Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

All employers with a payroll in excess of £3 million pay the levy, but many apprenticeships are available that can work for schools, including apprenticeships for school business professionals and teaching assistants. Of course, there is also the postgraduate teaching apprenticeship. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that further.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)]

T5. East Sussex College is an excellent FE college in my constituency. A deplorable situation has developed over the past two years whereby teachers teaching A-level at that college earn, like many others across the sector, nearly 20% less than teachers in the school just down the road. That is not sustainable. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that enough money is ring-fenced for staff wages in the FE sector?

[Damian Hinds]

I am sorry; we struggled a tiny bit to hear the full question. We have several programmes on the subject of FE staff and ensuring that posts are sufficiently attractive. However, it is probably best if I say that either my right hon. Friend the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills or I will meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the college in Eastbourne.

[Mr Speaker]

I heard perfectly clearly. Does the hon. Gentleman want to blurt out the last sentence very briefly?

[Stephen Lloyd]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In the past few years, the salaries of FE teachers teaching A-levels and vocational education have ended up almost 20% lower than those of the teachers at the school down the road. What will the Secretary of State or the Minister do to address that?

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

I am aware of some of the discrepancies between the salaries of FE teachers and schoolteachers. We have several programmes, not least the taking teaching further programme, which will encourage industry professionals into FE teaching. However, as I said, I am aware of some of the issues around recruitment in the FE sector.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this important debate. He will be aware that one of the successes during the coalition was our insistence that disabled children need to be educated up to the age of 18. That has been a real game-changer; however, the Government did not make it clear that transport for those children should be paid for; they left it discretionary—some county councils pay for the transport, and others do not, which essentially means that those children have to stay at home. Does he agree that that is an anomaly that the Government need to rectify? Otherwise, thousands of disabled people aged 16 to 18, who should be going to school or in training, because that is what we want them to do, will not have that chance.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that interventions should be brief.

College Funding

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. The number of people here today shows how much value we put on the FE sector across the parties. I certainly feel that very strongly. The right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) reminded us that funding has been going down in real terms for the past 10 years. That is one of the reasons why today’s debate is so well attended and it reminds us that, frankly, all of us have our hands dirty on this front.

Further education in my constituency and across the piece is something I was involved in when I was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 2010 to 2015. I chaired the all-party group on FE and lifelong learning. I was also the first MP to launch the 100 apprentices in 100 days challenge, which was very successful and was copied by 200 other MPs over the ensuing years. I got to know the FE sector far better than I knew it before, not just locally but, more importantly, nationally. I became an absolute convert. Ever since that time, I have been committed to the belief that the FE sector, for academic A-levels and BTECs on the vocational side, provides a really important function in giving millions of our fellow citizens from 16 upwards an opportunity that they would not have had before.

Funding has been frozen for various historical reasons. I remember having long conversations with the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable). Believe it or not, he fought like hell to fight off the then Chancellor to try to get as much cash as possible. That was one of the areas where the Liberals and the Tories sometimes had a slight distinction, although I appreciate the words of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), who was a Minister at the time. We believed profoundly and passionately in the strength of FE and we had a battle. We won some and we lost some, as we all know, which is the nature of politics.

Where are we at today? We are reaching crisis level. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) mentioned how someone teaching A-levels at an FE college, such as the Eastbourne campus of East Sussex College in my constituency, will on average be earning £7,000 less per annum than someone teaching GCSEs at one of the excellent local secondary schools down the road. I beg the Government to understand and appreciate that that is not sustainable. I go as far as to say, as I mentioned earlier, that it is not just the Government’s fault. We have all dropped the ball to one degree or another over the past 10 or 15 years.

There is an opportunity now for the Government to demonstrate to the House, the FE sector and the millions of people of all ages who attend FE colleges around the country that they can change tack. In my own constituency, they could demonstrate that to the tremendous teachers at East Sussex College’s Eastbourne campus, who have been teaching A-levels to a high standard, despite the shocking real-term cuts to their salaries over the past few years.

I look forward to the Government acknowledging that there is a real problem. I look forward to their making a commitment today in this Westminster Hall debate to come up with additional funds, perhaps in the March Budget. I look forward to the Government not simply saying empty words, but demonstrating that they understand the strength of feeling within this Chamber that FE is not sustainable in its current form. I also look forward to the Government not seeing the half a billion for T-levels as solving the problem, because, as the right hon. Member for Harlow reiterated, T-levels are a different set of qualifications. I support T-levels. The concept is excellent, but that issue is not the same as the issue of the many thousands of teachers around the country, including in my own constituency, teaching A-levels on salaries that are so much worse than in the local schools. It is no wonder that almost 25,000 people have left the profession over the past couple of years. I look forward to hearing real beef and vegetables from the Government: real details about what the extra funding will be.

Deaf Children’s Services

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. It is also a pleasure to serve with the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), whom I have known for a long time, in the all-party parliamentary group on deafness. I congratulate him on securing this important debate.

I have got five minutes, so I will try not to repeat anything that has already been said, other than to thank the National Deaf Children’s Society for its “Stolen Futures” campaign, which is a key reason why most of us are here. I also thank Willingdon Community School in my constituency, which is a fantastic institution with a unit for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. I have been there many times and have always been a big fan of it.

Deafness is a funny disability. I say that as someone who has been hard of hearing since I was about six. I have been involved with this issue for many years in various areas, including as a trustee of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, patron of the British Society of Audiology and loads of other things in between. At the ripe old age of 61, I have concluded that it is still an interesting disability. I do not mean that facilely. At my age, and given my involvement over the years in many areas of deafness, I would have thought that there would have been a quantum leap—an improvement— in the opportunities for deaf people. In some ways that has happened, and in other ways there has been almost no advance at all. When I say “deaf”, I mean either profoundly deaf or severely hearing impaired. The situation is very different for people like me—I am hard of hearing but have a hearing aid, so relatively speaking it is almost no barrier at all—and for people who are profoundly deaf or have severe hearing loss. Our world is one of communication, and if you cannot hear what people are saying to you, or they are not able to communicate with you, it is an enormous barrier.

Teachers of the deaf play an important role. Over the years, I have seen children who have had good teachers of the deaf or adequate provision go on to lead fulfilling, successful lives and have good careers. Others who did not have that opportunity have, through no fault of their own, mostly spent their lives on benefits or in low-paid work. That is not a reflection on their intellect or ability; it is because of the barriers of deafness and because they were not helped at the right time.

The fact that, for various reasons, the number of teachers of the deaf is dropping, and that a substantial percentage of them are over 50, which means they will be approaching retirement in the next few years, worries me greatly. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about how the Government propose to deal with that. I can say with conviction, based on years of experience, that if profoundly or severely deaf children are not supported at the right time in early years, they almost have no chance at all. We must bear it in mind that 90% of the time profoundly deaf children are born to hearing parents, and if the parents have no experience of deafness it is an absolutely shattering blow. I am not exaggerating; I have seen that so many times. A good trained teacher of the deaf not only helps the child to acquire communication skills so that they can maximise their ability to communicate, but plays a crucial role in supporting the parents, because when that happens to hearing parents it is like hitting a wall.

I am keen to support this terribly important campaign. In the limited time I have left, I want to focus on one particular ask: the review of post-16 funding. In theory, there will be enough funds to support deaf children from 16 to 18 if they go into further education. I urge the Minister to look at the report, because there is a clear anomaly—a gap between what is supposed to happen and what is happening. If a profoundly deaf young person goes into FE at 16 and there is no support, they immediately go backwards—I have seen it many times—and that is a terrible waste. I urge the Minister to consider the review of post-16 funding.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and congratulate him on securing this important debate. Much of his speech rightly advocated for the National Deaf Children’s Society. I let him know at the outset that I will meet the NDCS on 29 October.

I thank the many colleagues who participated in this important debate, including the shadow Minister; they really brought home the voices of the different stakeholders. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) talked about his daughter, who is a teacher; the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) spoke of the Bolton and Ward families; and the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) spoke of his personal experience.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and the hon. Members for Blaydon (Liz Twist), for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley). The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reminded us that Thomas Edison achieved so much with such a disadvantage. I also thank my good friend, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), for her intervention.

The debate is timely, following my recent meetings with members of the all-party parliamentary group on deafness. I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the Government’s position on supporting children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, including those who are deaf and hearing-impaired. It was great to see the percentage of pupils with a hearing impairment getting good GCSEs in English and maths increase last year, from 38% in 2011-12 to 46% in 2016-17. I congratulate those young people who received their results in August.

As the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse pointed out, there is more to do, and I am determined that all children and young people who are deaf or have a hearing impairment receive the support that they need to achieve the success that they deserve. I think hon. Members will agree that the 2014 SEND reforms were probably the biggest change to the system in a generation. They are about improving the support available to all children and young people with special educational needs and disability. I am clear that this vision applies equally to deaf and hearing-impaired children and young people.

I think we all recognise that we are only part way to achieving our vision of the reformed SEND system. We know that there has been a steady movement of children with special educational needs out of mainstream schools and into specialist provision. We also recognise that the significant consequence of this trend of moving away from mainstream schools into specialist provisions is extra pressure on councils’ high needs budgets, as we have heard from many colleagues.

The Secretary of State recently spoke at the Association of Directors of Children’s Services conference, where he set out his core mission, which I absolutely share, to provide every child with world-class education, training and care, whatever their background or needs. Our plan to build on the 2014 reforms includes equipping and incentivising mainstream schools to work with all pupils— I will say more about that in a few moments—and supporting and challenging local authorities and clinical commissioning groups to become more effective planners and commissioners of provision.

In the current financial environment, both central and local government continue to face difficult choices. Local authorities are best placed to judge local priorities and to make local funding decisions, in consultation with local people and having regard to the range of statutory responsibilities placed on them. However, I fully appreciate that that is not easy in times of financial constraint. To support local authorities, the core school funding that the Government provide will rise to a record £43.5 billion by 2020—a 50% real-terms, per-pupil increase since 2000. Within that total, the high needs budget for young people with more complex special educational needs in schools and colleges is £6 billion this year, as the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse mentioned.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman, we will keep this level of funding under careful review and will of course discuss it with ministerial colleagues in the Treasury as part of the next spending review. I and my officials in the Department engage with local authorities and schools so that we understand what drives the increasing costs of provision and how we can support them in managing their high needs and wider special needs budgets.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the ring fence on the schools block and whether we can allow more flexibility for local authorities to fund schools more. I am sure he will agree that there is a balance to be struck in protecting spending on mainstream schools and making sure that local authorities have enough for high needs. We are keeping that under revision, as I mentioned. We are particularly interested to ensure that the financial incentives in the current system do not lead local authorities and schools to make decisions that are not in the best interests of their children and young people with special educational needs.

As the hon. Gentleman recognised, local authorities play a crucial strategic leadership role, both in managing the special educational needs provision in their area and in overseeing high needs budgets. Those responsibilities are discharged most effectively when there is a strong partnership between the local authority and education providers, good engagement with parents and young people, and a shared understanding of where different types of need are best met.

The Department has committed £23 million of additional funding to support local authorities to conduct strategic reviews of their SEND provision, and we are investing £265 million of additional capital funding specifically aimed at helping local authorities to develop provision for children and young people with education, health and care plans.

To respond to the hon. Gentleman’s specific point on funding for FE colleges, they also receive disadvantage funding, which provides funds to support students with additional needs, including moderate learning difficulties and disabilities. Disadvantage funding is not ring-fenced, which means that institutions are free to use that element of the funding to choose the best way to attract, retain and support those with additional needs.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I appreciate the reassurance that has just been given, but as the money is not ring-fenced, if the NDCS or anyone else can find any evidence that it is not being used properly for profoundly deaf students between the ages of 16 and 18, will the Minister be prepared to review the matter?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I will take up that point with the NDCS in our meeting on 29 October to understand the evidence in relation to that. In addition to high needs funding, colleges receive disadvantage funding, which provides funds to support students from areas of economic deprivation, based on the index of multiple deprivation—the IMD—and with additional needs, including moderate learning difficulties and disabilities. As I said, that funding is not ring-fenced and can be moved.

I am very supportive of local authorities working together and I know that many will be considering how best to support the sensory impaired children and young people in their area, including by working closely with neighbouring authorities to provide joint services. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney asked about joint working. To support that, we have established a national network for designated clinical officers, funded a local authority-led regional network and developed resources to support joint self-assessment and peer review. We have also funded a SEND leadership programme and legal training for all local authorities and their health partners to ensure that they are clear on their statutory responsibilities.

I understand that many local authorities have provided information to the National Deaf Children’s Society, setting out their plans for sensory support services in the future. My hon. Friend raised particular concerns about provision in Suffolk. We have provided an additional £140 million in high needs funding this year and will provide an additional £120 million next year. In Suffolk, the local authority will receive £59.9 million in high needs funding this year. I understand that Suffolk has not indicated cuts to funding for deaf services this year.

Also this year, we have contracted with the Whole School SEND Consortium to deliver a two-year programme to help to embed SEND in school improvement and help schools to identify and meet their training needs in relation to SEND. That will of course include ensuring that schools, including mainstream schools, know where to access the expertise that they need to support pupils with a hearing impairment.

In addition, a team from University College London will be working with the SEND sector to understand better the supply, demand and drivers for SEND training and continuing professional development. That will enable us to target resources at addressing those areas, too. The National Sensory Impairment Partnership will feed the views of the sensory impairment sector into that work, and we will review the NDCS report on local authority funding as part of that work. We have also asked Ofsted to consider how our accountability system can sufficiently reward schools for their work with pupils who need extra support, and encourage schools to focus on all pupils, not just the highest achievers.

As the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse stated, the vast majority of deaf children are born to hearing parents who have no prior experience of deafness. That is why the Government have separately invested in a number of programmes to support children and young people with hearing impairments, and their families. We have funded the development of an early support guide for parents of deaf children, available through the Council for Disabled Children website. In addition, we have funded the NDCS’s I-Sign project and the development of a family-orientated sign language programme, which is available free on the family sign language website.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether more can be done to ensure that school forums include more representation in respect of SEND. Local authorities are required to include at least one representative from a maintained special school, and a special academy, in their area. Many extend the representation of specialist providers by creating SEND subgroups to look specifically at issues relating to children and young people with SEND across the whole age range to 25. In some areas, there is strong partnership with parent groups so that they are engaged as well. We need to learn from those areas and spread that good practice.

I want to touch on a few issues that colleagues mentioned. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead and the hon. Member for Nottingham South talked about the lack of teachers for deaf and hearing impaired children. To be awarded qualified teacher status, trainees must satisfy the teachers’ standards, which include a requirement that they have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with SEN, and are able to use and evaluate distinctive teaching approaches to engage and support them. Also, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) pointed out, we provided £900,000 of funding to the National Sensory Impairment Partnership between 2016 and 2018 to equip the school workforce. The new SEND schools workforce contract with the Whole School SEND Consortium, led by nasen—the National Association for Special Educational Needs—aims to equip schools to identify and meet their training needs.

There was a question on the specialist workforce and the report by the Consortium for Research into Deaf Education that there has been a 14% reduction in the number of teachers for deaf children over the past seven years. That is based on annual surveys of local authority specialist educational services, and we will look at it very carefully, especially in my discussion with the NDCS. As I understand it, the figures do not include teachers of the deaf in special schools, but I will take that up with the NDCS.

The hon. Member for Blaydon and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead spoke about British sign language and the curriculum. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State for School Standards has written to the NDCS. We are open to considering a proposal for a new GCSE at this stage—for possible introduction during this Parliament. The development of a new qualification is of course a lengthy process, but we are certainly open to that.

I shall conclude now to allow my very good friend the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse to wind up the debate.

Children in Need: Adulthood

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Steve McCabe]

I am sure the Minister heard the hon. Gentleman’s point. I certainly agree that any provision of that nature should be subject to proper inspection.

Today there are more than 1 million disabled children in the UK, yet fewer than ever are getting the support they need. We also need to give some thought to healthcare improvements and just how scary it can be for a young person to wake up after surgery on an adult ward for the first time. We have an acute shortage of community paediatricians and much more work is required in the health sector in planning the transition for young people from children’s to adult services.

The Children Act 1989 requires every local authority to take reasonable steps to identify children in need in its area and to publish information on the services available. It places a particular stress on the health and development of children and the needs of the disabled, but cash-strapped local authorities are struggling to provide even the most basic services. The reality is that 15, 16 and 17-year-olds often have to be at crisis point before there is any intervention.

I acknowledge that there has been a big focus on, and in some cases a switch of resources to, child protection issues, yet while child exploitation scandals such as those in Rochdale and Rotherham serve to demonstrate that many teenage children suffer even greater risk outside the home than inside it, support is limited for the vast majority, even if their need involves neglect, abuse or exploitation. The Department for Education’s figures for 2015-16 suggest that perhaps 13,500 16 and 17-year-olds are in need because of “going missing”, and about 1,500 are in need because of trafficking.

It is estimated that each year some 12,000 16 and 17-year-olds approach local authorities because they are homeless, often as a result of a breakdown in relations with a parent or carer, violence in the home or other problems at home. Homelessness is not currently recognised as a risk factor in identifying children in need, and consequently there are no reliable statistics about the scale of the problem. However, most agencies working with teenagers identify it as a real risk factor, likely also to expose young people to a risk of drugs, alcohol problems, violence and sexual abuse.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. I know he received much support from the Children’s Society and its “Crumbling Futures” report, which is essentially what the debate is all about. I and every other MP has had to deal with the harrowing reality of parents coming to us with teenage children who are aged 18 or 19, for whom there is no support at all. That is why I am so glad he has secured the debate. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one of the anomalies resulting from a change to the law a few years ago is that people have to be in education or training up to the age of 18, but—even if a person is disabled and cannot get to school or training on their own—there is no statutory obligation on a local authority to provide transport for 16 to 18-year-olds?

[Steve McCabe]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Quite a lot of problems result from both extending the school leaving age and creating notional rights for children with disabilities if we do not provide the resources to make it possible to deliver on those advances.

Thanks to some work undertaken by the DFE and other organisations, we know a bit about the common characteristics of children in need: around 13% of them achieve no GCSE passes; they are much more likely to be NEETs—not in education, employment or training—and they are three times more likely than children from the care system to end up homeless. The time has come for a fundamental rethink on what is happening to these young people. We must move away from a model of rationing that allows us to deny help to those who do not reach some arbitrary risk threshold or simply to drop them on their 18th birthday. We must develop an approach that recognises the continuing needs of those vulnerable children and young people who are already in a very disadvantaged position. Of course, that will cost more, but we must not forget that funding for children’s services has fallen by £2.4 billion in real terms since 2010, with an additional £1.5 billion gap for services needed for disabled children. The Chancellor will have to be pressed to address those issues in the 2019 spending review.

I believe there are things the Minister can do. He might look again at the assessment threshold, which many Departments use to thin out the number of young people who even make it to first base, and offer some guidance on the factors that must be considered before an assessment is ruled out. Ideally, every referral by any responsible agency should merit at least a first-stage assessment. I particularly urge him to look at the issue of homelessness among teenagers, to make sure that we do begin to collect reliable data and to instruct local authorities to identify it as a risk factor when assessing children in need. He might also bring wise heads together and demand that they establish proper transition procedures for all those turning 18, so that we put an end to the lottery of assistance and support for vulnerable young people that confronts them as they reach their 18th birthday.

I urge the Minister, in the existing education review, to advocate extending the existing higher-rate pupil premium to all children in need, not just those in care. That would be a real opportunity to help children at an earlier stage. I ask him to consider making it easier for the same children to qualify for discretionary bursaries to help them attend further education or other forms of training. Disabled children and young people would particularly benefit from improved provision of short breaks for them and their carers, and we should at least contemplate the suggestion by the Disabled Children’s Partnership of an early intervention and family resilience fund. In time, such an approach might even be extended to all children in need.

I am not expecting miracles. I know that some things take time and everything costs money, but above all these children need a champion—someone who can lead a real cross-departmental effort to raise the quality of help and support to some of the most vulnerable and deprived young people in our society. I believe the Minister could be that person. We must raise interest in how much we are prepared to do before young people reach crisis point, rather than focusing on making claims about increased funding for services that only become available after youngsters have suffered a major crisis. It is both a moral and an economic issue.

National Funding Formula: Social Mobility

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing the debate. It was very short-notice but, as she flagged up, this is an important issue.

This is one of those fascinating debates where it is a bit like the old cliché of apples and pears, in the sense that one side says one thing, and the other side tweaks it a wee bit, says, “It’s an apple, not a pear,” and stands the argument on its head. Rather than going round in circles, which we can do, frankly, for hours, I will mention one point in particular that strikes home to me.

I have been involved in politics for nigh on 20 years, and previously I spent many years in business. In all the years that I have been in politics, I have discovered that senior public sector people very rarely put their head above the parapet—for obvious reasons, as doing so can put their career in jeopardy. Whether that is right or wrong is irrelevant to the argument. The main thing is that colleagues will remember that, last year, 5,000 headteachers across the country not only wrote to their Members of Parliament and to the Government but went on a march, because they were so anxious about what they said were real-terms cuts to our schools budget. Before I get on to those cuts, I reiterate that I have never seen, in all my years in politics, so many senior people within schools say, “We can’t be doing with this any more. We’re going on a march. We need the money, otherwise our schools are in trouble.” That was so significant to me.

Clearly I know a lot of my local schools, and I met a lot of the heads both when I was first an MP and during the time after I was briefly defenestrated before coming back as the Member of Parliament. I have known some of those people for a long time. I can even remember, in the halcyon days of the coalition, trying to get them to go public on particular issues. There was no way that they would put their head above the parapet, because they did not need the grief. On this issue, however, heads across the country—in Labour, Conservative and Liberal areas across England—were so angry that they rose up and said, “Our schools are facing a crisis.”

To be fair, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), listened and came up with an additional £1.3 billion. I am quite sure that there were sound political reasons for that as well, because of the snap election, but I will give her due credit because I think she deserves it. Despite our being on different sides politically, I thought that she was a good Secretary of State.

[Layla Moran]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it was slightly concerning that that £1.3 billion was not new money? When the Public Accounts Committee, on which I sit, questioned representatives from the Department on where that money would come from, they said that the vast majority of it was coming from so-called efficiency savings. At the time, they were unable to tell us exactly where the money was coming from. Does my hon. Friend share my worry about that?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I entirely agree. A lot of it was apparently not new money, and anyway, even with the best will in the world, it just held everything in place for 12 months—it did not solve the problem. As my hon. Friend has emphasised, as we began to pick into and drill down into those figures, what did we discover? We discovered that quite a lot of it was not the new money it was initially alleged to be.

Having said that, I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Putney. I believe that her heart was in the right place and that she was fighting the schools’ corner as strongly as she could. I certainly think she was probably more on our side of the divide when it came to grammar schools, which is possibly why she is now the ex-Secretary of State—but who am I to make such an allegation?

I come back to the important fact that the headteachers—the people who know—say that funding is going down; there are not net increases, and it has been going on for years and causing real problems. Teachers have not had a decent wage increase in many years, and again, there is a real cross-party push on that. We are hearing soundings from within Government that there is an appreciation that teachers’ wages need to be increased more in line with inflation, similar to the situation in the NHS. However, it is terribly important, to pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), that that is done with new money. If we finally do get that salary increase for teachers, and there is the same story of efficiencies—after seven years they are really beginning to cut into the lean muscle, with the fat having gone from the whole sector—that will be very disappointing. If the Government sign off a good pay increase on the one hand but then on the other hand say that it has to come from school budgets, we will go even further backwards.

I have known the Minister a long time; I hold him in genuine respect, even with our disagreements in the past. I urge him to make a statement today about the scale of the salary rise and a commitment that it will funded by new money and not taken from school budgets, which would just make a bad situation chronic.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon and I have tabled an early-day motion today, specifically urging that the Government find new money to pay teachers a decent increase after their many years of getting static salary increases. I urge hon. Members to sign the early-day motion; I am sure it is very much a cross-party aim that many of us would support.

As I said, it comes down to apples and pears. The National Audit Office—as we all know, it is a highly reputable, respected body—says that in 2018-19, schools will experience additional cost pressures of 1.6%. That may not sound an awful lot, but after a few years of consistent 1%, 2% and 2.5% rises, and a failure to get net funding increases, it adds up considerably. The additional cost pressure comes on top of several years of static Government funding and increases in pupil numbers, salary increments, employer national insurance contributions, employer pension contributions and inflation, meaning that real school budgets have seen a decline of—wait for it—about 15%.

I was in business for years before I went into politics. I know how to trim and how to make efficiency savings. When times are tough, we have to go through efficiency savings. I wholly signed up to those necessary efficiency savings in coalition, but there comes a time when a line needs to be drawn. If someone is looking at a 15% real-terms cut in their business, school or hospital, they are heading for a car crash. That is why I, my hon. Friend the Member for Bath, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon, who is the Liberal Democrat lead in this area, and the Labour party urge the Government to make a longer-term, significant increase to contributions to the schools budget, as well as a separate increase to teachers’ wages.

[Layla Moran]

Does my hon. Friend recognise from meetings he has had with headteachers, as I have had, that the reason why this is significant is that roughly 75% of a school’s budget goes on its teaching and support staff? The reduction in budget can only come from what is left. Schools have now got to the point where they can cut no more without affecting frontline staff, and that will lead to a drop in the quality of service that we can give children and parents across the country.

[Stephen Lloyd]

My hon. Friend is so right. We know that is true. Hon. Members will have spoken to their local headteachers and visited their schools. The number of teaching assistants has been slashed, and support for disabled children is under tremendous pressure. The schools are creaking—there are no two ways about it. I know that the budget is huge and there are thousands and thousands of schools across the country, but having proper funding is such a crucial part of our nation’s future.

I reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bath about grammar school investment. I thought that, after the catastrophic consequence of the snap election in 2017 for the governing party, the whole idea of grammar schools had been kicked into the long grass. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it got into the headlines last week—another £50 million for grammar schools. There really are better ways than grammar schools in a society where we are trying to give everyone the same opportunities to succeed. Without banging on about it, there is so much empirical evidence that shows that they are counterproductive and do not improve outcomes for disadvantaged people. There is so much evidence there that I will not even bore the Minister by outlining it.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath for securing this really important debate on an issue that affects our future and our children’s future. I had the pleasure of welcoming pupils from a wonderful school in my constituency called Shinewater this morning. I know it well; I have visited it probably one gazillion times over the years that I have been either the MP or the parliamentary candidate. It is in a more disadvantaged part of my wonderful constituency of Eastbourne, in Langney. It is a great school with passionate teachers, and the sort of school where the Liberal Democrat policy of the pupil premium, which we delivered when we were in coalition, makes such a difference. That additional funding and support means that children who may not have the obvious advantages that I and many other Members of Parliament have had have an equal chance to have a very successful life in their jobs and relationships.

It was wonderful to welcome the children here. They were all about six or seven years old. Many of them had never even been on a train, let alone an underground. It is so long ago that I was that young that I can barely remember, but it was a pleasure to welcome them. I know the pressure that school is under. It is a good school, and it is doing its best and doing well, but it does not have anywhere near the number of TAs that it used to have. Its funding for special educational needs is severely stretched, and likewise its funding from the county council. It is the sort of school where the teachers go the extra mile, beyond anything that any teachers would have even contemplated 30, 40 or 50 years ago. They do it because they are passionate about the children and the school. I urge the Minister to help us to help schools such as Shinewater around the country—to give them the budget they deserve, to give the teachers the salary rise they deserve and to secure our schools’ funding and future for many years to come.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Lloyd]

On that basis, how does the Minister explain the fact that in the past 18 months or so the number of schools releasing teaching assistants has grown faster than in the previous few years? Does he accept that that must be because of budgetary pressures and that, if it happens across the piece, it could lead to severe challenges down the line?

[Nick Gibb]

We have a benchmarking website where schools can look at their pupil-staff ratios. We have a tool that schools are using, called the curriculum-led financial planning tool. Schools can examine their curriculum using the tool, which was developed by some schools in the north of England—the Outwood Grange multi-academy trust—to ensure that over a three to five-year time span they are planning their staffing to reflect their curriculum. I think that a lot of schools are applying that tool and becoming more efficient. We are helping schools to manage their resources in a way that ensures they can balance the budget.

Every school will, according to the national funding formula, receive an increase in funding of at least 0.5%, but the Secretary of State has acknowledged on many occasions, as I have today, that there have been cost pressures: employers’ national insurance contributions have risen, as they have across the public and private sectors, and there are higher employer’s contributions to the teachers’ pension scheme. We think that is the right thing to do, to get the balance of the cost of those things spread between the schools and the taxpayer and to help to deal with the deficit. We are helping schools to tackle those cost pressures, but the hon. Gentleman should remember that we are spending record amounts of money on schools—£42.4 billion this year rising to £43.5 billion next year. We have been able to do that and maintain per pupil funding in real terms because we have a strong economy and have managed the public finances in a sensible way, bringing down the deficit and keeping public spending under control.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

We have to live within our budget, and the Treasury has to work with the tax receipts it receives and deal with the historic budget deficit it inherited. Somebody has to lend the state that money, and they would not lend us £150 billion every year if we showed no sign of reducing that figure to something more manageable and did not plan ultimately to eliminate it altogether. That is what is happening. That is why we have a strong economy and the lowest level of unemployment for 40 years, why there are opportunities for young people to have a job once they leave our school system, and why fewer children are living in workless households. That is all part of how to manage the public sector in a serious way, which is what the Government have been doing since 2010. That is why we have been able to maintain school funding in real terms over that period, spend £23 billion on capital funding for schools, and fund an increase of 825,000 school places to deal with the increasing pupil population.[Official Report, 19 June 2018, Vol. 643, c. 2MC.]

When we came into office in 2010, we discovered that the previous Government had cut 100,000 school places, despite the increase in the birth rate at the turn of the millennium. We were very sensible in how we managed the capital budget and the revenue budget at a time when we had to tackle a very serious budget deficit as a consequence of the banking crash in 2008.

[Stephen Lloyd]

The Minister has been talking a lot about the national fair funding formula and the additional money in the constituencies of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) and of my hon. Friends the Members for Bath and for Oxford West and Abingdon. When exactly will that national funding formula come in? Does the Minister acknowledge that when it comes in, it will be taking over from cuts of upwards of 20%? There is an awful lot for it to make up for.

[Nick Gibb]

It came in this year, for 2018-19. In the first two years, because of the transition, we want to allow local authorities to have some discretion over how they implement it on a school by school basis. Most authorities are moving quite close to the national funding formula if not moving to it fully, but some want to tweak it for the two years of the transition, and we have allowed that. As I said, we acknowledge that there have been cost pressures, and are helping schools to manage those cost pressures. Going forward, as the IFS said, we are maintaining funding in real terms per pupil for the next two years, because we have managed to secure an extra £1.3 billion.

We are absolutely committed to providing the greatest support to the children who face the greatest barriers to success. That is why we have reformed not just the schools formula but high needs provision, by introducing a high needs national funding formula. It will distribute funding for children and young people with high needs more fairly, based on accepted indicators of need in each area. The extra money that we are making available means that every local authority will see a minimum increase in high needs funding of 0.5% in 2018 and 1% in 2019-20. Underfunded local authorities will receive gains of up to 3% a year per head for the next two years. Overall, local authorities will receive £6 billion to support those with high needs in 2018-19, up by more than £1 billion since 2013-14.

I will draw my remarks to a close, to allow the hon. Member for Bath to make a final contribution to the debate. I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate. Our prime concern is the investment we are making in schools and the steps we are taking to ensure that that money reaches the schools that need it most. That is why we have introduced the national funding formula.

We have been reforming our schools system since 2010, by changing the curriculum to improve the way children are taught to read and the way that maths is taught in our schools. We have reformed our GCSEs so that they are on a par with some of the qualifications taken in higher education institutions around the country. We have been improving behaviour; we have given teachers more powers to deal with bad behaviour in our schools. Standards are rising in our primary and secondary schools, and the attainment gap between children from wealthier and poorer families is closing by 10% in both. Clearly there is more to do, but we are on the right track. Our funding formula is a fairer and more transparent way of distributing funding to our schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on what is going on in her local area; it sounds excellent. A degree apprenticeship is a wonderful way for students to earn while they learn, get a degree, come out at the end of it with several years’ work experience and, probably, be way ahead of their contemporaries who did an undergraduate degree.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

T7. A few weeks ago I had the privilege of meeting the father of Oliver King and founder of the Oliver King Foundation. His young lad, Oliver, died at school. His father’s ambition is to get a defibrillator in every school, because the work that the foundation has done identified that that would save the lives of many, many hundreds of people. Will the Government commit to supporting a defibrillator in every school?

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

We have funded a considerable number of defibrillators in schools, and we are working with the British Heart Foundation to provide facilities for schools to teach first aid and lifesaving skills in schools.

Free School Meals/Pupil Premium: Eligibility

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I greatly appreciate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). The frustration with this issue is that the whole concept behind universal credit is about making work pay. It was defenestrated in 2015 by George Osborne removing the £3 billion and doing it per annum from the work allowance, so it does not make work pay an awful lot. There are lots of clunky bits within universal credit, which I have talked about ad nauseam and which just seem to get worse and worse, which is rather frustrating. Then there are free school meals, which are a tremendous success, yet the Government may well be laying a statutory instrument that will fundamentally not make work pay.

The estimated cost that parents will be paying for a child is £400 if their income is beyond the income floor of £7,400. Imagine I have an income of just over £7,500 and three children. That makes £1,200 before I even get out of bed. Does that make work pay? No, it does not. The rational decision by the parent or parents will be: “What’s the point? There’s no point me doing that extra bit of work and going over £7,500.” That is totally counterproductive.

Unusually for me, I ask the Minister on behalf of the Government to go swinging back to the Treasury and to say to his esteemed colleague, “Government, do nothing.” I know that there are various erroneous, scurrilous rumours going around Parliament and Westminster these days that the Government are not doing an awful lot, but in this case I urge the Minister to do nothing at all. He should not introduce the statutory instrument. The Government should let all children who will be going on to universal credit receive free school meals. I know that would cost £500 million to £600 million, but under the old system things remained the same, because when people went beyond 16 hours the working tax credit made up the difference. I urge the Minister to go back to the Treasury and say, “Do nothing. Let all children on universal credit receive free school meals.”

Free Childcare

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) on her heartfelt speech, which was also accurate in highlighting some of the challenges that this project faces.

I put my cards on the table: I think this is a great project. It is something myself and other parties were excited about when it launched, because it is something that myself and my party have been advocating for a long time. I was consequently disappointed that the Government are trying to introduce what is essentially a Rolls-Royce programme, but not with Rolls-Royce-adequate funding. My fear is that, if we do not get this tremendous programme right—it is supported across the piece and across the political parties—for the sake of essentially 42p to 48p per child per hour, the programme could crash.

If the programme crashes, it could be a long time before it is picked up again, not because of a lack of will among the other parties—I know Labour has been pushing for this programme for a long time—but because the industry will be so badly fractured and morale so damaged that I am not sure it will be ready to pick itself up.

I believe that that is quite possible. Recent research shows that 56% of nurseries think they could be out of business in the next 18 months. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that a quarter are affected. If 12%, 15% or 18% of a sector closes its doors and drops out of business, that is a car crash. That is a matter of tremendous urgency, and I urge the Minister to get behind it and to talk to his colleague the Chancellor in the Treasury.

I know the Minister from my previous time in the House, and I have a lot of respect for him. I know that he is passionate about this issue. Although I am sure he will deny it, when he stands up at the end of the debate and says that everything is fine, it is all going to be cushty and nobody is complaining, I know that he will know that is not true. Knowing the Minister from before as I do, my view is that he would support me in the submission that that extra x number of pence—I know it is multiplied many times—would make a considerable difference to this programme.

[Mr Goodwill]

I know the hon. Gentleman is talking about pence, but is he aware that a 10% increase in funding would be well in excess of £250 million per year?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I am well aware of that. I would say to the Minister that if the whole programme crunches and 20%, 18% or 25% of the providers drop out of the business there will be no business for our children. Truly, I believe that £250 million split across that sector, particularly for something as important for our children and their future, is a price worth paying.

Time is always limited in these debates, so I ask the Minister to consider three proposals seriously. First, will he meet with representatives from the childcare provider and nursery sector, and also from independent providers? In my Eastbourne constituency I know many of the independent providers. They are Ofsted-tested, professional, trained women, half of whom, frankly, I can see pulling out of the industry as independents in the next nine months if the situation is not sorted. Will he meet with representatives from the sector, both nurseries and independent childminders?

Secondly, will the Minister also commit to listen to those representatives and to explore how much additional funding would be needed to just make this programme work? We appreciate that it is early days, but there are always teething problems when things start up—do not even get me going on universal credit, or I will be here all day—and if the Minister met with the people who know how much difference the finances would make, that would be terribly useful.

Last but not least, will the Minister reconsider giving providers flexibility when they make that offer to parents? If they have that little bit of flexibility, they can put on the paper, “This is how much extra we would charge you; you would get this.” I will tell the Minister what happens when they do not have that flexibility: people have to be disingenuous, and I do not like that. I know a lot of the childcare providers and the independents. They are honourable people who care passionately for what they do. If they do not continue being disingenuous, what then? They will go bust—

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Schools will do better out of the funding formula than they would have done had the Labour party won the last election. The Labour party only guaranteed a cash freeze, but we are going beyond that. Schools will do better under this Government than they would have done under a disastrous Corbyn Government. We are proud of the raising of standards in schools during our term in office. Nine out of 10 schools are good or outstanding, and that is something that we should be talking up, not talking down.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

2. What steps her Department is taking to help older adults from low-income backgrounds to access further education and training.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Anne Milton)]

People of all ages, backgrounds and incomes must have the opportunity to get the skills that they need. Last year, more than 655,000 people aged 45-plus participated in further education. To help older adults from low-income backgrounds, we provide full funding for English and maths, and courses for unemployed people, support through community learning and advanced learner loans for those with specific financial hardship. Loans to help remove cost barriers associated with upskilling are important, because they enable those on lower incomes to acquire the skills that they need.

[Stephen Lloyd]

Since 2015, the number of part-time students aged over 30 has dropped—by 10% in the first year alone. Funding for the adult education sector will remain frozen for five years after 2020. That real-terms cut has led to a drop-off of almost 16,000 in the number of people aged 30 and over being able to afford access to further education. Will the Secretary of State confirm what actions her Department is taking to halt this nosedive in the number of older part-time students seeking to improve their education opportunities, or have she and the Government already written those people off?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his doctoral thesis on the subject, but subsequent questions should, frankly, be shorter. The hon. Gentleman is an experienced hand, and he ought to know better.