Oral Answers to Questions
Shaun Bailey Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Damian Hinds
I pay tribute to the headteachers in Liverpool, West Derby. We think it is important to have an independent inspectorate, and we think it is important that assessments are clear. In the wake of the tragedy of Ruth Perry, it is right that we think about all the aspects, some of which have already changed. To be clear, we think it continues to be important that there be a clear external assessment for parents.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
Families across Tipton and Wednesbury are still struggling to get an initial assessment for children with SEND. What work is my right hon. Friend doing to hold organisations such as child and adolescent mental health services to account, so that we ensure that these assessments are done quickly?
David Johnston
My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. We are working with all local authorities, through our SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, to make sure that assessments happen a lot quicker, and that children get the support they need.
Safety of School Buildings
Shaun Bailey Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Gillian Keegan
I am sorry but I will not give way. I know I promised the hon. Gentleman, but I will see if I can make a bit more progress.
We deposited copies of the school condition data in the House Libraries on 20 July this year, in advance of the summer recess. It is also available on the Parliament website, and I am sure that many Members who are interested in this subject will be interested in seeing it. The successor programme, CDC2, is now under way. Early indications from the programme, which has been under way since March 2021 and will finish in 2026, and feedback from the sector suggest that in almost every case where a D grade—a bad condition—was identified in CDC1, it has since been addressed. We are getting on with the job. That is a demonstration of the approach that I and my Department are taking: we identify where the issue is and how severe it is, then we take the right corrective action. That is what our children deserve and what our schools deserve. When we have data, we can act to improve our schools.
The 2021 spending review announced a total of £19 billion of capital funding to support the education sector between 2022-23 and 2024-25, including £5.4 billion for school condition allocations. That includes £3.6 billion announced in allocations for the first two years of the period to improve the condition of the school estate. That is in addition to the school rebuilding programme, which is rebuilding 500 schools over 10 years. That builds on nearly £30 billion of capital between 2016-17 and 2021-22, including over £13 billion for improving or replacing buildings.
Improving education is this Government’s mission. Ensuring that our education settings are safe is a key part of that, and we therefore prioritise it as part of our capital funding, and actively manage funding and support for the school estate to stay open and safe. I also note the distinction between our targeted approach and what came before. The system we inherited was found by an independent review of capital to be poorly targeted and wasteful. We on this side of the House have acted to protect children, while others have ignored problems for decades. School building is more effective and efficient than ever before. The significant investments made in education in recent years by this Government, coupled with essential reform, have raised standards for our children and given them a better chance of success in life.
Since 2010, we have reformed our capital programmes to bring down the cost of school building. The James review of education capital in 2011 found that Building Schools for the Future, the programme that the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South is proud of, was overly bureaucratic and did not deliver outcomes that were good or affordable. Just as the people of Birmingham are finding out so heartbreakingly today, and as I saw as a young girl growing up in Liverpool, the consequences of Labour always see things worse off than when they started. By contrast, at the 2020 spending review we announced our 10-year school rebuilding programme, which will transform buildings at 500 schools across England. We have already announced 400 of those schools, including 239 in December 2022, prioritising those in poor condition and with evidence of potential safety issues.
Gillian Keegan
Perhaps I could make a little more progress, as I feel I will not have been fair if I don’t.
We currently have a further 100 places on the programme, and the Government will continue to focus on investing in the school estate. We strive to deliver value for money—it is easy to spend money, but getting value for money is what the people of this country expect—and ensure that our capital funding is spent as efficiently as possible. As the National Audit Office concluded in 2017, the priority school building programme, the predecessor to our school rebuilding programme, replaced schools more efficiently, costing approximately a third less per square metre than the previous capital programme, Building Schools for the Future.
We committed to 500 schools over 10 years through our rebuilding programme, with an average of 50 schools entering delivery every year. That is in line with the scale of projects delivered every year since the start of its predecessor. There has been some debate about the scale of rebuilding in recent days, but the level of our ambition is unchanged. We have not scaled back our ambitions for school rebuilding, and we will not. Although the school rebuilding programme is in its initial stages of delivery, it is ramping up as more projects begin construction. The exact amount that rebuilding programmes spend will differ year on year, based on the stage of delivery that projects are in at any given time. That is the norm for significant capital projects, which means that when we try to make comparisons, a lot of cherry-picking goes on.
Overall since 2012, 524 schools have been rebuilt or refurbished through our central rebuilding programmes, and a further 408 are in the pipeline. We are building schools more quickly, more efficiently, and better targeted on condition and need than ever before. Sometimes, however, there will be issues that we have to deal with outside the normal processes. The role of Government and of Ministers is to respond to that, and to take ownership and full responsibility.
When new information about RAAC crossed my desk over the summer, I understood that the buck stopped with me, even if the problem was 50 years in the making. As I set out in my statement to the House on Monday, the safety of pupils and staff is this Government’s absolute priority. We have regularly and swiftly updated our guidance in line with the latest technical advice, to ensure that responsible bodies are aware of the risks and able to act. In light of the three new cases over the summer, and given the disparate nature of the schools estate and, most importantly, the fact that children were involved, we made the difficult decision that it was no longer reasonable or safe for spaces known to contain RAAC to be used. That was a very difficult decision, because there were operational implications for others, and an impact on parents and children.
It is important to note that the technical advice on RAAC does not say that we must put mitigations in place in all buildings—that is not what the RAAC advice says. Where RAAC is present, we can keep it as long as we manage it well. We have acted with the utmost caution to reassure parents and teachers, and to establish a comprehensive plan to mitigate and resolve settings with RAAC, because we know where they are. Let me be clear: we were able to do that only because we had prepared for this eventuality. I had hoped that that preparation would be unnecessary, but sadly it was not and I had to take a decision. I am grateful to previous Secretaries of State who made decisions to ensure that we were able to establish where RAAC was present, and to act rapidly. We could show leadership, we could show direction, and we could tell people exactly where to go with their portacabins and with their propping.
Professional advice from technical experts on RAAC has evolved over time, and the question of how to manage its risks has spanned successive Governments since 1994.
Nobody is blameless in that, including Labour Members, who were warned in 1999, 2002, and 2007 alike. Unlike them, I am interested in keeping our children safe and improving learning. They try to play politics, and they can play politics all they like, but as they are finding in Wales, the public can smell opportunism and recoil at politicians who fail to show leadership.
We on the Government side of the House saw the risk and decided to prepare. My Department alerted the sector about the potential risks of RAAC in 2018, and in February 2021 we issued guidance. We were concerned that not all responsible bodies were acting quickly enough, so we decided to take a more direct approach, as I laid out on Monday, ensuring that we got all the surveys. We found out where RAAC was and we took action.
The vast majority of schools will be unaffected, as we have set out in information published today, and 104 of the affected settings are offering face-to-face education for pupils. Each impacted school and college has a dedicated caseworker to help implement a mitigation plan. For the past few days that has been my main concern—operationalising this, and ensuring that we can establish and scale up a programme to give schools the support they need due to the decisions I had to take. Most people will receive little disruption to their education, but that could include using other spaces on the school site, or in nearby schools or elsewhere in the local area, until structural supports or temporary buildings are installed. Project delivery, property and technical experts will be on hand to support schools to put face-to-face education measures in place as quickly as possible. We have published the list of schools that we know to be affected by RAAC, and we will be publishing an update in two weeks. It was important to give those affected schools and colleges time to focus on mitigations with support from my Department, and to inform parents directly. Thanks to the hard work of education leaders and local councils, 104 settings are providing face-to-face learning for all pupils this week. A further 20 settings have hybrid arrangements in place, with some pupils learning off-site, while 19 have delayed the start of term by a few days to ensure that pupils can start attending face-to-face learning safely on site. Only a very small number—four—have needed to move to remote learning. We anticipate that the majority of those will be able to offer pupils face-to-face learning soon, ensuring that disruption to education is kept to a minimum. Nine settings have since been found not to have RAAC after being reinvestigated.
I want to be clear that we will spend whatever it takes to keep children safe, with extra funding coming from DFE capital budgets to fund mitigations. That includes paying for emergency mitigation work needed to make buildings safe, including alternative classroom space where necessary. Where schools need additional help with revenue costs, such as transport to other locations, we are actively engaging with every school affected to put appropriate support in place. We will also fund longer-term refurbishment projects, or rebuilding projects where needed—taking responsibility, taking action and showing leadership.
As all Members know, the spending review is the process that determines how the Government will spend money over the course of a Parliament. It would be inaccurate, incomplete and inappropriate to disclose the details requested of the sensitive negotiations between His Majesty’s Treasury and individual Departments—inaccurate, because it would show only part of the picture of a complex decision-making process that takes place between multiple Departments, Ministers, officials and other individuals with varying priorities; incomplete, because such a process has to look across the board at priorities and trade-offs for all Departments to ensure we can deliver for everyone, yet this motion focuses on only one; and inappropriate, because it would be categorically in breach of the long-standing traditions and expectations that confidential and often commercially sensitive information is not disclosed into the public domain and that officials can give full and frank advice to Ministers.
Some Labour Members present have themselves served in government. They know that those in the civil service use every ounce of their professional skill to help them as Ministers and deliver the objectives of the elected Governments they serve. I have to ask: what would those Members say to those officials about a motion that might result in the making public of the advice of civil servants—people who can never answer back themselves—which they had thought was being given to Ministers in confidence? We know that they would not want that to be done.
It is vital to the conduct of good government and very much in the public interest that officials and Ministers in Departments and across government have a safe space to provide free and frank advice to inform policy and spending decisions. I note that such an exemption is one of the bedrocks of the freedom of information laws that the Labour party introduced. In the case of the spending review and related discussions, anything else would undermine that position and make it harder for Governments—now and in the future—to make the right balance of decisions and to maximise value for money for the taxpayer. That cannot be right, regardless of party, colour or the political events of the day.
I repeat what I said at the start of this speech: nothing is more important than the safety of children and staff in our schools. We are investing billions of pounds rebuilding our schools and providing the funding and support that academy trusts, local authorities, dioceses and schools need to manage the school and college estate effectively. As the Prime Minister and Chancellor have said, we will spend whatever it takes to keep children safe in our schools. After this debate, I will return to that work and to overseeing the operational response that ensures we are keeping children safe and protected and their education ongoing. In the meantime, I urge all colleagues to vote against this motion this evening.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. I have a school in my constituency that is affected by RAAC, Wood Green Academy, and I pay tribute to James Topham, its headteacher, who has done a fantastic job of swinging into action by staggering start times and ensuring, as best as possible, that education can continue. I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools for working with me over the weekend and in the early part of this week to address that situation. I know his officials have followed the issue closely and will continue to do so.
The frustration for Wood Green Academy is that its two affected blocks house specialist classrooms for design and technology, and for other important, specialist parts of the curriculum that we need to support, particularly in my constituency, to ensure the participation of students. I pay tribute to the school for its work to minimise disruption.
In listening to this debate, it has been nice to hear that the Opposition finally remember where Wednesbury is. For the benefit of Labour Members, it is about 12 miles from Birmingham, which is the council they bankrupted yesterday. Wednesbury is in Sandwell, where the council was put into special measures because there was a lack of transparency and borderline corruption in the way that Labour was running the authority. Wednesbury is also about 40 miles from Stoke-on-Trent, which has just said it has gone bankrupt, too. I will not take lectures from Labour Members on chaos.
We need to look at the bigger picture. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) gave a fantastic speech, and I pay tribute to the measured way in which she tackled this issue. The issue of funding has been at the heart of some of the Opposition’s lines today, but the shame and scandal of Labour’s PFI programme continues to haunt my community. I hope that when the Minister sums up, he will confirm that if schools with PFI contracts are impacted in any way by the need for emergency remediation, we will consider ways to resolve the issues caused.
One of my headteachers has had to choose between buying books and paying £20,000 to get the grass cut—that is the legacy of Labour’s school building programme, and this is in the most deprived community possible. Labour Members sit there and they gaslight, with this arrogance that winds up the communities I represent. All they have done is turn their back on those communities; it is as simple as that. Every single Labour Member should apologise for the legacy of PFI, because it is scandalous—absolutely scandalous. Once again, it is my constituents who will have to suffer for half a century because them lot decided to play fast and loose, however they wished. It is absolutely outrageous.
We have to look to the future, and the truth is that Government funding, particularly in my constituency, has been quite generous. Last year, there were announcements of condition improvement funding for Silvertrees Academy and Ocker Hill Academy, both in Tipton, in some of the most deprived and needy parts of my community. We have also seen a 28% cash increase in the basic needs allowance for 2022-23. To say that there has been a slashing of funding and capital investment is a narrative that my communities simply do not recognise.
The technical points of the motion are important. As I said when we debated a similar motion earlier this year, the House has mechanisms that we can use to allow for the scrutiny that the motion suggests. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), the Chair of the Select Committee, is no longer here, but he touched on that. As the Secretary of State said, and as former Ministers know, although I am unfortunately not one of them, it is important that Ministers be able to take discreet advice from their officials, so that they can make the right decisions without fear that officials who cannot stand up for themselves will be put at the forefront of scrutiny. I cannot support the motion, because it undermines a process that Labour Members used themselves when they were in government—please help us if that ever happens again. I find it hilarious that they think that the motion proposes a viable process that would not set a precedent in any way, shape or form.
Let me get to the heart of this: we need transparency. I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools for the work that he has done. We clearly have to look at the matter from an operational point of view, and at the core of it is making sure that children get the education they deserve.
Safety of School Buildings
Shaun Bailey Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
Like my hon. Friend, I have seen countless examples across the country of the short-term approach the Government are taking. It is our children, parents and school staff who lose out. I am sure we will hear a lot more examples, including from those on the Government Benches, during the course of today’s debate.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
One of my schools in Tipton is built under a PFI—private finance initiative—contract. I am sure the hon. Lady remembers those. Between the £40,000 bill for standard repairs or buying school books, what would she advise them to do?
Bridget Phillipson
My suggestion and the advice I would offer to the hon. Gentleman is to ask the Minister exactly what the state of school funding has been like over the last 13 years. His Government have been in power now for longer than the last Labour Government. He ought to take some responsibility for the state of schools in our country, not to blame others and not to deflect.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
It has certainly been an interesting debate so far, and first we should look at the points that we all agree on across the House, which is that having a safe and secure place where a child can be educated is fundamental to their achievements and ability to progress. I welcome the announcement yesterday that two schools in my constituency, Silvertrees Academy and Ocker Hill Academy, both in Tipton, have received funding as part of the condition improvement fund. That is welcome because we see the tangible benefits of that funding. Part of that will go to ensure a much needed and long overdue boiler upgrade in the school. Things like that—tangible things on the ground—are important.
I have been trying to get across a point about the tone of the debate, and the criticisms from Labour Members about capital investment in schools. When I sit with schools, and they tell me how the legacy of the private finance initiative means that they have to choose between resourcing the education of children or doing basic maintenance—I am sorry, but it is laughable. I sit with headteachers who are pleading with me and going, “Shaun, I don’t know what to do”, and they have 300-page contracts—that is the legacy of PFI. I am sure Labour Members are proud of that legacy—they are very muted, so I am assuming maybe not.
We all agree that capital investment in the safety of our schools is important. As the Minister said, it is important that we get localised data in the right way, and ensure that that comes from the front line. Gathering that local data, and having people understand where it has come from, is important to gain a fuller picture. We also agree that it is important to try to find alternate ways to do that data collection quickly and in a way that is accessible. I know the Minister is keen on that broader point of accessibility and stakeholder engagement, and perhaps it is something we might discuss at some point.
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the best way to understand things is to go and look and to see? I understand that the shadow Education Secretary will be visiting my Sedgefield constituency soon. Will she visit the schools that are getting rebuilt at the moment, such as Ferryhill Station School, Greenfield Community College, Woodham Academy and so on, or will she go somewhere else and make a political point?
Shaun Bailey
I cannot second guess what the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) will do, but there is a broader point here. The shadow Secretary of State talked about education outcomes. I was a product of the education system under the new Labour Government, and I remember having to be taught in portacabins, roofs nearly falling in, and leaking buildings. The land of milk and honey that Labour Members portray—I’m sorry but I lived through it. I do not know what history they were living in at the time. We also saw that in our educational attainment levels: English, down from 8th to 25th, maths down, science down—that is the legacy of Labour in government and their educational attainment rate. Low ambition Labour, it is as simple as that. Indeed, my communities in Sandwell have suffered from 50 years of low ambition Labour, with attainment rates in secondary schools some of the lowest in the country. Labour Members can talk about 13 years of this or that, but we have had half a century of them, and unfortunately our outcomes have tanked through the floor. That is the legacy of the Labour party.
Let us look at this in a broader way. We all agree that we need capital investment and to ensure that that is based on facts and data that we can analyse. In an intervention on the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) talked about the bidding process. I appreciate that this is a point of contention, but perhaps when the shadow Minister responds to the debate he could outline whether it is Labour’s policy completely to abolish bidding in any capital investment and how that would work. More importantly, we would all love to know how Labour will pay for it. Will we all just go, “Yeah, great, here we go, crack on”?
When it comes to Labour’s record on capital investment in our school system, the truth is that it is all on tick or on the slate—it is as simple as that. When I asked the shadow Secretary of State to respond to those teachers living under Labour’s PFI legacy, she said, “The Government should give them more money.” That is not a response. I hope that she will apologise to them for the legacy of PFI. It is a simple choice: Government Members, who are pushing ambition, pushing hope and pushing optimism; or low-ambition Labour.
The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)
I welcome the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Government. Of course, I start by thanking all the teachers and support staff in schools in my constituency of Harlow and across the country who do so much to look after our children and learners.
I want to thank the many hon. Members who have spoken today, and comment on some of the things that have been said. The hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) talked about her school, Grange Park; I am sure that one of the schools Ministers will be pleased to meet her to discuss it, and I am sure she will be pleased that she is getting £1.5 million in capital for her schools in 2023-24. As always, the Chair of the Education Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker)—who is no longer in his place—was very thoughtful. He acknowledged what the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb) has said: that the publication of this data will come by the summer recess. He also mentioned the benefit of funding for schools that he has seen in his own constituency.
The hon. Member for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood) will be pleased to know that there is a capital allocation of £2.7 million to invest in his schools, hopefully including the schools that he mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) highlighted the significant amount invested in his constituency area, but also reminded us that it was the Labour party’s manifesto at the last election to abolish Ofsted and SATs. He rightly reminded us of the work we have done to improve reading, thanks to all the hard work of the Schools Minister. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) talked about capital funding in his area; he will be pleased to know that there is £1.8 million in 2023-24 to invest in maintained schools.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) highlighted the significant amount of capital funding in a number of schools in his constituency, and rightly talked about the problems of private finance initiatives under the last Government. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) talked about her constituent. I wish her constituent better, and I am sorry—
Shaun Bailey
I do appreciate that—my intervention is a very quick one. We have been talking about transparency today. Would my right hon. Friend, in his good office, perhaps look at ways in which we could examine the impact that PFI has had on schools’ ability to keep up capital maintenance? That might be something that he and I could have a discussion about after the debate.
Robert Halfon
I am sure that that point has been heard by the Schools Minister and by the school system Minister, who is watching the debate. I thank my hon. Friend for his question.
My hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) talked about all the funding that has gone to four successful bids in his constituency and a previous seven bids, which shows that money is going to our schools. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) talked about what is happening in our schools; I gently remind her that whatever has gone on in terms of capital funding, 68% of schools were good or outstanding in 2010, and now 88% of schools are. The hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) will be pleased to know that there is more capital funding—£3.6 million, I think—going to her schools. She talked about the money that went in previously; it is worth noting to Members who have talked about that issue that the previous Building Schools for the Future programme was seen by the James review as bureaucratic and not as effective as it could have been.
In answer to the question asked by my former colleague on the Education Select Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), those schools will be free schools. The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) will be getting £3.9 million in capital funding in his area for 2023-24, and the issue of asbestos was dealt with very nobly by my right hon. Friend the Schools Minister. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), the Lib Dem spokesman, talked about our capital spending programme. I think it is important to remind people that—as has been said—we have allocated over £15 billion for improving the condition of the school estate since 2015, including £1.8 billion this financial year. In addition, the school rebuilding programme will transform the condition of buildings at 500 schools; 400 schools are now in the programme, including 239 announced in December 2022. We have allocated a further £500 million in capital funding in 2022-23, so the funding is there, the survey and the data are there, and there is guidance, a toolkit and support for schools as well.
Oral Answers to Questions
Shaun Bailey Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for her question; we have spoken about the matter privately. As she knows, local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure sufficient provision in their area to meet the needs of children in their care. The example that she presents should not have happened. The Government are supporting local authorities by providing £259 million of additional funding to expand their residential provision of both secure and open children’s homes. That will provide more safe homes for vulnerable children.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I had the pleasure of visiting St. Paul’s C of E Academy in Tipton on Friday and met its fantastic headteacher, Anna McGuire. It was not successful in applying for condition improvement funding, so will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can ensure that schools get clear guidance on how to apply? Perhaps he will visit the school in future.
Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill
Shaun Bailey ExcerptsFriday 14th January 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Act 2022 View all Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 14 January 2022 - (14 Jan 2022)
Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)
I have made newbie mistake No. 1,273 procedurally, so I am happy to accept the Bill as it stands and I look forward to speaking on Third Reading.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I wish to touch briefly on the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope).
I had not intended to speak in today’s debate because I am confident that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) will get his Bill through. My main comment is about ensuring that there are no unintended consequences. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is right in seeking, through his amendments, to ensure consistency throughout the piece and the quality of the advice that young people get. I am slightly concerned, though, because we do not want to create arbitrary methods that do not take into account local social and economic needs. As I said on Second Reading in interventions on my hon. Friend the Member for Workington and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), sometimes the careers advice provided does not necessarily fall within a strict framework in respect of the needs of the individual.
The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch are intended to ensure clarity and consistency. He gave the moving example of his daughter and how careers advice can have an impact; it is important to make sure we do not allow ambition to be stifled in any way. It is also important that his amendments do not have any unintended consequences. My hon. Friend’s intention in respect of both amendments is clear, but the issue is what the operational delivery will look like.
I was reassured by the response of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington to the amendments: he explained what his Bill seeks to do and how he has worked to address the concerns expressed. That being said, as the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) said, it would not be a sitting Friday without the wise words of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. I very much endorse the intent behind his amendments, but they might be somewhat wanting in respect of delivery, so I am reluctant to support them.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) for long championing all things education and for standing up for children. I have seen him, not just in respect of this Bill but on many other occasions, be a lone voice for children and for opportunities in education.
I appreciate the issues raised by the amendments. I agree that we need further scrutiny in that respect and to look into how we can help to give tailored support to everyone in need. In particular, clause 1, which extends the careers duty to all pupils to secure education in all types of state-funded provision—particularly alternative provision—is excellent, but the amendment talks about giving advice to all from one set point and I have an issue with that. We could look at further ways to dig down into a bespoke way of targeting, perhaps through a funding settlement agreement that provides a funding incentive for those providers that are able to get students into an apprenticeship successfully. The school could get an economic settlement for that in the same way as applies when students are able to get into university at sixth-form level.
From my previous work, I have found that alternative provision is often overlooked—it is often the way in which schools shunt off students who are more challenging and they are not then given the support that they need. When I worked in disadvantaged areas and with schools with low skills, my concern was that children were being taken out of the main school, put into alternative provision and then left at 16 with no qualifications, no help, no skills and no guidance. I appreciate the fact that the Bill and the amendments are trying to target that inequality.
The nuanced issues raised by the amendments are great but I would go even further. Clause 1(3), which extends the duty to secure careers guidance to academies and alternative provision, is welcome, but I would like to see a way of incentivising schools to pursue apprenticeships and to stress that they should. Many schools do not pursue apprenticeships because it takes a lot of time to liaise with the businesses and with the educational provider. Schools need an extra financial settlement or incentive to do it correctly, so we should look at how to move that forward. I know we are not allowed to discuss that in a debate on a private Member’s Bill, but I wanted to put that out there as we are discussing the amendment.
This is a nuanced issue. If things are done correctly, the Bill could help the levelling-up agenda throughout the UK. This is where children are falling through the cracks. They are being put through their paces until they are 16 and then left. They are not being diagnosed with learning difficulties and they are not being given careers advice, which would help the most disadvantaged access the career choices that they need.
I love that the amendments and the Bill are looking at how we target young people—people younger than 16 to 18. Young people from a disadvantaged background who have no family member in a job or career need to be told which A-levels to study. They need to be told that they need a triple science if they want to do something science related. If a young person does not come from that background, they have no idea that that is something they should be doing. This is a way to give that information to every child from every background. The immigrant child might be the only member of the family who speaks English as their first language. They are trying to navigate the British system and this kind of careers advice can give them the levelling-up advantage that they need.
I welcome the Bill and think that we can look further at these amendments to find a way to make the Bill as sharp and crisp as we possibly can.
Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill
Shaun Bailey ExcerptsFriday 10th September 2021
(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Mark Jenkinson
Indeed, and I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. That is exactly part of the Careers and Enterprise Company’s remit: supporting schools and colleges to deliver world-class careers guidance with the use of enterprise advisers from the local business community so that they deliver in line with the Gatsby benchmarks.
We also have the National Careers Service, providing free careers information, advice and guidance to young people and adults through a website and telephone helpline. More than 3,300 business professionals from local businesses are working with schools and colleges as enterprise advisers to strengthen employer links. Almost 3.3 million young people are now having regular encounters with employers, which is up 70% in two years. I am grateful to the Careers and Enterprise Company for its engagement with me on this issue and in particular for its recognition that there is much more to do.
Before I go into further detail about how the Bill fits into all of this, I would like to take some time to commend the excellent work already accomplished in my constituency in the face of often large socioeconomic challenges. The Cumbria Careers Hub was launched in January 2019 to deliver the Government’s careers strategy for Cumbria after the local enterprise partnership’s skills investment plan identified a significant challenge regarding developing skills in the county. I am pleased to report that the hub currently includes 37 schools and four colleges and has the ambition to achieve full coverage across 52 institutions in the next academic year.
The Cumbria careers hub is exceeding national performance on careers education across three quarters of the Gatsby benchmarks, most notably regarding employer encounters and experiences of the workplace. It also exceeds the national careers hub average. The process is accelerating, with 100% of schools in the hub matched with an enterprise adviser from a pool of senior business volunteers.
The process is being replicated successfully across the country, with 45% of secondary schools and colleges now in careers hubs. We are also seeing rapid improvements, with hubs in disadvantaged areas among the best performers. Careers leaders’ roles have been developed in schools and colleges and are becoming a recognised profession.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech and I commend him on the Bill. On deprivation, what is his assessment of the impact that the Bill will have on children in deprived communities and their career aspirations? I apologise if he was about to make that point, but I would love him to emphasise that, because it is at the heart of his fantastic Bill.
Mark Jenkinson
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly powerful and important point on deprivation and the ability to have business volunteers as enterprise advisers face-to-face with those children, showing them that options are available to them if they may not favour an academic route or be able to go on to university. This year, of course, we have seen the launch of T-levels, which gives alternative options at 18 as well. I will come to some of that further on.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) on bringing this forward. I know this is mainland-only education, because education for Northern Ireland is done through the Northern Ireland Assembly, but I am very happy to support the hon. Gentleman. There is no doubt that the thrust of what he has put forward is the very same thing that we wish to see in Northern Ireland. So I want to replicate and support what he is saying, for the very reasons that he put forward on behalf of his own constituents, but also on behalf of education across the English mainland.
In Strangford, I have a good working relationship with South Eastern Regional College, which has responsibility for careers. I have sat on the board of governors at Glastry College outside Ballyhalbert all my married life. I remember returning from honeymoon, and the board of governors meeting was on and they were surprised that I turned up. That was some 34 or 35 years ago—so a long time ago. The relationship I have had with local colleges has been incredible, and the important role that they play in giving students career pointers is vital. The hon. Gentleman has outlined that point, for which I thank him.
We have a working relationship and partnership with local secondary and grammar schools. In my constituency of Strangford, most of those skills are probably physical. In the Ards peninsula in particular, there is great demand in the construction sector, whether for building, carpentry, plumbing, plastering, or electricity work. All those physical skills are developed through courses at the local college. That means that in many cases, young boys and girls in local grammar and secondary schools perhaps already know where they are going. We live in a rural community, so there will also be great demand for students, boys and girls, young men and women, to go into agriculture, which is also something we wish to see.
Shaun Bailey
A really interesting part of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution was about local links and community. How does he think that strengthens communities such as his in Strangford to ensure that they can be vibrant and carry on moving forward?
Jim Shannon
The hon. Gentleman has exactly grasped the point about the importance of these interactions, partnerships and local communities. I still sit on the board of governors of Glastry College. I am not going to mention any names, but some young boys there I knew from the beginning were never going to achieve educational standards because they were going to work on the farm—a family farm in the local community. Sometimes it is good to have those opportunities. Not every person will excel at education—not every person can, because we are all different and have different abilities. The community part of this is important. I have lived there for all but four years of my life.
Esther McVey
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. It is about seeing how things are done. Some people can get all their inspiration by sitting in a classroom, but many cannot. They have to see the practical application. They have to see that job and that is what will inspire them.
Shaun Bailey
My right hon. Friend is articulating her point very well, and I pay tribute to the work that she has done in this area. Does she agree that it is okay for young people not to know straightaway what they want to do, and that by giving them those opportunities, they can be malleable? We all know what a career change is like, and some of us might have another career change after this, but I am sure she would agree that having options is important.
Esther McVey
My hon. Friend is so right. Blessed are those who know immediately what they want to do. Some people might know, perhaps in sport or if they are creatives or those who are gifted in a certain way. Many of us do not know for many years. In fact, life is a journey, finding out where we fit in, and we will do many jobs along the way, hopefully adding to life and society as we go along.
Simon Baynes
I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent intervention, with which I strongly agree. It is important that not only do we give advice but that we give training, too. This point was made earlier in the debate. People do not necessarily know what they want to do career-wise and, therefore, the opportunity to take part in a particular career, albeit at a relatively low level, gives them valuable experience.
Shaun Bailey
The other important thing is instilling ambition. I have many manufacturers and established SMEs on my patch, and one of the things they talk about is having a route from apprentice to managing director. Does my hon. Friend agree that will be a big part of this careers advice?
Simon Baynes
Absolutely. I could not agree more, and one of the hugely beneficial aspects of careers guidance and education, in preparing pupils at secondary school for further education and the working world beyond, is the much greater emphasis on apprenticeships. I am particularly proud of the UK Government’s involvement and all the apprenticeships they have introduced, but it is a key part of the private sector, too.
I have spent quite a lot of time over the past five years going to careers fairs with my two daughters, and I noticed even in that five-year period a significant change in the emphasis from the academic and traditional routes to the more technical routes. The apprenticeship system enables those routes to become a reality so that we are now seeing young people who, rather than going to university, are perhaps taking a course with an accountancy firm or a legal firm. They do a combination of apprenticeship training in that particular profession and practical work, which is a very attractive route.
Education Return and Awarding Qualifications in 2021
Shaun Bailey Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con) [V]
We have made much of schools, but we should not forget that a significant number of young people and children are in vocational education and on apprenticeships. I have recently been contacted by BCTG Group in Oldbury in my constituency, which is very concerned about the large number of apprentices who have not been able to carry forward their qualification because they have not been able to access functional English and mathematics courses during the pandemic. What work is my right hon. Friend doing to ensure that apprentices across the Black Country and more widely can access these vital functional skills courses, so that they do not get locked in and can finally achieve the qualifications for which they have worked so hard?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend raises a very important point, and apprentices will be able to access these courses online so that they are able to complete their studies and their training.
Oral Answers to Questions
Shaun Bailey Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Michelle Donelan
We have a taskforce that meets weekly, and non-completion is something we have discussed. It is imperative that we support students to continue and complete their courses, and that we unlock their future potential and opportunities. This Government are determined to stand by them and ensure that happens.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
Mr Speaker
The Secretary of State is not here. Perhaps we will hear the supplementary question, as we have no further detail.
Shaun Bailey
For students in the Black Country, T-levels and technical education will be a vital part of our story when coming out of this crisis. My further education providers are committed to ensuring that we get this right, but there is some concern about the work experience time allocation element. Will my hon. Friend meet me and representatives from my fantastic FE college, Sandwell College, to discuss how we can ensure that this system works for students in the Black Country?
The Minister for Universities (Michelle Donelan)
T-levels are a fantastic initiative that the Government have rolled out, and I will certainly speak to the Skills Minister and meet my hon. Friend to discuss how this issue can be sorted.
Awarding of Qualifications: Role of Ministers
Shaun Bailey Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
It is a bit concerning for someone coming in at this part of the debate that they will end up repeating what everyone has said before them, but I will give it a go and try not to be repetitious. I want to start by paying tribute to my schools and my students in Wednesbury, Oldbury and Tipton, many of whom were impacted by this and by the postcode lottery we have seen.
I do just want to make one point because Opposition Members have made quite a big thing about the postcode lottery, disadvantaged students and how we need to close that gap, yet when we had a debate on this, not one of them was here. I am sorry, but this is absolutely just not on. We were here—I was in that debate and talked about this—and we talked about how we were going to close that gap, and bar the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who had to be here, not one hon. Member from the Opposition was here. I am sorry, but that is unacceptable. I come from a community that has been hit by that postcode lottery. Many of my students were impacted by that, and I share their anger. It is absolutely unacceptable for the Opposition to talk about that when Labour Members cannot turn up when it matters.
I do not want to repeat the points that many of my hon. Friends have made, but yes, the centre-assessed system did not work, and no, it is not perfect. Indeed, many of us lobbied our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education on this point. People can call it a U-turn or whatever; I call it pragmatic government, because that is what it comes down to at the end of the day. But it always seems to be the same old story, because the Labour Administration in Wales are doing exactly the same thing, yet what we did is classed as a U-turn. It seems to be one rule for them and another for everyone else, and if they come to Sandwell, they will see what 50 years of Labour running the place looks like.
We need to ensure that this does not happen again. That is absolutely right, and I agree with all hon. Members who have made that point today. I am heartened by the work that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has done to, for example, lift the cap on medical places, ensure that kids in vocational education are not impacted, and lift the temporary students numbers limit for universities, but we need to go further. I would implore him please not to forget technical education. Students in my communities are absolutely reliant on that. They want T-levels to work, and I know he is committed to this, but I implore him to ensure that they do.
To round up, in the 40 seconds I have left, we now need to look to the future. It is as simple as that. We need to ensure that, for example, communities such as mine, which lag below the GCSE A* to C grade average by 14% and where the A-level attainment rate at AAB is only 5%, are levelled up. We need to sort that out. I trust my right hon. Friend to get that right, so let us move on from this and look at how we level up. Let us take the opportunities that this presents and really examine it, through the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and the Education Committee. Together, let us make sure that students, particularly in communities such as mine, can thrive and succeed.
Support for Left-Behind Children
Shaun Bailey Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I rise with a sense of trepidation after some of the fantastic contributions during this estimates debate. I am thinking in particular of the measured remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), and the contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) and for Mansfield (Ben Bradley).
It is important that we look at why we are here in this debate. Often we think that estimates debates bring fear and dread to the Treasury Bench and a degree of excitement to the Chairs of Select Committee, but in this circumstance we need to examine why we are here. It has been articulated throughout this debate, and we have seen it this year: it is for those kids and for the teachers who have stood up in the most unprecedented times we could have imagined and gone that extra mile to ensure that their communities are protected, that their children still get an education and that, whatever happens, we can carry on as best as we can.
I wish to pay tribute to the schools in my constituency, the likes of Q3 Academy Tipton, which has been revolutionising the way it provides extra support and care for its children during this crisis; Wood Green Academy in Wednesbury, which has been creating personal protective equipment for our local NHS trust as part of its design and technology classes, using its D&T spaces to do that; and Ocker Hill Academy in Tipton, which has been raising money for our local NHS charities. That is the reason we are here today: they have gone the extra mile for their communities and we now need to go the extra mile for them.
I could rehash the stats we have heard from all my hon. Friends today, such as those about the £1 billion catch-up fund, which wholeheartedly has my support, or the wins the Department has had more widely, such as the 6% real-terms increase in school spending, and the increases in spending on further education and on children with special educational needs and disability. That is all great, but I want also to bring us more to discussing the future and to focus on my area, too.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) touched on the fact that parts of this country have missed out on the fantastic levelling up that this Government have undertaken, not just now but previously. While we have seen real-terms increases nationally, my area has, on the whole, not benefited from them at times—in 2013, I believe we saw an 11% drop in some of our real-terms funding. However, we have to look forward. As colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), have said, this is about ensuring that we see this as not only about how we handle the money but about how that investment is targeted. I reiterate the point that he made so eloquently about FE and that Cinderella story, and getting rid of those ugly sisters of snobbery—I cannot remember who the other one was. He is right because this is not just about classrooms or schools; it is about aspiration. It is about ensuring that a kid in Tipton, Wednesbury or Ashfield feels that they have just as much chance as a kid in Westminster, and that a child from Princes End can aspire just as much as a child from Pimlico. For too long educational attainment has been determined by where a child comes from. We also need to set out the fact that yes, they can achieve with apprenticeships or manual labour, and that there is nothing wrong with that.
This has been a slightly different contribution from the one I had intended to make, so I will wind up simply by saying this: we have to get this right; we have to make sure that the kids in my constituency, and in others like it, feel invested in because for far too long they have felt written off.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I am dropping the time limit to three minutes, to try to squeeze in one more contribution. I call David Johnston.