Children from Low-Income Families: Education Support

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for the education of children from low-income families.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I rise to speak on this issue as a parent and, like all of us here today, as someone who wants the best for our schoolchildren, and to ensure that they are not limited by their background or their parents’ income.

I stand in awe of the incredible work teachers, school staff, parents and early years practitioners have put in over the past 15 months to ensure that children in school do not miss out. They have adapted to social distancing measures in classrooms, regular testing and isolation periods, all while ensuring that children feel safe and can learn. Sadly, we have not seen the same commitment from the Government.

In common with almost all other Government Departments in their response to the pandemic, there has been a catalogue of Conservative failures in education, including school closures without an effective plan for distance learning; a promise to primary schools that they would return before the summer holidays last year, then backtracking on that promise; and preventing families from accessing food vouchers during school holidays, only to do a screeching U-turn after outrage and condemnation from across our nation. How could we forget the exams fiasco for both A-level and GCSE students, leaving thousands distressed about their future? In addition, the Conservatives presided over legal action to force schools to stay open, only to shut them weeks later; in their catch-up plan, they provided less than £1 per day when children were out of school; and they ignored the advice from the expert adviser, Sir Kevan Collins, to allow children to properly recover from the pandemic, forcing him, unfortunately, to resign. As one Slough headteacher, commenting on Government behaviour on education, noted:

“Communication is last minute, it’s ill thought-out and it hasn’t included our voice in the whole process.”

Schools have had to cope with all that in the space of just over a year. It would be almost comical if the impact of this incompetence was not on our children’s futures. Each delayed or poor decision has resulted in worse outcomes for a generation of schoolchildren who have been left to suffer. The impact of these decisions is real, and the consequences are even more severe for those who were already disadvantaged and come from low-income families.

The most recent figures show that since October 2020 the number of pupils eligible for free school meals has increased by over 100,000. At the same time, support and funding for such pupils has fallen, with the Government moving eligibility for pupil premium support back from January to October. Schools, which have already been left bruised by cuts to their resources since 2010, therefore miss out on additional funding for any child who began claiming free school meals after 1 October 2020, leaving them short-changed to the tune of millions.

As the Lawrence report proved last year, children on free school meals are already at an economic and educational disadvantage. That factor has a real and profound impact on pupil attainment across all ethnicities. In 2019, just 25% of pupils who had been eligible for free school meals, or who had been in care or adopted from care, received grades 9 to 5 in GCSE English and maths, compared with 50% of other pupils. After brutal cuts and the cynical moving of deadlines, is it any surprise that disadvantaged schoolchildren are struggling?

One Slough parent who lost their job and was reliant on food vouchers expressed their turmoil to me, saying:

“My daughter has been left out by the very government that we rely on to keep us and our loved ones safe.”

Instead of investing to ensure that families in Slough have adequate support to ensure that their children are clothed, fed, and can attend school, the Government have continued to cut the support on which they rely so heavily. The move from legacy benefits to universal credit means that just half of the children in the poorest fifth of our population are able to get free school meals. Sadly, this Government seem intent on savings, rather than on investing the potential of future generations.

While that neglect of our poorest families continues, the gap between them and their peers widens. In my constituency of Slough, the learning gap between disadvantaged pupils and their classmates is 2.4 months for early years, almost six months in primary schools, and in our secondary schools it has reached more than 11 months. Those tragic facts were set in motion way before the onset of the pandemic, and we have yet to see the long-term impact that the pandemic may have on our children. Researchers from the Education Policy Institute have identified that the increasing proportion of disadvantaged children who are in persistent poverty has contributed to the lack of progress in narrowing the learning gap.

Ensuring that parents get the proper financial support that they deserve is essential to children’s attainment and achievements in later life. A Slough mother contacted me recently to attest to that. She was living on just £120 a month and was unable to properly feed or clothe her children. She was desperate for empathy from the Government and adequate support to better the lives of her family. If children experience difficulties at home, they are in no position to be ready to learn.

We must give children the resources to thrive, not leave them to struggle through a pandemic, like the thousands who were unable to get the devices that they needed to access their schooling when the Government’s laptop allocation promise was slashed by 80%. Back in January, Labour’s calls to get every child online fell on deaf ears. As I mentioned earlier, 100,000 pupils have not returned to school full-time following schools reopening. All along, there has been no plan for the education of the most vulnerable in our society.

I am a great believer in the power of education, and in Slough we have some of the best schools in the country. Without support from the Government in what has undoubtedly been the most difficult time for education and disadvantaged families in recent years, the opportunities that a good education can deliver are being missed. We should be realistic about the dire and lasting impact that continued Government inaction will have. A Royal Society report suggests that the impact of school closures on 13 cohorts of students has the potential to affect a quarter of the entire workforce for the next 50 years, and disadvantaged pupils are particularly at risk of falling into poverty.

It is possible to turn the tide with a properly funded catch-up plan, not one that will reach just 8% of pupils, less than half of whom are on free school meals. We need action proportionate to the serious times ahead to ensure that children from low-income families do not miss out even more and to improve the outcomes of future generations, ensuring that they are better off than their predecessors and that they can access and achieve their ambitions, not be held back. The Government will never improve the prospects of our nation by leaving disadvantaged children behind

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate can last until 4 pm. I am obliged to call the Front-Bench spokespeople no later than 3.27 pm and the guideline limits are 10 minutes for the Scottish National party, 10 minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister. Then the mover of the motion will have three minutes to sum up the debate at the end. But until 3.27 pm, we are in Back-Bench time and our first contributor will be Siobhain McDonagh.

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[Vicky Ford]

Let me just make this point: one of the most important things that we can do for children’s reading skills is invest in their early education. This Government introduced the two-year-old offer, which provides 15 hours of free childcare a week for 38 weeks a year to disadvantaged two-year-olds and children with a disability or special educational needs. Children who take up those 15 hours a week of free nursery or pre-school are likely to have better educational outcomes, and that early experience in their youngest years can have a positive impact on their educational attainment throughout their entire school career, even at secondary school.

However, the proportion of eligible two-year-olds using that offer of free early education varies hugely across the country. The hon. Member for Slough introduced the debate. In Slough, in January 2020, before the pandemic, the proportion of two-year-olds taking up that incredibly generous offer from the Government was only 49%—the fourth lowest of the 151 local authorities in the country. The take-up in Leicester East—the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) spoke today— is only 57%. I say to the hon. Member for Slough and other hon. Members that if they really care about the educational attainment of children in their constituencies, they should start from the very earliest years and invest their effort in getting out to their constituents and encouraging parents on the lowest incomes to take up the Government’s generous offer of 15 hours of high-quality early education experience in their local nursery or pre-school. We fund it, and it will benefit their kids for the rest of their academic career.

I am enormously proud that the last time we assessed our five-year-olds, nearly three out of four of our country’s children were achieving a good level of development by the end of reception.

[Mr Dhesi]

Will the Minister give way?

[Vicky Ford]

I will take some interventions in a minute, but there are some important points that I need to make.

Back in 2013, when we assessed them, it was only one in two children. To put it another way, one out of two children who were born in the last years of the Labour Government was already falling behind by the time they started big school. Now, three out of four are excelling and exceeding.

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the Minister for her comments about the extra funding. However, would she not concede that schools in Slough have had their funding cut in real terms? On many occasions, people have not been able to access the free school meals provision simply because of the manner in which it has been categorised. On how the schools themselves have been funded, would she not concede that the decimation as a consequence of the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future programme has meant that many schools have leaking roofs, have not been able to undertake maintenance work and have had to delay emergency works?

[Vicky Ford]

A few other Members mentioned free school meals, including the hon. Members for Leicester East and for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq). This Government have extended the eligibility for free school meals more than any other Government for the past 50 years. It is this Government who introduced universal free school meals and expanded free school meals to those in further education. During the pandemic, we also widened the provision to many children who normally have no recourse to public funds. The Government have also provided funding to local authorities during the pandemic to ensure that the hardest-hit families are supported with food and essentials through the covid local support grants. That has even supported them during the school holidays. Those grants have been extended through the coming holiday at a cost of more than £100 million.

I want to get back to the point that the hon. Member for Slough made about Slough. Slough children’s services have been enormously challenging for many years. The Department for Education has provided significant investment in children’s services in Slough—nearly an extra £7 million over the past two years. As the hon. Gentleman knows, it transferred the ownership of Slough Children First, the trust, to Slough Borough Council in April. I call on him to get behind the relationship between the trust and the local authority. I, as Minister, have signed off millions of pounds to give that support to Slough children. He should work with the trust to put Slough children first in his constituency.

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[Vicky Ford]

The holiday activities and food programme, which we had already been trialling for three years, is going live across the country this year. It was a manifesto commitment to increase this holiday and wraparound childcare, which we are doing.

I have huge respect for Marcus Rashford and his great passion to make sure that children are properly fed and cared for. I am enormously grateful to him for shining a light on this issue and indeed for the video he made just last week supporting the Government’s holiday activities and food scheme and encouraging children to take part, because it is a great scheme. However, using language saying that I personally was dragged kicking and screaming to care for children, when caring for children is what I do every day and what my Department does every day, is not appropriate, and it scares children.

Let me just get back to the point. We have made many interventions over the past decade to support children, and especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and it has made a difference. It is not just us saying that; the OECD recognised our progress. The latest programme for international student assessment, or PISA, results show that the proportion of pupils from low-income households who succeed academically in England is well above the OECD average. Since 2011, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and others has narrowed by 13% in primary school and 9% in secondary school. And, yes, it has remained broadly stable in the past couple of years; it widened by 0.5% in primary between 2018 and 2019, but it narrowed by 1% in secondary between 2019 and 2020.

However, we know that the pandemic will have widened that attainment gap. In order to minimise the pandemic’s impact, we kept schools open for vulnerable children, as well as for the children of key workers. We have also announced three further funding packages—a total of more than £3 billion—to provide extra resources to help pupils to make up ground. I remind Members that that comes on top of the £14 billion of extra investment in education that had already been announced by the Government over a three-year period.

In this £3 billion package, we announced—first in June 2020 and then in February 2021—£1.7 billion to support education recovery. That included £930 million in flexible funding for schools to use as they see best, while another £200 million was weighted so that schools with more disadvantaged pupils receive more funding. There was £550 million for tutoring, £200 million for summer schools and another £22 million to scale up evidence-based practices. We also invested in over 1.3 million laptops for disadvantaged children and young people. I know that Labour Members often call for more, but let us remember that this was a massive procurement effort at a time of unprecedented global demand.

[Mr Dhesi]

Will the Minister give way?

[Vicky Ford]

No, because I want to respond to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) about the issues that she raised regarding rural broadband and broadband access across the country. I remind her that only yesterday the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which is the Department responsible for broadband, announced a further £1 billion upgrade to mobile connectivity. That will particularly benefit rural areas of Scotland, Wales and north-east England, and is again a reminder of why it is so important that we work together in a one-nation approach to support people across the Union.

On the recovery programme, the evidence is clear that investment will have the most significant impact for disadvantaged children in two areas: high-quality tutoring and great teaching. That is why the latest announcement of an additional £1 billion for tutoring will help to deliver more than 100 million tutoring hours for children and young people across England over the next three years. That will expand high-quality tutoring in every part of the country so that it is available to every child who needs help catching up, not just those who can afford it. Another £400 million will provide half a million teacher training opportunities for schoolteachers and evidence-based professional development for early years practitioners.

The hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) spoke really clearly about the importance of oracy and early language. I absolutely agree with her that the development of early language and communication skills is crucial to a child’s journey. Indeed, that is one of the reasons why, even in the lockdown at the beginning of this year, we were so keen to keep early years establishments open for children—they are so key.

What the hon. Lady may have missed is what we are doing about that issue. One of the interventions we have put in place through the national tutoring programme is the Nuffield early language intervention. That is a very specific programme, and our evidence very much shows that it works. It is targeted at children in reception year who are behind others in their early language skills. I have been to see it being delivered across the country. Forty per cent. of schools have already signed up and are taking part, covering around 60,000 children at the moment, and nearly a quarter of a million children have been screened across the country.

I wrote to the hon. Lady last week—I wrote to Members from all English constituencies—including the list of schools in her constituency that are doing the NELI programme. The evidence shows that it adds around three months’ learning. I also asked her if she would promote it to other schools, because we are expanding it. The deadline is the end of July, so please put it out there.

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[Vicky Ford]

No. I have taken many interventions, and I am going to speak about the holiday activities and food programme. It provides healthy food and enriching social activities and has been particularly targeted at supporting those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. We have been trialling it for the past three years, and we have structured it in a way that suits what parents and families want. The evidence from the past three years is that taking part in the holiday activities and food programme improves children’s wellbeing and helps them to make a better start when they come back to school in September for the new term, so it helps to close the attainment gap that I have spoken about.

The hon. Member for Slough will be interested to know how much is being invested in his local area—I noticed that he did not mention the holiday activities and food programme much in his speech. In Slough, the investment is £587,720. We are working with authorities such as Slough—indeed, with all 151 local authorities across the country—to help them to prepare and build capacity as we get towards the summer, because we want every single part of the country to have a really rich mix of provisions—different offers—for our children and young people and to really engage and excite them to have a very enjoyable summer.

This summer we are also funding face-to-face summer schools, focusing in particular on children and pupils transitioning into secondary schools. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned year 6 pupils, whom the summer schools will be particularly focused on.

[Mr Dhesi]

I am grateful to the Minister for rattling off a whole series of programmes and the funding available, including to my Slough constituents. However, will she concede that these numbers, as good as they are, are simply not enough? The Government’s own catch-up education tsar, who is no longer in his post, and experts within education, including headteachers, all acknowledge that, as wonderful as all these sums are, they are simply not enough. Will the Minister concede that we need to invest more in our children if they are not to fall further behind?

[Vicky Ford]

Let us look at the detail of what the hon. Gentleman says. I mentioned the NELI programme, which is working in 40% of the schools in the country. We have offered it to any school that wants to sign up. It is for any child from reception that needs it. Schools have identified a quarter of a million children for screening, and they are screening them and finding out which ones will benefit from the programme and then offering it to them.

In terms of wider education catch-up, we have already invested in the teaching and tutoring elements, because we know from the evidence that those bits benefit children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds most—this debate is obviously about children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. The hon. Gentleman will know, because we have said it many times, that we continue to look at the time element—should we increase the length of the school day? There are mixed views about that. The evidence is less well known, and that is why we launched a consultation. So, again, I encourage him, instead of saying that it is not enough, to get his teachers to look at the consultation and give their views, because that is exactly why we are doing it. We have invested record amounts in our schools.

The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn, used very strong words when speaking about early years funding. Members should remember that it was a Conservative-led Government that introduced that the 15 hours of free childcare for two-year-olds and the 30 hours of free childcare for three and four-year olds when the parents are working. That is a significant, £3.5 billion investment in early education because we know that it has such benefit for our children. It is a huge increase on what was ever invested during the last Labour Government.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the changes we made to the census date for the pupil premium. The census date has changed to give schools more certainty about what funding they will be getting over the entire financial year. It has been subject to significant media reporting over recent months, much of which has been both inaccurate and deeply misleading. The total pupil premium funding is increasing to more than £2.5 billion in 2021-22, up by £60 million from last year. It is not being cut. Furthermore, pupils who became eligible for free school meals between October and January will still bring pupil premium funding with them, starting in the following financial year, and will continue to attract funding for six years.

The impact of this census change should not be viewed in isolation. The ambitious education recovery programme that has gone hand in hand with it is worth £3 billion to date—many times more than the impact of moving the census date. That includes £302 million for the recovery premium, with £22 million to scale up proven approaches. That £302 million is further to support disadvantaged pupils with their attainment.

I say to Opposition Members that we are speaking about children. Children have had a very difficult time, and it is incredibly important that we do not mislead them, we are accurate in our allegations and we do not scaremonger.

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[Mr Dhesi]

My gratitude, Mr Hollobone, for the excellent manner in which you have chaired today’s debate. I also send my gratitude to Mr Speaker and the House authorities for allowing this important debate to take place.

I extend my best wishes and thanks to right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in today’s debate and particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). She spoke with gravitas about the impact of the digital divide, which is felt even more now that one in 20 schoolchildren are out of school self-isolating, with many still not able to have access to devices and broadband internet. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) spoke passionately about the damage being inflicted on poverty-stricken families in her constituency, and pointed out that three quarters of teachers are suffering from fatigue and that children are suffering from hunger and a lack of ability to concentrate. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) spoke eloquently about how these are the largest cuts to education in 40 years, about the devastation wrought on low-income families and about the impact, in particular, on the oracy of all our children. As a fellow member of the oracy APPG, I thank her and others for the incredible work they are doing to highlight those issues.

In his own inimitable style, the hon. and distinguished Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about the comparison with what is happening in Northern Ireland—the steps taken there to tackle underachievement, the food and toy parcels being delivered by the likes of the Trussell Trust, and the work of the voluntary sector in general. I also thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), the Scottish National party spokesperson for education, for the SNP perspective on socially just policies and how more radical policies are required—in particular, the social tariff for broadband, free school meals for all children, the delivery of devices, and the right to food being enshrined in law.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), the Labour spokesperson for education, spoke articulately and with great experience of this subject, gained over so many years. She highlighted how £90 million had been lost because of pupil premium recategorisation. She also spoke about Labour’s transformative policies with regard to the children’s recovery plan, breakfast clubs, digital access for all, free school meals, and much more besides.

I am grateful to the Minister for her remarks today and for her perspective that it has always been her ambition and priority to level up and to look after children from more disadvantaged sections of our community. As I said during the debate, a great number of programmes and figures have been rattled off today by the Minister, but I feel that she has been sent out on a very sticky wicket, in the sense that the Treasury has hampered much of what the Department for Education would like to be doing and what many of us as Members of Parliament would like it to be doing.

After this debilitating pandemic, which has without doubt hit children in our communities the hardest, the catch-up fund that has been proposed is simply not enough. Even the holiday activities and food programme the Minister mentioned, which Slough constituents can avail themselves of, unfortunately provides only 16 days of food support over an entire summer holiday period. That is why, as hon. Members have pointed out, the Government’s own appointed education recovery tsar has been forced to resign.

[Vicky Ford]

On the subject of the holiday activities and food programme, it is really important that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents understand that we run it for four weeks, for four days a week, because we have been trialling it for three years and that is what parents and families have tended to want. They do not tend to want to attend every day. In addition, this summer, the covid local government support scheme will be there—as it has been at Christmas, Easter, spring half-term and last half-term—to make sure that families that need access to extra food and support can get it, so please stop this “We’re only there for 16 days of the summer holidays.” That is not what we are doing: we are making sure that our children can get these activities and food, which are so much better for them, as we have seen from the evidence.

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the Minister for that clarification, but I come back to the same point: it simply is not enough. That is why we have to carry on in this endeavour.

I thank everybody once again, and I humbly suggest to the Minister that we need to do more than just 10% of whatever it takes: we need to go the whole hog to look after and enhance the prospects of children.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).