Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

All schools need to be safe and disciplined environments in which pupils feel happy and able to fulfil their potential. We continue to work with the Home Office to consider how best to get the message of its serious violence strategy into schools, and we have ensured that its #knifefree anti-knife campaign has been disseminated to all schools in England.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

The second Bercow report, “Ten Years On”, highlights that there is a very strong correlation between poor speech, language and communication skills, and children who are excluded from schools. Tackling this issue early on can make an enormous difference to children’s life chances. Does my right hon. Friend agree that focusing on this area in the early years is more important than ever, and can he assure us that we can still deliver these services given the pressures on many local authorities that provide these services?

[Damian Hinds]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of early language and literacy. I have set an ambition that we halve, from 28% to 14%, the percentage of children who reach the end of reception year without the level that they require to get the most out of primary school. This is one of the reasons that we are investing so much in the early years, including the two-year-old offer, which was not available under any previous Government, but we need to go further and we will have more to say in due course.