Education Funding for 18-year-olds

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green]

I very much agree, both with the concerns that my right hon. Friend raises about the impact assessment, and with his comment about potential alternative sources of funding that would allow us to avoid the need to introduce this cut. On his comments about which students will be most affected, an analysis of the situation at Trafford college, which serves my constituents, bears out his concerns. Ministers know that level 3 is the standard that employers increasingly look for, and it is the standard that we should expect students to achieve as a minimum. It is worrying that the majority of students at Trafford who will be affected are studying vocational courses at level 3. The majority had low attainment at age 16 and, contrary to the suggestion in the Government’s impact assessment, the majority come from the borough’s most disadvantaged wards.

I have looked carefully at the breakdown of the courses that students at Trafford college are taking. They include English, maths, biology, chemistry, and vocational courses in plumbing, training as an electrician, vehicle maintenance and cabin crew training—a testament to the important relationship that the college has forged with nearby Manchester airport. Those courses could not be more pertinent or relevant to the career prospects of young people, so it comes as no surprise that college principals have expressed concern that a cut in funding, which will have the effect of reducing access to such courses, increases the risk of these young people becoming NEETs—not in education, employment or training.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. Her experience in Trafford is exactly the experience that is being fed back to me by the principals of Cornwall college, which has campuses in Newquay and St Austell, and Truro and Penwith college. They say that very vulnerable people, whom we should be helping the most to get that second chance in education, are likely to be affected. Does she not find it surprising, as I do, that although the Government’s impact assessment suggests that disadvantaged people will be affected by the cut, we are moving ahead with it anyway?

[Kate Green]

I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman that the impact assessment, which paints a rather puzzling picture, does not appear to support the decision that the Government have taken. It certainly attempts to paint a rosier view than the one that college principals and sixth-form college heads have painted. The Government’s somewhat thin assessment pays no attention to wider issues, such as the implications for bursary funding, and it pre-empts the outcome of the Cabinet Office review of provision for 16 to 25-year-olds.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I admire their passion, but they are wrong.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

Many children from my constituency with severe learning difficulties attend Doubletrees school in St Blazey. It has been reported to me that the move from EMA to bursaries for 16 to 19-year-olds represent a fall in funding for that school. Will he meet me to discuss their concerns?

[Michael Gove]

I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

There is no need for the severing of any ties with local authorities, and that school is free to continue its good relationship with its local authority. The key advantage of becoming an academy is the professional autonomy that comes with academy status, which is valued by heads and teachers alike. They are free to innovate, and they have control over the element of their budget that is currently spent on their behalf by the local authority.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

18. How many additional children will become eligible for the pupil premium in (a) St Austell and Newquay constituency and (b) Cornwall in the next financial year.

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

Our latest estimate, based on the numbers in the January 2011 census, is that 2,970 children will be eligible for the main deprivation and service premium in the St Austell and Newquay constituency, and that 16,050 will be eligible in Cornwall. We will not know how many pupils will be eligible for the pupil premium next year until the number of eligible pupils from the January 2012 school census is confirmed in June.

[Stephen Gilbert]

Representatives of the Newquay association of primary heads, to whom I spoke on Friday, tell me that the pupil premium is making a real difference on the front line, but they are finding it difficult to access the additional support for children in care. How could that process be made swifter?

[Sarah Teather]

It is extremely clear that the local authority must pass down to the school the money for every child eligible for the pupil premium, regardless of whether that child is at a mainstream school or an academy. I am happy to investigate specific cases where there are difficulties, and I invite my hon. Friend to write to me with any details.

Rural Schools

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Beith]

I commend the east coast train service in that respect.

As I said, quite a number of schools in my area have fewer than 12 pupils. There is a unique school on Holy island that much of the time is combined with a school in Lowick on the mainland, but when the tide is over, the children are educated in a little village school on the island itself. That arrangement must continue or they would not be able to go to school without boarding at the age of five—of course, they board later in their educational career.

When a previous Conservative Government were in power and there was grant-maintained status, the county council threatened one school with closure. It went grant maintained and saved itself, and is still there to this day. It made a rather shrewd move. That was an exception to the pattern, and I will explain how school closures come about.

In my constituency, we have lost 10 rural schools in 10 years. Villages such as Kirknewton, Millfield, Chatton and Eglingham have lost their schools. Two schools are threatened at Cornhill and Brampton, and in both cases there are very small numbers of children at each school—just three or four. In the past, we lost schools in the Cheviot hills that served the communities of shepherds at places such as Windyhaugh and Southern Knowe.

The current policy of the county council is certainly not to bring about school closure, even though, like other authorities mentioned today, it gets much less per pupil than some urban communities, despite the high costs of educating pupils in a much larger number of schools scattered over many communities and the high costs of transport for children in rural areas, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) referred. Closures in rural Northumberland have invariably happened because the governors have concluded that a school is no longer viable. That view is not always shared by the local community, which sometimes disagrees with the governors and would like to see a school retained.

In all cases, closure is to be regretted because of the impact on the community. The school is a meeting place. Some places where schools have closed have managed to retain them as community meeting places, but the loss of children from the village during the day is serious. They no longer put on the events they used to in the villages where the schools were situated—dramatic activities, re-enactments and so on, and music at church and chapel events. Many people prefer to see children in the village, morning and afternoon, going to and from school. The village becomes very quiet when there are no longer children going to and from school or voices from the playing fields at break time. That takes something out of a village.

The problem, in Northumberland at any rate, is not some bureaucratic and draconian policy of getting rid of schools, but a shortage of children and young families. Young families cannot afford to live in many of our villages; with low local wages and the price of houses, property is well beyond their reach. Houses are attractive to people coming to retire and those who want second homes and so are beyond the reach of local people.

Of course, many rural council houses have also been sold over the years. We therefore need to replace housing stock for young families in our villages. I repeat the point that I made in my earlier intervention: we must not let a sudden panic about planning policy lead people to the conclusion that no development can take place in rural areas. We need communities to have a life in the future, and that means having affordable housing for young families in villages, as well as workshops and other places where trades and activities can continue. It also means ensuring that we have other housing in villages, because we want communities to be mixed. Newcomers often bring life to a village and are often among the most active supporters of local institutions. We need to sustain our villages.

There are always a few children left—those of farmers and farm workers—but life becomes that much more difficult for them when there are no other children in the village, and the village is almost devoid of young families.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

I entirely share my right hon. Friend’s analysis that we cannot allow our rural communities to become fossilised and our villages to stop moving forward in time. Does he agree that the Localism Act 2011 and the community right to build represent an avenue that some villages will enjoy exploring as they grow? The register of assets of community value is another important provision that local communities can use in safeguarding some of the services, in addition to schools, that hon. Members have talked about.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Those measures, which the Government have introduced, are very welcome. People in the villages in my constituency are actively pursuing all those angles to ensure that local services continue to be provided. They have put a lot of effort into improving village halls, turning former schools into village halls and putting together schemes to help remaining schools, to work closely with them and to use community assets jointly with them. An awful can be done, but there need to be people to do it and young families to participate.

Let me give one salutary warning. The school in one village in my constituency closed many years ago. Later, there was some housing development. As a result, a busload of children now go from the village to another one five miles away because there is no school. Circumstances change, and we should think more often, when the situation allows, about reopening schools or even opening new schools in village communities that show real growth. That will be the exception, not the norm, but there are cases where such measures are appropriate. However, we need to try to sustain villages, so that our schools can continue.

Even in an area such as Northumberland, where no policy is being pursued directly to the detriment of village schools—that has been the case for some years—village schools are under serious threat. The threat comes from the decline of villages and the way in which the average age in villages is increasing year by year because of a shortage of young families. Safeguarding our village schools is therefore not just important, but part of a wider policy towards rural communities, and it will require great effort in years to come.

The Minister would be surprised—he can see what is coming—if I did not finish by referring to the high school that serves a large rural area of my constituency. Children go to the Duchess high school, in Alnwick, from villages from many miles around. I simply remind him that we are all waiting with bated breath for the school capital programme announcement. We are determined that the school—it is on a split site and in an appalling physical state, but it is a good school—can benefit from that programme as soon as possible.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I did not come to the debate expecting to make a contribution, and I am grateful to you, Mr Turner, for allowing me to do so. I want quickly to refer to several points, which sprang to my mind while I was listening to the debate.

The first is that the Government are consulting on school funding, and that is absolutely right. It is important that rural school supporters, of which I am one, make absolutely sure to get across the point that these schools should be able to spend their budget with few prescriptions. We also need to sort out the argument over equality between rural and urban schools and, indeed, in rural areas. That is a fundamental issue, and the Government are rightly alive and alert to it.

The second dimension to the question about the future of rural schools is that some wish to expand. In my constituency, that is, to some extent, a pressure. The Government need to make it easier for schools to understand how they can expand and what mechanisms they might use to rise to the challenge of providing extra classrooms. The second issue, therefore, is letting existing schools expand.

The third point that we should discuss is the scope academies have in terms of primary schools and small schools. Giving schools additional independence and autonomy from local authorities addresses some of the issues that have arisen in the debate. It is critical that we send out the message to small rural schools that academy conversion is a way forward.

That leads to me to a point that struck me while I was listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). She was talking about shared heads, and that is very much a direction of travel. Academies should be thinking very much about federalising structures, where appropriate, and about sharing facilities.

[Stephen Gilbert]

In my constituency, some very innovative academy chains are being created. That is allowing exactly the kind of economies that the hon. Gentleman is talking about, with a chief executive overlooking a number of primary schools. I therefore endorse his point.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much—I do like to be endorsed every now and again, and that was firm and fair.

Let me reiterate the point about free schools, which are obviously an alternative when a local authority is unwilling to countenance the continuation of schools. It is essential that local communities take hold of the powers and opportunities that the coalition Government have given them to voice what they want.

Sex and Relationship Education

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Leadsom]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady on that point. Of course, there is some excellent material. As I said, schools are teaching SRE with the very best of intentions. The problem is that there is no licensing regime and no sense of appropriateness of the material. A wide-range of material is used, with varying amounts of intervention and careful analysis by schools, parents and governors.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

My hon. Friend says, on the one hand, that she wants to see a national licensing system and, on the other hand, that she thinks schools should be able to decide for themselves. Are those two positions compatible?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I think that they are. I am not talking about a national licensing regime; I am simply talking about material that is used in schools being rated as age appropriate by the BBFC. By the same token, I do not know if my hon. Friend has any children, but if he does and he wanted them to watch 18-rated videos when they were only 12, that would be down to him as a parent. However, he would take such action with the clear understanding that the BBFC does not consider that to be appropriate for his children. Likewise, I will not show my seven-year-old videos that are above the relevant classification. I take the advice of the BBFC and only show my children things that are deemed to be age appropriate for them. My point is that there is no such guidance where SRE is concerned. At the moment, it is left to county councils, schools, governors and parents to make that decision. Parents and governors are often very busy and do not look at the material that is being shown to their children, and some of it is extraordinarily inappropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship, Mr Amess, following our many deliberations on the Committee that considered the Localism Bill.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on securing this important debate. Although I am not a parent, I am an uncle to two children and a godfather to two more. I think we all agree that good parenting is about protecting childhood and preparing children for the future. I should like to explain what that future might be as some young people grow up.

Last year, young people—who form just 12% of the population—accounted for half of all sexually transmitted infections in the UK. Twenty-five per cent. of sexually active 15 to 24-year-olds test positive for chlamydia; 75% of 16 to 24-year-olds report not using condoms when they have sex; in 1990 the proportion of women who reported first intercourse before the age of 16 was about 10%, but 10 years later the figure had doubled to 20%. The equivalent figures for men were 20% and 27%. Teenage pregnancy in the UK has been reducing in recent years, but we still have by far the highest levels in Europe.

Far from trying to move away from teaching sex and relationships, the Government should be doing a lot more to embed this, if Members will excuse the pun, in the curriculum. We talk a lot about the three Rs—reading, writing and arithmetic—but there is a fourth R that is equally important if we are to create happy and confident young people: relationships.

We know that good SRE gives children confidence. It teaches them about their body—how it changes as they grow up—and it gives them the self-awareness and confidence to start to combat some of the sexualised imagery and body fascism prevalent in so much of our media today. It helps to safeguard them by equipping them with the skills to negotiate safe sex and decent relationships—to understand, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) said, when their relationship would not be considered normal and, at an extreme, when it might be considered abusive. It also helps them later, through biology lessons and other parts of the secondary school curriculum, to understand how to negotiate the kind of safe sex that will help to stop them from becoming one of the statistics we have all read about. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire that SRE must be appropriate and sensitively delivered and that we must ensure that schools do not use inappropriate material, but I cannot agree with the “Too much, too young” campaign, whose tips on actions for parents at the back of its campaign material include seven ways of monitoring their child’s SRE, but do not include one positive way of talking to children about relationships and the consequences of unprotected sex.

That is quite ironic. Mr Amess, you may remember that The Specials had a number one record in 1980 called “Too Much Too Young”. I will not sing it, but it ends with the following lyrics:

“Ain’t you heard of contraception

D’you really wanna programme of sterilisation

Take control of the population boom

It’s in your living room

Keep a generation gap

Try wearing a cap.”

In the 1980s, when teenage pregnancies were rising significantly, that political song of the time said to a generation that relationship counselling and education needs to be embedded much further into the curriculum.

[Andrea Leadsom]

On a point of information, what do those song lyrics say about relationship education? Absolutely nothing, surely. That is a complete trivialisation and part of the problem, not part of the solution. There is no relationship guidance in those lyrics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Gilbert]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s point. I am trying to make the point that the consequence of not embedding relationship guidance at primary school level leads to the consequences of teenage pregnancies and the rise in sexually transmitted infections that so damage our society. We have to make this a continuous process, which is why I agree with Opposition Members who asked the Government to put the programme on a statutory basis.

It is a shame that debates such as this perpetuate some myths. The first is that sexual relationship education does not work. It does work, when it is established, properly resourced, appropriate and embedded in the curriculum. The second is that it leads to young people engaging in more sexual activity. All the evidence is to the contrary. Continuous, proper sexual relationship education actually helps people better negotiate the point at which they want to take part in sexual activities.

We have the notion, mentioned by my hon. Friend, that parents are excluded from the process, that somehow they do not have the opportunity to monitor and consider what their children are exposed to. Most surveys suggest that eight out of 10 parents think that their children should be receiving sexual relationship education. I think 0.04% choose to opt out at the moment.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I have to make the point again. I do not want to show one-upmanship—having three kids to my hon. Friend’s none—but the fact is that most parents now work. Therefore, when the school invites them in on a Monday morning to come to see what the children are to be taught—when they have an important meeting with their boss—the tendency is to think that school knows best and to let it go ahead. I agree with my hon. Friend in principle that parents have the chance, but in reality life gets in the way. That is why it is important to ask parents to engage and not just, by default, go along with whatever is being taught.

[Stephen Gilbert]

Again, I think my hon. Friend is trying to find disagreement where there may be none. As I said earlier, I think the materials should be appropriate and they need to be monitored. I like her suggestion of a classification system. However, I do not like her suggestion that parents could opt out of something that is so important and such a fundamental part of being a fully functioning human being in the 21st century.

[Alison Seabeck]

We are exploring a very important point. As the mother of two daughters—one of whom went on to teach in primary school and was responsible for sex education—I think it is important that we can trust our teachers to understand what is going on in the classroom and what the children can cope with. As a busy parent, I did not get to the Monday morning meetings either; I trusted my daughters’ teachers. Now we have access to the worldwide web, and there are very good sites to which parents could be pointed by the school, saying, “This is what we intend to teach your children. If you cannot come along, look at the internet.” A vast number of parents—certainly the working ones—would have access to a computer and be able to do that.

[Stephen Gilbert]

The hon. Lady makes an eloquent point. The explosion and proliferation of modern technology make such supervisory duties much easier for all of us. In future, perhaps she will be able to do so in the Chamber from her iPad.

[David Simpson]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the research papers with which we have been presented include an article from The Times Educational Supplement of 13 May 2011, which makes it clear that almost six in 10 parents do not think that sex education should be taught to children at school?

[Stephen Gilbert]

There are occasions when hon. Members have to say, “On that point I have to disagree.” Why would one not teach geology? Should parents be given an opt-out from geology or from history? If we are to create happy, confident, rounded citizens, we need to be embedding sexual relationship education from the earliest possible age. Of course, we need to do so in an appropriate way; it must be suitably delivered, well resourced and properly monitored. However, we must move away from the “No sex, please, we’re British” attitude, which has so damaged individuals and segments of our society. We need to demystify sex and relationship education. We need to see it as a spectrum and I think we need to move it on to a statutory basis. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s views on that. Rather than the three Rs, we should think of a fourth R: relationship and sex education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pamela Nash]

I thank the hon. Lady for that explanation. I am talking about relationships. I suggest that no images of sex between a man and a woman, between two men or between two women should be shown to very young children, of four or five. However, I do think that it is appropriate to teach young children about relationships, including same-sex relationships.

[Mr George Howarth in the Chair]

[Stephen Gilbert]

Without wishing to continue the love-in, I agree absolutely with everything that the hon. Lady is saying. As I said earlier, I have a four-year-old nephew who, from what he has said to me, is aware or beginning to become aware of sex as well as relationships. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to deal with the world in which we live, not the world in which we would like to live?

[Pamela Nash]

I entirely agree. I have had similar experiences with the young children in my family. I have stories about comments on sex and relationships that they have made, even at the ages of three and four, that it would not be appropriate to tell here. They are inquisitive and they have that knowledge. They watch television and hear people speaking. They see people around them who are in relationships that might be different from what they see at home, and they should be taught that that is okay and why it exists.

I have been looking this morning at the UN convention on the rights of the child. Article 29 refers to the following:

“The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin”.

That is one of the rights of the child, and I believe that good relationship education is part of it and will prepare young people for a normal life.

Children must also be prepared to deal with their own sexuality. The high levels of self-harm among homosexual teenagers have been well documented. Again, high-quality and age-appropriate sex and relationship education will help to tackle that heartbreaking problem.

Let us be clear: sex education is not about the sexualisation of children, nor is it intended to promote promiscuity or a certain kind of lifestyle above another. Taught well, sex education is about teaching children the facts of life and how to handle their personal relationships.

The challenge we face is that SRE is patchy and inadequate. An Ofsted report in 2010 said that the quality of PSHE is poor in a quarter of schools and that teachers lack the knowledge and skills to teach pupils the subject effectively. My experience of sex education, which was not so long ago, involved an expert visiting my school and telling the 14-year-old girls in my class that they should not let boys touch them from the neck down. That was the message in its entirety, and I do not believe it was entirely adequate.

There is strong support from parents for teaching SRE in schools. A poll run by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 2009—I am sorry these are the most recent figures I could get—showed that eight in 10 parents thought their children should receive SRE lessons, while only 0.04% had withdrawn their children from SRE. To conclude, we need high-quality, age-appropriate and mandatory SRE in all primary and secondary schools throughout the United Kingdom.

Post-16 Education Funding

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

As someone who benefited from free school meals, I welcome the focus that my right hon. Friend places on encouraging pupils from poorer backgrounds to stay in education. Does he recognise, however, that free school meals are not always taken up in rural areas and will he therefore ensure that it is eligibility, rather than take-up, that counts for access to the bursary?

[Michael Gove]

That is a really good point and I want to deal with this issue. It is not only in rural areas that take-up of free school meals is lower than eligibility: that is also the case among some black and minority ethnic groups. We want to ensure that such eligibility is increasingly used as a means of targeting disadvantage and we think that the introduction of the pupil premium, which I know my hon. Friend helped to design in opposition, will ensure that more students take up their entitlements.

Education Psychology

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I have taken an interest over a long time in the provision of education psychology services, as I am very much aware that long waiting times for assessment can have an impact on the rest of a child’s life. I am delighted that the Government are undertaking a review into special educational needs, but deeply concerned that the training of educational psychologists appears to have been put on hold while the review takes place. I shall return to this point in more detail later, but emphasise now that educational psychologists will be needed to help to deliver the Government’s agenda to improve educational outcomes for children with special educational needs and to assist with early intervention—another area being reviewed, which again I wholeheartedly applaud.

Clearly, educational psychologists have a crucial role to play. They use evidence-based psychology to help children make the most of learning opportunities in schools. They solve educational social problems and problems arising from children’s differing needs through the application of psychology. They work not only with a proportion of the school and pre-school population, but also more widely with groups of parents and pupils. Examples of differing needs include visual and hearing impairments, cerebral palsy, autism, dyspraxia, dyslexia, social and emotional difficulties, and many more.

Educational psychologists play a key part in helping to shape how educational settings approach a vast range of education issues through statutory and non-statutory work, including on curriculum development, generalised and complex special educational needs, support for the gifted and talented, behaviour management, and delivery of early-years provision. They hold a recognised qualification in educational psychology—previously a masters degree and now a doctorate—and must be registered with the Health Professions Council. The benefits that they bring include knowledge of child development, which is all important because so many teachers go through training without much emphasis on that, although I know that that is being remedied. They provide early diagnosis and intervention, which is particularly important in the context of conditions such as autism, both for children who need ongoing assistance at school and at home, as well as for high-need children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. They also provide diagnostic advice and support. Understanding a child’s needs and providing a tailored support package to assist them is crucial to their development. A key role of educational psychologists is to advise and support teachers who would otherwise need to perform that diagnostic role.

Educational psychologists are responsive to local need. They work across the full range of educational settings and are well positioned in local authorities to identify and analyse trends across localities, and to implement strategies to address local need accordingly. They conduct a wide range of interventions, including help with emergency planning, critical incident support, support for fostering and adoption, advice on adapting curriculum and buildings for disability, and reviewing and monitoring children who are placed out of authority and within independent schools. Educational psychologists also play a crucial role in engaging parents and liaising between them and teachers to help to improve joined-up learning and developmental and well-being outcomes for children, not only in educational settings, but at home.

According to data from the Children’s Workforce Development Council, there are approximately 2,200 practising educational psychologists in England and Wales. CWDC’s 2009 work force planning exercise showed that approximately 120 new entrants to the profession are required annually to maintain a similar-sized work force and to meet current local authority demand.

The age profile of the profession is such that a sizable number of educational psychologists are approaching retirement. There is a national shortage and significant numbers of educational psychology services are carrying vacant posts. All the graduates from the training courses have found employment. In a recent parliamentary answer to me the Minister said that about 120 educational psychologists were expected to complete their training in both 2011 and 2012. That sounds encouraging, but my concerns are not allayed.

In 2006, the training changed from a one-year masters course to a three-year doctorate to acknowledge the increasing complexities within which educational psychologists work—a one-year course was inadequate to provide an appropriate level of training. That change also brought training in line with that of other professional psychologists across the UK and Europe.

In the past, funding for educational psychology training was administered by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which oversaw the top slice of funds to the Local Government Association, which distributed fees to higher education institutions and salaries to trainees through local authorities. Now the CWDC oversees the funding of training. A decision was made at Government level to cease the top slice, and the sum of money previously reserved for training was distributed among the 152 local authorities, which would then subscribe to training for educational psychologists. The money collected by the CWDC would pay for the higher education institution fees and also a bursary for the trainees during the first year of their training. It is greatly feared that the anticipated Government cuts will put local authorities under massive financial pressure, and that local authorities will therefore find it much harder to fund educational psychologists, or be less willing to do so. In the current climate, what guarantee is there that those educational psychologists who, in accordance with the Minister’s parliamentary answer, are expected to complete their courses in 2011 and 2012 will be able to do so?

Compounding this problem, according to the CWDC website the recruitment of educational psychologist trainees for the next academic intake has been frozen on the instruction of the Minister’s own Department.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on such an important subject. Does she share my concern that the freeze on the training of educational psychologists from 2011 onwards risks undermining a key component of education in our country and the facilities that are in place to support it, all of which go towards ensuring that every child matters and every pupil is given the best opportunity for their own advancement? Does she also agree that the Government need to do more to ensure that training is in place for the educational psychologists of the future?

[Annette Brooke]

That is a very valid point. If the freeze is for just one year, for example, there will be a shortfall in the number of educational psychologists of at least 120. No guarantees are to be made regarding future provision and funding until the Green Paper is published. The website says:

“As such the recruitment process for the 2011/2012 cohort is on hold until we have further information.”

I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some further information on that.

With existing trainees possibly finding that they will not be funded for the remaining part of their courses and the freeze on the recruitment process for 2011 and 2012, there is an immediate and real danger that the university courses will be without a new cohort of trainees for 2011 or the funding that they have depended on from local authorities, and they will simply be unable to continue to function. Students who are part way through their doctorate training may not be able to complete it, and significantly fewer, if any, new educational psychologists will be qualifying and entering the work force. That will be the case in a context where the Government have made a commitment to ensuring prompt access to high-quality specialist assessment and specialist provision. Those two conflicting aspects of this situation must be reconciled.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Teather]

What is an adequate number will depend a little on the Green Paper. The role of educational psychologists might change depending on what we do with the assessment system. I would like them to play a greater role in offering therapeutic advice rather than just being used by local authorities as a gatekeeper to services, as happens all too often. Much work needs to be done with the Green Paper.

[Stephen Gilbert]

I want to press the Minister on the period of time in which we might expect some clarity on this issue. She has talked a lot about the Green Paper, but when might we see it? Will she commit to coming to the House and telling us about educational psychologists after that?

[Sarah Teather]

We hope to publish the Green Paper at some point in December. I am sorry that I cannot give a time for reform of the system around educational psychologists. All I can say is that—

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I am aware of the limiting factors of “rarely cover”, which is an area that we will look at in our assessment of the problems facing teachers in getting continuing professional development. Having to pay supply teachers can be an obstacle to getting CPD, which is why this Government want to free up school pay and conditions and give greater powers back to heads to ensure that they can devise the best methods for ensuring that their teachers get the best continuous professional development and training.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

15. What assessment he has made of the educational achievement of pupils in receipt of free school meals in St Austell and Newquay constituency.

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

Information is published on an annual basis on the performance of all pupils, including those eligible for free school meals, and these can be accessed on the Department’s website. We have made a clear commitment to narrowing attainment gaps between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers through the pupil premium, and we will announce more details on these proposals in due course.

[Stephen Gilbert]

Children across the country who are in receipt of free school meals are only half as likely as their peers to get good GCSE results. Does the Minister agree with me that only the pupil premium proposed by this Government will address the educational inequality left by the previous Government?

[Sarah Teather]

I absolutely agree. The scandal of educational inequality left by the previous Government is testament to their legacy, and I am very sad that they have not been willing to support the pupil premium. I hope that, with their change of leader, they will consider a U-turn on this policy.