Teacher Training and Supply

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) on securing this very important debate and on his measured and comprehensive speech setting out the problem. The Deputy Prime Minister is not in the room, and nor would we expect him to be, but I would like to thank him for his intervention at the weekend, which should make for an entertaining speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan). I shall leave the jokes to him; they are one of his many talents.

I would also like to thank the university of Sunderland for bringing this issue to my attention. Given the importance of the university to the city of Sunderland, I have a keen interest in its continued success, and I am in regular contact with the vice-chancellor, Professor Peter Fidler, to discuss any areas of concern that he may have. This is a particularly big area of concern for the university, and not just because of the financial implications. There are financial implications from losing places, of course, but the knock-on effect on the capacity of the university of Sunderland to deliver future places at the high quality that it currently provides is the most concerning impact. Sunderland is not alone in being challenged by this. In fact, because it has an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted for its secondary teacher training, it may be less affected than other universities, certainly in the short term. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central has described, this problem threatens to break the system in the medium to long term.

Colleagues will no doubt have seen the recent article on this issue by the former Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my noble Friend Baroness Morris of Yardley, who is also a former chancellor of the university of Sunderland and is still very much involved, so it cannot be said that she is speaking from an uninformed position. In that article, she sets it out clearly that the loss of guaranteed allocations and the lack of information about future numbers mean that initial teacher training providers are struggling to plan for the future. That makes it difficult for them to retain experienced staff and therefore to deliver high-quality training. In the worst cases, it could even mean that they will struggle to continue to run the courses on a viable footing. We are already seeing universities having to face up to that.

In the same article, Baroness Morris makes other valid critiques of the School Direct roll-out. She points out that there is no strategy to ensure even coverage of schools, either geographically or by subject area, meaning that opportunities may not be available to all candidates. She also points out that schools are under no obligation to fill the places that they have been allocated, meaning that we have no idea from one year to the next what the intake will be. However, the impact on the higher education sector, which, we should remember, also plays an important role in providing high-quality continuing professional development, is the most concerning.

What are the Government doing to counter the concerns? What the Minister and his colleagues have done, as in so many other policy areas, is in effect to absolve themselves of any responsibility for getting things done. There is no central planning, no assessment of the impact of the changes in the market and no accountability. In some ways, it is a remarkable contradiction of their academisation programme, which is a drive to make the Department directly responsible for an ever-increasing proportion of schools, although, as we saw last week, when failings emerge, Ministers are quick to absolve themselves of that responsibility too, so I suppose it does fit a pattern.

However, although we agree with Nick—to recycle that well used phrase—that teachers should be qualified, this particular issue of how they get that qualification is not a question of ideological or political differences. It is more a question of process and practicality. I like the idea of prospective teachers having a different postgraduate route into the profession. Provided that the schools providing these opportunities are up to scratch, particularly in terms of their special educational needs practice, School Direct should produce good teachers. Whether those teachers will be better or worse than those who gained qualified teacher status by the more traditional route is something that we do not know and may never know, so the extent to which Ministers and Government agencies appear to be championing this as a better option, rather than just an alternative option, is questionable.

A good idea is a good idea, but even the best ideas can run into problems because of a failure to think through and plan for their knock-on effects. Introducing and expanding new schemes must always be done with an eye on the consequences elsewhere, in consultation with those affected and in such a way as to support the core objectives. In this case, the Government appear to have ignored the concerns raised by universities and the Education Committee and are pursuing an implementation programme that will seriously affect other providers of initial teacher training. Worse is the potential knock-on effect of these reforms being a lack of teachers being recruited in shortage areas such as the sciences, including computer science, as we have heard. Even worse would be a shortage of teachers overall to meet the growing demand on the school system that is set to begin in a couple of years’ time because of the spike in the birth rate.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

It seems to me that some factors that are relevant in anticipating the future demand for teachers may not immediately be apparent to schools considering their own immediate needs. Does the hon. Lady consider that perhaps we need some way in which those requirements could be factored into the demand for initial teacher training?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree, and that is why the unintended as well as the intended consequences of the programme need to be thought through. One unintended consequence is that if there is no initial demand, because the demand goes in another direction, universities will have to let qualified staff go, so the staff will not be there to pick up the slack in a couple of years’ time. How it will work in the short term, as well as the medium to long term, must be thought through.

Unless we get recruitment policy right now, there will be a shortage of not only primary school places, but secondary school teachers, especially given the number, which we are all aware of, of teachers leaving the profession due to their being completely demoralised by the actions and rhetoric of a certain Education Secretary. I do not think that universities are asking for too much when they ask for some certainty now. They accept that new schemes will come along from time to time, as we discussed, but like me, they rightly believe that the established route into the teaching profession—a route that has created the best generation of teachers we have ever had, let us not forget—will continue to be the preferred choice for many candidates.

No matter what the law says now, it is the responsibility of Ministers to ensure that those high-quality places are still available beyond the next election. I hope therefore that the Minister will listen to the concerns raised here today, and over the past few months by groups such as Million+, and ensure that his Government do not, as they are in the habit of doing, throw the baby out with the bathwater.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the overall ecology of support for teacher education and development. Other professionals work in the education industry and it is necessity for universities to provide part of the infrastructure. If the Government pull at one part of the infrastructure, other things will happen.

I told my head teacher friend whom I bumped into at the weekend that I thought things were in a spot of bother and might get worse. To my surprise, he said that teacher education and supply were already in chaos—that is from someone on the front line—adding that he did not understand why the effective graduate teacher programme had been scrapped. With a bit more digging—speaking to north Lincolnshire’s excellent lead for teacher induction, Kim Francis—I discovered that the restructuring and the reduction in staffing, with the responsibilities passed to the National College for Teaching and Leadership, coupled with systemic change in initial teacher training have resulted in widespread frustration for providers of initial teacher education. Lines of communication have become fractured and unreliable.

The Government’s single driver for policy implementation appears to be focused on School Direct, but given that schools need to be linked to accredited providers, serious confusion has reigned. Many schools are bewildered and question whether they have the capacity to implement and quality-assure initial teacher training. Locally, schools are ambivalent and lukewarm about taking on the responsibility.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that serious confusion seems to reign not only in the Department for Education, but in the Government, between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister?

[Nic Dakin]

Sadly, my hon. Friend is correct. Confusion is the name of the game, but we are fortunate, indeed blessed, to have the Minister for Schools here today. We all look with anticipation to his illumination at the end of the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

Indeed. The agreement says:

“We will support Teach First, create Teach Now to build on the Graduate Teacher Programme, and seek other ways to improve the quality of the teaching profession”

et al., but I cannot see the policy anywhere in there. I am sure that the Minister will tell me I am wrong, because I cannot believe that he would support the policy unless it was in the agreement, because it seems to go against all previous Lib Dem pronouncements and is something with which the Deputy Prime Minister does not agree.

The Minister and his colleagues could have joined us when we tabled an amendment against the policy. Clearly, from what the Deputy Prime Minister has said, when the Lib Dems supported the Tories on the policy in the vote, it was not because they believed in the policy; it must have been because they believed that it was in the coalition agreement, and therefore they had to support it. However, the policy is not in the agreement, so they do not have to support it.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

In a moment.

If the Minister supports his leader, he should say so now to the House. This is his opportunity. Let us pass a motion in the House to show that the will of Parliament is against allowing unqualified teachers to teach in taxpayer-funded schools. Let us get it on, shall we? Let us get it done now. There is no need to wait until the next election. It is not in breach of the coalition agreement. It is a chance to show that the Deputy Prime Minister’s words were real, that they were meant, and that they were not just a political stunt, because that would be to betray parents, pupils and the electorate, and to take the electorate for fools.

I challenge the Minister: stand up, show some spine and give us a straight answer. Does he agree with his leader—yes or no?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Before my hon. Friend sits down—

[Kevin Brennan]

I have sat down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Laws]

I am going to make a bit more progress before I give way to the hon. Gentleman, because I do not want to fall behind and miss the opportunity to respond to the shadow Minister.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Before the Minister moves on to the main part of his speech, will he give way?

[Mr Laws]

Yes.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I was saddened to hear that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) was going to wipe the slate clean and not mention the comments made by the Minister last week. I am not as generous. Last week, the Minister said that Labour’s criticism of the lack of qualified teachers in the Al-Madinah free school was

“nothing other than total and utter opportunism”—[Official Report, 17 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 889.].

and that our policy on this area was “complete and utter incoherence”. Does he stand by those comments?

[Mr Laws]

I certainly stand by the comments about Labour’s policy on free schools. However, I will respond to the points made by the hon. Member for Sefton Central on School Direct, and then—I assure the hon. Lady—I will return to the issue of QTS before we finish the debate.

As the hon. Member for Sefton Central knows, the 2010 White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, set out our ambition for a schools system that can compete with the best in the world. Improving teacher quality is at the heart of the plan, as he mentioned, in both attracting good applicants and ensuring a good supply of teachers in all subjects over time.

To improve teacher quality, it is vital that the teaching profession can attract and retain the best people. As the hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues mentioned, top-performing education systems around the world, such as those in Finland and South Korea, draw their teachers from the most academically able candidates who demonstrate the right mix of personal and intellectual qualities. Candidates then go through high-quality training, often led by schools, focusing on the skills and knowledge that they need to become successful teachers.

By making teaching a highly attractive profession, we are seeing high-quality teachers enter and stay in teaching. More top graduates and career changers than ever before are coming into teaching. In spite of the economic upturn that we are now seeing, we expect to hit 96% of our recruitment target this year, after a period of recruiting above the target. There is currently no evidence of teacher vacancy rates rising.

Data published before the Select Committee hearing on 11 September provided an accurate picture of where we were with recruitment at that stage in the cycle. The picture is mixed across subjects, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledged. The data showed that we had exceeded our targets in some subjects: chemistry, where we achieved 110% of the target; English, 114%; and history, 137%. However, they also showed that we were likely to miss targets in subjects such as maths and physics. Final recruitment data will be published at the end of the year.

Importantly, we over-allocated—I will return to that point later—the allocations, particularly in this first year of School Direct, to ensure that we did not lose high-quality people across the board, particularly in physics, maths and computer sciences. The under-recruited areas referred to by a number of hon. Members were those where both higher education institutions themselves and School Direct did not fill up their full quotas; they both had shortages. It would be a far greater concern if HEIs had filled up their quotas but School Direct had come in under target, but they both came in below their allocated numbers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The reality is that the vast majority of those centres have been merged or have seen their management restructured. Only 1% of children’s centres— that is 45 children’s centres—have closed outright. The hon. Gentleman is using a misleading figure. The fact is that Labour Members would rather have bureaucracy and management than outcomes-based front-line work. Are they seriously saying that they would reintroduce the managers and the bureaucracy?

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

That is 562 fewer children’s centres already. [Interruption.] Those are your figures. Another 23 children’s centres are scheduled to go in Tory Kent. According to last week’s report from the Children’s Society—[Interruption.] The Children’s Society is rubbish—is that what he has just said? According to the report by the Children’s Society, which is anything but rubbish, there will be a budget cut of more than 50% over this Parliament. While millionaires enjoy their tax cuts, vital public services such as Sure Start are left to wither on the vine. When will these Ministers admit that their choices will cost all of us much more in the long run and apologise to the parents who have lost such valued services?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I do not think that the hon. Lady listened to my previous answer. Those centres have not closed. The Government and local authorities have been saving money by reducing bureaucracy and management and running things more efficiently, which is what Conservative-led Governments do. She will be pleased to hear that our recruitment of early-years teachers is above trajectory, so there will be even more quality personnel in our children’s centres and nurseries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I praise my hon. Friend for the work that he is doing in his constituency. He has led by example in writing to all local secondary school heads to remind them of the support that young carers need, and to raise their awareness of what is available.

As my hon. Friend has acknowledged, there is a wealth of good practice out there. We recently awarded a £1.2 million contract to the Children’s Society and the Carers Trust to work directly with local services, including schools, and help them to improve support for young carers. However, I am happy to write to my hon. Friend explaining what we are doing over and above that, and what more we can do collectively—at both national and local levels—to improve support for young carers in schools.

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

The Minister knows that many of us on both sides of this House care very deeply about the hundreds of thousands of young carers in this country and that they should get the support they need to fulfil their potential. He just cited the support role school nurses can play for young carers, but he must know from the parliamentary questions I have asked that the number of school nurses across the country is tiny—indeed, I think one answer stated I had one in the whole of Sunderland. If this is the solution, he might want to look at that. We welcome the assurances the Minister gave at the Report stage of the Children and Families Bill, but as it is due to be debated in the other place next week, will he give us and our noble colleagues a guarantee that he will make this work an immediate priority, so the Bill will make the changes we want to see for these young people, as the care services Minister, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), promised last year.

[Mr Timpson]

As ever, may I thank the hon. Lady for the tone she strikes with her question? We are at one in wanting to improve the support young carers receive. As she knows, I have met the Minister for care and support to agree some key principles for work in this area and to look at how we can use both the Care Bill and the Children and Families Bill to bring about a closer connection between adult and young carers, so there is a whole-family approach to the support they receive. We will use the stages through the other place to try to make that approach much clearer.

Speech, Language and Communication Education

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Westminster Hall

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

It is as ever a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin, just as it is to debate matters with the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and the Minister, which is just as well given how many times we have done so over the past few months. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Swindon on securing the debate and for his comprehensive and passionate speech. He is becoming a real expert on the issues we are discussing, for which he is becoming the go-to Member in the House, and he is to be commended for that. We had some good-quality discussions on this area of policy when the three of us served on the Children and Families Bill, with other Members—no longer in their place—who also served on the Bill Committee.

Today’s debate allows us to go into further detail, with specific reference to children and young people with speech, language and communication needs. The topic—to be more specific, speech and language therapy—was the subject of the first parliamentary debate that I spoke in as a shadow Minister, way back in 2010. That debate, which was secured by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who is present this morning, was oversubscribed, as he might remember, but we heard a lot of personal stories about the need for and the value of speech and language therapy, including from the hon. Gentleman and me.

I have a son who had speech therapy until the age of seven. Sadly, that therapy did not cease at seven because he was cured, but because we moved south to a London borough that decided his speech was within the normal realms. It was not, but that is what we call the postcode lottery, which we hope will be addressed to an extent by the local offers, especially if they are underpinned by a national framework, as we called for in Committee. I will return to that point in more detail.

Since I have been a Member of the House, there has been a small number of opportunities to debate and discuss this important topic, not least the excellent debate on the Floor of the House in the previous Parliament following the outstanding Bercow review into speech, language and communication needs. As we all agree, it was a seminal report on the situation throughout the country of children and young people with speech, language and communication needs and on the support, or lack of it, available to them. I am interested to hear an update from the Minister on where we are with regard to the recommendations made in the Bercow review and whether they have all been met or are under way. Once again, we have had an excellent debate, with a great deal of interest from Members in all parts of the House and some excellent contributions.

I am pleased that the hon. Member for South Swindon mentioned augmentative and alternative communication aids and equipment, because that area is often not discussed in the House, perhaps because it is so specialist. For the children, young people and adults who rely on such AAC equipment, however, it is fundamental to their lives and to the quality of their lives.

[Paul Maynard]

I recently had an Adjournment debate on that very subject, which was replied to by a Health Minister. Does the hon. Lady agree that part of the problem is the lack of clarity in Government about where AAC should sit? Should it be a Department of Health or a Department for Education priority?

[Mrs Hodgson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. As the name suggests, the education, health and care plans are a combination of education, health and social care. The Minister must be commended for his excellent work in that regard, to get the involvement of the Department of Health and that collaboration and cross-departmental working that in the past has been lacking, leading to confusion about whether AAC sits under Education or Health. I am sure that the Minister will respond to that point when he winds up. Under the new plans, I hope that things will become clearer, if only in the sense that the different parts of government work better together to meet the needs of the child or young person. The right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) asked for assurances from the Minister that the new system will bring improvements and not make it more difficult for parents to access the support that their child needs. We all agree that that is what we want to see from the new system, which I hope will be the case.

Speech, language and communication needs are highly prevalent: more than 30% of those on school action plus schemes have been identified as having speech, language and communication needs, and around a quarter have statements. Only 44% of pupils with speech, language and communication needs achieve their expected progress in English; as we heard from the hon. Member for South Swindon, even fewer—35%—do so in maths by the end of their school life. Even by age 19, little more than half those young people have achieved level 2 qualifications, which means a C or above at GCSE. Obviously, fewer still go on to get A-levels: just one in five young people with speech, language and communication needs has achieved a level 3 qualification by the age of 19.

Shockingly, those statistics suggest that speech, language and communication needs hold back children and young people more than other special educational needs and disabilities that we might otherwise think have a bigger impact on educational outcomes. The proportion of children achieving level 3 qualifications is lower for those with speech, language and communication needs than for those with hearing or visual impairment, multi-sensory impairment, physical disability, autistic spectrum disorders and specific learning difficulties. Such statistics clearly indicate that we have a real problem with how we provide support for such children and young people. It is therefore little surprise that they are so over- represented in exclusions from school and the youth justice system—about 65% of young offenders have speech, language and communication difficulties, according to the Communication Trust.

[Mr Buckland]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for those shocking statistics about 65% or more of young people in custody having such need. Is it not essential that we use the Children and Families Bill as an opportunity to reach in to those young people in custody, to rehabilitate them and to reduce the risk of reoffending? That is what it is all about.

[Mrs Hodgson]

The hon. Gentleman has made an excellent point, which we discussed at length in Committee and on Report. Noble lords will return to the issue in the other place, and Lord Ramsbotham will be seeking some commitment from the Government, specifically to amend or even scrap clause 69 of the Bill. The area is vital, and I am sure that we and others will return to it time and again until that figure of 65% comes down to a more representative level.

[Paul Maynard]

I am afraid that my point might be slightly political. Will the hon. Lady put some pressure on her Front Benchers about the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill? They are opposing abolition of the antisocial behaviour order—ASBOs trap many young people with speech and language needs in a cycle of breach that ends up in imprisonment—and its replacement with the injunction to prevent nuisance and annoyance or IPNA, which will enable a positive requirement to be imposed on the individual and might help to tackle some of the conditions. Will she have a discussion with her shadow Front-Bench team, please?

[Mrs Hodgson]

The hon. Gentleman has made his point, but I will not test the Chair during this debate by expanding on antisocial behaviour or on my discussions of the subject with Front-Bench colleagues. The hon. Gentleman has made his point, however, and it will have been heard by my colleagues.

That failure—all those young people being excluded and ending up in the youth justice system and then adult prisons—is a significant cost to the public purse, through lost productivity and taxes from children not reaching their potential, and the cost of welfare or of keeping the young person in youth justice or in the prison system, if it comes to that. Therefore, early intervention and getting the right support in place as soon as possible are important not only to the individual child or young person, but to the whole of society. That is why I pushed the Minister so hard, as did everyone who spoke on these matters during Committee consideration of the Bill, on the provisions that will be in place under the new system, and particularly on the role that early years settings and early years area special educational needs co-ordinators working across those settings will be expected to play.

The Minister resisted my calls for local authorities to have a duty to co-operate with private, voluntary and independent child care providers with regard to children in their settings whom they believe to have special educational needs, saying that he believed it would place a burden on those providers. However, as I have heard from such providers, the problem is that they are often completely ignored by local authorities when they try to refer a child for an assessment or some other form of help. That is the problem that I was trying to solve with an amendment. I hope that our noble colleagues can address it in more detail in the other place.

I would also like early years area SENCOs to be given a statutory role to ensure that PVI child care settings are given the support that they need to identify and adequately cater for such children. As we discussed in Committee, the draft code of practice includes a heading on that role, which I welcome, although there is no content yet. I am sure that the Minister and his officials are working on that now, so I would be grateful if he could tell us what progress has been made on developing that guidance since our discussion in March.

Obviously, the vast majority of children and young people with identified SLCNs do not qualify for a statement at present, and will not qualify for an education, health and care plan when the new system is rolled out. At present, their teachers and parents have school action and school action plus as a graduated response to meeting their needs, which will become a single SEN category under the new code of practice. We are still not sure exactly how that will look in practice, but the Minister assures us that the 1.4 million children on school action and school action plus will continue to be supported, and we must take him at his word.

Clearly, though, the level of support that children receive will owe much to the quality of the local offer in their area, which is why I have sought at every stage of the Children and Families Bill to strengthen the wording of the legislation on that issue. In particular, the Minister and I, along with the hon. Member for South Swindon, have had many debates about what standards we should expect from local offers in terms of provision and accountability. I am sure that such debates will rumble on as the Bill continues its passage through the other place.

I reiterate a point made in last week’s debate by the Chair of the Select Committee on Education, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart). The success of this raft of reforms rests on getting local offers right. I do not believe that the Department for Education can afford to take the chance that 152 flowers will blossom if cash-strapped councils are left to their own devices.

Finally, teacher training is crucial in making every school a good school for children and young people with high-incidence SENs such as speech, language and communication needs; the hon. Member for South Swindon mentioned that as well. Every teacher is a teacher of children with speech, language and communication needs, but not every teacher knows how to be. Fewer than half of newly qualified teachers surveyed by Ofsted had good skills and knowledge of language development, and about one third did not have sufficient training to enable them to plan how to give such children extra help in the classroom. That is clearly not satisfactory.

Again, I feel that the Department for Education should be leading on that issue by requiring improvements to teacher training and continuing professional development so that every teacher has the skills needed to teach the class in front of them rather than just the subject. The Department is going in the opposite direction, saying that people do not need a teaching qualification to teach, or even to head a school in some instances. Labour Members restated our opposition to that idea this week.

That said, I hope that the Minister, outside the Children and Families Bill process, will consider our calls to make such improvements to the quality of the work force. He has made a lot of improvements to the Bill during his relatively short time in office, for which Members from all parties are grateful. During his remaining time in post, however long or short it may be, I hope that he will continue to listen to the concerns of parents and practitioners and take the actions needed to ensure that the unacceptable outcomes for children and young people with SLCNs that the hon. Member for South Swindon and I described will be improved in the years to come.

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

I am sure that the Minister will take this opportunity to stay in place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Timpson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will know—as do I, from my family’s experience of fostering many children—that some manifestations of the inability to communicate result in outbursts of anger. I have spoken before, on one occasion, about when someone who appeared to be, on the surface, a quiet, unassuming young man ended up smashing every single pane in my Dad’s greenhouse, because he did not know how else to communicate his anger, frustration and worry about what had happened to him in the past. I am very alive to that fact, which is why I am determined that we make progress in that important area.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—I am looking forward to coming to his working group later today on speech, language and communication needs—on the importance of ensuring that children and young people who need specialised communication aids have access to them. I know that he has raised that vociferously on a number of occasions, including in Prime Minister’s questions, in which the Prime Minister was clear that he wanted to help bring about the important changes that my hon. Friend wants.

My hon. Friend made the point about whether the interest in Government in the issue lies in health or education. The best answer I can give is that it is in both, which is why, in both those Departments, there is a strong interest from Ministers, who work not only individually, but collectively. I have met the Minister of State, Department of Health, who has responsibility for care, on a number of occasions to discuss that and other matters that transcend the Children and Families Bill, to ensure that we are moving in the right direction and in a way that will bring about the best results.

For lower-level alternative and augmentative communication needs, it will be up to health commissioners and their local authority partners to work together—we should lead by example by doing that in national Government—to ensure that the right services are in place locally to meet the needs of the population, and to reflect those services in the local offer. Highly specialist services needed by only a very small number of children will be commissioned centrally by NHS England, as my hon. Friend will know.

Prior to 1 April this year, there was no national commissioning of AAC services. There was no standard or nationally consistent definition of the services that were the commissioning and funding responsibility of the NHS. As a result, there was variation in organisations and in the commissioning and funding of specialised AAC services, and inequitable access to such services. A key priority must be to ensure that commissioning arrangements for specialised services are placed on a much more robust and equitable footing across England. That is currently being undertaken by NHS England’s area teams.

Work is under way to establish the required baseline for AAC services. Area teams are working with colleagues in clinical commissioning groups to identify the value of contracts for communication aids. My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon mentioned the work of the former communication champion, Jean Gross, whose 2010 report suggested that a national budget of £14 million was required for 2012 to 2014 to bring the required baseline into effect. Working with experts on its AAC sub-group, NHS England will be looking at the report’s assumptions and other available data. We need to be clear that the progress on AAC has to be fulfilled to a degree that ensures the greatest level of equitable access that we can achieve. The development of the national commissioning of those services provides an opportunity to have much more consistency. I hope that that will be an important step forward.

One reason why I am pleased to support my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys in trying to improve the situation is that I saw for myself, on my visit to Springfield school in Crewe, some of the incredible aids that are now available. Those are quickly coming on stream all the time. I was given a number of demonstrations involving buttons and click mouses, and I was also told about gaze technology—I confess that I cannot remember the exact phraseology, but that is the term that I have decided to use—in which the length of time a person keeps their eyes fixed on the screen determines their command to the device. That is an astonishing way of providing anyone, whatever their level of communication, with an opportunity to communicate.

As the technology advances, some of the costs of the technology, certainly in the early stages, prove quite significant, so we need to think carefully about how we ensure, as my hon. Friend rightly said, that the equipment can still benefit the individual as they move on from compulsory education and, we hope, make the transition to a fulfilling adult life.

[Mrs Hodgson]

There was recently a reception, which some hon. Members may have gone to, about the gaming industry. One company there, SpecialEffect, is developing some of this eye-movement technology. It works in the gaming industry, but also on the educational opportunities provided by that technology. A lot of people may think that gaming is not necessary, but this is a very important move, with regard to cohesion, and young people feeling included in society, and able to play games and take part in other online activities in the same way that their peers can. The cost of the technology could be prohibitive, so I am pleased that the Minister is aware of it and has availed himself of it. I hope that we can ensure that where these technologies can help children with their education and the social aspects of their life, they will not be deemed too prohibitively expensive all the time.

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Lady is a great advocate of the role that information technology can play in the lives of many children and young people with special educational needs. That even led to her persuading me, in Committee, to include elements relating to IT in the code of practice. This is another example of where we have the chance to widen the opportunities for many young people with speech, language and communication needs who, not many years ago, would not have had any of that at their disposal. Yes, there will be costs that must be taken into account, but with some of the new commissioning arrangements that are coming on board, including the joint commissioning in the Bill, and with personal budgets, there is a raft of ways in which, with the right support, many families can start to consider that as a reality, rather than a pipe dream. It is incumbent on all of us to think carefully about how we can help them to achieve exactly that.

I want to touch on an important issue that my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Dorset and North Poole, and for South Swindon, touched on—the Ofqual consultation proposal not to assess formally speaking and listening skills at GCSE. Clearly, pupils need speaking skills for their future progression, and employers value good communication skills and want them to be taught. The subject content of the new English language GCSE will strengthen the requirement to teach pupils how to become more confident in using spoken language in formal settings. The key point is how speaking skills are taught. Often, we dwell on the subject matter, rather than how that will be put across and absorbed by each individual child in such a way that it will endure. We do not want it to be just an exercise in process.

Improvements to the new national curriculum key stage 2 and 3 programmes of study for English will result in students being better prepared for the start of their GCSE courses. We do not want to undermine the robust standard of this subject by including assessments that cannot be externally validated, and that is reflected in Ofqual’s proposals. We have consulted organisations representing students with special educational needs as part of the equality analysis that we published in March. Overall, we believe that the benefit to all students will be positive. Students will follow more robust and challenging GCSE courses that will have real value for their future progression to further education and employment. Those with special educational needs can, through the Equality Act 2010, be supported in their exams through reasonable adjustments, such as extra time or supervised rest breaks. Ofqual, as the independent regulator, will monitor access arrangements and reasonable adjustments as the reformed GCSEs are introduced.

The consultation is still open. I know that the Communication Trust and others have submitted their own reflections on the proposals, and I have no doubt that Ofqual will take those reflections extremely seriously. We shall have to wait for the outcome of the consultation to see what steps are to be taken next, but it is important that Members of the House have the opportunity, both through the consultation and through the debate today, to make their feelings known, so that every angle is properly considered when understanding the ramifications of any changes on which Ofqual is consulting.

The changes that we are making in relation to special educational needs through the Children and Families Bill and through the 20 pathfinders across 31 local authorities are a key feature of our determination to ensure that all vulnerable children, whatever their background, have the chance to reach their full potential, not just in their education but in their wider life socially, culturally and otherwise. It is encouraging that we have reached the halfway point of the Bill’s passage and there is strong consensus on much of what it is designed to achieve and how we are going about that.

We are not talking about a small cohort of children in our country. We are talking about a significant number of children, and as my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon rightly pointed out on a number of occasions, we have a duty to ensure that they have every opportunity to reach their goals, academic or otherwise, that we would want for our own children. I know that as the Bill moves on, many Members here and in the other place will want to continue this dialogue, which has been extremely constructive to date, to ensure that we meet our responsibilities in Parliament to provide the best possible framework for the local agencies that are working so hard on the ground, in the public, private and voluntary sectors, to help to bring about these important changes. I am confident that we have set our stall out in a way that will drive reform and bring about the culture change that we all want and that, as a consequence, many children and families will feel that rather than the system working against them, it is much more on their side.

We are already starting to see, in some of the evaluation of the work that the pathfinders are doing, reports from parents who are starting to feel more included. They are being properly consulted. They are seeing changes in attitude, particularly in the health service, towards their involvement in not just the assessment process, but the delivery of services. The building blocks are starting to be put in place. Some of the relationships are starting to be recalibrated and are starting to mesh; my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon said that was happening already in his constituency.

We still have a huge amount of work to do. We are under no illusions about the fact that it will be a monumental task for all of us to ensure that this is a lasting and fulfilling change for many families, but the signs are encouraging, and I look forward to working with hon. Members on both sides of the House to continue to do all that we can to ensure that these important reforms really do hit the mark.

Children and Families Bill

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I am straying slightly outside my portfolio, but where it impinges on special educational needs clearly we want to ensure that those children receive the support they require. There were attempts in the last Parliament to bring about some form of registration, which was eventually put out to grass. I think we have the balance right at this stage, but of course it is something that my ministerial colleagues who are responsible for these matters will no doubt keep under review.

The new duty in the Bill relating to health commissioning also brings in joint commissioning arrangements, which must include those for securing education, health and care needs assessments and the education, health and care provision specified in the education, health and care plans. The new health duty requires health commissioners to ensure that the health elements of those plans are provided for each individual, thus providing direct clarity for parents that the support their child needs will be provided

We have taken an open approach to the Bill, listened carefully to the views of a wide range of people and made changes to improve it. I know that is the approach that my ministerial colleagues in the other place, including Lord Nash, intend to continue when the Bill makes its way to them. However, before it does we have some important business to conclude in this House today.

I will begin our consideration of the Bill’s SEN provisions by speaking to new clause 9 in a little more detail and to Government amendments 17 to 25. These amendments clarify responsibilities and make consequential amendments to legislation as a result of provisions in the Bill. With regard to new clause 9, it is important that the responsibilities of local authorities are clear when a child or young person with an education, health and care plan moves from one area to another. The new clause provides for regulations to specify those responsibilities. Regulations will make it clear that the new local authority is treated as though it had made the plan. This ensures that plans do not lapse when children and young people move from one area to another and that support for their special educational needs is maintained. I therefore urge the House to support new clause 9.

Amendment 17 to clause 41 has been tabled at the request of the Welsh Government. It would enable independent schools that are specially organised for making provision for children and young people with special educational needs, and specialist post-16 institutions in Wales, to apply to the Secretary of State for Education to be on a list of independent institutions that those with education, health and care plans can ask to be named on their plan. If independent schools in Wales wish to put themselves forward for approval, the amendment will be of benefit to children and young people who live close to the Welsh border whose needs would be best met in a Welsh independent school or those who would be appropriately placed in independent boarding provision in Wales. I urge the House to support the amendment.

On amendments 18 to 20 on personal budgets, I signalled our intention to table these consequential amendments when we debated clause 48 on personal budgets in Committee. The changes they make are necessary because of the changes we made to clause 42 in Committee by placing the duty in clause 42(3) on health commissioners to secure the health provision identified in an education, health and care plan. The amendments allow health commissioners to discharge their duty to make health care provision specified in EHC plans when this provision is secured using a direct payment. This replicates the equivalent provision on local authorities set out in clause 48(5). The amendments clarify that when parents or young people exercise their direct payment, this allows the commissioning body to discharge its statutory duty. The proposed use of the words “having been” in clauses 48(5) and 48(7) makes it clear that the duties on commissioning bodies and local authorities to secure provision are discharged only through the use of a direct payment when the child or young person has actually received the provision, in a manner in keeping with the regulations. I urge the House to support these amendments.

Government amendment 21 relates to clause 49, which inserts new section 17ZA into the Children Act 1989, giving local authorities a power to continue to provide services they have been providing under section 17 to a young person before their 18th birthday to that young person when they are 18 and over. This is a technical amendment that makes it clear that the power in section 17ZA applies only to local authorities in England.

Government amendments 22 to 25 relate to schedule 3 and make further amendments to existing legislation as a consequence of the Bill’s provisions—for example, replacing references to statements and learning difficulty assessments throughout. These are necessary changes to ensure the proper implementation of the reforms in part 3, and I therefore urge hon. Members to approve them.

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

It is a pleasure to debate this Bill again, this time on the Floor of the House. In Committee we had some excellent debates on this part of the Bill, in particular. A large number of amendments were tabled by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, but we were at all times united in our ambition for the children and young people to whom the Bill applies.

It is crucial that children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities be given the support they need to access education and reach their potential, academically and in terms of their physical, social and emotional development. It is not just a moral imperative that leads us to seek those better outcomes for all children; there is also a financial imperative for the whole country. A young person who makes a successful transition to adulthood and has achieved as much as they can educationally is likely to be less in need of welfare, health and social care support and more likely to be able to work and contribute their skills to the economy and their taxes to the Treasury. We support a great many of the reforms that the Government are making to achieve these better outcomes, but we have sought at all stages to ensure that we are going as far as we can, that current rights and entitlements are protected and built on, and that children and young people, and their families, are at the very heart of the changes made and are able adequately to hold agencies to account where they do not get the support they should.

We support the introduction of personal budgets to allow families a greater degree of choice in securing the choice that their child needs. As I said in Committee, I would have greatly welcomed such an opportunity when I was trying to get my severely dyslexic son the support he needed to get through his GCSEs. However, there are serious and abiding concerns about whether they can work in the sense of improving outcomes while providing value for money for the taxpayer, and there are still questions about how the market for support that this reform will create will really look. The Government are running pathfinders in an effort to answer these questions, but they have not been answered yet. Parliament is therefore being asked to legislate for something that we do not know will work and could well be a costly failure.

[Mr Tom Clarke]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the social, educational and employment needs of young people. On her point about the economy, I wonder whether she is aware that she is supported by the National Audit Office, which has said:

“Supporting one person with a learning disability into employment could, in addition to improving their independence and self-esteem, reduce lifetime costs to the public purse by around £170,000”.

She is therefore speaking very logically.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who quantifies what we all know and believe is the crux of this issue. He has made a very important point.

Amendment 70 seeks to ensure that these reforms cannot be rolled out until such time as the pathfinders have run their course and provided sufficient evidence on the effectiveness of personal budgets that Parliament can be content in allowing the roll-out to go ahead. I hope the Minister will again take it in the spirit in which it is intended and give a commitment to the House that this measure will not be steamrollered through.

We support the switch from statements to education, health and care plans, extending the maximum age of support for young people to 25 to ensure that it covers further education courses and apprenticeships, and the ambition to encourage joint working between different agencies in drawing up those plans and providing the services described in them. However, there are still some concerns that, as worded, the Bill would give local authorities a get-out clause from providing services to enable young people between the age of 19 and 25 to carry on in education, even where they have not yet achieved to the level we might expect for young people without SENs. Those concerns are addressed by amendments 40 to 43, tabled by the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), which we support. I, like him, would be grateful for firmer assurances that prior outcomes, not age, will be the main focus of deciding whether or not to grant or cancel a plan.

My amendments 71 and 72 would ensure that we are measuring the outcomes of young people with plans up to the age of 25 rather than 19, as is currently required under the Special Educational Needs (Information) Act 2008, which is transposed into clause 65. It stands to reason that if we are maintaining support for these young people, we should also know how well that support has helped them. I would be grateful if the Minister committed to how best that might be done within the “special educational needs in England” analysis documents that clause 65 will require the Secretary of State to produce.

Another set of information that should be published as part of the annual report relates to the special educational needs and disability tribunal. I would like parents and campaigners to have access to information on the outcomes and costs to the public purse in tribunal administration and the amount spent by local authorities on legal fees—of the cases that reach that stage—so we can see who the worst offenders are and which local authorities would prefer to pay a lawyer £20,000 to prevent a child from getting £5,000-worth of support. The Minister helpfully pointed me towards some information that was squirreled away on the Ministry of Justice’s website, but as he will know, it is not exactly what I am asking for in this amendment, and in any case the information should be much easier to find and interpret. I therefore hope that he will continue to look at this issue or tell the House why, in an age of transparency, this information should not be available to parents.

We want to reduce as far as possible the current postcode lottery, but still fear that the Government’s plans for local offers, as drafted, could lead to greater disparities in services across the country. We welcome the requirement to compile and publish local offers, but fear that without a baseline expectation from the Department of what should be in them or, indeed, any departmental oversight, they may not be worth the paper they are printed on. As the Education Committee has pointed out, getting local offers right is crucial. If we do not and the services that children and young people need are not provided, we will just see more and more requests for statutory assessments.

Our amendments 66 and 67 would therefore require local offers accurately to reflect what is actually available in the local area, rather than simply what the local authority might say it expects to be available. They would remove the wriggle room that local authorities might have and ensure that they keep the offers under constant review. I hope the issue can be explored further in the other place.

Amendment 69 would require the Secretary of State to set national standards for what the local offers should include. I am no enemy of localism, as the Minister might argue—local offers should absolutely reflect local needs and priorities and be drawn up in consultation with local parent groups. However, if we are to tackle the unwritten postcode lottery, there should surely be a baseline of services that any child or young person anywhere in England should be able to expect. I have said before that local offers may simply codify the unwritten postcode lottery, and that they have the potential to result in a race to the bottom as local authorities look at their budgets and seek to undercut the local offers of their neighbours. I want assurances from the Minister that there will be something—anything—to stop those fears being realised.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

The phrase “postcode lottery” is well used in all sorts of policy areas, but does the hon. Lady accept that there is a difference between a postcode lottery and a postcode democracy? In other words, where there is democratic accountability it is not, strictly speaking, a lottery, although I accept some of the hon. Lady’s concerns.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I accept that that phraseology is probably not appropriate for this scenario, but it is important that the Government consider a baseline so that we do not end up with different levels of service that can be referred to as a postcode lottery.

Amendment 69 also refers specifically to the participation of children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities as a key outcome that local offers should be geared towards achieving. The Minister made some positive comments about this amendment in Committee, so I would be grateful if he provided an update on his work in order to ensure that the need to help these children and young people make the most of the benefits that information communication can afford them is adequately reflected in the code of practice.

We are also concerned about the lack of clarity from Ministers on what will replace the graduated response to SEN in schools—school action and school action plus—which currently provides support to 17% of pupils. Members may know that the answer will lie in the revised code of practice rather than in the Bill itself, and that is why we have tabled amendments 73, 74 and 75, which seek to ensure that the document is subject to thorough public consultation before a final version is actively approved by Parliament, rather than laid under the negative procedure. I hope the Minister will recognise why we feel that is so important, and commit to tabling Government amendments to that effect in the other place.

In addition to our own amendments, I have also signed a number tabled by the hon. Member for South Swindon. As reflected in his valuable contribution to the Committee’s scrutiny of part 3, the hon. Gentleman has a deep passion for and knowledge of the issues, and I find myself agreeing far more than disagreeing with him, despite the fact that we sit on opposite sides of the House. In particular, we are both extremely keen to see some movement from the Government on clause 69, which states that children and young people in custody should not benefit from the reforms in this part of the Bill.

I feel—and I think the Minister agrees—that this is a massive missed opportunity. Many of the inmates of young offenders institutes will have special educational needs. For example, 18% of young offenders have a statement, compared with just 2% to 3% of the general population. At least 60% will have communication problems and a similar percentage will have literacy and numeracy difficulties. Many of those special educational needs will never have been identified, despite the fact that in many cases they were probably a contributory factor to those people finding themselves in this position. As it stands, they will not be able to continue to receive the support they were already getting if they are placed in custody, and nor will they be eligible for an assessment if someone working with them in the institution thinks they need one.

This is not only counter-productive, in that it will severely limit these institutions’ ability to reduce reoffending through education, which is what we want them to do; it is also overly prescriptive—it prevents local authorities from continuing the support they want to provide to a young person in the hope that it will improve their life chances and steer them away from crime and antisocial behaviour.

I dealt comprehensively in Committee with the reason the Minister gave for why a plan is not suitable in these circumstances—the need to name an educational establishment in the plan—and I hope he has had a chance to look into the role that virtual academies and courses can play, and at the great work the Nisai Virtual Academy is already doing in this area.

Labour voted against clause 30 in Committee and will be tempted to do so again if the hon. Member for South Swindon wishes to test the will of the House, but I sincerely hope the Minister will respond positively and give us both an assurance that the Government will remove the clause at a later stage. If it is not removed, I fear it will face even tougher opposition from the noble Lords in the other place.

The hon. Member for South Swindon has also tabled amendment 37, which was one of the main bones of contention in Committee. I, like him, believe that education, health and care plans should do what they say on the tin and entitle the holder to expect all of the provisions they detail. At the beginning of this process we fear that they will be no better than the statements they are replacing, and simply provide entitlements to education provision. Ministers had said that there was no way of imposing duties on health bodies to keep up their end of the bargain, but the Minister, to his credit, quickly found a way of placing duties on them to deliver what they are expected to, and improved the plans immeasurably in doing so.

One piece of the jigsaw remains, however: the social care element. Once again, we have an opportunity in this Bill vastly to improve the rights of children and young people and their families in accessing the services they need. Amendment 37 would add the finishing touch to education, health and care plans by placing a duty on local authorities to secure the social care provision detailed within them, meaning that those plans would provide families with the certainty and confidence they need. I urge the Minister to find a way to make that happen.

I also support new clause 21, tabled by the hon. Member for South Swindon, on inclusive and accessible services, a subject on which we had a great debate in Committee; his amendment 39, on what constitutes educational support; and amendment 38, which seeks to create a single point of accountability for all three strands of provision within a plan. I look forward to hearing what he has to say about all the new clauses and amendments when he makes what I am sure will be an excellent contribution.

I also support new clause 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders), which centres on provision in schools for children with medical conditions, and which I and my colleagues tabled in Committee as new clause 19. Some 29,000 children in our schools have diabetes, 1.1 million have asthma, 60,000 have epilepsy and many more have heart conditions or suffer from regular migraines or the after-effects of meningitis or cancer, as has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami).

Those children and their parents deserve to know that their school can effectively manage those conditions while they are there; that the child will be given their medication, inhaler or whatever they need whenever they need it; that staff will know when they are being affected by their condition; and that allowances will be made for them where appropriate. We do not have a consistent approach to managing medical conditions in schools as yet, and I agree with the Health Conditions in Schools Alliance that this Bill provides an excellent opportunity for the Government to at least look at how schools support these children and, indeed, at how schools are supported to provide that support. We cannot just expect teachers and school staff to know how to do that as a matter of course. They need help from the NHS, which has the experts.

We want much stronger assurances on all the issues covered by those amendments than we received in Committee. Otherwise, they will be revisited in the other place. I look forward to hearing those assurances when the Minister gets back to his feet.

--- Later in debate ---

I have set out a range of steps the Government are taking to meet the challenge of high-quality and affordable child care for all families.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I rise to speak to new clauses 6 and 7 and amendments 76 and 77 in my name and in the name of my hon. Friends. Notwithstanding the welcome announcement the Minister has just made on behalf of the Government—at last, I might add—we still wish to proceed with the new clauses as their premise and purpose are still valid.

The Government have got themselves into a complete shambles. With every passing week, it becomes more and more apparent that Ministers do not have a credible plan to tackle the child care crisis they have created. Under this Government, parents are facing a triple whammy: costs are rising faster than wages and even general inflation, with the average cost having risen by almost 20% since 2010; support from the Government for those on tax credits has been cut, meaning that some families are up to £1,500 a year worse off; and there is a real struggle to find places in some areas owing to the cuts in supply-side subsidies and direct provision, such as through children’s centres. Since the election, we have lost almost 900 nurseries and more than 1,500 child minders, and there are 500 fewer Sure Start children’s centres.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the Prime Minister panicked and plucked the Children’s Minister from the Back Benches to implement her ideas without even bothering to check whether they were any good. The main idea to come out of “More great childcare”—increasing the number of children each adult can look after—is the worst one, and we are pleased to hear that it has been dropped. The Minister has been told categorically, most notably by advisers commissioned by her own Department, that it was not a good idea from the start, yet still she persisted with it.

If you will allow me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to place on record what those advisers said. Eva Lloyd from the university of East London was commissioned, along with Professor Helen Penn, by the Department to advise on child care practice from around the world, but her report is still being sat on seven months later. She said:

“The ratio relaxation is unlikely to reduce child care costs, but may well drive down child care quality.”

Professor Cathy Nutbrown, whose excellent report on qualifications in the sector was manipulated by the Government to argue for relaxing ratios, said:

“Current proposals will shake the foundation of quality provision for young children. Watering down ratios regardless of the level of qualifications held by staff, is likely to lead to worse, not ‘great’ childcare, and will undermine intentions to provide quality early learning experiences.”

You might be forgiven for thinking, Mr Deputy Speaker, that child care providers, who in purely economic terms could stand to benefit from these plans, would back them. Well, here is what some of the leading representatives of child care providers have to say.

Neil Leitch from the Pre-School Learning Alliance, whose survey of members found that 94% did not believe they could maintain the quality of their current level of provision if staffing levels were reduced, said:

“We are absolutely appalled by this fixation to alter ratios… This is a recipe for disaster.”

In a separate release last week, he said:

“There is no doubt that relaxing ratios would have lowered the overall quality of childcare in this country. Not only would children have received less one-to-one support from childcare workers, but their well-being would also have been put at serious risk.”

[Alison Seabeck]

My hon. Friend is highlighting all the reasons the proposal should not have gone forward, but it seems that it ended up as an internal argument on the Government Benches, rather than being based on the opinion of experts.

[Mrs Hodgson]

We would rather the Minister had come to the House sooner with a proper statement. In the time available this afternoon, that will not be possible, and obviously the House is not as well attended as it would have been for a statement. It is disappointing, then, that the announcement was not made in a statement to a full House in the usual way.

[Craig Whittaker]

I fully understand what the hon. Lady is trying to achieve, but are these professionals and new clauses trying to say that the professionals in the sector are not professional or good enough to decide themselves what ratios they deem to be safe, rather than what she deems to be safe?

[Mrs Hodgson]

No. I will tell the hon. Gentleman what more of the professionals have said, however, and then perhaps he will think on the strangeness of his intervention.

Purnima Tanuku of the National Day Nurseries Association said:

“At the moment there is an option that nurseries can operate a 1:13 ratio for over threes, if a person with a Level Six (degree level) qualification is working directly with the children. However, few nurseries take up this option, largely because it is not practical for one person to meet the needs of 13 children doing the type of activities most nurseries offer.”

That was echoed by private nurseries and managers I have met across the country. They suggested that it can often be a struggle providing quality care when operating at the current ratios. Finally, I will quote June O’Sullivan, chief executive of the London Early Years Foundation, which runs the nursery in the House of Commons:

“It beggars belief that a junior Minister can wreak havoc on a sector that has explained the negative consequences of her actions.”

Obviously the junior Minister has at last come to the House and ditched her plans, which I am sure all the people I have quoted will be pleased to hear. Most important, though, parents will be most pleased to hear today’s announcement.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I too welcome this U-turn by the Government today, but I welcome all the more my hon. Friend’s new clauses. Parents in my constituency are actually worried about the safety of their children under the Government’s proposals and are taking that anxiety to work. Some were even considering giving up work, if it had been introduced, which would not have done our economy any good. Would support for the new clauses in fact do our economy good and remove that anxiety from parents?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree, which is why we are proceeding with the new clauses: we need to ensure that parents will never again face such a threat from a Minister who just brings forward a mad idea out of the blue, against all the evidence and without any support from anyone—whether professional, parent or expert—in the country.

Both Mumsnet and Netmums have officially backed the Rewind on Ratios campaign, following widespread anger among parents—anger that the Minister felt the full force of when she did a web chat on Mumsnet in February. A recent survey of parents by Bounty found that 80% would not back the changes, even if they led to significantly cheaper child care bills. Of course, that is a big if.

The Department has argued—the Minister did so again in her opening remarks—that the measure could cut costs. The modelling information that the Department was forced to reveal said that it could cut costs by up to 28%, but the modelling done to arrive at that figure was branded by providers as a “work of fiction”. The modelling made wildly unrealistic assumptions of 100% occupancy for 52 weeks of the year, which no nursery ever has—speak to the nurseries and they will say that. It did not account for any breaks, training sickness or holidays for any of the staff. In one model—the one that said that it would save parents up to 28%—staff would not even have been paid any more money, which was supposed to be the whole point of these reforms, as the Minister again said in her opening remarks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Seabeck]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again but this issue is really important. No consideration seems to have been given to the need to change premises, for example. My granddaughter was in a three-storey property, with babies, largely, at the top. The number of children in care on that floor could not be increased without something significant being done to the building. I do not think that any of those additional costs were considered.

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend makes a very valid point that has been raised with me many times. I know that the Secretary of State is getting a reputation for sloppy research, and I feel that this is another case of policy-based evidence from his Department.

Then, last week, we thought that common sense had prevailed and the plans had been ditched. In fact, the Deputy Prime Minister said as much. In his briefing note to journalists, he set out in black and white the complete lack of support and credible evidence that the Department for Education had for these reforms. This was a cause of great relief for the tens of thousands of parents and childcare professionals who were rightly appalled by the lack of consideration of the needs of young children in these plans. Indeed, given how out of touch with childcare practice in England the Minister appears to be, it is little wonder that, according to her own Department, she has visited just five English nurseries in an official capacity since getting the job, compared with seven settings in France.

I am not sure what those French nurseries were like, but the Minister regularly cites them as exemplars. I am sure she will have seen that the chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, Neil Leitch, commented last week on his visit to France. He highlighted staff not having the time to identify and support children with special educational needs, nursery age children having scheduled toilet breaks and long afternoon naps, and children being made to sit still at desks for so long that tennis balls had to be fixed to their chair legs so that they did not make a noise when they fidgeted. This is not what anyone with an understanding of child development—[Interruption] He has photographs. They are available on the internet. The Minister is disputing what I am saying. She can look up the pictures, and I am sure that Neil Leitch would be more than happy to meet her to discuss what he saw in France.

This is not what anyone with an understanding of child development would describe as high-quality early education. When we consider how stubbornly the Minister has refused to listen to those experts and child care bodies who repeatedly told her that that is what her plans would mean, it is unsurprising that she has met with the tiny number of organisations who support her many more times than the major sector representatives who disagree.

[Craig Whittaker]

In view of the fact that the hon. Lady thought my last intervention a little strange, let me put it in a different way. Is she saying that the French system is much more expensive, or does it have higher ratios and so is much more unsafe than our system?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Yes, the French system is of a lower quality. That comes out in the OECD ratings of its nurseries, which are lower than those of the British system. When people meet French nursery providers, they are often asked about our system. French nursery providers look to emulate our model and cannot understand why we look to emulate their systems. [Interruption.] That is what we are told, but again, I am more than happy to hear evidence to the contrary.

Within 24 hours of the Deputy Prime Minister saying that the policy was dead in the water, both the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister’s spokesperson denied that a decision had been taken. The Department for Education said absolutely nothing for six days. We had to wait six days for a Minister to come to the House and make a formal announcement confirming that the plans are indeed dead in the water. We were grateful to hear that at long last, even though we will not have time to discuss it in detail this afternoon.

Even though the Minister has said today that the plans have been shelved, I do not have confidence that we have seen the last of them. After all, the Government are struggling to meet their target to provide free child care for the 20% most disadvantaged two-year-olds. With just three months before the policy is due to be introduced, a freedom of information survey that I have conducted shows that only 60% of councils have the capacity to provide the places, probably for some of the reasons cited a moment ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), who is no longer in her place. The temptation for the Government just to click their fingers and increase the number of two-year-olds that each worker can care for must be great. We should be clear: all they would have to do is change statutory guidance, meaning that Parliament would have no say.

In proposing the new clauses in this group, the Opposition are giving this House a say. We have an opportunity to nip any such future reforms in the bud. We have an opportunity to send the strongest possible message to Ministers that this House has listened to the tens of thousands of parents and professionals who have been campaigning against these changes, not to mention the Department’s own experts, and to say that we will not risk the safety of children in child care settings or the quality of the early learning and development they receive by allowing any such plans to go through unchallenged.

[Elizabeth Truss]

Does that mean that the hon. Lady thinks it was wrong for the previous Government to increase ratios for three and four-year-olds in 2008?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I was not in the Department or in position in 2008, but if we raised ratios, I am sure it was done after full consultation and with the support and backing of child care professionals, which is the exact opposite to now. That is the key difference, and I am sure that people out there listening to this debate will know whether that is true and whether that case is a fair comparison.

I sincerely hope that today the Deputy Prime Minister will put his MPs where his mouth is and lead his Liberal Democrat Members into the Aye Lobby with Labour when we seek the opinion of the House on these new clauses shortly, to ensure that in future no Secretary of State can force through, against the will of the House, changes such as those that the Minister has now dropped.

Amendment 76 would require the Government to take the novel step of consulting on the formation of childminder agencies before they legislate to create them. I hope that Ministers will learn the lessons from the furore over ratios. I should say from the outset that I do not have a dogmatic objection to childminder agencies, particularly if they are voluntary. What the Government say they want to achieve through such agencies is all very sensible: greater co-operation and peer support for childminders, as well as access to training and help with gaining bursaries. Childminder agencies will also be a single point of contact for parents who might need a mix of child care solutions. These are all good things that make for a vibrant childminder sector, and are all things that local authority childminder networks and family information services should be providing at the moment. That some of them are not is perhaps down to the devastating cuts to the grant that local authorities previously received from the Department for Education to pay for them.

Since the publication of this Bill, the Department has been consulting on removing many of those duties from local authorities—such as providing training and quality improvement support—and this on top of the attempt in clause 75 to remove the duty to publish child care sufficiency reports, which our amendment 77 would block. All this seems to be a clear sign that the Government want local authorities almost completely removed from the child care equation and that agencies are therefore the preferred configuration for childminders.

Given that the Minister has said that there will be no direct funding from the Government for agencies to provide those services, the implication is that there will be a cost to the childminder. That cost will in turn have to be passed on to the parents, because most childminders do not earn the sort of money that would allow them to soak up the kind of membership fee or commission that we might expect an agency to demand. The most recent childcare costs survey from the Daycare Trust found that childminder fees were already increasing by an average of more than 5%, year on year.

Of course, as all the parent surveys tell us, cost is a secondary issue to quality, and it is the end of individual inspections by Ofsted that is the most worrying reform. Parents really value the fact that their childminder has proved their effectiveness to Ofsted. A National Childminding Association survey last year found that 80% of parents thought that individual inspections were important, and that 75% might not choose a childminder without the reassurance of an individual inspection. Childminders value the inspections too: 80% felt that moving to an agency model of inspection would have a detrimental effect on their professionalism, and they are obviously concerned that this would put parents off using them as well.

Of course we want more childminders to set up—as I said earlier, we have seen the number drop by more than 1,500 since the election—but we should not be trying to achieve that by passing legislation that has the potential fundamentally to change the market, without first consulting on it and establishing consensus. I would therefore welcome assurances from the Minister that the Government will set up such a consultation before the Bill completes its passage through the other place.

[Dan Rogerson]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), as it enables me to clarify these matters from the perspective of the Liberal Democrat Benches. It was also good to see the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), back in the Chamber, although he is no longer in his place. He led the charge on many of these issues, although I suspect that he might have been getting a bit of gyp from the old leg, as he seemed uncharacteristically bad tempered.

I shall address my remarks to the new clauses and amendments in this group, as you would expect me to do, Mr Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) for the way in which she has gone into battle over the use of the taxation system to support the provision of child care. She has come up with a whole package of measures, which we will explore in the course of the debate, and it is a great achievement to have secured some cash from the Treasury. I know that colleagues in my party support her in this. She has gone out there and done this, and I pay tribute to her for her achievement. New clause 10, in putting down this marker in the Bill, represents an important step forward in showing the Government’s commitment to supporting parents who want access to good quality child care in order to allow them to go out to work, and to bring up their families in the way they aspire to.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West talked about the rising cost of child care, but she could have turned the clock back a bit further to when the previous Government were in power, because those costs rose hugely on their watch as well. This is nothing new; it is a trend that has been going on for some time. I therefore welcome the proposal to set out a framework for investing more public money in supporting the cost of child care for families who need it.

New clauses 6 and 7, tabled by the hon. Lady, cover an issue that has, as the Minister said, been settled for the time being. This Government now have no plans to alter the ratios. They consulted on the proposal, and those who responded to the consultation were fairly overwhelmingly against it. The Government have responded to that. The Minister clearly believes that there is a case to be made for such an alteration, however, and she will continue to make that case in the run-up to the general election if that remains Conservative party policy, but it is not the policy of the coalition Government to introduce such changes now.

That debate will no doubt continue, but I welcome the fact that, on the basis of the consultation, the Government have chosen not to go ahead with the changes. In today’s statement to the House on GCSE reform, the Chair of the Select Committee praised the Secretary of State for listening to the results of that consultation and being persuaded to take a different tack on some aspects of exam reform. The Secretary of State did it in that case, and the Government have also done it in this case. We should not criticise them for that; listening and taking action based on a consultation is the purpose of a consultation. The debate will continue and we will see whether a further case can be made. For the time being, that does not seem to have been the case. It is not only the sector that was concerned about this; parents were, too. If those two important groups are expressing concern, it is very difficult to move ahead with the policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Hodgson]

I begin by thanking my Front-Bench colleague my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) for her excellent scrutiny of those sections of the Bill that she has been responsible for shadowing, including sections that do not usually come under her policy remit. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Corby (Andy Sawford) and for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) for supporting us during this process, and our colleagues on the Bill Committee, my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), for North West Durham (Pat Glass), for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and for Croydon North (Mr Reed).

Given how constructive and good-natured the Committee was—for the most part, at least—I also thank its Government members, many of whom made valuable contributions. I thank the Minister for children and families, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), and the Minister for employment relations, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), for their helpful and thorough responses to our many questions.

I also thank the staff in all our offices, who have ensured that we have been fully briefed and prepared for our many hours of debate on the Bill, and the representatives of all the sector bodies and lobby groups for their help.

Finally, I thank the Clerks and the Library staff for their expertise, which has supported us in our understanding and scrutiny of the Bill, and for ensuring the smooth running of the whole process.

On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan rightly laid down Labour’s key test for this Bill’s reforms: will they result in better outcomes for the children they seek to help? The many areas where we agree with the Government that they will help, and the few areas where we think that they will not help enough or at all, have all been covered extensively since February’s Second Reading debate.

On special educational needs, as I said earlier, while we support the vast majority of what the Government are doing, concerns remain about the accountability of local services to families, the potential to exacerbate the postcode lottery and how some of the more ambitious reforms, such as personal budgets, will actually work in practice. Of course, the main concern is that the benefits that these reforms should bring are not denied to the children and young people with special educational needs who find themselves in the youth justice system.

On parts 1 and 2, while we do not disagree with much of what the Government are trying to do, we remain deeply concerned about what the Bill will mean in practice for children in care in the family courts. We urge Ministers to consider what the reforms will mean in practice for social workers who are overburdened and families who have lost access to legal aid.

We believe that the Government are mistaken in not ensuring that ethnicity is still considered in adoption placements—not as an overriding consideration, but as one of the many things that matter to children—or that courts consider sibling arrangements when scrutinising children’s care plans. Although we agree that we should remove needless delay from the courts, we are concerned that many of the Bill’s measures place speed above getting it right for children.

It is a great shame that the Government refused to structure this debate in a way that would have given us time to debate all the issues, and that we did not have two days to consider such a large and wide-ranging Bill that contains important measures relating to vulnerable children. Nor have we had time to do justice to our new clauses or that tabled by the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), which seek to improve the lives of young carers.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the most important thing as the Bill progresses is to make sure—it is important that the Minister agrees with us on this—that the adult who is assessed receives sufficient support so that the young person does not experience negative outcomes? The support should not impact on their education or quality of life. That is the key point behind new clause 5 and it is a pity that we were not able to debate it today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree with my hon. Friend and will probably repeat some of the points that she has just made. I commend her for her tireless and excellent campaigning on behalf of young carers since she promoted her private Member’s Bill. I know that she will continue that work when this Bill goes to the other place.

As I pointed out to the Minister for children and families in Committee, the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has responsibility for care, promised my hon. Friend and those of us who were present for the Second Reading of her private Member’s Bill last September that young carers would be provided for in the Children and Families Bill, yet we are still waiting to see what those provisions will be. The Minister gave some warm assurances on that issue during his closing remarks, so we look forward to seeing it addressed in the Bill.

[Mr Timpson]

Just to clarify, if the hon. Lady looks back at Hansard she will see that just before the end of Report I gave some strong indications of the direction of travel I am persuaded to take with regard to young carers.

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is very good; I will do that.

At the very least, we need to ensure that agencies that come into contact with families know how to spot a child who might be providing care and how to refer that child and their family to the support that exists for the majority of young carers. That needs to happen in order to address the much poorer outcomes that such children have because of their responsibilities.

As the Children’s Society discovered recently in its “Hidden from View” report, about one in 20 young carers misses school because of caring responsibilities. Young carers attain the equivalent of nine grades lower than their peers at GCSE level and are consequently more likely than other young people to be classed as not in education, employment or training after school. There are also health implications. Young carers are one and a half times more likely to have a special educational need, a long-standing illness or a disability than their peers. Those who are dedicated to looking after someone else often do not take good enough care of themselves. That is particularly true of young carers.

There are 166,363 young carers in England according to the latest census data, which were released on 16 May this year. That is 166,363 young people who stand a much poorer chance of reaching their educational potential and a much greater chance of suffering poor health or being a NEET. It does not need to be that way. I know that the Minister has outlined measures, but he could make the changes to the Bill that we have suggested in the other place or bring forward his own changes to ensure that those young carers are given the support that they need.

The Minister will not be surprised that I am also keen for progress to be made on ensuring that children’s centres are better able to identify and help every family in their area who needs it by adopting the measures tabled by the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). She has not made a speech today and I hope that she has a chance to do so in a moment. Those measures would require NHS trusts to share the live births register with Sure Start outreach workers and would roll out trials of births being registered in children’s centres. That would mean that all parents would have to visit their local children’s centre, where they would be shown all the opportunities and services that are available to them and their child. That would contribute greatly to ensuring that we reach out to and help the most vulnerable families and, once again, improve the outcomes of the children within them.

I know that many hon. Members are keen to speak, so I will bring my remarks to a conclusion. We will not oppose the Bill on Third Reading and we are as keen as Ministers for it to make speedy progress to the other place. However, I hope that the House and the Government are left in no doubt that there are a number of issues that my noble colleagues and, I am sure, peers on all sides in the other place will revisit. We are expecting big things from Ministers before then and I sincerely hope that they do not disappoint.

Most notably, we want measures to ensure that support is not denied to young offenders with special educational needs and measures to increase the chance of young carers being identified and given the support that they need in order to improve their outcomes. We hope that the Government reconsider their position on PSHE and, in particular, sex and relationships education, and that they bring forward measures to make it compulsory before the Bill reaches the other place.

I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) for her superb leadership through the all-party parliamentary group on HIV and AIDS in pursuing education on HIV and AIDS. One in four young people leaves school without being taught about HIV. The work that she has done in that area is commendable.

If all the issues raised by Her Majesty’s Opposition and hon. Members from all parts of the House in the preceding debate are addressed, the Minister will be able to answer the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan on Second Reading and be confident that the Bill will improve the outcomes for millions of children, young people and families for a long time to come. In the hope that those improvements will be made, the Bill proceeds with our blessing.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Education

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Ministerial Corrections

Children: Disability

[Mrs Hodgson]

To ask the Secretary of State for Education how much each local authority has spent on short breaks for disabled children in each financial year since 2010-11.

[Official Report, 17 April 2013, Vol. 561, c. 475-77W.]

Letter of correction from Edward Timpson:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on 17 April 2013.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mr Timpson]

Data on how much each local authority spends on short breaks for disabled children is collected through the section 251 return. Data from the section 251 returns for 2010-2011 and 2011-12 are set out in the following table. Data for 2012-13 will be available at the beginning of 2014.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I will happily look at the point my hon. Friend raises. As we have done with the new “Working Together” statutory guidance document, we want to make sure that all children, whether they are in need or whether they require protection, are given the earliest possible help, so that the problems in their lives do not fester longer than they need to, but I am happy to look at what she says.

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

I hope that Ministers, especially the Minister responsible for child care, will set an example of the behaviour they clearly want to see from the nation’s toddlers, and that they will sit silently and listen and then answer politely. Professor Cathy Nutbrown is the latest expert commissioned by the Government to slam the Minister for her plans to loosen adult to child ratios, saying that they will

“shake the foundations of quality provision for young children.”

I know that the child care Minister has a touch of the Iron Lady about her—she might take that as a compliment—but will she ever be for turning on that? Will she or the Government ever listen to the experts they have commissioned and the tens of thousands of professionals and parents who disagree with her?

[Mr Timpson]

What I do know is that my hon. Friend is used to a maelstrom of linguistic turbulence coming from the Opposition, but I doubt whether that will turn her from her strong and well-evidenced reform programme, which ensures that ratios, which are not mandatory but which are, along with staff salaries, the lowest in Europe, are going to work towards our having higher quality child care which is more flexible and which parents can afford. The hon. Lady should welcome that and I hope she will listen attentively when the Minister with responsibility for child care makes that case in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are no national ratios. Indeed, in parts of Sweden, no ratios at all are set for some nurseries. What the Swedes do is to rely on high-quality professionals exercising their professional judgment in the particular setting. That is the system we want to move to here. It is backed by the OECD and by Sir Michael Wilshaw of Ofsted, so I suggest the Opposition back it as well.

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

I am sorry to say that I truly believe that the Minister and the Secretary of State sat before us today are the most out of touch in the whole of Whitehall—apart from those in Downing street, that is. They pursue policies such as increasing child care ratios that generate almost unanimous opposition from across the country, to which they refuse to listen while systematically undermining popular services such as Sure Start by slashing the budget by almost half. When will they start listening to the people whom they are supposed to serve and put the best interests of children and families—rather than dogma and pet policies—at the forefront of their policy?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have already pointed out that there is strong evidence for our reforms, and I point out to the hon. Lady that fewer than 1% of Sure Start centres have closed. They provide about 4% of full-time child care places. I would be interested to hear what the hon. Lady’s policies are for the other 96% of child care places and how she plans to make them more affordable. Under her watch, fewer women or mothers went out to work, and we were overtaken by countries such as France and Germany. What is her solution to that?

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My role is to make sure that the child care provided in this country is of the highest quality and provides value for the money that the Government are putting in. My hon. Friend is right: many parents choose to look after their own children at home. That is important, too, but my role is very much to ensure that child care is of the highest quality.

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

Two expert advisers on child care, Professors Helen Penn and Eva Lloyd, have warned the Government about their child care plans. Does the Minister agree with Professor Lloyd that changing ratios would not reduce costs, but would result in “a reduction in quality”? Will the Minister publish the expert report that her Department commissioned nine months ago and take the advice of these experts who said, in effect, that she needs to go back to the drawing board?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I suggest that the hon. Lady speaks to her boss, who has advocated Danish and Swedish child care systems, both of which have higher ratios than we currently have in England. They also have higher salaries and higher levels of qualification.

We are looking at best practice in Germany, France, Denmark and the Netherlands to make sure that we end up with a system in which we pay child care workers more than the £6.60 an hour that they are getting at the moment. That is a legacy of the previous Government. We are paying those who should be highly paid professionals £6.60 an hour—barely more than the minimum wage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to expand briefly on those remarks. It is important that the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee should strike a proper balance between respect for public money and the encouragement of innovation. As the NAO pointed out, the academies programme has been a success for this Government. We also need to ensure, however, that every penny that we have is spent wisely.

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

Is the Secretary of State aware that, according to Ofsted’s recent report, there are now 381 fewer children’s centres than there were at the time of the election, which represents a cut of 10%? In the same week, the Minister for Children and Families admitted that the number of centres providing child care had fallen by 30% in just one year, and that many of the closures were in deprived areas that have problems with the availability and quality of child care. How many of those services, on which families rely, does the Secretary of State think will be lost, now that the budget for Sure Start has been cut by 40%? Why does he not care about Sure Start?

[Michael Gove]

It is because I care so much about Sure Start that I want to ensure that the quality of service that is delivered to young people is the most important criterion. We do not want to fetishise bricks and mortar; we want to ensure that the quality of the education that children receive is as high—[Interruption.] What sort of an example is that setting for the nation’s three and four-year-olds? I say that we should concentrate on the quality of education.