Special Needs Education

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I think it is the first time that I have been in Westminster Hall when you have been in the Chair.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) on securing this useful and timely debate. I am aware of her long-standing interest in this issue. She kindly mentioned that I attended a meeting that she called with a number of schools from her area and nationally. I am grateful to have this opportunity to place some issues on the record and to clarify some of the points that she has raised.

Independent and non-maintained special schools play a valuable role in supporting some of our most vulnerable children and young people, many of whom have very complex needs, and they also have considerable expertise to offer other schools. My hon. Friend mentioned a number of schools in her constituency, outlined their particular expertise and what they are able to offer to children and families. I pay tribute to the impressive work that schools in her constituency and across the country do in supporting children and families. They make an invaluable contribution to supporting children and to the sector as a whole. Independent and non-maintained schools are an established part of the landscape of special educational needs provision in this country and they form an integral part of the diverse range of schools that we are seeking to establish, in order to improve choice for parents and support for children and young people.

In the time available to me, I want to try to pick up on the points that were made by my hon. Friend and by the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti). Both hon. Members will be aware that this debate takes place relatively soon after we published a Green Paper on SEN and disability. We carried out a consultation that received 2,400 responses and we are going through all those responses. They were very varied, coming from education professionals, including teachers, families and health workers. Later this year, we will publish a formal response. So I take this debate in the spirit of that consultation. We are still in a period of gathering information and views about our Green Paper before deciding how to work through some of the proposals that we made and to ensure that we get the detail correct. During this period, we are also establishing local pathfinders to test out some of the best ways of delivering the change that we have proposed. We will announce details of those pathfinders later this month.

My hon. Friend made a number of specific points about naming schools and school choice. It is perhaps worth my placing on record what the Green Paper says. We are widening the range of schools from which parents can choose by enabling parents, teachers and others to set up free schools and by allowing existing schools to become academies. The free schools route also provides an opportunity for non-maintained schools to seek academy status if they wish to do so. We intend to change the law so that parents of children who would have an education, health and care plan have the right to express a preference for any state-funded school and to have that preference considered on the same basis, whether it is for a special school, a mainstream school, an academy or a free school.

My hon. Friend asked why we have not made a similar provision for parents to express a formal preference and then for local authorities to name a school if it is a non-maintained school or an independent school. It is about the original purpose of the legislation, which is to ensure that parents get that choice—often when a school may not choose to take the child. As she will be well aware, the process is that parents are able to express a preference and the local authority will then consider whether that is the right placement for that child, subject to the legal provisions about the best use of resources and whether it will have any detrimental effect on the education of other children. At that point, if the local authority agrees—if it does not meet the conditions, it has to agree—to place the child in that school, it formally names that school and the school is forced to take the child.

Of course, non-maintained schools and independent schools do not want to be forced to take a child and, in a sense, that is a point that the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham made when he raised wider issues about disability discrimination legislation. We have a diverse range of schools and there are balances of freedoms and restrictions applied to different schools. If non-maintained schools want to take on slightly different freedoms but also different restrictions, they have the freedom to apply for academy status, and independent schools have the ability to apply for free school status, as I outlined a while ago. In doing so, they trade some of the freedoms that they already have and gain different restrictions. Therefore, it does not make sense in that situation to extend the legislation so that schools would be forced to take a child, and I do not think that that is something that those schools would want to do. However, I stress that parents will continue to have the right to make representations for a place at a school that is not state-funded and the local authority must take those representations into account when it makes its decisions on placements. We are not proposing any change to that process in the Green Paper.

My hon. Friend raised points about whether non-maintained special schools and independent schools are always more expensive. She quoted some things that I had said at a hearing of the Select Committee on Education. I think that they have been taken very slightly out of context. It is true to say that some independent schools and some non-maintained schools are more expensive than state-funded provision, but I have not said at any stage that all non-maintained special schools and all independent schools are always more expensive. It would simply be incorrect to say that. We have spoken to the National Association of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools on this point and we have tried to encourage it to submit its own evidence about costs to the review about school funding, which is ongoing. We are out to consultation until about mid-October and we encourage those in the sector to submit what evidence they have about costs and to say whether full costs are being taken into account. Such evidence would be very useful when we are considering what we do with pupils, particularly those high-cost pupils about whom my hon. Friend spoke earlier.

It is also worth saying that local authorities are obliged to make decisions about placements on an individual basis. There is no doubt that for some children attending an independent or non-maintained special school will be absolutely the appropriate and right course of action for them, and the local authority is then required to fund a place for the child at that school. In fact, the number of children who are being educated in the independent sector has risen, not fallen, during the past five years.

My hon. Friend made some points about a local offer and the information that is available to parents. Local authorities already have a statutory duty to give parents information about non-maintained special schools and independent schools in their area. It is up to local authorities to decide whether to include that information in their local offer and that is something that we would like local authorities to develop on a local basis.

My hon. Friend did not mention the issue of the work force, but I wanted to make a couple of points about that because NASS raised it with us in its response to our consultation on the Green Paper. Independent and non-maintained special schools can now apply to become teaching schools if they are rated “outstanding” by Ofsted and have experience of collaborating with other schools. As I said earlier, however, those schools have such a lot of expertise that I want to encourage them to join an alliance with other schools in their area to form a teaching schools partnership, so that we can ensure that we are making use of the expertise that they have.

My hon. Friend very fairly made some criticisms about communication between the Department for Education and other organisations, particularly NASS, in the past few months. Those criticisms are absolutely fair and valid. Indeed, I wrote to Claire Dorer of NASS just this week to say that some of the failures of communication have been, in my view, inexcusable and that I am absolutely determined to ensure that they are not repeated. The Department is in regular contact with NASS on many of the points that my hon. Friend has raised. It is not an excuse, but by way of offering an explanation I will say that there has been some reorganisation within the Department about responsibility for some of these issues and unfortunately that has led to some issues of miscommunication.

I will come back to the other points that my hon. Friend made, but first I will address the specific questions that the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham asked. He asked about personal budgets and whether parents would be able to buy provision in the independent sector. The answer is yes, but we think that it is unlikely to apply to the whole school place. That is something that we are testing at the moment through our pathfinder schemes, but we think that it is unlikely to be practical to apply to the whole school place. Of course, as I stated a short time ago, if that provision is correct for a child, local authorities are already bound to fund the whole school place anyway, but they may well be able to pay for some of the extra provision that might be offered in a particular school.

Are we going to implement the auxiliary aids and services regulations? It is our intention to do so. There has been some delay in our doing so. Of course, the regulations will apply to all schools and not just to independent schools; all schools will be bound by them.

The hon. Gentleman also made the point about independent schools being open to disability discrimination challenge if they fail to accept a child. That is the flipside of the other point that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole made earlier about naming a school. If a school is state-funded, the local authority can specifically name it and ensure that it is forced to take a child. It is a similar attempt to protect things for families.

In the last minute available to me, I want to respond to the points that my hon. Friend made about the Hutton report. We are, of course, looking at this issue as we consider how to deal with the detail of the recommendations made by the Hutton commission. There will be some issues to balance about what we do and there are, of course, pros and cons attached to private sector bodies’ participation in public sector pension schemes. That is something that we will have to consider with the teaching profession as a whole, but I understand the points that my hon. Friend raised.

In the time available to me today, I have done my best to answer all the points that my hon. Friend has made. There are two other points about funding on which I will respond to her in writing, but I hope that I have responded to all the other points that she has raised.

School Food

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I think it might be the first time I have done so.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) on securing this debate on a very important topic. I was delighted to hear about his cooking exploits, but I was not quite sure that the diet he described would constitute a healthy lifestyle. Sponge and custard creams are probably exactly what we are trying to get children to avoid snacking on; hopefully no children will be reading about his favourite foods.

[Andrew Gwynne]

To be fair, I did also mention my Scotch broth, which is wholesome and nutritious; but when we talk about a balanced diet we do not want to be so restrictive that we cannot enjoy a slice of cake now and then.

[Sarah Teather]

Far be it from me ever to want to deny the hon. Gentleman a slice of cake. I stand corrected; he did of course mention the Scotch broth as well.

There is much in the hon. Gentleman’s commitment that I would agree with. School food is hugely important. What children eat affects their concentration and health, their tendency to pick up infections and the likelihood of their being absent from school. School food is vital support in that context; it is vital in supporting healthy eating habits, which, beginning from a young age, can continue throughout a life. Unhealthy habits embedded at a young age are also much more difficult to break. Similarly, free school meals play a critical role in addressing issues of poverty and inequality, particularly for young people who would otherwise not get a nutritious meal during the day. That is the reason for the Government’s commitment.

I was struck by comments that hon. Members made about the benefits of eating together, which affects socialisation and behaviour. Children can learn to interact around a meal table, and they may not have other opportunities to do that. I recognise also the previous Government’s achievements, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, on nutritional standards and the renovation of kitchens. On those points I agree with him.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. If she recognises the achievements of the previous Government, particularly in relation to nutritional standards, why are the Government scrapping them?

[Sarah Teather]

The Government are not scrapping them, and if the hon. Gentleman will now let me finish I shall deal with the points on which I disagree with him.

I just want to pick up a point made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). I ask hon. Members to forgive me but I am still losing my voice; it has almost returned after last week’s Education questions, but it is coming in and out. The hon. Lady made a point about nursery education, and the realisation of the need to embed the relevant attitudes early is precisely why I have asked the School Food Trust to produce some nutritional guidance for nurseries and children’s centres. It is producing that at the moment and I hope it will help to embed some of those standards at an early age.

We are absolutely committed to driving up the take-up of school meals. It now stands at 44.1% in primary schools and 37.6% in secondary schools. However, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) pointed out that, in her constituency, the take-up has gone down in some schools. The School Food Trust is looking into some schools that have had difficulties; although the average might have gone up, some secondary schools have seen striking decreases, and the trust is considering the details in order to understand why.

To help drive up the number who take school meals, we are encouraging schools to use more freedom in charging. We included measures in the Education Bill to allow schools to be more flexible in how they charge. For example, they can make offers if a family has two children or make introductory offers to encourage people to take up school meals. However, I disagree with Opposition Members on many points.

One of the consistent themes of the debate was our decision to remove the ring fence. I was struck by the contradictory nature of Opposition Members’ argument; they spoke about the commitment to school food that they see in their constituencies from schools and head teachers, yet they are unwilling to trust schools to deliver. It is not right to ring-fence everything. It is right to give schools the freedom to decide how to prioritise spending, depending on existing practices. None the less, I recognise what many Opposition Members said about the impact of rising prices. That is why we are working with Pro5, a partnership of the UK’s largest public sector organisations; we want to drive down the price, encouraging better procurement by using centrally negotiated contracts. I hope that we will reap benefits from that.

[Diana Johnson]

Am I correct in thinking that the Government decided to ring-fence the music grant for at least one year to ensure that music was provided in schools? If they can do it for music, why can they not do it for school food?

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Lady would be the first to blow the trumpet if the Labour Government had done so, given the extent to which schools already offer healthy balanced meals. Is she honestly saying that we should always ring-fence everything for ever? I am sure that that is not her view.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Teather]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, as I have not done so yet, but I shall then need to make some progress or I will not be able to answer any of the Opposition’s questions.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

The Minister speaks of removing ring-fencing, but we are in the process of changing the culture of school food and of the way in which schools consider healthy living. That is why it is vital that the Government give out the message that this tranche of money needs to be spent on school food. That is the point being made by Opposition Members; we are not saying that everything should be ring-fenced.

[Sarah Teather]

Culture has changed significantly, and I join with the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish in paying tribute to Jamie Oliver for the work that he has done in changing attitudes.

I now turn to what Opposition Members said about free school meals. The rise in the number of pupils eating school meals inevitably means that there has been a rise in the number taking up their entitlement to free school meals. The latest figures show that 19.1% of pupils in maintained nursery and state-funded primary schools and 15.9% of pupils in state-funded secondary schools are registered for free school meals. However, for all sorts of reasons, not all children entitled to free school meals currently take up the offer—for instance, because of stigma or because they are unaware that they are entitled, a point made by a number of Opposition Members. Cash-free systems can help in driving down the stigma attached to free school meals. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish mentioned Tameside’s system for online checking. That is part of the Department’s award-winning free school meal eligibility checking system, which has had a huge impact on encouraging parents to apply for free school meals by helping to remove that stigma. It is also significantly cheaper for local authorities to administer.

A number of Members spoke about the universal credit, with its automatic passporting of benefits. If we were to use that system, our way of dealing with free school meals would have to change. I understand that hon. Members want answers now, but I am sure they recognise that it is important that we get the detail right. That is why we are taking our time; we are examining how best to ensure that all those children eligible for free school meals can benefit. We are working through that now, and I shall update hon. Members as soon as I can.

I wish to correct a few misunderstandings on the pilot scheme. We did not cancel the pilots in Durham, Newham or Wolverhampton, but we had to cancel them elsewhere because, unfortunately, the programme was underfunded by £295 million. Being able to offer free school meals to every primary school child is certainly on my wish list; if money were to grow on the trees in the atrium at the Department for Education, that wish would be high up there.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Teather]

I shall complete this point first. I have only four minutes left and I have barely answered any of the points raised in the debate.

Free school meals for every primary school child is definitely on our list of things that it would be nice to offer at some point in the future. The absolute need for evidence is precisely why those pilots were allowed to run; we can evaluate the evidence and see what impact it has at a later stage, when finances make it rather easier.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. In the Chamber today are two former Ministers from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and they both say that the Minister is wrong. It is a question of priorities: we prioritised it and she has not.

[Sarah Teather]

The problem is that Opposition Members have given no indication of what they would cut in order to fund free school meals. I suspect that the two former Ministers did not see the detailed budgets of their Department, but evidence makes it extremely clear that the previous Government underfunded their pledge by £295 million. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish said that the Labour party had a plan to halve the deficit, but they should make clear where those cuts would fall. It is simply not good enough to say that they have a plan to halve the deficit but not make it clear where the cuts would fall. If we were to have honoured all of those pilots, we would have had to cut the best part of £300 million—

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Teather]

No, I will not give way again. We would have had to cut the best part of £300 million from elsewhere in the Department’s budget. If hon. Members were to tell me which areas of the budget they would be willing to cut to the tune of £300 million, then it might be a little easier—[Interruption.]

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Order. I ask hon. Members to quieten down a little.

[Sarah Teather]

Hon. Members also spoke about Ofsted. It had responsibility only for the healthy eating approach of schools. It did not engage nutritionists when doing those inspections, so it would be a fallacy to assume that the only thing that was driving compliance with standards was the Ofsted inspection.

On the School Food Trust, I think there have been some misunderstandings. All advice that the trust has made available with Government grant will continue to be made available free of charge. It will be able to charge for new advice that it prepares once it becomes a charity and no longer receives Government grant, but it will be a charity, a not-for-profit organisation, and will need only to cover its costs. I believe that the high quality of its advice means that local authorities and schools will want to use it. A great deal of the support that it has offered has proved useful.

Opposition Members raised the subject of including cooking in the national curriculum. They should wait until we have reviewed the national curriculum, and see the outcome. However, our internal review of what secondary schools are doing shows that most already provide practical cooking at key stage 3, and they are unlikely to stop doing so regardless of whether we legislate.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish on securing the debate. I have tried to answer at least some of the questions raised this morning.

Families in the Foundation Years

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

Today the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) and I are publishing a policy statement “Families in the Foundation Years”, which sets out the Government’s policy and the services that we think should be offered to all parents and families across England from pregnancy until a child reaches the age of five.

Today we are also launching a document—“Supporting Families in the Foundation Years”—for commissioners, local leaders and professionals who work with families in the foundation years, setting out our vision for the system that will implement these policies. It has been developed with advice from a wide range of professionals with extensive knowledge and experience of the foundation years.

On 6 July I launched a consultation on revised standards for learning, development and care of children from birth to five—a simpler, strengthened early years foundation stage (EYFS). We also made available a discussion document on the new core purpose of Sure Start children’s centres focusing on the outcomes they support for children and families, particularly the most vulnerable.

Taken together these publications constitute our response to those recommendations from the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), and Dame Clare Tickell that deal partly or wholly with the foundation years. I have also laid a written ministerial statement today in response to the hon. Member for Nottingham North’s second and final report “Early Intervention: Small Investment, Massive Savings” which I welcome and which will inform wider work on innovative finance.

Today’s publications emphasise the vital role that skilled and knowledgeable professionals and strong leadership play across the foundation years. This requires a framework of high-standard qualifications that meet the needs of employers, and equip early education professionals to support young children’s development. I am pleased to announce I have asked Professor Cathy Nutbrown to lead an independent review of foundation years qualifications. The review will consider the quality and breadth of qualifications available to the early education work force, and how best to strengthen qualifications and career pathways in the foundation years, offering advice to me during next year.

I am also announcing that nine local authorities will be the first to trial payment by results in children’s centres. The areas are Southampton, Oxfordshire, Oldham, Gloucestershire, Devon, Croydon, Blackpool, Barnsley, and Barking and Dagenham. They will test how to reward and incentivise reaching the most vulnerable families, improving family health and well-being and raising attainment of children at age five.

Raising the status of the foundation years

This Government want to build on recent improvements in the quality of services for young children to create an environment in which local communities, business and public services work together to help families and parents to be the best they can be, particularly during the important first years of their children’s lives.

Research clearly demonstrates the impact of the first years of a child’s life on later life chances. Maternal health and health in early childhood are important for later well-being. Children who do well at age five are six times more likely to achieve at or above expected levels in the first years of primary school and the effects of good early education are still visible at age 11, and on into later life. Research also shows that children do best when parenting is warm, responsive and authoritative.

The strength of this evidence has been recognised in the recent major reports from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead on poverty and life chances, by the hon. Member for Nottingham North on early intervention and by Dame Clare Tickell on the early years foundation stage (EYFS). Both the hon. Member for Nottingham North and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead called for Government to adopt the term “Foundation Years” to signal the importance of the first phase of life in underpinning later achievement and well-being. Recognising the need to raise the status of this time of life, we have adopted this name in the statement we are making today.

Making this the most family-friendly country in Europe

Families are the cornerstone of our society, and this Government have committed to making this country the most family-friendly in Europe. We have already demonstrated our commitment to supporting families during the foundation years:

The Government have already increased to 15 hours a week the free entitlement to early education for all three and four-year-olds, and the paving legislation required to extend this entitlement to disadvantaged two-year-olds is currently before Parliament;

By 2015, we aim to increase the health visitor workforce by 4,200 (an increase of over 50%). Health visiting services can then deliver a full service to children, families and the community working closely with Sure Start children’s centres and other organisations;

Over the same period we will double (to 13,000) the number of vulnerable young families who will benefit from the family nurse partnership;

Investment in relationship support over the spending review period will further the positive impact relationship stability has on parenting;

The Government are consulting on a new flexible system of shared parental leave which will give mothers and fathers more choice about how they share their caring responsibilities;

The Government have announced that it wants to retain a network of Sure Start children’s centres, accessible to all families but focused on those in greatest need;

The Government are committed to strengthening accountability arrangements for children’s centres, including through introducing payment by results, so that success is recognised and rewarded. Nine local authorities, announced today, will become the first to trial payment by results in children’s centres—with up to 21 further trials to be announced early in the autumn. The experience of the trial areas will help the Government and local authorities develop a final set of measures so payment by results can be rolled out nationally from 2013-14.

Supporting children, families, and professionals

Taken as a whole, this package takes forward our principles of public sector reform by promoting greater involvement of parents in services; increasing flexibility in the free entitlement; strengthening quality across foundation years services; further opening up children’s centres to a wider range of providers; and reforming funding and strengthening accountability.

It emphasises the importance of intervening early and outlines the role that different services, working together, should play to ensure that children and families receive early help if this is needed, in line with recommendations from the hon. Member for Nottingham North and Professor Eileen Munro. The Government response to Professor Munro’s report was published on 13 July, and set out our commitment to early help.

As I confirmed in my statement on 6 July, we are introducing a new requirement on early years providers via the reformed EYFS to provide a summary report to parents on their child’s progress in the prime areas of learning and development between the ages of two and three. The report will help parents understand how they can encourage and support their child’s learning and social and emotional development at home and guide the provision of any additional support the child might need to help them catch up by age five. Parents will be encouraged to share that report with their health visitor to inform the health and development review at the age of two to two-and-a-half, which is part of the healthy child programme.

For the longer-term we are exploring the feasibility of a single integrated review at around age two, in which parents will be able to review their child’s progress with health visitors and early years providers jointly who will be able to offer help to address any issues early on. We will work with expert early years and health professionals, practitioners and sector representatives, and parents, to develop new models for this integrated review. We will explore, with the help of our health visitor early implementer sites, moving to a universally available single integrated review to support children and families from 2015 when the planned increase in health visitor numbers will make this possible.

We will place copies of “Supporting Families in the Foundation Years” in the House Library.

Early Intervention

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

The Government welcome the recent publication of the second and final report of the review of the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) into early intervention. The Government recognise the case for supporting prevention and early intervention and are already taking action. Today, jointly with the Under-Secretary of State for Health, I am launching “Supporting Families in the Foundation Years” which sets out the importance of intervening early and the role that different services, working together, should play to ensure that children and families receive early help where needed. It reflects the review’s vision that every child should be helped to develop the necessary social and emotional skills to form positive relationships, have self-confidence, perform to the best of their abilities at school and in later life, being aware of the needs of both themselves and others. A society without those skills will ultimately fail—and the cost is already there to see in terms of children falling behind at school, at greater risk of developing physical or mental health problems, needing to go into care and, in the worst cases, getting into crime. Failure to get this right results in substantial costs both to society and children’s life chances, with poorer health, reduced employment prospects and relationship instability in later life, and the risk that these problems cascade on to the next generation. As the Government have already set out in their child poverty and social mobility strategies, we must take action now to address these issues.

The vision of the hon. Member for Nottingham North is wide-ranging in scope. He challenges central Government to respond to this vision, to ensure that early intervention principles are embedded across Government, but particularly to focus on the needs of those who can benefit most—our children and young people. He also argues that every local area should put in place effective strategies to work not only with the most challenging families, but also to take preventive action at every stage of a child’s development through community budgets.

Today’s launch of “Supporting Families in the Foundation Years” recognises the input of the hon. Member for Nottingham North to the early intervention agenda. He has directly contributed to Government’s thinking on this statement which has taken into account many of his recommendations, for example on adopting the term “foundation years” from pregnancy to five, his emphasis on the importance of parenting, and focusing on what works in evidence-based interventions such as the family nurse partnership. He has identified approaches to innovative finance and payment by results through data collection, along with proposals to encourage people at every level to focus on intervening early, particularly in the foundation years. Much of his vision links to Eileen Munro’s recommendations on offering early help.

The hon. Gentleman has conducted an analysis of evidence-based programmes in his two reports, and argues powerfully that in a tight fiscal climate it makes sense to use programmes which are most effective, and are proven to deliver results. We agree that evidence-based programmes and practice are important and, like the hon. Gentleman, recognise that any list of the most effective programmes will change over time so should be kept under review. Naturally it is for local areas to decide which programmes suit the needs of their community. Through “Supporting Families in the Foundation Years” we are asking the sector for their views on how best to encourage the sector to make full use of those programmes, as part of the commitment to the Government’s new relationship with the increasingly autonomous and self-confident sector.

On his recommendations on wider system reform, and the creation of early intervention places, the “Supporting Families in the Foundation Stage” document sets out an ambition that this work should link closely with community budgets focused on families with multiple problems, to encourage local authorities to work not only with the most challenging families, but also to support families earlier to reduce the numbers of families reaching crisis point.

In his second report, the hon. Member for Nottingham North has investigated a number of innovative approaches to contracting for outcomes and funding to support the delivery of this vision. This is challenging and new territory, but his proposals provide a very useful input to the Government’s consultations on how they can best deploy and unlock resources to improve the effectiveness of public services. We welcome his call for an independent foundation to champion early intervention and challenge public service providers and Government. Such a foundation has an important role to play. We welcome this proposal as a way of engaging the key partners in this agenda.

The Government view both reports of the hon. Member for Nottingham North as a very positive step forward in what we know about early intervention and its funding. We are very grateful to the hon. Gentleman and his review team for their considerable efforts in clarifying the challenge, and the opportunities, arising from an early intervention approach.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

Schools are best placed to decide how to spend the pupil premium in ways that they judge to be most effective in helping their most deprived pupils. We will learn from those schools that are making the most effective use of the premium. From this year, performance tables will publish data showing the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers. From September 2012, schools will provide information to parents about their use of pupil premium funding.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I am not sure that that was quite the answer to my question. Given the importance of this policy, the fact that we are at last beginning to target extra resources on some of the most disadvantaged pupils in all our schools and the fact that there have been so many failed policies in this sphere, how are we going to assess this policy?

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that I did not answer his point about Lancaster and Fleetwood, so I will respond to him in writing about it. As I said, schools will be held accountable for their use of the pupil premium by the detail in the performance tables, which will be published from this year, and by the requirement from September 2012 to make it clear how they are spending their pupil premium money in respect of the progress made on the attainment of the pupils it covers. We are also very committed to providing advice on best practice and we will be doing that soon.

[Mr Speaker]

The motto is that Ministers should look at the question on the Order Paper before answering, rather than afterwards, but I appreciate what the Minister has said and I think that the House is grateful for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

15. What assessment he has made of the effect of changes in funding for Sure Start children’s centres in the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

The Department for Education does not collect detailed information on Sure Start children’s centres in individual local authorities. Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that there are sufficient children’s centres in their area to meet local need, so far as is reasonably practicable. It is for local authorities to commission Sure Start children’s centres and to monitor and evaluate the use and impact of their services.

[Mr Slaughter]

There have been 45% cuts in the Sure Start budget in one year; nine centres deregistering because they have had more than 90% cuts and cannot function; and parents taking and winning judicial reviews to restore a basic service. In February the Minister said that she was monitoring the situation in Hammersmith and Fulham because there were particular concerns. Will she do more than monitor now and take some action while we still have any Sure Start centres left?

[Sarah Teather]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has raised this issue on many occasions. He might also be aware that last week we announced some changes to the Sure Start programme so that we will be piloting payment by results, for example. We will also require local authorities to publish information about what they are spending and on what services. If local authorities are systematically downgrading services, as he suggests, they will obviously not be eligible to benefit from payment by results, and we will be able to see that clearly from the transparency requirements that we are putting in place.

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

The Minister is right to be careful when faced with the wild misrepresentations on the issue from the Opposition Benches. Is she aware that Hammersmith and Fulham council has announced that it is committed not only to maintaining its existing 15 children’s centre venues, but to expanding them by a further one centre?

[Sarah Teather]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that clear and putting it on the record.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I know that the Minister wants parents to be more involved in their local children’s centres, but I am not sure that parents taking their council to court is exactly what she meant. Will the Secretary of State and the Ministers accept that it was their choice to slash the funding and remove the ring fence that led to the present chaos? If so, will they use the imminent early years statement finally to set out how they will keep their promise and the Prime Minister’s numerous promises to protect Sure Start from cuts and closures?

[Sarah Teather]

That was an awful lot of waffle. [Interruption.] I will have to wait until everybody stops yelling because I have not got enough voice to yell over everybody else today—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

[Sarah Teather]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) will just have to wait with bated breath for our early years statement, which will be out shortly and in which we will make further announcements about Sure Start and how we intend to improve the quality of early years.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

16. How many schools in (a) Harrow East constituency and (b) England have converted, or applied to convert, to academy status.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

18. What steps he is taking to promote family-friendly policies.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

The Government are committed to promoting family-friendly policies that can support better child outcomes, help parents to balance work and family life and deliver real benefits to employers. The Department is funding a scheme to support organisations to adopt more family-friendly services and working environments for clients and employees. The Government are consulting on proposals to introduce more flexible parental leave and extend the right to flexible working to all employees.

[Mrs Grant]

Lack of good child care can consign many capable women to the family home or to not having children. What action will the Minister take to improve this situation?

[Sarah Teather]

I am very aware of the difficulties that many families face in accessing suitable child care, which is one of the reasons why we announced last week that we will consult on a more flexible arrangement for adopting the free entitlement so that families can access it a little earlier and a little later in the day, for example. That is exactly why we extended the free entitlement to 15 hours.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

T7. How can parents of children with special needs be more involved in the education of their children? I recently met parents at Ripplevale school in my constituency who say that they must not only battle the difficulties and challenges that are obvious to all but battle the education authority, time and again, to get a fair, decent and proper education for their children.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

We finished our consultation on the Green Paper on 30 June and received 2,300 responses along similar lines to those my hon. Friend has outlined. I feel very passionately about the need to involve parents better, particularly if their child has special educational needs. That is one of the reasons we are rolling out Achievement for All—a programme that does exactly that.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

When do Ministers expect to come to a conclusion with the devolved Administrations on the replacement for the child trust fund for looked-after children, which was promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer some months ago but which, as far as I can see, is still yet to reach its final stages?

Early Years Foundation Stage

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

The importance of the foundation years—as a foundation for life and for future attainment and success—cannot be over estimated. Children’s personal, social and emotional development, physical development and communication and language are of paramount importance. Without a strong start in these three prime areas, children will struggle as they develop in life, with friends and in school. It is vital we have the right framework to support high-quality early years education and development.

The early years foundation stage sets the standards for the whole of the diverse early years sector, from birth to five. Reform of the EYFS is one important element of our wider approach to supporting families in the foundation years, which we will shortly be setting out in full, in a publication jointly developed with the Department of Health.

On 30 March Dame Clare Tickell published her independent review of the early years foundation stage, informed by the latest evidence about how children learn and develop, and the views of parents and carers, practitioners, academics and other experts. The Government welcomed her report, and the revised framework, on which we are today beginning consultation, responds to many of Dame Clare’s recommendations. The new framework makes a number of significant improvements:

Reducing bureaucracy and paper work for professionals, simplifying the statutory assessment of children’s development at age five;

Simplifying the learning and development requirements, reducing the number of early learning goals from 69 to 17;

Stronger emphasis on the three prime areas which are most essential for children’s healthy development—personal, social and emotional development, physical development and communication and language (with four specific areas in which the prime areas are applied—including literacy and mathematics);

A new summary report for parents on their child’s development between the ages of 24 and 36 months, linking with the healthy child review carried out by health visitors, so that children get any additional support they need before they start school; and

Strengthening partnerships between professionals and parents, ensuring that the new framework uses clear language.

Consultation on the early years foundation stage will run until 30 September. The aim is to have the new framework in place from September 2012.

Early Years Assessments

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

Thank you, Mr Havard. May I begin by welcoming you to the Chair? I understand that it is your first time in the Chair. This is the civilised end of the House of Commons.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

I have been up the other end.

[Sarah Teather]

Okay. It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) on securing this really important debate, which he finished by saying what a great privilege it is to be able to do this job.

The hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), who is also present, takes a real interest in this area. We are all united by this sense of wanting to make a difference to many future generations. I know that that is why the hon. Gentleman was keen to do this piece of work on early intervention for the Government. We were very grateful to him for his work and we look forward to his second report. We are particularly grateful to him for championing the issue of emotional and social development. As he said, such development is a vital part of school-readiness, which Dame Clare Tickell took up in her review of the early-years foundation stage. She made it clear that school-readiness is about being able not just to hold a pen but to form relationships. As the hon. Gentleman said, if a child has not acquired those skills, they could have 12 years of misery ahead of them and a lifetime of difficulty in forming the kind of relationships that they need to in order to get on in school and work.

There is already a huge amount of evidence on the importance of this area. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that given that we are still awaiting his second report and that we are about to produce our own publication on our vision for the foundation years, I am limited in what I can say today in response to his questions. However, I can assure him that all of his questions are issues with which we are still wrestling and that he is absolutely in the right area. I will not be able to give him any details until we respond formally. When we do, we will be responding to the outstanding recommendations from his first report and to Dame Clare Tickell’s review of the foundation stage, and we will be holding a formal consultation on that. I hope that we will be able to produce those publications this side of the summer recess, so there is not long to wait. Some of that detail is still being thought through.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about a number of issues, including attachment, the assessment processes, the need to have an integrated process and the importance of focusing on the early years for social mobility. It is important to stress that early intervention is wider than just early years. It is a concept of intervening before a problem becomes so unmanageable that it requires people at different stages in their life to be rescued. It is to enable people to put the pieces of their life back together again and to move on. Although it is wider than focusing on nought to five, those early years are a critical part of an early intervention philosophy. A wide range of evidence shows that sound social and emotional development is absolutely critical to a child’s success. It helps them to form positive relationships and to understand the emotions of others, which the hon. Member for North West Durham mentioned. It also helps to create the resilience that is necessary to be able to deal with the challenges that life throws at everybody at different stages. Without the strong parental attachment and bonding that happens in the first few weeks, months and years of life, it is difficult for young people to grow up to be able to cope with the difficult things that unfortunately befall most of us at some stage in our lives.

We know that poor parenting and, in particular, harsh, inconsistent and neglectful actions lie behind many of the child behaviour problems that last into adulthood and are common in young people who find themselves within the criminal justice system. Such children are often much more disruptive in the classroom and much more likely to be excluded from school. It is important that we support parents early before that cycle sets in and becomes so entrenched that there is nothing we can do about it.

There are many different ways in which we can support parents. I will speak a little about some of those things in the last few minutes and address the points made about assessment. It is not only the Government’s role to support parents. Many other organisations, including those in the voluntary sector, do an absolutely vital job in supporting parents to form close attachments with their children. There are parent and toddler groups, often run by faith groups, in my constituency and I suspect in many other constituencies as well. They perform a vital role in supporting parents to understand good parenting behaviour and to learn from one another.

Arrangements for assessment in the early years have been strengthened by the early-years foundation stage, which Dame Clare Tickell has just reviewed for us. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a lot more can be done, in particular to try to integrate health and early years. That is why I have been working very closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), the Minister with responsibility for public health and child health, on the statement that we will be producing before the summer recess, as well as working closely with the sector. We are determined to try to ensure that we draw from the best of good practice from health and integrate that with the best of good practice that already exists in many early-years settings.

There are already regular health checks for children in their first year, which offer parents an opportunity to raise any concerns they have at a very early stage. A key principle of the early-years foundation stage is that early-years practitioners should undertake ongoing assessment and discuss children’s progress regularly with parents and carers. However, Dame Clare Tickell made recommendations that I hope will make the process more transparent for parents. They focus on three key areas, including the area that the hon. Gentleman wants us to focus more on—emotional and social development. They will create clarity in the conversation that early-years practitioners are able to have with parents and will focus on how children are developing.

The hon. Member for Nottingham North said that he hopes the Government will take seriously the need for better assessments. Obviously, we need to balance different factors. We need to have more information for the right people to ensure that we can intervene, but the assessment should not be so burdensome that it takes away from practitioners’ being able to spend quality time with children and helping them with their development. That is the balance that we are seeking to strike as we think through our recommendations in relation to the hon. Gentleman’s report as well as the report of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), Dame Clare Tickell’s report and the Munro review.

Dame Clare recommends a written summary assessment when a child is aged between two and three, building on the current requirements of the EYFS. That chimes with much of what the hon. Gentleman was recommending. She suggests introducing that in a phased way, reflecting the development of policy over the next few years as we roll out the extra health visitors and ensure that the healthy child programme is available to all children. So in the first phase the summary assessment should inform the health visitor review wherever possible, but be done by early-years practitioners and be a key factor for helping parents to understand their child’s development. In the second phase, Dame Clare suggests that there should be a single integrated joint review by health and early-years practitioners at around two, once the healthy child programme is fully implemented.

I am going to run out of time, because I have only one minute before I need to sit down, but I will say to the hon. Gentleman that the Government absolutely understand the need to focus on early years and the importance of early years in getting this right. It is the reason we have extended free early-years entitlement to disadvantaged two-year-olds, subject to Parliament’s passing the Education Bill, which is being debated in the other place at the moment. It is the reason why we are focusing on making sure that Sure Start children’s centres do more on evidence and trialling payment by results to address the points that the hon. Gentleman raised. We will respond fully to his report as soon as the Government receive it. I must now sit down, but I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to debate this issue today.

Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood (Independent Review)

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is natural for parents to want the best for their children. It is just as natural for them to want to do what they can to protect their children from the potential risks to their health, happiness and safety. Among the concerns that parents have is that their children are under the twin pressures to grow up too quickly and to become consumers or sexualised adults earlier than is appropriate. These pressures on children today are greater than they were for previous generations. They reach children through all forms of popular culture, including television, film, magazines, newspapers, music and the internet. Children and young people encounter them in their homes, when they go shopping or out with friends and family, and on their mobile phones and games consoles.

This Government share the concerns of parents about these pressures. On 6 December 2010 the Government asked Mr Reg Bailey, chief executive of the Mothers’ Union, to carry out an independent review of the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood. His review is the first step in fulfilling the commitment we made to take action to protect children from excessive commercialisation and premature sexualisation.

I am now pleased to announce that Mr Bailey’s review, “Letting Children Be Children”, was published yesterday. Copies will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Mr Bailey has made a full and comprehensive report and fulfilled the remit he was given. He has built on the important work of other reviewers in this area, notably those of Professor David Buckingham and colleagues, and others by Professor Tanya Byron and Dr Linda Papadopoulos, and drawn on a review of more recent literature on the topic carried out by Dr Ann Phoenix of the Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre.

Mr Bailey has been particularly interested in hearing the views of the people most affected by the unwarranted pressures to grow up too quickly: parents and children. The review commissioned face-to-face surveys of the views of parents and children and qualitative research with parents, undertook a call for evidence from parents, and drew on the results of a survey of children and young people carried out by the Children and Young People’s Advisory Board of the office of the Children’s Commissioner.

In the course of his review Mr Bailey met representatives from retailing, advertising, marketing, broadcasting and internet service providers, their trade associations and their regulators. The call for evidence from industry and wider stakeholders drew 120 responses from businesses, trade associations and voluntary organisations. Mr Bailey also met experts in child protection, parenting champions and a range of academic and other experts in this field.

The voices of parents and children come through strongly in the four key themes identified in his report. Children and young people today are surrounded by sexualised imagery that has become an all-pervasive, ever-present backdrop to their lives, whether on television, the internet, in shops or public spaces. Parents find that goods and services for children in reputable high street shops are sometimes overly sexualised or needlessly gendered. Businesses in the children’s market too often treat children only as consumers and not as children. Parents find it hard to voice their concerns or make a complaint and fear they will not be listened to if they do.

Mr Bailey has listened to the concerns of parents and takes them seriously. He understands that they want to set the standards and values their children live by and that they want support from businesses and others in doing this. He believes that their views have a special status as they speak for children, not just for themselves.

That is why, in making his recommendations, Mr Bailey is seeking ways to make businesses and regulators more responsive to the views of parents and to give parents more direct influence on how the decisions affecting children are made. Mr Bailey’s view is that some businesses and regulators behave in exemplary fashion in their dealings with parents and children, but that those that do not need to step up and be as good as the best. Businesses of all kinds need to encourage feedback from parents and, where necessary, take heed of their complaints. Nor is it enough for businesses simply to comply with the relevant regulatory systems for their industry which were established to protect children: parents expect them to do their best for children, not simply stick to the rules. Where regulation is less prescriptive, businesses should play fair and not take advantage of children. And regulators too, need to connect with parents and take more recognition of their views on what is appropriate for their children.

The Government welcome Mr Bailey’s analysis and the thrust of all the recommendations he has made. We note that the majority of the recommendations are directed at industry and the regulators and we look to them to see that these recommendations are implemented as fully as possible, while remaining open to industry and regulators devising alternative or additional approaches to delivering the outcomes that the recommendations are aimed at achieving.

Two recommendations are directed to the Government themselves. Mr Bailey has recommended that the Government should consider strengthening the controls on music videos. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will respond to this recommendation by consulting on the operation of the Video Recordings Act 1984 and 2010. The consultation will look at a range of options including consideration of whether it would be appropriate for the exemption that music videos enjoy from this legislation to be removed, and call for evidence in support of the costs and benefits of such a change.

This Government are committed to rolling back unnecessary regulation, but we will regulate where necessary, and in particular to protect children. By placing the responsibility for action on businesses themselves and, if necessary, their regulators, we believe that businesses will have the best opportunity and incentive to adopt policies and practices as proposed by Mr Bailey in ways which are efficient and indeed could provide new opportunities through connecting strongly with parents and children.

We will, as Mr Bailey recommends, take stock of progress in 18 months’ time and consider what further measures may need to be taken to achieve the recommended outcomes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

8. What progress he has made on the reform of provision for children with special educational needs in (a) Loughborough constituency and (b) England.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

We published a Green Paper, “Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability”, on 9 March, and it is out to consultation until 30 June. We will consider responses carefully before taking forward our reforms, and we will shortly invite tenders for pathfinders to test proposals in the Green Paper. Within the general framework for special needs provision, it is for local authorities to determine the particular arrangements in their areas.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the Minister for her reply and congratulate her on the excellent Green Paper. I have been contacted by a number of constituents from the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign, however. Can she explain how the Department for Communities and Local Government’s review of statutory duties on local authorities fits in with the strategic role envisaged for local authorities in her Green Paper?

[Sarah Teather]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. DCLG is undertaking a comprehensive review of all the statutory duties, but it is intended to remove unnecessary duties, not necessary duties, and there is absolutely no intention to downgrade those duties relating to special educational needs.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

The Minister told the Education Committee last week that she thinks there will be resources for special educational needs. Children and parents deserve more than guesswork. Can she guarantee now that the Government will make sure that all children with additional learning needs have the support that they need to succeed at school?

[Sarah Teather]

That is exactly what the Green Paper is about, and I hope that the hon. Lady, if she has constituents who are particularly affected by our proposals, will ensure that they respond. The proposals are absolutely about making sure that children get the help that they deserve, but that is sadly not happening at the moment, partly because a lot of resources are wasted.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to increase the rate at which children are adopted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

Too many special needs children are being denied education because a school place travel grant or a statement has either not been granted or not been honoured. Is it not time, when there is clear evidence of special educational need, that we allow a child’s educational funding to follow them to their school of choice, whether or not they have a statement?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

The proposals in the Green Paper that we are consulting on aim to make it clearer when a child should have a statement. Schools should therefore be much clearer about what is normally available, and I hope that that will make it easier for parents and schools to understand whether there should be a statement. The new proposals for an education, health and care plan ought to join up funding to make things much simpler for families.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Further to Question 13, we have been told for nearly a year that an announcement on the replacement for Building Schools for the Future is imminent, yet we are still waiting. We are now being told that there might be one before the summer recess. The fabric of some schools continues to crumble, and a few are now in a dangerous state. Will we hear an announcement in the next couple of weeks telling us exactly where we are going to be?

Family Policy

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Meale. I congratulate the hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) on—I was going to say winning this debate, but I am not sure whether “winning” is the right word, considering what time she probably got to bed last night. There is some irony in discussing family policy in the least family-friendly institution in the UK. I congratulate all hon. Members on being here and on an interesting and informative debate. I particularly enjoyed the opening remarks of the hon. Lady, which addressed family policy across the piece. I doubt that I will be able to respond to everything in the time remaining, but I will do my best to pick up on as many of the points raised as I can.

I thank the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for her profound affection for my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I will of course pass on her remarks to him. I am sure that he will be terrified, but I will draw his attention to her flattery of his great skills.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West said that this goes without saying, but I think it is worth saying again: strong and stable families are the bedrock of a strong and stable society. They are key to ensuring that children grow up in a loving and nurturing environment and develop into healthy, happy, successful adults. The quality of relationships matters. Adults in good, stable relationships have better life outcomes, and so do their children. Families are also the social capital that builds and sustains neighbourhoods and communities, as the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) said eloquently in her introductory remarks. They are the basic unit of society, and they are where we learn the social skills we need to survive and flourish in life. They are where we learn how to form relationships with other people, and the success of those relationships will affect our life outcomes as well as those of our children.

The make-up of the family unit is changing, as several hon. Members said. Families come in many varied shapes and sizes, including single-parent, multi-generational and foster families. Fathers are becoming more involved with their children, which I believe is a positive step forward that the Government should do much to support. Despite the many different changes referred to by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his speech, families are, as he also said, happy on the whole with family life. Most families say that they are fairly or very happy; 93% of respondents to a recent BBC poll said that they were happy with their family life.

However, it is vital that we support families as much as we can, and this Government believe that we should do much better. It is our ambition to make this country the most family-friendly in the world. At the heart of all our policy making is the determination to ensure that family services are designed around parents’ needs rather than the other way around, and take account of changing work patterns, the evolving roles of parents and the financial pressures families face.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said that some people believe that families are not the Government’s business. Sadly, many politicians who consider themselves progressive believe that the family is not an area in which the Government should be involved. There is sometimes a dichotomy between believers in a small state and in a big state regarding what they believe the role of Government should be. However, I believe that the Government have an important role in supporting families, systematically removing the barriers that prevent them from thriving and creating the right environment through legislative change, financial systems and the design of public services so that families can be the best that they can be. That matters to our children, and to their children as well.

It is also important that we intervene to support vulnerable families when things are difficult. All families go through times when things are harder. We know, for example, that there are pressures on families when they have a first child or when children move into the teenage years. Those with many social networks might manage to get through such times, but if life is stacked against people, as in some of the examples given in several hon. Members’ speeches—if they suffer from a mental health problem, have unstable relationships, live in overcrowded housing or have a drug or alcohol problem—it is much more difficult to do so.

That is why the Government are investing in extra health visitors, for example, to support people in the early years. It is why we are doubling the number of family nurse partnerships—to refer to the remarks of the Opposition spokesperson—and why we feel so strongly that Sure Start matters and must be focused particularly on families that need support at that time. It is also why we have begun a new campaign to support families with multiple problems to ensure that they get the support they need, rather than being passed from one service to another.

We will shortly consult on new proposals for family parental leave, an issue about which I feel strongly. Several hon. Members discussed fathers and the need to involve them more. Involving fathers at an early stage makes a difference to children’s outcomes. If the worst happens—if all the other things we are doing to support relationships do not work and the relationship breaks down—fathers who are engaged at an early stage are much more likely to remain engaged later.

I am running out of time, so I will not be able to speak about all the things that I wanted to address, but I will refer a little to our work on relationship support, which I believe is important to sustaining families who might go through difficult times, as any family will. As the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire said, the Prime Minister recently announced that my Department will fund relationship support to the tune of £30 million, a substantial increase. As part of that, we are also providing funding through a series of voluntary sector organisations—at the moment, telephone and internet services are going out to tender—to ensure that all sorts of relationship support mechanisms are available to families.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire will be pleased to know that we already support prisoners’ families with £1.3 million through about six voluntary sector organisations. I agree that it can have a dramatic impact on reducing reoffending. I have long been interested in the ideas that he mentioned involving greater availability of guidance and support before marriage. Having the skills to negotiate difficult times and knowing where to go for support can make a difference when couples hit rocky periods.

The work we are doing—

[Mr Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Order. We now move on to our second debate. Can Members who are not going to participate in it please leave quickly and quietly?