Childcare: Affordability and Availability

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Fovargue.

It is worth mentioning that many of the MPs here—perhaps all of us—have children. In fact, many of us have quite young children. The hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) has had a baby since she became an MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) has had at least two children while being an MP—[Interruption.] Of course, I could not forget my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy)—I was just coming to her. I have seen a number of us, at different times, going through the Division Lobby holding small children. I believe that many MPs care about this issue, beyond any slogans or stories they have heard from their constituents; balancing being a good parent and giving your child the best start in life with representing up to 100,000 constituents, who often have far greater problems, is a real concern.

I think everyone in the House would agree that early years education is essential in supporting children’s development and ensuring that every child is given the best start in life. For many children, nursery is the most important source for learning vital social skills and understanding the world around them for the first time. The benefits for children starting their education of an early introduction to reading practice and letter recognition cannot be overstated. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds, including many in Ilford South, start falling behind their peers before they can even start school.

A decade of Government austerity and under-investment has allowed early years education and provision to fall by the wayside. Parents and carers of all descriptions have had to pick up the bill. The OECD says the UK now has the second highest childcare costs among leading economies. That is no good. We are also one of the most faltering G7 economies in terms of growth and the state of our economy.

Since 2010, over 1,300 Sure Start centres have been closed. In some areas, those centres have been slashed by 85%. All the while, the Government’s so-called free childcare offer is, in my view, desperately underfunded and excludes many of the most disadvantaged children from receiving the support they need. As a result, recent studies have found that parents are putting off having more children due to excessive childcare costs. Put simply, families have been priced out of having children.

Since the Conservatives took office, average nursery costs have increased by 44%. According to Pregnant Then Screwed, the financial burden of childcare has meant that 17% of parents have had to leave their job, and 62% say they work fewer hours because of childcare costs. As many hon. Members have said, it is primarily women who bear the brunt of those costs, which further increases the motherhood penalty and the gender pay gap.

Many parents with pre-school-aged children are now locked into what the TUC refers to as a Catch-22: as a result of the UK’s miserable statutory maternity pay, mothers face immense financial pressure to return to work early, leaving them to cope with those sky-high childcare fees. The current basic statutory maternity and parental pay rate equates to 47% of the national living wage. Statutory maternity pay was £151.97 in 2021-22—a £5-a-week real-terms fall since 2010-11. Parents are now forced to choose between staying at home to look after their children or working just to cover the exorbitant childcare costs, and that hits women, in particular, incredibly hard.

The impact on children of this failing system is also immense. Young children with complex needs require one-to-one support when they join settings, but they are often forced to wait months even to meet an occupational therapist, let alone to receive the dedicated support they require. Too often the nurseries I have spoken to have to fund that out of their already stretched budgets so they can put in place childcare for children with special educational needs and disadvantaged children. That poor access to good childcare is clearly a significant driver of inequality throughout a person’s life.

I recently spoke to Leah from Barney Bear’s Nursery in Ilford. She has three nurseries in my vicinity, and at least one in my constituency, which I have visited on a number of occasions. It is a brilliant childcare provider in my constituency. I talked to her about the current state of play in the sector, and she told me that she knows of three local nurseries that have been pushed to the brink of closure by the lack of sufficient increases in the hourly funding rate. Those Ilford nurseries cannot come close to covering their overheads or providing the quality of childcare that future generations deserve. She said:

“More and more nurseries are closing; it is a worrying time for nursery owners and staff…Our children are our future, and Early Years development is crucial…This Government need to do more! Help our nurseries thrive, provide free training, increase the funding rates, remove business rates, and bring back sure start centres.”

I hope the Minister will consider those things as we work together to tackle this problem.

The expected announcement on extending free childcare in the upcoming Budget is welcome, but without significant investment it will fail. Joeli Brearley, the CEO of Pregnant Then Screwed, said:

“The 30 hours ‘free’ scheme does not currently work for providers as it is knowingly underfunded by the Government. Providers must make up this shortfall by charging more for younger children.”

The massive staffing vacancies have to be addressed at a national level, and a national pay scale for childcare workers should be introduced. That is not an optional extra, as some in Government would have us believe. It has to be part of our national economic infrastructure.

Budget Resolutions

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) said earlier, we have heard an awful lot about cider today. Given some of the things that I have heard from the Government and from the Chancellor himself, I almost feel that I need to invest in a whole flagon of cider; after some of the things I have heard, it is really going to need that much booze to take the edge off just how bad things are.

This was a Budget for the Government to deliver on their promise to build back better for our country, to lay the foundations for economic growth, and to provide investment and support for businesses, workers and the most vulnerable across our country. It was a Budget that could have transformed our economy in the face of the impending climate crisis. Instead, we heard nothing beyond the rhetoric that could meet the reality that our country and our burning planet faces. Many people in the diaspora communities in my constituency of Ilford South have family who are already facing the impacts of catastrophic and deadly climate change.

Beyond the spin, the painful reality is that real average weekly earnings will not return to pre-financial crisis levels until 2022. Recent analysis by the TUC has revealed that this will result in the worst pay crisis since Napoleonic times, with real pay far from rising and instead falling by 0.1%—years of real incomes barely growing, coupled with the cost of living crisis, high inflation, rising taxes and poor growth that will keep living standards virtually stagnant for another half a decade. The worrying reality is that millions of people will be struggling to makes ends meet.

Meanwhile, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed to Whitehall Departments such as Transport and Justice seeing steep, real-terms cuts relative to 2010. Far from being the much-heralded payday that the Chancellor tried to present this Budget as, in reality it is yet another austerity Budget that will herald the biggest wage squeeze in British economic history, leaving the average worker almost £13,000 a year worse off by the middle of this decade. For those who are already desperate and looking to this Government to use this opportunity to provide urgent help, the Resolution Foundation found that a staggering 75% of almost 4.5 million households claiming universal credit will now be worse off, despite the tweak the Chancellor announced. The Trussell Trust summed it up perfectly when it said that

“there just wasn’t enough for some of those in our society who need it the most”

and food banks will have to “pick up the pieces”—as they are in Ilford South, with another four or five food banks springing up just in the past year.

What shall I tell my constituents in Ilford South who are now faced with such hardship? I certainly will not be reassuring them with news about the Chancellor slashing taxes on sparkling wines and cutting air passenger duty for domestic flights. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) made clear in this place last week,

“bankers on short-haul flights sipping champagne will be cheering”.—[Official Report, 27 October 2021; Vol. 702, c. 288.]

No one in Ilford South is cheering at this Budget, I can tell you that. It is another example of this multimillionaire, out-of-touch Conservative Cabinet looking after its own, not really doing things that will lift people out of poverty and get them back into work. I contrast that with the situation in my Ilford South constituency, where almost 19,000 families are currently in receipt of universal credit or working tax credits, and more than 11,000 of those have children—53% of all the families with children in my constituency. They now face a total of almost £20 million of cuts. This Budget has done absolutely nothing to address the catastrophic impact that will have on those families, the vast majority of whom will be forced into debt and further below the poverty line.

For those with their own businesses, who are the backbone of our local economy in Ilford South, I will do what I can by launching things like my new MP business awards that will support and highlight those businesses, but the reality is that we needed the Government to step in. By refusing to step up and finally deal with the business rates fiasco, the Government have completely failed them, and many will be forced to close or make redundancies. Is this really what the Government believe will enable our country to build back better and emerge from the pandemic stronger?

This Budget was equally bleak for those in the transport sector. Having already faced a sharp drop in revenue for the best part of two years, and with passenger numbers far off pre-pandemic levels, the transport sector needed a lifesaving shot in the arm to enable it to survive. Instead we Londoners heard not a single word, let alone got a pound sterling for Transport for London, when we know that every pound spent in the capital creates jobs outside it. Capital spending announcements for the transport sector across the piece were at their lowest level for half a century. I fear announcements that I think will come this week confirming the scale of job losses across Network Rail and many parts of our rail sector—good jobs that could be lost but should be there to get people out of their cars and travelling on public transport, so that we can really start to tackle the climate crisis. This is a dire state of affairs in a sector that is crucial for keeping our country moving and enabling us to recover as quickly as possible.

The Chancellor can claim that the Tories are the public service party, but as always the devil is in the detail of his Budget. He and his party have overseen more than a decade of austerity that left us woefully underprepared to tackle the current crisis. The fact that in some areas the Budget has only raised spending back to pre-2010 levels shows how economically illiterate the austerity decade was. With so little support offered by this Government, once again, we are now facing one of the worst winter crises in living memory, alongside a catastrophic climate crisis that is growing worse every day.

Now was the chance to make the kind of real radical change that is so desperately needed—that people are crying out for. There is an alternative—one that puts everyday people and our planet at the heart of our economy. Labour would forge a green industrial revolution and a new deal for workers, and would properly back our public services to give them the support they so desperately need. But we saw none of that; instead we were presented with tax cuts for mega-rich global giants such as Amazon and incentives for gas-guzzling flights. It is a champagne Budget for the rich, devoid of any meaningful support for millions across our country. It is another smoke-and-mirrors trick from the Gordon Gekkos of the green Benches. Our country deserves better and I cannot wait for a Labour Government to deliver it.

Education

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from oral questions on 6 September 2021:

[Sam Tarry]

I wonder whether the Secretary of State and the Minister could aim higher in their grades next year. Last year we saw U-turns, not just on teacher assessments, but on the broken algorithm. Residents and teachers in Ilford South would really like some assurances in the year ahead that instead of dithering and delaying—like almost every other decision over the last 18 months—we will actually get clarity from the Education Secretary and his team, and that they will learn from their mistakes and provide a contingency plan in case exams cannot go ahead as normal in 2022.

[Nick Gibb]

It is, of course, our intention that exams will go ahead in 2022. They are the fairest method of assessing young people. As I have said, we have already announced the details of adaptations to those exams to ensure that they are fair. We are also working with Ofqual, as the hon. Gentleman would expect, on contingency plans in case it does not prove possible for exams to go ahead safely or fairly, and those plans will be published shortly.

[Official Report, 6 September 2021, Vol. 700, c. 6.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for School Standards, the right hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb):

An error has been identified in my answer to the hon. Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry).

The correct answer should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend and I are very much united in the same mission: to ensure that youngsters from some of the most disadvantaged backgrounds are given every possible advantage to be able to do the very best in their life. There is a concern about the widening gap between boys and girls, which is why all the interventions regarding standards and small group tutoring are about driving up attainment and achievement. Some of the initiatives that we have introduced—such as the summer schools in which half a million students have taken part over the last few weeks and the tutoring programme—have started to have an impact, but I recognise that there is so much more to do. That is why we are absolutely committed to deliver on this.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

5. What steps he is taking to help ensure that the structure of GCSE and A-level examinations in summer 2022 is equitable for all students, including those with limited access to online learning.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Ensuring fairness is at the core of every decision that we have made regarding exams in 2022. Together with Ofqual, we have consulted on adaptations to GCSE and A-level exams in 2022, so that they take account of the disruption to pupils’ education. The consultation on the details of those adaptations was launched on 12 July and closed on 1 August. We plan to announce decisions shortly.

[Sam Tarry]

I wonder whether the Secretary of State and the Minister could aim higher in their grades next year. Last year we saw U-turns, not just on teacher assessments, but on the broken algorithm. Residents and teachers in Ilford South would really like some assurances in the year ahead that instead of dithering and delaying—like almost every other decision over the last 18 months—we will actually get clarity from the Education Secretary and his team, and that they will learn from their mistakes and provide a contingency plan in case exams cannot go ahead as normal in 2022.

[Nick Gibb]

It is, of course, our intention that exams will go ahead in 2022. They are the fairest method of assessing young people. As I have said, we have already announced the details of adaptations to those exams to ensure that they are fair. We are also working with Ofqual, as the hon. Gentleman would expect, on contingency plans in case it does not prove possible for exams to go ahead safely or fairly, and those plans will be published shortly.[Official Report, 14 September 2021, Vol. 700, c. 7MC.]

Covid-19: Impact on Attendance in Education Settings

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

We very much expect the education to be delivered for all children remotely, whether they are in a mainstream school, a special school or alternative provision. We work with the sector to ensure that that happens, including on the provision of IT equipment and devices, which is so critical for all schools to be able to deliver that.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

We remember the appalling free school meals debacle over Christmas, where the Opposition and football players had to try to force the Government to do the right thing. My Ilford South constituents, who are among some of the poorest in certain super-output wards, are extremely concerned that their holiday activities and food programme has not been guaranteed if they are going to be at home self-isolating. Will the Secretary of State please be crystal clear that nobody will go without food this summer?

Free School Meals

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

It is a great honour to follow such passionate and righteous indignation from my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford West (Naz Shah) and for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) in representing their constituents so powerfully.

It should shame all of us in this House that amidst one of the greatest economic and health crises in modern history we are having to vote to force this Government to extend free school meals over the holidays just so that children do not go hungry at Christmas. We may well be living in unprecedented times, but we are still the fifth richest country in the world and are more than capable of supporting the most vulnerable in our society.

We are in the middle of the most severe crisis our nation has faced since it stood and fought for democracy and sovereignty in world war two. There can be no half measures as our nation pulls together to get us through a dark hour indeed. This country is so sick and tired of asking the Government to do the right thing. Time and again, this Government are showing our nation that they are simply not fit to govern during a time of crisis, nor do they prioritise the interests of ordinary working people.

Before the covid crisis, more than 4,000 children were eligible for free school meals in my constituency. After the pandemic hit, that figure more than doubled, with many now reliant on welfare support just to make ends meet. A fifth of Ilford South’s population are still on furlough, with a significant number forecast to lose their jobs over the next month as a result of the Government’s inadequate job support package. It is shocking—absolutely shocking—that more than 2 million children across our country are living in households that experience food insecurity during this pandemic. With over 1 million children living in areas that are now subject to harsher lockdowns, the number of children that will require this additional support will only increase.

We are failing our children at a time of national crisis. The lack of support provided to socioeconomically disadvantaged children will scar their futures. What we are asking from this Government is neither radical nor impractical. Well-governed nations around the world continue to prove that there is another way. In New Zealand, despite already having lower child poverty rates than the UK, a competent Labour-majority Government have found the means to prioritise free school meals within their covid-19 recovery. If the UK were to match the scale of that commitment made by Jacinda Ardern, it would have to provide almost 3 million students with free school meals. If it is good enough for New Zealand, it is good enough for our great nation as well.

I implore this Government to adopt the calls from the Food Foundation and other civil society organisations to implement three of the recommendations from the national food strategy. The parents of children in Ilford South, who are desperate to get by and to provide for their families, and are defiant in the face of such disregard, are doing their bit to beat this virus, yet their businesses, staff and wage support are slashed while their children go hungry.

Free School Meals: Summer Holidays

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s U-turn on this important issue, and it is incredibly disappointing that it has taken a high-profile intervention—a “Match of the Day”-worthy goal—from Marcus Rashford to get us to this point. I think of my constituents in Ilford South, where we have over 4,000 children who claim free school meal vouchers, and, potentially, with 17,500 people on furlough, that figure could rise to a far worse and frightening level.

Unsurprisingly, I have been inundated with emails from concerned constituents in precarious positions. Andrea, with three children, currently has no income whatever due to the covid crisis, her mental health damaged. I will quickly mention one young man—a 10-year-old, Muhammad Ameen, who took the time to write to me from my old primary school, Highlands, in Ilford South. He said that some children whose

“parents are poor, have to suffer hunger in this crisis and are not getting the free school meals they need. I must stress this is for the families who desperately need it.”

I know that we are short on time, so I will finish by saying that it does not often happen that someone who is a West Ham supporter will congratulate and thank Marcus Rashford, a Manchester United player, but by highlighting this, he has held a mirror up to the Government. Thankfully, they have responded and are going to help all those people in my constituency to get through this summer—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

Educational Settings

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I believe that for early years settings and nurseries we have probably gone further than any other aspect of business in making it absolutely clear that we will continue to guarantee the funding that they are in receipt of from Government, regardless of where the roll is. We made that statement yesterday. I very much hope that that point has been percolating right through the sector, but I will certainly ask the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), to continue to reiterate it to all nursery providers.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I welcome the details that the Secretary of State has provided and the provisions for key workers, including on childcare and the commitment to ensure that the children of our vital NHS staff can go to nursery or school. However, as my hon. Friends the Members for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) and for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) said earlier, there is a serious question about the funding. In my local education authority in Redbridge, the council is prepared to meet the free funding places, but as the Secretary of State will know, much of the funding and the business plans that many nurseries have is based on the additional top-up of private places at those nurseries. Can the Secretary of State give more detail about the funding to ensure that that gap is bridged and that nurseries do not have to lay off staff in the midst of dealing this crisis?

[Gavin Williamson]

This is why we have made clear the continued funding that we would be paying to nurseries, but also why the Chancellor has touched on the issue of a business rate relief, which is obviously an important component in the cost base of many of these nurseries.

Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill

Sam Tarry Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 13th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

It is interesting, and in some ways welcome, to have a proposal before the House that attracts cross-party support, but also obliges us to consider it and debate it carefully. The hon. Members for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) have talked in the House about schoolwear costs—the latter quite extensively—as have numerous Conservative Members, and Ministers. Some of my comments, however, will be on other aspects of schoolwear, and approaches other than those that hon. Members suggested in other debates. I want to be unambiguously clear, though, that value is important, and that there are parents and carers for whom the cost of schoolwear is a very serious issue, even when we allow for the costs of a school not having a uniform, and cost pressures of every other kind. I take that issue as seriously for my constituents as I am sure Members in every part of the House do for theirs.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) for her comments. She made very sensible points about the special nature of the sector, and about stock, unintended consequences and quality, which I shall expand on a little. I suppose that one of the benefits of these sorts of debates is the measure of agreement; it allows us to achieve consensus, but also to draw out points that need to be made.

I have brief comments on the nature of the proposal, but will focus more on the pragmatic and practical. Views on school uniform—how traditional or otherwise it should be, and its role in promoting standards in education—vary. On the issue of cost, the schoolwear sector—retail and wholesale—deserves a fair hearing. Marge Simpson once said that she could not afford to shop at a store that had a philosophy. I wonder whether, for some, that feeling extends to schoolwear suppliers. In so far as the sector has a philosophy, I have found it very positive. Much of it relates to value. The Schoolwear Shop in my constituency of Northampton South certainly tries hard to keep costs down, but there are examples that illustrate why guidance must allow for differentiation between absolute cost and value for money. The team at David Luke Ltd of Manchester, for instance, led by Kathryn Shuttleworth and Mark Woolgar, have developed schoolwear that is not only low cost but made from recycled materials. That is a move away from fast fashion and waste, but also enhances the hard-wearing nature of the clothes they sell.

The approach of seeking decent quality, and thus longer-lasting, clothing, as well as interesting and innovative ways of supporting parents on lower incomes, is also taken by Jan Richardson and her team at Total Clothing in Peterborough. I have seen that approach taken by Georgina Bradley at Sussex Uniforms as well. Someone who has to buy three pairs of trousers for £10 each, instead of one pair for £25 that lasts three times as long, is not saving any money.

My encounters with business people in this sector, and messages and information from others, show me that the sector cares about the schools and the parents whom they serve, and understands the price pressures on many of them. The fact that it seeks to resolve those issues through durability and ethical sourcing shows that there is more to value than the sticker price, and that is something to which schools, parents and the Department for Education should have regard. Tendering for sole supply arrangements can keep prices on the cost and value matrix down, and I welcome the place for that idea in the guidance, and believe that it addresses many of hon. Members’ concerns. I very much hope that when the guidance goes back out to consultation, the schoolwear sector, and especially its best exemplars, get a full opportunity to contribute and explain the special business model that the sector requires, which we have heard a little about. I hope we also hear from charities and campaign groups of various kinds.

The need for a balanced assessment is underlined by the hugely detailed, and—I would assert, reverting back to my time in academia—peer reviewable work that the Schoolwear Association has done on the true cost of uniform, which acts as a corrective to work done by others. We have heard that the average basket price for branded garments—uniform and sportswear—for a child starting secondary school is £101.19, and that the cost is £35 to £40 a year thereafter.

We have all been children, and many of us have school-age children; I do. Opinions in the House and the real world will diverge based on personal, family and constituents’ experiences. There are families where someone did not go to a good school that they would have thrived in, because it was thought that they could not afford the uniform. Alternatively, there are families who found having a school with a proper uniform a great social leveller; it gave them freedom from the peer pressure of, “Your jacket’s from the supermarket, but mine’s Gucci.” That relates to the PE point. If requirements are too generic, all those expensive brand labels that the Bill’s promoter, the hon. Member for Weaver Vale, spoke about will return to schools. That makes the case for having lower-cost items that are branded by the school, rather than by Nike, Adidas or someone else at unbelievable cost, which would put pressure on those on low incomes to keep up with the Joneses.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

That brings to mind a childhood memory of my mum telling me that we could not have the Dunlop Green Flash; we would have to get the £3 bargain plimsolls. I dreaded going to school the next morning, and the embarassment of doing PE in those crummy plimsolls. I want to ensure—this is the hon. Gentleman’s thinking, too—that the principle of more affordable PE kit and sportswear is enshrined not just in the Bill, but in the guidance, so that the young people of Ilford South who aspire to be sporting heroes do not have to worry about whether they can afford to be the next Ravi Bopara or Nasser Hussain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sam Tarry]

One school in Ilford South has written to me of their concerns about items that are not strictly part of the school uniform—for example, hairbands that have to be black or the overcoats that the girls wear to school. I wonder whether the guidance that is being prepared could include some flexibility, so that schools cannot specify things that are not school uniform and therefore increase the financial burden on parents.

[Nick Gibb]

The non-statutory guidance says that branded items should be kept to a minimum, and we support that view. On issues such as hairbands, I would ask the hon. Gentleman to visit the Thomas Jones school in Saint Mark’s road in west London, which has very strict guidance for pupils on issues such as hairbands and other things—small things, such as not having dangly keyrings hanging from their school bags. The consequence is that pupils there are very smart, despite the fact that many of them come from disadvantaged backgrounds. It does create a sense of community, a sense of work ethic and a sense of equality among children from different financial backgrounds. Issues such as hairbands can, sometimes, be more important than the hon. Gentleman might think.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work that he did when he was at the Department for Education. I know that this topic is something that he feels very passionately about. The roll-out of T-levels, the expansion of technical and vocational qualifications, and the extra money that we are putting into colleges all make a vital difference. What makes Derwentside College successful is collaboration with local employers—ensuring that it is training people with the right skills really to contribute to the local labour market.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

Last week, one of my local schools in Ilford South had to strike against forced academisation. Will the Minister consider writing to the Catholic diocese of Brentwood and asking it to consider this unwarranted intervention, which does not have the support of the parents or the teachers at that school? Already this year there has been a mass exodus of staff from the teaching profession because of the threat of forced academisation—not just in Ilford, but across the country.

[Nick Gibb]

Academisation takes place when a school is put into special measures by Ofsted. We want high standards throughout our school system. The academies programme has resulted in standards improving in schools. When we came into office in 2010, 68% of schools were graded good or outstanding. Today that figure is 86%—in part, due to the very successful academisation programme.