Educational Poverty: Children in Residential Care

Debate between Robert Halfon and Kate Green

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I welcome the report and echo all that I have heard in the Chamber. I particularly back up the comment about the constant moving around of children and young people, as we know how incredibly disruptive that is to their education and to them forming solid relationships. While children are still being moved around, sometimes quite far across the country, does the right hon. Gentleman think there is more to do to secure good data sharing, and a trail of data that follows the child wherever they may find themselves in care over their childhood? He mentioned admissions policies and the ways in which schools can seek to prevent children from being admitted to schools if they come from care backgrounds. That is also the case for exclusions policies, and I wonder whether the Committee had any particular recommendations on that.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Lady, who is an expert on these issues. I absolutely agree with both the points she made on her first topic, that of placements and being moved around: as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), that has to stop. Children in care should be given a digital passport so that all their qualifications are known, because often they have to start all over again in a different school. If they are moved, there should be a thread, but those moves should not be happening in the way they currently are.

I beg the hon. Lady’s pardon: could she repeat her second point?

[Kate Green]

My second point was about the disproportionate likelihood that a child in care may experience exclusion.

[Robert Halfon]

Our Committee did a separate report on exclusions a few years ago, just before the 2019 election; as we know, 40 children are excluded every day, which I think is wrong. It is a huge report that contains a whole load of recommendations. The problem is that when those children are excluded, they either do not end up in school at all, or end up in poor alternative provision. Often, that alternative provision is not in the areas where those children are excluded, so I refer the hon. Lady to our report on that issue, which contains quite a few recommendations dealing with some of the points she has made.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Debate between Robert Halfon and Kate Green

Report stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.

Investing in Children and Young People

Debate between Robert Halfon and Kate Green

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

If I may say so, I think that the hon. Gentleman is probably building up more problems than actually exist in the provision of extended activities at the end of an enhanced school day. We already know that many schools are able to provide some such activities, and that it is not just through schools, but through youth and community organisations, that such activities can be added to the school day. We are talking about ensuring that every child has the opportunity to benefit as soon as possible—we had 15 months to plan this— from the enhancement that those activities can bring to their childhood.

The Conservative party’s plans are a terrible betrayal of children and young people’s excitement at being back in class with their friends and teachers, their optimism and their aspirations for the future. Today, I hope that we can come together as a House to resolve to do better. Last week, I was proud to publish Labour’s children’s recovery plan, which proposes a package of measures for schools, early years and further education settings to address children and young people’s learning loss and their wellbeing.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

rose—

[Kate Green]

I give way to the Chair of the Select Committee on Education.

[Robert Halfon]

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis), because I think that a longer school day is essential. In the media last week, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said that she opposed a longer school day. There is a big difference between a longer school day and enhanced activities, and a longer school day is a core part of Sir Kevan Collins’s programme. I think we need the Labour party to be clear on exactly what it supports.

[Kate Green]

My reading of Sir Kevan’s proposals is that the longer day would be used for exactly the kind of activities that the Labour party supports: social and emotional play, learning and development-related activities, including sport, the arts, drama, debating, music and so on. There is also time, of course, for some focus on formal, more structured learning, but we have heard again and again from teachers and parents, as I am sure Conservative Members have, that children get tired and their concentration wanes after seven or eight hours.

DWP: Performance

Debate between Robert Halfon and Kate Green

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

I think the hon. Gentleman has got two policies confused, which shows how on the ball he is. I am talking about the AME cap, not the £26,000 benefit cap—the AME cap that this Government are introducing and which is now, even before it is in place, going to be breached.

Government Members rightly pointed to trends in employment, and it is good to see more people in work, but too often they are working for poverty pay. I have to say to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) and others that Labour was never content to abandon people to a life on benefits. That is why we introduced the successful new deals that increased lone-parent employment by 15%. It is why we introduced the future jobs fund which, far from being a failure, was extremely good at getting young people into work and keeping them in work when the programme came to an end. We introduced tax credits that made work pay. Making work pay is not an invention of this Government; it was done under Labour first.

PIP is another tale of disaster—it was not piloted, there were misleading statements on Atos’s bids, and there were long delays in decisions. Like others, I have had constituents waiting for an assessment since last October—in one of those cases, my constituent had it only last week. There are huge backlogs already, which at the current rate of progress will take 42 years to clear. To put it another way, the Minister will need to increase the number of assessments from 7,000 a month to 73,000 a month immediately if he is to get the programme back on track, and this is also wasting taxpayer money. Each decision costs £1,500 for a benefit which for many is only worth £1,120. The NAO has said it does not represent value for money and the £3 billion savings are likely to be wiped out by the costs.

We know the bedroom tax is a disaster. Just 6% of those affected have moved. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation points out that savings are £115 million lower than they should be, and many households, including two thirds with a disabled family member, and more than 60,000 carers face hardship and fear.

[Robert Halfon]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

No, I will not.

The Secretary of State said the Child Support Agency was a success. The NAO is rather more cautious. It says it has not really been tested yet and will not be until charging is introduced. In the meantime, full roll-out is expected to exceed by £70 million the costs projected in 2012.

What is really shocking is the effect of all this failure. For the first time more of the people in poverty are in work than out of work—two thirds of children in poverty are in working households. It is leading to a shocking rise in debt and the use of food banks, and it is a catalogue of failure that would be farcical if it were not so desperately serious for us all. It is serious for individuals and families who look to the system to protect them but who are being appallingly let down; it is serious for charities, local authorities, housing providers and others picking up the pieces from this disastrous state of affairs; it is serious for the staff working in the Department, who are under pressure, demoralised and blamed and cannot provide the service they would like; and it is serious for the taxpayer, who is footing a bill that is rising and threatens to spiral out of control. It is serious for everyone except the Secretary of State, who has his head in the sand. He denies the facts when they are inconvenient, but tonight those facts have come out. This Secretary of State has presided over disaster and chaos. It is time to get this Department back on track and to call a halt to this catastrophe—it is time for a Labour Government to clear up the mess.

Disability Allowance

Debate between Robert Halfon and Kate Green

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon]

I am here today because I accept that this is a serious problem. Opposition Members do not have a monopoly on compassion; I care just as much about disabled people as they do.

Let me explain what I want to happen and what I believe should happen. Local authorities will have a legal obligation to provide mobility services for residents from their social funding. That funding will increasingly be distributed in the form of personal budgets, giving disabled people more choice and control over their services, including access to mobility equipment, taxis or scooters, if that suits them. That will end the anomaly whereby two state-funded residents with similar needs who are placed in the same care home can be treated differently according to whether they are funded through the NHS or the local authority.

I welcome the fact that the Government are waiting until 2012 to introduce this change, because it is important to give local authorities enough time. They will need safely to translate people on to personal budgets and to get those budgets up and running on a mass scale. Despite the welcome introduction of personal budgets in 2007, progress in rolling them out was simply too slow.

[Kate Green]

One difficulty that many of my constituents face is that they are in residential care outside the borough because there are insufficient places in the borough, which means that their transport costs are higher. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern about stretching personal budgets far enough to meet those costs?

[Robert Halfon]

In some ways, I agree with the hon. Lady. The whole point of my argument is that we need to extend the personal budgets.

As was mentioned, the Audit Commission recently highlighted the fact that although some local authorities were on course to offer 30% of eligible people a personal budget by April 2011, most were not, and only six out of 152 councils are currently on track. What is more, a 2010 survey showed that only 6% of total spending on adult social care was allocated to personal budgets. That is a disappointing record, given the huge potential of personal budgets to give disabled people more independence.

My central concern is that we must help the 58,000 claimants I mentioned to access personal budgets before the mobility element of DLA is withdrawn. On that basis, I have a few questions for the Minister. Will she reassure hon. Members that the Government will seek to migrate those 58,000 claimants to personal budgets before 2012? Will she set out how the statutory requirement for local authorities to provide mobility services will work in practice? Finally, will she reassure my constituents that disabled people will continue to be supported so that they can keep their independence and mobility?

In conclusion, many people in Harlow are concerned for their families. They do not have a political axe to grind, but they are genuinely anxious about the future. As someone with a disability, I know that any change, or any threat of change, can cause immense anxiety, even if the outcome is not as drastic as expected. The problem with the changes that have been proposed is that decent people are worried. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure hon. Members and my constituents that disabled people and their families will not suffer as a result of these reforms.

Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Debate between Robert Halfon and Kate Green

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

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

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate tonight and to give the perspective of a new Member of the House who has spent the past 11 weeks trying to make sense of what has been going on. I am tremendously grateful—I know that I speak for other new Members—for the welcome that we have had from right hon. and hon. Members and from the staff of the House. However, I regret to say that that welcome is not sufficient to enable us as new Members to feel that we can do the job effectively, as our constituents expect us to from day one. As someone who knew a bit about the House before I was elected to represent the constituency that I now have the privilege to represent, I have found it difficult to navigate Parliament geographically and procedurally. I welcome this debate, not just in its own narrow terms but as the means to open up a discussion about a modern and well-informed Parliament.

All this matters so much not because of some abstract debate about the importance of the Commons, notions of procedure or ideas of self-importance—to which many of us are prone, I guess—but because this Government, in common with preceding Governments, are proposing to make massive changes to our welfare state that will have a significant impact on the lives of my constituents. Such changes to our system of social support must be fully debated with the benefit of the best information and understanding.

Already, in only a few weeks, the introduction of new legislation such as the Academies Bill and the launch of the White Paper on the national health service have revealed the scale of the changes that I have described, as will the future proposals on welfare reform and pensions reform. They are not theoretical or empty political gestures of change but fundamental changes to the quality of my constituents’ lives.

I hope that the motion will open up a debate about how we can do government better and more effectively. For me, that means that the new politics require a modern Parliament. Many of the issues that hon. Members have touched on would help us to become that more modern Parliament. Many of the parliamentary instruments and devices that we are encouraged to use are, from the point of view of the newcomer at least, opaque and unwieldy at best. My concern is that we should be well informed, that matters should be well scrutinised and that we should have time to consider properly the absolutely vital issues that we are rightly debating and addressing in the House. That means that when statements are made and legislation is brought before the House, they must be in a form that enables hon. Members to consider them properly, fully and appropriately in terms of the time available and the extent of the information that is laid before us.

That point was made repeatedly and from both sides of the House in yesterday’s debate on the Academies Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) has said, measures that are brought forward in haste and without adequate scrutiny turn out to be poor when we have to live with them. Given the scale of the changes and the ambitions of the coalition Government, it is important that we should have time to reflect on the proposed changes. We are being asked to respond and to legislate before the detail is properly filled in. There is a lack of opportunity both inside and beyond the House for informed debate. Welcome steps have been taken to improve that—I particularly welcome knowing the date of the spending review in advance as well as the first steps that have been taken in the Budget Red Book to try to open up some of the impact assessments—but there is still a long way to go.

[Robert Halfon]

You mentioned that because of all the big legislation coming through, it is important that Parliament has the right powers, and of course I agree with you, but do you agree that under the last Government there were also very big legislative measures and that Parliament was then neutered by programme motions and having only one question time a week instead of two? Do you agree—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. In common with all the hon. Members who have spoken this evening, I am anxious that this should not be a partisan debate. I was not in the House during Labour’s terms of government, but I was certainly aware of many of the proposals and debates that were brought forward and we often lamented how they came at us out of nowhere, without proper time for input and consideration. I certainly hope that we will start to see some changes coming from all the political parties. I know that would be warmly welcomed by informed opinion outside the House.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again. What I wanted to ask is whether she agreed that there has already been some progress in that we are having this debate at all, in that there is now a Backbench Committee with an elected Chairman and in that we now have elected members and Chairmen of Select Committees? In some ways, the Government are giving powers back to Parliament.

[Kate Green]

It is right that the House has begun to take on more powers that improve the democratisation of processes, but I do not think that is a consequence of one particular Government, as there has been pressure from Back Benchers as a whole. Also, the steps taken so far have been relatively limited. To sit back now and be complacent about what has been achieved under the first few weeks of this Government would be a very serious limitation on where I suggest we ought to go as a House.

In conclusion, I support the thrust of the motion, but I hope that it is only the beginning of the debate. I believe that I have been elected to do the best I can for my constituents, and the provision of timely, comprehensive information is key to enabling me to do that.