National Tutoring Programme and Adult Education

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important debate. I particularly thank the members of the Education Committee, including the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) for co-sponsoring the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates). My hon. Friend is a brilliant Committee member and I appreciate all the work that she does.

To reassure the Whip on the Front Bench and, I am sure, the Minister, I should say that I fully support the estimates today. I will try to recommend things that I think can be improved and to argue that, although extra money has been raised, we need to ensure that we have value for money and that that money is spent well. I hope that the Government see my remarks in that spirit.

In last year’s autumn Budget, the Chancellor and the Education Secretary set out a vision of support for schools, skills and families. Of course, I agree with that—it is very important to focus on those three things—but I think that social justice needs to be added. I believe that the fundamental challenges now facing education are recovery from the covid-19 pandemic, addressing social injustices and early years intervention. I see that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) is in her place; she is an expert on this issue in Parliament and does so much to ensure that the Government focus on early intervention.

It is also important for me, in opening this debate, to thank the teachers and support staff in schools and colleges in my constituency, who do so much to keep pupils learning and who have worked incredibly hard during the pandemic. I also thank the teachers and support staff around the country.

Clearly, the Government are making progress on skills and standards. Literacy rates are up and 1.9 million children are now in good or outstanding schools. The Skills and Post-16 Education Bill and the lifetime skills guarantee, which passed through the House of Commons only a couple of weeks ago, could be very exciting, alongside proper money—£3 billion of extra funding. That should be welcome; that is real money.

As the Education Secretary and Ministers know, I think that more needs to be done to increase the amount of careers encounters that young people have at school. The Government are suggesting just three—so one a year in key years—but I suggest that there should be nine encounters altogether. That would not cost the Government any more in funding.

I have also suggested that additional funding should be made available to support adults to obtain a level 2 qualification as long as they can demonstrate their intention to progress to level 3, as per the lifelong learning entitlement. As I said in our debate on amendments to the skills Bill, many adults are not yet ready to do a level 3 apprenticeship. I want them to do so—it is wonderful that the Government are going to offer level 3 in the core subjects—but if they are not ready, it makes sense to give them the opportunity to start on a level 2 apprenticeship and use that for progression, as long as they progress to level 3 after that. I recognise that funds are difficult and that they are not readily available, but if we are going to bid for things in the next spending round, that should be a significant Government priority.

To go back to the careers encounters—what is known as the “Baker clause”—the Secretary of State has indicated to me that the Government want to do more on that. The Minister responsible for skills—the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart)—has said the same. The Bill is being discussed in the Lords at the moment and no doubt this issue is being brought up by Lord Baker and many other peers. If we are serious about transforming adult education and building an apprenticeship and skills nation, we have to get more skills organisations, further education colleges, university technical schools, apprenticeships, apprentice organisations and apprentices into schools to encourage and set out the incredible career paths available, so that pupils know that there is an option not just of university, but of skills and apprenticeships.

As I said in the previous debate on this subject, when I go around the country and meet apprentices—meeting apprentices in all walks of life is one of the most enjoyable parts of my job—it grieves me that eight or nine times out of 10 they tell me that they have never been encouraged by their school to do an apprenticeship. My first speech in the House of Commons was on this subject in 2010, and that situation has not improved. I have even met degree apprentices who are doing incredible, high-quality apprenticeships—they do not have a loan and are going to get a good job at the end of their apprenticeship—who have offered to go back to their school to talk about their higher-level apprenticeship, but the school has turned them down. That has not just happened once—I have asked those degree apprentices about that—because, with their school, the whole culture is university, university, university when it should be skills, skills, skills.

I urge the Minister to introduce teaching degree apprenticeships. I do not understand why there has been resistance to them in the Department; we have policing degree apprentices, nursing degree apprentices and many public sector apprentices in other walks of life. We have apprentices in every other field, from engineering and law to plumbing and hairdressing. Why on earth cannot we have teaching degree apprentices? There are teaching assistant apprentices; there are also graduate teaching apprentices, but they have to go to university first. If we are to deal with the teacher recruitment crisis—a third of new teachers are leaving before five years in the profession—one way to encourage teachers and would-be teachers would be by introducing teaching degree apprentices. I would like to know the Government’s view on that point. I see the Minister nodding; I hope it is a sympathetic nod.

On adult education and skills, the Government are making significant progress, even with the things that I am calling for, and it is important to recognise that. I am excited about some of what is going on. The Government are talking about skills and apprenticeships in a way that they have not talked for a long time. Importantly, they have also reversed the spending cuts to further education.

Harlow College is, I would argue, one of the best colleges in England. As its Member of Parliament, I have visited it nearly 100 times since 2010; it is one of my favourite places to visit in my constituency because I see there how important and transformative further education is. Colleges are places of academic, vocational and social capital and are doing many of the things that the Government want and need in order to ensure we address the significant skills deficits in our country. However, if we do not get educational recovery from the covid pandemic right, and if we do not address social injustices in education, many of our young people will be at risk of not even reaching that stage in their academic career or reaping the benefits on offer.

I want to focus on the catch-up programme, for which I campaigned. From day one, I was passionately opposed to school closures. I have said time and again that they were a disaster for our children. I know that schools were open for vulnerable children and for the children of key workers, but in the first lockdown more than 90% of vulnerable children did not go to school. We know the damage that that has done to educational attainment, to mental health—referrals are up 60% and eating disorders among young girls are up 400%—and to pupils’ life chances. Tragically, it has also meant enormous safeguarding hazards, with children suffering domestic abuse at home and joining county lines gangs. Closing the schools was a mistake and we should never do it again. That is why, alongside other hon. Members, I campaigned for the catch-up programme early on and was very excited when it was announced. I thought it was incredibly important.

Let us look at the figures on the negative effects of school closures. The Education Policy Institute is to education what the Institute for Fiscal Studies is to economics: it is an incredibly respected organisation. Its chair told the Education Committee:

“In our most challenging communities for the most disadvantaged youngsters, they could be five, six, seven—in the worst-case scenarios eight—months behind in some of their learning.”

Ofsted says that some of the hardest-hit children returning to school after the first lockdown had even forgotten how to eat with a knife and fork and in some instances they had lost their progress.

Given the importance of catch-up, there are real questions about whether the catch-up programme, particularly the national tutoring programme, is fit for purpose. My view is that, under Randstad, it is just not working. The Education Committee has heard evidence from multiple sources about the problems besieging its delivery. In January, Schools Week reported that the national tutoring programme had reached just 15% of its overall target. Moreover, it reported that just 52,000 starts had been made through the tuition pillar of the NTP—just 10% of the 524,000 target.

I have met quite a few headteachers, not just in Harlow but around the country; the Committee has done roundtables and I have gone to schools. They have talked about the bureaucratic nightmare that they face while trying to use the catch-up programme and the national tutoring programme. There are also regional disparities: the NTP is reaching 96% of schools in the south-east, which is good news, but it is reaching only 59% in the north-east and the north-west, so there is a north-south divide yet again. Perhaps most alarmingly, the Department for Education’s annual report and accounts, published in December 2021, rated as critical and as very likely the possibility that the measures in the national tutoring programme to address lost learning would be insufficient.

Just last week, we heard that Randstad has removed the requirement to reach 65% of pupil premium children from the tutoring contracts with providers. What is the point of a targeted recovery programme if it does not reach those who are most in need, and if its targets are removed? Was the decision taken by Randstad or by the Department? I very much hope that the Minister will answer that question. Surely the whole point of the programme is that it is disadvantaged children, who learned the least during lockdown, who need most help. Every child suffered during the lockdown and we need catch-up programmes for all, but we must focus on the most vulnerable children. What is the point of that decision? I do not understand why the target of reaching 65% of pupil premium children has been removed. It is really important that the Minister explains what is going on.

The Government must also, as a priority, address the social injustices in our education system. The Department rightly points to higher standards; as I have mentioned, 1.9 million children are in good or outstanding schools, which is really good news. Until the pandemic, standards were going up, but we must also address social injustice in education.

Let me explain what I mean by social injustice. Just 5% of excluded pupils pass English and maths GCSE, just 7% of care leavers achieve a good pass in English and maths GCSE, and 18% of young people with special educational needs get a decent maths or English grade at the time of taking GCSEs. Attainment 8 scores for free school meal-eligible pupils varied across ethnic groups: for white British pupils, the average was just 31.8; for black Caribbean pupils, it was 34.1; Gypsy/Roma pupils scored 16.9; and Irish Travellers scored just 22.2.

Until a few years ago, we were making improvements to the attainment gap, but that progress is now stalling. Disadvantaged pupils are now 18 months of learning behind their better-off peers by the time they reach the age of 16. Progress had stalled before covid, so we cannot just blame it all on covid that the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their better-off peers is 18 months.

Children’s special educational needs is, understandably, a subject that I care about very deeply and that my Select Committee has done a lot of work on. Parents and families have waited nearly three years for the SEN review to be published, and in the meantime they are wading through a treacle of unkind bureaucracy as they try to get a level educational playing field for their children. The Committee has done a big report on special educational needs. It is wrong that children are not given a level playing field, it is wrong that so many families have to wait for education, health and care plans, it is wrong that the healthcare element of those plans is often non-existent, and it is wrong that there are not enough trained staff.

It is not always a question of money. I recognise that the Government put in an extra £800 million for special educational needs a year or so ago. It is also about money not being spent in the right way. We are wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on tribunal cases that the local authorities always lose. Because children with special educational needs are getting a poor service, their parents are going to tribunals, and I believe that more than 90% are winning their cases. That money could have been spent on the frontline. This is what I mean about money not being spent in the right way; the same applies to the catch-up programme.

I have mentioned that just 5% of excluded pupils pass GCSEs in English and maths. Every day, 40 pupils are excluded from our schools and they are not ending up in some wonderful alternative provision. As we know, there is a postcode lottery. Of course there are good alternative-provision schools, but often in the areas where the most pupils are excluded there is poor or non-existent alternative provision. I agree with Michael Wilshaw that we should try to minimise exclusions and that we should invest in local support units in schools—even if they have to be in a separate building—to train staff and to ensure that parents understand their rights.

Our Committee wrote a report entitled “Forgotten children: alternative provision and the scandal of ever increasing exclusions”. The Government said that they welcomed the recommendations of the Timpson review, but what worries me is that very few of those recommendations have begun to be adopted. That is what I mean by addressing social injustice in education. I want disadvantaged pupils to benefit most from the catch-up programme. I want children with special educational needs to have a level playing field like everyone else, and to be able to get on to the ladder of opportunity. I also want excluded pupils—40 of them each day, as I keep repeating—to be given that chance in life, and not end up in prison. We know that 60% of prisoners have been excluded from school.

A further problem that the Government must confront is persistent absence, which has been highlighted by the Children’s Commissioner today. I call children who are persistently absent “the ghost children”. Even before the pandemic, the Centre for Social Justice reported that about 60,000 children were severely absent from school, and in the autumn of 2020 the total rose to more than 90,000. In her report, the Children’s Commissioner says that, according to a survey of local authorities, in the autumn term of 2021, more than 1.7 million pupils were persistently absent and 124,000 were severely absent. I pay huge tribute to her for highlighting that and for her work with the Government to try to get those children back to school. We are allowing this to happen: more than 100,000 children have mostly not returned to school since the schools were fully opened last March.

I urge the Minister to look at the recommendations from the Centre for Social Justice—I stress that this is my personal view; I am not speaking for my Committee at this point—and to use the underspend from the tutoring programme to fund an additional 2,000 attendance practitioners to work on the ground and return these children safely and securely to school. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, who is better at mathematics than I am, says that that is about 13 per county, which is not a lot.

What are we going to do? Are we really going to allow this? These children are potentially facing enormous safeguarding hazards, so we have to get them back to school. The Government have said that they will introduce a register of children who are not in school and are being home-educated. That must happen, and it must happen sooner rather than later. I have campaigned for it for a long time, along with members of my Committee, and we recently produced a report on the subject.

If the Minister does not agree with the recommendation from the Centre for Social Justice for an additional 2,000 attendance practitioners, I urge him at least to ensure that there is a proper programme of action that we all know about to return those “ghost children” to school. We need to know exactly what is happening. Six attendance advisers are simply not enough to deal with this problem. Education cannot just be for the majority. Academic capital and social capital must go hand in hand. The Government must prioritise levelling the playing field of education so that every child, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, has the chance to climb the ladder.

Given that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire is present, I had better say something about early years provision. I suspect that she would be upset if I did not, because she is such an expert on the subject. The additional £500 million for family hubs that was announced in last year’s Budget is very welcome: it is an incredible amount of money. The Secretary of State visited my brilliant local family hub, which is run by Virgin Care and Essex County Council and does a great deal of work on parental engagement. As I have said, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their better-off peers is 18 months by the time the children reach the age of 16, but we also know that 40% of that attainment gap begins before children reach the age of five. Targeted support at this stage of life is therefore crucial. We also need to ensure that younger children from disadvantaged backgrounds are learning more at an early age.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one way to ensure that every baby has the chance of the best possible start in life is to ensure that all the services that support families are universal, and not in any way stigmatising?

[Robert Halfon]

I could not agree more. I have seen the work of Manchester Council in this regard and I think that it should be replicated throughout the country. More families would benefit as a result, particularly disadvantaged families.

Parental engagement is critical and the family hubs should follow a model of best practice. Feltham Academy, for instance, takes a “cradle to career” approach. When I was in Nottingham last week, I met the headteacher of a school that trains parents to act as mentors in the community for other parents who would otherwise be disengaged from the school. That really works.

I should like the Government to consider, in the spending round, its funding of early years entitlements. I do not understand why the three or four-year-old child of an MP, when both parents are working and earning up to £100,000 each a year, qualifies for 30 hours of childcare, while the three or four-year-old child of a single parent in my constituency—or elsewhere in the country—who may not be able to work because they have that young child to bring up qualifies for just 15 hours. I cannot see how that can be the right decision on the Government’s part. I know the Minister will tell me that some poorer families qualify for extra benefits and extra hours, but the fact remains that that is the position.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Robert Halfon]

I always give way to the hon. Lady and I promise to do so if she will allow me to finish this paragraph.

I am not necessarily asking for more money, but I do ask the Minister to work with colleagues and consider reducing the generous threshold that exists for parents to claim tax-free childcare, a subsidy that does not capture society’s most disadvantaged families. One way we could do this is by dropping the eligibility cap to £65,000 from the existing £100,000 mark. That could free up £150 million, which would go some way towards covering the additional outlay.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his excellent speech. On his point about childcare, I declare an interest as he is talking about MPs with children who qualify for the 30 hours free childcare, as my three-year-old son does. We can have a good debate about who should and should not be eligible for that, and I agree broadly with the point he is making. Does he agree, however, that those 15 or 30 free hours are not actually free because most childcare providers cannot afford to provide childcare at the rate the Government are giving them? Parents are therefore regularly asked to top it up. I can afford the top-up, but many people just cannot afford it and therefore cannot make use of childcare, which is preventing them from going out to work.

[Robert Halfon]

I absolutely accept that where there are strains for providers of early years education, the Government should look at that and fill in the holes, but I think it varies. Some providers have found it very hard and some have managed to provide that service, but I accept the point the hon. Lady makes.

In conclusion, education recovery and the catch-up programme must be the immediate spending priority. I have previously described the Education Secretary as someone who can get mangoes in the Arctic and Brussels sprouts in the desert. He is that kind of person, and I am not surprised that he has managed to wangle all these extra billions from the Treasury for the catch-up and for an overall budget growth of almost 3%. That is a significant achievement in the current climate, and it has to be acknowledged. The House will have noticed that I have not necessarily been asking for lots more money; I have been asking for the Department to spend the money more wisely. It needs to demonstrate, above all, that the catch-up programme is providing value for money. When the Minister goes back to the Treasury, it is going to say that it is not working, and the evidence out there is that it is not necessarily working for the most disadvantaged. There are serious issues regarding the catch-up programme and questions to be asked about whether children are fully recovering from the lost learning in the pandemic. There are long-term issues of social injustice that need to be tackled, and of course early years must be supported, as I have just set out.

I hope the Minister will recognise that these are the priorities for the Government and that education will finally get a long-term plan and a secure funding settlement. We can have a debate about how much it is, but if the NHS can have a 10-year plan and a long-term funding settlement and the Ministry of Defence can have a big funding settlement over the next few years and a strategic review, I do not understand why Education cannot have a long-term plan and a secure funding settlement, at least over a few years. That would give a lot of stability to everyone working in education, to schools, to colleges and to universities, and that would make a huge difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miriam Cates]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I completely agree. All children have been affected by the pandemic—of course, certain demographics and ages have been affected more, but all children have suffered—so he is right that we need to give headteachers in particular the autonomy to decide how budgets are spent in their schools in the best interests of their children.

Let me move on to the adult education budget. We have had a chronic skills gap in this country for some time. The last census showed that in Stocksbridge in my constituency less than 50% of adults had a level 3 skill or above. The fact that there are 1.3 million job vacancies in the UK shows that our population must have a skills gap. In England, just one in 10 adults has a technical qualification; in Germany, the proportion is one in five. We have clearly fallen behind many of our developed-nation competitors when it comes to skills, so I welcome the extra investment of £3.8 billion in further education and skills over this Parliament. The £1.6 billion for the national skills fund and the funding for the lifelong learning entitlement indicate a positive change of direction by this Government that will have a huge impact on levelling up and adult skills.

I wish to focus on a particular type of adult education provider. In my constituency we have Northern College, which is one of just four residential adult education colleges in the country. Its Wentworth Castle setting is amazingly inspirational. I do not know why they built it by the motorway—it is a bit noisy—but it is a fantastic setting: the grounds are managed by the National Trust and students have access to the best Italian staircase in Europe and the longest suspended ceiling. It is an amazing setting for adults who need a second chance at education, for whatever reason.

The college offers short and long course, GCSEs, A-levels, access courses, vocational qualifications, technical qualifications and higher education courses. The residential element is so important for people who need to step out of the normal run of their lives—perhaps they do not live in supportive households—and need the space to develop their learning skills. Many of the adults at Northern College, which I have visited a number of times, have been in prison or have been victims of domestic violence. For all sorts of reasons, they need an intensive second chance in education. The students themselves speak of the transformational impact of residential education on their lives, and the outcomes—in terms of people getting good jobs and staying in work for the rest of their lives—are truly outstanding.

Residential adult education colleges are a very small aspect of adult education provision—as I said, there are only four of them in the entire country—but they are really important. Some adults want to get another chance at education and to upskill, but if someone is 35 and has been in prison, is it really appropriate for them to go to their local further education college and sit with a load of 16-year-olds with completely different life experience and priorities? Northern College and the three other colleges across the country offer a unique and successful opportunity for people who need a second chance. I must mention the inspirational leadership of the principal of Northern College, Yultan Mellor, who has seen the college go from strength to strength to the point at which it is truly transforming lives.

I very much welcome the devolution of the adult education budget; it is a good step forward. Northern College is now jointly funded by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and the South Yorkshire Combined Authority, which is an understandable move given that that is where the majority of students are drawn from. However, as a result of this devolution, the residential uplift—the element of funding that provides residential support to the adults who need it—is now under threat. That is a problem because there is good evidence to show that this period of intensive learning, with the counselling and the study skills support that is available for these adults, can be life changing. It is also the case that Northern College is not just a local institution; it is a national provider, so there should be some sort of understanding that this residential uplift needs to continue.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) is due to meet me and the principal shortly to talk about this matter, but may I ask Ministers urgently to take a decision on this uplift so that Northern College and the other three colleges can continue to be an important part of our national education strategy? I know that it is small, but it is key provision for many adults who would not otherwise have the access, the opportunity and the success in learning both academically and in skills.

I want to make two broader points about education spending. First, we must recognise the limits of our education system and what it can achieve. We often think that any issues or policies around children have to be fixed by our education system, particularly by our schools. Certainly the social demands on schools have increased in recent years. It is not just post pandemic, when, yes, children have regressed in terms of basic skills, but was an issue even before then. There are increased reports of children going to school without having been potty trained, and increased incidences of parents not being able to cope and needing the school’s support. We saw that particularly at the beginning of the pandemic when we realised how many families were completely reliant on schools not just for academic provision, but for the surrounding services that schools provide.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. She has talked about how important the tutoring programme could be if it works correctly. Does she not agree that attention needs to be paid not just to the tuition catch-up, but to mental health and wellbeing catch-up? As I highlighted a little bit in my speech, mental health referrals among young children have gone up enormously since lockdown.

[Miriam Cates]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. If children are not in the emotional and mental state to be able to learn, all the tutoring in the world will not get them to the place where they need to be. We do have a crisis in child mental health. Lockdown is one reason for that, but there are other reasons, too. We should not fool ourselves that any amount of catch-up spending will solve this crisis in mental health.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

I will go in order through the Members who spoke. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), who I hugely respect, was on the frontline in trying to keep schools open for most pupils during lockdown, alongside me and many other Members. She made the problems with the catch-up programme very clear, which my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) and the Front Benchers reflected on. There is a cross-party view that the catch-up programme, as it is, may not be fit for purpose, particularly the Randstad part of it. As I said, I urge the Government to look at that, and I am encouraged by what the Minister said.

My fellow Education Committee member, my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, talked powerfully not just about the catch-up programme, but about skills. What she said about universities is absolutely right. We have had a mantra in this country of university, university, university when it should have been skills, skills, skills. There has been an imbalance and I welcome the moves that the Government are making to change that. That was an important point and I am glad that she mentioned the statistics relating to Germany’s much more vocational education.

I thank the shadow spokesman, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), for his kind remarks. He was right to highlight the problems with Randstad. He talked about breakfast clubs. Again, I am not asking for more money, but, if the Government were to use just £75 million of the £340 million raised from the sugar levy, that could reach 50% of the most disadvantaged pupils and expand the existing breakfast provision. That is quite important.

I welcome what the Minister said, particularly about the weekly meetings with Randstad and trying to get the catch-up programme working properly. It is important to acknowledge that the overall amount for the tuition programme is £5 billion, not just £1.8 billion. That is a sizeable sum of money in this economic climate. I do not mind at all where the Minister gets the money from for the “ghost children”, but we have to get those 100,000 kids back to school. If there is no underspend, that is fine, but it has to be a proper priority for the Government and there needs to be a serious effort and plan. I am glad that the Minister has explained about the target of 65% of disadvantaged children.

Finally, I do not understand why teaching degree apprentices still have to be graduates. We allow policing degree apprentices and nursing degree apprentices who have not been to university first, so why not teaching degree apprentices?

As I said in the closing remarks of my speech, we need a long-term plan. The Ministry of Defence has a strategic review; the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care have a long-term plan for health and a funding settlement. If we had the same in education, a lot of the problems that we have talked about today could perhaps be better solved.

Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).

Higher Education Reform

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I respectfully remind the hon. Lady that someone from a disadvantaged background today is 80% more likely to go to university than they were a decade ago. Let me go further and remind her that, in 2016, the coalition Government introduced the new apprenticeship standards and made sure that businesses were at the heart of setting those standards, because it is not politicians or experts in Whitehall who can decide what sectors of the economy will change and re-emerge.

There is a common theme—a strategy—running through all our reforms, from the apprenticeship standards, with more than 5 million people entering apprenticeships, to the skills White Paper, the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, which we just voted on and sent to the other place, and now our HE reforms. What if someone had said to me when I was choosing those new standards as the apprenticeships tsar that there would come a Prime Minister and a Chancellor who would back adults at any point in their life to upskill or reskill, or that we would say to someone in Aberdeen oil and gas who wanted to go and work in offshore wind, “We will stand behind you” with funding of £37,000, the equivalent of four years of education? That is what this Government are delivering and I am proud to be the son of a country that gives real opportunity to people from all backgrounds.

The hon. Lady mentioned the issue of excluding those who may not do so well in GCSEs. That is not what the consultation is about. It is about making sure that there are routes for those people, so that if they do not do well in their maths or English GCSEs, but do well in their A-levels, university is still open to them. However, a different route—an apprenticeship degree—is also open to them, as well as other vocational qualifications. Bringing FE and HE together was central to the Augar panel’s recommendations and that is what we are doing.

Finally, I respectfully remind the hon. Lady, who talked about our financial settlement, that my Department has a settlement of £86 billion for 2024, with £4.7 billion going into schools, £3.8 billion going into skills and £900 million—the highest uplift in a decade—going into our universities. That is our plan; she has no plan.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I broadly welcome the Government’s proposals. I pay tribute to the Secretary of State and particularly to the Minister for Higher and Further Education, who I know has worked hard on them; I am very grateful for the briefing that she gave me.

I welcome the cut in interest rates, which I think will make the system fairer. I have always felt it unfair that working-class people in my constituency of Harlow and across the country have a huge tax burden to pay for people to go to university and get better-paid jobs. The Government are right to rebalance that; I just urge caution on the maths and English GCSE issue. I know that the Secretary of State has qualified it, but there is a better option: just as apprentices do functional skills while doing their apprenticeships, why not make students who have difficulties with maths and English do refresher courses while they have the chance to go to university?

A more fundamental issue is that our education system narrows too early from the age of 16. I urge the Government to consider introducing an international baccalaureate system, as is used in 150 other countries. It could include vocational and technical education, but also English and maths: we would then not face the problem of people not being able to do maths and English by the time they get to university.

I really welcome the extra £900 million investment. I urge the Secretary of State to allocate a significant proportion—perhaps £500 million—to degree apprenticeships, which would mean an extra 34,000 apprentices at higher level. That would solve the student finance problem, because students would earn while they learn and would meet not only their own skills needs, but those of the country. They would be almost guaranteed a job, because 90% get a job at the end. That is the way forward. I know that the Secretary of State wants a 10% target, but a target over the next 10 years for 50% of students to do degree apprenticeships would transform skills in our country and transform the lives of those students.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for the support for our proposals from my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee on Education. I will absolutely be listening—this is a real consultation—to his proposals and concerns about the maths and English GCSEs. I completely agree that the concept of someone having to pay back more than they have borrowed is unfair; addressing that is a manifesto commitment, so we are delivering it. I am proud that we are touching 20,000 students on degree apprenticeships. I want to go much further than that and have set a target of 10%.

On the international baccalaureate, my right hon. Friend will know, because he has known me for a very long time, that I am about delivery and outcomes. I have the Department focused on skills, schools and family. Sometimes if you try to hug the world, you don’t do anything well enough, but I hear what he says. Let me deliver what I can while I have the privilege of leading the Department and then go back and do some more afterwards.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I remind everybody that at Report stage those making contributions should really be referring to the amendments or new clauses—this is not the time for general speeches.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

In rising to speak to my new clauses 1, 2 and 3, I give notice that I do not intend to press them to a Division.

The Government have already made it clear that they will make changes to prisoner apprenticeships. I am conscious of the financial considerations that need to be given to new clause 2. I have faith that the Secretary of State for Education believes deeply in skills and vocational education, and I hope to be able to continue to work with him to make improvements with regard to careers guidance and the Baker clause. I thank the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) for his support for my new clauses.

I welcome this Bill, which will revitalise an incredibly important part of the education sector that has seen its per-student funding reduced since 2010, although it is now going up again. The lifetime skills guarantee, the kickstart programme and the increase in support for FE colleges offer a revolutionary approach to building an apprenticeship and skills nation like never before. I commend the Secretary of State, Ministers and the former skills Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), on bringing forward this legislation.

[Emma Hardy]

rose—

[Robert Halfon]

I am delighted to give way to a former member of the Education Committee.

[Emma Hardy]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), I support the right hon. Gentleman’s new clauses. Does he agree that we urgently need the lifelong loan entitlement consultation before we try to bring forward primary legislation—this Bill—to ensure that when that legislation comes, it actually deals with the problem that we are all trying to address?

[Robert Halfon]

I am all for consultations, but I want this Bill to happen as soon as possible. I have wanted something like this for many years. I do have issues with it that I am going to talk about, but I am very excited about it and just want it to happen without any further delay.

As I mentioned, I support the Bill as a whole, but I have always lived and worked by the mantra, “Good, better, best.” When I was growing up and learning to walk, my old physio used to say, “Good, better, best, may you never rest, until your good is better and your better is your best”—it is the sort of thing you see on a toilet wall sometimes, but it has been my mantra, and it is what I want for this Bill. That is why I proposed these three new clauses to make sure that the ladder of opportunity can be extended to those most in need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend came to my constituency to visit Thorn Cross prison and to look at the education taking place in that open prison. Does he agree that it is because of businesses such as Timpson, which spends a lot of time working with prisoners and former prisoners, that we can ensure that many prisoners leaving the confines of prison find meaningful employment? However, it is important that we help those prisoners with that transition, so starting things such as apprenticeships in prison is really important.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is right. By the way, the prison that the Select Committee visited is an extraordinary place—it was like going to a further education college for prisoners in category D. It had a jobcentre to get the prisoners into work and into skilled jobs. It is the kind of prison that should be replicated around the country.

As for Timpson, no one could say anything bad about that wonderful company—I say that as someone who gets his shoes, his belt and his watch fixed there. I have met employees who are former convicts, and they are extraordinary people. Timpson is a remarkable company and I hope that many other companies follow its example—just so that you are clear, Mr Deputy Speaker, I do not get any money for this, and I have no interest to declare.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

New clause 1 is excellent, and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is good news that the Department and the Ministry of Justice want to work together on it. However, will he join me in urging Ministers to take special note of the position of women offenders and of the opportunities that apprenticeships can offer them?

[Robert Halfon]

As so often, the hon. Lady has got it absolutely right, and I am sure the Secretary of State has heard what she said. I hope very much that that is part of the regulations that he and the Justice Secretary introduce.

New clause 2 would provide funding for level 2 education and skills training for any person of any age, providing that they can demonstrate their intent to progress to level 3. The Education Committee’s adult skills and lifelong learning inquiry identified significant problems with low basic skills. Over 9 million working-age adults have poor literacy or numeracy skills, and 6 million adults do not have a level 2 qualification. Some 49% of adults from the lowest socioeconomic group have received no training since leaving school, and in the last 10 years just 17% of low-paid workers moved permanently out of low pay.

The lifelong learning entitlement is a really welcome intervention, allowing adults to undertake level 3 qualifications—the equivalent of an A-level—to retrain for different and better-paid jobs. However, we know that many of these adults will not have the skills needed to go straight into level 3 without further support. Level 2 qualifications are a key stepping-stone for progression for low-skilled adults. They provide those who have left school without GCSEs or equivalent qualifications with a vital chance of learning. Not having that stepping-stone of support is like asking someone who has little maths ability to dive straight into the deep end of A-levels without first learning to swim by taking GCSEs.

However, I recognise that there is a financial cost and that we are in difficult financial times. In 2018-19—the last year before covid—the adult education budget had a £56 million underspend nationally. More recently the trend of underspend has continued. In London only £110.6 million—60.7% of the £182 million given out to grant-funded providers through the adult education budget—had been spent by April 2021.

Investing in level 2 provision provides value for money for the taxpayer. Estimates suggest that for every £1 spent the net value is £21 and that could contribute an additional £28 billion to the economy. The Further Education Trust for Leadership review estimates that an additional £1.9 billion per year could be used to fund level 2 qualifications in maths, English and digital skills for the 4.7 million adults without such qualifications.

I get the financial restraints, which is why I will not press this new clause to a Division. However, I ask that the Government genuinely commit to look at funding options in the next spending review and particularly at using the underspend from budgets such as the adult education budget, even if they just introduce these provisions for maths and English. I would welcome the Minister’s views on that when he responds.

Finally, let me turn to the new clause I care most about. New clause 3 seeks to increase the number of careers guidance encounters that young people have at school and to toughen up what is called the Baker clause. As has been mentioned, I was the skills Minister responsible for bringing in the Baker clause in 2017, but despite the good intentions of all involved it has not been implemented correctly.

[Mr Perkins]

I have had so many encounters with young people doing apprenticeships. When I have spoken to them, they have said, “Although I’m doing an apprenticeship, they were hardly spoken about at school.” Everyone at their school seemed to be funnelled towards the sixth form, and lots of their friends and families had not heard of apprenticeships. That is precisely why this new clause is so important. We need to make sure that every young person, whether an A-grade student or not, has the opportunity to consider apprenticeships and other alternative strategies, as well as sixth form. That is why I really welcome this new clause, and I strongly encourage the right hon. Gentleman to put it to a vote.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and he is absolutely right. I go all over the country, and my first speech in this House was about apprenticeships and careers. I have done everything possible since I have been an MP to promote apprenticeships across the country, and I have employed apprentices in my office. Whenever I go around the country and meet apprentices, the most depressing thing is that eight out of 10 say their schools told them nothing about apprenticeships—sometimes it is nine out of 10, and sometimes it is 10 out of 10. Worse, I have met degree apprentices doing the most incredible, high-quality apprenticeships in engineering or whatever it may be who have offered to go back to their schools to talk to the kids—to do one of those encounters—about apprenticeships, but the schools have said no. Why? Because we have a culture in this country of university, university, university. That is partly because every teacher has to be a graduate, and I hope that the Secretary of State will one day allow degree apprenticeships in teaching, not just postgraduate degrees in teaching. We have a culture that is university, university, university, when it should be skills, skills, skills.

The reason why I am not pushing the new clause is that, in my discussions with Ministers, they say they are going to deal with this problem properly. If I did not believe them, I promise you I would bring through the new clause, and those in the House who know me and who know how I campaign know that.

[Jim Shannon]

rose—

[Robert Halfon]

How can I not give way to the great man opposite?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. His last point, which was reiterated by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), is particularly important. Not every person is academically inclined. Not every person can get a degree. Not every person can progress in education. However, many people can grasp the opportunity of an apprenticeship. Back in Northern Ireland, which the Bill is not aimed at, we try to make those opportunities available through secondary schools and further education colleges. Businesses come in and show pupils the opportunities so that they can grasp that this is something they can succeed at. It is about giving young people the expectation and the opportunity to do something that they want to do and to do it well.

[Robert Halfon]

Of course I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The only thing I would say is that we must never see apprenticeships and skills as something lesser, or say that someone doing skills is not good enough for university or academia. It is quite the opposite, actually, with many apprentices now earning more than graduates. Graduates often cannot get jobs, and apprentices are getting higher wages.

To do an apprenticeship, gain a skill or go to an FE college is a great thing in life that should be seen as prestigious. We should not look down on that. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) talked about the Cinderella sector but, as I have always said, we should not forget that Cinderella became a member of the royal family. We should banish the two ugly sisters of snobbery and underfunding, which I hope the Secretary of State wants to do.

It grieves me to say that schools are not complying with the Baker clause, which has been mentioned in interventions. How can it be, if we are trying to build a skills nation, that we are not giving young people the chance to learn about the technical and vocational educational pathways that exist to support their careers? I worry about the traditionalists, still running rampant, who just want everyone to go to some kind of old-fashioned Oxbridge-type university. As I said, their attitude is university, university, university, when it should be skills, skills, skills. We need the curriculum to better prepare people for the world of work. It should be “Goodbye, Mr Chips” and “Hello, James Dyson” and I urge Ministers to listen to James Dyson—I will be inviting him to the Education Committee for our skills inquiry—because he and many others understand what needs to happen to the curriculum.

My new clause 3 would toughen up the legislation and require schools, technical colleges and apprenticeship providers to talk to pupils about vocational options. It would provide for nine careers guidance meetings in total, with three in each key year group—years 8 and 9, years 10 and 11 and years 12 and 13—rather than just the miserly current offer of three meetings in total. One meeting a year is nothing. We need this stuff going on all the time, with as much encouragement as possible. I actually think that asking for just three meetings a year is low and cautious, so I am trusting the Government to move at least some of the way on this.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. I speak as a former careers adviser and someone who used to train careers advisers, so this is music to my ears. I speak as a former adviser not through being in this place but because the right to and guarantee of impartial professional careers guidance have been decimated over time. I support the good intentions behind new clause 3 and agree 100% that we need parity of esteem between vocational and so-called academic education.

[Robert Halfon]

I really appreciate that support. The hon. Gentleman knows so much about this area, so having his backing means a lot.

I have visited my wonderful Harlow College nearly 100 times since being elected in 2010. FE colleges and apprenticeship providers give disadvantaged people the chance to climb the educational ladder of opportunity and to meet our skills needs. They earn while they learn—no debt to worry about—and they get a good wage, and 90% of them get jobs in the company that employed them as an apprentice. We have much to do on this, but we will only change things in this country if we transform the culture around careers. We really mean it when we say that we want people to go into schools and encourage a skills-based education and that the curriculum must prepare people for the world of work.

I stress again—this is my final point, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I know many people want to speak—that this lifetime skills Bill is a wonderful Bill. I am incredibly happy that it is backed by billions of pounds, which should be welcomed. We are offering every single person a level 3 qualification in a core subject, which is revolutionary. We are giving more support for further education, which is wonderful. I just ask the Minister to accept my suggestion or to really move on this to make a difference, so that when it comes to levelling up we know that skills, apprenticeships and further education are No. 1 in the Government’s priorities.

Government’s Education Catch-up and Mental Health Recovery Programmes

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effectiveness of the Government’s education catch-up and mental health recovery programmes.

I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) for coming to the Backbench Business Committee to secure the debate. The impact of covid-19 on education has been nothing short of a national disaster for our children. Lockdowns and school closures for most children have heralded the four horsemen of the education apocalypse: a widening attainment gap, a mental health epidemic, increased safeguarding hazards and damage to life chances. Even prior to the pandemic, disadvantaged pupils were already 18 months of learning behind their better-off peers by the time of GCSEs, and only yesterday The Times newspaper, as part of its education commission, reported that 25% fewer poorer pupils achieve English and maths GCSEs compared with their wealthier peers.

Today I would like to focus on three key issues affecting children’s recovery. First, I will start with the ghost children. On Sunday, the respected Centre for Social Justice published a new report, “Lost but not forgotten”, which continues to highlight the worrying situation of the over 100,000 children—and the number is increasing—who have mostly not returned to school since schools were reopened last year. Across the country, 758 schools are missing almost an entire class-worth of children. About 500 children are missing in half of all local authorities across the country. The Government want exams to go ahead, which I agree with, but 13,000 children in a critical exam year

“are most likely to be severely absent.”

As my Education Committee heard from a headteacher last week:

“Pupils need to be physically in school to even start to learn.”

However, the effects of persistent absence go well beyond academic progress. The CSJ again points out that while

“school attendance is not a panacea, it…offers opportunities to detect wrongdoing and intervene much earlier.”

This would prevent safeguarding concerns from escalating and would provide the families with the support they need when they need it. We only need to remember the tragic cases of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson to realise this truth.

Of course, I welcome the Government’s recent announcements

“to tackle the postcode lottery of avoidable absence”,

but this is no way near enough. The Department for Education must prioritise gathering live data about who and where these children are—the data is absolutely crucial—and I urge the Government to use any underspend from the national tutoring programme, as the Centre for Social Justice has recommended, to fund 2,000 attendance advisers to work on the ground to find these children, work with the families and get the children back into school. Charles Dickens wrote in “Oliver Twist”

“of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired!”

We must do much more to save this “Oliver Twist” generation of ghost children, who are out in the streets and facing safeguarding hazards, including joining county line gangs, and facing online harms at home and possible high-pressure home situations such as domestic abuse. If we do nothing or we do not do enough, we will be haunted by these ghost children forever.

Secondly, we must consider the efficacy of the Government’s education catch-up programmes. I strongly welcome the catch-up programmes—I campaigned for them for literally the year during lockdown—and I welcome the £5 billion invested in education recovery, but my key worry is that the funding, however welcome, is not reaching the most vulnerable children in our communities.

The national tutoring programme is falling short of its targets: 524,000 children were supposed to start tutoring this year, but only 8% have begun. The Education Policy Institute has found that there has been a marked disparity in the take-up of the national tutoring programme between the north and the south. In the north just 50% of schools engaged with the national tutoring programme, whereas in the south upwards of 96% of schools engaged with the programme. In December, the Department published its own annual report evidencing that the Government believe the risk that their catch-up programme will fail to recover lost learning is “Critical/very likely”. That is a direct quote from the Department’s own annual report.

Headteachers and tutoring groups have described to us the inaccessibility of the hub, and the lack of quality assurance about the tutors on offer. Yesterday, I did a roundtable with heads from university technical colleges —an initiative I am incredibly supportive of—and the principal of Aston University Sixth Form in Birmingham said that, despite receiving about £60,000 of recovery funding and an offer of three NTP tutors, as of yesterday just one had started, and it is now forced to resort to expensive private tutoring. The NTP has the potential to be a really great intervention by the Government to support children’s recovery, but it is not going far enough or happening quickly enough. I strongly urge the Minister to look again at the contract and seriously consider enacting the break clause and working with Randstad to up its game or literally say goodbye.

However, recovery is not just about academic catch-up. We need to look at other measures to support pupils. I welcome the pilot scheme in Wales on extending the school day, in which 14 primary and secondary schools will trial an additional five hours of bespoke activities in art, music, sport and core academic sessions. Let me be clear: when I say we should consider extending the school day, I am not talking about pupils sitting through eight more hours of algebra, although the Minister would probably like that. Instead, as in Wales, a longer school day should be used to support enrichment and extracurricular activities, which have been proven to support academic attainment.

The Education Policy Institute found that a longer school day could increase educational attainment by two to three months. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport found that an extended school day can boost numeracy skills by 29%. Young people who participate in school clubs are 20% less likely to suffer from mental health problems. Why cannot the Government at least consider implementing a pilot for longer school days, as Wales has done, to help to give disadvantaged children in England the best chance of closing the gap with their peers?

Thirdly, we must address the challenges with children’s mental health. Like the Minister, I go to schools in my constituency and all over the place, and I am struck again and again, when speaking to students, that they talk about mental health in a way I have not heard over the past few years. That has been hugely caused by the damage of lockdown and shutting schools, which we must never, ever do again.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the important points he is making. On the issue of mental health, this week the all-party parliamentary group on pandemic response and recovery had evidence from psychologists of long standing in the field, indicating that one of the greatest causes of stress and mental health problems in young children at school was the continual testing that takes place for covid. Does he accept that, given the way the virus is now moving, we must look at whether such extensive testing is needed, evaluate its significance anyhow, and address this issue, which is putting many children off even wanting to go to school?

[Robert Halfon]

As so often, the right hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. My view has always been that we seem to be putting burdens on children all the time, when they are at low risk—thank goodness—from covid, yet we do not do the same to adults. It is children who have really suffered during this pandemic. We have all let them down through some of the policies that have been implemented. I understand why that was done, but our children have really struggled, so I have sympathy for what he says.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

I thank the Chair of the Education Committee for his excellent speech. I agree with him on many of the points he raises. As he knows, I chair the all-party parliamentary group for school exclusions and alternative provision, and we had a meeting just this morning with professionals in that area. There is a crisis in AP at the moment, due to the sheer numbers of young people who cannot be in mainstream education because of the crisis in mental health that he has just mentioned. Does he agree that it is critical that the Government find funding for high-quality AP and offer more guidance to local authorities on how to use their high needs block to ensure that those much-needed provisions are available now in local communities?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Forty children are excluded every school day and, sadly, they are not ending up in quality alternative provision. There is a postcode lottery, despite the wonderful efforts of many teachers in AP. There needs to be a dramatic change. I would like kids to stay in the school but have support training centres in the school. As Michael Wilshaw, the former head of Ofsted, said to our Committee, there should be many more of them so that kids are not just dumped out into the streets and left, often, to their own devices or to poor-quality provision.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend knows that he and I have a slight difference of opinion when it comes to the idea of exclusion. However, I always want to be careful about one thing: that we talk about what the school could do. Does he agree that there always needs to be a firm conversation about what more parents can do to support the teachers to ensure that their children do not end up being excluded?

[Robert Halfon]

Yes, 100%. I like the message coming out of the Department for Education that this is not just about schools and skills, but families, schools and skills. Families are central to this and we should do everything possible to strengthen them. I welcome the hundreds of millions of pounds that the Government are putting into early intervention, particularly to build family hubs around the country.

Let us look at the horrific statistics on mental health: 17.4% of children aged six to 16 had a probable mental health disorder in 2021, up from 11.6% in 2017. Overall, child mental health referrals are up by 60%, so the Government must rocket-boost their proposals to put a mental health professional in every school, not just in 25% of them. We should also ensure—this perhaps relates to some of the question from my hon. Friend—that interventions to support mental health are not seen as crutches, but designed to prevent more serious escalation.

I have mentioned before in this House my visit to Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre, which is an extraordinary school. Staff there do not like the words mental health; they talk about mental health resilience. Throughout school life, pupils are taught the tools and tactics that they need to deal with the challenges that life throws at them. Private study periods have desks set up in an exam style to help pupils to familiarise themselves with the setting to reduce their anxiety, and in school assemblies, pupils learn from sport celebrities about the techniques that they use to deal with high-pressure situations. We need to talk about this in terms of mental health resilience.

We should also tackle the wrecking ball that social media has been to young people’s mental health. The Prince’s Trust found that

“social media use in childhood is associated with worse wellbeing”,

and 78% of Barnardo’s practitioners reported that children between the ages of 10 and 15 have accessed unsuitable or harmful content. The platforms provided by companies such as TikTok, in my view—I am not a luddite; I love technology—are a Trojan horse for damaging children’s lives, not just with their huge amount of sexualised content, but through the damage that they are doing because of the images that children see. There should be a 2% levy on these social media companies, which would create a funding pot of around £100 million that the Government could distribute to schools to provide mental health support and digital skills training to young people to build the resilience and online safety skills that they need.

I note my heartfelt thanks to all the teachers and support staff in my Harlow constituency and around the country for their heroic efforts throughout the pandemic to keep our children learning. There has been welcome investment in education recovery and some great work is happening, but there is much more to do. The Government must deal with the problem of ghost children to prevent the creation of the “Oliver Twist” generation that will potentially be forgotten forever. The Education Secretary has a real grip of his Department, and I admire many of the things that he is doing, but he has to make sure that the catch-up recovery reaches the most disadvantaged pupils and works efficiently. Given the scale of the mental health challenges facing our young people, action has to be taken now to prevent this becoming an epidemic.

Finally, I say to the Minister that there are great initiatives coming out of the Department. The home education register, which we supported in our Committee and is recommended our report, is very welcome. Sometimes, however, the education system resembles a whole lot of clothes pegs without a washing line. We need the washing line—the narrative, the strategy, the Government’s plans for education. This problem can be solved. The NHS has a long-term plan and a secure funding settlement; the Ministry of Defence has a strategic review and an additional £20 billion. I urge the Minister to ensure that education has a long-term plan and a secure funding settlement, so we can have that washing line. While many of the clothes pegs are great initiatives, we need a proper washing line to link them all together.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

I thank all the Members who spoke in the debate, particularly the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), who is leading on children’s mental health. His work is really important. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) also talked about mental health and the longer school day.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) addressed the digital divide, which we have still got to work on. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) rightly said that we should better prepare and equip people for the world of work. We agree on a lot and she also supports a longer school day.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who was passionate in her previous role as shadow Education Secretary, talked about early years and also supported a longer school day, which is very welcome.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) talked about the extended school day. He supports grammar schools. I am in favour of them, but it is wrong that only 3% of pupils on free school meals attend grammar schools. That has got to change.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) also talked about mental health, showing the breadth of concern across the House. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke movingly about school closures.

Clearly, there is a consensus across the House for the Government to do more on mental health and more on the catch-up programme and to support a longer school day. Finally, I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that Randstad has got to sort it out or he has got to boot them out. It is not acceptable that all that taxpayers’ money is being spent on that huge company, which is not providing the catch-up and the tuition that our children vitally need.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the effectiveness of the Government’s education catch-up and mental health recovery programmes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee, Robert Halfon.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

The Centre for Social Justice report published yesterday showed that more than 100,000 “ghost children” are still not returning to school for the most part, almost 800 schools are missing entirely a class-worth of pupils, and more than 13,000 children in year 11—a critical exam year—are severely absent from school. Will the Department get the proper data to find out where those children are and what is happening to them? Will it do as the CSJ has recommended and use the forecast underspend from the national tutoring programme to appoint 2,000 attendance officers to work with families to get those children back into school and learning again?

[Mr Walker]

I share my right hon. Friend’s passion for ensuring that children are in school. I have discussed with the Children’s Commissioner the designation of “ghost children”, which we both feel is somewhat unhelpful. These are flesh and blood children who deserve to be in school and have the chance to benefit from face-to-face education. I assure him that addressing attendance and ensuring that they all have the opportunity to be safely in school is a top priority.

School Openings: January 2022

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on preparations for school openings in January.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Alex Burghart)]

I am very grateful to you for granting this urgent question on a day when the Schools Minister is out of town, Mr Speaker.

The Government are committed to ensuring that schools open in January as normal. The classroom is the very best place for children’s and young people’s development, and we are incredibly grateful to teachers and all education staff for all they have done to maintain face-to-face learning. Protecting education continues to be our absolute priority.

The Government have taken action to help manage the omicron variant, and the Prime Minister has already announced that we are turbocharging our covid-19 booster programme to offer every adult in England a vaccine by the end of the year to protect people from it. We have set out clear plans for school openings in January, including on-site lateral flow testing for secondary school students on return; continued regular testing at home for the education and childcare sectors; and a comprehensive contingency framework to manage outbreaks.

As of 1 December, more than 95.2 million tests have been completed across all education settings, and the Government have made more than £100 million of funding available to education settings to support costs. Schools and education settings have a range of measures in place to manage covid and to reduce transmission, including regular testing, additional hygiene practices, increasing ventilation, and procedures for managing confirmed cases.

From Tuesday 14 December, a new national daily testing of covid contacts policy was introduced. That means that young people and fully vaccinated adults who are identified as a close contact of someone with covid may take an NHS rapid lateral flow test every day for seven days and continue to attend their setting as normal unless they have a positive result.

We also recommend that older students and staff wear face coverings in communal areas and we have supported education settings to improve ventilation. The Government committed to delivering 300,000 carbon dioxide monitors by the end of this term; we have already delivered more than 329,000, with more than 99% of eligible settings having received monitors.

Every child aged 12 and over is eligible to receive the vaccine. We encourage all children and parents to take up that offer as soon as possible, if they have not already. It is vital, though, that all of us, including parents, carers, teachers and everyone working in education, goes out as soon as they possibly can to get their booster jab to protect the NHS, our way of life and education.

[Robert Halfon]

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker.

Despite the heroic efforts of teachers and support staff in Harlow and around the country who have worked tirelessly to keep students learning, the four horsemen of the education apocalypse have been galloping towards our young people in the form of a widening attainment gap, an epidemic of mental health problems, a rise in safeguarding hazards and a loss of life chances. We know that the attainment gap between rich and poor students is getting worse, and that the number of children being referred to mental health support services has increased by 62%. We know the damage that school closures bring, and 100,000 ghost children are missing almost entirely from the school roll. Yesterday, the Department for Education released new figures showing that more than 230,000 children were not in school because of covid-related incidents.

The Government have stated that they want to keep schools open, but what is the plan in order to do so? What measures are being taken to ensure that, should education staff be required to isolate, there is a network of supply teachers ready to step in? Is additional funding being made available to provide adequate ventilation in schools?

The Health Secretary is right to say that we should protect the NHS, but why can the Department for Education not say that we have to protect our children’s futures? Why do we not have advertisements about that? What mental health support is being given to our young people affected by the pandemic? What assessment is being made of the impact of lost learning on students in critical exam years?

There is a nationwide campaign for an army of NHS volunteers, but not for education. Why is a similar army of retired teachers or Ofsted inspectors not being recruited to support schools struggling to cope with staffing requirements? Can we not have the same vision, the same passion and the same resource provision for the education service as we do for the national health service?

Despite the Government’s assurances, it seems to me that, sadly, we are moving towards de facto school closures. I urge Ministers to prove otherwise.

[Alex Burghart]

I thank my right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee on Education, for his question. I know how much the subject means to him, and I am sure he recognises how much it matters to everyone in the Department for Education. We are absolutely clear that the best place for schoolchildren is in school, that the best thing for schoolchildren is to have face-to-face teaching and that, as the Secretary of State said at the weekend, he will do everything in his power to ensure that that continues.

We have a range of work under way in response to this fast-moving situation. Currently, I believe that there are 14 hospitalisations from omicron and that the rate of the doubling of cases is about every two days. At the weekend, the Secretary of State was on “The Andrew Marr Show”, where he said that he thought that about a third of cases in London were omicron. That number is already now over 50%, so to deal with this we have set about four things: testing, vaccination, ventilation and hygiene. Those are the ways in which we will absolutely back schools to make sure that in-classroom teaching can continue. We are recommending that all secondary school pupils will be tested right at the start of next term. We are offering a small amount of flexibility on the time at which schools can go back in order to make sure that this testing can take place, and we are offering additional funding to make sure that this testing is available. I reassure the House that schools have and will have all the testing facilities they require.

On vaccination, six out of 10 of those aged 16 and 17 have already been jabbed, and more than 80% of everybody in the population aged 12 and over has received at least two jabs. That remarkable achievement has been made possible by our world-leading vaccine procurement and roll-out. As I mentioned, 99% of schools have received the carbon dioxide monitor, and schools are running comprehensive and advanced hygiene programmes. The key to our success in the battle against omicron will be the booster programme. This is a national mission of the utmost importance and severity. The Government are throwing the kitchen sink at making sure that before schools get back all adults will have had the chance to have their booster. That is the way forward; it is how we maximise our chances of making sure that our children get the world-class education they deserve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister. Obviously, he was not listening to the Budget, because apprenticeship investment is going up to £2.7 billion a year by 2024. I remind him that, since we came into office, there have been 4.9 million apprenticeship starts. The focus is very much on quality, and I hope he would applaud the fact that 50% of all apprenticeships are among the under-25s and that level 2 and 3 apprenticeships are 50% of that, too.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Key subjects such as design and technology and information and communication technology have seen the proportion of students taking them up decline by 70% and 40% respectively, so surely the EBacc should be improved to ensure that education better prepares pupils for the world of work. Will my right hon. Friend emulate the work of the former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who made design and technology compulsory, and be aware of the 84,000 young people who have been unemployed for more than 12 months? We are behind many other OECD countries.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Education Committee, who has been a champion for skills for most of his career. Computer science is very much part of the EBacc. Our overhaul of ICT, in which we have invested more than £80 million, has made a real difference. We continue to make sure that schools deliver not just the EBacc, but a much broader set of GCSEs. Design and technology is incredibly important to that, as I know this is to people such as Sir James Dyson.

Arthur Labinjo-Hughes

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I strongly endorse what the Secretary of State has set out about the review, and I also welcome the comments, particularly the moving comments at the end, of the shadow Secretary of State.

As I understand it, Arthur was not in school—he had been kept at home by his father—when this tragedy happened. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will know that, putting aside the 200,000 children sent home because of covid, who are known about by the school system, there are another 100,000 ghost children, as I call them, who are lost in the system. They not returned to school for the most part, and are potentially subject to safeguarding hazards—county lines gangs, online harms and, of course, awful domestic abuse.

Will my right hon. Friend ensure that we are not discussing these issues again in this House following a further tragedy similar to the one that we have just heard about? Will he proactively make a real effort to work with the local authorities, the schools and the regional commissioners to make sure that those 100,000 children, who are mostly not in school, are returned to school and are watched by the appropriate authorities? We must get those children back into school, otherwise we may face—I hope not—further tragedies along the way.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Education Committee, is absolutely right to raise this concerning issue, which is a focus for my Department; I am working closely with other Departments and agencies to work through it. He will know that we launched the See, Hear, Respond programme, which is aimed at supporting vulnerable children and young people whose usual support networks were impacted by the pandemic and national restrictions. The tragedy for Arthur is that he was never off the school register. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend’s point is a powerful one.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Robert Halfon Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I would like to put on record that I strongly welcome the principles behind the Bill and the additional huge investment—a 42% cash-terms increase—in skills announced in the Budget. For too long, further education and skills have been the Cinderella of our education system. I have always said that it is worth remembering that Cinderella became a member of the royal family and I believe that with this Bill the Government are banishing, or beginning to banish, at least, the two ugly sisters of snobbery around skills and under-funding. We know that funding per FE student aged 16 to 18 fell by 11% over the past decade. For that reason, I ask the Government to consider the amendment tabled by Lord Clarke, which would mean that, as with universities and schools, money would follow the pupil for FE colleges that set up approved courses. In other words, the Government would provide for automatic in-year funding for FE colleges that offer approved level 3 qualifications from approved providers.

Participation in adult skills and lifelong learning is at its lowest level in 23 years. Nine million working-age adults in England have low literacy or numeracy skills, and 6 million adults are not qualified to level 2. The lifetime skills guarantee offers an exciting opportunity for a level 3 qualification to millions of adults, which I really support. Again, I ask the Government to consider funding for those without even a level 2 qualification, but that at least includes a mechanism for progression to level 3.

We must take this opportunity to improve careers education and guidance and I welcome the inclusion of clause 14 on careers. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, just two in five schools were complying with the Baker clause. My Committee’s report on disadvantaged white working class boys and girls, which has been mentioned already, looked at the underperformance and recommended that compliance with the Baker clause be linked to Ofsted inspection outcomes, with schools not given a good or outstanding rating unless they comply with the clause.

Alongside the lifetime skills guarantee and the lifelong loan entitlement outlined in clauses 15 to 18, which I support, and the increase in the level 2 take-up, which I mentioned earlier, I ask the Minister to level up adult learning for the most disadvantaged by also rocket-boosting community learning. Perhaps, as we suggested in our Select Committee, we could have an adult community learning centre in every town.

To further incentivise businesses to train staff, perhaps the Government should also consider a long-term plan to introduce a skills tax credit to revitalise employer-led training. We must do more to boost apprenticeships, on top of what the Government have done. We have had millions of apprenticeships since 2010, with 90% of those who complete getting good jobs and skills after. However, perhaps the Government could consider reforming the existing levy on employers in a strategic way to close the skills deficit and ensure that more young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, can access this opportunity. Lord Clarke has introduced amendment 25 and I ask the Government to look at it favourably, so that companies are more incentivised to hire young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I also ask the Government to use the Bill to look at the £800 million diversity and inclusion fund spent by universities and re-boot it to ensure that access and participation is prioritised towards students from disadvantaged backgrounds doing apprenticeships. Over the next decade, universities could work towards having 50% of their students undertaking degree-level apprenticeships. My Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry on prison education and the Government could consider changing the legislation so that prisoners can do prison apprenticeships.

I welcome what has been said on BTECs. The Education Datalab found that young people who took BTECs were more likely to be in employment at age 22 and at that age were earning about £800 more than their peers taking A Levels. So these are qualifications with good outcomes and we must make sure not only that T-levels are successfully embedded in the system, but that quality BTECs should remain for all students to access. Finally, I urge the Government to look at the EBacc and ensure that design technology and computer science are included as an option as part of that. However, I look forward to working constructively with them on this excellent Bill.

Budget Resolutions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the UTC and the work it is doing with Sellafield is exactly the sort of high-skilled, high-ambition, career-developing education that we need, giving those young people, when they become young adults, a real outcome. Of course, higher wages and a more successful economy will be by-products of that, but the real outcome is that rounded adult who has a real career path in the economy.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I welcome what my right hon. Friend is saying. Can he confirm that there is a 42% increase in the skills budget in cash terms? Does he not agree that if we spend that money right, we will create, for the first time, a parity of esteem between skills and higher education, and that rather than just “university, university, university”, our mantra should be “skills, skills, skills” and “apprenticeships, apprenticeships, apprenticeships”?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

There is no greater champion of this agenda than my right hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education. “Skills, skills, skills” runs through his veins, and I thank him for that point. I absolutely agree with him on the uplift in the investment that we are making.

I would like to take a moment to tell the House all about the visit I made to Barnsley College just a week or so ago. The college was the first in South Yorkshire to roll out T-levels. While I was there, I met several of its students, including one whose name is Greg. Honestly, I have rarely met a more inspiring individual. He told me that with his T-level—I will quote him word for word:

“I’m looking at unis now and thinking, ‘Which one am I picking?’ not ‘Which one of them is picking me?’”

Greg is living proof of the transformative effect our skills programme is having.

The same is true for apprentices. Apprenticeships funding will increase by £170 million to £2.7 billion, alongside other improvements to support more small businesses to hire new apprentices.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I strongly welcome this Budget. We should acknowledge that over the past 18 months, this country has faced a national emergency comparable only to the outbreak of the second world war. We have already spent £407 billion supporting schools, businesses and industries in my constituency and across the country to tackle the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic, without which we would have had destitution on the streets. I recognise the economic and financial challenges that the Government are facing. We have a national debt of over £2.2 trillion, equivalent to around 100% of our gross domestic product. That is why the Government are doing everything possible to square the circle in terms of spending on public services and dealing with the deficit and debt. It is not an easy task.

My two passions in politics have always been championing education and skills, and cutting the cost of living. I support this Budget because despite the circumstances I have just set out, the Chancellor has tried to address both. This is a true worker’s Budget in many ways, because there is a strong desire across the country to improve the cost of living and for low taxation. I previously supported the temporary £20 uplift to universal credit payments, but I genuinely think that the Chancellor’s decision to decrease the universal credit taper rate and uplift the work allowance is a better solution in the long run, because it gets people out of the poverty trap and incentivises more people into work. That will both boost people’s income and earnings and help reduce unemployment as we move into a high-productivity and skilled economy.

In addition, we have the £500 million invested in families and early years intervention, helping those who are struggling the most. We have the record 6.6% rise in the national living wage, which I campaigned hard for the Cameron Government to introduce, to £9.50. We have the fuel duty freeze—something I have campaigned for, probably to the annoyance of the Treasury—continuing for the twelfth year in a row, saving motorists £15 every time they fill up. That is what makes a difference to those who are just about managing. I hope that the Government will do much more to cut the cost of living. We should cut taxes for lower earners as soon as economic conditions allow and we should look at ways to further reduce energy bills. Cutting the cost of living must be the Government’s central mission.

On education, the Budget’s focus on skills, schools and families, as described by the Secretary of State for Education in his opening remarks, should be welcomed. Education and skills are the most important rung on the ladder of opportunity. They are the golden thread that tie together all our investments and our futures.

The outbreak of coronavirus was nothing short of a national disaster for our children. The four horsemen of the education apocalypse came galloping towards young people to create a widening attainment gap, worsening mental health issues, an ever-increasing number of safeguarding hazards, and a challenge to their skills development and life chances. We should never again fully close the schools in the way that we did.

The Budget showed a real recognition from the Chancellor and the Education Secretary that those challenges can be overcome through family hubs, the catch-up and education recovery funding, and the rocket-boosting of skills. Not much has been said today about the extra £2.6 billion of funding to strengthen the provision for children with special educational needs, but it is important and will be welcomed by parents across the country.

The lifetime skills guarantee announced last year created the blueprint for the skills funding package, which provides an extra £3 billion for T-levels and adult skills, among other things. That is a 42% increase in skills funding in cash terms, which will put vocational and technical education on a par with traditional academic learning and give financial teeth to the skills agenda.

[Emma Hardy]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Robert Halfon]

I am always honoured to give way to—not to ruin her career—one of my favourite Labour Members.

[Emma Hardy]

Does the right hon. Gentleman, who I call my friend, agree that although the investment in T-levels is great, a transition pathway is needed if we are going to phase out BTECs and introduce T-levels?

[Robert Halfon]

I absolutely believe that BTECs should not go until T-levels have fully come on board. As a hard-working former member of the Education Committee, the hon. Lady will be pleased to know that I hope to question the Secretary of State about that subject tomorrow morning when he appears before the Committee.

As I have mentioned, the £2.6 billion of funding for children with special educational needs is extraordinary, but we need the urgent publication of the special educational needs review to move forward at light speed. Although lots has been done to provide the key components of a long-term plan for education, we are not there yet. The cogs have started to turn, but the machine is not yet as well oiled as it might be. We need a long-term plan for education and a secure funding settlement, just as the NHS and the Ministry of Defence have long-term plans and a secure funding settlement and a strategic review respectively.

As Members on both sides of the House know, I have long advocated the extension of the school day. The Education Endowment Foundation says that pupils can make two months’ additional progress per year by extending the school day, or three months for disadvantaged pupils. Some 39% of academies founded pre-2010 have lengthened their school day, as I have seen done successfully by the NET Academies Trust in my constituency. The Department for Education and the Treasury should fund pilot projects, perhaps in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country, to evaluate what the impact could be alongside the catch-up programme.

To conclude, I heartily welcome the Budget targeted towards skills, schools and families. I have been campaigning for more skills funding for a long time so I welcome what the Chancellor has done. It has been a difficult year and a half for all Members and for the constituencies we serve, but the steps outlined in the Budget will go a long way to support our nation’s recovery as we try to level up and build back better.