Educational Settings: Reopening

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

As I said to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), we have restricted attendance not because schools are unsafe, but in order to reduce the overall number of social contacts in our community. Both PHE and the Department of Health and Social Care confirm that the system of controls we have in our schools—the extra hand-washing, the hygiene, the ventilation, the one-way systems, the masks in communal areas and so on—create an inherently safer environment for children and staff, where the risk of transmission of infection is substantially reduced. This is about reducing transmission in the community, and it is one of the measures after tier 4 that we introduced to achieve that.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) asked about the criteria for emerging from the lockdown. As I said at the beginning of this UQ, those criteria include hospitalisation rates, mortality, the rate of vaccination, and the challenge of the new variants, but I can assure the hon. Lady that we will be led by the advice of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, the Joint Biosecurity Centre, PHE, and the chief medical officer in any decisions we make regarding the reopening of schools.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

On the previous point, I hope the Back Benches get louder about that, because it is more important than ever. We need to hear about the Stroud dad who contacted me because he is so desperately worried about the mental health of his children from being at home all day, and from the parents who are contacting me on Instagram. Instagram is for pictures of cats, but these parents are absolutely at their wits’ end juggling childcare and work. Will my right hon. Friend reassure Stroud’s parents that the reopening of schools is being treated as a national emergency? On his point about evidence, will he work with the six Gloucestershire MPs to see whether our falling covid case rates and the low transmission in schools will allow our primaries to reopen after half-term?

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right; we take the mental health of pupils and parents, and indeed school staff, very seriously in all the decisions we make. Indeed, the Minister on the Front Bench beside me, my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), is convening a mental health action group to look at the effects on children, young people and staff in the education system, and we will confirm the next steps on that as soon as we can. However, at every step we will be led by the scientific advice on when it is safe to reopen schools.