School Attendance: Covid-19

Debate between Wes Streeting and Tom Hunt

Monday 2nd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.

I begin by thanking the Petitions Committee for facilitating this debate, the organisers of the petition for presenting it to Parliament and, of course, the more than 100,000 people who have taken the time to engage with the petition, sign it and stimulate the discussion we are having today—including 500 or so people in my own constituency. These debates are a good way of providing a direct connection between salient issues that people are discussing in our constituencies and live debate here in Parliament.

I also take this opportunity, having only recently been appointed as the shadow Schools Minister, to say an enormous thank you to the entire schools community—the headteachers, governors, teachers and support staff who have been doing an outstanding job in very difficult circumstances. I do not think any of us as constituency MPs could fail to be moved by some of the testimony we are hearing from schools about the extent to which they have moved heaven and earth to try to keep pupils learning—including during the first lockdown, where we could have been forgiven, from some of the coverage, for thinking that schools were closed and that learning had stopped.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. Many staff had to work doubly hard to ensure that their pupils could continue to gain access to learning in unusual circumstances, through remote learning and with all the challenges that we know exist. I will refer to those challenges, but they have already been outstandingly put, not just this afternoon, but in an Adjournment debate before the recess by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh).

Obviously, a big part of this debate centres on fines, and I will come on to address that, but first and foremost I want to be absolutely clear about where we as the Labour party sit on the question of whether schools should remain open during the pandemic. I think that is really the thrust of the petitioners’ case. We know from some of the opinion polling out today that there is divided opinion in our country, but Labour is clear that it is in the best interests of children and young people up and down the country for schools to remain open and for young people to continue to gain access to learning in school, with a teacher, as much as they possibly can.

There is a strong reason for that. The reason why we invest in teachers and why successive Governments—forgive me for referring to the actions of the previous Labour Government—invested so much in education is that we know that of all the policy levers we can pull in Parliament and in government, education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet in terms of shaping young people’s life chances and giving them every opportunity in life that they deserve. We know that every single day of school missed for pupils from every background has a significant impact on their achievement, their understanding, and, crucially, on their life chances. For young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, that is especially true. We have to do everything we can to make sure that throughout the pandemic, as the Children’s Commissioner has strongly argued, schools are among the last to close and the first to reopen. I appeal to parents who are minded to withdraw their children from school because of worries, concerns and anxieties about whether school is safe and the best place to be to think really carefully about their children’s long-term future and life chances. With the best will in the world, and paying enormous tribute to the work that parents and carers have been doing at home to try to support their children’s learning, that is no substitute for a qualified teacher, a trained professional, teaching children in the classroom environment. We should be really clear about that.

We should also be concerned about the impact that the first lockdown and ongoing absences are having on children’s life chances, especially on those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. In the analysis by the Education Endowment Foundation, published in June, its median estimate was that the attainment gap could widen by 36%, but plausible estimates indicated it could widen by between 11% and 75% as a result of school closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic. In May, Vicki Stewart, deputy director of the pupil premium and school food division in the Department for Education, pointed to similar figures. Research published by the Royal Society in June suggested that school time lost because of the pandemic could harm the economy for the next 65 years, and unless catch-up lessons are effective, researchers predict a 3% loss in future annual earnings for pupils caught up in the pandemic.

I refer to those figures not because I have a utilitarian view that education matters only because of the long-term interests of the economy or people’s earnings potential, but to underline the point that a significant period of time missed—pupils have already missed significant time in school this year—has an impact not only on this academic year or the next round of examinations or the examinations beyond that; it has a long-term, lasting and detrimental impact on people’s life chances and opportunities, so we cannot be complacent about that.

Analysis of Government data by FFT Education Datalab found that pupils missing the most schooling are in the poorest areas of the country. That is compounded by the fact that online remote schooling has worked less well for poorer families. That should not be a surprise to anyone. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden outlined powerfully before the recess, there is deeply unequal access to online learning at home. It should come as no surprise to people that those from the poorest backgrounds do not necessarily have access to the suitable devices that they need, but they lack even the broadband internet access that many people take for granted. The pay-as-you-go charging rates and the stark figures of how much it costs to access Oak National Academy or BBC Bitesize is staggering. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden that the Government should ensure that no pupil forced to isolate at home does so without access to the IT and internet access that they need. I call on internet service providers to play their part too, because there is more that they could do. It is within their gift, for example, to make sure that certain websites, such as Oak National Academy or BBC Bitesize, which are there for legitimate online learning purposes, are made free to access and should not count towards people’s data limits. That would be a really good way for the big internet service providers and telecoms companies to step up to the plate.

[Tom Hunt]

If there are future closures or if children have to self-isolate, should Ofsted have a role when it inspects schools to look at the job that the school has done to make sure that it facilitates first-class online learning if a significant number of kids in that school have to self-isolate?

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful for that intervention. There is a role for Ofsted to play in looking at remote learning in the home, not least to disseminate best practice among schools. Let us just be clear for a moment—we are asking schools across the country to do something that they have not previously been asked to do. Even the very best teachers will have to adapt quite significantly to teaching remotely. It requires a completely different skillset, and we do an enormous disservice to people whose professional careers are spent in distance learning by pretending that teaching in a classroom full of pupils, where it is possible to look right into the whites of their eyes and ensure they have access to the right books and the kit that they need for their learning, is not a very different challenge from teaching someone via an internet connection with video streaming.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wes Streeting]

That is absolutely right. We heard from the Chair of the Education Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), that back in June around 700,000 disadvantaged children were not doing homework and did not have proper access to computers or the internet. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden said, the number could be higher.

That brings me to my fundamental concerns about where the Government have been on education throughout this pandemic. On too many occasions, education has been an afterthought for the Government in their response to the pandemic. There was more thought and guidance provided about opening pubs than about opening schools. Some of the support that has been provided to schools in terms of the funding they need to keep a safe environment—such as personal protective equipment, sanitisers, hand-washing facilities, deep cleans and frequent cleans, and cover for absent staff who have been forced to self-isolate—falls short of what schools need.

This is my point of reassurance to the public, including people who are thinking about whether to send their children to schools—headteachers are doing everything they can to keep their schools safe. I do not know a single headteacher who would open their school if they did not believe it was safe. However, they are looking at the end of the financial year with real worry and anxiety, because they will spend what it takes to keep their schools safe for their pupils and staff, but at the moment they do not have the certainty that, as the financial year-end approaches, the Government will step up and do whatever it takes to ensure that those costs are covered. The Government need to act in that respect.

I am deeply concerned about what we saw before half term, when allocations of laptops were cut at the 11th hour. The Government need to step up and recognise—this is a general point about the pandemic response—that there are some things that central Government can do well, but providing responsive emergency resources to local communities, whether food parcels, laptops or internet connections, is much better done locally. They should give local authorities, academy trusts and schools the freedom and resources to buy the kit they need for their pupils. They know their pupils best, but they need money to ensure that those kids have the kit and the internet access that they need. I urge the Minister to reflect on the shortcomings of the provision so far.

As a general point, as was set out earlier in the debate, fines are a blunt instrument for compelling people to turn up to schools. The general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, Geoff Barton, said:

“We don’t think that it is the right approach to fine parents for the non-attendance of children as soon as schools fully reopen in September, and the Government should not expect schools to take this action.”

We have had similar representations from the National Education Union and the National Association of Head Teachers. As much as the Government say, “Let’s have a conversation first. This is about discretion,” we have seen too many cases in which that does not apply, and schools do not necessarily believe that they have the flexibility that the Government say they do.

One of my constituents, a teenage girl who was shot in the lungs when she was a young child, was compelled by her school to go back, despite the risk of coronavirus and a letter from her GP, because the school threatened her with a fine. A mother of a terminally ill three-year-old was forced to deregister her older daughter from her school to avoid being charged weekly non-attendance fines. A woman with type 1 diabetes, asthma and an underactive thyroid, which means she is classed her as clinically vulnerable under NHS guidelines, has been threatened with a three-month prison sentence and a £2,500 fine because she refused to send her children back to school amid coronavirus.

Some of this stuff is bizarre. It is really inappropriate to put families in that position. As a general point of principle, I do not think school fines work, and in the current circumstances the Government have to be clearer in their guidance about what happens if there are vulnerable family members at home with underlying health conditions who are concerned that a child coming back from school might present a risk, or if vulnerable people live with a member of school staff who presents a risk. That is something about which lots of staff in school and school leaders are anxious.

[Tom Hunt]

Those are powerful stories, and I have huge sympathy for those involved, but going back to school is the best thing for some vulnerable kids because it enables more oversight. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there could be other stories in which not giving the school that discretion and the ability to fine could be to the detriment of those vulnerable kids?

[Wes Streeting]

Ultimately, in the worst case, parents have the right to withdraw their children from education altogether. I think, by the way, that that is not the right course of action. All the evidence says that children will be safer, happier and better educated if they are in school. That is why we are clear that the Government must do whatever it takes to keep schools open—we do not hear the phrase “whatever it takes” often these days—but people have legitimate concerns. Parents sending their children to school and staff going to work in school need to know that the headteacher and the governing body are being given the resources they need to ensure the school is clean, safe and welcoming, to put in place the right measures, from protective equipment to hand-washing facilities and sanitisers, and to ensure that they do not have to cut corners on cleaning—in catering facilities, for example, multiple cleaning rounds are needed throughout the day. Parents need to know that if, for whatever reason, staff are forced to isolate and cannot be at school, schools can bring in the cover support that they need to make sure that their children are still well supported and well educated. Parents need to know that if their children



I am concerned that the schemes and funding initiatives that the Government have already announced—they are obviously not up and running yet; they are out to tender—are not targeted as well as they should be on pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. I urge the Government to get back to that focus. I am really looking forward to the many exchanges that I will no doubt have with the Minister in the coming weeks, months and years.

One fundamental problem with the Government’s approach to education policy in the past 10 years, and with where we are today, is that progress on closing the attainment gap at crucial points in pupils’ education journey—whether it be at their entry to primary school at five, when they leave primary school at 11, or when they are sitting their GCSEs at 16—has not only stalled but is beginning to slip into reverse gear. If we are not careful, we will allow the pandemic to rewrite the story of educational disadvantage in this country in a way that none of us wants, with the gap between those from the wealthiest and poorest backgrounds widening, and with children who have special educational needs and require additional support being left further behind. We cannot let that happen, because even with the best lifelong learning system in the world, children only get one chance at a primary and secondary education. Those formative years are absolutely crucial, which is why we believe that schools must be supported to be safe and open, and that we need a national strategy to make sure that no pupil is left behind.