School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill

Vicky Ford Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 17th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

This Bill on school attendance is important to our nation’s children and to their futures. At time when there is so much discord in politics, it has been truly uplifting to know that, when it comes to our children, even Members of Parliament can agree with each other and do the right thing. I want to start by thanking all colleagues, from all parties, for their unanimous support for the Bill at every stage of its proceedings through the House.

As a mum, I always wanted my children to have a wide range of choices available to them, so that they could choose the best opportunities for their future. Getting five good GCSEs gives a teenager a lot of choices. With these grades, they can do A-levels, T-levels or an apprenticeship. Without them, choices suddenly become much more limited. One of the schools in my constituency analysed the performance of two identical cohorts of students. Of the group who had attended 95% to 100% of the time, 82% got five good GCSEs; about five in 30 children did not. Of the group who had attended between 90% and 95% of the time, only 68% of them got good GCSEs; that means that 10 out of 30 did not get good GCSEs. That shows how even a tiny drop in attendance can have long-lasting consequences for our children.

The Children’s Commissioner found that three quarters of children who were rarely absent from school received five good grades at GCSE including in English and maths, but of those who are persistently absent—missing 10% or more of their school time—only one in three were meeting that standard. For children who were severely absent, only one in 20 were doing so. That is why we are all so correct in being so concerned about the rise in school absences.

Before I speak about absences, I want to say that we should be extraordinarily proud of our nation’s young people. Children in England now rank 11th in the world for maths and 13th for reading, whereas back in 2010, when today’s school leavers were just starting out in reception, the same league tables placed the equivalent cohort of children 27th for maths and 25th for reading. I am really proud that every single school in my Chelmsford constituency is now ranked “good” or “outstanding”; 14 years ago under Labour, one in three kids in my constituency had to go to schools that were not even “good”. Let us be proud of our kids, but absence is a really challenging issue.

The pandemic significantly disrupted school attendance levels, not just here but across the world. About one in five pupils in England are still missing the equivalent of half a day or more of lessons a week. That means that over a million children are missing significant amounts of their education. That is limiting not only their education but their choices, their chances to make friendships and take part in enrichment activities, as well as so many other issues that are so important for their behaviour.

We know that the reasons for absence from school can be multiple and complex. Such issues include support for those with special educational needs and disabilities, anxiety or mental health issues. If a child’s SEND needs are unmet, that can lead to their missing out on their education.

Changes in attitudes towards minor ailments may be another driving force behind the rise in absences. I say to parents, who are now much more likely to keep their children at home for minor illnesses such as coughs or colds than before the pandemic, that they should please be aware that in most cases children are better off at school even if they have a minor ailment. For the most vulnerable pupils, regular attendance is also a really important protective factor. That is why I was very concerned to hear from an expert on alternative provision that attendance has dropped below 60% for the first time in some of the settings he covers.

We know that regular absence from school can expose young people to harms such as being drawn into crime or serious violence. Some commentators have noted that absence is higher among children on free school meals, but one multi-academy trust leader I spoke to who had done a lot of research at his school suggested that was not the case for all ethnic groups. Those schools he looked at with a higher proportion of pupils with English as a second language had a much higher level of attendance than school cohorts with a higher proportion of British white students. That really needs further investigation.

Another head of a multi-academy trust with schools in my area said there had been an uptick in poor attendance particularly among girls in years 8 to 10. Many other school leaders have confirmed similar trends and suggested that that may be linked to lower mental wellbeing and self-esteem. Those of us who attended Tuesday’s Westminster Hall debate on the impact of social media and screen time—particularly on teenagers and particularly on girls—noted the link between poor mental health among teenage girls and social media, and the further link between poorer mental health and higher anxiety and missing school. It is deeply concerning. There have also been stories in the press recently about the links, in some families, between the increase in hybrid working and children missing school. As a mum, I completely understand how much more difficult it must be to persuade a sometimes reluctant child to go to school if you yourself are working from home on the day in question.

All those issues are important, but my Bill will make a significant difference. It will mean that every council will have to use its services to help to remove the barriers faced by some children. It will mean that every school in the country will need to publicise a detailed attendance policy and share it with parents, pupils and carers. All schools and local authorities will have to follow best practice guidance on school attendance, which has put a great deal of emphasis on the importance of early help and multidisciplinary support. We know that some children and some parents face specific challenges when it comes to school attendance, such as transport needs or special educational needs, and the guidance covers those in detail.

Schools will be required to have a named attendance champion, and families will be aware of the expectations incumbent on them before choosing secondary schools. Local authorities will need to meet representatives of each school regularly, and together they will need to discuss cases in which multi-agency support is needed. In that event they will need to work with the agencies to provide that support, especially in cases of persistent or severe absence. The Bill provides a “support first” approach for families to help to ensure that children attend school regularly.

This is very simple but crucial legislation. I hope it will help to transform the lives of all children and young people; I hope it will reduce the unfairness whereby different amounts of support are available to families in different parts of the country by providing for a more consistent approach; and I hope it will open up a new conversation on the timings of holidays. I entirely understand the pressure on families to take time off for family holidays in term time because it is generally much cheaper, but if a child does miss out on school for that reason, it will have an impact on that child’s education and life choice, and it will not help the child in the long term.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s Bill, and I agree with her that attendance is vital to a child’s education. She has made an important point about the effect that going on holiday in term time can have on an individual pupil, but does she agree that if pupils are missing, that will have an effect on the rest of the class, and that it is not fair on the teacher or the support staff who may have to work extra hard to ensure that the child who was missing can catch up without the whole class being affected?

[Vicky Ford]

As ever, my hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. Some children need to take time off school because, for instance, they have appendicitis and are having an operation. Teachers understand that, and will work with children in that position to help them to catch up. However, we are now seeing an increasing number of children taking time off school—perhaps because it is a Monday or a Friday and they are extending a weekend and perhaps because a parent is working from home. It is impossible for the teachers to help so many children to catch up. They just cannot, much as they would want to. All those missed afternoons and missed mornings add up to a loss of learning. Not only does that hit children’s abilities to get good GCSEs, but teachers have explained to me that if it happens in the early years it can become an ongoing behaviour. We might think, “Oh, it really doesn’t matter, they’re not in an exam year,” but it builds in the habit and it builds in with the class, so it is crucial.

In order to try to solve the holiday issue, I would like to see schools use the powers they already have to vary their term times a bit, which might give more families the opportunity to avoid peak season options. Perhaps we will see more regional changes: for example, different parts of Germany have slightly staggered school holidays so that not all the country is trying to go to the beach at the same time. I have discussed with some of the headteachers in my constituency whether we could have an Essex approach.

We had a slightly different February half-term in Essex: our Essex children had their February half-term a week after the rest of the country, which gave families a bit more flexibility. Having a regional approach meant that, for families who had primary schools kids at one school and secondary school kids at another, the family school holidays still overlapped. I would like to see more work done by schools with their local authorities to see whether they can give a bit more of that flexibility.

Coming back to the Bill, I say a big thank you to all the right hon. and hon. Members who took time to sit on the Bill Committee and to the Education Committee for its support. The Children’s Commissioner deserves an enormous amount of thanks for the work she has done on this issue, and particularly from me for the roundtable of real experts that she brought together, including children’s mental health charities, multi-academy trusts, local authority experts and others in this area. The Centre for Social Justice has also looked in depth at the impact that missing school is having on our children. I also thank the Schools Minister, especially for coming to visit a school in Chelmsford to hear directly from staff and students about this issue, and I thank the exceptional team at the Department for Education, as well as the staff in this House, for their very hard work on the Bill.

To conclude, we know that, for most children, the best place to be is in school, where they are surrounded by the support of their friends and teachers. We know that children will invariably fall behind if they miss time in the classroom, no matter how much teachers and others try to help them to catch up. We know that going to school is important not just for our children’s education, but for their wellbeing, wider development and mental health. Sadly, we also know that for many children the pandemic brought loneliness, loss of communication, loss of face-to-face time with their friends and loss of laughter—and for some children, those losses have had a lasting impact. The Bill will not be a magic wand, and it will not undo all the harms caused by covid, but it is a very firm step in a happier and more positive direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

With the leave of the House, I again thank everybody who has taken part during the passage of this Bill. I may have been a little modest. This is a very short Bill—it is only a couple of pages long—but the guidance that it will make statutory is enormously detailed and wide-ranging. That is why making that guidance statutory was the No. 1 recommendation of the Education Select Committee, and the No. 1 ask from the Children’s Commissioner and many others.

I remember the Opposition day debate to which the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) referred. I remember asking the shadow Schools Minister, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), whether she would support my Bill on that day, and she declined to do so. We have introduced this legislation in the form of a private Member’s Bill; in order to do so, I had to join the back of the queue, because my name did not come up in the ballot. I remind colleagues that not just one but four Labour Members were in the top five of the ballot for private Members’ Bills. If the Labour party really wanted to do something great for our children, it would have taken the Bill through this route itself. Labour Members say that they have a plan for our children, but we can see that they have not. Otherwise, they would have delivered this Bill themselves.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Congratulations to the right hon. Lady.

School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider clauses 2 and 3 stand part.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for serving on the Committee. Before going into the detail of the Bill, I will say some thank yous. I thank the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire, for his tireless support and for coming to Chelmsford to visit The Boswells School and hear directly from staff and students. I also thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North for ensuring that there is cross-party support for the Bill. At a time when politicians always seem to be arguing with each other, it is great to know that there is actually unanimous support when it comes to looking after our children and ensuring that they go to school.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester and members of the Select Committee on Education, as well as the Children’s Commissioner, school heads, children’s and mental health charities and local authority attendance teams, all of whom gave their views, shared their expert experience and supported the measures in the Bill. I also thank the officials in the Department for Education, Anne-Marie Griffiths in the Public Bill Office, and the Clerk, Bethan Harding, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris)—what would Fridays be without Rebecca?—for all the support I have received up to this point. I also thank Sarah from my office. Today is a busy day in politics, so a huge thank you to all MPs for taking the time and trouble to be here today. Every one of them is here because they care about children.

I will not repeat everything that I said on Second Reading, but I will repeat this: education is key to a child’s future, and for most children school is the best place to be. This is a subject close to my heart, because I want every child to be able to achieve their potential. I want young people to have opportunities. I want them to be able to choose what they do in their future and to have a wide range of choices about whether to continue studying after school and if so, what to study. I want them to have a choice about what jobs or careers they go into.

However, attending school regularly is crucial in giving children those choices. Our children can achieve brilliant things: educational standards have come on in leaps and bounds over the past decade, with children now ranking 11th in the world for maths and 13th for reading. We should be so very proud of our nation’s young people. That is phenomenal progress and we must not let it slip. However, the pandemic has significantly disrupted school attendance levels not just here, but in many countries across the world, with more than one in five pupils in England still missing out on the equivalent of half a day or more of lessons a week. That means that more than 1 million pupils are missing out on significant amounts of their education. It reduces their chances of getting good grades, limits the choices available to them for their future and risks impacting on their longer-term life chances. It also affects their friendships and their chance to take part in enrichment activities, which are so important to their wider wellbeing.

A great deal of work has been done to improve school attendance already. There was the in-depth consultation by the Department for Education, which led to detailed guidance on school attendance being published two years ago, in May 2022. Since presenting the Bill, the Government have already published an updated version of the guidance, which in particular sets out more detail on mental health support and meeting special educational needs. Since Second Reading, the Minister has announced that the guidance will become statutory from 19 August, and I thank him for doing so. Making the guidance statutory is supported by the Children’s Commissioner and the Centre for Social Justice, as well as the Education Committee and many other experts. However, this legislation is still needed, and I welcome the Government’s and Opposition’s support for the Bill. It is a simple but crucial piece of legislation—just two main clauses.

The first clause will place a general duty on local authorities to exercise their functions with a view to promoting regular attendance and reducing absence in their areas. That will help reduce unfairness in the amount of support available for families between areas of the country and level up standards in areas with poorer attendance by providing a consistent approach to support. Local authorities should follow a “support first” approach.

The second clause will help to ensure that schools play their part by requiring them to have a detailed attendance policy. They will be required to publicise that policy so that all parents, pupils and those who work at the school are well aware of its contents. Legally that is achieved by inserting two clauses into the Education Act 1996. Both clauses will require all schools and local authorities to have regard to the guidance issued by the Secretary of State.

Local authorities will need to provide all schools with a named point of contact to support queries and advice, meet each school termly to discuss cases where multi-agency support is needed, and work with other agencies to provide support where it is needed in cases of persistent or severe absence. Schools will need to have a named attendance champion and robust day-to-day processes for recording, monitoring and following up on absences. They will need to use their attendance data to follow up with pupils who are persistently and severely absent.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for taking forward this Bill. As she knows, the Select Committee on Education has long recommended action in this space. Was she as struck as I was by the evidence given yesterday to the Select Committee by Annie Hudson, the chair of the child safeguarding review panel, about the proportion of the cases that she deals with—the most serious cases of things going wrong for children—where children are persistently or severely absent?

[Vicky Ford]

As ever, my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee makes an excellent point. Attending school is really important for safeguarding; we hear that again and again. Children who do not attend school are unfortunately much more likely to get drawn into gangs and much more likely to be victims of violence. Attendance has an important protective factor.

Importantly, students and their families will be aware of a school’s attendance policy before they choose their secondary school. Because children often have that choice about which secondary school they go to, they will know what the school expects of them in respect of turning up.

In addressing the issue of school attendance, however, it is really important that we do not simply lay the blame at the door of hard-working parents. The vast majority of parents want their children to do well, but many do not have the help that they need to support their children in fulfilling those aspirations. Some children face specific barriers to school attendance, such as issues with transport or ensuring that a child’s special educational needs are met. That is why the guidance places a great deal of emphasis on early help and multidisciplinary support.

Schools and local authorities will need to work together. Local authorities will need to help schools to remove those barriers to attendance.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I join colleagues in congratulating my right hon. Friend on bringing the Bill to this stage and hopefully on to the statute book with cross-party support. It is a key part of making sure that we bear down on what we know is a key indicator of when children not only fall out of school, but potentially get excluded. That is when we know lots of trouble can start to escalate for them in their lives. So, will she join me in trying to persuade schools and local authorities to embrace the Bill when it gets on the statute book in a way that really does start to reduce the need for exclusion, particularly for the very vulnerable children who might fall out of school and education altogether?

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for making such an excellent point. This might be the last time I get to thank him for all the work he has done for children during his time in this place, which will be worse off without voices like his championing children. We must make sure that we continue to have champions for children in this place. He makes a really good point about severe and persistent absences, but actually, really small absences can make a difference. The Boswells School, which I visited with the Minister, had looked at the difference between children who had attended between 95% and 100% of the time and children who had attended between 90% and 95% of the time. Those two cohorts were identical in all respects—special educational needs and disabilities, free school meals, and so on. Of the children who had attended 95% to 100% of the time, 82% got the five good GCSEs needed to progress. Of the children who had attended just a bit less—90% to 95% of the time—only 68% got those five good GCSEs plus maths and English. That really whacks their chances of going on to college, so I have written an open letter to all schools in my constituency, setting that out to parents so that they are aware that just that tiny drop in attendance can really affect their child’s life chances.

To conclude, the School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill has the potential to go a long way in tackling the causes of absence from school and removing the barriers to school attendance that some children face. I hope that it will set an example that many other countries follow, and I hope that our nation’s children can rely on all right hon. and hon. Members to support the Bill today.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford on bringing forward this legislation. I was very pleased to speak in support of it on Second Reading, because quite simply, children cannot learn at school if they are not in school in the first place. I do not intend to detain the Committee long, but I would like to raise two points where I would welcome comments from the Minister and where it therefore might have been unfair to intervene on my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford.

First, placing a statutory duty on local authorities for this register, as the legislation would do, may result in their incurring some additional costs. As Members from across the House will know, local authority budgets are particularly squeezed now, so we need to be extremely careful about adding further burdens. I would welcome anything that my right hon. Friend the Minister can tell us about how he will ensure that authorities such as mine, Buckinghamshire Council, will be appropriately supported to be compliant with the proposed legislation.

Secondly, I heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford said about parents, but I am concerned about the pressure being felt by some smaller schools to achieve high attendance in the face of what can be extremely unco-operative and challenging parents. In my constituency, I recently visited a primary school where the senior leadership felt they had no choice but physically to go and collect children from their homes and bring them to school, because the parents were simply refusing to do so. The teachers, the head and the governors were really quite distressed about the impact that that was having on the lives of the teachers doing it, but they were doing it because they were so worried about Ofsted perhaps marking them down if they could not achieve that attendance. I have raised the matter personally with Ofsted. It was very sympathetic to the points that I was raising and it is going to talk to the school directly.

However, the point remains that although the register in this legislation will allow us to record who is absent, we need parents to fulfil their responsibilities, so I should be grateful if the Minister would update the Committee on what steps his Department is taking to encourage that degree of parental responsibility, which is essential. It is not the duty of teachers, or of Government, to supplant parents in instilling the right discipline and the right approach to school in their children.

Overall, I am very happy to support the Bill promoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford. Having brought a Bill through the House myself, I know what hard work it is for an individual Member—not least in making sure that people come to Committee—so I warmly congratulate her on that and I look forward to seeing the Bill clear all of the further legislative process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

I would just say a massive “thank you” again to everybody who has come here today, and for the various comments that have been made. I was not going to say very much now, but maybe I can just take a couple of minutes to reflect on some of the comments and put on the record some of the other work that I have done, because it may give rise to some “next steps” thoughts.

I particularly thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North. She is right about special educational needs. In my county of Essex, it is taking far too long for parents to get their children’s education, health and care plan, or ECHP. I am really glad that the county council has recruited extra staff; they are bringing in outside expertise to address that issue. And the Government have put considerably more money—60% more money, I believe £10.7 billion—into special educational needs.

The next steps that I would like to see include the building of more specialist hubs within mainstream schools, as particularly at primary school level I have seen those to be incredibly effective on both speech and language, and in children who may be on the neurodiversity spectrum, in helping children from many different primary schools—those who need such extra help—to get back into mainstream schooling, as well as the building of more specialist schools. So, some of the extra capital that the Government have given recently to go into those specialist hubs will make a real difference.

On the subject of mental health support, I agree that more children are saying that they have issues with their wellbeing. I have heard directly from schools that have said mental health support teams are useful.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North mentioned breakfast clubs. They can help some schools, but they will not necessarily help secondary schools, as the Minister said.

When I have spoken to schools about attendance, they have said that the issue of more children missing out on school seems to be particularly with girls in years 8, 9 and 10. If you read the survey on girls’ attitudes by Girlguiding UK, which they have conducted every year for many years, you will see that there is deep concern about the happiness levels of young women in this country. The more I read that survey, the more I am convinced that part of this issue is to do with what is happening to girls online, including what they are seeing online; we have to do more. I am really glad, therefore, that the Department for Education has said that no children should have phones in school; phones should not be allowed in schools. I am concerned about how many schools are not following that suggestion. I also think that we need to go further.

Because I am addicted to private Members’ Bills—[Laughter.]—I intend to introduce a new ten-minute rule Bill on the subject of children’s phones. I recently met a head of child protection and loads of other experts, and they believe that the best way to protect children’s phones is through the system operator. It is the iPhone Operating System and Android operators that can identify the age of the person who is using a phone from the way that they use that phone. They could easily put blockers on a child’s phone to stop a child being able to send sexual images of themselves or access age-inappropriate content. That may be the way my Bill goes, but that is next month’s work.

Many parents and schools talk to me about how the pandemic broke the contract between families and schools. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North mentioned the pandemic and the impact that it had on SEND provision. I was Minister for Children during the pandemic, and the challenges that we had in trying to keep schools open were huge. Many times, when all the evidence was that it was doing damage to our children, it was the unions that blocked the reopening of schools. I remember those conversations. I do not want to get into a political argument now—and the unions had important points about the safety of staff and so on—but I hope that if we ever go through a pandemic again, we will be able to work together to make sure that staff, parents and children are safe but that we minimise the loss to children. I am sure the hon. Lady will want to have a conversation with me afterwards about that.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I agree with a lot of what the right hon. Lady is saying, but I urge extreme caution on rewriting the history of the pandemic. It is really important that we take lessons from the inquiry and look at things in the round. As a parent at that time, I remember the difficulty that schools had staying open because of the level of covid among teaching staff. It is very dangerous to simplify it and blame one group of people. I think we all have lessons to learn from that very difficult national experience.

[Vicky Ford]

I remember living through the pandemic, and I agree that the inquiry is important. The hon. Lady is right that at times there were high levels of sickness among teaching staff, but at other times there were not.

On the issue of holidays, I can completely understand the pressure on some families to take holidays outside the school holidays, because they can be cheaper, but—I gave the statistics earlier—even a small drop in a child’s attendance can really hit their life chances, and there are 13 weeks of school holidays during the year. One thing that I would like to look at more is time shifting some of the school holidays. I have spoken with schools in Essex about whether they would shift some of their holiday weeks so that they do not overlap so much with national holidays, to give parents that bit more flexibility. I understand that in Germany there are different school holiday times in different regions. That type of flexibility, with local authorities working with the schools in their area, both maintained and academies, to ask, “Can we have a bit of a localised approach to give parents that bit more flexibility to take holidays away from the main school holidays?”, may be part of a solution.

I thank everyone very much for this piece of work. It is an important first step, and it has been great to have cross-party support on it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 and 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill to be reported, without amendment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

Yes; I am sorry to hear about the situation of the teacher in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Of course, good behaviour is the bedrock of schools and school standards. We are investing more in behaviour hubs, which are helping schools that need help with the behaviour of children. We are also investing more in alternative provision schools. We are building 77 new ones; 51 are already open and the rest will be opening in the coming years.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

In Essex, it has been taking far too long for children to get their education health and care plans, so I was pleased to hear that the county council had just recruited 46 additional members of staff. It is also building new special schools, including two more in Chelmsford, but what can make a difference is specialist hubs within mainstream schools, helping children from that school and from neighbouring schools. Given that we have large numbers of schools being rebuilt in Essex due to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—RAAC—does the Secretary of State agree that this could provide an opportunity, and that we should look at all the schools that are due to be rebuilt and consider putting specialist hubs into those rebuilding programmes?

[Gillian Keegan]

My right hon. Friend mentions the considerable investment that is going into special educational needs and high needs budgets. There is also provision for capital to build new free schools and school places. As we look to rebuild some of the schools affected by RAAC, which has now all been identified—every school has its budget details—we urge local authorities to consider what will best meet the needs of young people in their area. There is flexibility on free school places as well: those schools look at what to come forward with as regards provision that is needed to address local need.

Childcare Entitlements

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

We have a survey of 6,000 parents and 9,000 providers to set our rates based on exactly what they are paying. The hon. Lady must have missed my saying that our rate for under-twos is over £4 more per hour than that paid by a parent privately. I know that she does not like these facts, because they are at odds with her narrative. She asked me to prove her wrong; this month, we have just done so.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

The expansion of Government-funded childcare is going to be a major benefit to many families in my Chelmsford constituency, so on the first day of the expansion I went to visit Scallywags Nursery, one of the many outstanding childcare providers in my constituency. I was overwhelmed by how happy and loved the children are. They would like to expand, but they rent premises from the local council, which is run by the Lib Dems who wrote to me last night saying the council will not give more space to expand this amazing nursery. Is there any capital funding available to help nurseries expand?

[David Johnston]

That sounds like typical behaviour from a Lib-Dem council. At the end of last year, we allocated £100 million in capital funding—every local authority got some of it—precisely to help providers like the one my right hon. Friend described to expand, upgrade their buildings and so on. I would take that answer and see what the council is doing with that money.

School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill

Vicky Ford Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 2nd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

We should all be extraordinarily proud of our nation’s young people. Children in England rank 11th in the world for maths and 13th for reading. Back in 2010, when today’s school leavers were just starting out in reception, the same league tables placed the equivalent cohort of children 27th for maths and 25th for reading. I am also proud that every single one of the schools in my constituency is ranked good or outstanding, up from just two in three schools 14 years ago.

There has been phenomenal progress and we must not let it slip. That is why it is so concerning that the number of severely absent or persistently absent pupils is still dramatically higher than it was pre-pandemic. While the numbers have improved over the past year, we still have over a million children or young children persistently absent or worse. As well as being a place to socialise and make friends, school is key to giving young people access to skills and opportunities for their future. The surge in persistent and severe absences risks a profound impact on educational attainment and then on longer-term outcomes.

Research by the Children’s Commissioner found that three quarters of children who were rarely absent from school receive five good grades at GCSE, including the crucial English and maths, but when we look at those who were persistently absent—missing 10% or more of their school time—only one in three met that standard. For children who were severely absent, it is only one in 20.

A multi-academy trust that has a school in my constituency pointed out that even a small drop in attendance can have a profound impact. It looked at the relationship between attendance and GCSE results in one of its high-performing schools, and 82% of those who achieved 95% to 100% attendance got those five good GCSEs, including English and maths. When we look at the children who were there between 90% and 95% of the time, only 68% achieved that. Even those few missed sessions can make a huge difference.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend offers the House a most fascinating insight into the impact on performance of non-attendance for only a relatively short part of the school year. Is that widely recognised within the teacher community, particularly among headteachers, or is that something she is seeking to draw to their attention through this excellent Bill?

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. The Children’s Commissioner research has accurately pinpointed how these small differences in attendance can make a big difference in outcomes. Such research has been done more recently, since the pandemic. The schoolteachers I met recently were concerned about non-attendance. Clearly, when we move into severe absences, that is a big point.

The reasons for increased pupil absence are multiple and complex. Issues include support for those with special educational needs and disabilities, anxiety, and mental health issues. If a child’s SEND needs are unmet, that can lead to their missing out on education. Changes in attitudes towards minor ailments may be another driving force, as parents are now more likely to keep their children at home for minor illnesses such as coughs and colds than before the pandemic, but in most cases children are better off at school, including when they have minor ailments.

For the most vulnerable pupils, regular attendance is an important protective factor, so I was concerned to hear from an expert that attendance at the alternative provision setting that he covers has dropped below 60% for the first time. Research shows that regular absence from school can expose young people to harms such as being drawn into crime or serious violence.

I am really grateful to the Children’s Commissioner, who earlier this week brought together a roundtable of experts on the issue to discuss it in more depth. The group included heads of multi-academy trusts from across the country, representatives of local authorities, mental health experts, attendance experts and AP providers. Every single attendee stated their support for the Bill. They also spoke about what they have seen drive the increase in non-attendance. We heard that the economic situation has put pressures on household budgets and housing, which means that people sometimes get rehoused further away from schools. That has had an impact for some families, but is not the cause of poor attendance in the majority of cases.

Some commentators have noted that absence is higher among children on free school meals, but one MAT leader who has done a lot of research at school level suggested that may not be the case for all ethnic groups. His research compared cohorts of schools in which all schools had high levels of free school meals. The schools that also had a high proportion of pupils with English as a second language had a much better level of attendance than the school cohort that had a high proportion of white British students. That needs further investigation.

The head of a multi-academy trust with schools in my area as well as other areas explained that there had been an uptick in poor attendance by girls in years 8, 9 and 10. Other school leaders confirmed that they had seen a similar trend. They suggested that it may be linked to lower mental wellbeing and self-esteem. It is worth reading the 2023 girls’ attitudes survey by Girlguiding UK, which bears that out. Girlguiding UK’s excellent report shows that girls’ happiness is at the lowest level since it started the survey 15 years ago. The survey reported increased online bullying, online sexism and online harms among girls, as well as a large increase in the number of girls feeling ashamed of how they look. That shows why the work that the Government have done to tackle online harms is so vital, and why it is vital that Ofcom really does implement what is set out in the Online Safety Act 2023. Of course, there is more work to be done to address that.

A number of experts reflected that they felt that the contract between schools and families had been broken by the pandemic. A report by the Centre for Social Justice goes into that in some detail. I was interested that a local authority representative suggested that the breaking of that contract may have been further compounded by days off due to teacher strikes.

Some leaders suggested that there may be a link for some families between the increase in hybrid working and children missing school. As a mum, I can completely see that it may be more difficult for some parents to persuade a reluctant child to go out of the house and into school on days when one is working at home oneself. Interestingly, other countries have looked at hybrid modelling for schools post pandemic, but we need to remember that the vast majority of children are better off in school. We discussed the issue of fines, and I was told that in some cases parents asked for an education attendance order to be placed on them, as they believed it could help them to persuade a reluctant child to attend school.

In addressing the issue of school attendance, however, it is important that we do not simply lay the blame at the door of hard-working parents. Most parents want their children to do well, but many do not have the help that they need to support their children in fulfilling those aspirations. That is why securing good attendance requires a holistic approach that brings together schools, families, the local authority and other local partners. It is also why in 2022, following an in-depth consultation, the Department for Education published new guidance entitled “Working together to improve school attendance”. I have a copy here and, as you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, it is very lengthy; it runs to over 60 pages and is extremely detailed.

A great deal of emphasis in this guidance is placed on early help and multidisciplinary support. It requires every school to have a senior member of the school’s leadership team acting as attendance champion, and sets out how schools and other partners should work together. Last year the Education Committee undertook a detailed inquiry on attendance, and witnesses agreed that the guidance needs to be put on a statutory footing. That was also a major recommendation by the Committee. Making it mandatory for bodies to follow that best practice guidance is supported by the Children’s Commissioner and the Centre for Social Justice, as well as the Select Committee and many other experts.

The Bill will make that happen. It will not solve all the issues, but it will make the guidance statutory. It will ensure that all schools, trusts, local authorities and other relevant local partners follow the best practice guidance. It will introduce a new general duty on local authorities to exercise their functions, with a view to promoting regular attendance and reducing absence in their area. Clause 2 will require schools of all types to have and publicise a school attendance policy. Both clauses 1 and 2 will require all schools and local authorities to have regard to the guidance issued by the Secretary of State, which is to be achieved by inserting two new clauses into the Education Act 1996 under section 443.

The Department for Education has told me that it will publish a revised version of the guidance ahead of the provisions taking effect. The guidance will help to reduce unfairness in the amount of support available for families in different areas of the country and level up standards in areas with poorer attendance by requiring the provision of consistent access to support. Local authorities will need to provide all schools with a named point of contact for queries and advice. They will need to meet each school termly, use their services and levers to remove common causes of absence in their area, and work with agencies to provide support where it is needed in cases of persistent or severe absence.

Schools will be expected to have an attendance champion, to have robust day-to-day processes for recording, monitoring and following up on absences, to use their attendance data to prioritise the pupils and cohorts on which their efforts should be focused, and to work jointly with local authorities and other agencies where the causes of persistent and severe absence go beyond the school’s remit. A register of children who are out of school due to elective home education is not part of my Bill, but it is part of the Children Not in School (Registers, Support and Orders) Bill tabled before Christmas by my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond). That is a separate issue and another Bill is coming on that.

Finally, I thank many third parties, including the Centre for Social Justice for its research on the subject, and the Children’s Commissioner and her team for their recent advice. I am extremely grateful to all those who are experts in education, and who care so deeply for children, for their support for this Bill.

School attendance is key to our children’s future. This Bill will make following the guidance mandatory, so that every school, local authority and body will need to follow the best practice. It is a positive legal step that we can take to enable children to get the support they need and help them return to school. I hope all Members will support it, and I commend this Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

With the leave of the House, let me start by thanking everybody who has spoken today, especially those from the Back Benches—my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and my hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon). They all care passionately for children and young people, and those who are educating them in their constituencies. They raised a number of very important points.

I would like to address the issue of mental health support teams. The various mental health charities that wrote to me, such as the Centre for Mental Health and the Centre of Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, do excellent work. They recommended the introduction of a mental health absence code. I listened closely to the Minister on this issue. It may not be as simple as one would like. In their letter to me, they welcomed the laudable—that is their word—progress made in rolling out mental health support teams to many thousands of schools. I know we would like more. They do a super job, and the difference that that initiative has made is amazing.

There is an important point about not putting extra burdens on schools and local authorities, and I thank the Minister for that. I thank, again, all the staff in the Department for Education and others who have helped with this Bill. I thank His Majesty’s Opposition for saying that they will support the Bill. However, we must not talk down our children. Our children are doing exceptional things and have had very difficult times. Our children are the best readers in the western world. They have leap-frogged past so many other countries in what they achieve in reading and writing. It has been exceptional what has been achieved in the 14 years that has been a child’s journey from reception to year 13. We must be so proud of them.

It is this Government who put in place those early reading improvements through the use of phonics, which gave children that basis, and who introduced those early years extra hours and are rolling that out even further. If His Majesty’s Opposition truly cared about attendance in school, they would have supported the Bill during their Opposition day, but they did not. This Bill was the No. 1 recommendation of the Education Committee and others. The Bill means that schools and local authorities will have to follow best practice; too many do not, and this Bill will make sure that they do. I would like to say a huge “Thank you.” Let us get this Bill through.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Congratulations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

Every moment matters in school, and we have improved and increased our school standards. The most important thing is that children are now there. Thanks to our data, we can now see patterns and those who are taking a week off outside term time, or those who perhaps have a pattern of behaviour of taking particular days off. We can go into the data—we are about the only country in the world that can do that, so we are uniquely positioned to tackle the problem. We can go down into the data and work at school level and local authority level, to ensure that we put into action everything we can to improve attendance.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Attendance matters, and we know that some schools and local authorities have higher attendance rates than others. That is why the Education Committee, the Children’s Commissioners and others all say that their top priority is to ensure that all schools and local authorities follow best practice guidelines. My private Member’s Bill, the School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill, will make that mandatory. I know that the Government support it, so will the Secretary of State take the opportunity to ensure that all colleagues across the House back the Bill, and no one objects to it on Second Reading this Friday, so that we can make best practice mandatory and get our kids back to school?

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for all her work in this area. She is right; the first thing to do is ensure that we understand best practice, and that it is rolled out everywhere. A lot of work is being done in that area. I very much appreciate the initiatives that she has introduced, and I urge colleagues across the House to support her endeavours.

School Attendance

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered school attendance.

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg, and thank you for giving us the opportunity to discuss school attendance in this Chamber. I note that a very similar debate is happening in the main Chamber—excuse me for having run from there to here. I understand that that is an extremely unusual occurrence, and Mr Deputy Speaker could not reflect on a time in 21 years when two debates on an identical issue had been tabled in both Chambers at once. Mine was tabled first!

A great deal has been written about school attendance recently. People are right to be concerned, with the number of severely absent or persistently absent pupils having soared since the pandemic. Last spring, nearly 1.5 million children were persistently absent from school, which means that nearly one in five children is missing 10% or more of their school time—the equivalent to an afternoon or more of every week of school. Education is key to giving young people access to skills and opportunities in their future, and the sudden surge in persistent and severe absences risks a profound impact on educational attainment and longer-term outcomes. That is why, before Christmas, I tabled a Bill to tackle the issue.

We should be extraordinarily proud of our nation’s young people. Children in England now rank 11th in the world for maths and 13th for reading. Back in 2010, when today’s school leavers were just starting out in reception, the same league tables placed that cohort of children 27th for maths and 25th for reading. There has been phenomenal progress in children’s school journeys over those 14 years, and we must not let that slip.

The reasons for increased levels of pupil absence are multiple and complex. They include issues such as support for those with special educational needs and disabilities, anxiety and mental health. We know, for example, that if a child’s SEND needs are unmet, that can lead to them missing out on education. I am also concerned about the rise in children being put on part-time timetables, especially children with SEND who may not yet have an education, health and care plan—part-time timetables should be used only for a very short time and in exceptional circumstances.

Changes in attitudes towards minor ailments may be another driving force behind school absences. Parents are now more likely to keep their children at home for minor illnesses such as coughs and colds than before the pandemic. In most cases, children are better off in school, including when they have minor ailments. There may be other changing societal issues. For example, a mental health services provider in my constituency suggested to me that increasingly addictive online gaming is impacting negatively on mental health and resulting in more of the children and young people they see missing out on school. I would like to see more research on that to see whether those societal issues are also driving some of the change.

For the most vulnerable pupils, regular attendance is also an important protective factor. Research shows that regular absence from school can expose young people to other harms, such as being drawn into crime or serious violence. The Education Committee heard that children missing out on school was one of the biggest risk factors in cases of child exploitation. These are yet more reasons why we must find new ways to bring those who are missing out back to school and ensure that young people turn up to class.

Every parent has a legal responsibility to ensure that their child receives an education. If they decide to have their child registered at school, they have a legal duty to ensure their child attends that school regularly. However, in addressing the issue of school attendance, it is important that we do not simply lay the blame at the door of hard-working parents. Most parents want their children to do well, but many need help to support their children to fulfil those aspirations. Securing good attendance requires a holistic approach—an approach that brings together schools, families, the local authority and other local partners.

Much detailed work has already been undertaken. In 2022, following a detailed consultation, the Department for Education published new guidance entitled, “Working together to improve school attendance”. Running to more than 60 pages, it is extremely detailed, with a great deal of emphasis placed on early help and multidisciplinary support. It requires every school to have a senior member of the school’s leadership team acting as an attendance champion and sets out how schools and other partners should work together.

Last year, the Education Committee undertook a detailed inquiry on attendance. Witnesses agreed that that guidance needed to be put on a statutory footing, and that was a major recommendation of the Committee. Making it mandatory for bodies to follow that best practice is supported by the Children’s Commissioner and the Centre for Social Justice, as well as the Education Committee and many other experts.

That is why, before Christmas, I presented a private Member’s Bill to the House of Commons to make that happen, the School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill. It will make the guidance statutory so that all schools, trusts, local authorities and other relevant local partners must follow it. The Bill will contain two clauses. The first will introduce a new general duty on local authorities to exercise their functions with a view to promoting regular attendance and reducing absence in their areas. The second will require schools of all types to have and publicise a school attendance policy. Both clauses will require all schools and local authorities to have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State. That will all be achieved by inserting two clauses into the Education Act 1996, under section 443.

Incidentally, I have given copies of the wording of that Bill to the Public Bill Office today. It will be printed overnight and will be available for Members to read tomorrow. The DFE has also told me that it will publish a revised version of the guidance ahead of the new provisions taking effect, and that the guidance will help to reduce unfairness in the amount of support available for families in different areas of the country and level up standards in areas with poorer attendance by providing consistent access to support.

Local authorities will need to provide all schools with a named point of contact for support with queries and advice. They will need to meet each school termly to discuss cases where multi-agency support is needed, work with other agencies to provide that support where it is needed in cases of persistent or severe absence, use their services and levers to remove common causes of absence in their areas, and monitor and improve the attendance of children with a social worker.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Lady for bringing forward this important subject for debate. I know that there could be no better person than the Minister to answer the points that she is putting forward. Does the right hon. Lady not agree that the mixed messages over covid about learning from home have left a lot more parents either more complacent about attendance or expecting teachers to provide online learning to help their children catch up? There is no substitute for in-school learning; I think that the right hon. Lady said that, and I agree with her. Teachers cannot be expected to double their prep and delivery on behalf of those children whose parents keep them off and ask for the learning to take place on their schedule. Does the right hon. Lady agree?

[Vicky Ford]

I think that the important message to get to children and their families is that the best place for most children to be is in school. That is best for their education. It is best for their friendships. It is best for their development. It is best for their learning in other extracurricular activities. There is also a separate issue of home education, which I will get to shortly.

Under my Bill, which makes the guidance mandatory, schools will be expected to have an attendance champion, to have robust day-to-day processes for recording, monitoring and following up absences, to use their attendance data to prioritise the pupils and cohorts on which to focus their efforts, and to work jointly with their local authorities and other agencies where the causes of persistent and severe absence go beyond a school’s remit.

The Local Government Association, for which I have great respect, has written to me in advance of the debate, saying that there is urgent need for a cross-government, child-centred strategy to tackle rising disadvantage and the wider factors that contribute towards persistent-absence children missing out on school. It says that that must include reforming the SEND system, expanding access to mental health support and youth services, connecting with hard-to-reach communities and ensuring that schools are resourced, supported and incentivised. The LGA also supports the introduction of a register of children who are out of school due to elective home education. That would improve the data on the visibility of these children so that councils can verify that children are receiving a suitable education in a safe environment.

A register of children who are out of school due to elective home education is not part of my Bill, but it is part of a Bill tabled before Christmas by my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), who is a former Ofsted inspector and just spoke in the debate in the main Chamber. I know that Government Ministers are assisting her with the Bill; it is on the Order Paper and has been since December. It does not need to be overtaken by an Opposition day debate to table yet another Bill, because that would be confusing. We have two Bills, they are going through the House, and they are already on the Order Paper.

The Centre for Mental Health and the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition have written to me to point out the link between mental health and absence from school that I have mentioned. They recommend that a mental health absence code is introduced. The issue of different absence codes was also raised by the Education Committee. It is not specifically addressed by my Bill, but the Minister may wish to comment on it. In their letter, they welcomed the “laudable progress” being made in rolling out mental health support teams to many thousands of schools. They would like its funding to be guaranteed and an assurance that all schools will have access to these teams. It would be helpful if the Minister could address that in his answers to the debate.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Having been born and brought up in her early years in Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member will know of the excellent educational facilities and teaching in that part of the United Kingdom. She makes a valid point about mental health. She will know that one in eight young people in Northern Ireland experience anxiety, which is 25% higher than in the rest of the UK. Does she agree that there needs to be a focus across the United Kingdom on mental health because it is contributing to children’s absence from school?

[Vicky Ford]

I thank the hon. Member for her comments. I remember my time in education in Northern Ireland very fondly. I was lucky to have access to a brilliant education in both state and private schools and to benefit from scholarships. I have excellent schools in my Chelmsford constituency. I commend the Government for the increase in recent years in the number of good and outstanding schools across the country.

On mental health, the Schools Minister has just explained in the main Chamber how the mental health support teams have been rolled out already to thousands of schools, and that they are working with the NHS to see that rolled out more widely. That is already in progress, and I have asked the Minister to address more of that roll-out. I know that it makes a difference, and it was a major ask from the coalitions of mental health experts who wrote to me. There is also, often, bespoke local need, such as that addressed by the amazing Kids Inspire charity in Essex, based in my constituency of Chelmsford, which does wonderful work. Part of it is funded by the voluntary sector, and part of it is state funded through grants. It does fantastic work with children who have been at risk of trauma.

I say to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) that it breaks my heart that Stormont is not sitting. If it were, Northern Ireland would be able to make its own decisions to address the particular mental health and other health needs there.

I thank the Centre for Social Justice for all its research on the subject, and the Children’s Commissioner and her team for their research and advice. As well as listening to the views of colleagues today, I have been working with the Children’s Commissioner, who is helping me to host a major roundtable next week so that I can hear the views of schools, social workers, parents and other expert groups directly. That will happen before my Bill has its Second Reading on Friday 2 February. I hope that the Bill will receive cross-party support from all Members in the Chamber and that they will ensure the same from other Members of their parties, which will enable it to pass swiftly through Second Reading and into Committee. Through that, we can make the guidance mandatory so that every school, local authority and body follow best practice. It is a positive legal step that we can take to enable children to get the support they need and help them return to school.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on bringing this important debate and on her work in this area. I am glad to have the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Opposition.

I am grateful to all hon. Members who have contributed today. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) on the importance of support for parents who struggle with their children’s attendance. She also mentioned the impact of RAAC and the disruption that is causing to children’s education in her constituency. I hope she is able to meet the Minister tomorrow as planned. We heard from the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) about the impact of persistent absence on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. He also told of the impact of the lack of SEND support on attendance and the very great difficulties that that presents.

I know that everyone in the House will agree that one of the most important things we can provide to children and young people across the country is an excellent education. Education opens up the world to them, not just in terms of jobs or training but in discovering interests and passions and fulfilling their aspirations. However, we cannot give children and young people the foundation they need for later life if they are not in school. New research from the Centre for Social Justice reveals that more than one in four parents think that school is not essential every day; not one in four adults but one in four parents. That is an extremely worrying statistic.

A recent report by the Children’s Commissioner found that pupils who are persistently absent in years 10 and 11 are half as likely to pass five GCSEs as their peers with good attendance records. Absence figures have reached historic levels under the Conservatives, increasing by more than 40% since 2010. The number of pupils severely absent has nearly trebled in the same period, with more than 88,000 secondary school pupils missing at least half of their education last year. School attendance should not and must not be seen as optional, or something that can be dipped in and out of. However, unfortunately for at least some parents and carers, the relationship between schools, families and the Government has broken down after years of neglect.

School attendance is one of the most urgent challenges that the Government must tackle in the education system today. The figures on school attendance have been moving in the wrong direction for years. In the 2016-17 academic year, the rate of persistent absence was 10.7%, and that has increased year on year ever since under this Government. By 2022-23, the rate stood at 21.2%—double that of just six years ago. It is unacceptable that the Government have been sitting idly by, letting the rates of persistent absence rise and giving no real thought or effort to the solutions to tackle the issue. They must start working to get children back in school, and they must start with urgency.

Labour has a plan to reduce persistent absence. We would introduce free breakfast clubs for every primary school pupil in England to boost attendance across the country. We know that breakfast clubs improve children’s learning and development, helping to boost performance in maths and reading, but they have also been shown to improve behaviour and attendance. They not only take pressure off parents in the morning but give children a chance to play and socialise, and, importantly, make sure that no child has to start the school day hungry. We would legislate for a new register of home-schooled pupils to keep track of those not in mainstream schooling. For many children, their home is a safe and enriching learning environment, but it is right that the Government take action to ensure that if a child is not in school, local authorities are clear about where they are and what education they are receiving.

[Vicky Ford]

My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) is not present. I know that she wished to be, but she has been in the debate in the main Chamber. Much as many of us try to be in two places at once, that is not possible. She has a piece of legislation already going through this House to legislate for a register of home-educated children. Will the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) support that legislation so that it can go through swiftly? Will she also encourage the Members of her party to support my Bill to make the best practice guidance on school attendance mandatory? I know that she will want to look at every single word of it, but it would be brilliant if she could give her support in principle because then we could do both these things now.

[Helen Hayes]

We agree that there should be a register of home-educated children and that there should be measures to tackle persistent absence. It is bizarre that Government Members chose to vote against the measures before the House this afternoon, which they agree with. Those measures were simply intended to accelerate the process of delivering a commitment that the Government have already made.

[Vicky Ford]

rose—

[Helen Hayes]

I will not give way again. The right hon. Lady will also know that private Members’ Bills progress if the Government give them time. It is not the Opposition who are holding up those measures, and she would do well to turn her attention to the shocking record of her own Government on this issue, which they have been allowing to slide for 14 years, and the question of why action has not been taken any sooner. If the Government allow time for the Bills to be debated, the Opposition will support the measures with which we agree. Frankly, that is a matter for the Government. The right hon. Lady’s obsession with the Opposition’s position when our position has been set out really clearly is bizarre.

[Vicky Ford]

Will the hon. Lady give way again?

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady is not giving way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

I thank hon. Members and right hon. Members for taking part in this debate. I was very moved to hear about the situation at St Leonard’s School in the City of Durham. Three schools in my constituency were affected by RAAC, and Essex County Council, working with the Department, was phenomenal. It turned around approvals really quickly and got in temporary classrooms where they were needed, so that every child in my constituency was in face-to-face learning at the beginning of this term. Essex had more RAAC schools than anywhere else, and the county council was phenomenal in turning it around. Some schools had it very badly, but they were very few; when so many kids are anxious, we need to be really careful to remember that the vast majority of children are in safe schools. I hope that the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) gets her meetings and those issues addressed.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), who spoke beautifully, especially about the impact on small rural schools. Obviously, the ones in my constituency are bigger, inner-city schools. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for taking the opportunity to mention schools on the Island, a place of which I am very fond. It is important that the issue of children missing out because they are off the school register is considered.

With regard to my private Member’s Bill, I make no apology for being obsessed with making sure that children get education, or for being obsessed with doing the best I can to deal with this issue. To get the private Member’s Bill through the House does not need the Government to give time; what it needs is for no Member of this place to object to it when I move it at Second Reading. Any Member could object to it, and it would then go back to the bottom of the queue. To get it through on Friday 2 February, I just need to know that no Member of this House will object to it. I know that the Government will not object to it; I have been talking to all Members on the Government side of the House to make sure that there will be no objections from our side. If the Opposition would kindly check, if possible, that there are no objections on their side—I am happy to talk to anyone who has concerns—it will enable the Bill to move swiftly.

I thank all Members for treating the issue seriously. It is a real issue, and it needs us all to work across parties to perform the No. 1 recommendation, which is to make sure that all schools and local authorities have to follow best practice. That is what the Bill will do.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered school attendance.

Children Not in School: National Register and Support

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Education is key to young people having access to skills and opportunities in the future, so we are right to be concerned about attendance. In spring last year, nearly 1.5 million children were persistently absent from school, which means that nearly one in five of our children were missing 10% or more of their school time: the equivalent of an afternoon or more every week. The sudden surge in persistent and severe absence risks a profound impact on educational attainment and longer-term outcomes. That is why before Christmas I tabled a Bill to tackle this issue, and I will be leading a debate in Westminster Hall shortly.

We should be proud of our nation’s young people. We should be proud that children in England now rank 11th in the world for maths and 13th for reading. Back in 2010, when today’s school leavers were just starting out in reception, the same league tables placed those same cohorts of children at 27th for maths and 25th for reading. There has been phenomenal progress; we must not let it slip.

The reasons for increased levels of pupil absence are often multiple and complex, including issues such as support for those with special educational needs and disabilities, anxiety and mental health. We know, for example, that if a child’s special educational needs are unmet, that can lead to them missing out on education. Changes in attitudes towards minor ailments may be another driving force behind school absences, and there may be other changing societal issues. It has been suggested to me that increasingly more addictive online gaming is impacting negatively on mental health and resulting in more children and young people missing school. I would like to see more research on that. For the most vulnerable pupils, regular attendance is an important protective factor. Absence from school can expose young people to other harms, such as being drawn into crime or serious violence.

In addressing school attendance, it is important that we do not simply lay the blame at the door of hard-working parents. Most parents want their children to do well, but many need help to support their children to fulfil that aspiration. Securing attendance requires an holistic approach, bringing together schools, families, the local authority and other local partners.

Much detailed work has already been undertaken on this issue. As the Minister said, in 2022, following a detailed consultation, the Department for Education published new guidance entitled, “Working together to improve school attendance.” It is over 60 pages long and extremely detailed, with a lot of emphasis put on early help and multidisciplinary support.

Last year, the Education Committee did a detailed inquiry on the issue of attendance. Witnesses agreed that the guidance needs to be put on a statutory footing, and that was a major recommendation from the inquiry. The Children’s Commissioner, the Centre for Social Justice and the Select Committee all support making it mandatory to follow best practice. Therefore, before Christmas, I tabled a private Member’s Bill that would make that happen.

The Bill would make the guidance statutory so that all schools, trusts, local authorities and other relevant local partners would need to follow it. It would introduce a new general duty on local authorities to use their functions to promote regular attendance and reduce absence, and require schools of all types to have and publicise a school attendance policy. The DFE has said that it will publish a revised version of the guidance ahead of the new provisions coming forward.

I note that the shadow Minister—who is not listening—has called for the introduction of a register of children who are out of school due to elective home education. I fully agree that improving the data and visibility of these children, so that councils can verify that they are receiving a suitable education in a safe environment, would be a good step forward. That is also supported by the Local Government Association. It is not part of my Bill, but is part of a separate Bill tabled before Christmas by my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), a former Ofsted inspector.

In order for the shadow Minister to get what she wants, all she needs to do is support the private Member’s Bill. If she really wanted it so much, why did she not ask any of the Labour Members who topped the private Member’s Bill ballot, coming in first, fourth and fifth place, to table it? It would have had its Second Reading last Friday and already be in Committee. My School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill is scheduled to have its Second Reading on 2 February. I hope it will get cross-party support from MPs, including the shadow Minister, so that it can move forward swiftly.

Funded Childcare

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

I simply do not accept what the hon. Lady says—[Interruption.] If she wants to send me details, I will be happy to take them up with any local authority that is not doing what it is asked to do. On the two particular issues with the roll-out, we have moved quickly and provided solutions for them.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

This is the biggest ever expansion of childcare and it will be transformational for many working parents, so it is bound to be really complicated to implement. The Minister has just said that only a tiny number of local authorities are reporting that they think they will not have sufficient places, so does that mean that the vast majority of local authorities say that they will have sufficient places? What is he doing to encourage more people to come into the profession and act as childminders?

[David Johnston]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: the vast majority of local authorities are already reporting that they will have the number of places that they need. We are working with the small number that have challenges and we are confident that they will be in the right place by that point. On her question about childminders, one of the things we are doing is introducing a brand-new childminder grant scheme to encourage more childminders into the great early years careers that are available.

Core School Budget Allocations

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The situation is unfortunate for local authorities, which will have been spending time calculating their school budgets on a local authority basis. That is why we wanted to get the recalculation of the figures done as soon as possible and out to local authorities. Cambridgeshire is funded in the way it is because we base funding on the level of deprivation in our communities. We have targeted a greater proportion of the schools national funding formula towards deprived pupils than ever before. In total, about £4.4 billion, or 10% of the formula, will be allocated according to deprivation factors in 2024-25. If an area has fewer children from disadvantaged backgrounds than other areas, that will of course be reflected in its overall ranking for local authority funding.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Last week I visited Meadgate Primary School, which is one of the many good and outstanding schools in my constituency. I am sure the Minister will recall precisely how many good and outstanding schools there are today, compared with 13 years ago. Meadgate Primary School is part of an academy trust of seven schools, and across the schools this situation could account for a £70,000 difference between what they had calculated they might expect and what they will receive.

That is obviously concerning, but also concerning is the number of children now coming in who would have had an education, health and care plan done when they were at pre-school, but did not get one because of the pandemic and now face delays. Given that high needs funding has doubled, will the Minister raise this backlog in assessments with the children’s Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston), to try to make sure that our primary schools are getting the support they need today for those children with SEND?

[Nick Gibb]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the great work that she did as children’s Minister in the Department for Education. She is right that the proportion of schools judged good or outstanding has increased. In 2010, it was 68%, and today that figure is 88%. We are not happy with that—our focus is on the remaining 12%. Every local school in our country should be a good or outstanding school.

My right hon. Friend makes an important point about education, health and care plans. She is right that the funding of the high needs budget has increased considerably over the past few years, and I will raise the issue of the backlog in EHCPs with my hon. Friend the children’s Minister. I should say that we are building significant numbers of new free special schools, so that there are more places available for children with severe special educational needs.