are struggling. We cannot sit by and watch our children go hungry, so the children’s charity Cash for Kids is being granted £150,000 to help local community organisations to support children during the school holidays with activities and access to meals, and this funding is the first allocation of £1 million over the next two years to tackle food insecurity outside of term time.
Every child in Scotland attending a local authority school has a right to a free school lunch in primaries 1, 2 and 3, regardless of their family’s circumstances. After primary 3 these free lunches continue if the child’s parents receive certain benefits. Many Members today have called on the Minister to similarly invest in support for children in England and Northern Ireland and I hope he listens to those pleas.
Alongside the £3.5 million fair food fund to tackle food insecurity, we are working hard in Scotland to ensure that everyone can feed themselves and their families to reduce the reliance on emergency provision. These initiatives matter as we see food bank usage rising. Largs in my constituency food bank usage has soared by between 200% and 300% since November last year. In this day and age that is an absolute disgrace. I cannot understand how any elected representative can be blind to or unmoved by the evidence showing the suffering and hardship caused by recent welfare reforms. It is no accident that the roll-out of universal credit, with its five-week wait for payment, has coincided with an increase in the use of food banks.
All claimants are expected to be on universal credit by 2023, including almost 10,000 more North Ayrshire and Arran households. That means that, sadly, this trend of food bank use looks set to continue, with no sign that the UK Government are prepared to pause and properly fix this system which is not fit for purpose and causes unnecessary hardship.
The food our children eat has implications for life chances, as does the food they do not eat. There is little point in trying to tackle the attainment gap if children go to bed hungry—it cannot be done—and I welcome the Scottish Government’s joined-up approach in that regard.
The SNP Scottish Government announced only yesterday that there will be a new form of support, the Scottish child payment, which will provide £10 each week for all eligible children from low-income families under the age of 16 by 2022, and that payment will increase annually in line with inflation. This benefit will be fast-tracked so all eligible under six-year-olds will receive it by 2021. When delivered in full, 410,000 children will be eligible for this payment. This is yet another front we can open up in the war against hunger in our own children, and it has been warmly welcomed by groups such as Menu for Change, Save the Children Scotland, Oxfam Scotland, the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland and the Poverty Alliance, which describes this new initiative as a “game changer” in the fight against child poverty.
This action from the Scottish Government is expensive, but it is also a political choice to do more to tackle child poverty. I hope the Minister will take note and ask if his Government can afford not to do this. The SNP Scottish Government do not control all the levers of benefits and taxation necessary to truly build the kind of fair society that I believe most people in Scotland want, but with the limited powers they have, they will always do what they can to mitigate poverty while delivering a balanced budget in a minority Administration.
Any debate or report on children’s food and the need to tackle the health implications of the food they eat or the hunger they face is necessarily a discussion about the kind of society we wish to build. What kind of society thinks that children going hungry is ever acceptable? This is an important report, but for all that, it is only a report; it cannot be left to gather dust. It is time for this Government to engage in real reflection on the true cost of hunger to our children and our society, to act accordingly, to fully study the report and to take the necessary action to tackle child poverty and the resultant hunger that is poverty’s bedfellow. It is an absolute disgrace that anybody ever has to go hungry in the United Kingdom. The mark of a civilised society is to combat that in a sensitive and robust way. The Scottish Government are choosing not to pass by on the other side when they see families in need of this basic necessity, and I urge the Minister today to do as much for other families.
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady makes her point powerfully, as she has done in the past. She is right—we have to look at every lever available to make sure that we nudge school leaders towards the best behaviour in delivering healthy food.
In 2018, our holiday activities and food programme awarded £2 million to holiday club providers to deliver free healthy food and enriching activities to about 18,000 children across the country, as was mentioned earlier. Following the success of this first year, we have more than quadrupled the funding for the summer of 2019. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned, we are working with 11 organisations in 11 local authorities across the country—I am happy to write to her about those organisations. Both the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead said that they were disappointed that there had not been a successful bid from their constituencies for a holiday activities and food co-ordinator. I am sure they will appreciate that there has been a lot of interest in the programme from organisations, but my team is happy to talk to bidders who want more detail and feedback on their bids so that we can keep pushing forward in this area.
I am also proud of my Department’s breakfast clubs programme. We are investing up to £26 million to set up or improve 1,700 breakfast clubs in schools in the most disadvantaged areas of the country, with the clear aim that those clubs stay sustainable over the longer term. The clubs ensure that children start the day with a nutritious breakfast. Such breakfasts not only bring a health benefit, but help children to concentrate and learn in school. I have visited one of these breakfast clubs, and one positive outcome from it was a rise in school attendance, with the fact that parents brought in their children early delivering much better attendance numbers. The children and teachers whom I visited were overwhelmingly positive about the benefits of such clubs.
We also remain committed to ensuring that the most disadvantaged children receive a healthy lunch at school. Last year, more than 1 million disadvantaged children were eligible for and claimed a free school meal, and that important provision has recently been expanded in three significant ways. First, in 2014, we introduced free meals in further education colleges. Secondly, in the same year, we also introduced universal free school meals to all infant children in state-funded schools. Thirdly, under our revised criteria for free school meals, which were introduced last April, we estimate that more children will benefit from free meals by 2022 compared with under the previous benefit system. In fact, numbers released today show that 1.3 million children are benefiting from free school meals.[Official Report, 2 July 2019, Vol. 662, c. 9MC.]
On the point made earlier by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, one recommendation in the inquiry’s report was that any unspent free meal allowance should be carried over for pupils to use on subsequent days. Schools absolutely have the freedom to do this if their local arrangements allow for it—indeed, Carmel Education Trust in the north-east has adopted the practice. The right hon. Gentleman has raised an important point, however, and we should look into the matter to see how we can get all schools to adopt a similar practice, if they can. I should highlight that free school meals are of course intended as a benefit in kind, rather than as a cash benefit, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands that better than I do. Our critical interest is that schools meet their legal requirements to provide free and healthy meals to eligible children every day.
My Department is responsible for setting the mandatory school food standards, which have been mentioned. They require schools to serve children healthy and nutritious food. The standards restrict foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar—both you and I, Mr Deputy Speaker, could benefit from fewer foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar. We are currently in the process of updating the standards, working with Public Health England to deliver a bold reduction in the sugar content of school meals. This is part of a wider Government plan to tackle childhood obesity. Sadly, as was mentioned in the Westminster Hall debate, the other side of the coin with regard to children going without food is obesity among the most disadvantaged families and their children.
Patricia Gibson
The Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland has described the Scottish child payment, which was announced yesterday, as a
“game changer in the fight to end child poverty.”
Will the Minister think about whether he could bring in something similar to help with child poverty throughout the UK?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am very much of the mindset that we should share best practice throughout the four nations, and I intend to visit to Scotland to look at what is being done there and to share what we are doing in England, too.
Many of the young people involved in the children’s future food report queried why unhealthy food is cheaper and more readily available than healthier choices. Through our childhood obesity plan, the Government are taking forward significant action on the advertising and promotion of unhealthy foods to children.
In the few minutes I have left, I shall address some of the direct questions I was asked. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead asked about the future of the holiday programme, which will of course be part of the spending review considerations. We have already learned a tremendous amount from this year’s and last year’s programmes on holiday activities. That evidence will help me in my discussions with the Treasury.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned the programme’s value for money. Our independent evaluation of the programme will report on that early next year. I am conscious of the time, however, so while I have detailed responses to her points and those made by other hon. Members, I will write to them rather than taking any more of the House’s time.
I am enormously grateful to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead for securing the debate and all colleagues who participated. The Government are already taking important and significant steps, and we will continue to do so, while working with all those involved in this important report.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Damian Hinds
Wow. I believe my commitment to social mobility and closing the disadvantage gap is strong. I used to chair the all-party group on social mobility before I came into this job, and believe that social mobility is at the very heart of what we do. It is the core purpose of the Department for Education to ensure that every child, whatever their background, has the maximum opportunities available to them. I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that since the party of which he is a member was last in government, we have narrowed the disadvantage attainment gap at every stage—from nursery to primary, through secondary and into higher education.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Damian Hinds
It may come as no surprise to anyone at all that I am not about to commend the Scottish Government for their approach. Actually, in the last few years England has seen record rates of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds being able to go to university. We need to work further on not only access but successful participation, bringing down drop-out rates and increasing completion rates, and making sure that everybody has full access to the most stretching opportunities available to them.
Statutory PHSE Education
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I too thank the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) for introducing this important debate and for her insightful opening speech. I was an English teacher for over 20 years before being elected in 2015, so I have an interest in the debate and I will contribute from that perspective.
Personal, health and social education is extremely important, as I understand because I had the opportunity to deliver that part of the curriculum. Alongside many other subjects and activities, it has its place in the curriculum in helping to prepare our young people for their future in a positive way. Its importance in Scotland is evident in Education Scotland’s national review, which my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) mentioned. We understand the importance of developing curricula to suit individual contexts and meet our young people’s needs, and of early intervention for making a big difference to the risk of young people developing mental health problems.
I listened carefully to hon. Members’ speeches and the range of areas that they would quite rightly and justifiably like to be included in PHSE education, such as cancer education, which the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) mentioned; mental health, for which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a plea; first aid, whose importance the hon. Members for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), and for Colchester (Will Quince) talked about; weapons awareness, which the hon. Member for Colchester also mentioned; relationship education and online safety, which the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) talked about; tackling sexism and sexual violence, which my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North discussed; and the importance of relationship education, which the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) talked about.
All those areas are, of course, extremely important in our young people’s development—who could possibly disagree with any of them?—but we must guard against treating personal, social and health education as an entity all on its own. The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead reminded us that it cannot be treated in isolation. The valuable lessons that we hope to impart to our young people must be built into the fabric of our schools and, we hope, of our communities and country, which is a point that the hon. Member for Nottingham North also made. Those lessons include respect for ourselves, a sense of self-worth, respect for others, the importance of understanding difference in all its forms, the value of communication and the importance of kindness. We may expect all those things to be present in our PSHE lessons, but they must also form the backbone of our schools’ ethos and be displayed by school staff every single day to set an example.
The many demands on time in the school day mean that young people are lucky if they get more than one formal PSHE lesson each week, as all hon. Members present will know. In Scotland, PSHE is woven through and embedded in the curriculum for excellence and its focus on life skills. Learning and teaching can take place in a variety of ways and contexts. The value of experiences in the home, in our leisure time and in extra-curricular activities also offer a rich seam for young people to learn life skills.
At the school where I was teaching just before being elected, every year group would have one or two days completely off-timetable once a year. They would be taken to a different part of the school and they would rotate around workshops. They would get talks and practical workshops on first aid, and people—professionals and victims—would come in to talk about recovery from alcohol and addiction. Those are ways to focus on areas that headteachers and communities are concerned about.
We have all seen reports on television and in newspapers of all the things that people—with great justification—expect young people to be taught at school, such as internet safety, sexual health, relationship education, financial education, careers education with work and CV skills, road safety, self-awareness, positive thinking, mindfulness, gambling awareness, awareness of eating disorders, how to cultivate good mental health, cyber-bullying, strategies for coping with bullies, resilience, leadership, healthy nutrition, the importance of sleep, good study habits, and even scepticism. I could go on for about half an hour, but I will not—I think I have made my point. Nobody here would say that any of those topics is not important. They are all important, and they are all considered essential in the PSHE curriculum, but they cannot all be accommodated unless young people have a PSHE lesson every single day. As far as I am aware, no school does that.
Even if a school wanted to formally timetable PSHE every single day, what would it remove from the curriculum to do that? I suggest that we need to think of PSHE as the thread running through our entire curriculum. As an English teacher, I had the privilege of exploring important life lessons through literature, such as the importance of family and friendship; the drive for revenge; the need for reflection; the courage to battle through diversity; the importance of standing up for our beliefs, even if that sometimes means standing alone; and the power of forgiveness—all sorts of things. As an English teacher, I was in a privileged position. Other subject teachers might not have such a rich tapestry to work with, but all school staff, not just teaching staff, have an opportunity to teach by example the most basic life lessons and requirements, such as kindness, self-respect and an awareness of the needs and difficulties of others. We must not be tempted to confine those lessons to PSHE in a way that is neither sustainable nor desirable.
We are all PSHE teachers—especially parents. As the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead said, schools and homes work best when they work together, and as the hon. Member for Rotherham said, it is the job of schools and parents to reinforce positive messages and positive behaviour. I accept that that is a challenge for parents, who are raising children in a world that has changed so much since they were children. As the hon. Ladies pointed out, the world is changing rapidly and because of that, school and home need to work all the more closely together.
PSHE deserves its place in the curriculum as somewhere for the proper discussion and exploration of all sorts of important developmental and personal growth issues. However, to be completely honest, our entire curriculum is PSHE whether we are in a maths, English or PSHE classroom. It is not separate. It is wound into the very fabric of all the life lessons and academic lessons we want our young people to learn to live successful and happy lives.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
The Government have been very clear: bringing about state pension age equality was an important principle, and one that we have to maintain. We have made £1 billion of concessions to women in this age group but, as the pensions Minister has made clear, there will be no more transitional arrangements.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Mr Lidington
The Standing Orders of the House apply in the usual way. If any Bill, any clause of a Bill or any amendment to a Bill affects only England, but covers matters that, in Scotland, are devolved, it must, in addition to commanding a majority among Members of the House as a whole, command a majority among those Members representing English constituencies.
Patricia Gibson
The Procedure Committee, on which I sit, produced a report that noted:
“There is an apparent lack of appetite for debate in legislative grand committee at present.”
Given that the Government are tabling programme motions that allow absolutely no time for debate, surely the Leader of the House must share my opinion that current EVEL procedures are a piece of nonsense.
Mr Lidington
If the Legislative Grand Committee is proceeding smoothly, it suggests to me that most Members from across the House are satisfied with the way in which our Standing Orders are operating. On the hon. Lady’s point about programme motions, may I point out to her that apart from the Division last night on the article 50 Bill, we have had no Division so far in this Parliament on any programme motion moved after Second Reading?
Schools that work for Everyone
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Justine Greening
My right hon. and learned Friend went back some time to talk about the 1944 Butler Act. I do not personally recall it, having not been born at the time. The point is that the education system in our country is in a radically different position from when we effectively had a binary system, which that Act did not intend, of secondary moderns and grammars. Our education system has been transformed out of all recognition. This proposal is about improving choice for parents, wherever they are in the country; it is about building capacity in our school system; and it is about continuing with the reforms that have already seen 1.4 million more children get into good or outstanding schools. Those reforms are absolutely critical, alongside this work, to making sure that we improve opportunity.
On faith schools, let me explain the situation more succinctly. The existing 50% rule was put in place with the best of intentions, and it kicks in when new faith schools are oversubscribed. The issue is that that very rarely happens, so in spite of the fact that it was designed with the best of motives, the rule does not operate effectively. Some new faith schools are overwhelmingly comprised of children with one faith, because the school did not have to go and seek more children of other faiths and no faith. The consultation document therefore sets out a number of different proposals. For example, proposed new faith schools would have to demonstrate more clearly that there was a broader community desire for places at that new school, not just from parents of that faith but from parents of no faith and other faiths.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Secretary of State has expressed concern that the opponents of this policy have nothing to say. I can reassure her that I have plenty to say, but, unfortunately, I have only two minutes in which to say it.
For any Government to be truly progressive, their education system must do all it can to tackle inequality. Only in this way can our young people reach their true potential. Only in this way can we close the attainment gap, which the First Minister has made the mission of her SNP Government in Scotland. There can be no doubt that grammar schools encourage educational inequality. That is why there will be no grammar schools in Scotland. Instead, the SNP Government are doing everything possible to ensure that all children have access to the same opportunities, no matter their background. If the mistake of reintroducing grammar schools in England has any financial impact on Scotland, we in the SNP will fight tooth and nail in our opposition to this policy.
Instead of this backward step, the Government should be working to close the attainment gap. The SNP Government in Scotland are committing an additional—targeted—£750 million to close this gap, with a new, fair and transparent funding formula for schools that will ensure additional resources go where they are needed. Does the Secretary of State not think that she could learn something from this strategy? Will she explain how this Government can trumpet their credentials of so-called social mobility when there is clear evidence that such selective admissions policies in schools are not to the benefit of all children? This Government say they believe in a meritocratic society, so can she explain how grammar schools promote that when they fly in the face of such an ideal, creating social divisions between children at a very young age?
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady sets out the SNP’s approach to education, but it does not bear comparison with the dramatic improvements in our English education system during the past six years, which we absolutely aim to continue to drive forward. We have seen a stronger focus on school leadership and teaching standards. We have seen a more rigorous curriculum that truly enables our children to have the knowledge and skills they need to be successful. Critically, we have seen schools working far more closely together in order, collectively, to raise attainment standards across the board. I am saying today that I want some parts of our education system that have played less of a role in doing so than I think they can to step up to the plate and to do much more.
The hon. Lady asked about attainment. The reality is that disadvantaged children who get into grammar school come on in leaps and bounds. In fact, the attainment gap between them and better advantaged cohorts has dramatically closed by the time they leave school. Fundamentally, the difference between us and the opposition parties is that we believe that that is a good thing, and that we should therefore look at how to make such an opportunity available to more children. The opposition parties believe we should have a levelling down. That is the difference, and that is why we do not accept their approach.
Educational Performance: Boys
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Karl MᶜCartney
I will continue where I left off. We also need schools to rethink everything they do to ensure that it is boy-friendly and not just girl-friendly.
The third theme is to be positive about masculinity in schools. Boys need outlets for their creativity, energy and natural instincts. They need to know it is okay to be masculine, and that masculinity is the equal of femininity. It is a positive thing to like cars, engines, building sites, getting your hands dirty and playing sport. It is also a positive thing to like dancing, painting, sculpture, acting and writing plays, but we must not shy away, at any level, from celebrating what traditional male or masculine roles are; they are what we as males were born to do. It may also surprise some ladies that some males can multitask. Some of us can cook, wash, sew and manipulate a Dyson without instruction and make a damn good job of it.
Karl MᶜCartney
I will give way to the hon. Lady, who might have some personal experience of my skills with a Dyson.
Patricia Gibson
I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not going to pick up on those particular points. Those in the room expressed their views on that for themselves. Given what the hon. Gentleman said about masculinity, what would he say to international research on 1.5 million 15-year-olds, across a range of countries around the globe, which shows that girls do better than boys even in those countries where girls’ rights are severely limited and gender equality is appalling, such as Qatar and Jordan?
Karl MᶜCartney
Those are some of the points that we will discuss today—and might well do in the future, as the Chairman has indicated—so I thank the hon. Lady for her point.
We also like to compete at Scrabble, cards, Jenga, football, rugby, cricket, hockey and whatever else we might have the opportunity to engage in, and there is nothing wrong with that. I fear the over-feminisation of our education system has, and is, turning boys off education. We need to nurture men and play to their strengths. Boys want to be young men, and young men want to be grown men; that should be seen as a positive. Some say grammar schools could be the answer and they may be for some, but we need all schools to be successful.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Unlike the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney), to whom I express my thanks for securing the debate, I do not believe that this is a one nation issue. It is a global issue, and we need to broaden the debate so that we can learn lessons from countries as far away as necessary.
From 2000 to 2010, psychologists at the universities of Glasgow and Missouri looked at the educational achievements of 1.5 million 15-year-olds from around the world using the programme for international student assessment. They found that girls do better at school even in countries where women’s liberties are severely restricted. Girls outperform boys in maths and reading in 70% of countries, regardless of gender equality. Even in countries such as Qatar, which is infamous for its lack of gender awareness, the girls still outstrip the boys in educational performance.
There were only three regions in the world where boys outperformed girls. Bizarrely, those places were Colombia, Costa Rica and the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. We should look at those places and see what they are doing that we are not. The better performance of girls than boys happens regardless of high or low levels of social, political and economic inequality, and there is no significant difference between performance in the United Kingdom and the United States. We need to look at such things if we want to address the issue seriously.
In Scotland, we have taken steps to try to address the issue, but clearly the causes are fundamental and deep-rooted. We need to address it on an international basis and learn from one another. No child should be held back by their background or gender. We need a serious debate about what is going on globally, and we need to tackle the issue with a more holistic approach than just looking at counties and constituencies. It is far more deep-rooted than that.
Early Years Development and School-Readiness
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I rise to speak in this debate as somebody who has experience of being an English teacher for more than 23 years before I entered this place. As the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said, there are certainly similarities in the kind of behaviour that we might encounter. I have a particular interest in this debate from that perspective. I do not think I have ever been involved in a debate where there has been such consensus about the need for all children from all backgrounds to receive the best start that we can possibly give them in life, which they deserve regardless of the circumstances into which they are born. For that reason, I thank the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) for securing this debate today and for encouraging this consensus that is so unusual in this place.
The hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) pointed out something that I think we would all agree on: if a child starts school when they are not school-ready, the entire school experience from primary 1 right through to the end of secondary is tainted by that. At worst, school is a very negative experience and at best it is tolerated. We have all talked about the importance of increasing the hours for early learning and childcare to 30 hours a week. That is to be applauded, but I want to pick up on some of the points that have been made. Fundamental to that increase is not simply providing childcare, but providing qualified professional experienced staff.
In Scotland, the 30 hours will be rolled out with the addition of 600 new early learning and childcare centres with 20,000 more fully qualified and professional staff. That is very important when rolling out extra childcare for the purposes of making sure that children are school-ready. But we can make all the policy decisions we like; we can sit here and pontificate and perhaps even throw investment, money and resources at the problem, but the experience at home is fundamental. We need to support parents at home as they bring up their children, particularly those who live in poverty and face much more challenging circumstances than we or they would like.
I want to bring a new dimension to the debate this morning because I believe that fundamental to child development, to being school-ready and to being a good citizen—indeed, fundamental to a happy life—is instilling a thirst for learning and an inquiring mind, and we do that through cultivating a love of reading. That must be nurtured in our children, but in order for us to nurture that in our children we need to nurture that in our citizens as widely as possible. That is why I will always argue and kick against any attempts to close libraries, particularly those in my own constituency.
I do not believe it is possible to talk about closing the attainment gap or raising attainment if we deprive citizens, particularly those in socio-economically disadvantaged areas, of access to books, because that is what closing down libraries too often means for too many of our citizens. Access to books for parents and for children is fundamentally and inextricably linked to reading attainment. If we want our children to come to school with inquiring minds, we must introduce them to books as early as possible: not just those living in poverty, but especially those living in poverty. We must support and encourage parents in their endeavours to read with their children so that reading becomes a part of what is done at home.
Alex Cunningham
The hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) talked about the fact that the most needy families do not necessarily engage. The same applies to books and libraries and getting people to go to libraries. What is the Scottish experience in getting people from deprived communities into libraries, and accessing early childcare as well?
Patricia Gibson
I am glad the hon. Gentleman has raised that point because in Scotland we have initiatives. We have the Bookbug, PlayTalkRead and Read, Write, Count campaigns, and every parent with a new child is given a bag of free books for their children. That experience is repeated intermittently as the child goes from birth to the age of five and is supported in nurseries where books—the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole talked about the Imagination Library—become integral to raising attainment.
I do not think it is possible to talk about raising attainment unless books are a big part of that equation, so I am delighted that the Scottish Government have taken that on board. I despair when I hear of libraries closing down in any part of the UK, because I know that that means depriving people of books. I grew up in a family where, if I had not had access to a local library, I would not have had access to books, because the school library, such as it was, did not really exist. Books are fundamental to a happy and fulfilled life, to feeding the imagination and creativity, and to feeding the mind. Access to books is fundamental and must be part of this conversation.
Very often when we hear about libraries being closed down, it is about cost cutting and how we cannot afford them and need to make cuts, but some things we cannot count in pounds and pennies, such as what we get back in terms of informed citizens who are encouraged and supported, particularly those who have children. We obviously want to reach out to people who do not have children and who do not access the library, but we are talking about the next generation. We need to think about what we lose rather than what it might cost in pounds, shillings and pence. The Scottish Government’s Bookbug, PlayTalkRead and Read, Write, Count campaigns offer universal support for parents regardless of their socio-economic circumstances. Everybody has a stake in this.
Closing the attainment gap is very important, and early intervention is the canvas on which we must paint everything that we do. Early intervention must be about instilling the love of reading into our citizens as they become parents. We cannot afford to leave our children behind: if they are not school-ready for a full school life, it creates all sorts of social problems for the future. How we support parents with young children is an investment in the future. We must in all conscience and from an ethical point of view try to create a more inclusive educational and social environment for our citizens as they grow up and have their own children. We owe it to our children and we owe it to our country.