Oral Answers to Questions
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
We want all schools to do well for our children and to drive high and rising standards regardless of the name above the door.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Academisation has created fragmentation in lines of accountability, leaving local authorities carrying much risk, not least when it comes to SEND provision. Will my hon. Friend look at academy governance structures to ensure that local authorities can carry that responsibility and be able to deliver for children with SEN?
Primary School Breakfast Clubs
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend speaks with a great deal of experience. I am sure the Minister and his team will take the contributions made by hon. Members on board because they are setting out how we will make a positive impact on the lives of those in our communities. That is what we were elected to do, drawing on our various diverse experiences, backgrounds and perspectives.
Breakfast clubs provide further potential benefits. As my hon. Friends have highlighted, a proper sit-down breakfast, among peers, not only allows children to access healthy food, but encourages the building of interpersonal relationships and the progression of social skills—key aspects of a child’s development that are often overlooked in an educational setting. Will the Minister assure me that universal breakfast clubs will not only provide a healthy meal for young children, but also facilitate and encourage development of vital social skills?
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. York Hungry Minds is currently carrying out a pilot project examining what happens when schools have breakfast clubs and universal free school meals. Does he agree that we need to look at the outcome of that evidence to determine whether some children also require a free school meal in the middle of the day, as well as at the start of the day, to ensure that there is equity in the outcomes we are seeking?
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend speaks with a great deal of experience. I have seen over the last seven or eight years in the House that she has done a great deal of work to counter poverty and some of the worst problems that our society faces. Everything should be evidence based. It is important that the Government build on that to help our communities further.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Catherine McKinnell
As my hon. Friend mentions, high-needs funding will increase by almost £1 billion in 2025-26, compared with 2024-25, bringing total high-needs funding to £11.9 billion. That funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing cost of supporting children and young people with SEND. We will continue to support local authorities to meet those demands and reform our system, so we can create inclusive education for every child.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to raise the issue of governance. There are too many minds controlling the system, which ultimately stymies local authorities’ ability to reform services in order to embed a culture of nurturing and to ensure that the best interests of children are represented. While reviewing the SEND system, will the Minister take a look at governance, and ensure that is there is one controlling mind, and it is that of the local authority?
SEND Provision
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Betts. What a mess—young people broken by a broken system. The Children and Families Act promised so much, but without people, money and the rest of the system to back it up, it could never deliver. When the wait for the diagnosis is over, the battle for the EHCP is won and masses of resources have been spent, the demand is still not being met. Staff do their very best, but still people are falling out of the system.
I have spent the past year digging deep, looking at the local, the national and the international to bring best practice to this space. I have looked at the environment, the community and the child. On the environment, I say to the Minister, “Go back to the Department and rip up the behaviourist approach to education. It creates a world where neurodiverse children—those with anxiety or mental illness—and even the timid cannot survive.”
Instead, we should adopt a therapeutic, nurturing approach so that all children can thrive. In York, where schools have done so, all gain from recognising the need for every child to be safe, valued and included. It is a happy place where a child will strive for excellence and the whole child will be able to navigate their way through this world, rather than an obstacle course of micro-traumas, stress and anxiety. Let us not build bigger and bigger schools, but create more therapeutic and intimate spaces that belong to the children and where they can thrive. We should bring children out of home schooling, out of their bedrooms, off the streets and back into the classroom. School must be safe for all those children.
We also need to recognise, as the Government do, the failed nature of the curriculum. Let us build space for our brains and our bodies. Are we really shocked that young people are failing when only half of them is engaged? We have cut out arts, music, sports, nature, dance, play, exploration, wonder and fun. Yet all children, especially those with SEND, benefit from that balance.
When I visited Sweden, I went into schools to hear about what they were doing. They brought people into the heart of the school, not prescribing from an EHCP but taking a whole-child and a whole-school approach, using the skills of psychologists, teachers, occupational therapists, physios and speech therapists for all children. Let us recognise that school community and ensure that we value its members. Our teaching assistants do so much of the work, yet their pay is so poor—that must be addressed.
Rachael Maskell
I am going to continue.
As for parents, I have seen them pushed away and gaslit, when they should instead be integrated into the heart of the school, as they are in Sweden, leading on what their child needs. When it comes to the children themselves, let us review the purpose of education: preparing children for the world today, not breaking and testing them. Children with SEND struggle in that environment just to satisfy the need for data for Governments and to meet different goals. We need every child to flourish, and that is why we need to think again.
Free School Meals
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts.
We have heard how 900,000 children from low-income families are not in receipt of free school meals and about the adequacy of what many children are receiving, not least if they take a packed lunch—they are not being nutritiously fed throughout the day. In fact, only 1% of packed lunches reach nutritional standards. In York, that is very much the case. We have about 4,000 children who are entitled to be in receipt of free school meals, but only about 3,000—about 75%—actually receiving them, because we do not have auto-enrolment. I urge the Government to join up the data so that we see eligibility following through to receipt of free school meals. It can be done, it must be done, and it will ensure that those families are well served.
I want to talk in particular about York Hungry Minds. York has the lowest-funded upper-tier local authority in the country, yet, as a Right to Food city, it prioritised feeding hungry children when Labour came to power in the council last May. City of York Council put the first £100,000 into Two Ridings Community Foundation as a vehicle for sourcing and independently funding the programme. It then called for city partners, including in industry and business, as well as individuals from the community, to boost that fund.
The pilot that York is engaged in is based in two schools: Westfield, where there are already far better healthy lunch choices for the children at key stage 2; and Burton Green, which is investing in breakfast for children. The results are already incredible. Starting in January this year, the research piece by the University of York will follow the pilot through to the end of the year. Researchers are already seeing an improvement in attendance—an issue that the Government are wrestling with at the moment—and far better engagement in learning. These are the early seeds of what it means to have a full stomach and to be able to work in such an environment.
I really do congratulate those involved in the project, but we need to ensure that the funding continues and is available for roll-out across our city. That is certainly the ambition of the Labour council, but we need the support of Government. I am delighted that Labour is so committed to ensuring that children start the day with a full stomach. We know the difference that will make for them.
This is not just about what happens for a child in school; it is about resetting the life course inequality that we see across our society. We want to address that by ensuring that children are well fed. That inequality results in differentiations in exam results, in where children move on to, and ultimately in the career choices that they can make and in their incomes. If we are to break intergenerational inequality, that small measure of having high-value, highly nutritious meals at the start of the day—and, I trust, rolling into the middle of the day too—is so important. That can be the game changer that families need.
However, we need to evaluate as we go, and that is why I congratulate the University of York on its investment in not only the project that I described but in looking at child hunger. It is evaluating the difference that the project will make to the lives of those children by looking at how much healthy food is going to them as a result of the menu choices; by looking at the amount of food waste, which is another important factor; and by looking at any changes in readiness to learn, in absence due to ill health or in school attendance. Looking at the data, which I trust the Minister will do, will strengthen the opportunity to roll out these programmes.
It is also important that the programme looks at the stigma around the provision of free school meals. We must remember that no child wants to be differentiated because of the income level or socioeconomic disadvantage their family experiences.
Mrs Hodgson
One of the reasons that John Vincent and Henry Dimbleby, who authored the school food plan, said that they included recommendation 17 on universal free primary school meals is that, when they looked at the evidence, the children who improved the most when all the boats rose were those who were already entitled to free school meals. The only thing that had been removed was the stigma. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is very important?
Rachael Maskell
My hon. Friend knows so much about this subject and could not make a more powerful point. We need all young people who have hungry stomachs to be able to engage, and taking away the stigma not only gives those children confidence but ensures that the issue of hunger is addressed.
I would like to quickly reinforce some of the points that colleagues have made. It is important that we make sure that thresholds rise and are appropriate, and it is important that people can enrol in the holiday activities fund if their eligibility changes over the holiday period, rather than having to wait until the beginning of the new year. It is possible to do that, and I trust that the Minister will.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)
Having undertaken a review of the special educational needs system, we published our improvement plan last year. Provision is regularly reviewed through school and local area inspections by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission. We also collect and review data on education, health and care plans, including on timeliness and volumes, and on capacity in special schools, SEND units and resourced provision.
David Johnston
My hon. Friend is a great champion of children with SEN and he is absolutely right. Labour’s ideological obsession with private schools means that it will even charge children in an independent special school 20% VAT for their needs. That will make it harder for those families to afford the provision they need and drive up demand for places in state special schools. It is just another example of the mess Labour would make of our education system.
Rachael Maskell
The inequality in the funding formula is driving inequality for children with SEN. In York, we are seeing not only the lack of placements that are needed, but staff being laid off because of an inadequacy of funding. We know that the number of children with SEND is growing exponentially in York, so will the Minister not only review the funding formula to ensure that it is fair, but give local authorities the power and provision to provide for the future needs of our city?
David Johnston
York is in our safety valve programme to provide support with the financial challenges it has. It has seen a 27% increase in per-head funding in the last three financial years. We review the funding formula every year. The biggest complaint people have is the historic factor, which is difficult to reduce quickly because there are children receiving that provision at the moment.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(9 months, 1 week ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)
My hon. Friend raises a very important point. We are taking a number of actions to increase the number of people who adopt and foster, and to support kinship care as well, but I would be happy to discuss this matter with him further.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Many of the children with special educational needs, mental health challenges and childhood trauma who are not in school in York are not able to access their education because of insufficient estate and placements, and because of the environment and specialist personnel. What are the Government doing to ensure that every area has a workforce plan and an estates plan, and the funding to match?
David Johnston
Through our special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision improvement plan we are taking a whole range of actions. That has included increasing the number of special school places by more than 60,000 since this Government came to power, as well as training a lot more special educational needs co-ordinators.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Gillian Keegan
Yes, I can give an assurance that we are going through all the details and assessing each instance on a case-by-case basis. I know that all hon. Members are keen to know what will happen, and they will have the answers very shortly.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The changes in the visa rules for international students and their dependants are having a significant impact, not only on the number of students coming to universities such as the University of York, a Russell Group university, but on these universities’ finances. Universities will have to make significant cuts if this visa programme reaches fruition. Will the Minister meet vice-chancellors and the Home Office, together, to talk about the impact this is having?
Robert Halfon
We have regular conversations with vice-chancellors and the Home Office on this issue. However, as I say, our target has been more than 600,000 students and we have well surpassed that, and 36% of university researchers come from outside the UK. We have a proud record on international students and that will continue.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Gillian Keegan
I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. That is exactly why we are developing a new NPQ for SENCOs, which will launch in autumn 2024, and are inputting into the standards for teacher training to ensure that everybody has an understanding of how best to support children. There are now a lot of children with special educational needs, and we all need to know how to support them better.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
From my citywide consultation of parents of children with SEND, it came to light that the particularly harsh and punitive disciplinary processes being exercised in schools are having a very harmful effect on many of those children. Will the Secretary of State or the Schools Minister meet me to discuss a particular multi-academy trust in my constituency where those processes are having a very negative impact on young people?
Gillian Keegan
I am very happy to confirm that the Minister for children and families will be happy to meet the hon. Lady.
Core School Budget Allocations
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Nick Gibb
The funding allocated for local authorities is ringfenced. This is an allocation and calculation issue—it is not that they have received the money—and we corrected it as soon as the error was made. Any Labour Members in the same position would have reacted in precisely the same way that I have.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
This blunder is going to cost schools in York dear. We are already in the bottom 20 in the country for school funding and in the bottom third for high needs. I had a meeting with parents on Friday night, and 150 of them were in tears and on their knees about the SEN funding. The formulas are just not working in areas where there is low funding. Will the Minister bring forward the fair funding formula to ensure that children in my constituency with SEND have fair funding allocated to them?
Nick Gibb
I understand the hon. Lady’s points, and I share the concern of parents with children with special educational needs and disabilities. We do want to make sure that local authorities are properly funded for children with those special needs, which is why we have increased funding for high needs very significantly over the past few years. Over £10 billion is now allocated to local authorities for those children. If we look at the national funding formula, we see that 10.2% of the formula—£4.4 billion—is on the basis of deprivation factors, and 17.8% is allocated on the basis of additional needs. These are very significant sums both in the national funding formula for mainstream schools and the extra money we are giving to local authorities for high needs.