Early Years Family Support

Debate between Sarah Champion and Andrew Percy

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) and the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on their work, and I agree with much of what has been said this afternoon.

It will not surprise those who know my background as a former school teacher that I want to focus a little bit on education and the literacy programme that I mentioned when I intervened on my right hon. Friend. I started teaching secondary school in Hull, sadly more years ago now than I would care to remember. When I went into that job I thought to myself, “Actually, I can really change lives in this role.” To some extent, that is true. But teaching 11 to 16-year-olds, I very quickly learned that so much of how my pupils’ lives were going to work out had already been set for them, mostly by the age of 11 and certainly by the age of 16.

When I left secondary school teaching, I became a primary school teacher and I went to teach year 1. Going from teaching 11 to 16-year-olds to teaching five-year-olds was probably the biggest shock of my life. I thought that that age would be the point at which a teacher really has a huge, life-changing impact on children; and, of course, they absolutely do. But I very quickly realised again that, by five years old, the life chances of so many of the children I was teaching had already been set for them because of their pre-school experiences, family situations, social deprivation and all the rest of it. It was incredibly sad. There were instances when a new child would be starting at the school and we would already have had pupils from that family through the school already. Sadly, we would already know the challenges we were going to face with that new child, whose name we only knew from the register, because of the situations that had already been determined for them even before they started school.

As a primary school teacher, it became clear to me that literacy was absolutely fundamental to how well a child would perform throughout their school career. Where they started in school at four or five years old very much determined where they would end up with their GCSE results at the age of 16. Those children who had a history and heritage of sitting at home and reading with their parents, carers and grandparents came to school with much better literacy rates. Their speech was also better, and they were so much further ahead than other children in their ability to communicate and interact with adults and children. For very many of them, that start set how they would perform not just in the first few years at school, but throughout their entire school career.

Not long after I was elected, I got in touch with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. As the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) will know very well, Dolly Parton set the library up because of her own childhood experiences with illiteracy. We met representatives of the Imagination Library and both my local councils—North Lincolnshire Council and the East Riding of Yorkshire Council—and we tried to set up a local scheme to support some of the poorest children into membership. It is a very cheap scheme, costing about £28 or £30 per child per year. For those who do not know about the Imagination Library, it sends children an age-appropriate book in the post every single month from birth through to five years old. This provides a really special time for families and it is a real event when the book arrives.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Percy]

Of course; the hon. Lady’s town in particular knows about this scheme.

[Sarah Champion]

The Imagination Library had a transformative effect on children in Rotherham, not least because they felt so special receiving their books. Each book became something that was treasured, brought out and shown to other children. The scheme empowered a whole community, so I fully support the hon. Gentleman in trying to bring it to his constituency.

[Andrew Percy]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support. It might sound funny, but it is a real event when the book arrives in the post every month. The expectation of is a thing in itself. Then there is the process of the child opening the book, talking about it with their parent, carer or whomsoever, and spending time sitting down and bonding, which, as we know from the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire, is so important in those early years. This has such a transformative effect.

I am very proud to say that there are two schemes running in my area. I run a very small scheme in Goole—the Goole and Snaith Imagination Library—which I provide all the funding for myself. I am always asking anybody local who could help to sponsor more children to cough up some dosh and put it in the pot. It is a very small scheme. Unfortunately, I could not get the local authority to pay for it, but there are 110 children in Goole on that self-funded scheme, which I run through my office and fund myself and through other donations.

In North Lincolnshire, however—this is not a political point, because my party runs both councils—in 2013 we secured funding to roll out the scheme to every single child in the area, thanks to the leadership of Councillor Rob Waltham, who is now the council leader but who previously held the portfolio for young people. Since 2013 we have delivered through the letter boxes of North Lincolnshire almost 500,000 books to local children.

The take-up rate in my constituency is about 95%, and across the whole of the borough it is about 90%. At present, 8,100 children from birth to five in North Lincolnshire are signed up to the scheme. The buy-in has been incredible. As I mentioned in an intervention, when someone has a child at the local NHS maternity unit at Scunthorpe General Hospital, the first thing that happens is they are signed up and given a basket that includes information about the Imagination Library. When the birth is registered, they are checked again to see whether they have registered for the Imagination Library. Children’s centres, health visitors and every local public service are signed up to the Imagination Library.

The council has done that without any additional funding from anywhere, in very difficult times. I am very proud of what we have done in North Lincolnshire to ensure that this is universal. Some people said at the start, “Some parents can afford this and should perhaps pay for it themselves,” but, to be frank, we took a political decision and said, “No, it doesn’t matter. Every child should be signed up, regardless of whether or not they can pay, because the benefit is beyond doubt.”

The results are reflected in our primary school figures. For example, in 2018 we were the most improved authority in the country for literacy and writing, and I think our phonics screening results were the seventh best in the country—they were certainly well above average. We have the data and it is manifesting itself in improved standards at primary school. Regardless of whether their parents can afford to buy a book every month, every child in North Lincolnshire gets a book through the post every month for five years, throughout reception and before they start school.

It is sad that the scheme drops off and ends at the age of five. A number of people write to me saying, “This is a brilliant scheme, but it’s such a shame that it stops at five.” As I have said, we have all the data and statistics showing the impact that the scheme has had. The most important data for me, however, is the testimony of local parents. When we set up the scheme, we focused it on the most challenged part of Goole, and a mother in Goole wrote to me saying, “I just want you to know that this scheme has been incredible for me and my child. I was not a confident reader, but sitting there every month with my child has improved my own literacy.”

When I was a schoolteacher, the reason that some parents did not spend time reading and writing with their children and teaching them the ABCs and 123s was not always neglectful behaviour; it was often because they lacked confidence in their own literacy or numeracy abilities. That then manifested itself in what might have appeared to be neglectful behaviour, but they were actually embarrassed that they did not have the confidence to pass those skills on to their children. I found that sad. A lot of work has been done across our local authority to address that. It was not always a matter of neglect.

I do not want to say anything further, other than that I hope the Minister will look at the example of the North Lincolnshire Imagination Library. As I have said, almost 500,000 books have been delivered to local children through their letter boxes, and that is having a very clear impact on primary school results. It is not necessarily cheap, but we have decided locally that it is a worthwhile intervention because we will turn out children and young people at 16 and 18 who will perform better than they otherwise would have done. They will have confidence in literacy that they may not otherwise have had, and that will benefit the community when they get jobs in the area, including exciting jobs at the new Siemens rail factory, which will require those skills. Whether they are small schemes, of which a number are running across the country, or big schemes, these programmes can really make a difference to children’s lives, including the 110 children in Goole who are benefiting and the 8,000-plus who are benefiting across North Lincolnshire.