Education and Local Government

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Let me echo the comments that have been made by colleagues on both sides of the House about the many excellent maiden speeches that we have heard today. Some of those new Members are still here, and I think we can look forward to hearing more from a number of robust representatives of their constituencies over the years ahead.

One of the things I do each year in the conference recess in October is organise a community consultation, to give constituents the chance to set out their concerns to me and to shape my priorities in Parliament. There were something like 40 different events involving more than 1,000 people last year, but one of the things that I am always keen to prioritise is meeting young people who are not yet old enough to have a vote, but whose lives will be shaped by many of the decisions we make, so I met year 12 and 13 students at Sheffield Park Academy and King Edward VII School, students at the University Technical College Sheffield, and students in further education at Sheffield College. I have to say that these discussions are some of the liveliest and best informed meetings that I hold each year, and they are a great advert for why our democracy would be strengthened by extending voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds.

It seemed to me that today’s debate was a good opportunity to raise some of the students’ concerns, as people who are at the very heart of our education system. Those concerns were not simply about education, although some were and I will come to those points. I represent a very diverse, socially mixed area, but right across the constituency the students I spoke to were overwhelmingly opposed to our departure from the European Union. I think they were widely representative of young people across the country, so I urge Government Members to recognise the views of that generation as we seek to navigate the difficult months ahead.

The top concern of these young people was the climate emergency. Some had been involved in the school students’ actions, although the majority had not and their concern was just as deep. They are looking for us to take the sort of radical measures needed to tackle the crisis that are absent from this Queen’s Speech, which repeats the 2050 net zero target; that commitment fails them. The Queen’s Speech also wrongly describes the Government’s policies on climate change as “world-leading”, which they simply are not.

I think that the students I talked with would be concerned about the Government’s reaction to the Flybe problems that we were talking about earlier. A strategic intervention to support a company is clearly something that the Government should be looking at, but I think that a general response to encourage and provide further financial subsidy to the most carbon-emitting mode of transport would worry those students. Aviation already enjoys the advantages of tax-free fuel, and offering a further general concession across the industry to deal with the problems of one company would be a mistake.

[Alex Cunningham]

I have just been reflecting on the fact that 44% of the flights at Teesside rely on Flybe, as do, as we heard earlier, 90% of those at Southampton and two thirds at another airport. It is absolutely critical for our country that that company survives, so intervention might be the way forward after all.

[Paul Blomfield]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend, but a strategic intervention to address the needs of one company is very different from a generalised further additional subsidy to a carbon-emitting industry. We also ought to look, in a way that goes well beyond the ambition of this Government, at much more investment in rail to enable us to take more people out of the air and on to other modes of transport.

The students I spoke to were clearly concerned about their education and had very strong views about it. They did want to see more spent on schools. I know that the Queen’s Speech has a line about levels of funding per pupil in every school being increased, and the Secretary of State, who is now in his place, took that up in his opening comments. However, the Government’s ambition will fail Sheffield students unless, at the very least, they restore the funding for the 8% real cut that we have seen over the past nine years for our schools.

Last year, I brought a group of headteachers with a petition from every headteacher in the city to meet the Schools Minister. I am grateful for the time he gave to them and I am sure he will have seen the concerns that they expressed about the consequences of the funding cuts in their schools. They have had an opportunity to look at the money that they think will be available to them under the Government’s plans and believe that it will still leave 80% of Sheffield schools worse off in 2020 than they were in 2015.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the effect of these cuts has fallen particularly on funding and provision for children with special educational needs, and that no amount of protestations from the Government Benches changes the salient fact, which is that our headteachers are telling us that they simply do not have the money to do the job not only for children in general, but particularly for children with special educational needs, who are suffering and struggling as a result?

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. That was one of the issues that we discussed with the Schools Minister and about which the headteachers from Sheffield felt passionately. I had a sense from many of the speeches on both sides of the House that there is a recognition that the Government’s proposals for special needs additional funding will fall well short of what is needed, and I hope that Ministers will pay full regard to that.

The students I spoke to also had concerns that went beyond funding and on to the content of their education. They wanted to see more time spent on citizenship education and on teaching life skills. I hope that Ministers will reflect on their concerns and ask themselves whether the straitjacket of the national curriculum, linked to the focus of Ofsted and the funding constraints on our schools that reduce diversity of subject choice, is enabling them to provide the rounded education and preparation that our young people want for the increasingly challenging world that they face.

There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech on young people’s mental health, but it was a significant concern for the students I talked to. The growth in mental health problems among young people is one of the most worrying issues that I have seen over my nine years in this place. We know that there is a crisis. Students talk to me about the difficulties in accessing support and about the long wait between going to their GP and getting their first appointment with child and adolescent mental health services. A YoungMinds report recently said that 75% of parents saw the mental health of their children deteriorate significantly during that period.

The students had a very helpful suggestion on how the Government could take a modest step towards tackling this area by providing a counsellor in every secondary school funded separately and additionally to the money that the schools currently get. That could make a difference by providing crucial early intervention and by reducing the pressure on school budgets; headteachers are already diverting money intended for teaching to address the crisis in mental health.

I see that you are urging me to wind up, Mr Speaker. I had been given the indication by Mr Deputy Speaker that some time was to be welcomed.

[David Linden]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the important need to ensure that we tackle mental health issues in young people. Does he, like me, welcome the investment from the Scottish Government, which will see 250 new mental health counsellors going into schools, to ensure that we tackle this early on in the process and support young people with mental health issues?

[Paul Blomfield]

All resources diverted to mental health will be welcomed, and on that point, I am happy to conclude.