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

Debate between Vicky Ford and Philip Dunne

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.

Russia’s Grand Strategy

Debate between Vicky Ford and Philip Dunne

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

First, I congratulate my Essex neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on securing this debate.

Following on from what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) has just said, it is too easy to forget. Every day since last February, first thing in the morning, when I get dressed for work, I put on my blue and I put on my yellow, and that is because I do not want to forget. Each morning as I get dressed, and every evening as I go to bed, I think about the people of Ukraine. In particular, I think about the women. I think about the mothers of the 1,000 children who it is estimated have been killed, the mothers of the 13,000 children who have been abducted, the mothers of the sons who have died on the military lines, the wives of those who have died in the military, the brave women who themselves are fighting in the military, the Interior Minister who died in the helicopter crash yesterday, and, of course, the women, young girls and grandmothers who have been raped. We must not forget the people of Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine, however, is not just about a fight over Donbas, Crimea, Kherson, Kharkiv or Kyiv—these names that have now become so familiar to us. It is also the battleground where the war between those of us who believe in freedom and democracy, and those who thrive off autocracy and oppression is being fought out. We know that if Russia wins in Ukraine, it will not be the end. As many other right hon. and hon. Friends have said, Serbia, neighbouring countries and Baltic countries know that they risk being targeted next. What I see as Putin’s eye of Sauron will have them in his sights.

Russia is not alone in this—other authoritarian states such as Iran and China are watching how we and others react, and they are ready to make and accelerate their own actions. While it is welcome that, in recent votes in the UN and other places, very few countries have been ready to put their hand up and say, “I am behind Russia, I back Russia”, it is noticeable that a number of countries still sit on the fence. They are watching how this plays out, to see which way they should act—do they side with freedom-loving democracies or with those more autocratic states? Many of these countries are in the global south.

We also know that Russia’s war does not limit itself to military weapons. The military weapons it has used with impunity have caused such devastation. The word “barbaric” was used earlier, and that is the right word. There are other weapons that Russia uses. It uses misinformation as a weapon of war, and we and our allies need to do more to counter that, especially that Russian narrative that Russia is only reacting to NATO aggression and US aggression. Even this morning, the Russian embassy in London was retweeting that message. Russia uses misinformation to try to win favour in the middle east and many other countries in the global south. We must counter it.

Russia has also disrupted global supplies of food, fuel and fertiliser. It is using hunger and cold as a weapon of war. At a time when the world is trying to recover from the economic aftermath of covid and to address the devastating impact of climate change, Russian action has forced many more millions of people—the world’s most vulnerable people—across the world into the hands of starvation. It does that deliberately, because Russia knows that food insecurity will cause even greater instability, conflict and migration.

Russia has used forced migration as a weapon of war to destabilise western Europe. Let us take ourselves back to the winter of 2015 and early 2016, and Russia’s support for the war in Syria. The then head of NATO accused Russia and the Assad regime of deliberately weaponising migration in Syria. A million refugees arrived in western Europe, which created a panic that European countries were not ready to deal with and were ill-prepared to manage.

I remember sitting in the European Parliament at the time, listening to debates and seeing at first hand how Russia was pitting one European neighbour against another. It was driving wedges between countries and fuelling racism and the rise of the far right and the far left. It was fuelling extremism. It was undermining those in the middle ground, the centre right and the centre left. I have no doubt that that played a major role in our Brexit referendum. I remember sitting at the time, watching that play out and seeing it as a deliberate act by Russia to use that migration to destabilise our alliances in western Europe.

In Africa there are often academic debates about whether Russia has a strategy, as it is often difficult to join the dots to see what influence Russia is having. But time and again we see how Russian influence targets a country where there is instability, and then Russian action will go in there and niggle at the wounds, to destabilise that country further. Recent events in Ukraine have clearly shown how the Wagner Group is not an organisation at arm’s length from the Russian leadership, but a proxy for Russian aggression. Public information shows that the Wagner Group is active in so many countries across the Sahel, from east to west. As the Secretary of State for Defence said at the Dispatch Box this week, it is an organisation that we know is guilty of many war crimes.

There are many press stories about the horrors the Wagner Group has committed in Africa and its criminal actions: massacres in Mali, illicit diamond mines in the Central African Republic, and exploitation of gold in Sudan. It has been suggested that Wagner was behind the Russian flags that we saw waving during the coup in Burkina Faso, and much of the anti-French propaganda put about in traditional francophone Africa. There are recent stories about whether Wagner mercenaries are also active in the dangerous conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This matters to us in the UK and our stability in western Europe.

[Philip Dunne]

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the Wagner Group is recruiting convicts released from Russian jails for that purpose? It is arming some of the most dangerous people in Russia to spread terror around the world. That could affect all of us.