Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Sarah Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy]

I share my right hon. Friend’s admiration for the speech given by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). It was incredibly powerful and I hope Members on the Labour Front Bench listened closely to what she said, even if they are not listening to me right now—they are looking at their phones. The Government have made a deliberate decision to dismantle everything that has worked.

[Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

How does the hon. Gentleman respond to the situation under the current system, whereby a third of young people fail to get a good GCSE in English and maths, and we have the most unhappy young people in the OECD?

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[Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan) for his moving contribution.

Members on the Opposition Benches should be ashamed to defend the status quo. The current system has seen one third of young people being failed. They leave the system feeling like failures because they have not achieved the basic qualifications of a decent GCSE in English and maths to be able to progress with their lives. We have the unhappiest young people in the OECD, and when we speak to young people, they tell us that their experience in the education system is a significant contributor to that feeling of unhappiness, and the mental health crisis that they face.

The legacy of the previous Government is that home education, which has only recently been properly counted year on year, has risen in the last 12 months from 92,000 to 112,000, but post covid, it has probably doubled or tripled. That reflects the fact that the system is not working for far too many parents, because it is not inclusive and does not meet their needs, and the changes to the curriculum have limited young people, who have different abilities, being able to prove their strengths and be valued in the classroom. That is not to mention the failures in SEND, and the urgent change that we know that we need to meet the significant support needs of some young people.

I challenge the defence of the existing system made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). The huge improvements in London are not just based on academisation. We can look at evidence such as the research that was done following the London Challenge strategy. Multiple factors contributed to the great gains that London made, but when we have tried to replicate them outside London, in genuinely the most deprived parts of this country, we have not seen the same gains. I have seen academy trust after academy trust take on a failing school, with the most vulnerable children in our country, and fail to make the improvements that it desperately deserves. That is why we need to think differently and bring forward new reforms to make a genuine difference in communities that do not have the other advantages that somewhere like London does.

My experience of tackling educational disadvantage in the most disadvantaged communities is that, when we take a place-based approach, the reality of competition incentivises schools in some parts of an area to off-roll and not be inclusive, because if they want to seek an outstanding rating from Ofsted, the best way to do that is to get rid of the more difficult children. If they just implement the Michaela approach, children with autism and other more complex needs do not thrive in the same way within those structures and requirements. Parents therefore have to take them out of the school, either because they see their child’s mental health issues and choose to, or because the school forces them to do so. That has to change, which is why I welcome the reforms that the Government are bringing forward.

The evidence shows that education is the primary determinant of where children fall on the income distribution relative to their parents. That is why I truly believe that education needs to be put back at the heart of our national life, as the Bill provides for, if we are to ensure that barriers to opportunity are broken down for all. The Bill takes a huge step towards that, and I am proud that children’s interests are being returned to the heart of Government policy. That is why I am proud to support the Bill.