Allergy Guidance for Schools
Alicia Kearns Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting this important debate.
For too long, allergies have been seen as a personal issue to be managed by the individual affected. That needs to change. Allergies in school-age children are rising quickly, and around 45,000 people born each year will develop an allergy. School should be a safe space for our children to grow and develop, yet for those with allergies and their families the joy of education is too often compromised by safety and medical risk. There are 680,000 pupils in England with an allergy, so every classroom has at least one or two living with an allergy. Tragically, anaphylaxis occurs in educational settings more than in any other public space, and that shows in and of itself that we need to take action. We need to address this today—it has already gone on for too long—to give parents and children the confidence of knowing that our schools are allergy safe. If we do not, the consequences are truly heartbreaking.
Benedict Blythe from Stamford was a gifted child. He was able to complete a 24-piece puzzle by himself aged just one. He could match number cards by 18 months and create pie charts by the time he was school age. His mother Helen recalls purchasing him a book of the complete human nervous system in an attempt to quench his thirst for knowledge. By aged four, Benedict was a member of Mensa and practising maths at the level of a 10-year-old. He was a truly talented child, but it was his compassion and care for his family, and his infectious energy that made him just so loved.
Despite all his strengths, his life was marked by challenges stemming from his asthma and his allergies. As he began to try a wider range of foods, as all children do, Benedict suffered allergic reactions, first to baby rice, then to baby porridge and then to whey powder. What should have been a normal part of growing up saw him hospitalised. His family, through careful planning and care, worked out what he could eat safely. But while they could guarantee his safety at home, they had to trust others with Benedict when he went on play dates, mixed with other children and, eventually of course, went to nursey and school.
He was aware of his allergies. Like my nephew and so many others, he learnt to ask what was in a product before he ate. He was so cautious about he could and could not eat, but he also had to rely on those around him to keep him safe. Aged two, a nursery worker poured cows’ milk over his cereal, causing a severe reaction. The worker claimed he had been given oat milk and only admitted the mistake once young Benedict’s lips and tongue had begun to swell, and he suddenly stopped being able to breathe. The delay in admitting the mistake and beginning treatment for the reaction could have been fatal. However, tragically, that repeated itself when, aged just five, Benedict ate something at school that caused him to collapse, and he died the same day.
I know that the whole House will join me in honouring Benedict and recognising his unique character and intelligence. He dreamt of becoming a doctor, and I am sure he would have achieved that ambition and so much more. His story is every mother and father’s nightmare: the loss of their child, the pain so profound as to be unimaginable; their child going to school and just never coming home. Yet despite that nightmare, Benedict’s mother has endeavoured to ensure that other children can go to school safely, and I salute her for her fortitude and her strength.
Alicia Kearns
I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman, who has himself held debates on this important issue.
Jim Shannon
I commend the hon. Lady for raising the issue. She has told the story of young Benedict so well. She has honoured him and honoured his family, and we thank her for that. My second son is now a young man, but as a wee boy he had a number of allergies, so I understand the issue all too well: I understand the importance of controlling a boy’s diet and, indeed, the very life that he leads. Does the hon. Lady agree—in fact, I think she may be coming to this point—that given the increase in the incidence of allergic reactions, each school must have a trained member of staff on the premises at all times to know the signs and how to deal with them? Does she also agree—and here I look to the Minister—that the necessary funding uplift must be allocated in addition to existing school budgets?
Alicia Kearns
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. The problem is that because the guidance is currently not mandatory, schools have completely different responses. At my nephew’s school, for example, there is a picture of every child with a severe allergy on the teachers’ board, so that every day when the teachers go in they know which children to be more alert to, and in an emergency they know exactly what to do because there is a commentary under each picture. That is the kind of response that we need, but yes, we will need more. We saw the Government act strongly and quickly in response to the need to install atrial defibrillators in schools, and I ask them to take the same approach in this regard. The number of children who have died of allergies in our schools is far higher than the number who have died of any sort of heart incident, so I really think that it is time for action.
Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour on securing this important debate, and on the fact that although Adjournment debates are normally lonely affairs, others are present for this one. Does she agree that the cost the Government would incur in helping schools to provide, for example, adrenaline pens is, in the overall scheme of things, very small indeed, and should not be a barrier to supplying schools with a little bit of extra cash to procure a few adrenaline pens which may save lives?
Alicia Kearns
My right hon. Friend is right, and I pay tribute to him for raising this issue during Prime Minister's questions only last week on behalf of Benedict and his family. Other countries have taken action, and we have the opportunity to do the same.
The Benedict Blythe Foundation has worked tirelessly under Helen’s leadership to investigate the issues facing pupils with allergies, and—most importantly—to make policy recommendations to solve them. That work culminated earlier this year with the publication of the REACT report, and I want to summarise its findings; it is the first time that the House will have heard them. The authors investigated 2,198 schools across England, 10% of the total, and found, concerningly, that a third of them had no clear policy on allergies—not that they had a reduced or non-mandatory policy, but that they had no policy at all. Many schools did not record allergy incidents accurately, and, most worryingly, half of them did not have lifesaving medicine on site. Only two years ago, a young child died at school because another child had thrown a piece of cheese at his face. His reaction was so extreme that he died that day. If he had had access to lifesaving medicine, that child would still be with us.
Extensive research has made it clear that allergy provision in schools is a lottery. Some schools go above and beyond to create an allergy-safe environment, but the lack of an allergy policy in others is absolutely wrong. I ask Members to imagine being the parent of a child with an allergy. How would they feel about sending their loved one to school not knowing whether he or she would be safe? Too many parents are not confident about sending their child to school, which unfortunately means that we are seeing too many children with allergies miss days of school. That is a priority for us to tackle. Following the pandemic, we know just how damaging it is not to have our children in school.
I am afraid that the root cause of these issues is a lack of clarity in the Department for Education guidance, and a lack of accountability mechanisms to ensure that existing guidance is followed. In the previous debate on this matter, which was organised by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), we discussed the need for that to be part of Ofsted inspections, because it should be part of the mechanisms. The medical conditions statutory guidance currently given to schools does not mention allergies specifically, and there is evidence that some schools consider allergies to be a dietary issue, rather than a medical consideration. That is just not good enough and, frankly, it is dangerous. Some 70% of schools do not have the recommended allergy safeguards in place, which demonstrates that having well-meaning guidance is just not sufficient. I therefore ask the Minister to consider issuing new, bespoke guidance to all schools on how to be allergy safe. That would not be onerous; it would simply require an email to go out to every single school in the country.
Drawing on extensive research and expert opinion, the REACT report has produced a set of safeguards that would ensure that our education system is safe for all pupils. First, it argues that every allergic reaction should be recorded and reported. I am not surprised that the Department for Education may well under-recognise the importance of this issue, because that is not taking place. It would allow schools with a high number of pupils with allergies to get more support, and it would give decision makers the information they need to make informed decisions and ensure the intelligent distribution of resources.
Secondly, all schools should have a specific allergy policy, including an anaphylaxis plan. Allergies are potentially life-threatening and are so common that they should have their own bespoke policy, separate from those for other medical conditions.
Thirdly, every school should have an individual healthcare plan for every child with an allergy, and it should be reviewed with a doctor. Seemingly mild allergies can quickly morph into severe reactions, and attempts at distinguishing between children on the basis of allergy severity are misled and potentially damaging. Just because a child is assessed as having a low allergy risk does not mean that they will not have a severe reaction one day. Mandating individual healthcare plans for every child with an allergy would create a safe environment.
Fourthly, funding should be given for every school to train its staff in how to administer adrenalin auto-injectors in an emergency. Each school should also keep a spare inhaler and antihistamine as part of a bespoke, allergy first-aid kit.
Fifthly, all school staff should receive basic training in allergy awareness management and emergency response, which is also about a duty of care for them. If I were a teacher, I would not want to operate in that environment if I did not know how to respond should a child in my care have a severe allergic reaction. It is vital that we give teachers the tools they need, and that we ensure that best practice is learned from schools with comprehensive allergy plans.
Finally, accountability mechanisms should be established to monitor and support schools as they implement their allergy plans. Sadly, as we have seen, there is already a gulf between what the Government recommend on allergies and what schools are actually implementing. As we introduce better and clearer guidance, we must ensure that it is followed across the country.
Adopting those policies would ensure that children with allergies can go to school safe in the knowledge that they will not be exposed to danger. There is no way to eradicate all risks when it comes to allergies, but we can make schools as allergy-safe as possible. Every parent needs to know that their child’s condition is not being ignored, dismissed, misunderstood or played down, and teachers also deserve that surety.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Shailesh Vara) pointed out, our international partners have shown that change is achievable. Sabrina’s law requires Canadian schools to provide allergy and adrenaline auto-injector training for all teachers and staff. Minnesotan law mandates that all allergic students have access to emergency medicine and an individual healthcare plan. The Allison Rose Suhy Act incentivises schools in Ohio to train both staff and students on allergy awareness. Elijah’s law ensures that daycare employees in New York are trained to recognise anaphylaxis and to administer adrenaline. Finally, Amarria’s law requires public schools in Virginia to stock adrenaline auto-injectors. There is no reason why children in the UK should face greater risks at school than their peers abroad. These allergy provisions have been common practice across the US, Australia and Canada for decades, and we now need to adopt them here.
The policies set out by the Benedict Blythe Foundation in the REACT report show how we can not just match international standards, but surpass them and make the UK the safest place in the world for pupils with allergies to attend school. This is a condition on the rise. More and more children have allergies, and we need to take action. I therefore ask the Government to commit to producing Benedict’s law, and to meet me to discuss how it can be implemented. We are not looking at significant costs or wanting to put more duties on teachers. We want to make sure that teachers feel that they are in a safe workplace where they can take the action needed to do what they care about most: protecting and supporting their children and young people to become strong adults with bright futures ahead of them.
In memory of Benedict Blythe and in honour of his mother Helen’s tireless advocacy, we should ensure that no pupil with an allergy and their family ever again have to choose between feeling safe and medical safety and taking up education. No parent should live in fear that their child will not come home from school one day as a result of a condition that can be prevented. There is no reason for any child to die in our schools of an allergy. We just need simple allergy policies, adrenaline auto-injectors and to take action. We can save lives by taking action now. I thank the Minister in advance for his consideration, and I look forward to hearing his response.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I acknowledge the gravity of what he says. Of course, we are talking about conditions that can be very varied, and the responses that are called for can be quite different. Schools know their pupils almost best; they, working with parents, who absolutely know their children best, are in the best place to enact that. I want to be clear that the guidance that accompanies what I have just been outlining is statutory guidance supporting pupils with medical conditions. It is not voluntary, and governing bodies must have regard to it when carrying out their duties.
Alicia Kearns
I apologise for intervening on my right hon. Friend because I know that he wants to make progress, but this might be something that he could commit to today. The problem, as I set out in my speech, is that too many schools think that allergies are a dietary issue, not a medical issue. If the next mailer to all schools reiterated that we see allergies very clearly as a medical condition, and reminded them of their statutory duties, that could go a long way to forcing all schools to take the action that he rightly says that they can take. This would not be as top-down; it would reiterate the regulations, and allow schools to take the action that they need to.
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about awareness and understanding, and the role of communication in that. I will speak a little more about communication, but there is always more that we will need to do. Of course, I would also be happy to continue the conversation with her about how best we do it.
The guidance makes it clear that schools should ensure that they are aware of any pupils with allergies, and should have processes in place to ensure that the allergies can be well managed. Practices to identify children with such needs could include wristbands, or, as my hon. Friend said, having a photograph of the child alongside details of their allergy in the kitchen or serving area of the school. I stress again that individual schools are best placed to work with parents to put in place the most effective responsive system.
In addition to the section 100 duty, schools are subject to other requirements. In the UK, food businesses must inform consumers if they use any of the 14 mandatory allergens as ingredients in their food. How allergen information should be provided depends on whether the food is prepacked, non-prepacked or prepacked for direct sale. This includes food provided by institutions such as school caterers, who have a responsibility to protect the people in their care. As colleagues may know, rules on the provision of food labelling are set out primarily in the retained 2014 regulations, and these include a requirement to identify the presence of any of those 14 mandatory allergens to consumers.
The Department for Education also works closely with the Food Standards Agency, which provides free food allergy and intolerance training online. This offers practical advice to local authority law enforcement officers and anyone wanting to learn more about food allergies, such as those working in the food manufacturing and catering industries. The FSA also offers a whole host of other training, technical documents and guidance.
Turning to auto-injectors, these can be vital when a child is suffering an allergic reaction. To support schools in meeting the needs of children with allergies, the Government passed the Human Medicines (Amendment) Regulations 2017, which allow schools to obtain and hold spare adrenaline auto-injectors for administration to pupils in an emergency. The Department for Health and Social Care has produced guidance on the use of adrenaline auto-injectors and emergency inhalers in schools, including the purchase of spares. The guidance makes it clear that any adrenalin auto-injectors held by a school should be considered a back-up device, rather than a replacement for a pupil’s own adrenalin auto-injector.
Beyond this, families have a vital role to play in managing their child’s condition. We are very clear with schools that no one will know a child’s needs as well as their parents, and that schools should work closely with parents. The parents of children with allergies will work with medical professionals and other organisations to plan for and navigate their child’s specific needs. Parents should be fully consulted and engaged in any discussions relating to their child’s allergy.
Schools will also need to ensure that the parents or carers of children with food allergies or intolerances are given information about the allergenic ingredients used in the foods available. Good communication between parents and schools on allergies and pupils’ needs is essential to keep children safe while in school.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton referred to the role of Ofsted, further to the points made by the hon. Member for Strangford, and the importance of schools having a clear allergies policy and involving parents in discussions about the needs of their children. Ofsted inspectors gather a wide range of evidence to make their judgments, and evaluate the experience of individuals or groups of individuals, which can include the experiences of pupils with medical needs, if the issue is raised by parents or pupils. In an inspection, inspectors will assess the effectiveness of safeguarding at the school, which includes the extent to which pupils with specific needs and vulnerabilities are kept safe. The safeguarding culture is also explored by speaking to leaders and staff about their work and the messages that pupils receive through the curriculum.
During last November’s Westminster Hall debate on pupils with allergies, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton informed the House that she would write to all schools in her constituency to ask them to adopt the voluntary schools allergy code, co-created by the Benedict Blythe Foundation, the Independent Schools Bursars Association and the allergy team. Taking her lead, Ministers in the Department for Education instructed officials to share a link to the code in our fortnightly email bulletin to schools issued on 1 March. That communication also reminded school leaders of their duties concerning pupils with allergies.
For younger children, the early years foundation stage framework sets the standards that all registered early years providers must meet for the learning, development and care of children from birth to age five. The EYFS states:
“Before a child is admitted to the setting, you must obtain information about any special dietary requirements, preferences and food allergies that the child has, and any special health requirements.”
Providers must have a policy and procedures for administering medicines, and they must have systems for obtaining information about a child’s medicine needs and for keeping this information up to date. Training must be provided for staff where the administering of medicine requires medical or technical knowledge.
Within all early years settings, there is a requirement for at least one person with a current paediatric first aid certificate to be on the premises and available at all times when children are present, and they must accompany children on outings. The PFA criteria are clear that the training should include being able to help a baby or child who is suffering from anaphylactic shock.
Last September, we changed the adequate supervision requirement in the early years foundation stage to be explicit that adequate supervision while children are eating meals means that children must always be in sight and hearing of an adult, rather than within sight or hearing. This will help practitioners to see the signs of an allergic reaction as soon as they are present, and it will allow them to act quickly.
The new early years educator level 3 qualification criteria will also come into force in September, ensuring that early years practitioners have an understanding of allergies and anaphylaxis. In April 2024, the Department published nutrition content on the “help for early years providers” online platform. The content includes a section on allergies and anaphylaxis to help early years providers prevent allergic reactions, to recognise the signs and symptoms of an allergic reaction or anaphylactic shock, and to know what to do if they occur.
On 22 April, the Department launched a consultation on the safeguarding requirements in the EYFS. One of the proposals is the inclusion of a safer eating section, which includes requirements for all staff to be aware of the symptoms and treatments for allergies and anaphylaxis, and to obtain allergy action plans for children with allergies. We plan to publish our response to that consultation in the autumn.
I have outlined the various pieces of legislation and guidance that cover allergies in school. Given the complexity and individual nature of food allergies, the Government’s view is that it would not be appropriate for the Department for Education to legislate for food providers to cater for all requirements. However, through legislation, the minimum standards for school food have been clearly set out. Beyond that, headteachers, school governors and their caterers are best placed to make decisions about their school food policies that take into account local circumstances.
Alicia Kearns
I think we find ourselves in absolute agreement that schools should own their own allergy policies. Perhaps the Minister can reiterate from the Dispatch Box his request for schools to bring forward allergy policies focused specifically on the children who have allergies. They need to hear a clear instruction from the Minister at the Dispatch Box. We are clearly in agreement: schools should be leading on allergy policies in their schools, but the freedom of information research done by the Benedict Blythe Foundation shows that not enough of them do so.
Damian Hinds
I agree. As I said earlier, understanding and awareness are vital, and communication is what gives rise to them. That is why, following my hon. Friend’s lead, we issued a communication by email. I totally accept that there will be more to do, and I am more than happy to carry on that conversation with her.
Overall, we feel that the existing mix of national requirements and local flexibility is the appropriate approach to this complex and extremely important issue, though we always keep the policies under review. We welcome feedback on how we can better support schools’ implementation of them. I am pleased that DFE officials now sit on the expert advisory group for allergy, convened by the Department for Health and Social Care, and the National Allergy Strategy Group, which recommends priorities for allergy policy across Government. I encourage stakeholders to feed any ideas and points on these issues to officials via that route. I conclude by thanking once again my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton for bringing forward this important debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alicia Kearns Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Damian Hinds
I would encourage our friends and colleagues in the Scottish Government, whoever they may be at the time, to pay close attention to Hilary Cass’s report. I think her work has injected some much-needed common sense into the debate, and we are very grateful to her. This Government will always put the safety of our children first, and that is why the gender questioning guidance we have produced in draft is underpinned by the important principle of parents always being involved in decisions about their children.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
The Liberal Democrat-run council in Rutland has announced that it will close our specialist—and “outstanding” rated—SEND nursery, the Parks School. This comes with the further news that it is also going to close our only leisure centre. The community is rightly devastated, especially parents who want their children to get the best and most expert support. Does my hon. Friend agree that specialist provision must be protected and is absolutely vital, and that the need for this kind of provision is only going to increase?
David Johnston
I thank my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. We have been hearing negative things about Lib Dem councils from both sides of the House this afternoon, which, sadly, is not surprising. She is absolutely right to be championing the needs of those parents and children, and I hope the council will listen to her campaign and do the right thing.
School Pupils with Allergies
Alicia Kearns Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and it is lovely to swap roles, given the other jobs we hold. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate. He is truly such a good man, as I think everyone in this place would say. It speaks so much to the kind of man he is that, having received an email from someone far away from his isles—although only 10 minutes from my home—he put this subject forward for debate. I thank him on behalf of the entire House for doing so, because it goes to the heart of the kind of man that he is.
I also, once again, welcome Helen and her husband, who are here from Stamford. I thank them for all their work with the Benedict Blythe Foundation; it works not only to raise awareness of the risks facing children with allergies, but to support children with unique brains and approaches to learning. I will touch on that briefly, because it matters so much that we remember the children for whom we are here fighting.
Helen’s son, Benedict, had an incredible talent for maths, which I wish I had. In fact, I often say: who do I look up to most in the world? People who can do maths. At the age of one, he could complete a 24-piece puzzle independently; by 18 months, he was doing pie charts; and by the age of four, he was reading books with diagrams of the central nervous system with a maths ability equivalent to that of a 10-year-old.
Benedict was clearly blessed with incredible intelligence, but he also had asthma and allergies. His first allergic reactions were identified when he was just four months old, and I cannot imagine how scary that must have been at the time for his parents. However, with careful planning and prevention, they were able to keep him safe. When our children grow up and go to nursery and school, it means that trust has to be put in those around them. That was not easy and, as the hon. Member said, when he was aged just two, Benedict’s nursery worker gave him cow’s milk, which caused him to immediately throw up. They only admitted that they had given him something that he was allergic to after his lips and tongue had swollen so severely that he needed urgent medical treatment.
Two years ago today, on 1 December 2021, Benedict woke up and went to school. There he ate a snack that caused him to collapse shortly afterwards, and he died later that day in hospital, aged just five. That changed the lives of his family and friends forever. I want to place on record the condolences of this entire House. As parents, we all struggle with this, and my child is just five, so I struggle in particular to do this. But I am so pleased that, after a year of fighting, his family finally get their debate—a year later—and also that it comes on the eve, suggesting to me that this is fate and it was meant to be as a tribute to Benedict.
Benedict’s story, however, is not unique. Although we as parents do everything we can to keep our children safe, more support is needed, particularly in the education system, where children spend so much of their time. Worryingly, 18% of food allergy reactions and 25% of first-time anaphylactic reactions occur in school, and that will only rise. Between 1998 and 2018, 66 schoolchildren died from allergic reactions.
A really important point was made about behaviour change and understanding change. I do not remember discussions about allergies when I was growing up. I think they are on the rise—I am not an expert, so I will not pretend to give a medical diagnosis—but I think it is very difficult for those in a position of authority, when they did not grow up having to worry about allergies, to suddenly run an institution where this issue has to be of fundamental importance. As we heard, at least two children in every school classroom have an allergy.
What this means is that, every day, thousands of children walk into schools uncertain whether they will get the support they need that could mean the difference between life and death. I have seen the impact and what it means for a young child to be nervous when they sit down with their peers at lunch, not knowing what will happen if some milk were to be poured on to their skin. For some children, including one in my family, that is how severe their allergies are. The vigilance needed and the pressures that it puts on the shoulders of these children is significant. That is partly why what we are talking about today is so important. If we can lessen the stress and the vigilance that these children are living with, we would be doing them a good turn—not to mention the lives we would save.
We know that every education professional goes into the profession because they love it and want to support children. Nobody would want to see a child exposed to life-threatening allergens in their school. The problem, however, is that the current system allows risk, which I believe could be tackled. As we have heard, the current Department for Education guidance is voluntary, which results in vastly different standards in schools, and even between different teachers and classrooms.
I think we are all very united in our list of asks today, but I will go through them. We should replace the voluntary advice with mandatory regulations—that is at the basis of ending disparity. We should require every school to implement and maintain an allergy policy. Let us make talking about what allergies are a standard part of the school conversations that children have, from the youngest age. Let us talk to our children about what it is to be a responsible classmate. Let us make it as egregious to mock a child who has an allergy as it is to be racist. When we read the allergy stories in this booklet and hear children talk about having their allergy weaponised against them in the playground, we see we can deal with that by making that abhorrent from the moment children start school—they have those conversations in their classrooms.
In addition, we should require every school to work with pupils’ parents or guardians to create individual risk assessments for pupils with allergies. A child’s allergy and the support they receive has to be reviewed by a GP every single year. It should be a requirement for the school to sit down every year and go through that GP assessment with the family. That would create additional work, but this is about saving lives. The reality is that the type of things that a child will do changes every year—they might start going on foreign trips, for example. I remember that being a real cause for concern for the parent of the child in my family, who said, “Well, I don’t know what will happen when he goes on a school trip. That is not the same as a school canteen, where we know it is dealt with and there is a plan.” We have to make sure that the yearly review happens, because the circumstances and the way in which children are taught changes.
We also need to keep spare adrenaline auto-injector pens available to treat emergency cases. The good news is that the lifetime of those pens is getting longer. We need to make sure that staff are EpiPen-trained—not necessarily every member of staff, but a significant number—just as they are trained in CPR. We need to end the distinction drawn by some within education between minor and severe allergies: according to clinicians, there is no such thing. The factors in place on a day where a child has an allergic reaction determine whether or not that is minor or severe, so we need to overcome that.
Finally, we should ask for all school staff and teachers to be fully trained in allergy awareness and first aid response, because, as we heard, many children do not know that they have allergies. As part of that, in every single staff room—this can be done; I know schools that do it—there should be posters of children’s faces with the allergies that they have, and the three-point plan for what has to be done if they have an allergic reaction, so that teachers get used to knowing that. On an average day, the teacher who identifies a child having an allergic reaction in the playground or the canteen might not be their standard teacher.
As we heard, taken together, those measures would cost less than £5 million a year to implement, and they would mean that more children go to school in safety. For my part, I will write to every school in my constituency and ask them to adopt the schools allergy code. I will ask them to come back to me and we will offer whatever support they need to go through that.
Once again, I want to thank Helen and Pete; I am so proud that it is someone from our communities in and around Stamford who is going to change lives. I am confident that Benedict’s legacy will change and save lives. Some 13,000 people around this country felt strongly enough to sign the petition: 282 were in Stamford and Grantham, and 81 were in Rutland and Melton. Each one of them will be a member of a family who has been touched by this.
Allergic reactions and deaths are avoidable. I urge the Government to take these few simple steps. I know that there are many demands on the Education Minister’s time. Some people want to raise other conditions—asthma, for example, which Benedict also had—but allergies are the most likely to result in death and are therefore far more of a priority. There is an urgent need to support teachers. so that they can feel confident, take the pressure off children and make sure that parents know their children are safe. I urge the Government to take these steps to honour Benedict Blythe’s legacy and take what the House believes is a meaningful step that would save lives and ensure that we do not continue to see the heartbreaking reports of children dying in our schools for what could, with the right measures put in place, be as preventable as possible.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate. It is typical of him to bring to Parliament incredibly important issues that do not get the attention they should. He does so consistently in Westminster Hall and the main Chamber, and we all admire and appreciate that.
I start by offering my deepest condolences to the family of Benedict Blythe, who died two years ago tomorrow. No parent should experience what Helen has gone through. I was deeply saddened to learn of the story before I came here and to hear more detail today; the colourful picture that my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) painted of what Benedict was like moved us all. My heart goes out to any family experiencing that sort of loss. I just wanted to say that at the outset to Helen and her husband. As she knows, the coroner’s inquest into Benedict’s death is ongoing, so I am unable to comment on the details of his case, but officials from the Department met her in May to hear about the excellent work she has been doing through the Benedict Blythe Foundation to raise awareness of how best to protect children.
I can, of course, address the more general points that hon. Members made about allergies and our policies. I understand how worrying allergies can be for parents. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton said in her moving speech, when parents send their children to school, it is only right and natural that they expect them to be kept safe. If their child has an allergy, that adds a particular level of concern about what is happening in the school day.
Allergies are complex conditions that can range enormously in severity. Not all allergens are foods either, as hon. Members know, which makes it more complicated to manage them. I welcome the schools allergy code that the foundation launched this week, which will provide helpful guidance to schools on how to implement allergies policies; we would be keen to encourage schools to look at that code.
Alicia Kearns
I know that the Minister cannot commit to anything at this moment, but I would very much appreciate it if I could pick up that point about the code with him, maybe in a few weeks’ time; we could see whether that resource could be put on the Department for Education’s website or look at the best way to ensure that all schools around the country are aware of it, not just through the foundation but through the Department. That would be a meaningful way to spread that code across the country. I know that he cannot commit to that now, but would he be happy to pick that up with me in a few weeks?
David Johnston
I am very happy to have that conversation with my hon. Friend.
Turning to the statutory duties on schools, hon. Members have called for voluntary guidance to be replaced with a funded mandatory requirement. We have heard from each Member who has spoken in this debate about the four things that they would like to see: an allergy policy in place; the co-creation of an individual healthcare plan with all pupils with allergies and anaphylaxis; spare adrenaline auto-injector pens in schools; and the training of school staff and teachers in allergy awareness and allergy first aid.
Let me start with the first of those points. Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 places a legal duty on schools to make arrangements to support pupils at their school with medical conditions. The accompanying statutory guidance from 2015—“Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions”—is not voluntary; governing bodies must have regard to that guidance when carrying out their section 100 duty. The guidance makes it clear that schools should ensure that they are aware of any pupils with medical conditions and have policies and processes in place to ensure that those conditions, including allergies, can be well managed. The guidance is clear that policy should also include how the processes will be implemented, what should happen in an emergency situation and the role of individual healthcare plans in supporting pupils. It says that
“The school, healthcare professional and parent should agree, based on evidence, when a healthcare plan would be inappropriate or disproportionate”
and that the policy should also set out
“how staff will be supported in carrying out their role to support pupils”
including
“how training needs are assessed, and how…training will be commissioned and provided.”
It states that
“any member of school staff providing support to a pupil with medical needs should have received suitable training.”
Members also raised the important issue of adrenaline auto-injectors. The regulations already allow schools to obtain and hold injectors and, in an emergency, they can be administered to pupils the school knows have a risk of anaphylaxis but whose own devices are not available or not working, perhaps because they are broken or out of date. To support schools to meet the needs of pupils with allergies, the Department of Health and Social Care has produced guidance on the use of adrenaline auto-injectors and emergency inhalers in schools, including the purchase of spare adrenaline auto-injectors.
Alicia Kearns
We have a little more time. On that point, would the Minister accept that there is a real problem that, while the auto-injectors are stored in schools, not many staff go through any form of training on how to use them? We have to be honest, in this day and age when we see Americanism being imported to our country, teachers are scared that they will end up in law courts. The Department has a responsibility to support staff so that they are confident enough to provide that life-saving aid. Does the Minister agree, therefore, that there should be funding or a process in place? Does he agree that training should be provided in some way, even if it is just a YouTube video that every single teacher must watch, so that teachers have the confidence to administer auto-injectors? That is a concern that we hear repeatedly, and there is currently no provision.
David Johnston
Staff should have training in it—that is absolutely right. That is part of what we are requiring. We continually review the policies in this area, and if we feel that there are deficiencies, or indeed inconsistencies, which I suspect is the biggest problem, we will do whatever we can to ensure that they no longer occur.
David Johnston
Yes. The question with these things is always whether the laws are already there. Do you need new laws, or are the laws already there but not being enforced? I have heard from Members today that we are clearly not seeing in every case the practice that we want to see. I will discuss with officials what more we can do on that, including in promoting the code.
Alicia Kearns
Can I ask the Minister one very last question? It will be the last one, I promise—that is not something I have ever said before in this room. [Laughter.]
Alicia Kearns
If the point is around the Department believing that this is being done rightly, does the Minister know whether Ofsted, when it reviews schools, takes into account whether or not the allergy guidance and section 100 is being upheld adequately? I am aware that this falls between two briefs; it is not just the Minister’s brief. If that is not the case, could he write to me? That may actually be the solution: we say that when Ofsted inspects schools, because the loss of life is so high—66 children—this should be part of its reviews. That way, it can say it is meeting its requirements and commitments to children—to keep them safe and ensure it is doing everything to look after them in every single way it can, as we would all wish it to be doing. That may be the solution that fixes this gap that, between us, we seem to be coming to.
Graham Stringer (in the Chair)
Order. This has been a good and important debate, but I must remind hon. Members that interventions should be short. I did not want to intervene previously, but I also remind Members that I am not involved in the debate—you should not refer to other Members as “you”.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alicia Kearns Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)
I pay tribute to the life of the noble Baroness Boothroyd, who has sadly passed away. As the first and only woman Speaker, she blazed a trail for women, showing us that a woman’s place is not only in the House of Commons but at the top. Her legacy will live on and long be remembered in this place.
I know my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) is passionate about ensuring that people with special educational needs and disabilities get the support they need. I completely understand the complexities of a rural constituency, as I represent one myself, and it is why this Government introduced additional payments for small and remote mainstream schools, which are currently benefiting 23 schools in Rutland and Melton. More recently, in the autumn statement, we announced an extra £2 billion pounds for schools next year and the year after, meaning we will be spending more on schools than ever before, including £400 million to support high needs budgets from next April.
Alicia Kearns
I thank the Government for that investment in 23 schools in my constituency. However, the families my team and I support are sometimes waiting 40 weeks for a special educational needs assessment, which is a far beyond the six-week statutory period. So may I invite the Secretary of State to meet my local councils and schools in order to understand why we have so many difficulties in rural and small councils?
Gillian Keegan
I thank my hon. Friend for that. All of us will be aware of the huge impacts that long waiting times for diagnosis for autism and for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can have on children in our communities; many of us will see such cases in our surgeries. To address this, last year we invested £13 million, with a further £2.5 million this year, to improve autism assessment pathways. NHS England is developing national guidance to improve access to autism assessments and we are also committed to looking at improving data on ADHD assessment waiting times to help improve access. I am sure that she will join me in welcoming my Department’s SEND—special educational needs and disabilities—and alternative provision improvement plan, which we will be publishing within the next week.
Crisis in Iran
Alicia Kearns Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on securing this important UQ. What we are seeing in Iran is state industrialised femicide. We are also seeing Iran being increasingly aggressive abroad in support of terrorist states and terrorist organisations. Will we finally act to sanction the IRGC, which is sending surface-to-surface missiles to Russia, supporting proxies across the region and spreading harmful radicalising narratives online? Will the Minister also broaden our classification of terrorist content beyond Salafi-Takfiri extremist ideology to include Shi’a Islamist extremist materials? That is the only way in which we will protect our communities at home from their reach.
Gillian Keegan
Yes. We have an assessment, which we have shared with my hon. Friend, of Iran and its support for regimes including Russia. We will continue to work with others to call out what is happening, and of course we condemn its support of anything to do with Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alicia Kearns Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
Mr Speaker, as I am sure you will have heard from other Ministers, we recognise that science and technology is critical to our future economy, and much of that originates from research within universities and other research bodies. We have made a huge commitment financially to research across the whole of the UK, and that will persist. We are dead keen to join the Horizon programme, but the hon. Member’s question is better directed at our European friends.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
Kit Malthouse
As a rural Member myself, I am very alarmed to hear my hon. Friend’s stories. She is right that we should be encouraging schools to educate children about where food comes from, and indeed about the very high standards that UK farmers have produced, not least in animal husbandry, but I have to say that there is a way to intrigue children and make them curious about some of the challenges to climate change brought about by farming. I read recently about an additive made from seaweed that we can add to dairy cows’ feed that reduces the amount of methane they produce. I gather it is in operation very effectively in Australia and being looked at in this country.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill
Alicia Kearns ExcerptsMonday 13th June 2022
(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that the Secretary of State will maintain the ability to direct the director to further inquiry, should he have concerns that the OfS is not investigating an issue suitably?
Michelle Donelan
Of course, we work hand in hand with the OfS and if there were concerns, we would be able to direct.
We are introducing a new complaint scheme, operated by the OfS, for students, staff and visiting speakers who have suffered loss as a result of a breach of those duties. On top of that, we are introducing a new statutory tort as a legal backstop. The Government tabled amendments in Committee to ensure that new strengthened freedom of speech duties apply directly to constituent colleges of registered higher education providers. That will ensure that appropriate institutions must comply with the new duties in universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and Durham.
Michelle Donelan
My hon. Friend is right. We need a cultural change, and legislation of this nature can spur such change. In our schools, we also need an environment of openness and frankness, and to grow that throughout the education system. I know that my colleagues in the Department are looking at this and will provide further guidance to support teachers shortly.
I know and understand the concerns raised by hon. Members, including my right hon. Friends the Members for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), which is why the Government are acting on new clause 3. I can confirm explicitly that the Government amendment will include educational partnerships, including Confucius institutes, and that the OfS will be able to impose a wide range of proportionate remedies as specific conditions of registration. That could include requiring a provider to make available alternative provision, or even to terminate a partnership if necessary to protect free speech. We will ask the OfS and its new director to make it clear that those are possible remedies in the guidance that will be published.
We of course continue to welcome foreign investment and donations to higher education as a key part of supporting innovation and development, but the amendments will increase the transparency of overseas income by requiring granular data to be reported to the OfS. Our intention is to proscribe countries for the purpose of the amendment by mirroring the countries listed in the academic technology approval scheme, which will exclude countries such as our NATO and EU allies, as well as countries such as Japan. We also intend to set a threshold of £75,000 in regulations. Hon. Members should be assured that in each case the ability to make provision by way of regulations will allow us the flexibility to amend as appropriate.
Alicia Kearns
I thank my right hon. Friend for the significant time that she has invested in speaking to my colleagues and me about this. Can she confirm clearly that Confucius institutes will fall within the remit of the organisation she is discussing because of the grave concerns about their strangulation of freedom of speech and thought on British campuses?
Michelle Donelan
I can confirm that Confucius institutes fall within the scope of these proposals, as I have outlined, and I urge all universities to increase the choice that they provide to students in this regard.
Jess Phillips
It does not seem very feminist, but I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman.
Alicia Kearns
I rise to urge the hon. Lady to name the institutions, because this Bill is about freedom of choice and of speech. I know that if I were a 17 or 18-year-old girl choosing university again, I would actively choose not to attend colleges or universities where I knew they might force an NDA on me if I was raped.
Jess Phillips
I will absolutely come on to naming some of those institutions. As I said, this was found by Elle magazine, which is collecting this data, unlike the Government at the moment. The article said the student claimed this arrangement felt
“worse than the assault—Dealing with this abuse of power was far more traumatic. It was emotionally exhausting and humiliating.”
Earlier this year, the Express took a day off from talking about Princess Diana and its investigation revealed that more than 3,500 cases of assault were reported in 78 institutions in the UK in the last five years. The figure consists of confirmed cases of sexual violence and disclosures made by both staff and students pending investigation. The 135 freedom of information requests sent to every university in the UK also revealed that many do not record figures of sexual assaults, so the overall number is likely to be much higher. So it is, “Just don’t record it and then it doesn’t happen.”
In 2020, a BBC investigation found that over 300 NDAs were used by universities in student complaints between 2016 and 2020, and that almost a third of all universities in England had used such deals in these circumstances. The probe discovered that universities had paid out £1.3 million on these deals, although the true scale is thought to be much larger. The campaign Can’t Buy My Silence was started by the brilliant and formidable Zelda Perkins, once an assistant to Harvey Weinstein and someone who had an NDA imposed on her related to his crimes, and Professor Julie Macfarlane. Their campaign has survivors’ testimony reporting that NDAs had gagged them from speaking of their experiences with family or loved ones, or even their therapists. I pay tribute to them and the work they are doing alongside the Minister, whom I know speaks to them. However, like me, they agree that legislation is necessary to tackle this.
So far, 66 universities have signed the Government’s pledge. I made this speech on Second Reading and since then the Government added “looking at non-disclosure agreements” into the violence against women and girls strategy, which was published late at the end of last year. I stand here in complete respect for the Minister. She has sought to do what she can to improve the situation. She has worked with the campaigns that I have talked about to get universities signing pledges. She is working with the Office for Students to look at regulation and at what needs to happen if these things are breached. Every Member of Parliament will have had to try to get a regulator to do something about their bad cases, and we are here with universities signing “pledges”. I do not know how we are going to know whether they are breaking their pledge if people have been gagged.
So far, 66 universities have signed the Government’s pledge. That is great, but why haven’t the others? I encourage every university to do this. There are over 130 universities in the UK. What about those students? What about their right to speak out? As the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) pointed out, she would want to hear about this. I am not going to list all the universities that have not signed it, but here are some: the University of Cambridge, King’s College London, the London School of Economics, the University of Wolverhampton and the University of Sunderland. That is just to name a few. Perhaps it is taking time and perhaps they are getting around to it. I very much encourage them to do it.
Just to show the House what I am talking about, I have an example here of one of these NDAs. This is the kind of thing that students are asked to do. It is not necessarily called a non-disclosure agreement, and that is a way out of this; the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) and I often challenge organisations when they say they do not have NDAs, because we have them in our inboxes and they call them something else. They will call them a “confidentiality agreement”. In lots of cases in universities we have seen the growth of “no contact arrangements”.
I will read this agreement out—this is from the university. It says, “We recognise the sensitive nature of the allegation involved. In consideration of our duty of care to both parties, we have therefore concluded that in the interest of both parties a non-contact arrangement is required.” This young woman who had been raped was told, exactly as the person accused of raping her was told, that she had to stay out of certain places; she could not go to certain things at certain times. She was told that she, “Is not to enter the building”, that her, “Fob access will be disabled” and that she is, “Not to enter the building unless for tutorials and classes notified in advance.” She is told, “Fob access will be disabled unless we have had advance notification”—this is a rape victim being told that she has to report to a guard so that she can go to her classes. She is also told, “You are asked not to make any information about these allegations, the police investigation or the safeguarding arrangements that we have made available on any form of public media”—so she should not talk about this document. Finally, she is told, “Evidence of repeated breaches of this arrangement and/or a serious breach of conditions—entering an embargoed building or publishing material in the press—will result in your expulsion.” That is from one of the finest universities in the world.
This is about people’s silence, but not just their silence; it is about their movement, their freedom and every element of their freedom of expression being stopped. Yet there is nothing in the Bill about freedom of speech, freedom of expression or freedom to study. There is nothing that the Government are proposing to do or to put in legislation. I simply do not understand why they would not have taken this opportunity to do something.
I met the Minister last week and, as I said, I do not doubt her total and utter commitment. Incidentally, she said earlier that “legislation of this nature can spur culture change.” Yet she told me last week that legislation is not always the answer—[Interruption.] I will take the intervention, by all means. No? Okay. She also explained to me that the Office for Students is looking at regulation to, for example, take away the status of a university if it is guilty of a breach. I responded—and I say again—that the idea that a rape victim who has signed a non-disclosure agreement will take down Cambridge University is the stuff of cinematic hopeful glory. I will believe that when I see it, which everybody in this building knows will be never. Why would we want to push universities and victims into that position? Why would we not legislate to stop the use of non-disclosure agreements?
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clause 1, which stands in my name and in the names of my colleagues, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) and my right hon. Friends the Members for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and for Ashford (Damian Green). I thank Professor John Heathershaw and his colleagues at the University of Exeter for their input.
This Bill is a very serious one, and the issue I raise of transparency in our universities is a very serious one. It has been much publicised of late in the newspapers in relation to some very distinguished and famous universities that have been alluded to already in this House, and rightly so. It is often misunderstood or underappreciated in the higher education sector how important the issue of undue influence and non-transparency is to the reputation of that sector, which is one of the crown jewels of our country both economically and culturally.
Universities exercise a wider influence not only over the young people whom they educate, but more widely in our public life, yet no standard approach has existed to date for handling foreign donations. No single standard has been created to allow donations to be made transparent, to be made public and to be properly tracked, and, therefore, for students and other donors and the public at large to understand whether there are pressures of a financial nature, and if so what pressures there may be, on the institutions with which they may have to deal.
Instead of this panoply of different approaches and different thresholds, and this lack of transparency and culture of non-disclosure, it is important that the Bill addresses those matters and brings some order to the situation. That is what my new clause and the other new clauses, which I am delighted to see have been tabled in a similar spirit, are designed to address. In my case, the measure is aimed not at any specific country or individuals, but generally so that there should be a wide understanding of the lack of transparency and a wider solution to it. I take my hat off, metaphorically, to the Minister, her Secretary of State and her officials, because the Government have substantially accepted my new clause, and indeed—dare I say?—arguably even improved it in relation, for example, to politically exposed persons. I thank her and other Ministers for the very constructive attitude that she and they have taken in relation to this important issue.
I will make a couple of small points in passing because this is still a live matter and officials will wish to think about the implementing regulations. The first is about the enlarged role for the Office for Students and the need for it to be given a role that it can dispatch rapidly and effectively as well as impartially. More widely, I note the essential importance of the higher education sector and of our universities being zealous in themselves, as institutions, in preserving freedom of speech and the culture of a deeper freedom of speech that, as so many Members have said, they have sought to defend in their treatment of students and colleagues. That remains vital.
I am delighted to support the Government amendment and withdraw my new clause 1 as a result.
Alicia Kearns
I rise to speak to new clause 3, but I wish first to welcome the significant work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), which has had an implication for that which I sought to achieve, and to touch briefly on new clause 19, tabled by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), with which I have enormous sympathy. When you are an alumnus of a university, you have a great ability, you would hope, to influence it, so I place on record that if Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge is using NDAs, it can expect this not to be the last it will hear of it. I will work with the hon. Lady to call it out if it is doing it, but I am sure that there is absolutely no way that the place that gave me an incredible three years would be doing that.
New clause 3 was tabled to solve a series of problems that we face in our education system. We exist in a state of hybrid warfare where we do not necessarily know that we are at war. Indeed, more often than not our enemies do not tell us that we are at war—the most effective manner to attack us. In this war they use every possible lever of influence to attack us. It is naive, sadly, but our universities are failing to accept that they are being weaponised and used against us in a state of hybrid warfare. The Chinese Communist party is at war with us, because between now and 2050 it expects there to be a war between two world orders—theirs and ours, ours being the one that believes in the rule of democracy and standing up for freedom of speech, which this Bill so focuses on. We might not realise that we are at war, but we are, and for decades now we have failed to recognise that. It is not enough to say, “Bad Chinese Communist party—stop doing what you are doing in trying to achieve your goals and the continuance of your power.” We have to take the fight to it in terms of standing up for what we believe in, standing up for our world order, and, most importantly, building resilience within our system.
That is what my new clause focuses on doing—tackling the unintentional ignorance, or potentially wilful deceit, of those who do not recognise the seriousness with which our education system is under attack. Everyone plays a role in protecting freedom of speech. That is why I am so grateful to the very many colleagues who over the past few days have spoken in support of the new clause and given support on the issue across the House. I also thank the Department for Education, and particularly the Minister, who has been in constant dialogue with me and has adopted the ambitions of the new clause completely. I know that in coming months we will work together to make sure that we build the resilience that is needed in the education system.
My new clause particularly seeks to focus on Confucius institutes, which play an enormous role in the teaching of Mandarin and all that comes with learning that language—cultural understanding, historical understanding, debates about the present day, and debates about the entire concept of the country and how it feels, breathes, lives and sees itself. We have 30 Confucius institutes in this country. Nowhere else in the world has anywhere near 30. One might ask why Scotland has the highest number of Confucius institutes in the entire world. There is a reason why the Chinese Communist party has chosen to infiltrate Scottish education and to try to force its own narrative within those areas. More concerningly, almost all UK Government spending on Mandarin language teaching in schools, which is £27 million from 2015 to 2024, goes through Confucius institutes.
Our students and our kids—our under-18s—are being taught Mandarin by Confucius institutes, which are an arm of the Chinese state. Confucius institutes are supervised by the Chinese Communist party through the Ministry of Education. They are not allowed to hire teachers unless they have been vetted by the Chinese Communist party. I have recently discovered that Edinburgh University’s Confucius institute has representatives of the Chinese Government’s embassy on its board. This is absolutely outright political intervention. Teachers are not allowed to cover issues such as Taiwan or Tibet, which are apparently sensitive. This is deeply concerning. Lancaster University and Edge Hill University rely on CIs to provide teaching for undergraduates. We cannot allow a hostile power to capture our education provision. That is why we need transparency.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire because his new clause has allowed us to bring in the requirement to report when universities take in foreign funding. These safeguards bring us into line with the US, Germany and the Netherlands, all of which discourage their universities from using Confucius institutes or introduce mandatory financial disclosures, because British students deserve a choice. They should not be forced to learn a language through the prism and narrative of a genocidal regime. That is all we are trying to do. We are not anti-China; we are trying to create resilience within our system. I am pleased that the Government are taking action and that under their amendments universities and student unions will be required to register funding arrangements. The Office for Students will have the power to force universities to provide alternative Mandarin education or to terminate Confucius institutes’ contracts.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her new clause. I understand that the Government have moved on the matter, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister. However, does my hon. Friend agree that there is one other element to this, which is that if the Government are in possession of clear evidence that there is a threat to the security of the state through interventions by things such as the Confucius institutes, they should retain the power for the Secretary of State to deal with that directly without necessarily going to the Office for Students?
Alicia Kearns
I thank my right hon. Friend, who has been enormously supportive of the new clause. I agree. I would have preferred to see these powers sit with the Secretary of State, but the Government are not willing to give on that. However, they have made it clear—I challenged the Minister in her opening remarks and she confirmed this—that the Secretary of State for Education will have the ability to direct the Office for Students if required.
I would argue that it is impossible for Confucius institutes to operate in this country without undermining our national security. They are an instrument of the Chinese Government and their propaganda wing with one sole goal. It is therefore critical that the Secretary of State directs the OfS where needed, and I urge him to regularly review its progress. I believe that the message going out from this House today is clear—that we have the power to terminate hostile states’ programmes and we must protect academic freedom.
On next steps, this is about not just building resilience but offering alternatives. As China’s role on the world stage grows, we have an amazing emerging pool of talent of Chinese speakers and China experts. We must provide alternative opportunities for the learning of Mandarin. I can think of no better way to do that than through our friends in Taiwan, whose track record in providing language courses is exemplary. They already work with our Foreign Office and intelligence services in providing these language lessons. We must also fund Mandarin education.
I thank the Minister for working with me to adopt these measures and for safeguarding academic freedom. My new clause provides a duty on financial disclosures, and it offers an alternative in the ability to terminate Confucius institutes and the power of the Secretary of State to direct, but I will not press it to a vote. We should be proud of British universities and proud to stand up for liberty and academic freedom. Without academic freedom, there is no open dialogue; without dialogue, there can only be division. It is important we use this Bill as the first step in sending a clear message to the entire education sector and the Chinese Communist party that we will not give them a back door to undermine our country and our national security through our universities.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review
Alicia Kearns Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I am so grateful to my right hon. Friend for his work on this, and also to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who is unable to be here in the Chamber today. Too many parents in my constituency come to me broken by the system. They are tired of fighting and particularly tired of going to court. How will the system help with those issues? Will my right hon. Friend also take into account the difficulties of provision in rural areas and in small unitary councils, for which this can be a heavy and difficult cross to bear?
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend speaks with passion and probably pain from having to consult those parents who have fought and feel that they are sometimes let down by the system. We have to ensure that the system works equally well in rural areas. Lincolnshire, for example, co-created the local system. It brought families and stakeholders in and said, “Look, we have got £50 million. How should we spend that to make sure the provision is the best we can make it?”
Oral Answers to Questions
Alicia Kearns Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
The hon. Lady raises an important point about the importance of wraparound care. We are working with all schools to ensure it is provided to parents. We have issued guidance setting out how this can be done safely and cautiously and in a way that works for those who work in schools and, importantly, for the children who benefit from this wraparound care as well as the parents who depend on it.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con) [V]
Gavin Williamson
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important case in her constituency. Uppingham Community College is actually covered by risk protection arrangements, and I know that officials in my Department are working closely with it to see what is needed in order to ensure that there is provision. I know that Baroness Berridge would be delighted to meet with my hon. Friend to discuss in more detail some of the particular issues that she faces in Rutland and how we can best support her and, most importantly, the provision of education in her constituency.