English for Speakers of Other Languages

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered funding for the provision of English for speakers of other languages.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I am grateful for the opportunity to open this debate, which is about a subject that is close to my heart and to my community: the urgent need to invest in English as a second language, particularly for refugees.

I am fortunate to represent a place that is diverse, inclusive and welcoming. I am proud to be from a city of sanctuary, because almost 500 people living in Birmingham have arrived since the beginning of the Syrian vulnerable person resettlement scheme. Last summer, I was fortunate to meet 12 people from Syria who have started new lives in Birmingham, supported by Refugee Action. They shared with me their experiences of life in the UK, and spoke about how respectful and kind those around them have been, how comfortably their children have settled into local schools and what a great place Birmingham has been to live in. The biggest problem that almost everyone wanted to raise with me was the lack of sufficient access to English language learning.

People had different reasons for wanting to improve their English. For one family, it was to ensure they could communicate properly with healthcare professionals to support their daughter with her complex health needs. For another, it was so that they could speak English well enough to pass their UK driving test. For another man, it was so that he could take up the profession he held back home in Syria as a football coach.

Earlier today I met Nour, a Syrian refugee living in Birmingham—he is in the Gallery listening to the debate. Nour is a passionate champion of the importance of learning English, and I want to share with Members his powerful words:

“When you start to speak English fluently, it means you can get a good job and make your dreams come true. I am working hard. I want to create a company like Microsoft. You will see—I will achieve my dreams and goals.”

The experiences of this group of refugees is mirrored by many people of different backgrounds, who have different motivations but the same ambition to be able to communicate better with the community around them. We should support that ambition and be a country that is open and welcoming, but that requires providing people with support after they arrive here. Language classes are fundamental in building cohesive communities, yet many barriers exist for people to access classes and they struggle to find the opportunity to learn to speak English.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. It is clear that there is support from both the refugee community and the British public for having these classes. Does she agree that there are particular concerns that women with children are prevented from accessing these classes, because there is no provision for children?

--- Later in debate ---

[Preet Kaur Gill]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, and I will touch on that later in my speech.

Government cuts to English for speakers of other languages over the past decade have been ruthless; let us not pretend otherwise. Refugee Action’s report, “Turning Words into Action”, shows that Government funding for ESOL in England fell from £212.3 million in 2008 to £105 million in 2018. That is a shocking real-terms cut of almost 60% in a decade. Unsurprisingly, this decline in funding has been accompanied by a decline in adult participation in ESOL classes by nearly 40% over the same period.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate, which is about a subject many of us have been raising over the last nine years as we have seen the erosion of courses. Does she recognise that there is a new threat to funding for ESOL courses, because the European social fund has been a significant supporter of those courses? Does she hope that the Minister will today give a commitment to match, pound for pound, funding from the European social fund for ESOL courses in future?

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention, and he is right. So many Members across the House have been campaigning for this over the past decade. I hope that the Minister will respond to his request.

Last month a report by the Government’s social research team, using methodology agreed with the Department for Education, found that the demand for English language teaching was high, with almost three quarters of survey respondents reporting a “significant demand” for English language learning provision in the communities they serve. However, providers are struggling to meet that demand. Over half the respondents found it “fairly difficult” to meet demand, and one in eight found it “very difficult”. The overstretching of these providers hits learners hard, particularly the most vulnerable. New research carried out by Refugee Action found that 59% of refugees did not think they had received enough ESOL teaching hours and only 34% of respondents felt that their current level of English was enough to make them ready to work in the UK.

Third sector organisations are unable to fill these gaps because limited funding means they have little or no access to hardware and technology to support their teaching.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. She makes the point about third sector provision. In my constituency, First Step and the Angelou Centre provide ESOL classes, as well as Newcastle City Council and Newcastle College, but because of the devastating cuts they are in no way able to meet demand. My constituents and refugees in Newcastle often speak to me about the need to increase ESOL provision so that it is not just a lucky few who are able to receive the gift of the English language.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

It is important that we hear first-hand experiences from Members representing their communities about how difficult it has been and the impact of cuts.

It is disingenuous for the Education Secretary to praise ESOL as a way towards social mobility and inclusion without providing much needed resources. Women are disproportionately impacted by barriers to ESOL and they miss out on the benefits that those who are able to learn English gain. More than three quarters of parents said that a lack of childcare had been a barrier to their ability to attend English lessons. For those on a low income, practical and logistical barriers exist. A quarter of refugee respondents, for example, had not been able to access any financial assistance to pay for travel to classes. That can mean people are forced to miss classes because they are unable to travel to them.

Some groups are excluded altogether from accessing English, such as asylum seekers, who in England become eligible for funding only if they have been waiting for a decision on their claim for six months or longer. That includes a broader issue with the current resettlement process that researchers from the University of Sussex found is leading

“to a tragic waste of refugees’ unfulfilled potential”.

The Government frequently talk about the importance of ESOL provision for refugees. Back in 2016, after many years of ESOL cuts, pressure from the Opposition Benches, from charities and from civil society organisations forced the Government to give additional funding for people arriving under the Syrian vulnerable person resettlement scheme. Although welcome, this fairly modest pot of money supported only one group of people to learn English, and therefore cannot be seen as a solution to the wider problems of access to ESOL.

The Government’s 2018 integrated communities Green Paper acknowledged the vital importance of English for integration but gave no new money specifically for ESOL. In their 2018 immigration White Paper, the Government committed to

“an ambitious and well-funded English language strategy to ensure that everyone in this country, especially those with newly recognised refugee status, are supported to speak the same language”.

Once again, however, there was no new funding. The Government’s failure to act flies in the face of public opinion, which is strongly in favour of supporting people to learn English. For example, recent independent polling by YouGov shows that 91% of the British public believe it is important that refugees who come to the UK learn to speak English. If the Government are serious about allowing everyone the possibility to learn English, investment must be made, not empty promises.

Informal ESOL learning groups run by volunteers and community organisations across the country are a vital part of learning, and we know that they are often fantastic community assets. There is good work ongoing to help reach learners in segmented communities, and we should continue to work to ensure that such groups are joined up and co-ordinated.

There are other innovative forms of ESOL that should also be encouraged. In September, the adult education budget will be devolved to six combined authorities and the Greater London Authority, allowing for creative regional ways of delivering ESOL teaching. For example, the West Midlands Combined Authority is currently exploring ways of delivering more ESOL in workplaces, specific to certain sectors, to firm up the link between learning English and employment. Those new powers and responsibilities need to be matched with appropriate resources, so will the Minister tell us what they will be?

Thus far the Government have ignored the moral case, but perhaps they will listen to the economic one. Much of people’s passion to learn English comes from their desire to find work. Although it is certainly only part of the integration picture, for many it is the main motivation to learn. If people had access to eight hours of ESOL classes a week, the taxpayer would be fully reimbursed for two years of those classes after an individual’s first eight months of employment at the national average wage. In the case of supporting refugees to access ESOL, the cost of providing that volume of learning would be just £42 million a year.

Moreover, leaving people to flounder without the ability to speak the language can have a detrimental effect on their mental health and wellbeing, and lead to isolation and loneliness, all of which are extremely costly to the state and society. Investing in people who want to learn English is a smart thing to do.

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Will she join me in suggesting that the Minister might do well to look at the German example? All refugees in Germany have access to a 600-hour language course, which enables them to learn to speak German. Clearly the German Government and the German economy see an economic return on that investment, as well as a social return in terms of mental wellbeing.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention. I was not aware of the German example, and I think that the Minister will be keen to look at it after this debate.

All political parties talk of the importance of helping people to become productive, equal partners in their communities, and supporting people such as Nour to achieve their goals. However, too often the cuts to ESOL that we have seen under the coalition and Conservative Governments have prevented that from happening.

Today I want to ask the Minister four questions. First, will she act now to ensure that everyone can learn English? Secondly, will she commit to producing a formal ESOL strategy for England? Thirdly, what steps is she taking to ensure that people who face particular barriers to learning, such as those with caring responsibilities or difficult travel arrangements, are given the resources they need to overcome them, and to ensure that ESOL provision is always accessible? Finally, in order to have an inclusive, welcoming country, additional investment is necessary to ensure that everyone who needs it is given the opportunity to access high-quality, sufficient English language teaching, so will she support my call and take these demands to the Treasury in advance of the forthcoming spending review?

--- Later in debate ---

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. We have heard some excellent testimonies from hon. Members and their areas. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for her work on the all-party parliamentary group on social integration. Some of the work that it has produced is in line with that of Refugee Action.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), who mentioned Paul Hook and his work as head of campaigns for Refugee Action. I also put on record my thanks to Refugee Action and Paul Hook, and the many organisations that work not just on access to ESOL for refugees, but on the “Lift the Ban” campaign, which has been mentioned. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting adult education providers in Birmingham and the students who attended there.

Although we welcome the strategy, we have not heard much detail, which is disappointing. The case has been made today for investing in refugees, which means more funding, because post-16 funding has not been protected—

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Parental Involvement in Teaching: Equality Act

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Godsiff]

There are 256 primary schools throughout Birmingham, as I said, where meetings take place all the time between parents and teachers. I do not accept the argument that there could not be parents meetings at the other two schools in Birmingham. If the headteacher or any other teachers felt that such a meeting could develop an unpleasant atmosphere, all they had to do was ask the police to be present. They would gladly have been present. Otherwise, they could have asked for local councillors and the MPs to be present, but no such things happened.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Godsiff]

I have given way a lot, but I will in a moment.

After each demonstration, the parents had email correspondence with the police superintendent to seek written confirmation that the police were satisfied with the way the protest had been conducted and they asked each time whether any arrests had taken place or cautions been issued. I have seen copies of the email correspondence and confirmation by the police superintendent—whom I have known and dealt with for many years—that no arrests were made or cautions given. I make the point again that, during the time the demonstrations have taken place, no arrests have been made because, according to the police, no laws have been broken.

I was finally, when I met with protesters at my house, shown a petition signed by 229 parents expressing no confidence in the headteacher. I subsequently spoke to the police superintendent, whom I had spoken to regularly throughout the protests. After listening to the different accounts of the headteacher, the parents who were protesting and the police, I came to the conclusion that the parents who were protesting had some valid reasons for doing so, as the headteacher seemed totally unwilling to have meetings with the parents to address their concerns and to seek a compromise to resolve the conflict.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Godsiff]

I have given way on many occasions.

I told the protesters this and I also told them that they had made their point and that the protests should end. I reiterated this when they came to see me at my surgery, which was filmed on phone camera and put into the public domain in an abridged version. [Interruption.]

[Mr Godsiff]

I am obliged to you, Mr Speaker.

I have to say that the breakdown in trust between the headteacher and the parents has not been helped by certain tweets that the headteacher has put out. She is, of course, perfectly entitled to tweet what she wants to, as is everybody else, but to call parents who are participating in highly organised police-supervised protests a “mob” which needs to be “sorted” and accuses Muslim parents—mostly young women—of “homophobic hatred” and to say that

“if we allow parents to think consult means demand resignations if we don't get our way”

is not exactly helpful in reducing tension because it is immediately recycled on multiple social media sites, which builds up a frenzy of hatred against parents. As I have said, they are mostly young mothers who have done nothing wrong. They are good mothers who want to express concern about what their children are telling them.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

My hon. Friend has referenced concerns on numerous occasions, but he has not been able to articulate them. Having seen the literature, I am not sure what he and the parents are referencing.

History Curriculum: Migration

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered teaching migration in the history curriculum.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Sir Gary. At the end of last year, I joined a group of young students, members of the brilliant Advocacy Academy in my constituency, in a protest outside the Department for Education. They were delivering a letter to the Secretary of State, and their message was simple:

“Our history is British history.”

Their history—that of a diverse group of young south Londoners—is the history of our nation, and the history curriculum taught in our schools should reflect that.

I was extremely disappointed with the Minister’s response to that letter. It did not really acknowledge any deficiency in the current curriculum; it pointed to flexibility within the curriculum as evidence that there is no problem, and confirmed that the Government have no plans to change it. I am pleased to have secured this debate, because the Minister’s response ignored some really significant issues.

In preparing for the debate, I have drawn on research by the Runnymede Trust and the Royal Historical Society and on engagement work undertaken by the parliamentary digital engagement team. I thank everyone who took part in the online survey on this topic, the results of which I will return to later.

More than one in six children aged nought to 15 in England and Wales is from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. BAME young people make up more than a quarter of state-funded primary and secondary school pupils in England, but despite Britain’s increasingly diverse classrooms, and notwithstanding some recent changes in the options available in the curriculum, the history taught in schools remains focused on narrow and celebrated accounts of “our island story”. As one young person who responded to the Runnymede Trust’s consultation said,

“it’s the Tudors and the Tudors and the Tudors”.

The approach that predominates in history teaching often results in an understanding that is incomplete and inaccurate. Students struggle to connect different periods in our history, to connect British history to the wider global story, or to place themselves within the narrative. Yet British history is the history of migration to these islands. None of our families was always here. Whether our ancestors were Roman invaders, Normans from northern France, Huguenots fleeing persecution or Irish immigrants fleeing starvation during the potato famine, whether our family story is rooted in the painful, shameful history of the colonisation of parts of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, or whether our forebears came to the UK as freed slaves in the 19th century or as Commonwealth citizens after the second world war, all of us can find our story in the history of migration. Teaching that history from every possible perspective helps us to find that story.

Migration has shaped not only individual family stories, but places and communities. The town where I grew up, Ormskirk in Lancashire, has a Viking name. We have Roman cities such as Bath; cities such as Liverpool and Bristol with links to the shameful history of slavery; and Spitalfields, which has been formed, shaped and sustained by successive generations of migrants, as is powerfully illustrated by the mosque on Brick Lane, which was previously a synagogue and, before that, a Huguenot chapel. Every community, as well as every family, has a migration story.

A migration-focused approach to British history both globalises it, placing it within a wider international context, and localises it, opening up previously marginalised and untold stories about specific times and places, yet the history curriculum is struggling to engage students from all backgrounds. The Royal Historical Society’s race, ethnicity and equality report, which was published in October 2018, highlights the low uptake of history as a school subject by BAME pupils and the low levels of undergraduate history admissions for BAME students.

Racial and ethnic inequality affects history more acutely than most other disciplines. What we were taught in history lessons in school has a huge impact on our understanding of history, yet history is not a science; it is never complete and is never completely objective. Sources and perspectives matter. Whose story is told, and from which perspective, informs our understanding of who was important and powerful, who contributed, who were the heroes and who were the villains. A partial telling can leave people and communities entirely invisible and leave stories that affected hundreds of thousands of people completely untold. The way in which history is currently taught contains too many artificial binaries, such as world versus British history, or BAME versus British history. World history is British history, and BAME history is British history too.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that, to genuinely recognise the contribution of communities that have come to the United Kingdom, we need to teach an honest history of Britain, including the repression and exploitation that has occurred in its name, alongside the positive and progressive parts?

[Helen Hayes]

That is exactly the argument I will go on to make: a migration-focused articulation of British history is also a more accurate, rigorous and—as my hon. Friend rightly says—honest version of British history. That is a really important point.

The understanding that we derive from history lessons in school informs our sense of national identity. It informs the internal narrative that runs in each of our minds when we hear the word “British”—who is included in that term, and who is not. Too often, what we are taught in school leads to a characterisation of Britishness that is only partial. During the Windrush scandal last year, Ministers had to be reminded again and again in the House of Commons Chamber that the citizens who had been denied their right to be in the UK by the Home Office were not foreign nationals whose status was in doubt, but British citizens. They had come to the UK as British citizens as a consequence of the British Nationality Act 1948, which granted citizenship to Commonwealth citizens—itself a consequence of the long and painful history of British colonialism.

The current history curriculum offers some opportunity to teach migration, but there is little explicit focus on internal racial and ethnic diversity within Britain. It also tends to downplay our internal diverse histories; in addition to race, they include gender, class, sexuality and religion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right; quality teaching with a differentiated approach ensures that pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, including dyslexia, develop key skills, such as spelling. We are funding the Whole School SEND Consortium, in order to bring together practitioners and networks, so that they can build a community of practice, identify school SEND improvements, and exchange knowledge and expertise.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

T7. A recent survey I sent to schools in my constituency found that 82% have had their budget cut in real terms for the current academic year, and 88% were pessimistic about their funding over the next three years. Will the Minister meet me and headteachers from my constituency to discuss these findings in more detail, including the implications of the Government’s cuts for our children and young people?

[Nick Gibb]

The national funding formula came into effect in 2018-19, the last financial year, and it is in effect in this financial year, 2019-20. We are maintaining per-pupil spending in real terms in both those financial years. As I have said, since 2017 we have been allocating to local authorities more money for every pupil in every school.

School Funding

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), who made some excellent points, and I congratulate her on this debate. I declare an interest as vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Prior to this debate, I received messages from parents, teachers and staff at schools in my constituency, who are rightly concerned. We know the statistics, even if the Government often seem unwilling to accept them. The Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that school funding is down by £1.7 billion in real terms since 2014-15, while one in four primaries and one in six secondary schools have had their funding cut in cash terms this year.

According to the National Education Union, in my constituency the per-pupil funding between 2015 and 2018 dropped by £347. When we discuss the numbers and the scale of cuts, we must remember the impact on staffing and resources and what that means in practice for our schools and our children. Last week, I met the headteacher of a school in my constituency who was worried about the cuts she was being forced to make, and the impact it would have on the children she and other staff members were trying to support, especially those with additional needs who were awaiting assessments or specialist provision.

A headteacher of another local primary school contacted me about the £1 million deficit the school is facing as a result of increased costs to schools, uplifts in pension contributions and the planned fair funding formula. The school is about to cut six teaching assistants who currently support SEN children and it will need to make further reductions to try and prepare for a 9.3% cut in overall funding.

Meanwhile, a year 5 teacher wrote to me following an hour-and-a-half stock audit at his school, which was done to limit the stock they use. For example, six glue sticks were to be used per half term. The teacher is worried about what happens next and the headteachers told me they were unsure how they will manage to maintain their currently good provision. Does the Minister have any answers? What does he say to the children and their parents at the 10 schools in Birmingham that now close at lunchtime on Fridays because they cannot afford to stay open for longer?

Constituents and school staff have contacted me about this debate. They are not asking for more money to support children, but they are increasingly asking for the savage cuts to be less vicious, and asking whether the cuts can be graduated to try and minimise the negative impact they are having—and will have—on children and young people. Let me be clear: I am asking for more money.

As a mother with two children at school, I think this is a shocking state of affairs and a situation of which the Government should be thoroughly ashamed. The Government have cut funding while expecting schools to do more. Schools are meant to manage the increasingly complex needs of children with mental health problems, special educational needs and disabilities. The LGA estimates that councils are facing a high-needs funding shortfall of £472 million in the 2018-19 financial year and that the funding gap could rise to £1.6 billion by 2021.

With schools close to breaking point, having already cut resources, staff and opening hours, how are they meant to support children and young people with complex needs? The Children’s Commissioner said that the Government’s plans required quadrupling funding to ensure there are no gaps and black holes for children who need support with their mental health. Does the Minister agree that in order to invest in prevention as well as treatment of symptoms, schools must be sufficiently resourced? Can he tell us what steps are being taken to achieve that?

Speech, Language and Communication Support for Children

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries.

I start by acknowledging the tremendous support and activism there has been throughout the country to raise the profile of the “Bercow: Ten Years On” report and the need to improve speech, language and communication support for children and young people. That support is essential in improving the lives of the more than 1.4 million children and young people in the UK who have communication difficulties, too many of whom are not getting the support they need.

I welcome the representatives of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists who are here today, and thank it for all the work it has done. I also put on the record my thanks to Gillian Rudd from Birmingham City University in my constituency for her work raising awareness of this matter.

The petition on Parliament’s website regarding the “Bercow: Ten Years On” report has more than 10,500 signatures. That demonstrates the public’s desire to ensure that support for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs is improved, along with the support for their families, carers, teachers and other professionals.

The nationwide figures are stark. More than 10% of children and young people in the UK—some 1.4 million—have some form of persistent, long-term SLCN, and in areas of social disadvantage up to 50% of children can start school with delayed language or other identified SLCN. Across Birmingham, that translates to more than 21,000 children and young people with communication needs, 7.6% of whom will have a developmental language disorder and at least 1% of whom will stammer. Those children and young people would likely benefit from long-term support to enable them to achieve their full potential.

Let us not forget that we are also talking about the need for parents, carers, teachers and other professionals to be supported and equipped with the skills that they need. Those who have difficulty communicating can have problems with understanding and expressing themselves, including in social interactions. Imagine for a moment not being able to make yourself understood, not being able to understand what is being said to you, and not being able to make friends or develop positive relationships; it is a truly frightening thought.

Left unidentified and unsupported, difficulties with speech, language and communication can have a huge impact on children and young people’s life chances across a wide range of areas: educational attainment, behavioural issues, mental health and wellbeing, health inequalities, employment prospects, and interactions with the criminal justice system. “Bercow: Ten Years On” has demonstrated that more needs to be done to ensure better speech, language and communication support for children and young people who have SLCN.

The Minister has written to me outlining some of the things that the Government are doing, including focusing on closing the word gap at age five and working more closely with Public Health England to support health visitors and early years practitioners. That is a good start, but more needs to be done, particularly for the children and young people who need help beyond the age of five. Can the Minister confirm what discussions his Department has had with the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Justice, and the Youth Justice Board regarding the report? Furthermore, what plans does his Department have to extend the proposals to improve identification and support in respect of SLCN to children over the age of five?

As the Minister knows, I have written to the Prime Minister asking what the Department of Health and Social Care is doing in response to the report, given the need for specialist services. Joint commissioning between education and health, and the impact of communication difficulties on mental health and health inequalities, is absolutely integral.

In separate correspondence, the Minister for Care told me that

“more needs to be done to ensure that children with a stammer are able to access the communications support they need”,

and that

“the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education will be considering what more could be done to strengthen commissioning of communication support.”

That interest from the Department of Health and Social Care is encouraging because, as the Minister knows, many children with SLCN are identified initially by health visitors. As speech and language therapy services are most often commissioned and provided as part of the health system, it is essential that the Department of Health and Social Care plays its full part in responding to the report. Only with cross-Government action can we improve the life chances of all children and young people with speech, language and communication needs.

“Bercow: Ten Years On” makes numerous recommendations to improve speech, language and communication support for children and young people, the most central of which is a cross-governmental strategy for children with speech, language and communication at its core. I wish to place on the record my support for the recommendations in the report. With that in mind, will the Minister commit to introducing a cross-Government strategy for children with speech, language and communication at its core? When will the Government formally respond to the “Bercow: Ten Years On” report? The Prime Minister committed to responding at Prime Minister’s questions on 21 March.

Finally, I thank the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) for securing this very important debate and, of course, the Speaker of the House, the right hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), for his leadership in this area. We all recognise how important communication is to our children, and I look forward to continuing to work with colleagues to ensure that we all play our part in helping to improve the life chances of all children and young people with speech, language and communication needs. If we do not, it is clear that we will be failing the next generation of children and young people.

Department for Education

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin).

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, school funding has risen on average by around 2% per year in real terms for secondary schools and 2.4% per year for primary schools every year since the mid-1970s. Much of that growth came under the last Labour Government, who oversaw average growth of some 5% in the first decade of the new millennium and embarked on a huge and desperately needed investment programme to renew our crumbling school buildings. Yet since the 2015 election, according to the IFS, school budgets have fallen by just over 4%.

This Government trumpeted their announcement last year of more funding for schools as though it was some great triumph, when in reality all they have done is ensure that by 2019-20 school funding will be roughly equivalent to the funding in 2011-12. The numbers speak for themselves: 2% a year increases since the mid-70s; 5% a year under the last Labour Government; stagnant under the Tories. That will be the legacy of this Government’s education policy.

These cuts are hitting our schools hard. Analysis by the Education Policy Institute shows that the proportion of local authority schools in deficit nearly trebled from 8.8% in 2012-13 to 26.1% in 2016-17, and that over two thirds of local authority-maintained secondary schools spent more than their income in 2016-17. That is simply not sustainable.

The pain is not only being felt by the schools; it is being felt by the teachers, too. Last year, research by the National Education Union and Tes revealed that 94% of teachers are having to pay for school essentials such as books, while 73% are regularly paying for stationery supplies. How can it be right that those who undertake a role as important as educating our children feel they have no other option than to spend their own money buying supplies? We do not expect our doctors to buy their own medicines, so why should our teachers be any different?

Is it any wonder that the effects of these constant pressures are leading to problems with recruiting teachers? Just under 40,000 teachers quit the profession in 2016—that is 9% of the workforce—and they are simply not being replaced fast enough. There is now a shortfall of some 30,000 classroom teachers, and the problem is particularly acute at secondary level, where 20% of teacher vacancies remain unfilled. Since 2011-12, recruitment of initial teacher trainees has been below target every single year. In addition, the numbers of full-time teacher vacancies and temporarily filled posts have risen since 2011.

Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, has stated:

“The government acknowledges that schools are being asked to do more than ever before. They also accept that costs are rising. But they remain unwilling to meet these increased expectations and costs with sufficient funding.”

Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, has added:

“It is no wonder that schools are increasingly struggling to provide pupils with basic essentials and having to ask parents to fill the gap.”

These are not politicians; these are the people on the frontline who are witnessing the devastating effect of Tory policies, and we should listen to what they have to say.

It is not just in our schools that the Tories’ ideology of austerity has hit hard. Maintained nursery schools have received no guaranteed funding after 2020, leaving them completely unable to budget for the future. These nurseries serve some of the poorest areas in England, with 64% in the most deprived areas. As things stand, they are set to lose almost £60 million from 2020 unless urgent action is taken. The Chair of the Education Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), highlighted this very issue on national radio this morning. When are the Government going to act? Their record on education is nothing short of shameful. My constituents will not be fooled by headline-grabbing Government announcements of more money for our schools or nurseries. The picture is clear, and the figures tell their own story: this Government are failing our schools and our children.

Statutory PHSE Education

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on securing this important debate. As I considered my contribution, I was struck by a story that I was recently told by a pupil of a local school in my constituency, leading me to focus specifically on the provision of first aid training in schools.

When visiting St Paul’s School for Girls, I met a student who had recently witnessed a woman collapse in the street in front of her. Rather than panic, as I fear I and many of us in this room may have done, the young student displayed great maturity, helping the woman into the recovery position while also applying pressure to a head wound that she had sustained. As it turned out, the woman was a refugee who did not speak any English, leaving her unable to explain what was happening to passers-by. By having the wherewithal and composure to carry out those actions, the student helped to save the life of a woman who had in fact suffered a heart attack. For her actions, the student was later given a richly deserved commendation by local emergency services.

That student was able to provide the life-saving assistance that she did only because she had studied first aid as part of her PSHE course at school, enabling her to recognise what was happening and implement vital assistance before the emergency services arrived. How many of us in this room could say that we would be able to do the same? Would we be able to step in and offer that vital first-response assistance until the professionals arrived, thinking how terrible the situation was or wishing there was someone there to help?

The “Every Child a Lifesaver” coalition, which is made up of the British Red Cross, the British Heart Foundation and the St John Ambulance, is campaigning to make first aid a mandatory component of a new, statutory PSHE curriculum, and I would like to offer it my wholehearted support. This is not a big commitment. Just one hour a year over the course of their time in school could provide students with the essential skills, including CPR, that they need to save a life. The statistics are irrefutable. Only 5% of adults would feel knowledgeable, confident and willing to act in a first aid emergency. More than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the UK every year, and fewer than one in 10 people survive, and most—around 80%—out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the home, while the immediate initiation of CPR can double the chances of survival in some cases. Organisations such as those I have mentioned provide all the necessary tools to teach these vital skills, and it is up to us as legislators to give them the platform that they need to impart their knowledge to today’s students.

There are more than just the obvious life-saving benefits to students of statutory first aid training. First aid training develops leadership skills, decision making, resilience and the ability to cope with adversity, supporting personal development and employment skills. It can improve young people’s life chances and empower them to step forward and take responsibility, while providing them with a sense of contributing to the community within our shared society. It will also ensure universal access to this essential knowledge and life skill, improving health inequalities across all communities and at every socioeconomic level.

The Department for Education consultation on making PSHE, including first aid, compulsory is open until only the 12th of this month, so I hope that this debate will raise the profile of this important decision and encourage as many as possible to take part in the consultation, so as to ensure that more children are able to act as my constituent did, and feel confident enough to step in and provide what could prove to be life-saving assistance to a person in need.

Higher Education (England) Regulations

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to deliver my maiden speech during this important debate. It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon).

It is such an honour and privilege to have been elected as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham, Edgbaston, a constituency that has returned a female MP in every election since 1953. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] The most recent was my predecessor, Gisela Stuart. Before being selected as the Labour candidate for Edgbaston, I knew of and respected Gisela from afar. I may not have agreed with her on every single issue, but she was passionate, gutsy and a fierce defender of Labour values. [Hon. Members: “Hear, Hear!”] By the end of my first campaign session, when almost every house on whose door I knocked seemed to have a story about how Gisela had helped them, I knew just what a brilliant constituency MP I was following. Gisela’s contribution to Edgbaston will never be forgotten by the thousands of constituents she helped in ways both big and small.

It is also an honour to be the first female Sikh to sit on these Benches and to be here alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), the first turban-wearing Sikh MP. Being the first Sikh female MP comes with a huge sense of responsibility. I and many others will be asked to raise difficult issues in the House on behalf of Sikhs, on matters such as hate crime, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Sikh ethnic monitoring in the 2021 census and an independent public inquiry into UK involvement in the 1984 Sikh genocide.

For many decades, Sikhs have lived in this country, paid their taxes, fought in world wars and contributed to society in every way imaginable. It is an historic moment for Sikhs in this country because Parliament is beginning to look more like the people it serves. Sophia Duleep Singh, the granddaughter of Maharaja Ranjit Singh—the ruler of the formidable Sikh empire from 1801 to 1839—and the goddaughter of Queen Victoria, would have been immensely proud that the United Kingdom had elected its first female Sikh MP some 100 years after she, a prominent suffragette, had fought for women in this country to have the right to vote.

Having been born and bred in one of the most diverse cities in the United Kingdom, I am so proud of the vibrant and exciting multicultural society that we live in today. I walk through Birmingham and see Caribbean restaurants next to Indian dress shops, gurdwaras and mosques down the road from Catholic schools, Polish accents, Irish accents and even the occasional exotic twang of an, “Alright, bab” from one of our neighbours from the Black Country.

Brummies, whether first or 30th generation, live and work together to make Birmingham the unique and fascinating city it is today. I am delighted at the prospect of this great city hosting the Commonwealth games in 2022.

People are what makes a place special, and Edgbaston is certainly special. The constituency is made up of four diverse wards: Bartley Green, Quinton, Harborne and Edgbaston. Parts of my constituency are very affluent, but, equally, there are areas of deprivation. My constituency is home to the very beautiful botanical gardens, a silver sweep of reservoir, the University Hospitals Birmingham Trust, the very prestigious Birmingham University, the ever-growing Newman University, many excellent schools, the two towers that inspired JRR Tolkein to write “The Lord of the Rings”, an influential chamber of commerce and a world-famous cricket ground.

The University Hospitals Trust and Birmingham University are two of the biggest employers in my constituency, which is why today’s debates on the public sector pay cap and tuition fees are so important. The Government’s public sector pay cap has caused chaos for the NHS. The cap on pay has seen wages fall 14% below inflation since 2010. Nurses in my constituency are being forced to use food banks to make ends meet. The Government have created a workforce crisis in the NHS, which is causing misery for patients. Hospital wards and GP surgeries in parts of my constituency are chronically understaffed and the knock-on effect is waiting lists, which are spiralling out of control. For seven years, Ministers have balanced the books on the backs of NHS staff.

I spent a day in Birmingham’s children’s hospital this summer after an unfortunate incident involving my daughter and a trampoline. As ever, I was bowled over by the skill, courage, and dedication that NHS staff bring to their working lives.

On the rise of tuition fees, I am concerned that young people and their families are impacted by the hikes in these fees, which will further increase student debt. For a young person in my constituency to go to university to study a three-year course, it will cost £30,000. A five-year medicine course is £50,000, and that is not to mention the living costs. For young people growing up in normal households in my constituency where money can be tight, this is an astronomical and intimidating sum of money. Graduate wages are stagnating and student debt will only rise further. Everyone in society benefits from our graduates—they are our engineers, our doctors, and our social workers of the future. That is why, today, I will vote to revoke a rise in tuition fees.

Like all of us in this House, behind the history and the records sits an ordinary story of simple values. For more than 20 years, my father drove the No. 11 bus around the constituency that I now represent. He worked every hour he could to make sure that my siblings and I had the best possible start in life. My mother and father provided my brothers and sisters and I with a simple set of values. Those values permeated through every aspect of our upbringing, and that is what brings me here today. First, that we all had to work to build something with our lives. The hours my father spent driving that bus, delivering community projects as the president of our local gurdwara, or resolving yet another squabble between us kids was never lost on me. It was simple dedication, hard work and a belief that he could make things better not only for us, but for all communities. He certainly achieved that and much more.

Secondly, my parents taught us that we should not forget about the people around us who were less fortunate. My parents both knew what it was like to start completely afresh, and to feel new, alone and lost. Ever since, I have passionately believed that one of the most important things we can all commit to is a simple act of kindness, whether it is a sympathetic ear or a hand-up to somebody desperate for a break. It is this last point that I would like to draw upon in making my maiden speech.

Issues around mental health and emotional wellbeing can make a person feel alone, confused, lonely, hopeless and lost. Such issues are cruel and indiscriminate; they can affect any one of us at any time. My constituency has a high proportion of young people. I have heard about the teenage girl suffering anxiety about her body image after seeing too many photo-shopped images on social media, the middle-aged man suffering from depression so overwhelming that he finds it impossible to make it out of the house in the morning, and the older person living alone, so worried about making ends meet that they cannot sleep at night.

The new “#StatusOfMind” report by the Royal Society for Public Health shows that

“identified rates of anxiety and depression in young people have increased by 70% over the past 25 years.”

That is nearly 80,000 children and young people in the UK suffering from severe depression. The report also states that nearly nine in 10 girls are unhappy with their body shape, that

“Seven in 10 young people have experienced cyberbullying”,

and that no action was taken in 91% of cases in which cyber-bullying was reported.

As a parent of two girls, aged seven and six, this terrifies me. We need to do so much more to stop these trends and to make sure that our children are able to fulfil their potential. We should ensure that schools are given the time, opportunity and resources to make personal, social and health and economic education lessons a priority, not an afterthought, and we should work with social media platforms to identify users who could be suffering from mental health problems and signposting them to help. We need to support families to make sense of heart-breaking issues their children could be facing so that they can build a level of resilience.

For many people suffering with mental health and emotional wellbeing issues, these can both cause and, indeed, be caused by additional issues such as substance and alcohol misuse. The Reach Addiction centre at the Church of the Redeemer in my constituency does amazing work supporting people who, without it, would be completely lost and adrift from society. St. John’s church in Harborne and St. Boniface church in Quinton provide food banks and support to those suffering from homelessness and mental health issues. I recognise the vital support that these faith organisations, along with public sector workers in my constituency, provide. One of Britain’s finest hours was the creation of the NHS and the welfare state in 1946—a safety net for those who fell on hard times. To tackle issues such as alcohol and substance misuse, we need to rethink this safety net to make sure that emotional help and support is there for anyone who needs it, whenever they need it. It is time we treated the cause of these issues, rather than just the symptoms.

Finally, for those growing old in our country, retirement should mean a well-earned rest from a lifetime of hard work—an opportunity to put their feet up and focus on the things they are passionate about, rather than a destination to be dreaded. Unfortunately for some residents in my constituency, this stage of life is about trying to make ends meet and worrying about whether their pension will stretch to cover the whole month. They feel more and more isolated in their homes as more local community facilities are closed, and they are left counting the days since they spoke to someone who was not the checkout assistant at their local supermarket. The recent Channel 4 documentary, “Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds”, was a wonderful reminder of the amazing ability we all have to make a difference to the people around us essentially by bringing people together. This will be my mission as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham, Edgbaston. Whenever I walk into this Chamber, I will be here to fight for funding for the services doing incredible work supporting my constituents who are facing these and many other issues. I will speak up for the young people in my constituency whose voices need to be heard more loudly in this House. I will work with colleagues from all parties to bring all our communities and constituents closer together.

I will also be thinking back to my dad, driving that same No. 11 route—day in, day out. Through hard work, he was building the platform and opportunities for me and my siblings to succeed. It is that spirit which I will bring to this role. I am so grateful to the people of Edgbaston, and I will be restless in working and fighting for every single one of them.

[Several hon. Members rose—]