Post-16 Students

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on securing not only the debate but an audience, which is unusual at this time in the House’s proceedings. I apologise that the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), who has responsibility for schools, is not responding to the debate, as would normally be the case. He is rather involved with the Education Bill at present, but I hope that I will be something of a second-best.

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Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Dunne.)

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Member for Scunthorpe started his speech by openly and freely admitting that he was something of an anorak on the subject of 16 to 19-year-old education funding in this country, but I cannot admit to being even a cagoule in that respect. I will therefore take away his more technical questions and ensure that he receives a more detailed and considered answer from colleagues elsewhere in the Department—part of this is rocket science, as he said.

I also pay tribute to the many staff who are in the position he was in before bringing his great practical expertise to the House. There are many people involved in education in this area who do an excellent job up and down the country in difficult circumstances, as we all acknowledge, and play their part in the essential crusade to upskill young people leaving education for the increasingly competitive employment environment that they face.

I appreciate many of the concerns that Members on both sides of the House raised during what has been a good and rather more inclusive debate than is normal in Adjournment debates. The hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) made a good point about the softer skills that are also important in educational experience, which we want to ensure are not lost. The hon. Member for Scunthorpe talked about the effect of enrichment skills on expanding the range of knowledge and confidence of young people. He also acknowledged that money will be returned to colleges to target disadvantaged students, a point to which I will return.

The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), slightly predictably, raised the subject of youth services, in which she is something of an expert—she is making sure that the House is in no doubt of the fact. She knows that the subject is within my brief and that we will be having discussions on it soon, so there are various things that I will be able to discuss with her then. The hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) rightly mentioned the effect on high unemployment areas.

I will refer first to the spending review, which is the basis of the hon. Gentleman’s concern in bringing the subject to the House’s attention. I entirely appreciate the concerns about the current inevitable uncertainty, and we will seek to address that and produce clarity as soon as possible.

[Bill Esterson]

The Minister mentioned concern, so perhaps I can remind him of the concern that the cut we are discussing will have a combined effect with a number of other cuts. The cuts to college and sixth-form funding, when added to cuts to university funding and education maintenance allowance and the trebling of tuition fees, means that there is huge concern, particularly among students from less well-off families, about the ability to go into higher education at all. Will he respond to that point in his remarks on the spending review?

[Tim Loughton]

I am sure that I will respond when I get beyond the first paragraph of my comments. We are here to talk about a specific aspect of education, and as with the Secretary of State’s approach in all other aspects of education, particularly at this time of scarce resources, we are determined to concentrate as much as possible on the disadvantaged and close the achievement gap, which has widened too far, and for too long. We have to have that particular focus—it is why we have come forward with the pupil premium and other particularly well targeted schemes—to ensure that those who are left behind or need extra support have a chance to be on a level playing field with other students. I shall comment on that in a moment.

In the spending review, we had three priorities: protecting schools funding; early years; and ensuring that by 2015 every young person can continue in high-quality education and training, so that they are better prepared for the world of work or for university. The latter has not necessarily received the attention that it deserves.

We are spending more than £7.6 billion in 2011-12, a 1.5% cash increase over 2010-11, so that—

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Tim Loughton]

I will—mid-sentence.

[Margot James]

The Minister refers to a 1.5% increase in funding. Both colleges—the further education college and the sixth-form college—in my constituency place great store by enrichment activities, such as music and other absolutely vital elements of a rounded education. Is it not the case that colleges are to have greater freedom over how they spend their income in future years? Can he see any reason why they will not be able to use some of the increased spending to fund the much-needed enrichment programmes that everyone in the House is so keen to see continue?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is right to point that out, and again I shall come on to some comments in that vein.

Coupled with a focus on targeting the most disadvantaged and helping to close that gap is a Government priority to devolve greater powers, autonomy and freedoms to educational institutions at all levels—to ensure that principals, heads, teachers and governors are freed from so much of the prescription, bureaucracy and targets that went before, so that they can make the most appropriate decisions for their local student community. They, surely, are the people best placed to make those decisions. If it means concentrating more on enrichment activities, albeit with a tighter financial settlement, we must leave it to the judgment of those principals and others to make such decisions at the sharp end. My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue.

So, we are spending an extra 1.5% cash over 2010-11, so that a record 1.62 billion young people can have a place—[Interruption.] Sorry, I think that should say “million”. We are not quite China yet. Teenage pregnancy is part of my brief, but we have not quite reached that point.

Anyway, we are spending an extra 1.5% cash over 2010-11, so that a record 1.62 million young people can have a place in education and training. That is 23,000 more places than in the current academic year. Within that total, we are increasing the proportion of funds directed at young people facing disadvantage and deprivation in order to help schools and colleges attract and retain those 16 and 17-year-olds who currently do not participate in education and training at all. We are also increasing the amount spent on foundation learning, so that those young people who were failed by the previous Government’s school policies, which pumped in billions but still left many at 16 without the skills they needed to progress, can access the courses that suit their needs.

To do that, however, we have to take account of the economic situation. There is no getting away from that. Every decision that the coalition Government take is made against the backdrop of the difficult economic position that we inherited. Although Opposition Members would like to put those uncomfortable facts to one side, those of us in government have to deal with them, recognising that decisions on schools and colleges throughout the country need to take account of the dire position of public finances.

The enormous interest charges we are paying on our national debt, now standing at £120 million per day, mean that we spend more on servicing that debt than on all our schools and colleges put together, and that just cannot go on. Unless we bring the deficit under control, future funding for this critical phase of education will be endangered and future generations will suffer the consequences. That means we have to ensure that every penny we spend on 16-to-19 education and training brings real benefits to the learner, helps those who need help most and ensures young people are educated to higher levels than now.

We took the decision to reduce the requirement for enrichment activities for two reasons. The Government’s first priority is to protect the core education programmes offered by schools and colleges—the whole range of courses, including A-levels, vocational qualifications and apprenticeships. It is this core that delivers the real benefits to all young people and enables them to progress successfully into higher education or employment. That is not to say that I regard the enrichment activities that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe has so eloquently praised as unimportant—far from it.

[Nic Dakin]

I hear what the Minister says. In some ways, it is sadly predictable in so far as it suggests that there has not really been a proper understanding of what is happening on the ground, where there is genuine concern about the impact of the cuts, which could be quite difficult. Pastoral support and guidance is part of the entitlement funding, and that is very much part of the core of the education system as it stands.

[Tim Loughton]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but he must understand that we have had to make these difficult choices. In an ideal world and an ideal economy, we would be able to service and finance a full academic and enrichment programme and the complementary aspects that much of that brings, but we do not have the luxury of that choice at the moment. As I have said, I am not in any way trying to undermine the importance of some of the things that he has suggested. The chess clubs, the debating societies, the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme, and many of the things that went on in his own college are indeed important. But at a time when we want to maximise participation by all 16 and 17-year-olds, alongside a need to respond to extremely difficult economic circumstances, providing a funding entitlement to those activities to all full-time learners cannot be a priority.

[Damian Hinds]

In acknowledging, as I think everybody does, that in this very difficult financial situation economies have to be found, does my hon. Friend agree that the conversation could be broadened to address some other elements? We could look at some of the cost drivers and things that go on in sixth forms today that did not take place when any of us were there—for example, the number of exams that students do and the growth trend in the number of one-year-only AS-level courses. I am not saying that I have a recommendation to make, but merely suggesting that some of these things could be part of the discussion about where to find economies.

[Tim Loughton]

I am happy to pass on those comments. Obviously, more detail will come out in the proposals. As a priority, we must equip the students going through this part of the educational process with the skills, qualifications and educational know-how that they need to go out and compete in the big wide world. These will be decisions for heads and principals to make at the sharp end.

I accept that tutorial provision for all is important, and that is why we have protected that, as far as possible, but at a time when we need to ensure that our funding of 16-to-19 learners is as effective as can be, we have to focus funding on those who need additional support. That is why—the hon. Member for Scunthorpe mentioned this—we have recycled the savings into areas of a higher priority where we know that more needs to be done.

Our second priority is to increase support for the most disadvantaged and less able young people; I alluded to this earlier. Only about a quarter of young people on free school meals in year 11 get the equivalent of two A-levels by the age of 19—half the level of those who are not on free school meals. I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s excellent track record while he was principal of John Leggott sixth form college. Perhaps I could now politely turn down, while very much thanking him for it, his invitation to the spring concert at John Leggott college at Easter. If I can possibly go the following year, I will endeavour to do so, if it is still going by then. I am sure it will be all the better without me.

To be serious, I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s excellent track record while he was principal of that sixth-form college in raising the aspirations and attainment of disadvantaged learners. I am sure he will agree that that is a key priority for the available funding. If he is looking for takers for concert tickets, I am sure that the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound)—one of the old rockers in the House—will endeavour to go along and bring great gaiety of the proceedings, as he always does to proceedings in this House.

We are replacing what we see as the inefficient EMA programme with a new discretionary learner support fund to focus resources on those in real financial hardship and to ensure that no learner is prevented from staying in education as a result of their financial situation. That is also why we are increasing the amount of 16-to-19 funding for those learners from 2011-12. Funds will be increased by more than a third to £770 million. We will not dictate to schools and colleges how they should use that funding. They know best how to attract and provide for disadvantaged 16 to 19-year-old learners. However, I would expect some of the funding to be spent on the activities previously funded under enrichment, but targeted specifically at the learners. That relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds).

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The Minister is right to comment on the record of my neighbour, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) at John Leggott sixth form college. On the issue of EMA funding, will protections be put in place to ensure that when colleges are near to each other and are in competition, the discretionary learner fund is not used as a way of recruiting students to a particular college, and that it is genuinely used for the students and young people who need it?

[Tim Loughton]

That is a very good point, and it will certainly be taken into consideration. I will pass those comments on to the Minister of State. We have to add such practical considerations to the mix as the proposals are rolled out.

For future years, we have said that we will consult on a review of the funding formula with a view to operating a young person’s premium to support attainment by the most disadvantaged students. The coalition Government’s determination to close the attainment gap between those from the wealthiest and poorest backgrounds lies at the heart of the radical reforms we are introducing to ensure that young people reach adulthood with the knowledge and aptitudes needed to lead rewarding and successful lives.

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. In quoting the principal of Hugh Baird college, I mentioned employability skills. The Minister has touched on the preparation of young people for leaving education. With youth unemployment hitting a million, that is a key challenge for the Government and for colleges. I urge him to ensure that, whatever changes are made, the issue of employability skills, which was covered under the entitlement fund, is taken on board. I accept his point about targeting learners from the most deprived backgrounds, but very often people are missed by such approaches. A wider group of young people is affected, as was the case with the withdrawal of EMA.

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Employability skills are an important complement to qualifications. In this increasingly competitive world, with the concerningly high levels of youth unemployment, we must ensure that every possible tool is available to young people to make themselves employable in the work force, for example in areas where we have requirements in the current highly competitive global trading environment.

Attainment at 16 is the strongest predictor of participation and achievement beyond that age. That is why we set out a clear programme of reform in the schools White Paper that is intended to raise standards so that by age 16, all young people have the basics they need to go on to further education and training. We know that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are least likely to participate post-16, as Members have said. That is why we are focusing additional support on them, to ensure that they make the progress needed to go on to further learning. The pupil premium will target extra funding to the most deprived pupils, to better ensure that they reach the critical transition at age 16 with the knowledge, aptitude and attitude to go on to even higher success.

The hon. Member for Scunthorpe asked me a couple of specific questions, one of which was on when the allocations will be made. Individual institutions will get the details of their allocations by the end of March. If we can make it sooner, we will, to address the issue of clarity, which he rightly mentioned. He asked whether we would look again at the disruptive impact there can be on different groups of post-16 students, and I shall pass on his comments. He also asked whether I would meet him and a delegation to discuss these matters. I am absolutely delighted, on behalf of the Minister of State, to offer him that very meeting with the person most appropriate to take on board his views and appreciate the comments that he will make. I will ensure that my hon. Friend’s office gets in touch with him very soon.

We are committed to full participation for 16 and 17-year-olds, but because of the financial constraints in which we find ourselves, we have had to make difficult decisions to deliver on the priorities. We might not have made some of those decisions had the financial position been better, and they have not been easy, but they have been made with the principles that I have set out in mind—focusing support on the most disadvantaged, addressing the attainment gap and giving greater autonomy, control and freedom back to people who run institutions at the sharp end.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I am in some ways an observer in the debate, and I have been listening with great care. It seems to me that there is a risk that in concentrating on the most deprived, we will take away from the next group up. Many of the additional features in the education system are important if we want to see more young people equipped to go to university, as I think the Government do. People from that next group up will be missing the skills and so on that those from private schools have, so is it really better to help the deprived at the cost of another group of people who also need help if we are to close the gap to university entrance?

[Tim Loughton]

I think the hon. Lady appreciates that one cannot get a quart out of a pint pot, and that is the dilemma in which we find ourselves. For too many years, the biggest scandal in educational achievement at all levels has been that the most disadvantaged, measured as those who have free school meals, have seen the achievement gap widen. They have not had the opportunity to compete on a level playing field and achieve aspirations that many people take for granted. That is not fair, it is not sustainable and it will not be tolerated under this Government.

That is why it is morally right, and the most practical way forward, to ensure that we target as much help as possible on particularly disadvantaged students at all levels. That will mean that everybody else has to share some pain, and ideally that would not have to happen. However, if it is a question of priorities, I want disadvantaged students to get the extra leg-up and extra support that, too often, they cannot provide for themselves. The Government, the Department and the House have a duty of care to ensure that that extra help is available.

The Government have shown that they have the mettle to make the difficult decisions. These are going to be turbulent times, but the Government also have the nous to shift funding from lower-priority areas to where it is genuinely needed. I thank the hon. Member for Scunthorpe for bringing the debate before us this evening and for making his comments in a measured and well-informed, albeit anoraky way. This is a matter of great concern to him and all hon. Members, whether they have further education sixth forms in their constituencies or constituents who use neighbouring ones. We will endeavour to monitor the impact of the changes, particularly on the most disadvantaged, and ensure that we get the best bang for our buck and make the very best impact on those who need it most.

Question put and agreed to.

Further Education Lecturers

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) not only on securing the debate but on being part of the dynamic duo that is now performing in this Chamber, having dual-tasked and performed just a few minutes ago in the main Chamber.

This is an important issue. I recognise the particular interest in the subject that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has and his background in the work that his Committee did before the election. It is therefore appropriate that he was able to contribute. My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness made some positive and constructive points, and I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of his comments. He asked me to be sympathetic, constructive and positive in my response; as he well knows, I always endeavour to do so. Whether I can give him the detail of that sympathy, constructiveness and positivity remains to be seen, given that the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) would normally be responding to the debate. Of course, he is involved in the debate in the main Chamber.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to the Minister for responding to the debate, given the pressures on the Department. I understand why he finds himself in that position. As he is helping out the Minister with responsibility for schools, perhaps he will ask whether my predecessor as Chair of the Select Committee, Baroness Sharp—if she wishes to join us—and I can meet the Minister with responsibility for schools to discuss the matter further after having heard the Minister’s remarks.

[Tim Loughton]

I will be delighted to pass on that invitation for a meeting. I am sure that the Minister with responsibility for schools will be sympathetic, positive and constructive in his response to it. Notwithstanding what is going on this afternoon, the timing of the debate is also appropriate given the review of vocational education that the Secretary of State has asked Professor Alison Wolf to carry out—her name was mentioned in the main Chamber a little while ago.

The Government attach great importance to improving vocational teaching in schools. In response to my hon. Friend’s point, it is certainly not a question of being second class to academic education or treating vocational sector teachers as second class; it is a question of appropriateness and horses for courses, in the same way as perhaps primary school teachers do not readily transfer to become secondary school teachers and vice versa. I want to make it clear that all aspects of teaching those different areas are absolutely valued, but that they will be more appropriate for certain people in certain areas than in others.

My hon. Friend made a point at the beginning with which I wholeheartedly concur: we need to shape institutions around children and young people to ensure that they are getting the most appropriate support, education and training of whatever type, rather than trying to pigeonhole people into particular structures. The coalition agreement for the new Government included a commitment to better vocational education in England, and the Secretary of State’s speech to the Edge Foundation last year on 9 September set out the need for radical reform to address long-term weaknesses in practical learning. That is why we have asked Professor Wolf to carry out what is proving to be a major review and to make recommendations about how vocational education can be improved.

Professor Wolf’s review is considering how we can ensure that vocational education for 14 to 19-year-olds supports valuable participation and progression into the labour market and into higher level education. The final report will include practical recommendations on how vocational education will be improved in line with the public commitment that we have made. I know that Professor Wolf has made very good progress with the report. She has met teachers, heads and college principals to inform her review, and she has been considering submissions made as part of the call for evidence. We look forward to receiving her full report later in the spring, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield has mentioned.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

If I recall, the original timetable was that an interim report would be presented by Professor Wolf before Christmas. Has such a report been presented to Ministers? If so, can it be published?

[Tim Loughton]

I am not aware that a full-blown interim report has been presented to Ministers. I am aware that there have been preliminary discussions between Professor Wolf and Ministers about her initial findings. I do not think that an exact date has been set for publication so far, but when my hon. Friend has the meeting with the Minister with responsibility for schools I am sure he will be able to elaborate further on the exact details.

[Mr Sheerman]

When Professor Wolf, who used to be on the Skills Commission with us, was appointed by the Secretary of State, was she told that half way through her report, the rug of the EMA was going to be pulled from under her feet, or was she oblivious to that fact?

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[Tim Loughton]

I cannot answer for any discussions my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and other Ministers have had with Professor Wolf on her appointment. I am not in a position to answer that. Again, that is a question that the hon. Gentleman can address to the Minister with responsibility for schools. I am sure that the Minister will grant an audience to him, his dynamic duo partner and the noble Baroness Sharp at a later date.

An expert, experienced work force with the right training is, of course, essential to a successful future for vocational education. The Government have therefore asked Professor Wolf, as part of her review, to look at work force issues in particular. I know that Professor Wolf has identified many of the issues raised by hon. Members today, and that her report will consider further education teachers’ eligibility to teach in schools, and in particular the question of why FE-trained teachers, who have already achieved Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills status, also need to gain Qualified Teacher Status to be able to teach as qualified teachers in schools, which is the essence of my hon. Friend’s argument.

Pending Professor Wolf’s independent report, it would not be right for the Government to reach a definite conclusion on some of the issues that we have debated here today, and I am sure that hon. Members understand that. However, I can set out the simple ambitions that should guide us in reviewing this policy: getting the best people into schools and colleges, relevant to the demands of the particular curriculum or subject, whether academic or vocational; and fairness in dealing with the teachers who dedicate so much to providing excellent education, both academic and vocational. I include in “teachers” the experts from industry and professions who want to pass on their expertise to the next generation by supporting vocational education.

We do not think the current policy goes far enough in meeting those ambitions, which is why Professor Wolf is looking at this area so carefully. It is vital that schools have the flexibility to employ the staff they need to offer excellent vocational education to their particular set of students. It is also vital that the contribution that teachers with a further education background can make to schools is fully recognised by schools.

I want to address the specific proposal that the solution to the problems identified here today is simply to bring the professional statuses for further education and schools together into one status. I am aware of the conclusion of the Skills Commission inquiry into teacher training in vocational education, which was published last year and to which both hon. Members have alluded. It concluded by stating the need to achieve convergence of the two separate teacher training regimes that currently exist for teachers of academic subjects in schools, and those of vocational subjects in FE and the post-compulsory sector. The former Children, Schools and Families Committee reached a similar conclusion when it looked into teacher training and reported early in 2010, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Huddersfield, that there should be harmonisation of training programmes.

The Government accept the issues highlighted in those reports. There are clearly problems that we need to look at carefully and address, but in addressing those issues, and those raised in debate today, we must also be careful to take a balanced approach. That means that we must not remove the safeguards that guarantee to pupils and parents the standard of teachers that they expect in the schools that their children attend. We should remind ourselves of what we have at the moment: a wholly graduate teaching profession with expertise in teaching the national curriculum; teachers trained to deal with the particular challenges of providing a stimulating education to children; and a profession where individual teachers have the flexibility to teach across all school age ranges from five to 18. That is a foundation that the Government will build on to create an outstanding teaching profession, as set out in the schools White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”.

I recognise the logic of convergence. There are, of course, many similarities between the jobs done by teachers in schools and in FE colleges. However, we must also be clear that QTLS status has been designed for the distinct requirements of the further education sector, with a focus on vocational learning and teaching over-16s. That does not prepare teachers to carry out the full range of work that is required of a qualified teacher in a school, as set down in the standards for qualified teacher status. Those include a degree, usually in the subject being taught, knowledge of the national curriculum, which it is the basic duty of schools to offer, and experience of teaching in two age ranges and capabilities around safeguarding and behaviour management that are different for younger children. Simply allowing anyone with QTLS to teach in schools would mean that we were not able to guarantee the rigorous academic expertise of teachers to pupils and parents. Whatever the recommendations, results and the way ahead, a good deal of work will need to be done to offer appropriate teaching to children and young people in those different educational environments. It cannot just happen simply because the rules have changed.

There are ways that the Government can address the need for reform in this area without undermining our plans to build a graduate teaching work force to create an outstanding, high status profession. For example, we have already consulted publicly on an assessment-only route to obtaining QTS for those who have substantial experience of working in schools or further education, and who have a degree. That will offer a more flexible route to QTS accreditation with minimal teacher training.

In the wake of Professor Wolf’s recommendations, I expect that we will be able to bring forward further proposals. For example, one such proposal might be to support teachers without degrees who wish to teach the vocational subjects in schools that they are already able to teach in colleges.

I hope, without being able to go into go into an enormous detail, pending the report and given the limitations on my own presence here and my particular brief in the Department for Education, that I have at least signalled to the satisfaction of my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Huddersfield that this is a matter to which the Government are giving considerable and urgent attention in order to improve the current policy.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I appreciate the tone and quality of the Minister’s remarks. The Government are backing university technical colleges, which will provide education for young people from the age of 14. Those young people will sometimes come in, dressed in a boiler suit at the age of 14, and have a spanner in their hand at 8.30 am or 8.45 am. If the Government are going to consider, following the Wolf review, greater flexibilities, the age at which young people start must be 14. That would fit with the university technical colleges and the wider Government programme. I just wanted to make that point on the record to the Minister today.

[Tim Loughton]

I hear what my hon. Friend has said. Those comments might have been as appropriate in the previous debate in this Chamber, which involved the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, who is a Minister in both my Department and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but I have heard what he has said and will pass those comments on along with all the comments from hon. Members this afternoon.

I am confident that the decisions that we will take in the light of Professor Wolf’s review will result in a more logical position than we have at present—we all readily acknowledge that—which will continue to improve the quality of the school teaching work force, allow schools to make the best use of teachers with experience and expertise from outside the classroom and is fair to all those who play a role in the education of young people.

May I reiterate my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee for the balanced, measured and informed way in which he put his comments? I undertake to pass on the points that both hon. Members have made and to urge my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for schools, in his greatly uncluttered diary, to find time to have a more detailed meeting with them.

[Mr Sheerman]

I remind the Minister that tens of thousands of young people who are 14 years old are presently being taught—not all week, but two or three days a week—in the FE sector. Studio schools, the first of which has opened in Huddersfield, will also be taking young people working in a work environment from the age of 14. It is a fact that 14-year-olds are being taught by highly qualified staff in the FE sector.

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman can be duly contented that I am suitably reminded of the points that he has made and that I will pass them on to my hon. Friends as well. I thank him for his contribution.

Young Carers

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Westminster Hall

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

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Chope.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) on securing the debate and on his exceedingly articulate and measured way of making a strong case. I echo most of the sentiments in his excellent speech, which I hope is heard more widely beyond today’s not overly crowded Chamber.

I am pleased, in particular, to be here to respond as a Minister. As shadow Minister for Children, I took a particular interest in the subject, and I have met many groups of young carers and the organisations involved with them. I pay tribute to those various organisations, some of which my hon. Friend has mentioned, for their excellent and often unrecognised work in a really important area, which affects many more children than some estimates suggest.

Supporting vulnerable children, including young carers, is, of course, a priority for the Government, which is why I am pleased to have the opportunity to articulate our approach to that subset of young people. Helping to care for a family member is something that many young people are happy and proud to do—it helps them to develop a sense of responsibility and skills that are important in later life. Such young people play an absolutely vital role in their families and in society as a whole, for whom they save an awful lot of money. They deserve our recognition and support. However, inappropriate or excessive levels of caring by young people—even if at their own behest—can put their education, training, social development or health at risk, preventing them from enjoying their childhood in the same way as other children. Too many young carers are trapped in harmful caring roles without much hope of fulfilling their potential. That can be for a number of reasons: they do not recognise themselves as young carers or, if they do, they do not seek help; services are not identifying them as carers; or they fear involving children’s services and outside agencies.

That is not, of course, the full picture. Thousands of carers, through admirable resilience and sheer determination, achieve so much despite the odds stacked against them. I have met many young carers, including at the annual young carers festival down in Southampton, which is organised by the Children’s Society—in particular, by Jenny Frank, who has devoted so much of her career to helping young carers—and by the YMCA Fairthorne Group. I have attended for most of the 12 years that that incredible festival has been running. I encourage my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer to attend, if he can—it is usually on a weekend in July. I never cease to be impressed by the commitment of the people whom I meet there and their determination to do the best not only for the person they care for but often for other members of their families, such as their brothers and sisters. Some of those young people have done all that and still succeeded at school and gone on to university or successful employment, but not all of them cope so well.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for making the issue a priority and for finding time to meet the York Young Carers—I shall certainly look at the group’s excellent film on YouTube. As he has said, a new Member is at the call of many organisations wanting to familiarise themselves with new MPs. However, young carers, such as those in my hon. Friend’s constituency, have made it clear to me that they want their schools, GPs and the mental health and other health services with which their family members come into contact to be more supportive and more carer aware. My hon. Friend made a good point, which young carers often make to me, about how the doctor, social worker or professional from another agency, who is seeing the parent or whoever is being cared for, often talks over the head of the young person.

If that young person has the day-to-day responsibility, that young person has some very grown-up responsibility placed on them, they know an awful lot about their loved one’s situation, and they need to be talked to and involved in the process. That is a common plea, and my hon. Friend is right to highlight the issue. Professionals, therefore, need to be more carer aware. Young carers want professionals to recognise that the young carer, despite being a minor, will often be the responsible person in the house and might understand better than anyone what kind of support is needed and when.

It is shocking that so many young people lose the opportunity to live a normal childhood because of their caring role. Such young people are often hidden from everyone but their families. I agree with my hon. Friend that all of us, including those services I mentioned earlier, need to be mindful of the impact that caring can have on a young person’s education, training or employment opportunities. Indeed, that is why providing carers with vital information about the illness or disability that they and their family are coping with and involving them in the decisions about how best to provide care and manage their health is one of the key principles in the carers strategy, “Recognised, valued and supported: next steps for the Carers Strategy”, to which my hon. Friend has referred.

I pay tribute to the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), for the speed with which he and his Department, with support from the Department for Education and others in the Government, published the new strategy. I am pleased to say that carers’ views, including those of young carers, are very much at the heart of it. If we listened to the views of young carers, it would go a long way to helping them.

I shall take this opportunity to praise the young carers in York for producing their “Young Carers Revolution” media campaign, and for the sterling work that they have done to raise awareness and reach out to young carers. They come to the annual festival and have interesting things to say.

The new carers strategy recognises that there are hidden young carers. It sends out a strong signal that effective support for young carers requires adult and children’s services, including health services, schools and the voluntary sector, to work together and prevent young carers from taking on harmful or excessive caring roles. The early intervention grant, worth £2.2 billion a year over the period of the spending review, provides local authorities and their partners with the freedom and flexibility to decide how best to prioritise their resources in accordance with local demand.

The Government strongly believe that such support should be targeted at those children and families who are most in need, and I encourage local authorities to identify appropriate services for young carers and prioritise them. Local authorities can do that by adopting the “Working together to support young carers” programme, which is a memorandum of understanding published jointly by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. The memorandum is unambiguous in stating that no care package should rely on a young person taking on an inappropriate caring role. I urge local authorities—including that of my hon. Friend—as does the Government’s carers strategy, to consider adopting that memorandum.

All too often, as an Ofsted report highlighted in 2009, services do not work together effectively and young carers fall through the gaps. Training can be an effective way of raising awareness of young carers among professionals who might not otherwise recognise that a young carer is involved. I am grateful for the work done by the Children’s Society, the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, the Social Care Institute for Excellence, and others, to train a range of professionals to be more carer aware.

There is already much good practice in this area, and I join my hon. Friend in saluting the dedication of staff—including thousands of volunteers—who through hundreds of young carer projects, mostly in the voluntary sector, provide young carers with the respite and one-to-one support that they need, giving them the opportunity to take part in activities or go on breaks with friends with whom they can share their experiences. Often, young people who find themselves as carers need to get together with other young people in a similar situation who can appreciate, understand and sympathise with the challenges they face at home. It is about having the opportunity to take an evening off to go and see a film with other people, or to go bowling, or whatever. There are lots of interesting projects, largely set up through the Children’s Society by Jenny Frank and others, and we have entertained many such projects in this House over the years. They could be something simple that make young carers feel that they are not alone and that other people understand and look out for them.

The voluntary sector plays a vital role in supporting those young people, and I am pleased that through the innovation fund, the National Young Carers Coalition is extending the support that it provides to the whole family. The carers centre in York is another example of a voluntary sector project that provides invaluable support.

It is not for Government to micro-manage and prescribe what is best for local authorities—local authorities should know what is most appropriate for their residents and communities. Practice and approach, however, varies across the country and I am committed to encouraging the sharing of best practice—something that we are often not terribly good at—so that all areas in the country can share knowledge about what works from areas that are doing well. I am pleased that the Princess Royal Trust for Carers, which my hon. Friend has mentioned, will, on behalf of the National Young Carers Coalition, showcase the learning from the innovation fund.

My Department has already made available the interim findings from the young carer pathfinders scheme. It shows that where intensive support was co-ordinated by a key worker and focused around the family, between entry and exit from the project, there was a 35% reduction in the number of young carers in those families, and a 41% reduction in the number of young people for whom caring was having a negative impact.

An improving picture is emerging as more young people are referred to receive the support they need as a result of their parents’ mental health or substance misuse problems, and more schools are becoming aware of the support that they need to provide. However, there is much still to do, and a number of families will be facing a range of other complex problems. For example, research highlights that family violence can be an issue at home. That is why I am pleased that on 10 December last year, the Prime Minister announced a new national campaign for families with multiple problems. That campaign sets out to support the most vulnerable 120,000 families, a number of whom will have a young person or persons in a caring role. It represents a new and determined effort to improve the lives of those families and those who live around them. It will trial innovative new approaches to providing tailored support to the whole family where there are complex problems, and it will provide personalised and holistic support to help a family deal with its problems. I look forward to seeing the benefits of that new approach.

From a young carer’s perspective, schools are arguably the local service with which they have the most contact and which play the greatest role in helping them. Young carers have told us that they want their schools to be more supportive and understanding about their caring role and education, and I support that. Young carers want teaching staff to recognise that they may need flexible learning arrangements and additional support. That is a major issue, and it comes up when I go to conferences and meet people. Young carers need an understanding teacher who knows the demands on them and can put in a word if, for some good reason, homework is in late or it is necessary to be in telephone contact with a doctor or another professional because a relative has taken a turn for the worse, or whatever. Good practice is for each school to designate somebody in that role, but that does not always happen.

Although many schools have systems in place to support young carers and have a lead person to support them, that does not happen enough. Some schools may like to consider whether a governor should have an oversight role, just as we recommend for children in the care system who have particular requirements. To increase the support available to young carers in schools, the Department for Education is working closely with the Department of Health to provide the National Young Carers Coalition with an e-learning module for teachers and staff as part of the healthy schools approach to help better identify and support young carers.

Another issue that affects young carers—I am aware of the research by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers that my hon. Friend has mentioned—is bullying. Unacceptably, and incredibly, nearly two thirds of young carers are bullied at school. Perhaps they are often late, do not have time to take part in social activities or do not dress in the same way as others. All those things can mark them out as different from their peers. The Government, the Secretary of State for Education and I, take that issue very seriously. It is unacceptable for any child to be victimised, and even more so when they have the responsibilities of a young carer on their shoulders.

We can be proud of the vast majority of young people, but when bullies are identified we cannot just suspend them for a couple of days and allow them to saunter back into school to torment their victims again. We will put head teachers and teachers back in control and give them a range of tough new powers to deal with bullies. Head teachers will be able to take a zero-tolerance approach and will have the final say. We trust that head teachers will use those powers but I hope they do not have to. By educating young people to appreciate, respect and empathise with the pressures on people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in an adult caring role, I hope that we can eradicate that completely unacceptable form of bullying.

When bullying occurs, schools need to respond promptly and firmly. They need to apply disciplinary sanctions and work with bullies so that they are held to account for their actions and accept responsibility for the harm they have caused. Schools must also support those who are being bullied and, above all, they must educate bullying out of the school and classroom. All of us in society have a responsibility in that area. I hope that this debate and the other initiatives for young carers, such as the fantastic weekend at Fairthorne manor and the meetings in which we speak to young carers to understand their problems from the sharp end and look at how better we can accommodate them, will raise the profile of this issue, so that more people recognise the particular challenges faced by those young people.

The Department for Education will continue to work closely with the voluntary sector and local authorities to break down barriers to supporting young carers and their families effectively, which is the least we can do. We have a duty as a society to help those people, and frankly it is a false economy both socially and financially not to do that as actively as possible. I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this subject and putting his case so strongly. I hope that he is a convert, an advocate and an ambassador for the issue of young carers, and that he will ensure that as many people in his constituency—and beyond—are aware of the challenges faced and do their bit to make the role of young carers as easy as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

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

Schools have been protected in this spending round. The schools budget has been protected in cash terms, and in addition schools will receive the pupil premium. Funding for local authorities has been reduced, so local authorities will need to prioritise services where they have greatest effect and look at opportunities for delivering services more cost effectively, which will include working with other local authorities.

[Natascha Engel]

Deincourt school in my constituency was closed on the understanding that its pupils would move to the neighbouring school in Tibshelf, which was waiting for Building Schools for the Future funding to expand. Deincourt students have now arrived at Tibshelf but the BSF money, of course, has not. Tibshelf is now facing the prospect of having its services cut as a result of the local government funding settlement. What has the Minister got against Tibshelf school?

[Tim Loughton]

I assure the hon. Lady that neither I nor the ministerial team has anything against Tibshelf school. I remind her that Derbyshire has been allocated £91 million of capital funding support for BSF, and to date it has been paid £25 million in conventional funding for BSF, too. If there are special circumstances regarding that school, I am sure that she will make representations to the ministerial team accordingly, and that we will respond.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

When Tony Blair came to power, he said that his first three priorities were education, education, education. During the Labour Government, however, standards fell in reading, science and maths. Does the Minister agree that what counts is not the amount of money one puts in, but how it is spent?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, which, although not just about education, is more starkly about education than anything else. Just investing money without focusing it on the quality of the outcomes does not make for a good investment, and this Government see things differently from the previous Government, who purely grandstanded on the amount of taxpayers’ money that they could throw at a problem, without taking account of the quality of the outcomes for the students leaving our schools.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is the end of term, and if the Minister had been a pupil in my A-level economics class I would have to give him a grade E, because, although he shows some understanding of basic economic concepts, he cannot seem to grasp the difference between a real-terms change and a money change in a budget. I will give him the chance to re-sit, however. Now that his Department has admitted that schools will see a real cut in their budgets amounting to 3.4% or £170 per pupil by the end of the spending review period, will he finally admit that there is no real pupil premium, just a pupil con?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman knows full well that, if his Government had left any money in the kitty, none of those funding assessments would be necessary. The truth is that schools funding, above many other things, has been protected, with an extra £3.6 billion in cash terms by the end of the comprehensive spending review period. In addition, pupil premium money will be focused on those pupils most in need—those who were most neglected by his Government.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to increase the ranking of schools in England in international league tables of educational attainment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

T3. My right hon. and hon. Friends will be aware of Operation Golf, the Metropolitan police’s operation in London that has identified several hundred trafficked children on the streets of the capital, mostly from eastern Europe. What consideration have they given to ensuring that those children receive a decent education while they remain in the United Kingdom?

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

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I recently had a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who takes the lead on trafficking. We want to ensure not only that those children are picked up at the border whenever possible and that we can track their whereabouts in this country, but that when we do know their whereabouts we work with local education authorities to ensure that they get the education to which they are entitled and which they desperately need. We must help them to shake off the people who have trafficked them, in many cases under the most gruesome circumstances.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

T5. Can the Minister confirm that the budget for the new early intervention grant, which includes funding for Sure Start, will be almost 11% lower next year than the current funding for the various programmes, and 7.5% lower in 2012? Can she tell the House by what definition of flexibility that is not a cut?

Early Years Education

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) on securing the time for this important debate. I agree with the vast majority of everything she has said. As she knows, I had the opportunity to go to Stockport in October when I spent a week as a social worker on the front line. I also visited some schools in a child protection context. I saw the excellent services and dedicated professionals that she has in her authority. I applaud the trailblazing in many areas dealing with children in Stockport, to which she alluded.

The hon. Lady raised a couple of specific questions to which I will respond, and made one point about extending the pupil premium. I am delighted that she has embraced the pupil premium so early. It is very early days to say how we might extend or adapt it, given that the details were announced only yesterday. I will take that on board, but I do not think we will be adapting it straight away. She makes a fair point: to ensure that it is useful as early as possible for all the reasons she mentioned.

The provision of free early education is an area where we have broad cross-party agreement, perhaps because the case for investing in the early years has never been more compelling. This debate is timely: yesterday we announced details of the new early intervention grant that brings together funding for universal as well as specialist services, and will be worth £2.212 billion in 2011-12 and £2.297 billion in 2012-13.

Local authorities have built up considerable expertise and experience in the early years. They understand the impact that Sure Start children’s centres have on communities, and they have shown considerable commitment to raising the quality of early years settings. It is that experience that gives me confidence that local authorities are best placed to decide what is best for the families in their communities. The early intervention grant will give local authorities the freedom and flexibility to do that.

Early education is at the heart of our vision to support disadvantaged families. We know, as the hon. Lady says, that it improves children’s school readiness and longer-term cognitive and social development, which can especially benefit the most disadvantaged, helping to improve social mobility and break out of inter-generational cycles of poverty. The recent review on poverty and life chances published by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), mentioned by the hon. Lady, underlined the importance of investing in the early years, and ensuring young children are not disadvantaged from birth. The review by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) into how early intervention programmes can improve the lives of vulnerable children is continuing and doing valuable work.

Although more five-year-olds are achieving well, there is still a 14% achievement gap between those in the most disadvantaged areas and the rest. We need to close that gap. While 95% of children are benefiting from free early education, as the hon. Lady mentioned, among the 5% not currently taking up free places are children from lower income families, those whose mothers do not work, and children from families experiencing multiple disadvantage. The hon. Lady also mentioned families from BME backgrounds and others. She is absolutely right to ask how we can raise the level of awareness and promote the information. Having given a commitment to that 15-hour offer for three and four-year-olds, and having now brought in that additional offer for the most disadvantaged families for two-year-olds as well, it is key that we make it work and ensure that we access the families at which it is most targeted.

Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide information to parents about early education, and we must ensure that they are living up to that. I also believe there is a greater role for Sure Start children’s centres to promote and reach out, particularly to support disadvantaged families more effectively. The hon. Lady also mentioned health visitors. We propose increasing the number of health visitors working out of Sure Start children’s centres by 4,200. They will be going across the threshold before birth, and intensively after birth. They will work particularly with new parents, to check on their parenting skills, to give them support in those early days and to make them aware of what other services are available. That will include the free entitlement. The hon. Lady is right to say that we need to promote it more.

As an example—I have discussed this with the hon. Lady—I visited a family in Stockport. They were in desperate circumstances, living in a run-down house with hardly any furniture and no carpets, and literally no food. There were four sons under the age of 12, from three fathers, and a loving but rather inadequate mother. I visited the house with a very good social worker, who had been working intensively with the family. The social worker and various other professionals had been in and out of that house, but still things were not right. I asked why those children had not been taken into care, although doing so would raise all sorts of other problems. However inadequate, that mother doted on her four young boys. However inadequate, those four young boys doted on their mother; they relied on her and needed to stay with her. If they had gone into care, I fear that the family would have been split up, with all sorts of ramifications.

What struck me more than anything is that the mother needed almost to be taken by the arm and marched down to the children’s centre to be told about good parenting skills—let alone, if it had been earlier, about the free entitlement to ensure that her kids were getting good quality care in the nursery—and marched down to the supermarket to be told what sort of food she should be buying for her children. There is scope for social workers working with such families, with health visitors becoming involved earlier and with children’s centres helping to promote the scheme. The hon. Lady was right to mention it. Our aim is to intervene early in order to close the gaps that I have mentioned and to ensure that every child has a fair chance of succeeding. We want to focus particular support on those disadvantaged families that can benefit most. There are a number of ways in which we propose doing so.

First, all families value choice and flexibility, yet we know that disadvantaged families have less choice of provider and are more likely to cite lack of availability of free places as a reason for not taking up their entitlement. We are working with providers to explore ways of reducing the administrative burden and making it easier to establish business, particularly in disadvantaged areas. We will consolidate and substantially reduce the 200 pages of early-education guidance to local authorities, to help free up local early years markets.

Local authorities will be able to encourage new forms of provision. The Localism Bill, which was published yesterday, will give people new rights to bid to run local services. We seek to identify a national organisation that will be able to equip providers with the skills needed to run their businesses more effectively. The national implementation of the early years single funding formula will ensure that local funding decisions are more transparent. We will use the forthcoming education Bill to clarify the position of maintained nursery schools and other nurseries in schools in being able to charge for additional nursery education beyond the free 15 hours, to help increase choice for parents.

Secondly, despite an extremely difficult fiscal position, we have fulfilled the commitment that we made to early education in our programme for government, by retaining a universal entitlement to 15 hours of free education a week for all three and four-year-olds, as I mentioned earlier. We did so not only because it was the right thing to do but because evidence shows that nursery education that is free at the point of delivery is the best way to ensure that disadvantaged families do not face barriers when trying to access it. Indeed, the experience of the pathfinder local authorities shows that the increased time and the increased flexibilities that come with it have been successful in attracting more families. On average, 2% more three-year-olds accessed their free place for the first time; and those families who previously did not take full advantage of it increased the number of hours that they took by 1.8%.

From April, we will ensure through regulation that all local authorities include a deprivation supplement in their early years single funding formula, which will mean that all disadvantaged children will attract a higher level of funding. As a result, money will be provided for those children who need it most, as well as incentivising providers to offer free places to those families. When children start school, the pupil premium will follow them from reception year onwards, and as I said earlier we will consider whether it should be extended to nursery education over time.

Thirdly, all the evidence shows that only quality provision can have a real impact for young people. We want to work with local authorities and providers in supporting it, and we will focus relentlessly on ensuring that all children are able to access their free provision in a quality setting. Central to a quality setting is a quality work force. We are committed by March to announcing a strategy to improve the quality of the early years work force and the development of a new generation of leaders for that sector. Local authorities such as Stockport are experienced in offering free places for two, three and four-year-olds, and they understand well the connection between quality and the outcome for children. I anticipate that they will want to draw on this expertise when making decisions about places.

Finally, despite the extremely challenging fiscal position, we have been able to commit ourselves to extending free nursery education to all disadvantaged two-year-olds by 2013. By getting this support earlier to those families that will benefit most from it, we are confident that it will help to increase participation at the ages of three and four. Local authorities like Stockport have shown that starting even earlier can have a significant and positive impact on language ability and on the parent-child relationship. The expansion will start quickly. Subject to the approval of Parliament, measures in the education Bill will enable Ministers to introduce an entitlement to 15 hours of free provision a week for all disadvantaged two-year-olds.

In response to the hon. Lady’s concern about funding, I am happy to confirm that we will provide £64 million next year to enable local authorities to continue funding places for two-year-olds. In addition, the Department has set aside £4 million for 2011-12 to trial new approaches to delivering the entitlement. Although funding for the early intervention grant is not ring-fenced, and although decisions will be made locally, there will be a statutory entitlement for two-year-olds to access this education from 2013. Extending entitlement to disadvantaged two-year-olds is a key strategy for increasing take-up at the age of three. Total funding will rise to £223 million in 2012-13 to enable local authorities to build towards that entitlement. Funding will rise further, with an additional £300 million by 2014-15.

The lessons learned from the two-year-old pilot will be central to that expansion. Outreach will be critical. As shown in Stockport, the most disadvantaged families are far less likely to pick up the phone and ask, or to turn up at children’s centres. The pilots showed that the most effective way to engage families was to go out and find them, knock on their doors and then support them into a setting. We want Sure Start children’s centres to play a prominent role in this work, helping to ensure that the most challenged families take advantage of the free entitlements, alongside other family support. Taken together, we know that they can make a huge difference to children’s outcomes.

Our reforms place early education squarely at the centre of the Government’s efforts to combat child poverty and increase social mobility. This week’s announcement on the early intervention grant will have started the process of spending reviews in local authorities across the country. The strength and growing maturity of the sector means that it is well placed for the next stage. Early years professionals will be able to take part in these reviews confident in the knowledge that they have the full backing of the Government; confident that, in local authority members and officers, they have an audience that recognises their achievements and is proud of them; and confident, above all, that what they do really works.

I am enormously grateful for the support that the hon. Lady has given to this agenda today. She has raised some important concerns, and I hope that she is happy that the Government echo them. The steps that we have taken underline the importance of early education in getting the most disadvantaged members of society to gain access to early years education for their children. The Government have made a substantial financial commitment. We wish to ensure that it is taken up and that it works, because it is the right thing to do.

School Sports (Colchester)

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve for the second time today under your chairmanship, Mr Leigh. This debate is very different from the earlier one.

I ought to start by saying to the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) that we must stop meeting like this. This is the second time in the past couple of months that I have responded to an Adjournment debate that he has instigated. I congratulate him on securing this important debate. He opened it and kept the flow going with his usual colourful language. Never let it be said that he is a man who only brings problems to this House, because he started his speech with an interesting solution that would involve the football premiership in the cost of school sport partnerships. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and the Olympics will read that practical suggestion in the record, and I am happy to ensure that it is brought to his attention.

The hon. Gentleman’s speech was also quite original. Not only was he described as being timely and prescient—I believe that that was how the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) described him—but he was also an unashamed plagiarist, in that he used a large part of his speech to quote from yesterday’s Daily Mail. If only making speeches were that easy.

[Bob Russell]

May I correct the Minister? It was Sunday’s paper, not yesterday’s.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful for that. We would not want the good burghers of The Mail on Sunday not to get credit for the piece.

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a committed campaigner in his constituency and in this House, and it is clear from his speech that he believes passionately in the work of the Colchester-Blackwater school sport partnership, which is also known as the Thurstable school sport partnership. Among other flowery references that he quoted from the article in The Mail on Sunday, he quoted a phrase that suggested that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education considers sport to be

“the sweaty pastime of tiresome oiks.”

May I make it clear again today, as I did in a debate last week on school sport, and as the Secretary of State himself made clear, that he and I and this Government are absolutely committed to the promotion of sport among the population in general and among our school-age citizens in particular? We want them to be involved with sport, particularly high-quality competitive sport, as early and as intensively as possible, and, most importantly, we want that involvement to be sustained through the school years and into adulthood. Too often, the experience in school drops off a cliff when children leave school. We must engender the ethos of the good of sport in children of all ages, and that must be carried forward into adulthood.

As the hon. Gentleman said, sport is good not only for physical health but for mental agility, its socialising benefits, the community engagement that it brings about, teamwork experiences and the personal development of children. It is not a question of being in any way against sport or in any way trying to undermine it. We want more sport, better quality sport and more sustained sport in schools. It is a question of how, not if, and it is important to make that absolutely clear. That underlies the changes that we are looking to make in how sport is delivered.

We are aware of the good work being done in many school sport partnerships, which have played an important part in helping to re-establish physical education and sport as a central part of school life. The Thurstable/Colchester-Blackwater partnership is a good example of that.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and I pay tribute to the work of Adam Finch, partnership development manager at the Thurstable/Colchester-Blackwater partnership, and his team for the excellent work that they have done improving the standards of PE and sport for their young people. I was especially pleased that an impressive number of young people are taking part in intra-school sporting competitions. However, although that partnership is performing well in a number of areas, in some year groups it is still not delivering inter-school competition at a level that the Government would like to see and the numbers taking part in competitive sport, which we would like to be better promoted, have fallen slightly below the national average in years 6, 7 and 8.

[Bob Russell]

Did I understand the Minister correctly? Do those figures relate to what was happening within what we call the Colchester-Blackwater school sport partnership? If what he has said is correct, does he accept that those figures are still vastly better than they were four or five years ago, before the partnerships started, and that removing the partnerships will do considerable damage to the figures that he has just quoted?

[Tim Loughton]

In terms of the participation and rates and where the information has come from, the hon. Gentleman gave those figures. One does not deny that. I am saying that the experience and the figures are patchy in different parts of the country and in his constituency. Some partnerships appear to be achieving a great deal more than others. I am not trying to take away from where progress has been made. We question the level of competitive sport, the quality of the sport and its sustainability and whether partnerships are changing the ethos of sport in schools, which is what we need to do.

Let us remember that when the school sports partnership scheme was first funded from 2003, it was never intended to be a permanent arrangement; it was all about promoting sport from a low level and, hopefully, being able to set schools free to be able to carry that work forward. Seven years and £2.4 billion on, we cannot afford to continue that level of funding. We are questioning whether we are getting best value for money and whether we can get better bang for our buck, looking at alternative ways of providing sport in schools. That is what this is all about: not if, but how.

From figures on sports where participation has fallen and those relating to the number of schools offering particular sports, it is an indisputable fact that, after the commitment of £2.4 billion, the number of schools providing gymnastics, rounders, netball, hockey and rugby union has fallen. The number of schools offering swimming has not changed: it was 84% in 2003-04, before £2.4 billion was spent, and it is 84% now, still. There has been no increase in participation in a significant number of sports.

The taxpayer is entitled to better for the not inconsiderable sum that has been spent in the past seven years. That is why we feel that a new approach with a renewed focus on competition is needed to make an impact. To do this, the Government want to build on the good work already being done by schools to encourage more pupils to play competitive sport in their own school and against other schools.

Although school sport partnerships have helped schools to increase participation rates in a range of areas targeted by the previous Government, they have also locked schools into a rigid network while forcing them to achieve a series of targets that this Government feel impedes schools’ ability to promote sport. The Government are concerned that, despite this heavy focus on targets, the proportion of pupils playing competitive sport regularly has remained disappointingly low. Only some two in every five pupils play competitive sport regularly in their own school and only one in five plays regularly against other schools. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has concluded that the existing network of school sport partnerships is neither good enough value for money, nor likely to be the best way to help schools achieve their potential in improving provision for competitive sport.

The hon. Gentleman asked what discussions have taken place with colleagues in other Departments, particularly with the Secretaries of State for Health and for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has had a number of meetings with those two Cabinet colleagues, particularly the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, as have I. I sit on the interdepartmental steering group on the schools olympics, which is one proposal being advanced by this Government. There has been considerable engagement between officials in all three Departments. I had responsibility for children’s health in the shadow Health team, under the now Secretary of State for Health, where we had extensive discussion on this matter. We need to tackle not only what goes in but what comes out, in terms of the obesity problem and the activity underachievement. We need to take a two-pronged approach.

In lifting the many requirements placed on them by the previous Government’s PE and sport strategy, the Government believe that schools will be able to use their new freedoms to enable more pupils to play competitive sport. I understand that this decision has not been popular in some quarters. I recently met a group of exceedingly impressive young ambassadors who voiced their concerns eloquently when delivering a petition last week. However, I am convinced that this decision is the right one to ensure that the next generation of young people enjoys and benefits from sport as never before, while laying the foundations for a lasting sporting legacy from 2012.

I have offered to meet a wider group of young sports ambassadors, after we announce our alternative proposals, to try to engage them fully in the way ahead.

[Bob Russell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Tim Loughton]

I will, although probably at the expense of being able to finish my speech.

[Bob Russell]

The Minister’s response will not be recognised by the people in the Colchester academy family, whom I have met and on whose behalf I called the debate. Would he accept an invitation to meet people and see what happens on the ground? I think that he might be pleasantly surprised.

[Tim Loughton]

I am always grateful for invitations and the Secretary of State for Education is always keen to devolve invitations to his ministerial team. I have had a number of similar offers from many colleagues, not surprisingly, among the many letters that I have received on this subject. I have visited schools and engaged in physical activities in those schools. The hon. Gentleman is good at issuing invitations to Ministers to visit his constituency; he was good at issuing them to the previous Government and the previous Secretary of State for Education was good at passing them on to the Minister with responsibility for schools, who spent most of his time heading towards East Anglia. If I can make a diversion to take in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, I will endeavour to do so at some stage in future. In principle, yes; in practice, we will see how the diary pans out or I will never get any work done in this place and I will not be able to answer his frequent debates in the House.

The Secretaries of State for Education and for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, in consultation with experts in sport and alongside officials from both Departments, are considering how to take things forward in the best interests of schools and the pupils and parents they serve. One way of doing that will be launching a national Olympic and Paralympic-style sports event that I have already mentioned, which will form the pinnacle of a pyramid of school sport competitions. Other layers will include intra-school, inter-school, local authority or county level competitions. Every school, including mainstream and special schools, will be given the opportunity to get involved. I am keen to ensure that pupils with disabilities are fully engaged in the process. I am particularly keen to meet representatives from Paralympics and disability sports organisations. We intend to use £10 million of lottery funding, distributed by Sport England, to establish this competition for young people.

While I am on the subject, let me dispel the myth that competitive sport is elitist. Competitive sport inspires people to be the best that they can be and should be a vibrant part of school life for all pupils. Sport should be for everyone. That is why we want schools to set up sports teams that cater for players of all abilities. Anyone, from the most serious football player to the pupil who enjoys a kick-about for fun, should be given the opportunity to learn the values of competitive sport and to enjoy and benefit from that experience. We want schools to have not just first teams, but second, third and fourth teams, as there were when I was at school. Indeed, in 10 schools 100% of pupils were playing regular competitive sports against other schools and in 320 schools all the pupils are regularly taking part in intra-school competitions. That does not sound like elitism to me.

We want to see a sharp reduction in the bureaucratic burden on schools, leaving them free to focus on doing what is right for their students. The previous Administration’s school sport programme was about telling schools what to do. First, it specified how many hours of sport were to be made available to pupils, by schools, each week, starting with 75% doing two hours by 2006, then 85% doing two hours by 2008, rising to all children doing four hours by 2010, reaching the ever-more prescriptive heights of five hours of sport for all five to 16-year-olds by 2011. A pupil who joined a secondary school in September 2004 would be expected to do two hours of PE and sport a week by 2006, four hours by 2010 and five hours by 2011. How can schools be expected to make decisions about the best needs of their pupils while trying to deal with the straitjacket of such central control?

Secondly, it created a new hierarchy of people to run the programme for schools, including competition managers and senior competition managers—a new hierarchy of people telling other people what to do. Every one of those people was committed to improving local school sport, but I fear that, at best, they enabled schools to leave sport to someone else and, at worst, they stifled schools’ ability to provide an offer that was best for the needs of their schools and their pupils. That neither enables innovation—

Myplace Programme

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Written Statements

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

I am today announcing confirmation of capital funding for youth facilities planned under the myplace programme. I will be looking to projects funded through myplace to make the very most of the resources they are receiving.

I expect projects to use this investment to drive reform of local youth provision and take every opportunity to promote young people’s positive and active role in society. I would like to see civil society organisations delivering more local publicly funded services, and once construction is complete I would expect local authority-led projects to transfer or share ownership and management with the local community and with young people. In line with our plans for the early intervention grant, I will also expect projects to focus strongly on evidence-based early interventions for the most vulnerable young people.

I want to see Government capital investment working harder to leverage ongoing additional investment including from the private sector. I have seen the extent to which the local business community and volunteers have engaged with some projects. I believe that many others could use the opportunity of a new high-quality youth facility to develop strong relationships that mean their long-term viability is rooted far more within their communities, rather than projects relying exclusively on public funds. I have instructed the Big Lottery Fund, who manage the programme on the Department’s behalf, to ensure that each project has reviewed its revenue funding plans to assure sustainability, before final approval is given.

School Sports Funding

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

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

We have had a very good, if truncated, debate, to which passionate and genuine contributions have been made by many hon. Members. I have to say, however, that I think the hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) attended a different debate, and certainly did not listen to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

Let me make one thing clear at the outset. This Government, this Secretary of State and this Minister are absolutely committed to promoting sport in schools and outside schools, and to all ages, as beneficial, positive, healthy, team-building, socialising and a fun thing to do. Some of us actually play it as well. The hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts), who is no longer in the Chamber, might like to turn out next Wednesday for the parliamentary hockey team. I shall be leading it in Wapping. I note that his interests include watching rugby and football, but apparently not participating in sport himself. Above all, we want to see more young people engaged in high-quality sport, more often and more competitively, starting younger, for longer and, most important, sustainably into adulthood.

No one is talking about taking sport away from schools, and no one is talking about downgrading sport as an important and exciting part of school life. Head teachers have been responsible for ensuring the delivery of PE and sport in their schools ever since it was made a compulsory part of the national curriculum in 1992, and we have no plans to change that. The Government are not closing down school sport partnerships; what we are doing is ending the ring-fenced funding for them beyond the summer of 2011. Funding was never expected to be of unlimited duration—and, of course, we have still not heard from Labour Members what they would have been able to sustain given the disastrous economic legacy that they bequeathed to the country.

If schools choose to use their own sports funding to buy in the services provided by the school sport partnerships, they will be free to do so. Indeed, if they have been such a success in the eyes of schools, surely that is what those schools will want to do. However, we believe that that should be offered without the bureaucratic, costly, top-down infrastructure that school sport partnerships involve.

Despite the best intentions of the last Government and the best endeavours of many school sports co-ordinators and teachers, we simply are not aiming high enough or achieving nearly enough in return for the massive investment of £2.4 billion in public funding since the partnerships started in 2003. The question, therefore, is not “if” but “how”. It is about how we achieve more, how we get more young people involved, and how we change the whole ethos of sport in schools and ignite a spark in our young people that is sustained into adulthood—and not just because it is offered on a plate by a generously funded but highly prescriptive central Government offer.

[Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way at this stage. Let me briefly echo his points. The co-ordinator in my area has worked extremely well, but the difficulties were highlighted by a head teacher in my constituency who said that

“the strategy was both ineffective and also a perfect example of how ‘ring-fenced’ initiatives can be inefficient and bureaucratic.”

Do our children not deserve a better system?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is right. It is a mixed picture.

The network of school sport partnerships did help schools to raise participation rates in a range of areas targeted by the previous Government, and schools should be given credit for that. I pay tribute to the Youth Sport Trust and to Lady Campbell, whom I have met three times in the last six months and with whom I have played extreme frisbee in Sheffield. The fact remains, however, that the proportion of young people taking part in competitive sport has remained disappointingly low, and definitions of what count as participation levels are hardly ambitious. I will not repeat the figures now.

What we need to do is enable schools to exercise innovation and autonomy. What interests me is how many inspirational men and women wearing tracksuits are motivating our young people on the sports pitch, not wielding clipboards and filling in forms back in the office. We firmly believe that the ideals of the Olympic and Paralympic games can be an inspiration to all young people, not only to our most promising young athletes. They embody the ethos of achievement and self-improvement that the best schools manifest in their sports provision for all pupils. That is why we want to see a new focus on competitive sports. Truly vibrant, sustainable sporting provision does not depend on a continuous drip-feed of ring-fenced funding, trickling through layers of bureaucratic structure with multiple strings attached. Instead, it must be integrated into the core mission and organisation of each school.

Our Government will get behind schools and teachers and help them to do what they do best: decide for themselves, individually and in collaboration, how to teach and develop their young people. The time for a top-down, centrally driven school sports strategy has passed. The days of a bureaucratic, top-heavy programme that saw extra funding soaked up by management, reporting and form-filling are, happily, passing into history.

What is important is delivering more high-quality sport for more children for longer, not a dogged attachment to the past structures of delivery. This motion from an opportunist and failed ex-Government is not the way in which to achieve that, and I urge Members to vote against it.

Question put.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

Youth Service

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

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

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing this important debate. There is no doubt that all hon. Members in this Chamber are concerned about the personal development of Britain’s young people and how best to secure that. As somebody with a background in the voluntary youth sector as well as local government, I recognise well the concerns expressed by many hon. Members today.

I want to make three points. First, the message that came through strongly in my hon. Friend’s speech is that early intervention is valuable. The benefits to society from working with young people accrue much later on, but that does not mean that we should not recognise them early on. It is about understanding the best way of intervening. One of the challenges—one thing that we Opposition Members see in some of the things the Government are doing—is that the ability to be flexible and work with young people in a range of different ways seems to be narrowing rather than broadening.

It is about not just spaces and places for young people, but the people who work with them and the purpose of that work. We need both generalist activities that help and support young people, many of which come from the voluntary youth sector, and specialist services. I have worked in setting up both kinds of activities in my local community in Walthamstow—working with young people at risk of joining gangs, and with young people to help them achieve their potential in a broader sense. I am concerned about the idea that the national citizen service can be mixed with those more integrated services.

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

indicated dissent.

[Stella Creasy]

I am glad to see the Minister shaking his head. Those two things cannot be comparable. We in the youth sector know that they are apples and pears. The national citizen service, which is interesting, should in no way be regarded as a compensation for the ability to integrate services and work with young people in their communities in the long term. In areas such as Walthamstow, it is important for people on the ground to build up trusting relationships over time with young people to help them make the right choices in their life. It is critical that we understand the need to intervene differently in respect of various age groups and children in differing circumstances. Youth services in local areas have been able to develop ways of working around young people, rather than around the service that is delivered. I accept that that differs in various places. There are issues about how youth services are delivered, but we Opposition Members are concerned that the cuts that are coming through now will hamper youth services’ ability to be more flexible in working with young people in different ways and producing the interventions that people need to get the outcomes we all want.

Secondly, the consequences of the public sector cuts, nationally and locally, are already clear. I urge the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) to look again at the impact of the cuts on the national and local youth sector, particularly the voluntary youth sector. We recognise the interconnectedness of the voluntary youth sector and local youth services; that is the challenge for us. The National Council for Voluntary Youth Services has said that already this year youth sector organisations have lost 20% of their budget, and that 80% of the programmes that are closing are those working with people who are not in education, employment or training—the very group we are especially concerned about. That is already happening as a result of the in-year cuts.

There is understanding about the relationship between the voluntary youth sector and youth services locally, and other public services. It is important to put on the record the great support that the police and health care services in my area provide to youth projects. However, before we can get to the great world in which the voluntary youth sector is more involved in running services, we will see it being cut off at the start, so that it will be unable to do some of the more innovate partnership work we all want to see happen.

I shall make my third and final point brief because I recognise that we are short of time. The challenge we are facing is not difficult economic circumstances but the question, “What are our priorities?” If our priority is to get best value for money, it is clear from the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West that investment in voluntary youth services and youth services locally reaps dividends well beyond the initial financial investment.

What is the best way to tap into the ability and interest in volunteering with young people locally, and how best to support it? I welcome some of the ideas the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) has come up with, but he did not say how he would get the youth services bus to the youth disco, or who would pay for the person who organises and manages that. That is our critique. The hon. Gentleman’s ideas are fantastic, but how will he make them happen? Delivery and implementation—

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Rosindell. This is the worst kind of debate to which to respond. I have been left with 11 minutes to take on board the excellent contributions of seven Back Benchers in this worthwhile and informed debate. It has not been quite as well attended as the debate on high-speed rail, but this matter is of great importance to everybody who is present and to people in our constituencies.

I will discard most of my speech and respond to the points that have been raised by hon. Members. At the end, I will respond to the points made by the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling). She provided some questions to the Department at 21 minutes past midnight last night. Unfortunately, I was not at my desk and have not had time to go into them in detail. [Interruption.] I was at my desk at 21 minutes past 11 last night, but not at 21 minutes past 12. I am happy to provide the hon. Lady with more detail and to have a meeting with her to take up the more substantive issues.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate and recognise her great experience in this area as a former youth worker, a former president of the Community and Youth Workers Union and a committed campaigner for young people. I believe that services for young people are vital. I have had the pleasure of visiting the fantastic Bolton Lads and Girls Club, which has been mentioned no fewer than three times. The Prime Minister has been there at least twice and the Prime Minister’s wife has visited it. It is in the constituency neighbouring the hon. Lady’s. Recently, I was delighted to join a group of business leaders in Blackburn who are working with the founders of that club to establish a series of similar facilities across the north-west of England, which is tremendously exciting. The commitment shown to young people by the OnSide project and by local people and businesses in Bolton is second to none, so the hon. Lady can speak from great experience.

I will set out briefly the principles of the Government’s approach to youth services before responding to specific questions. We want to promote a culture of being positive about young people in this country, which engages with the media, central and local government and people of all generations. Intergenerational trust has taken a knock in recent years, and has been exacerbated by negative stories about young people and mixed messages from the previous Government. The good projects supported by the previous Government sat uneasily with the negative messages given by the respect agenda, antisocial behaviour orders, curfew orders and the proliferation of those ghastly Mosquito devices.

We want to promote the involvement of young people in decision making at the top table on matters that affect them, not just on specific youth budget issues. That is not tokenism. As money is tight, we are freeing local authorities to decide what money should be spent on in the light of local priorities. We have ended ring-fencing to give greater autonomy to local authorities. We want to introduce an early intervention grant to help disadvantaged young people get on track for success, using proven effective practices. That is the best use of public funds. The hon. Lady rightly catalogued the cost of failure in this area.

Yesterday, I visited Nottingham, the early intervention city, to see a series of projects that are being led by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who I am delighted to say is undertaking an early intervention review for the Government. That is where the hon. Lady has her roots as a youth worker. As many hon. Members have said, early intervention is key. It is important not just in the early years, but in identifying teenagers who are at risk of indulging in dangerous behaviour, before they get on a slippery slope.

We also want to promote new partnerships and sources of finance with the private sector and voluntary bodies. We want to enable voluntary bodies to challenge the monopoly provision of youth services departments. The big society bank is a particularly interesting way in which huge amounts of money might be leveraged into innovative and exciting youth projects.

I have talked to a huge number of people who are passionate about achieving excellent services for young people and I will be talking to young people, youth services representatives, businesses and the media over the coming months to develop our thinking. I have set up a youth forum of key players in the youth sector, which will meet again in two weeks. That is an important source of information, as are the various panels of young people that I have set up to inform the Government about how best to shape policy.

Young people contribute a massive amount to their communities, but the press they get is out of keeping with that and unduly negative. Antisocial behaviour must be tackled firmly, but one of my first responsibilities is to celebrate young people’s achievements, and to promote a culture in the country and in the media of doing so. I am sure that all hon. Members present will want to contribute to that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) made the strong point that prevention is better than waiting for the cure, hence our emphasis on early intervention through the early intervention grant. How that money is spent is important. We should not just throw money at projects. Their success should be determined not by the number of participants, but by whether they provide a life-changing experience for the young person, by the value added and by the quality of the experience. There has been too much concentration on how many people have participated, regardless of the outcomes.

My hon. Friend rightly said that the big society is not a political convenience, but something that has been going on in parts of the country beneath the radar for many years. We want to raise it on to the radar and to encourage more people to participate in it. The Opposition spokesman fell into the trap of lazy journalists. Occasionally, it is useful to let detail get in the way of a good headline. If he reads my speech at the Edith Kahn memorial lecture, he will see that the 17 pages subsequent to the initial setting out of the problems are rather good and set out what the big society is all about. I recommend that he reads it in full; it is available on the Department for Education website. It sounds as though Mike Stephens is something of a one-man big society in his own right.

The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) went on about the bleak days of the 1980s. She clearly got her headline because she has now legged it elsewhere. She mentioned Armley Juniors, which has set up a youth facility in a local post office—one of the few things to come from the previous Government’s wholesale closure of the post office network.

The Government’s policy is not about cuts, but about new and smarter ways of doing things. Just yesterday, we launched the voluntary and community sector grant scheme, which encourages youth services organisations to come forward with their good ideas to get funding from the Department for Education. There is a new £110 million education endowment fund that will allow schools, charities, local authorities, academy sponsors and other groups to bid for funding to boost the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. There is about £470 million to help fund key programmes, including the training of community organisers, the creation of a new neighbourhood grant programme and so on. We should look beyond the headlines.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) is right that we should use existing facilities in a smarter way. We want to use children’s centres more out of hours and at weekends for youth activities. We should make more use of schools and sports facilities that are lying idle for much of the time. In my constituency, I set up a midnight football project that runs from 10 o’clock to midnight on Saturdays at a leisure centre after it has closed. That is when it is not being used and when the problems happen.

I will come on to the points made by the hon. Member for Bolton West, but because I have so little time I think that we will have to have a meeting. She asked about collecting information on youth services and auditing them. The Government collect annual figures on local authority expenditure on youth work through what have become known as section 52 returns. We are reviewing all data requirements on local authorities, but we have no plans to discontinue the collection of that information. I hope that that answer is helpful.

It is important that youth services are scrutinised by local young people. Youth mayors—there is one in Worthing—youth cabinets and UK Youth Parliament members should scrutinise the quality of youth services. They should use their voice to challenge local authorities and the Government. I spend a lot of time with them.

The hon. Lady mentioned West Sussex and I am aware of the pressures on local authority budgets. In fact, West Sussex county council has changed the way in which it does things and the cuts will not be of the level that she mentioned.

I look forward to visiting the project tomorrow with the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). The national citizen service is not compensation for youth services. The funding will not come out of the Department for Education’s funding for youth services, but will be completely separate. However, it does bring lessons for new ways of doing things that can be applied to the youth sector—it is about inspiring young people. We are not discussing just a short summer camp, but an experience of a lifetime at the transition to adulthood that will engage and re-engage young people in their communities on an ongoing and lasting basis. Let us not confuse it with a glorified summer camp.

There are many more questions, but I am running out of time in which to answer them. I would be delighted to meet the hon. Member for Bolton West.

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

Order. We must move on to the next debate.

Holidays (Low-income Families)

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2010 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) on securing this debate. I am glad that he did not cancel it, as he said he nearly did, and instead, in his inimitable manner, gave a twinkling delivery at high speed about this important subject. I fear that the Hansard reporters might have to revisit his notes on the IMSERSO Spanish scheme, the ANCV in France and assorted other names. He did not miss the opportunity to take us blatantly and unashamedly on a Cook’s tour of the east of England, and not least of his own constituency—and why not?—and the sunshine Essex coast; I am sure he would like me to repeat that phrase. The Essex coast is almost as sunshiney as the Sussex coast, where my constituency is based.

This is an important subject, and it is perhaps appropriate, as the hon. Gentleman said, that it falls on Children in Need day. One of my most important duties this morning was judging the cake competition in aid of Children in Need in the Department for Education—and a fearsome competition it was! I thought it safer than the cycling marathon on the ground floor. However, I am glad to say that the most innovative cake was the “cruffin”, which is a combination of an apple crumble and a muffin, made by somebody in my private office. But I digress, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The hon. Gentleman is a redoubtable and tireless campaigner on behalf of all children and young people, as well as pensioners, whom he mentioned, and many other specialist categories of people. It is no surprise to me that we are here on a sitting Friday—although not in a packed Chamber, alas—discussing one way to improve those people’s lives. I echo his comments about the Family Holiday Association. He is right to praise the excellent work that it does with families who would otherwise be unable to benefit from a holiday, and it deserves our fullest praise and deepest thanks. I am also glad that he mentioned the important Family Fund, which provides much needed breaks for particularly needy families who have children with long-term disabilities. That has proved very effective in the past.

The hon. Gentleman is also right that there is a growing body of research indicating that holidays can greatly benefit families. They allow them time to spend together outside their normal circumstances, relaxing in different places, and they can make for happier and healthier families, as he rightly stated. When holidays are taken in England, as I would always recommend, they provide a boost to local tourism as well—especially in Colchester and Worthing. However, the people who benefit the most from the chance to get away from the trials and tribulations of their daily lives are naturally also those for whom it can be most difficult.

I am fully aware that, in some European countries, such as France and Spain, which he flagged up, family holidays are regarded as a right. Sadly, that is not the Government’s view in this country. Many people who are not in poverty choose not to go on holiday for many different reasons, and we would not want to force them to do so. It is surely up to families how they spend their time and money, and at this time when resources are tight and there are many competing priorities for taxpayers’ money, it is, I am afraid, unaffordable for the Government to subsidise holidays.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s calculations for minimum income standards estimate that the cost of one week’s self-catering holiday in the United Kingdom for a family of two adults and two children is about £620, with associated travel costs of about £130. The Family Holiday Association figures from 2004, to which the hon. Gentleman alluded, suggest that each break costs £1,500. However, the Government are determined to focus their limited resources on reducing the deficit, putting public services on a sustainable footing and tackling the underlying causes of poverty, thereby putting everyone’s finances back on an even keel, so that families in the future can decide how they want to use their discretionary spending money.

Living in poverty, particularly at a young age, is a deeply distressing experience that can have long-term consequences. We want to end poverty and to do so not by treating the symptoms, but by eliminating the root causes, hence our commitment to the elimination of child poverty in particular. It is because nothing is more important than overcoming barriers to social mobility that we are investing more in getting early-years education right, for example. We recently announced that the entitlement to 15 hours per week of free education that the Government introduced for all three and four-year-olds will be extended to disadvantaged two-year-olds. We have also protected funding for Sure Start children’s centres and will refocus them on their original purposes, so that families who most need support get it.

It is because we are committed to improving education for the poorest families, so that they can go on to get the good job to which they have always aspired, that we are radically reforming education, including through the introduction of a new pupil premium that will attach extra money to the poorest pupils. It is because we believe that work is the best possible route out of poverty that we are introducing reforms to the welfare system to ensure that those who can work do so, while those who cannot receive the support that they need. We think that the right approach is to give families the power and resources to be able to take advantage of some of the things that the hon. Gentleman rightly flagged up.

With a good education and a job comes choice, and it will then be for families to decide whether they go on holiday and what sort of holiday they may want to take. But such is our determination to tackle poverty and inequality that we have asked Alan Milburn to assist us in our work to reinvigorate the social mobility agenda so that deprivation is not destiny.

[Bob Russell]

Will the Minister ask Mr Milburn to look at how the French and Spanish Governments in particular regard their holiday schemes? Not only do they benefit the children of low-income families, but they boost the economy of seaside resorts and other locations in those countries. They generate income.

[Tim Loughton]

I heard the hon. Gentleman’s point about a double benefit. Social tourism is good for families who need a break, and for the industry and the resorts where they choose to go. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to forward his comments—the Hansard report of today’s debate—to Alan Milburn so that he can take them into consideration. I am happy to support him in doing that.

In addition to the work that we have asked Alan Milburn to do, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) is leading a review of poverty and life chances. Again, the hon. Gentleman’s comments are relevant to that review, and I encourage him to send further details to the right hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) was also enjoying the cakes in the Department for Education when I was having a conversation with him this morning. He is leading a separate review into how we can support local councils in early intervention because, as we all know, prevention is always better than cure. All that is relevant to what the hon. Member for Colchester alluded to this afternoon.

We announced as part of the spending review that we will bring together funding for services for the most vulnerable children, young people and families through a new early intervention grant, which will be worth around £2 billion a year at the end of the comprehensive spending review period. It will allow local councils to decide how they can best deliver their local priorities. Again, that may focus on leisure opportunities for deprived families.

We fully support the Family Holiday Association, and all organisations that provide support to families who cannot otherwise afford holidays. Their work is admirable, and improves the quality of life of thousands of families every year. We cannot promise large sums of financial assistance to support them at this stage, but I hope that they will continue their work.

I again thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter in the House this afternoon.

Question put and agreed to.