Tim Loughton
Main Page: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)Department Debates - View all Tim Loughton's debates with the Department for Education
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
11. What steps he is taking to reduce truancy in primary schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)
In view of your earlier ruling, Mr Speaker, I shall limit my answer so that it focuses narrowly on Nuneaton’s truancy problems. The Government agreed with Charlie Taylor’s recent recommendation to focus on improving the attendance of vulnerable pupils in primary schools, to prevent patterns of poor attendance from developing. In response, we are reforming absence data collection to publish information on the attendance of four-year-olds. We are also tightening regulations on term-time holidays, so that they are authorised only in exceptional circumstances, and we have uprated the penalty fine levels for parents who shirk their responsibility to ensure that their children attend school.
Mr Jones
I thank the Minister for his response. Given the positive impact that parents’ involvement can have on their child’s education and attendance at school, what steps is he taking in addition to those that he has just mentioned to ensure that parents are encouraged and supported to become involved in that way?
Tim Loughton
This needs to involve a combination of rewards and penalties. New guidance will come into force next year, which will give head teachers the power to issue penalties, including penalty notices. In 2010, local authorities were responsible for bringing 11,757 attendance prosecutions when parents failed to ensure that their children attended school. Surely, however, the best incentive for parents is the knowledge that the very best start in life they can give their children is to ensure that they go to school on a regular basis.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
12. What steps he is taking to support the provision of better facilities for special needs education in Warrington.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)
The Government have published an action plan for adoption, which aims to reduce delays in adoption by legislating to prevent local authorities from spending too long seeking a perfect adoptive match, by accelerating the assessment process for prospective adopters, and by making it easier for children to be fostered by their likely eventual adopters in certain circumstances. We have also introduced an adoption scorecard to focus attention on the issue of timeliness, linked to a tougher intervention regime.
Nicky Morgan
I thank the Minister for his reply. I have written to him twice about two constituents who have been trying desperately to be considered as adopters—not by Leicestershire county council, but by another midlands authority. This authority has consistently thrown up hurdle after hurdle—such as asking for health tests, and raising the issue of lack of child care experience. The latest hurdle involved the lady’s ex-husband and this meant disclosing her address to him because he was apparently needed to give a reference. These sorts of hurdles are only going to slow down the process, so will the Minister assure us all that those hurdles can be got rid of?
Tim Loughton
My hon. Friend raises some points that are all too common. I have been deluged with similar stories from other prospective adopters up and down the country. We need to make it absolutely clear that we absolutely welcome people who come forward because they are interested in offering a safe, loving and stable home for a child in care who needs to be adopted. The adoption scorecards have contextualised data on them so that we can see how well local authorities are welcoming, retaining and converting prospective adopters into actual adopters. That provides important evidence to make sure that every local authority welcomes adopters with open arms.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
15. What plans he has for changes to the national curriculum for English.
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
On behalf of my parliamentary colleagues and the very brave young people who came to our inquiry and talked about their personal experience in care, I thank the Minister with responsibility for children for his positive response to our report on children missing from care. Does he agree that we need to take urgent action to improve a care system that is failing to protect and keep safe vulnerable children who run away and go missing?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments, and I congratulate her on the first-class report, which was published today. I will speak about it more fully in about an hour and a half’s time, when it is officially launched. That report, together with the special expedited report from Sue Berelowitz, the deputy children’s commissioner, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State asked her to produce, will inform our progress report on the child sexual exploitation action plan, which we intend to publish in the next few weeks. That will contain urgent recommendations and details of action already under way to ensure that those vulnerable children are kept much safer than they are now.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
T6. There have been recent complaints about the rigour and discipline of beauty therapy skills academies. Although the Minister may have had less time for a pedicure or manicure recently, will he confirm that he will bring rigour and discipline to beauty therapy skills academies, wherever possible?
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The Minister will be aware that in Amnesty International’s recent young human rights report 2012, young students had written pieces on child brides and on human trafficking. Does he agree that teachers have a key role in both challenging and inspiring pupils to take up such causes?
Tim Loughton
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. He has rightly made that into something of a cause, because those offences against children are going on too much and under the radar. First, we need to ensure that they come out into the daylight of transparency so that we can see exactly what is going on. We need to inform children better, within and outwith schools, on what they should be sensitive to. We need to work with local safeguarding children boards and with others whose job is to ensure that all the agencies work together to ensure that children are kept safe from those unhappy practices that are going on too often.