National Numeracy Day

Stephen Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 18th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Maria. I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for opening the debate. It is a pleasure to be speaking about National Numeracy Day, even if it is a day after it. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it National Numeracy Day plus one.

I pay tribute to all the maths teachers, tutors and numeracy charities across the country. Maths can be a trickier subject than others for some people, but the hard work of teachers, teaching assistants, tutors, parents and volunteers goes such a long way in educating our nation’s children and improving their numeracy skills.

The hon. Gentleman made a number of helpful contributions. He is clearly very qualified to do so, given his three A-levels in maths. I note that the Minister jotted that down; perhaps he will encourage the hon. Gentleman to take up a career in maths teaching one day. I thank him again for securing this debate.

As we have heard, the importance of numeracy cannot be overstated. The skills that we learn in maths classrooms last us a lifetime, and we use them every day. As the hon. Gentleman said, whether it is dividing up a bill at a restaurant, working out which supermarket deal offers the best value or figuring out how many days it is until the weekend, we all use maths every day. However, according to the National Numeracy charity—the organisation behind National Numeracy Day, as the hon. Gentleman said—nearly half the UK’s working population have the numeracy levels expected of an 11-year-old child. Only a fifth are functionally numerate, measured as the equivalent of a GCSE grade 4 or above. As a result, the UK sits in the bottom half of the OECD numeracy skills rankings.

Although people sometimes make light of the fact that they are bad at maths, it really should not be a laughing matter. Poor numeracy skills impact people’s lives in a real way. They can impact personal finances too, and leave people more susceptible to fraud and amassing debt. Skills learned in school are later needed when it comes to valuing a mortgage deal, planning credit payments, taking out loans or saving for retirement. As the hon. Gentleman said, National Numeracy estimates that poor numeracy costs the economy up to £20 billion per year, as a widespread lack of confidence with numbers contributes to sluggish productivity.

These problems clearly require urgent attention, but they are not fixed by gimmicks, pledges or empty rhetoric. In 2011, the then Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), said that he would like to see the vast majority of pupils in England study maths to the age of 18 within a decade. Of course, the Prime Minister has reheated that pledge in recent months, but he is yet to explain how he expects to deliver it given that the Government have failed to meet their maths teacher recruitment target every year for the past decade, leading to a total shortfall of more than 5,000 teachers.

Despite the Prime Minister’s words, the problem is not getting any better. Last year, more teachers left our schools than joined initial teacher training courses. Under the Conservatives, teacher vacancies have risen by 246%. The Government’s failure to recruit and retain teachers has left schools scrambling to fill roles and asking non-specialist teachers to go above and beyond. Recent Labour party analysis found that one in 10 maths lessons in the past year were taught by non-expert teachers, meaning that high standards are currently for some of our children but not all. Ministers have also quietly shelved plans for the £100 million digital aspect of Multiply. It was supposed to be launched last year and was previously described by the Department as a “critical pillar” in the plan to boost maths skills, and as the “centrepiece” of the Prime Minister’s push to improve adult numeracy, but according to recent reports, it has been put on hold. It remains unclear whether the £100 million earmarked for the scheme will be used for other numeracy initiatives or whether the money will go back to the Treasury.

The Government’s levelling-up White Paper set

“a new national mission to ensure that 90% of children leaving primary school in England are reaching the expected standard in reading, writing, and maths by 2030.”

But in 2022, 41% of year 6 pupils in England left primary school without meeting the expected standard. That is 50,000 more children than 2019. We are moving backwards. The figures are even worse for children on free school meals, fewer than half of whom are meeting expected standards by the end of primary school. The same is true of secondary school, where the attainment gap is now wider than at any point in the last decade.

The Government will claim that those gaps are due to the pandemic, but the gap was widening before covid and has worsened since. Last week, the Education Policy Institute reported that primary school children are still struggling to catch up on maths in the wake of covid, with children aged four to 11

“five weeks behind their expectations prior to the outbreak more than three years ago.”

We should not forget that during the pandemic, the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), said that he had “maxed out” funding for children. The hugely damaging impact of the Prime Minister’s inaction on children’s learning of maths—his alleged priority—is only beginning to become clear.

In the debate, all Members have said that improving numeracy for children and adults is extremely important. The first step to addressing the problem is ensuring that children are taught the subject properly. That means being taught by experts, not overstretched teachers covering for their colleagues. That is why Labour is committed to ensuring that pupils are taught by specialist teachers in each subject, including maths. We will do this by recruiting thousands of new teachers across the country, ensuring that schools are not understaffed, that maths is not being taught by English teachers and vice versa, and that teachers are not burnt out from both doing their own job and covering someone else’s. Once in schools, we will also support teachers by entitling them to ongoing teacher training, providing them with the skills and knowledge to thrive—the skills that teachers tell us they need to develop their professional expertise in their chosen area—and ensure that every young person has a teacher with the expertise and time to teach with confidence and care.

Labour will also look at the curriculum and what young people are learning as a whole to ensure we are equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in the world and in the workplace of the future. Under Labour, young people will learn practical life skills such as pension planning, understanding credit scores, applying for a mortgage and understanding employment and rental contracts. We want to see young people succeed academically and in life. Central to that is developing literacy and numeracy skills. We will support them to be ambitious, creative and confident young people, who enjoy music, arts, sports and culture. We will also support them to be great communicators, collaborators and problem solvers and to be happy and successful.

Labour will deliver an excellent education for every child in every school in every part of the country. In doing so, we will drive up standards in all areas, including numeracy, and support all children to fulfil their ambitions. As we have heard, the importance of numeracy to children’s future life chances is simply too crucial to not be addressed with immediacy. I therefore hope the Minister will outline what his Department is doing to recruit its target number of maths teachers for the first time in a decade and to retain the brilliant maths teachers already in the profession, ensuring that our children are taught by subject specialists.

Can the Minister update the House on his Department’s plans for the digital platform Multiply, which was set to be launched last year? It was previously described by the Department as a crucial pillar in the plan to boost numeracy skills, but according to recent reports has been put on hold. In his response, it would be helpful if he could specifically update us on whether the £100 million earmarked for the platform will be used for other numeracy-focused projects. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I thank all colleagues for their contributions to this important debate.