Covid-19: Educational Settings

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend has been a great champion, defending his schools and doing everything he can to ensure that parents in his constituency benefit from being able to have access to their schools, but he makes an important point about clarity. I hope that what we have set out today brings a lot of clarity. The further detailed consultation that Ofqual will roll out in the early part of next week will be the next stage of consulting schools on the next steps. We recognise that, when that is fully completed, it is really important that we support schools, the teaching profession, and colleges and lecturers in those next steps and the awarding of grades in the summer for A-levels, GCSEs, and other vocational and technical qualifications.

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab) [V]]

Despite serious safety concerns, we were told yesterday that BTECs were still going ahead, only to be told late last night that it was simply up to schools and colleges to decide whether it was safe. The Secretary of State ignored education unions and organisations when they repeatedly told him that it was not safe to reopen schools, colleges and nurseries on Monday, and nurseries are still open in full today, despite widespread anger and disbelief in the sector and without any robust scientific evidence from the Secretary of State that nurseries will not act as a vector for transmission of the virus.

Safety is the Secretary of State’s responsibility. Up to one in 50 people now have the virus, and the number continues to climb. Will he now listen to education unions and organisations, cancel BTEC exams, urgently take the same safety approach on nurseries as he has done with schools, and provide upgraded risk assessment guidance and vaccine access to all settings that are currently open to vulnerable and key worker children?

[Gavin Williamson]

May I say what a delight it is to have the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) as shadow Secretary of State? At least she seems to be enthusiastic about having children in schools, colleges and other settings, unlike the previous shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey).

At every stage—I think the hon. Lady understands this—we have put the safety and security of children and the workforce at the very heart of what we do. As the chief medical officers not just of England, but of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have said, the best place for children is in school, but we have had to take unprecedented action as a result of the advice from the chief medical officer for England that the nation had to move to covid alert level 5. When the decision was taken on Monday to move to covid alert level 5, it was right that additional actions were taken, as reluctant as I was to see us in that position.

I think it is a little unfair of the hon. Lady to imply that the safety and security of staff and children are not at the heart of all our actions. They are at the heart of all our actions, but we know that children benefit from being in school and having the opportunity to sit in front of their teacher in the classroom. That is why Conservative Members have always been so enthusiastic for schools to have children in. I hope that she will eventually become a convert to that idea, as her successor has done.