Education: Return in January

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend so often has brilliant ideas, and I would be very happy to sit down with him to look at how we could do that. The Minister for School Standards is one of the greatest advocates in this country of textbooks and of their real impact and the support they offer students in their learning. We can sit down and discuss my hon. Friend’s thoughts and ideas.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab) [V]]

All teachers want rapid testing, but at a time when they feel exposed and scared by the new variant—80% of my schools have cases anyway—will the Secretary of State develop stronger guidance in partnership with the profession, rather than see it as a unionised enemy to spring last-minute changes on? Can he provide any funding to the head of a convent I spoke to who is desperate to roll out testing? It operates on tight margins, but as it is an independent, she has been told that there is none.

Exams and Accountability 2021

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. The children who are facing exams this year have done so much, in quite extraordinary circumstances. The grades they will receive will be a real testament to their hard work, their dedication and their commitment to education, either in the 11 years in the run-up to their GCSEs or in the 13 years in the run-up to their A-levels and other vocational qualifications. I hope that employers in the future will recognise the amazing work that has gone into every single grade and every single achievement of all our children.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Around 80% of Ealing schools have had covid cases, leaving gaps in learning and holes in budgets. Some have demolished walls to accommodate distancing, and now they have huge staff absence bills—all at London prices. Can the Secretary of State compensate all those in full and prioritise vaccinating not just teaching staff, but the admin lot, who have worked non-stop throughout all this? The Chancellor seems to have given them all an effective pay cut last week.

[Gavin Williamson]

We have already set out details to support schools during this covid pandemic, not just in the run-up to summer, but during the current term.

Educational Settings

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last but certainly not least, Dr Rupa Huq.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

As a representative of a borough that has suffered cuts of 64% under this Government, can I ask what additional assistance will be available to Ealing to absorb some of the consequences of this decision? Our libraries, for example, are volunteer-run on reduced hours, when they should be at more than full tilt—or will they be next to close? As the mum of a year 11 pupil, can I also ask whether his exams will now be indefinitely postponed? For all his cohort, can I ask whether their sixth-form admissions, which are not automatic nowadays, will now be based not on actual grades but on predicted grades, in a Mystic Meg kind of way?

[Gavin Williamson]

As has been outlined, we will ensure that all children, who have done so much work towards their exams both at GCSE and A-level will get a fair system for their grades. We recognise that there will sometimes be disagreement over that, so it is vital to ensure a proper and robust system and a means of redress for those children. That is something that we will have in place with Ofqual, and we have already had those discussions. On funding, we have been consistently clear in this statement that costs incurred by schools will be fully reimbursed.

Equality of Funding: Post-16 Education

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

My hon. Friend is quite right; that is very worrying. A headteacher in my area talks about the difficulty of recruitment into the sector when there are far better options for pay within the wider teaching sector, let alone the idea that teachers of STEM subjects can often get better pay elsewhere. That seems wrong.

With the Budget and a spending review looming, the Government’s short-term priority should be to raise the rate, but the long-term ambition must be to level up funding and undo the mistake of 2011 to ensure that 16 to 18-year-olds receive the same investment in their education as younger students. There is little point in investing heavily in pre-16 education and even more heavily in higher education at £9,000 per student—depending on current moves in the HE review—if the pivotal stage in the middle continues to be overlooked and underfunded.

Sixth-form colleges and general FE colleges also face a number of specific disadvantages that exacerbate the issue. For example, since incorporation, colleges cannot reclaim their VAT costs, but schools and academies can. The Sixth Form Colleges Association estimates that the average sixth-form college has to redirect around £350,000 per year—4% of their income—away from frontline education of students to pay the VAT “learning tax”. What sits behind that and many other funding inequalities is the inexplicable decision to classify colleges as private sector bodies. Even private schools and private sixth-form colleges are not classified in such a way because they are third sector charities

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a passionate speech. I would add to his list another disadvantage to colleges. Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College was in massive arrears. The current principal, Karen Redhead, has turned it around towards being back in the black again, but the insolvency regime promises to punish her even further, while other people are being bailed out for not managing things as well as she has. Will my hon. Friend comment on that?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

We need to look at those issues, particularly the way that we manage debts linked to buildings, which has got a lot of colleges into trouble in the past.

For sixth-form colleges in particular, the vast majority of their income comes from the Government, and a private sector classification is simply impossible to justify. A few years ago, the Government allowed a pathway for sixth-form colleges to become academies, but it is not right that the Government require a change of governance in the organisation for it to be classified as part of a particular tax band, rather than working out the best governance for the institution to give the best education, which is what we should focus on.

All colleges suffer when the Government decide to exclude them from initiatives such as early career payments, or funding streams such as the teachers’ pay grant, which was afforded to schools. Their incorporation in 1983 by the then Secretary of State, Keith Joseph, removing them from local authority oversight—a historic mistake that has led to a widening of the gap since the 1990s. Only the equalisation of structures across the board will solve the problem.

Brighton, Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College—or BHASVIC—is one of the sixth-form colleges in my constituency. It has grown by 630 students since 2014, but its income has grown by £1.5 million only, meaning that the student body is up by 21.7% but the income is up by 13% only. The principal of BHASVIC wrote to me saying that

“Whilst the additional income for 2020-21 is welcome, it barely makes up for inflationary cost pressures over the last couple of years”.

BHASVIC will use the money simply to plug the gap, rather than actually investing in IT, teacher development and other things that are needed, particularly for student wellbeing—colleges also face the burden of rising rates of mental health problems.

BHASVIC is one of the lucky few. It has been able to bid and draw from a limited pool of funding for capital works on academies. Unlike school sixth forms, colleges do not hav a dedicated pot of money and must bid against academies for building and maintenance. For general FE colleges, it is even more complicated in that they have to bid with local economic partnerships for funding. The myriad capital funding streams to pay for buildings leads to a lack of joined-up thinking and a postcode lottery of facilities in our education system.

The views of education providers, teachers and principals are unanimous: the funding gap has a devastating impact and is felt widely. When I secured this debate, the House of Commons digital engagement team posted on Facebook asking for feedback from students and staff. Abi, one of the respondents, said that her sixth form cannot even afford basic items such as extension cables for computers, and teachers are having to pay out of their own pockets for printing. That is totally wrong. A Reddit user said that A-level politics was dropped midway through their course because the teacher left and the school could not afford a new specialist in the department. Another student reported that their college has had to shut its canteen, which it cannot afford to maintain, so students now eat at the fast-food joints across the road, blowing out of the water any aspirations for healthy living and eating.

One way colleges have tried to manage those difficulties is through a flurry of mergers into super colleges in an attempt to pool costs or recreate the services that the local education authority provided before 1993, but such mergers often mean a centralising of course provision in just one or two campuses across the network, and lead to teachers and management being further away from the students and communities they serve. I do not want to say anything bad about any individual colleges—many have staff who do fantastic work—but the mergers render the Ofsted regime not fit for purpose. Multi-academy trusts are inspected per campus, but for a multi-campus set of FE colleges, there is only one inspection, so we have no idea of the differences between two campuses offering the same courses and options. That lack of granularity renders the Ofsted inspections almost worthless.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Everybody in this Chamber believes what he or she says from either the Front Bench or the Back Benches. It is a point so blindingly obvious that only an extraordinarily sophisticated person could fail to grasp it.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

13. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of trends in the levels of (a) pay and (b) workload on the recruitment and retention of teaching and support staff.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)]

Our recent integrated teacher recruitment and retention strategy prioritises reducing unnecessary workloads. We will ensure teaching continues to offer one of the best pensions available, and teacher pay ranges have increased by between 1.5% and 3.5% this year.

[Dr Huq]

I was back for assembly at my alma mater, Montpelier Primary School, this morning. It is an outstanding school, but it is coming under pressure from churn, with Brexit moving parents’ jobs so pupils are off, while teachers, finding their salaries are not enough to meet the London cost of living, either commute from outside London or permanently move their jobs there or overseas. What is the Secretary of State doing specifically about the London pressures, which are masked by the figures he has quoted, so that teachers are paid enough to be rooted in their community, as they were in my day, not passing through?

[Damian Hinds]

Of course we recognise the additional cost in high-cost areas, in particular in London. It is true that there are 200 more teachers in the Ealing local authority area than there were in 2010. However, it remains a very competitive recruitment market, particularly for graduate recruitment, partly because of the historically very low unemployment we have, and that makes our recruitment and retention strategy all the more important.

School Funding

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for that intervention. What is clear from all Members here today is that we need a long debate on this issue, and I hope that we will have one soon.

Last November, I visited St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Blaydon, along with our local parliamentary outreach worker, Gillian. It is the school of Mr Ramanandi, the lead petitioner—and a fine school it is, too. I met some of the younger pupils there: they were polite and well-behaved, but also fizzing to make inquiries and ask questions. They were not afraid to ask some of the questions that many adult constituents would be too polite to ask.

Our discussions ranged far and wide, really covering some important local, national and environmental issues. These children had clearly been taught to have inquiring minds and to express themselves—in fact, I had to leave the school without answering all of their questions as I was late for my next meeting. In December, I had the chance to see the school Christmas play in a church just down the road from my office, and what talented and well-behaved ambassadors for their school the children were! I congratulate Mr Ramanandi and the staff on that.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend speaks with great experience on these matters. She reminds me of my own experience at East Acton Primary School, which I visited on Friday. In London, there are not just redundancies; there are also retention issues, because of the prohibitive cost of housing in London. As a result, there is a very imbalanced age structure of the teaching staff. They can get newly qualified teachers up to the age of 30, but then they are off somewhere else, because they want to put down roots. Does she agree that that is a tragic state of affairs?

Also, I spoke to one teacher who qualified in 1998. Our taxpayers have funded her training, but such older professionals are now brain-draining away. The teacher I met is moving to Beijing, because she cannot live on the wages here. Is that not a tragedy, too?

[Liz Twist]

It is indeed a tragedy to see such a waste of the skilled people who are teaching in schools. It is a loss to our schools.

The point of my telling Members about St Joseph’s is to impress on them that the school, like Portobello and many other primary schools in my constituency, has great, dedicated staff who put all their effort into giving the children the best education they can have. When Mr Ramanandi and other heads tell me that their funding is not enough to maintain the high, rounded standards of teaching, learning and support their pupils need, I ask questions of them, but I believe and support them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We take young people’s mental health very seriously, which is why we recently published the Green Paper on mental health for children and young people. We will fund and place in every school a designated mental health lead, supported by mental health support units, which we are rolling out to trailblazer areas as we speak. That is how my hon. Friend’s local schools will be able to access those funds.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

15. What assessment he has made of the effect of the Government’s policy on funded childcare on the financial viability of childcare settings.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

We plan to spend £3.5 billion this year to deliver our funded early-years entitlements. We recognise the need to keep our evidence base on costs up to date, and continue to monitor the provider market closely through a range of regular and one-off research projects.

[Dr Huq]

According to the Sutton Trust, 1,000 children’s centres have closed over the past decade. Now, West Twyford children’s centre, which is a small centre in an isolated area, cannot continue under the current funding arrangements. That will leave the 295 families it helped last year, 123 of which are among the 30% most deprived families in the country, in the lurch. Will the Minister come with me, along with headteacher Rachel Martin, to see the great work that the centre does—it is not very far from here—and can we thrash out a way forward from this unsatisfactory situation? The area has had local government cuts of 64%. We need to spare these vital centres the axe.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I will happily meet the hon. Lady, and even join her, if my diary permits, to have a look at that work. I have seen many local authorities throughout the country deliver outreach programmes to the most disadvantaged families, who actually do not necessarily tend to come into bricks-and-mortar buildings. There are models that deliver a better outcome for those families than just investing in bricks and mortar.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I am delighted to do so on both counts. I commend the hon. Gentleman for his work in this area. Encouraging young people to aim higher—whether that is to Oxford, Cambridge or other universities, or into professions—is very worthwhile, and I certainly join him in what he says.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

25. The further education sector—famously an engine of social mobility—is now under threat from the insolvency regime that comes in next year. Karen Redhead has turned Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College around, but she would like assurances that the support mechanisms that allowed that will continue next year, so that such colleges do not just disappear down the plughole when the new rules kick in.

[Damian Hinds]

The framework that the hon. Lady mentions is, among other things, there to protect students studying at colleges. FE colleges have a central role to play in our system, particularly as we develop the apprenticeships programme and bring in T-levels.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend had a debate on the care crisis review last week. We recognise that the number of care order applications and the number of children in care have risen, meaning more work for local authorities. That is why we are working across Government, as I articulated in that debate in Westminster Hall last week, to ensure that local authorities and the courts have the resources that they need.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Nationally, only 6% of care leavers make it to higher education in comparison with the nigh-on 50% of young people who go to university year on year. This is a tragically low figure. What steps is the Department for Education taking to ensure that those leaving care have the same life chances as any other young people?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Care leavers are an important part of the overall strategy for support for children in need, which we have reviewed. Very importantly, we are also launching the care leaver covenant on 26 October, with which we will continue to maintain further support for care leavers; obviously, we have already extended the system of personal advisers to the age of 25.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is exactly right about the importance of Mandarin. Of course, this is a hugely important economy. That is why things like the Mandarin excellence programme are so much in focus at the Department for Education.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of the effect of the Government’s policy on funded childcare on the financial viability of childcare settings.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

By 2019-20, we will be spending about £6 billion a year on childcare support, including £1 billion to deliver 30 hours of childcare and pay the higher funding rates that we introduced in April 2017.

[Dr Huq]

A recent survey by the Pre-school Learning Alliance has found that one fifth of nurseries do not think they will be financially viable in a year’s time. Will the Minister—I know he likes his parties—therefore commit to review the funding rates before more places rated “good” and “outstanding” by Ofsted close down?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The Government have always been clear that providers can choose whether to offer parents 30 hours and what pattern of days and hours they offer. Our evaluation indicated that a higher proportion of providers were willing and able to offer 30 hours, with no evidence that financial implications were a substantial barrier to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

The mention of sport gives me a heaven-sent opportunity to congratulate the inimitable Roger Federer on his latest triumph. He just gets better and better.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

T8. Visiting my old school, Notting Hill and Ealing High, which produced not only me but the ex-Conservative MP Angela Rumbold, I found concern, among staff and students, about political imbalance in the new A-level history syllabus. It completely omits the 1945 to ’51 Labour Government, asks candidates for Conservative strengths and Labour weaknesses and stops in 1997. By deleting Labour, are they trying to rewrite history?

[Nick Gibb]

The A-level history syllabus was widely consulted on before it was confirmed, and the actual detail of the exam board content is determined by exam boards themselves, which are independent, so long as they conform to the subject content, which, as I said, was widely consulted upon.