SEND Provision and Funding

Paul Howell Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I am sure the clock will be very helpful, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) for securing this important debate.

I will start with something that is unusual in this place: a mea culpa. I served on the Bill Committee for what became the Children and Families Act 2014. We debated education, health and care plans at length and how we aspired to their making a real difference. We thought they would make a difference by bringing together education, health and social care funding, enabling the children we are speaking about to have the opportunity to thrive and achieve everything that we know they can and need to achieve.

Sadly, I remember the word “fight” recurred again and again in that debate. Parents were tired of fighting for the right school place, for a statement, which would later become an EHCP, or for the right transport to get their child to the education setting they needed. We thought that Act would see an end to the fighting, but it simply has not, because that has again been the recurring word that parents from my constituency have used in emails to me when I told them that I planned to speak in this debate. They are still tired, still fighting and still seeing children making no progress in a range of settings across our constituencies, whether they be specialist or mainstream provision, as the Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), said. The sad truth is that those parents are worn out.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

To reinforce that point, a lady called Jill Mothersdale in Sedgefield came to me and said exactly that. They are so tired of trying to fight the system and get results. It is not anywhere, but everywhere, and I endorse the comments made by my right hon. Friend.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is right that it is everywhere. A mother contacted me about her two daughters, one of whom she says has made no progress in her school setting for years and is being allowed to sit at the back of the classroom, making no contribution. She will not pass her GCSEs and, more than likely, will never move into employment. It is about transition: children have to be given the opportunity to achieve the maximum they can, so that they will go on to perform useful roles in society and in work, and so that the children of today are not the problem of the Department for Work and Pensions tomorrow or, worse, the problem of the Ministry of Justice. That is the stark reality. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden said, we need change.

I do not want my contribution to be entirely negative, although I fear I may get a bit pokey and political at some point. I want to talk about a brilliant school in my constituency: St Edward’s School in Melchet Park, a specialist school for boys with emotional and mental health challenges, with particular social needs. It is a private school the sole customer of which is local education authorities. Any increase in the fees of that school will be an increase for local authorities and the hard-pressed taxpayer.

St Edward’s School does a brilliant job. The year before last, I visited the school on International Women’s Day, and a 12-year-old boy asked me what I was doing to celebrate the day. I, in my role, had forgotten it was International Women’s Day, which is absolutely shameful, but he had not. I planted a tree at the school with a young man called Jacob, who made me properly laugh, despite all the challenges he faced, because he was in a setting that was safe, secure and appropriate for his emotional and behavioural needs.

My hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee was right to refer to transport, because that school transports children in every single morning and out every afternoon, over massive distances. They come from across the whole of Hampshire. Some of the kids are sat in taxis for well over an hour at both ends of the day. The school wishes to extend the residential offering, so that the children can have the same stability and security in the extended day as they get in their school hours. It is particularly important for children with social and emotional needs to have consistency and certainty about how their day will pan out. It might be awkward for those of a different political persuasion to recognise that a charitable part of the private sector is producing the goods for young people and making sure that those boys are getting the security they need, but we have to face up to that.

I will finish on a point about special educational needs that is often overlooked, and a challenge that we all face. Girls on the autistic spectrum are often much better than their male counterparts at mirroring the behaviours of their classmates and masking their condition. As a result, they are less likely to get the EHCPs that they desperately need. We have to make sure that we do not overlook that, and recognise that there can be differences across the sexes in the way conditions present. We have to make sure that diagnoses are easier to get for girls, who in too many instances will be stuck in mainstream settings because their EHCP has not been granted because they have been much better at masking their additional needs.

To conclude, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden and Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate. It is important that we recognise that the changes we made in the 2014 Act have not given us the change that we need, and we must do better.

Adult and Further Education

Paul Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Evennett]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is something that colleges and local authorities should look at, because it is important that we should not restrict choice, but increase opportunity. The way to do that is to ensure that people can get to the college, that they can take the courses and that there are the staff there to teach them. It is a joint effort.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on the need for more funding and appropriate resources for the sector. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for “left behind” neighbourhoods, and one thing that has been raised in respect of longer-term education is not necessarily getting the students to the colleges, but the colleges doing a bit more outreach, including by going to parish halls and other good, secure places. In Sedgefield, as in many constituencies, the local infrastructure for buses, trains and so on is particularly poor. We need to make this a push-and-pull equation to enable people to study.

[Sir David Evennett]

When I was lecturing we did go to various halls and other places, so we were in the community rather than making the community come to the college. That is very important.

I will close by saying that I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will take on board the constructive comments we have all made this afternoon. My concerns have been highlighted, but we want to see a thriving FE college sector, and the Government’s endeavours to reskill our workforce will only be successful if we use the colleges as one of the foundations of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on his contribution to the amazing revolution in apprenticeships that has taken place under consecutive Conservative Governments since 2010. That ambition has really come to fruition, and the number and variety of different opportunities for young people is amazing. It is a shame that Opposition Members do not recognise that, because the ambition of Conservative Governments has been far greater than that of the Opposition parties.

Since becoming an MP in 2010, my experience has been to have an apprentice every year from one of the schools in my constituency. I am now on apprentice 14; they have all been fantastic, and almost all of them are now working for colleagues across the green Benches here in Parliament, or as special advisers for Ministers. If any Members who are in the Chamber or are listening on their television are interested in a parliamentary apprenticeship, I really recommend it. It is a fantastic opportunity for a school leaver in your area—fantastic for them, and fantastic for you as the Member of Parliament. As I say, it has been a real career path for many of those apprentices.

However, what I really want to talk about today—just very briefly—is the early years workforce. As my right hon. Friend the Minister knows, for many years, I have championed giving every baby the best start for life. With the huge support of both this Prime Minister and previous Prime Ministers, we have been successful in rolling out the family hubs and the best start for life vision across England, and we are now well into the implementation phase. As part of that, the family hubs and best start for life programme are providing £10 million for pilots of a multidisciplinary early years workforce.

We know—and I think there is cross-party agreement about this fact—that we need to put far more support into giving every baby the best start for life. Families—from pregnant people all the way through to new parents and carers of babies and toddlers, and right up to school level—have to come to terms with this new arrival in their life, with all the challenges that brings. They have to try to find their way around antenatal classes, mental health concerns, parent-infant relationship problems, breastfeeding and infant feeding. There are all the challenges they have with finding childcare and getting back to work, and all the decisions they have to make about whether to go for a nursery or a childminder, and so on.

We have a shortage of health visitors and midwives are under pressure, but in the early years space there are actually so many people who would love to get more involved and have a real career path in the early years workforce. We see so many fantastic volunteers, who work on a voluntary basis for Home-Start, grandparent drop-in groups, or stay and play groups. There are the people working in the charity sector as community champions, who bring people into family hubs to help them find their way around early years services, and act as navigators to advise people struggling with mental health, smoking cessation, debt advice, couple counselling and all the myriad problems that face new parents in our country.

As we embark on the roll-out of the family hubs and start for life programme, it seems to me that there is a lot more we could do to upskill the early years workforce for people who are currently volunteering. Indeed, people who are currently pregnant may be thinking, “Well, do you know what, I used to work in Tesco, but now as a new mum I’d actually quite like to go and work in a nursery, and perhaps have my baby in that nursery and be able to work with my baby alongside me, or I’d like to go and work in a family hub and I’d like to be a mental health first aider or a breastfeeding adviser.” Some of those roles do exist, but in large part they do not.

I really do think this is a subject whose time has come. I know the Opposition are also very keen to see much more support provided to help families give their baby the best start for life. So I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to look very carefully at what roles there are and what sort of career paths there are for people wanting to get much more involved in the early years space, and to look at how Government can support their ambitions to see every baby get the best start, while also upskilling the crucial early years workforce.

I understand that there are some 300,000 people working in the early years space right now. With our changes in childcare allowances and provision for families, which is absolutely the right thing to do, there will be the need for many more nursery workers and people associated with the care of young children, including childminders or those giving kinship care. Upskilling and providing those people with the right resources and qualifications they need is going to be a very big priority in the immediate future and in the longer term. I also believe it will give many young people a really satisfying career path for the future.

[Paul Howell]

For childcare, as for many sectors, this is obviously about attracting other people into the sector. I sometimes think we could get the vocabulary better when we are trying to go out and reach people, and instead of talking about basic skills, we could talk about essential skills and just be upselling the whole thing. These skills can be things such as resilience or teamwork, and these are the areas that people who have been at home and who have not got out much into the community would really value, and they would feel better if they were going into a different type of employment. I think this applies to the childcare sector as well as to many others.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that the prestige of working in early years, and indeed childcare, has sometimes not been what it should be. In any society, our babies are the future—quite literally—and everything we can do to help them to get the best start is absolutely essential. Often, the role is seen as fairly lowly, but trying to steer, nurture and empathise with tiny children and to help them learn to play nicely, pay attention, come when they are called and perhaps start reading are among the most crucial roles.

The same is true of supporting families, who often struggle. You do not have to be a special person to become a parent, but when you do become one, you are a special person to your baby. Parents are often crying out for a bit of help because they feel jittery, they do not feel confident or they do not have at their fingertips the information they need.

There is so much that we can do, and our skills revolution really should focus on creating valued, proper career paths and a proper ambition to have a career in the early years workforce. I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will look closely at the early years workforce pilots that are starting in the very near future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

5. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on improving transport connectivity between Scotland and England.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

13. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on improving transport connectivity between Scotland and England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (John Lamont)]

Scotland Office Ministers and officials have regular discussions with colleagues across Government about Lord Hendy’s Union connectivity review. I recently met stakeholders to discuss cross-border rail services between Scotland and England, and to learn more about a range of transport connectivity projects. We are also engaging with the devolved Administrations and other stakeholders to consider Lord Hendy’s recommendations.

[John Lamont]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for such rail links. The Department for Transport is developing a new cross-country national rail contract that is expected to commence in October 2023. As part of timetable development, officials recently met representatives from Transport Scotland. The connectivity and other benefits of providing through services between Scotland and Torbay can be looked at during the development of the new cross-country contract.

[Paul Howell]

The main artery between London, Edinburgh and Scotland is the east coast main line, on which run the fantastic Azuma trains that are built in Newton Aycliffe in my constituency. However, that line in north-east England is severely hampered in both capacity and resilience. Has the Minister spoken to the Department for Transport about supporting the Leamside line project, to add both of those?

[John Lamont]

Proposals to reopen the Leamside line were carefully considered as part of the development of the integrated rail plan. On the basis of available evidence and value for money analysis, the Government believe that the case for reopening the route would be best considered as part of any future city region settlement. The Department for Transport will continue its engagement with local stakeholders as any proposals are developed further.