Students’ Return to Universities

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State presided over the GCSE and A-level fiasco over the summer. That was a dog’s breakfast, and now he is not able to guarantee students testing when they need it. The World Health Organisation has called for testing since March, yet this Government have shown nothing but incompetence. Can the Secretary of State give a straight answer and guarantee that every student who needs a test will get it, instead of this fiasco that he presided over right through the summer? He has failed to prepare and plan. He needs to do his job.

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady is probably aware that in order to be able to access testing, someone has to be symptomatic. That is where the testing is most likely to produce the most accurate results. Those guidelines are produced by the Department of Health and Social Care, and I would be very happy for my office to forward them on so she can better understand them.

Free School Meals: Summer Holidays

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s comments. We take these small wins where we find them, but this campaign has demonstrated how the Government can be encouraged to change their position when we bring together our communities and key figures in sport, entertainment and so on, around an issue that our communities are passionate about. Let us move on as a House, tackle the root cause and move on together, united, to make lives better for these children.

Marcus was right in his letter yesterday. He spoke emotionally about his own story. He stated:

“My story to get here is all-too-familiar for families in England: my mum worked full-time, earning minimum wage to make sure we always had a good evening meal on the table. But it was not enough. The system was not built for families like mine to succeed, regardless of how hard my mum worked.”

He is right. The shameful reality is that for so many people in Britain today, no matter how hard they try, they cannot make ends meet. Opportunities are too few, wages are too low and bills are too high. Before the pandemic, more than 4 million children in the UK were living in poverty—that is nine out of every class of 30— and that is expected to rise to 5.2 million by 2022. Child poverty is a pandemic of its own in this country and one that has got far worse, unfortunately, over the last few years. Child poverty reduced by 800,000 under the last Labour Government, but the TUC found that, in 2019, that progress had been completely reversed, with the number of children growing up in in-work poverty alone having risen by 800,000 since 2010. Some 47% of children living in lone-parent families are in poverty, 45% of children from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are in poverty and 72% of children growing up in poverty live in a household where at least one person works.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

The Food Foundation has found that food insecurity has increased by almost 250% since lockdown began, affecting 5 million adults and 2.5 million children. While the free school meals U-turn is welcome, it is not enough. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that we need the Government to raise their game fast to protect the millions of people who are now going to face even more hardship?

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[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

At the start of this crisis, Ministers said they would do whatever it takes to get the country through this crisis. The reality is that the Government have been dragged to this kicking and screaming because of the heroic campaigning of charities and the amazing Marcus Rashford. What the crisis shows is that this is a Government who are morally bankrupt. The fact that they even considered starving millions of children in this crisis, the fact that they did not have the instinct to protect those children, and that it took those campaigners and Opposition Members to get them to see sense, shows a moral bankruptcy that beggars belief. I hope that Ministers will reflect on that and learn from this experience.

Two hundred thousand children have had to skip meals during the lockdown. In Tower Hamlets, we face the highest child poverty in the country, with my constituency facing the second highest. My local authority has lost £50 million of income. Some £30 million of that is costs related to covid. That is £30 million of income lost. Local authorities are struggling to make ends meet and protect people.

The Government must take urgent action not just in relation to child poverty and child hunger during the summer, but to deal with the deep-rooted causes. They must, for example, scrap the two-child policy limit and deal with housing costs in cities like London that condemn families to poverty. We need a new settlement post covid to recognise that inequalities are literally killing people. We have seen that with the spectre of high death rates for black, Asian and minority ethnic people, and white disadvantaged people who are twice as likely to die in this crisis than wealthier white people. We need the Government to step up and protect all those who need our help.

Education Settings: Wider Opening

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend highlights the importance of ensuring that universities are able to deliver lectures not just virtually but for practical steps, and of opening up research facilities in universities. That is what we are working with Universities UK on, to ensure that they are able to return to normal as rapidly as possible, so that not only do students get the best, but the wider community of the UK gets the best from all universities being open.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Sadly, Tower Hamlets has seen the fourth-highest age-adjusted death rate in the country and the Government’s own report shows that black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are at greater risk, with Bangladeshis twice as likely to face death because of the coronavirus pandemic. Parents are caught in a dilemma of survival versus education, because they do not have confidence in what the Government have done so far on school opening. Will the Secretary of State publish a risk assessment, area by area, so that there is transparency, with parents able to feel more confident that the Government actually have a proper plan, and that there is action to provide free school meals in some of the poorest communities in our country?

[Gavin Williamson]

At every stage, we will take the maximum cautious approach on how we bring schools back. Every step, whether it is making sure children are able to come back to much smaller class sizes, so that we reduce the risk of transmission, or making sure that contact between children is absolutely minimised—although these things are incredibly challenging for schools and reduce the ease of operating schools—has been taken to reduce the chances of transmission. SAGE always publishes all its papers and makes them public, and I imagine it will continue to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

10. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of education funding in England.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

14. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of education funding in England.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

24. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of education funding in England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

It is, of course, exceptionally important for schools to be properly resourced. In the Darlington local authority area, where the typical primary class size is 27, the average funding is £104,000, while in the Durham local authority area— which the hon. Gentleman mentioned—where the class size is slightly smaller at 25, the funding is a shade higher at £105,000. Of course it is right that, through the national funding formula, we ensure that schools are properly resourced for the education that they will need to deliver.

[Rushanara Ali]

Since 2015 schools in Tower Hamlets have lost out on some £56 million—of which £7.7 million is for children with special needs—despite having the highest child poverty rate in the country. When will the Secretary of State stand up to the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, and seek the additional funding that is so much needed for our children around the country?

[Damian Hinds]

As my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards said earlier, we will of course put forward a strong case for education, on which so much else depends in both our society and our economy. The hon. Lady mentioned her constituency. That is an area of relatively high school funding per pupil, and specifically on high needs. I recognise the additional pressures on the high-needs budget, but £1.4 million of the additional money that we were able to secure for high needs will go to her constituents over two years.

School Funding

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and the other co-sponsors for securing this important debate on school funding. There are few subjects more important to this House than the future of the nation’s children. They will be the inheritors of a post-Brexit Britain. They will be digital natives, as unfazed by digital technology as we are by electricity. We will bequeath to them the big challenges facing the country and the world, such as climate change, new kinds of labour market, and many more. That is why it is so important to invest in our young people’s talents and ensure that they are among the best educated in the world.

Let me start with the ugly truth: this Government are letting the next generation down. Ministers are failing to make the necessary investment, and the Government are endangering our prosperity and productivity by not investing in education and skills.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I am conscious of the differences between the English and Welsh systems, but given the concerns of teachers, parents and students, does my hon. Friend agree that we need to be spending a higher percentage of our GDP on education?

[Rushanara Ali]

I absolutely agree. We need cross-party agreement to ensure that we invest in our children’s futures, because that will ensure our nation’s prosperity.

School funding has been cut in successive Budgets since 2010, and that has continued into this Parliament, as the hon. Member for St Albans mentioned. Since just 2015, when the previous Prime Minister won his short-lived majority, nine out of 10 schools have seen real-terms cuts in per-pupil spending. If Ministers had maintained spending even at 2015 levels, overall school funding would be £5.1 billion higher than it is. Across the board, from early years to further education, funding cuts are devastating our young constituents’ lives when they should be supported.

The Education Policy Institute found that the proportion of local authority secondary schools in deficit has trebled to more than a quarter of all such schools. My constituency has the highest child poverty rate in the country, with an 11 percentage point increase since 2015, but its schools and colleges face drastic cuts. An enlightened Department for Education would put resources into the schools that need them, not take them away. Schools in my constituency face a £16 million funding cut between 2015 and 2020, which is an assault on aspiration.

Education in my constituency was transformed over the previous decade, thanks to investment and Government support, but taking all that away damages lives and makes matters worse. The same can be said for many constituencies across the House. It is so important to reverse the cuts and to reverse the increase in class sizes, because the same things are happening elsewhere, including in pockets of poverty in leafy suburbs—I recognise the points made by Conservative Members—but we must not punish poor areas such as my constituency by taking resources away. We must level up, not start a race to the bottom. We need to avoid a divisive approach that pits MPs against each other for much-needed resources for their schools, which has been the tendency over recent years following the assault on the fair funding formula and cuts more generally. We have fewer teaching assistants. Teachers are leaving education. There are massive problems with infrastructure and lack of investment. Just like the NHS, we need a new consensus to ensure investment and to protect young people’s futures by ensuring that they can pursue meaningful careers and make a positive contribution to our society.

In the 2018 Budget, the Chancellor said that he would provide £400 million of extra cash, but the reality is that we need billions. He told the Treasury Committee yesterday that the comprehensive spending review could be delayed due to the lack of clarity around Brexit, yet the Government have spent over £4 billion preparing for a no-deal Brexit. We need to prioritise the comprehensive spending review, and if it does not come soon, the Government must step in and ensure that schools get the much-needed funding they require.

We need pupils to be taught in decent-sized, safe classrooms with good, modern equipment and with motivated teachers, tailored education for all and a range of cultural enrichments. We need to make sure pupils realise their full potential. We need to make sure the education system not only tackles social exclusion and discrimination but ensures that all children thrive so that we have the world-class economy we need to face future challenges. We need our education system to provide the future engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, artists and writers, and we need it to be the best in the world. That is what is lacking, because this Government lack the aspiration and the courage to invest in our future by investing in future generations of young people. I call on the Minister to take urgent action to invest in our schools to reverse the negative impacts and support our kids.

School Funding

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate Andrew Ramanandi, the headteacher of St Joseph’s Primary School in Blaydon, for starting the e-petition. Without his hard work on the petition, we would not be here today discussing this very important issue. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on speaking so eloquently and on taking so many interventions in opening this fantastic debate.

I want to focus on how the Government’s policy of austerity in education is harming the wellbeing and life chances of my constituents in Edmonton, especially children with special educational needs. Austerity has created an £8.5 million annual funding shortfall in Edmonton. Every single school in my constituency has had its funding cut since 2015. Furthermore, Edmonton, ranked the 50th most deprived constituency in England in 2015, has suffered some of the worst cuts in funding per pupil in the country.

Since 2010, owing to pernicious funding cuts from central Government, Enfield Council has been forced to find £178 million of savings, but further cuts mean that the council has to find £18 million to draw out of essential services by 2020. That £18 million is more than Enfield’s current net spending on housing services, leisure, culture, libraries, parks and open spaces combined. In an already struggling community, the education and overall life chances of every single pupil in Edmonton are being systematically undermined by the Government.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that London’s education has been transformed thanks to investment by the previous Labour Government, but the cuts of £16 million in five years under the Conservative Government—including in constituencies such as mine, which has the highest child poverty rate in the country—make a mockery of the so-called fair funding formula as it does not take into account the deprivation indices facing our constituents? If the Government are serious about maintaining and improving education standards and making our education world class, they should continue to invest in all areas.

[Kate Osamor]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. I will share the story of a parent whom I saw in one of my surgeries. The parent has a child with a developmental disability. He spends around £800 per month on one-to-one sessions for his child’s needs, which the family cannot get the council to pay for. Without the sessions, the family believe their child will have no hope of an independent life in future, but paying for the sessions is financially ruining the whole family.

I have also heard reports of children in Edmonton with statements, or education, health and care plans, who receive no special provision at all, or who receive a fraction of the legally required support, because schools and the local authority simply cannot afford it. Worryingly, some councils are pushing back against parents seeking legitimate support for their children, which has led to almost nine in 10 cases taken to tribunals across the UK finding in favour of parents. Every tribunal case is a family struggling and a young person failed by the system.

Time is against me, so I will end by saying that I want the Minister to please listen to the cries from all of us here today. All our children need fairer funding—some children even more than others.

College Funding

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

Characteristically, I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. Of course, he has been campaigning on these issues very powerfully; I just hope that people are listening.

Let me give some of the numbers. According to the House of Commons Library, in 2010 the average funding allocation was £4,633 per student. The 16 and 17-year-old funding rate has been frozen at £4,000 since 2013-14. The rate for 18-year-olds was cut to £3,300 in 2014-15 and has remained frozen since then. Funding per student aged 16 to 18 has seen the biggest squeeze of all stages of education for young people in recent years. By 2019-20, funding per young person in further education will be about the same as it was in 2006-07—only 10% higher than it was 30 years earlier.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the £3.3 billion of cuts in further education since 2010 is utterly devastating and, given the higher proportion of working-class students attending further education colleges—I was one of them—does he agree that this Government are hell-bent on making life a misery for working-class people in this country?

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend makes the point very powerfully. As I said, I see the divide in my own city. She is absolutely right.

Education Funding

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I do recognise that issue; there are additional demands. We are putting in place some extra capital and there are special free schools, but I recognise that this is a wider issue, and I will say a little more about it later.

UK spending is also high by international standards. According to the latest OECD data—from the 2018 “Education at a Glance” report, which refers to data from 2015, the last year for which comparable data for the various countries are available—on state spending on primary and secondary education, in terms of proportion of GDP the UK was the highest spender in the G7. Our spending was higher than that of the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. We were also higher on that measure than countries outside the G7, including Australia, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland. On a per pupil level, the UK ranked lower than the US but above or in line with all the other G7 nations.

As well as ensuring record levels of funding for our schools overall, this Government have taken on the historic challenge of introducing a national funding formula to distribute the money more fairly—something that was ducked by previous Governments. For example, Coventry previously received £510 more per pupil than Plymouth, despite having the same proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals. Nottingham similarly attracted £555 more than Halton—

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Damian Hinds]

No, I am sorry.

This year, we have given every local authority more money in cash terms for every pupil in every school, while allocating the biggest increases to the schools that have been most underfunded. It is also worth highlighting some of the funding that schools receive on top of what is distributed through the new funding formula. That includes £2.4 billion this year in pupil premium funding and £600 million per year for universal infant free school meals. We have also estimated that, through the roll-out of universal credit, around 50,000 more children will benefit from a free school meal by 2022, compared with under the previous benefits system, and that even more will benefit in the meantime through transitional protections. I regret to have to say that that stands in stark contrast to the scaremongering and wholly misleading accusations made by the Opposition about eligibility.

Through the primary PE and sport premium, we have invested more than £1 billion of ring-fenced funding in primary schools to improve PE and sport since 2013. The soft drinks industry levy is also enabling us to put up to £26 million into breakfast clubs in the most deprived areas. To fund the biggest increase to teachers’ pay since 2011, our teachers pay grant of £508 million over two years will cover the difference between this award and the cost of the 1% award that schools would previously have been planning for. We are also proposing to fund the additional pressure that the increase in pension contributions will place on budgets next September, for the schools as well as the further education and sixth-form colleges that are affected.

[Damian Hinds]

I am spoiled for choice. I will give way to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali).

[Rushanara Ali]

Earlier, the Secretary of State mentioned per pupil funding. In my constituency, per pupil funding will be cut by an average of £448 per pupil. Can he tell me why he is doing that, in an area with the highest child poverty rate in the country?

[Damian Hinds]

Through the funding formula, additional moneys in cash terms are allocated to each local authority for each child. I believe it is right that the local authority is then able to make adjustments—for example, to cope with the pressures on the high-needs budget for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The local authority has the ability to do that, and I think that that is right.

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[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Investing in our schools and improving education standards should be a priority for any Government. Our schools play a vital role in ensuring that young people are prepared for the world of work, positively contributing to our society and economy. However, the inadequate provision in the recent Budget, not to mention eight years of damaging cuts to our schools, demonstrates that education is not a high enough priority for this Government.

The Chancellor’s promise of £400 million for a few “little extras” when schools are on their knees owing to years of crippling cuts has, understandably, angered teachers and parents around the country. That is the equivalent of the Chancellor chucking a few crumbs to our hard-working teachers who are struggling to cope— so much for the end of austerity. It is as if this Government think that if they keep telling us that austerity is over, they will be believed regardless of the facts. As we have heard, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that headteachers should be preparing for more difficult years ahead—that is despite the fact that cuts that have already been made. For example, the Government have cut £3.5 billion from the education capital budget since 2010, and £1.7 billion in real terms from schools budgets since 2013. There has been a reduction in spending of 8% per pupil in real terms between 2010 and 2017-18, as well as a 21% reduction in funding per sixth-form student since 2010, not to mention the 8% cut in per student funding in further education and sixth-form colleges. Teachers’ pay is down by £4,000 in real terms since 2010, and the funds for special educational needs and disability are also inadequate.

Insufficient funding means that schools cannot pay their teachers properly. It means rising class sizes, with more than half a million children in supersize classes, fewer special support staff, the end of school trips for many children and much else. The Education Policy Institute found that the proportion of local authority secondary schools in deficit has trebled to more than a quarter of all such schools.

A good education will increase opportunity and lift children out of poverty. In my constituency, schools have been transformed thanks to the investment that began under the previous Labour Government. When the Education Secretary starts lecturing us he should remember how appalling the education system was when Labour came into power. If he wants to give us a history lesson, he should go back to the history of his Government and the way that they treated inner-city areas around the country—it was with contempt. It was the investment of funding in teachers, leadership, management and supporting parents that transformed education across London and other parts of the country. This Government are in a race to the bottom. They are not trying to lift kids out of poverty or to improve education. The Secretary of State should learn lessons from what happened in London and not try to decimate schools in our city. Other areas could learn from the London challenge and much else that was a success. This would be better than turning schools and regions against each other, which is not right and will not serve our children well.

Despite record levels of child poverty—the highest in the country—the children in my area have advanced and have had opportunities because of investment in our education system, and that must not be put at risk. But this Government, with their vicious cuts and failure to invest in the future, are putting all that at risk. Our schools are facing cuts amounting to £16 million between 2015 and 2020 alone. As I said earlier, that is an average of £448 per pupil—in the borough with the highest child poverty rate in the country.

The Government are hellbent on decimating our public services, including schools, Sure Start centres, early years education and the police service; the list goes on. When they face a public backlash or political opposition, they grudgingly cave in, having done the damage, with a few crumbs here and a few there. Education is no exception. I call on the Secretary of State to step up and fight for more resources ahead of the next spending review to ensure that our schools get the investment they deserve and need so that the next generation are not held back by the failures of this Government. I appeal to him to step up and make sure that the Chancellor does not just give our kids and schools a few crumbs, but that he puts in serious funding to ensure that the children of our country can survive, thrive and contribute to the economy.

Nursery Sector: Sustainability

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) on securing the debate. As we have heard, our nurseries play a vital role in children’s development and in preparing them for their future education and careers; if we get it right, they play a very important role in promoting social mobility and alleviating poverty. Improving standards should be a central part of that, along with ensuring that they are properly resourced.

Since the Government introduced the new early years funding formula and the 30 hours free childcare policy in 2017, 121 nurseries in England have closed, which is a 66% increase in closures from the previous year. That is a very worrying figure when we know—from the Government’s commitment to provide 30 hours and so on—that their intention is not to see a decline in nursery provision, but that is what is happening. Of the nurseries that have closed since the policy was introduced, 71% received an hourly funding rate of less than £5 per child. A total of 44% received the lower hourly funding rate of £4.30 per child. These recent closures are affecting thousands of families. To be charitable to the Government, I believe this is an unintended consequence of a well-intentioned but flawed policy.

Although I welcome the 30 hours free childcare scheme for working families, the range, complexity and fragmentation that have been mentioned have made take-up less than desirable. Some of the things that have been introduced include the 15 free hours for disadvantaged two-year-olds, the 30 free hours for three and four-year-old children of working parents and the tax-free childcare scheme. In parallel, the childcare voucher schemes have been closed to new entrants, but no assessment has been done to see what the impact would be on those who have benefited and others who could benefit from it. That is despite requests from the Treasury Committee, which I serve on. Although the time was extended, there is still a lot further to go in looking at how childcare vouchers could be used to continue supporting families where schemes have worked well.

The funding situation is underlined by the wider concern about passing on the requirement to increase wage levels as a result of the national minimum wage, and about pension contributions and business rates. Yet, the Government have not faced up to the fact that nurseries cannot afford to pay for that without national Government support. Nor can local authorities step in any longer—again, because of the context of unprecedented funding cuts over many years to local authority budgets.

The wider context is that, in constituencies such as mine, where schools have worked in partnership with nurseries to co-finance and support them, that is no longer an option. Despite some of the changes after the general election, the school system still faces some £2 billion-worth of cuts under the so-called fair funding formula, which is nothing short of a disgrace and is certainly not fair to constituents such as mine, who have seen a massive cut in school funding. Those options, which have been a huge help in protecting nurseries in constituencies such as mine, are no longer available.

The number of free places for disadvantaged two-year-olds and children with special educational needs and disabilities—something I know the Minister cares deeply about, given his brief—is falling because those children are more expensive to care for due to the higher staff-to-child ratios. The Government have not taken that on board; if they did, they would recognise the important contribution that nurseries working with SEND children make in our constituencies. Two-year-olds are currently not eligible for support from the disability access fund, the early years pupil premium or the SEN inclusion fund, all of which could be used to improve their access to early years provision.

After campaigns and petitions—one petition received over 10,000 signatures—the Government committed in the 2017 early years national funding formula to continue the level of funding for maintained nursery schools until 2019-20 through a supplementary grant of £59 million per year, but there are no guarantees that this will continue after 2020. Our maintained nurseries are left unable to plan and are, as Members will hear shortly, facing closure in some cases. It would represent a 31% cut if there is no continuity of funding, so I hope the Minister will say today what he is going to do post 2020 and whether he is extensively lobbying the Chancellor ahead of his statement to try to address this major problem, because the specialist support that is provided to maintained nurseries is vital if we want to address the specific needs of the children who desperately need that provision.

Maintained nurseries are vital services, and they completely transform lives. I have seen that when visiting nurseries, meeting children and parents across my constituency, and meeting outstanding professionals who work really hard with very little remuneration because they believe in our children and in giving them a good future. Some 64% of maintained nursery schools are in the 30 most deprived areas of England; 63% are graded outstanding by Ofsted because of the quality of education they offer. When Ministers talk about cost savings, they should not use such blunt instruments, which do not take into account the way professionals and families have worked to improve achievement from an early age, creating the building blocks for success in later life.

In those nurseries, admissions policies prioritise children who are in greatest need and provide a high number of places for disadvantaged and SEND children, particularly those with the most complex needs. These children make great progress through the education system, which they would not do otherwise. The average number of available childcare places in areas of disadvantage has fallen from 33 children per 100 in 2016 to just 25 per 100 in 2018. That is a worrying trend, which the Government need to reverse. Across the UK, there are now over 500 fewer Sure Start centres than there were in 2010, so the wider support structure has also crumbled, at a time when families are facing huge pressure, uncertainty and insecurity. That is one area of vital provision that needs protecting.

The child poverty rate in my constituency is the highest in the country, and yet our education system has been transformed over the past 20 years; early years and maintained nurseries have played a critical role in that. We also face funding cuts of 24% from 2010 to 20, and the local authority will have to make a further £58 million-worth of savings because of the national Government cuts. In that context, unfortunately, the local authority can no longer co-finance and meet the shortfall of a number of maintained nurseries in my constituency. I am deeply concerned about that, because it was announced this September that three out of six were to be closed. We simply cannot afford for that to happen, but the local authority no longer has the bandwidth to be able to continue to finance them.

Nurseries such as Overland, Mary Sambrook and John Smith have made huge differences to children’s lives. For example, the Overland children’s centre provides specialist care services for deaf children. Parents are extremely anxious about what is going to happen in the future, and they are particularly concerned about other children who could have benefited from those nurseries but who will no longer be able to.

I hope the Minister will heed the warnings of a cross-party group of more than 70 Members of Parliament, including 12 from his own party, who called on the Government to think again about the funding that is available for this important service. I also hope he will heed the Treasury Committee’s report, which recommended that the Government ensure that the costs that are being passed on through the national minimum wage, pension contributions and business rates are borne by national Government. Otherwise, nurseries will have no option but to charge—some have started to do so, making a mockery of the policy of 30 or 15 hours of free childcare—or, as the Minister is aware, to close.

The Treasury Committee also called on the Government to look closely at why take-up is so low. At the time, it was 90% lower than initially expected. We highlighted the importance of targeting disadvantaged people, because the new arrangements do not seem to be reaching those communities and families.

Cutting back higher quality staff and changing the services that were previously free may undermine the Government’s overarching policy objective of supporting those who live in disadvantaged areas, including constituencies such as mine and those of many other Members of Parliament. I hope the Minister will redouble his efforts to persuade the Chancellor to do more to finance this important sector, which is vital to the future of our children and our country.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) on a very thoughtful speech and on securing this important debate. We have heard some important contributions from both sides of the House, and I am genuinely grateful for the opportunity to set out both the Government’s position on childcare support and our priority of ensuring that hard-working parents are able to access high-quality provision.

Evidence suggests that high-quality childcare supports children’s development, as many colleagues have said, and prepares young children for school. Affordable and convenient childcare gives parents the ability to balance work and family life, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of a job, safe in the knowledge that their children are in good hands. That is why—I am very proud of this fact—this Government are investing more in childcare than any other Government. By 2019-20, we will be spending around £6 billion a year on childcare support. That includes an extra £1 billion a year to deliver 30 hours of free childcare and pay our higher funding rates.

The Secretary of State and I announced that we have committed a further £30 million of capital funding to build more school-based nursery places in the most deprived areas. That supports our commitment to social mobility, ensuring that we provide more quality places for those that will benefit the most. We are also providing additional funding, worth around £60 million per year, to support maintained nursery schools at least until 2019-20. Time permitting, I will return to maintained nurseries in response to some of the comments from colleagues.

All three and four-year-olds, along with disadvantaged two-year-olds, are able to access 15 hours a week of free early education. We have just celebrated the first year since doubling the childcare entitlement for working parents of three and four-year-olds to 30 hours a week. The childcare service, which is the online application for 30 hours of free childcare, along with the information available through the Childcare Choices website and the childcare calculator, have helped 340,000 children to take advantage of more high-quality childcare and put savings of up to £5,000 back in their parents’ pockets. That is something to be celebrated.

The recent independent evaluation of the 30 hours free childcare found that over a quarter of parents reported that they had increased their working hours, and 15% of parents said they would not be working without the extended hours. One parent interviewed for the evaluation also noted the wider benefits, which sometimes go unnoticed, of being able to work more:

“By doing four days now instead of three...my company looks at my development and progression in a way that they wouldn’t if I was only doing three days”.

That is great news which genuinely demonstrates the real and valuable impact of 30 hours. At a celebration, I met one parent who came up to me and said, “I just want to thank you for this. We are not the poorest family in the country, but we are certainly not rich. The 30 hours have allowed my wife to retrain in accountancy and she has got a job in that sector.” Those are real lives that are being impacted by a policy that is truly delivering on the ground.

[Rushanara Ali]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I have so many things to say. The hon. Lady made a thoughtful speech, and I will try to get through as many of the questions asked by her and other colleagues as possible. I hope she will forgive me for not giving way.

In this research, parents also reported wider benefits for their families: a fantastic 86% thought that their child was better prepared for school, and 79% felt that their family’s quality of life had improved. The recently published “Study of Early Education and Development” report evidenced the beneficial impacts of high-quality early education for all children aged two to four on both cognitive and socio-emotional development at the age of four.

The introduction of 30 hours has been a large- scale transformational programme, and change can be challenging for everyone. But we have seen tens of thousands of providers respond magnificently—I want to thank them for that—because of their ongoing commitment to helping families. The evaluation of 30 hours found that three quarters of providers were willing and able to deliver the extended hours, with no negative impacts on their provision or on sufficiency of childcare places. As we have heard from colleagues’ local experiences, the childcare market in England consists of a diverse range of provider types, allowing parents to have choice over their childcare provider. The supply of childcare in England is generally of high quality, with strong indications that existing supply is able to meet parental demand for Government-funded entitlements.

Nearly 80,000 private childcare providers were registered with Ofsted in March this year, and we know that nearly 10,000 school-based providers offer early years childcare. While there are, of course, sad examples of providers closing—as some hon. Members have shared—there is no evidence of widespread closures in the non-domestic childcare market. [Interruption.] Well, let me share the Ofsted data if hon. Members do not believe me. The Ofsted data published in June 2018 showed that the number of childcare places has remained stable since 2012. It is normal for providers to join and leave the Ofsted register, as it is a private market, and it can happen for a variety of reasons.

Most significantly, we have not heard via local authorities, from hon. Members or in the media of eligible parents being unable to find a 30-hours place or a place for any of the free entitlements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am coming on to something the hon. Lady raised, but I shall give way happily if I have time at the end.

This year, we shall be enhancing our annual survey of childcare and early years providers with more detailed research. Again, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West on his research, and I am interested in getting deep into the evidence on provider finances and childcare fees for two to four-year-olds. We have also commissioned independent research that involved site visits to a representative sample of early years providers to provide us with robust, up-to-date evidence on the costs of delivering childcare, including operating costs such as business rates. That is part of our ongoing monitoring of 30-hours implementation, and we shall consider the next steps once we have the findings on costs.

I shall now turn to some of the comments made by colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West mentioned VAT. Under European law, registered childcare providers deliver an exempt service, which means that they do not charge VAT on their services. The exemption is obviously designed to ensure that tax does not fall on individuals using welfare services, such as nursery services. However, goods and services purchased by the providers are subject to VAT, which causes understandable frustrations in the sector, but the rules cannot be changed within the existing legal framework. There may be opportunities to make changes to the VAT system in the future, but our rights and obligations remain unchanged until negotiations on our departure from the European Union are complete.

On the point my hon. Friend and many colleagues made about nurseries going out of business, the Ofsted data in itself is interesting. It shows that the number of childcare places available has remained stable since 2012. I also remind hon. Members that childcare providers do not have to offer the free 30 hours—that is entirely up to them—although, since the roll-out of 30 hours of free childcare, we have seen a sizeable majority of providers increasing the number of free hours available to parents, with no evidence of an impact on their funding.[Official Report, 16 October 2018, Vol. 647, c. 8MC.]

My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and other Members mentioned the issue of nurseries charging parents. The Government have been clear that the funding is intended to deliver free high-quality, flexible childcare. It is not intended to cover the costs of meals, consumables or additional services, so providers can charge parents for such things. However, parents must not be required to pay any fee as a condition of taking up a place. Our guidelines state that providers should ensure that their charges are clear to enable parents to make an informed choice.

A number of colleagues mentioned financial support for parents in connection with disadvantage. I remind hon. Members that, in addition to the investment that we are making, under universal credit working parents may claim back up to 85% of eligible childcare costs, compared with 70% of costs covered under the outgoing tax credits system.

The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) raised another issue to do with disadvantage, pointing out that two-year-olds cannot access the disability access fund, the early years pupil premium or the SEN inclusion fund. In 2017, we increased the funding rates for all disadvantaged two-year-olds by 7%, and we pay a higher rate for them because we recognise the higher costs associated with two-year-olds. The two-year-old funding is, by its nature, already targeted to the disadvantaged in that age group.

[Rushanara Ali]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I shall give way later if I have time. The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) mentioned maintained nurseries. The Secretary of State and I have both seen the incredible work that maintained nurseries deliver for their communities, and we have made £60 million a year of supplementary funding available at least until 2020. My message to local authorities is: do not take premature decisions on maintained nurseries. Many colleagues have made representations to me about the quality of maintained nurseries in their constituencies.

The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), who is no longer present, spoke about nurseries in Salford being forced to close as a result of funding rules. I met the hon. Lady and other colleagues to discuss the matter, but it is for the council to manage its local markets and to ensure appropriate provision for children with special educational need and/or disability. Councils may request exemption from the high pass-through rule, but Salford chose not to do that. My officials continue to discuss the matter with council officers. I am pleased that there are no 30-hour sufficiency issues in Salford.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) made a strong speech about the early years workforce and professional development. As she said, staff training and development is associated with quality, and I have announced that we are investing £20 million in professional development and training for practitioners in disadvantaged areas of our country.

The attainment gap was mentioned by the hon. Members for York Central and for Burnley. I would say that we were in agreement. More than a quarter of children finished their reception year still without the early communication and reading skills that they need to thrive. The Government have ambitious plans to halve that number over the next 10 years. The Department is working closely with the sector to deliver on our commitment to reform the early years foundation stage profile. We know that those gaps can emerge much earlier in a child’s life, as the hon. Member for York Central rightly indicated, well before the child enters the reception year. That is why we have recently launched a capital bidding round of £30 million, inviting leading schools to come forward with projects to create new high-quality nursery places for two, three and four-year-olds, which I spoke about earlier.

The hon. Member for York Central also spoke about the need to put the right investment in place for children with SEND. A high-needs funding system provides funding to local authorities for children and young people with complex special educational needs, from age zero to 25. The total high-needs block of funding now stands at a record high of almost £6 billion in England. Every local authority will attract at least a 1% increase in core formula funding per head in 2019-20 compared with 2017-18. The support is there for children with SEND, and our disability access fund is worth £615 per child. Local authorities should also establish an SEN inclusion fund. I think I shall end there, unless colleagues wish to intervene.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I hope that I conveyed to the hon. Lady, even if I did not convince her, that we are looking at funding very closely—a real deep dive. We have included our own additional survey questions for providers and have taken a representative sample of providers so that we can begin to understand it. My hon. Friends the Members for Rugby and for Bolton West and Opposition Members have offered evidence that we will look at very closely. I assure the hon. Lady that we are doing the work to ensure that there is continued sufficiency and that providers are able to deliver the excellent service that many thousands of them deliver.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West for securing this debate and for his thoughtful contributions.

[Rushanara Ali]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I think I have enough time, although my hon. Friend is allowed a few minutes to conclude the debate.

[Rushanara Ali]

I was particularly heartened by the Minister saying that local authorities should not make premature decisions about closing maintained nurseries. Will he say a little more about that? If he cannot now, will he write to me? My nurseries face imminent closure, so local authorities need that assurance to find alternatives. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. I really hope that he appreciates just how serious this matter is and that the Government should not keep passing the buck to local authorities. To say that it is “sad” that local authorities have to do that is not good enough for families. I hope he takes that message to the Treasury in his campaigning, in which we will support him.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I repeat, as I have done many times, that local government bodies—I hope many will at least read the transcript of this very good debate—should not make premature decisions on maintained nurseries at this stage. We have a spending review coming. The Secretary of State and I have been around the country looking at the great work that maintained nurseries deliver to the most disadvantaged parents in our country. I am happy to write to the hon. Lady to repeat that message so that she may share it with her local authority.

I am grateful for your patience, Mr Gapes, and to colleagues for their contributions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I am happy to confirm that we remain committed to all areas of the country. In English education there is nothing as simple as a north-south divide. There are areas of educational under-achievement in the north, the south and the middle. We need to seek them out wherever they are, and provide the support and accountability that are needed to ensure that those children too can thrive.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

10. What estimate he has made of the number of schools that will have a cash terms reduction in their budget in 2018-19 compared with 2017-18.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Through the national funding formula, we are giving every local authority more money for every pupil in every school in 2018-19 and 2019-20. However, we have always made it clear that local authorities remain responsible for determining schools’ final budget allocations in these transition years, in consultation with their schools.

[Rushanara Ali]

I thank the Minister for his answer, but I am horrified by what it contains, because the reality is that in my constituency, in the Borough of Tower Hamlets, there will be £28 million of cuts by 2020 in an area with the highest child poverty in the country. Where is the fairness in that, and will the Minister and the Secretary of State show some guts and stand up to the Prime Minister, perhaps like the Defence Secretary, and call an end to the billions of pounds of cuts in national funding of education?