Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

6. What funding his Department plans to provide for schools in Waltham Forest for 2011-12; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

As part of the spending review on 20 October, the Government have protected school funding in the system at flat cash per pupil and, in addition, provided funding for a pupil premium from outside the schools budget. We expect to announce the funding allocations for education for 2011-12 by the end of the year.

[Stella Creasy]

Let me try to shed some light on the issue. Waltham Forest has 27% of its children on free school meals, well above the national average of 16%, and 34% of its parents are in receipt of out-of-work credits, well above the national average of 20%. A real-terms increase in our school funding would mean a rise of more than 1.25% in our schools budget for 2011-12, so can Ministers guarantee that, or are they simply better at music than maths?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady will have to wait until we make the full announcements per school. Many of the anomalies to which she alludes are the sort of thing that will be dealt with by the pupil premium in any case, and by fairer funding for individual schools.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

7. What steps he is taking to provide support for parents in preparing their children to start school.

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[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

13. What representations he has received on serious case reviews since the implementation of his Department’s requirement to publish them in full.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

We believe that publishing serious case review overview reports will help to restore public confidence and improve transparency in the child protection system, and ensure relevant lessons are learned and applied as widely as possible. I have received only a very small number of representations since the Government’s announcement on publishing serious case reviews on 10 June. I also considered comments received from relevant parties prior to publishing the SCR overview reports relating to Peter Connelly on 26 October.

[Meg Munn]

I know that the Minister is genuinely committed to improving child protection. In that spirit, will he give a commitment to examine the process of publishing serious case reviews in full so that in future we can, if necessary, amend the system better to protect families’ privacy and enable professionals properly to learn from mistakes?

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s comments. She has great experience in this area. What she asks has already happened, and we commissioned Professor Eileen Munro on 10 June to undertake a review of how child protection works in this country. That will include how to improve serious case reviews to ensure that they are the genuine learning tools that we all desperately need them to be.

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[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

18. What assessment he has made of the likely effects on sport in schools of planned changes in his Department’s expenditure.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

The planned changes in the Department’s expenditure on school sport, beginning in 2011-12, will enable us to deliver on our coalition Government commitment to create an annual Olympic-style school sport event to encourage more competitive sport in schools.

[Ian Austin]

Just because the Secretary of State hated sport when he was at school, that is no reason to deprive today’s youngsters of the opportunity to take part. When we came to power, just two out of 10 youngsters did two hours of sport a week; today the figure is nine out of 10, as a result of the extra funding and support that we put in. How many will it be as a result of the Government’s cuts?

[Tim Loughton]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s new-found interest in sport from the Opposition Front Bench, because he had not asked any questions about it in his five years in the House previously. Since 2003, when the school sports partnership was introduced, £2.4 billion has been added to expenditure on sport in schools, and yet still, barely one in five students in secondary schools are involved in competitive sports against other schools. We think that we can get a much better deal by adjusting the way we do things.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

19. What recent representations he has received on standards of attainment in secondary schools in (a) Great Yarmouth constituency and (b) England.

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[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

What message has the Minister for the young disabled people in Abbey Hill special school, and in other schools in my constituency, who have enjoyed taking part in sport through the school sports partnership, but will no longer be able to do so because he has withdrawn the funds?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

The hon. Gentleman has only half the story. We will introduce a competitive sport ethos in schools which has been missing. We need to get much better bang for our buck than we get by spending £2.4 billion so that one in five secondary school age students can indulge in competitive sport against other schools. We want them to be doing much more, but we are not getting that at the moment.

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

What advice would Ministers give someone wishing to apply to become a trainee educational psychologist, bearing in mind not only the current freeze on recruitment, but the great need for an adequate supply of educational psychologists to improve education for those with special educational needs?

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[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

As youth services nationally have already been cut by 30 to 40%, the cuts to the National Youth Agency are so severe that it will no longer be able to carry out the annual audit of youth work, and Ofsted is no longer to inspect youth work, how will the Secretary of State ensure the quality of youth service provision in future?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady underlines the great importance of engaging the young people of this country as proper citizens, which is why we are carrying forward the national citizen service programme, which will give an offer to every 16-year-old in this country to come forward so it can help their transition to adulthood by enabling them to do worthwhile things in the community, and it will therefore offer a positive message about the good things—the great things—young people in this country do. In the past, we have been too much down on young people. I want to see a Government who are committed to being positive for youth, and this Government are.

[Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)]

National adoption week took place in the first week in November, highlighting the plight of the many children in care who require a permanent home. What steps are this Government taking to address this pressing issue, not least when many children have to wait many months, if not years, to be matched with parents?

[Tim Loughton]

Adoption is a vital component in giving often deeply damaged children a second chance of a good, stable, loving family, and it is very worrying that recent figures showed a 15% fall. I am determined that we get rid of the political correctness and bureaucracy in the system that has meant that many children are waiting too long in care, often never getting the chance of a place in an adoptive family. We need to speed up the process and do away with political correctness and bureaucracy forthwith.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Evidence from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Arts Council England and others has shown the very real impact access to live theatre can have on the attainment of young people in schools. What specific discussions is the Secretary of State having with the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport to ensure that all young people can still access live theatre, especially those from low-income backgrounds?