Oral Answers to Questions
Priti Patel Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Damian Hinds
First, I must say that the statistics the hon. Lady just gave on missing recruitment targets are incorrect. They are frequently repeated, but not right. We do think that career changes are an important part of people coming into this noble profession, and we are continuing with our career changes programme. We are not axing Now Teach; we are not re-procuring it, so we are not extending it again. To put it in perspective, it is roughly about 200 to 250 people in a typical year, out of about 7,000 career changes coming into teaching. We are reassessing the best way to attract more of them, because we want to grow the number of career changes coming into teaching and make sure that we go about it in the best and most productive way.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
The Secretary of State is well aware of the issues we have with Academies Enterprise Trust and Maltings Academy in Witham town. She will know of the stories of children missing out on school time because of exclusion and bullying. Some are even self-harming. What assurance can she give to pupils and their families, who have very little choice as to which schools they go to locally, that their concerns will be heard and that they will have greater educational choice over which school their children go to?
Damian Hinds
I know we have corresponded on this recently, and I know my right hon. Friend is taking a close personal interest and has been involved directly and personally in multiple cases. In my most recent letter—I am not sure if it will have arrived yet—I have said that we will as a Department work with her.
Oral Answers to Questions
Priti Patel Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Gillian Keegan
The hon. Gentleman makes a vital point. Early identification is absolutely key in providing support and ensuring that it impacts the child as early as possible. I am very happy to understand more about places. Local authorities have made lots of bids, and that is why many more special educational needs schools have been, or are being, built—I announced 15 recently. Although I do not know whether his local area bid into them, we have many schemes to ensure that local authorities have financing to improve the number of places in mainstream schools and special educational needs schools.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
What work is being done to support local authorities in addressing the placing of children with special educational needs and disabilities out of their own counties and localities to receive the essential support they need? In Essex, the problem is ongoing and affects all our Essex colleagues. I pay tribute to our county council, which is doing incredible work—it is well rated—but frankly it needs help, assistance and support from central Government.
Gillian Keegan
There are a number of things there. We have put £2.6 billion into increasing the number of places—Members across the House will have heard of additional school places in their areas—and we have a £70 million change programme to ensure, through work with local authorities, that the improvement plan that we published in March 2023 goes from being a piece of paper to being implemented on the ground and felt by all our constituencies and all families with children with special educational needs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Priti Patel Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Damian Hinds
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are conducting a review of RSHE guidance. These are important and sensitive topics and it is important to get them right. He will not have long to wait to see the results.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Gillian Keegan
The temporary classrooms at St Andrew’s Junior School were delivered by Essex County Council, which I thank once again for its exemplary leadership managing RAAC in Essex. The Department is working closely with all parties to ensure that any concerns are addressed quickly. Work is ongoing today to fix a disabled access door. I can confirm that we will remove RAAC from all schools and colleges. Settings will be offered either grant funding or rebuilding projects. We are assessing the right solution for each case and we will update the House shortly.
Safety of School Buildings
Priti Patel Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Unlike some, I welcome the opportunity to follow up Monday’s statement from the Government Front Bench and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to discuss RAAC. More than 50 schools in Essex are affected, and I begin by paying tribute to Essex County Council and its leadership: Councillor Kevin Bentley, Councillor Tony Ball and officers led by Claire Kershaw. They have been robust in their leadership and are doing so much to help parents, teachers and pupils. I should add that our council is working not just with local authority schools, but academy trusts too. They are not saying that it will help one school over another. They are stepping up to deal with the challenge and we are grateful to them.
I commend them for convening Essex MPs. Madam Deputy Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing), has also raised concerns on behalf of her schools directly with the county council, as has the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). He has a school that is affected: Sir Frederick Gibberd College. We are working together because we believe in finding solutions. We are not interested in politicking at this time.
I want to thank parents and pupils in Essex for understanding the difficulties we are all facing. They have been inconvenienced by the RAAC issue, but it is important to point out that, certainly in my constituency, community groups and businesses have come forward to help find alternative provision and sites. I thank them too. The focus right now has to be on finding solutions to the immediate challenges we are facing, minimising disruption to learning, and ensuring affected pupils, parents and schools are supported. I do not think they are interested in political point scoring; they want answers and solutions.
I will use my time to put some questions to those on the Government Front Bench, and I know they will come back on them in due course. I welcome from the Minister the details of the steps that have been taken across Government to mobilise the strong operational—that is the whole point—delivery response we want. The Prime Minister gave an assurance earlier that all funding necessary will be provided, including capital and revenue. That is important because our county council is already liaising, co-ordinating and covering costs in the interim. It will be sending in an invoice, and we hope it will come to the Department for Education. The council will, of course, need to know when those costs will be met and who in the Department it will be liaising with, so I would like some assurances on that.
We have concerns about the impact on learning. I have raised—I raised it on Monday in this House—concerns around children with special needs, disabilities and vulnerabilities, and the impact of missed learning on parents, with difficulties around childcare. We are looking at finding practical solutions, so I would welcome any update from the Front Bench on that, too. We will need to think about how the impact, particularly on exams and Ofsted inspections, will be managed. It is inevitable, post pandemic, that we will see more Ofsted inspections locally—I know that from my own schools—but we have key year groups in exam years and we have to support them.
On temporary measures being put in place, all Members will be concerned about the pressures on the market and the demands for portable classrooms and facilities. The Secretary of State and I have already spoken about those demands and the potentially increased costs, so it would be helpful for the Government to give a supply update. Alongside the pressure of supply for temporary classrooms is the impact on the construction sector and extra insurance costs and premiums. Schools and the local authority will be looking at those issues and quality control measures.
This has already been touched on in the debate and over the past few days, but issues other than RAAC are affecting our schools, and I have raised them in the past, such as damp and old buildings that are worn out and need updating and replacing. Perhaps not today—this is an Opposition day debate—but we will need an update on what this all means for us going forward.
Finally, this is a difficult and challenging time for teachers, schools, pupils and parents. On behalf of all of those affected in the Witham constituency, Essex and the whole country, today is a chance for the Government to give an assurance that they will do everything possible to ensure that face-to-face education can come back for affected schools and that we are doing everything we can to support them.
Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings
Priti Patel Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Gillian Keegan
I do not know whether we can believe everything we read in the press, but I have read that Scotland does not plan to close schools with RAAC, which is a bit worrying. We will continue to share technical information with our counterparts, and we have offered meetings.
When we receive new information and new evidence, we sometimes need to take a new approach. That is the decision I took very recently, and I think it is the right decision. I would be very happy to work with the hon. Lady and her colleagues to share more information.
Every year we have a capital budget, and we are investing significantly in our schools. The overall capital budget in the 2021 spending review was £19 billion, of which £7 billion is allocated for 2023-24. When we come to the next phase, we have allocation to rebuild some of our schools, but we will look in detail at what more will be required.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
The Secretary of State will know that St Andrew’s Junior School in Hatfield Peverel is now closed, and other schools in my constituency, including two large secondary schools, are experiencing partial closures. They have mitigations in place, and there is a lot of work under way. I hope she will join me in thanking Essex County Council, in particular, for the extraordinary leadership it has shown in working with schools. I also put on record my thanks to the noble Baroness Barran, who has been supporting Essex MPs and families.
I have some specific questions. Promises have been made on capital costs, but will there be support for revenue impacts such as travel, switching to remote learning and, in particular, children with special educational needs? Our county has a very high level of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, and we need to understand that.
If I may, Madam Deputy Speaker, let me ask about caseworkers, who have been mentioned. We need to know whether or not they are going to engage with MPs; my experience to date has been that they are not prepared to speak to MPs about what is going on in schools. Finally, what is Ofsted’s role in this? If it is going to be looking at schools, will it account for disruption caused by this issue and for the impact it will have on school exams, particularly for children who are being examined this year?
Gillian Keegan
I thank my right hon. Friend for that, and I very much join her in praising Essex County Council. There are a lot of cases in Essex—there is a concentration there—and it has done an amazing job. It has answered all the questionnaires in great detail and it is very much gripping the issue, and we are working very closely together.
On revenue, we have said that on a case-by-case basis, if the school will come to the Department and tell us what revenue impact there is, we will make sure that it has the support it needs. Caseworkers are currently focused on working with the schools; it is very early in this process. We are mitigating a lot of the work, but not everybody is as far ahead as some of the schools to which my right hon. Friend referred. We have opened a hotline—a helpline—for Members of Parliament. We extended the hours so that it was open at the weekend. I know that some people got their “Dear colleague” communication and did not notice it until the helpline had closed, so we had that open at the weekend—it will be open all through the week as well. They will be getting the same information from the caseworker system, and that is how it will work.
Children's Access to Books
Priti Patel Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I am really thrilled to be here for what is such an important debate—it is also a really lovely debate in its tone and content—for obvious reasons. Children are our future, and we have to think about how we put them on the right trajectory in their journey in life. Reading is crucial to that.
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) for securing the debate, but also for his advocacy of access to books. He has been consistent on this, and he is a big voice in this area. If I may say so, it is really nice to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who made me smile with his references to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Frankly, she is an incredible woman when it comes to philanthropy. She has articulated her world view through her lyrics, but she has also put that into practice in investing in children, which is absolutely crucial.
We can never overlook the investment required in early years, in particular, to give children the best start in life. With that, improving literacy among children and young people is absolutely crucial to ensuring—this is a statement of the obvious—that we have highly educated and highly skilled people in our economy and a functional society. We need to have people who learn from reading, who have inquisitive minds and who hunger for an understanding of good literature and good books, but who also know how to express themselves, and literacy and reading are central to that.
As I was reminded this morning, when I attended a memorial service for a very dear friend, the late Lord Young, the children and young people in our schools today are the entrepreneurs, business leaders, public servants, investors and inventors of the future. If we are not spending the time sorting out our structures and institutions—our schools and everything else—and getting right all the things we need to do at this stage, we are going to lose out on their potential, when we should be unleashing their potential and investing in their talent.
For me as a Member of Parliament—the Member of Parliament for Witham—literacy and improving access to books have been my focus for my schools. Having been elected in 2010, I visited all my schools—we all do and we learn so much, particularly in the early days of being a Member of Parliament—and the thing that surprised me the most was that the level of literacy was below the national average. To be quite frank, every Government can say, “We’ve boosted the money. We’ve done x. We’ve done y,” and all the rest of it, but when I came in in 2010 and heard, for example, about the Building Schools for the Future programme and all the previous investment in schools, it was really quite stark and quite shocking to hear about the number of children in my schools that this issue affected. A lot of this correlated with indices of deprivation, which we have to focus on as well—we have to correct things where we have deprivation and look at how we can do more to turn around outcomes for children.
There were certain schools in certain parts of my constituency where literacy was lagging behind in quite a shocking way. At that time, approximately one in six 11-year-olds was leaving school without the required level of reading. So I worked with local schools and particularly headteachers, and I have previously mentioned one, now former, headteacher to the Minister—a very inspirational lady, Mrs Bass, who was the headteacher at Powers Hall Academy. I set up something called “Get Witham Reading”, which was a literacy scheme to promote reading and, obviously, make it fun. This was all about not only reading in schools, but guests coming into schools. When I say guests, I mean the local mayor and local councillors, who were building bridges within local communities. People came in from the local community to be read to, but also to read to children. Since 2012, this has been up and running every year. It encourages a day of reading activities, and it is actually a good deal of fun.
It is fair to say that I can be a complete pain to many publishers, because I am quite demanding of them. When I run “Get Witham Reading”, I like to give books to schools and I even donate personally to the pupils. I have done that pretty successfully in recent years, and I am hoping to donate over 1,000 books this summer to children in my constituency. There are publishers that will be written to very shortly, and my begging letters will be asking them to do much more, because I think there is an onus on publishers of children’s books. The range of authors, including my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), is really important, because different genres and styles of reading and literacy are just so important to children of all ages.
I have fabulous stories about the way Powers Hall Academy encourages reading activities. It runs reading activities throughout the day, and one of its former caretakers builds things for it. When we had a Harry Potter theme, he built a train; when we had an aviation theme, he built an aeroplane and put it in the playground so that the children had the experience of boarding a plane—they made their own boarding passes and currency. One year, the theme was the Titanic, and the children made lunch for the school guests based on one of the menus on the Titanic. That is exactly how to bring reading to life through great stories and history. Ministers and Prime Ministers have supported that event in the past. The Minister will be joining me next month when we host “Get Witham Reading”—I promise we will make it fun.
These events encourage characterisation. Children use their imagination to bring a character to life—we have had plenty of Harry Potters and characters from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”—and staff, teachers and parents join in. One of the biggest lessons I have learned in my time as a Member of Parliament is that parents have an important role in getting children reading at home. We should encourage parents by making them part of the events in schools, and then they can take the books away and read them to their children. We should encourage the presence of more books at home, because many of the households had no books at home.
“Get Witham Reading” is all about encouraging local children and young people to enjoy reading. It gets them away from their consoles—despite the fact that technology is important—and into books. I have a confession to make: in my teenage years, I probably read more Smash Hits and New Musical Express than I did books. Nevertheless, reading has to continue. That means that we need initiatives to support more books going to schools, and we have to encourage the ownership of books. Young people, in particular, like to own books, and we have to make it easy for them. Of course, donating books is one aspect of that. As I said, I have put in a plea to publishers and authors, and they have an open invitation to “Get Witham Reading”. If any of them wishes to come or donate their books, they are welcome to contact me.
There is a marked contrast between the situation back in 2010 and now. Back then, national literacy standards had fallen in comparison with our international competitors, and the Government and Ministers resolved to do a great deal about that. In 2006, we were ranked 16th in the world in the Programme for International Student Assessment, but by 2009 we had fallen to something like 23rd. Bear in mind that this country gave the world Shakespeare, the Brontës, Shelley and Tolkien. If we are not featured in those league tables, what does that say about us?
I pay tribute to the Minister and all Governments over the past decade; their focus and rigour since 2010 has helped to raise standards. In particular, I pay tribute to the Minister for his steadfast commitment. He has written to me over many years about this issue. I have badgered him, and he has supported my initiatives. He has been very open to working with schools and giving teachers confidence, and I have seen the progress that has been made. We should not forget the impact of the pupil premium, particularly in areas of deprivation. It has enabled my schools to focus additional investment on tackling lower literacy standards among pupils from lower-income households. We are now ranked fourth among participating countries in the progress in international reading literacy study, which is incredible.
My message is that we can never stand still. The Government, the Minister and others have worked incredibly hard over the past decade, but the Government can do only so much. We have heard about great philanthropists and organisations doing so much more. Partners are working with educational trusts to get books into schools. We have heard that our libraries can be slightly more welcoming. In Essex, we have worked very hard to keep our libraries open—I pay tribute to the county council—because they play an important role in supporting literacy. This is not just about the summer reading challenge, which is coming soon. We need reading challenges every single day. We need to set the bar high, and I wonder whether we can do more to tie together the summer reading challenge and the holiday activities and food programme holistically.
In conclusion, we cannot stand still. Generations of children should always feel the benefits of literacy, books and reading. We are a fantastic country when it comes to literacy and our authors, and that is the start of children’s journey in life. They can become the entrepreneurs and innovators of the future if they have access to books, and that is something we will support.
Oral Answers to Questions
Priti Patel Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Robert Halfon
The hon. Gentleman is exactly right that we want to encourage more women to do apprenticeships, especially STEM apprenticeships. As I mentioned, we are doing a lot of work on careers. The apprenticeship and skills network is going around schools promoting apprenticeships and targeting disadvantaged students and areas where we need more female apprentices, including in STEM.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)
My right hon. Friend and I are passionate about apprenticeships. We are promoting this excellent route into a career through our apprenticeship support and knowledge programme in schools and our career starter apprenticeships campaign. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education mentioned, we are working with UCAS so that people can search and apply for apprenticeships alongside degrees, creating a one-stop shop for young people.
Priti Patel
The Secretary of State is a fantastic advocate for apprenticeships. Importantly, she recognises the need to open up training and apprenticeship opportunities for school leavers. We can never forget them. Will she join me in thanking the many local businesses in Witham that supported my recent careers fair held in a local school? On top of that, will she look at how to make the apprenticeship levy much more agile and flexible so that more school leavers participate in the scheme, and look at devolving more skills funding to Essex?
Gillian Keegan
I share my right hon. Friend’s appreciation of the wonderful employers in Essex that are building the next generation—such as Stansted airport, Rose Builders and Simarco—as someone who left school at 16 and started on that route. I know through my right hon. Friend’s work, more than 8,000 apprentices have started in Witham since 2010, many in engineering, automotive and aerospace.
More than 99% of the apprenticeships budget was spent last year, which is a fantastic demonstration of the value that apprentices bring to businesses. We will continue to ringfence the levy to support that demand. Essex Chambers of Commerce are working with employers to develop a local skills improvement plan. We look forward to working more with them and local employers on their needs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Priti Patel Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
In light of the Government’s new emphasis on numeracy in schools, may I make a plea that the Government do not forget about literacy in schools and in particular how we can continue to raise standards? My initiative “Get Witham Reading” has been running for 10 years now, and I urge colleagues on the Front Bench to come to Witham to see the scheme in action this year and see how it has raised standards in education.
Nick Gibb
I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend, and I share her passion, so I would be delighted to come and see the scheme in place in her constituency. We take reading very seriously; we have risen from joint 10th to joint eighth in the progress in international reading literacy study league tables, and in those surveys it is the least able children who are improving fastest.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding
Priti Patel Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Thank you, Sir Gary. I commend the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) on securing what is a really important debate. It is a real privilege to be here today among colleagues to cover the issues of funding. Local authorities, including Essex County Council, are facing real pressures in meeting the needs of pupils, especially those with special educational needs and disabilities. There is no doubt that all of us who visit our local schools and engage with parents and pupils understand where the real pressures lie.
It is important to recognise that the Government have announced additional funding for high needs of £125 million, which is welcome. For Essex, that means another £3.3 million for this and next financial year. The reality is, however, that that is not enough, because of the new pressures caused by the increase in pupils who have additional needs, adding greater burdens and pressure to a local authority that is in a budget-setting cycle at this very time, as all local authorities are. With that comes the challenge of the overspend in special needs funding that Essex County Council is experiencing. A new banding matrix for funding pupils with SEND in special schools is causing a £2.3 million overspend. Increased growth in education, health and care plans is driving an overspend of more than £700,000. In addition, the number of young people in the EHCP category has gone up by 22%.
Local authorities are of course desperately trying to meet their statutory obligations and to find innovative ways of doing so. That obviously includes working across health budgets, which is the right thing to do, and looking at ways in which they can integrate support for care and educational provision.
In total, Essex County Council anticipates a £15 million overspend on the high needs block by the end of 2019-20. The council is investing through its capital programme in new schools, including planning a new autism special school in Witham, which we all welcome and support. In addition to plugging some of the funding gaps, the council has recently asked the schools forum if it would agree to transfer 0.5% of the schools block allocation—approximately £4.3 million—to SEND. Quite understandably, that is going to cause tensions and is causing concern among local schools, and the council has asked the Secretary of State to approve the transfer. Rather than encouraging tensions and anger within our local schools, and leaving the schools and council at loggerheads, I encourage the Minister to take the opportunity to intervene and review the situation, not just by encouraging more financial support, but by encouraging a better way of working so that we can address some of the long-standing issues.
I hope that the forthcoming comprehensive spending review can support local authorities to come together and look at how we can invest in new provision, join up networks and increase integrated provision, so that we can bring education and health more closely together, wrapped around the needs of each pupil. While more funding is needed and is absolutely welcome, we want to maximise the benefits through greater integration of working across local authorities and Government Departments, so that we can give young people the best start in life and so that they can fulfil their potential.
Oral Answers to Questions
Priti Patel Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Nick Gibb
Since 2017, we have given every local authority more money for every pupil in every school. We are spending record amounts of money on our school system—the figure will be £43.5 billion next year, which is a record for those schools—but we do understand the cost pressures that schools are under, which is why we have this cadre of school resource management advisers, who can help those schools. We also have a series of national buying schemes, whereby we can buy things such as insurance, energy and computers far more efficiently to make savings in the non-staff expenditure that schools have to incur.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
By 2019-20, schools in Essex will receive 3.3% more funding per pupil compared with the level in 2017-18—this is an additional £141 per pupil or £48.7 million in total. In 2019-20, therefore, Essex will receive £855.8 million in school funding—a record amount.
Priti Patel
Notwithstanding the Minister’s response on the funding that Essex will receive, the county council is seeking to transfer funds from the schools block to the high-needs block, as there is not enough money for children with special educational needs. My right hon. Friend the Minister knows that any transfer of funds will have a knock-on impact on educational funding throughout Essex, so will he work with me and the county council to address this issue?