Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Burghart Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Alex Burghart)
I can confirm, following what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, that we are not planning to remove funding from all BTECs. We will continue to fund high-quality qualifications, including BTECs, that can be taken alongside, or as alternatives to, T-levels and A-levels where there is a clear need for skills and knowledge. We will be led by the evidence and the final decision on qualifications reform will be taken in due course.
Kim Johnson
I welcome the Minister’s response to the question, but the Department’s own equalities impact assessment concluded that those from SEND black and disadvantaged backgrounds, and males were
“disproportionately likely to be affected”
by the plan to scrap the majority of BTECs. The City of Liverpool College offers 21 BTEC and 51 level 3 qualifications, and 1,400 learners would be impacted by the proposed changes. Is it not time that he listened to the calls from the Protect Student Choice campaign to rethink this damaging proposal?
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She is a powerful advocate for the people of Liverpool. I would, respectfully, draw her attention to page 13 of the “Government consultation response: impact assessment”, which states:
“Following the additional flexibility on the future academic landscape, and the accompanying updated mapping and data, students from Black ethnic groups are no longer anticipated to be disproportionately highly affected. “
She raises an important point, which we are mindful of; we want all students, at all levels, to have the best opportunities. That is why we are reviewing level 3 qualifications and level 2 qualifications, so that we can have a qualifications system that gives students the skills they need, to get the jobs they need, for the economy we want.
Paula Barker
Given that 4,500 young people in Liverpool alone studied BTECs in 2020—the figure is an underestimate, as it does not include older BTECs—the Government’s plan to scrap the majority of these qualifications will leave thousands of students in cities such as Liverpool without a viable pathway at the age of 16. Will the Secretary of State and his Ministers listen to the 24 education bodies in the Protect Student Choice campaign and the 118 parliamentarians who wrote to him about this issue, or perhaps to former Conservative Secretary of State Lord Baker, who has described the plan as an “act of educational vandalism”? Despite what the Secretary of State and the Minister have said, will they rethink the proposal to defund most BTECs?
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Lady for her question; it is nice to have two questions from Liverpool back to back. I must tell the House that we are undertaking an historic reform of technical education in this country. We want technical qualifications, at all levels, that are designed with employers, to give students the opportunities they need. At 16, that will mean that some students will get gold-standard level 3 qualifications that will lead to work, degree-level apprenticeships or higher education. For some, it will mean excellent level 2 qualifications, which will lead to apprenticeships or to work, or to our lifetime skills guarantee, announced by the Prime Minister in September 2020, allowing everybody to get a level 3 qualification.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Clearly, it would have been sensible for the Government to have finished their evidence and understood the outcome of the policy before starting to undermine BTECs by announcing that they would defund many of them. There is a widespread body of opinion that many of the 230,000 students studying level 3 BTEC qualifications might not be able to get on to that qualification in future. Will the new Minister—I should have welcomed him to his place; I do so late in my question—tell us in which year the Government are likely to meet their target of having 100,000 students studying T-levels? Will he guarantee that those changes will not lead to a reduction in the number of students studying level 3 qualifications in the future?
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his belated welcome.
We just had a historic spending review for skills in this country, with £2.8 billion of capital for skills, including money to deliver new T-levels across the spending-review period. Those T-levels will give more students the opportunity to progress into work at a higher level. Our level 2 review will enable more students to progress into work at the right level for them.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill
Alex Burghart Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
It is the first time I have served under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I am grateful for the chance to do so. I again pay tribute to the hon. Member for Workington for bringing forward the Bill; I did so on the Floor of the House, and am happy to repeat the compliment today, because it is a real tribute to him that he has got the Bill this far. Speaking as a relatively new MP, I have to say to him that getting a private Member’s Bill past Second Reading on the Floor of the Commons and into Committee is the political equivalent of getting a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory—not that I am calling anybody here an Oompa-Loompa, and especially not you, Mr Davies.
At a time when businesses around the country are facing massive skills shortages, it is vital that careers education matches the scale of the challenge, and the hon. Member for Workington understands this. We welcome the Bill. It is short, but its significance is not dampened by its brevity—if anything, it is enhanced by it.
For years, both main parties have been gripped by the debate on structural reforms in schools. Academies were, after all, a Labour invention spearheaded by Lord Adonis and others as a way of turning around failing schools. We stood against the forced academisation of large swathes of schools throughout the 2010s, and do not support universal academisation now, but given the years of disruption caused by structural reform, our immediate focus now must be on making sure that all schools deliver top-quality preparation for life, no matter their governance arrangements. Many academies have replaced local authority control with governance by a multi-academy trust that pools expertise and resources among a group of similar schools. Most of these trusts are highly effective, but a minority has been marred by accusations of off-rolling and high executive pay.
All schools, regardless of their governance structure, should provide excellent careers education. That is the outcome that the hon. Gentleman’s Bill seeks to deliver. The Labour party will always welcome steps towards embedding careers education in schools, and elevating its position and importance, yet only 30% of schools and colleges have stable careers programmes. That is not in the interests of pupils, schools, businesses or the whole economy—a point worth making on Budget day.
Expansion of the legal duty is welcome, but the Government must go further. Cuts to schools’ budgets have had a real-terms impact on the ability to provide high-quality careers education. When budgets are tight, school leaders are forced to prioritise traditional academic subjects. That is not helped by the Government’s narrow curriculum reforms over recent years. Where is the Government’s engagement with business? Where is the strategic vision? During the Labour conference, the Leader of the Opposition laid out an ambitious programme to ensure that every child leaves school job-ready and life-ready. Now is the time for the Government to meet that ambition for young people. Once again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Workington.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Alex Burghart)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this, my first Bill Committee as a Minister, Mr Davies. I hope it is not my last. I must congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Workington; he is, as the hon. Member for Hove said, the boy with the golden ticket. He may remember what happens to the boy who finds that golden ticket: Charlie goes on to run the chocolate factory. I can think of no finer job for my hon. Friend. It is a real achievement to get this Bill into Committee, and we in the Government are delighted to support it, because it really supports the aims of our skills reform agenda, which will drive up the quality and availability of technical skills for young people, and that will help them to get the great jobs that they deserve—the great jobs of tomorrow.
I pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), who has gone on to an even greater job, in the Department of Health. I cannot hope to match her panache and stylishness, but I promise the House that I will do my best for this agenda, because it is something I believe in deeply. I also thank the Opposition for their support for the Bill and the cross-party consensus that has broken out over this important agenda. I hope such consensus will continue throughout the day, as we go on to the Chancellor’s statement.
The Government support the Bill because we want to level up opportunity. The reforms set out in our “Skills for Jobs” White Paper will give people a genuine choice between a high-quality technical route and a high-quality academic route. As part of that, it is vital that everyone has access to careers guidance of the very highest standard.
Mr Perkins
Does the Minister agree that in order to meet the careers guidance needs of every child, we need to meet every child, and so every child should be entitled to face-to-face careers guidance during their career journey?
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I know that we will not always agree as we stand opposite each other, but I know that he cares deeply about the prospects for young people, and I hope he respects that I do, too. Obviously, it is important that young people get high-quality careers advice, and it would be difficult to justify giving that without a degree of face-to-face support, but we respect schools’ abilities to find new, interesting ways of delivering this agenda.
As we emerge from the pandemic, it is important that we make sure that all young people have access to high-quality guidance, because if they do not, they will not know whether they are making the right choices and taking the right opportunities.
Sally-Ann Hart
Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that the fact that the Bill has been extended to alternative provision academies matters a lot, because some of the most vulnerable children from disadvantaged backgrounds are in alternative provision, and we really need to get them the same opportunities as all other children?
Alex Burghart
I could not have put it better myself. It is very important that everyone in state education, particularly young people with the most disadvantaged starts in life, has these opportunities, and that is what the Bill will achieve. Having at different times of my career worked closely with those who run alternative provision, I know, as does my hon. Friend, that they have an extraordinary job on their hands. The contribution that they make to young people’s lives is often really remarkable.
Now more than ever, good-quality careers advice, information and guidance is essential to build a workforce that is dynamic and flexible. It is critical that young people are provided with good-quality information about future labour market opportunities in growth sectors, so that they can learn the skills that they need to be successful in our fast-paced, changing jobs market.
Many in-demand jobs and sectors are a product of the modern world, including space exploration, green energy, digital architects and data scientists. As new technologies and industries emerge, young people need insights into the breadth of careers and opportunities available to them, so that they can make informed decisions about the future, including, crucially for my brief, the value of technical and vocational pathways to employment. Good-quality careers advice is essential if we are to ensure that we meet the higher technical skills needs in our country. That is why the Government are investing over £100 million in the financial year 2021-22 in the direct delivery of careers information, advice and guidance. That funds the direct delivery of careers advice to people of all ages through the National Careers Service. We also support the development of careers infrastructure through the Careers & Enterprise Company to help schools and colleges to improve their careers programmes in line with the world-class Gatsby benchmarks. The Bill will support the Government’s wider skills reforms, and will provide a legal framework for guaranteeing high-quality, independent careers guidance to all young people in state secondary schools.
It takes a wise man to devise a simple Bill, and this is a simple Bill. Clause 1 amends the scope of section 42A of the Education Act 1997—the statutory duty on schools to secure independent careers guidance. The Bill extends career advice provision to all pupils in state secondary schools, bringing year 7 pupils into scope for the first time. It also extends the duty to all academy schools and alternative provision academies. Clause 2 covers consequential amendments and revokes 2013 regulations that extended the careers guidance obligations to pupils aged 13 to 18; they are no longer needed, because the Bill extends to all secondary-age pupils.
What the clauses mean in practice is that all pupils, in all types of state-funded secondary school in England, will be legally entitled to independent careers guidance throughout their secondary education. That means high-quality guidance for every single child in every single secondary state school in every single local authority, without exception.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
I would like to put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington for bringing the Bill to the House and to this Committee. I want to clarify a point: page 6 of the explanatory notes says that the provisions do not extend to Wales—I speak as a Welsh MP—but where the notes say,
“Would corresponding provision be within the competence of Senedd Cymru?”,
the answer is “Yes” for both clauses 1 and 2. Has the Minister had any contact with the Welsh Government to see whether they are bringing in a similar programme of careers guidance in Wales?
Alex Burghart
We are in constant contact with our colleagues in Wales, but I am as yet unaware of whether they have similar plans. I am happy to write to my hon. Friend if I discover that they do.
By extending the lower age limit to those in year 7, the Bill brings the career guidance duty in line with the Government’s careers framework for schools, the Gatsby benchmarks, which apply from years 7 to 13. This fulfils a commitment in our “Skills for Jobs” White Paper and will reach over 600,000 pupils in year 7 every year. By starting in year 7, we can give children early exposure to a range of employers, so that they gain experience of the workplace, ask questions and develop networks. They can begin to learn about the local labour market, because the skills needs of Cumbria may be different from those of Essex. Early careers guidance can support important decisions that need to be made from year 14 —for example, on the choice of GCSE subjects or on whether to go to a university technical college.
The Bill will establish consistency by applying the statutory careers duty to all types of state-school settings. This will bring approximately 2,700 academy schools and 130 alternative provision placements into scope. We support the Bill’s intention to require all academies via statute to have regard to statutory careers guidance. That is already the case for maintained schools. If the Bill is passed, we will make it easy for schools to understand the changes to the law, and what actions they need to take. These changes to the law will allow Ofsted to focus clearly and consistently on how every school is meeting its statutory duty by providing independent careers guidance to every pupil throughout their secondary education.
Education
Alex Burghart Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Alex Burghart
The challenges that we currently face are obviously substantial, but great improvements have been made. At the end of the previous term, attendance in school was at 75%; as of Thursday last week, attendance was at 91.9%, with 99.9% of all schools open…The hon. Lady asked about face masks; at some stages in the pandemic we have had face masks in corridors, strict social distancing and bubbles, but the evidence now says that we can move away from that.
[Official Report, 23 September 2021, Vol. 701, c. 427.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart):
Errors have been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green).
The correct information should have been:
Alex Burghart
The challenges that we currently face are obviously substantial, but great improvements have been made. At the end of the previous term, attendance in school was at 76.7%; as of Thursday last week, attendance was at 91.9%, with 99.9% of all schools open…The hon. Lady asked about face masks; at some stages in the pandemic we have had face coverings in corridors, social distancing and bubbles, but the evidence now says that we can move away from that.
Dr Spencer
It is great to see my hon. Friend in his place at the Dispatch Box. I welcome the work this Government have done to make it a priority to keep schools open for face-to-face learning. In contrast, Labour equivocated over whether they were even safe to reopen. Does he agree that if Labour were in power, our schools would probably be closed for face-to-face learning and our children left behind?.
Alex Burghart
I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful question. We have been very clear throughout that we wanted to get schools open as soon as it was safe to do so. We have done that. We have managed to increase attendance from 75% at the end of last term to 91.1% at the start of this term.
[Official Report, 23 September 2021, Vol. 701, c. 431.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart):
An error has been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer).
The correct information should have been:
Alex Burghart
I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful question. We have been very clear throughout that we wanted to get schools open as soon as it was safe to do so. We have done that. We have managed to increase attendance from 76.7% at the end of last term to 91.1% at the start of this term.
Dame Diana Johnson
Hull is one of the most disadvantaged parts of the country, and there will be no levelling up without catching up. Will the Minister commit to the necessary catching-up budget proposed by his adviser, Sir Kevan Collins?
Alex Burghart
As I have said a number of times, we have put in £3 billion, with £1.5 billion on tutoring for 6 million tutoring programmes—100 million hours of tutoring—and an additional 2 million tutoring programmes in 16 to 19 education.
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart):
An error has been identified in my response to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson).
The correct response should have been:
Alex Burghart
As I have said a number of times, we have put in £3 billion, with £1.5 billion on tutoring for 6 million tutoring courses—100 million hours of tutoring—and an additional 2 million tutoring courses in 16 to 19 education.
Coronavirus: Education Setting Attendance and Support for Pupils
Alex Burghart Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on the impact of coronavirus on attendance in education settings and support for pupils to catch-up on lost learning.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Alex Burghart)
Mr Speaker, I am terribly grateful to you for granting this urgent question during my first week in the job. We would all like to thank school staff for their ongoing dedication to pupils at what has obviously been an extremely difficult time.
Regular school attendance is vital for children’s education, wellbeing and long-term development. I am pleased to report that attendance last week was higher than at the same time last year, with 91.9% of students attending and 99.9% of all state-funded schools open. We know that the impact of coronavirus has been felt strongly in schools. The evidence is clear that being out of education causes significant harm to attainment, life chances, mental health and physical health. Data from the autumn 2020 school census showed that 60% of pupils had some period when they did not attend school in circumstances relating to covid-19 during the autumn term. That represents 33 million days missed, and analysis shows that every day of education missed matters.
That is why this Government are rightly focused on reducing the disruption to education: we have put an end to the self-isolation of whole bubbles; under-18s no longer need to self-isolate after contact with a positive case; secondary pupils were tested on their return, to help limit transmission, and will continue to test this term; and just last week this Government announced the roll-out of vaccinations for all 12 to 15-year-olds. Our communications programme has promoted the importance of attendance and we continue to monitor the data closely.
We are also fully committed to helping pupils to catch up. Our £3 billion investment in recovery includes more than £950 million for schools to best support the most affected children. That will have a material impact in closing gaps that have emerged. We continue to work closely with local authorities and schools to help them re-engage pupils. The Government’s Supporting Families programme continues to work with families where attendance is a significant concern, and we are providing support to tackle mental health issues, which will improve attendance further. That includes £7 million for local authorities to deliver the wellbeing for education recovery programme, and £9.5 million to train senior mental health leads in up to 7,800 schools and colleges. We are also recruiting a team of expert attendance advisers to work with local authorities to help them improve their services and the consistency and quality of their attendance interventions.
The next stage includes a review of time spent in school and 16 to 19 education, and the impact that this could have on helping children and young people to catch up. To support and re-engage the most at-risk pupils, we are investing £45 million in the new safe and alternative provision taskforces, bringing together specialist support in schools and AP settings in serious violence hotspots. We are also joining up support by expanding the role of virtual school heads, which is a wonderful initiative, to cover all children, with a social worker to provide additional support on attendance and attainment for many of the most vulnerable pupils.
The impact of the pandemic has been significant, and this Government continue to act tirelessly to help our children recover their education and wellbeing, with the help of our excellent teaching profession.
Kate Green
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. Although I am sorry that the Secretary of State is not in his place, I warmly congratulate the Minister on his appointment. I know he will agree with me that nothing is more important than our children’s futures. But during the pandemic the Government have treated children and young people as an afterthought, failing to take the action that teachers, parents, pupils and the Labour party have been calling for to keep children in school. Some 122,000 children were out of school last week. Yesterday, the chief medical officer warned that covid is spreading fastest among secondary-age pupils. When will the Government act to improve ventilation in schools, colleges and universities? Will the Minister explain the Government’s rationale on masks, which saw them required in schools in March but not now, when covid rates are more than 400 times higher?
We welcome the advice of the chief medical officers to roll out the vaccine to 12 to 15-year-olds, but already there are reports of pressure on school nursing services. Will the Minister guarantee that all first doses will have been administered by October half-term?
Shockingly, there are reports that some schools are experiencing anti-vaccination protests. What action is being taken to ensure that no school faces threats and intimidation?
In Education questions on 6 September, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), hinted that the Government may cease recommending twice-weekly home testing at the end of this month, even though covid continues to spread. Will the Minister reconfirm the plans on testing? How will he ensure that testing at home is carried out, after the drop-off we saw last year?
Even before the latest surge in absences, children had missed an average of 115 days of school. The Conservatives’ paltry recovery plan comes nowhere close to tackling what is needed. Labour’s plan commits to extending the school day to give time for breakfast clubs and new activities, small-group tutoring, expert mental health support, and training for our world-class school staff. Will the Minister commit today to matching Labour’s ambition?
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Lady for tabling the urgent question and for her opening remarks. I am sure we will not always see eye-to-eye, but we both have a great concern for children in this country and I look forward to working with her on that score. Nevertheless, I do not want to take too many lectures from the Labour party on this subject. We all clearly remember how last year Labour consistently refused to say that schools were safe for children to go back.
The challenges that we currently face are obviously substantial, but great improvements have been made. At the end of the previous term, attendance in school was at 75%; as of Thursday last week, attendance was at 91.9%, with 99.9% of all schools open.[Official Report, 19 Octoberber 2021, Vol. 701, c. 4MC.] That is a tribute to the very hard work done by our health service and the very hard work that is currently being done in schools. I am sure the whole House pays tribute to that work.
Our Department has an absolute determination to be led by the best evidence, and that determination is shared across Government. Probably no one in the Government understands data and evidence bases better than my new boss, the Secretary of State for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi). When the evidence changes and the situation changes, so we change our policy.
The hon. Lady asked about face masks; at some stages in the pandemic we have had face masks in corridors, strict social distancing and bubbles, but the evidence now says that we can move away from that.[Official Report, 19 Octoberber 2021, Vol. 701, c. 4MC.] That is much to the good, because anyone who has ever worked in schools, as I have, will know that it is difficult to conduct proper education when children have their faces covered. I strongly welcome the fact that we have been able to make a change on that score.
Over the course of the pandemic, we have put £3 billion into helping schools and the education recovery. That includes £1.5 billion for evidence-based tutoring programmes that are going to help children, including the most vulnerable, to catch up. I am delighted to have discovered that £220 million is being spent so that vulnerable children can attend holiday activities and food programmes in all local authorities. We have £79 million to support those children who have been suffering with the worst mental health problems—mental health is a dreadful problem that I know many Members will have heard about in their constituency surgeries—and £17 million for mental health and wellbeing training in schools.
The hon. Lady rightly asked about the dreadful anti-vaccination protests we have seen. They are totally unacceptable. The level of intimidation of schools and teachers is abhorrent. I make it absolutely clear to any headteacher or teacher who is watching this that, contrary to some of the things they have been told, legal liability rests not with schools, but with the health service and those providing vaccinations. I thank schools very much for the spaces they have created and the consent forms they have provided, but they should rest assured that it is the health service that is providing these jabs and offering the support. Any school facing intimidation should let the Department know about it so that we can follow it up.
This is a difficult time for education, but things are getting better. They are getting better because of the actions that this Government have taken to roll out one of the best vaccine programmes in the world and to support children and their teachers in school.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I am pleased to see the Minister, my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, in his place.
As I understand it from our discussions with the chief medical officer at the Education Committee yesterday and from the Government, the key purpose of the vaccination programme is to keep our children in school. However, I have been sent a letter by parents about the Teddington School in Middlesex, run by Bourne Education Trust, that shows that all students will be sent home on Friday 24 September, after a day of vaccinations today. Therefore, despite Government guidance, there are examples of schools doing this, or of whole year groups being grounded at home or even closed down completely. Will my hon. Friend make sure that schools follow Government guidance to the letter and do not send children home? He should ring the headteachers himself to make sure that we keep our children learning. Will he also ensure that the catch-up fund reaches the poorest and most disadvantaged students, because we know that 44% of students receiving the pupil premium are being missed, and that there are huge regional disparities as well?
Alex Burghart
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and I look forward to working with him in his role as Chair of the Education Committee and as a venerable defender of the needs of children and of the voters who follow.
It is extremely important that schools follow departmental guidance. I am sure that my officials will have heard the example that my right hon. Friend has just given. The message is clear: the best place for children is in schools and there are very clear criteria that tell us when children should be there.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister rightly recognises the toll on the mental health of children in this country over the past year. In Waltham Forest, many schools dug deep and paid for external counselling services for the children and are now facing big gaps in their budgets. Having said how important it is that no school in this country should be out of pocket, will the Minister commit today to fully reimburse those schools for the cost of counselling over the past 18 months to help our children get through the pandemic?
Alex Burghart
I thank both the hon. Lady for her question and the school in her constituency for the work that it has done to look after its pupils; it sounds as though it has gone above and beyond. As I said in answer to the shadow Secretary of State a few moments ago, the Department has invested considerable amounts of money in supporting children’s mental health. There has been £79 million across the piece, and £17 million for training for mental health and wellbeing in schools. We are fully aware that this is one of the lasting consequences of the pandemic, and we will step in to support schools every inch of the way.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I find the irony of this urgent question being called by those on the Labour Front Bench somewhat mystifying, because they went missing throughout the pandemic, and there was silence on the issue of schools. It is not just me who thinks this. Let me quote:
“Labour’s silence on closing schools is completely ridiculous.”
That was Corbynista Owen Jones saying that, so it is not just we on the Conservative Benches who think it. The NEU—or the “not education union” as we should refer to it—continually wanting to shut schools, and Labour keeping silent despite the donations running into its party coffers tell us everything that we need to know. Can my hon. Friend confirm to me that, no matter what happens this winter, schools will be kept open, pupils will be learning face to face and, in that way, they will catch up exactly as they need to.
Alex Burghart
I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate question. He has first-hand experience of working in schools, and I look forward to leaning on his expertise while I am in this job. It is absolutely the Government’s intention to keep schools open. We are clear that schools are the right place for children. The cost of children not being in school is extremely serious, so it is very much our hope that schools will be open from this point on.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Erdington is one of England’s poorest constituencies, but it is rich in talent. I pay tribute to the headteachers, who do an outstanding job in the most difficult circumstances. In a survey I conducted of schools in my area, I found that 60% expect to set a deficit budget next financial year, and 100% said that they do not have sufficient support for their pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. Of the schools that applied for exceptional costs funding, 75% received funding amounting to less than half the costs. Is it not the simple reality that school spending by the Government is still lower than in 2009-10, and that after tearing up the catch-up recommendations made by their own adviser, they have allocated to schools a fifth of what was asked for? Is it not the simple truth that a whole generation of children and young people are growing up without the support that they deserve from their Government?
Alex Burghart
The hon. Gentleman is a doughty defender of pupils on his patch. The Government have already spent £3 billion on helping schools to get through the pandemic. As I have said, we have invested £1.5 billion in evidence-led programmes, and we have a high degree of confidence that they will help children to catch up some of the time that they have lost in school. Since the Prime Minister took over two and a half years ago, he has been clear about his ambition to return per pupil spending to what it was in 2010. Obviously there is also an imminent spending review, in which other things are being considered.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend confirm that keeping children in school and educational settings is an absolute priority? Does he agree that children with special educational needs and those on education, health and care plans should be given the bespoke support that they need to maximise attendance and thrive in the school environment—a shining example being Hoyle Nursery School in my constituency?
Alex Burghart
My hon. Friend is right that we have to help the most vulnerable children to overcome the problems of the pandemic. Children with special educational needs are very much on our radar. We have consistently prioritised children who attend specialist settings by providing additional uplifts in the 2020 catch-up premium and the 2021 recovery premium. Specialist settings will receive an uplift to deliver summer schools and will have the flexibility to deliver provision based on pupils’ needs. I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns; for about eight years, I was the vice-chair of governors at a special school in west London, so I have seen the remarkable work that such schools can do to change children’s lives. We absolutely have our mind on this agenda.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
We know how important good ventilation is to protect staff and students from the spread of covid, and to keep schools safe and open. The Welsh Government are funding better ventilation in schools. Why are this Government not doing the same?
Alex Burghart
I am delighted to hear that the Welsh Government are improving ventilation in schools. The Government in Westminster are doing precisely the same. We have spent £25 million on installing CO2 monitors, with 300,000 monitors going out right now. We are starting with special schools and then rolling them out across the estate.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
I recently met the impressive young people from Milton Keynes Youth Cabinet, who highlighted to me the difficulties with mental health that children suffered during the pandemic, and of course we discussed catch-up. It is great that the Department have announced the consultation on discipline and behaviour in schools. Does the Minister agree that discipline, behaviour and structure are key to good mental health, and to catching up on what we have lost over the last few months and years?
Alex Burghart
I could not agree more strongly. We need schools to be calm, well-ordered places of learning. These are the environments in which children flourish most. That is why, since 2010, this Government have prioritised behaviour.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister to his place and look forward to him appearing in front of the Education Committee later in the autumn. I declare an interest in that I am the chair of governors of a primary school and a member of an academy trust board.
Disruption is still occurring because even vaccinated people and children can contract and transmit the infection. Headteachers and their staff, as the Minister has outlined, are continuing to work above and beyond but are struggling in many places to keep their schools going as they would want to. What more can he do to give schools the support they so desperately need so that they can effectively educate the children while also safeguarding those children and the staff? I am afraid that in many places the measures that he has outlined are proving to be far from adequate.
Alex Burghart
My heart stopped for a moment because I thought the hon. Gentleman said that he looked forward to my appearing in front of the Education Committee this afternoon, but the autumn is fine—probably. He raises a very important point, because obviously we do want to see children back in school. As he will have heard me say, we have substantial improvement on where we were at the end of last term. Ordinarily of a September, pre-pandemic, we would expect about 95% of children to be in school. Last Thursday, the figure was 91.9%. We are very keen to make up that gap and we are working tirelessly to do so. One of the things I have not mentioned is that the DFE has REACT—regional education and children’s teams—working across the country with local authorities, regional schools commissioners and schools themselves to clamp down on outbreaks where they take place and to help children to get back into school as quickly as possible.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
It is great to see my hon. Friend in his place at the Dispatch Box. I welcome the work this Government have done to make it a priority to keep schools open for face-to-face learning. In contrast, Labour equivocated over whether they were even safe to reopen. Does he agree that if Labour were in power, our schools would probably be closed for face-to-face learning and our children left behind?
Alex Burghart
I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful question. We have been very clear throughout that we wanted to get schools open as soon as it was safe to do so. We have done that. We have managed to increase attendance from 75% at the end of last term to 91.1% at the start of this term.[Official Report, 19 October 2021, Vol. 701, c. 4MC.] There is a lot further to go. However, it is the roll-out of our vaccination programme across the country, with the high uptake and the hard work of our health service, that has enabled us to get to this point. Children are better off in education and they are able to be in education because of the steps this Government have taken.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The roll-out of the national tutoring programme has been shambolic, as has been evidenced right across the country, including in my constituency. Will the Minister consider allocating the money to local authorities, which already have the relationships with local providers, in order to ensure that additional support for young people can be provided expediently?
Alex Burghart
I am afraid that I do not recognise the hon. Lady’s description of the national tutoring programme as such. It is based on the very best evidence, it has a very large sum of public money behind it, and we are highly confident that it is going to help children to recover and get back.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
It is indeed a great pleasure to see my hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving him the chance to strut his stuff in his first week in the job. He will make a fine addition to the Department for Education.
May I press my hon. Friend on keeping children in school? I completely agree with him that that is the priority, so will he look again with a fresh set of eyes at routinely testing children who have no symptoms and are not ill? The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health thinks that routine testing of asymptomatic children should stop, because that is what is keeping them out of school, and I agree. Will he look at that, get rid of routine testing, test only children who have symptoms and send home only children who are unwell?
Alex Burghart
My right hon. Friend is extremely learned in these matters. We have a testing programme in place to ensure that we limit the number of pupils in schools who have coronavirus. That was obviously the case as schools went back. I am sure that the relevant Minister will have heard his remarks.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Hull is one of the most disadvantaged parts of the country, and there will be no levelling up without catching up. Will the Minister commit to the necessary catching-up budget proposed by his adviser, Sir Kevan Collins?
Alex Burghart
As I have said a number of times, we have put in £3 billion, with £1.5 billion on tutoring for 6 million tutoring programmes—100 million hours of tutoring—and an additional 2 million tutoring programmes in 16 to 19 education.[Official Report, 19 October 2021, Vol. 701, c. 6MC.] That is evidence-based, and we have a high degree of confidence that it will help children recover and get over the worst of the pandemic. The right hon. Lady will have also heard me say that a spending review is coming up.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I welcome my hon. Friend to his position; I am sure he will do an excellent job. He rightly points out that the vaccination programme for young people is a public health matter. However, what support is being given to schools, teachers, parents and young people to combat the anti-vaxxers who are obviously misleading people on the benefits of ensuring that young people are vaccinated and therefore safe to be in school?
Alex Burghart
My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. It is totally unacceptable that any teacher or headteacher is being placed under that pressure. The lies spread by certain groups are outrageous and have unquestionably made life uncomfortable for some people working in schools. I reiterate that schools following the guidelines are doing exactly the right thing. They are not legally liable for what happens. I understand that, so far, all participating schools are doing so in a highly professional manner.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
As the Minister rightly acknowledged, the need for mental health support for young people has risen significantly during the pandemic, yet providers of that support such as the fantastic charity TADS in Barnsley are struggling to access funding. I acknowledge his commitment to funding, but how will he ensure that it gets to the frontline? What can he do to help charities such as the one that I represent?
Alex Burghart
I have heard of TADS on my travels—it is an excellent charity. If she would like to send the details to the Department, I am happy to look into that for her.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
We all know that the best place for young people is in school, learning in a classroom. Will my hon. Friend therefore confirm that when the Opposition next make a call for schools to close, he and the Secretary of State will do all they can to resist those siren calls and keep our kids in school?
Alex Burghart
Be in no doubt that we want children to be in school and learning in school. It is the best place for them to be for their education, their mental health and their futures. We will do all that we can to keep them where they are.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Minister has spoken about catch-up funding, and I got to see at first hand some of the great work being done at Denton Community College with its summer school over the summer holidays. However, no amount of summer schools will enable children to fully catch up on the work they have missed out on, so what more is he going to do to help the covid cohort properly catch up and be able to excel, as we would all hope they will be able to do?
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Gentleman, and it is very good to hear about what he saw going on in Denton in his constituency during the summer. The tutoring programme is at the very heart of our response in helping children catch up, in so far as it is possible to do so. We know from the very best international and national data that when children have one-to-one or one-to-two tuition, it can be revolutionary for their learning, and that is why this Department is channelling money and effort into it.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend on his thoroughly well deserved appointment.
Schools in Kettering are doing their very best, but are facing a very challenging time at the moment with some rapidly rising covid rates, especially in secondary settings. Could we have some specialised support and enhanced efforts from Public Health England and the Department to help them to get on top of this?
Alex Burghart
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and his remarks. As I mentioned a moment ago, there are DFE REACT teams working around the country, and their role is to work with schools, local authorities and regional schools commissioners to tackle precisely this problem. I am sure that, if he were to get in touch with the Department, it would be able to fill him in more on what is happening in his area.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I welcome the Minister to his place, and I wish him well in his new role.
In Northern Ireland, the Education Minister has given schools funding grants for catch-up learning, which many high schools have taken advantage of. This has become even more necessary due to the coronavirus, which is the thrust of this urgent question. Does the Minister not agree that we cannot lose focus on the early years intervention for P3 classes with a reading age a full year behind, and how does he intend to stop that lag-behind following those children through their whole academic life?
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. Since I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Northern Ireland Office, I have long believed there is a great deal we can learn from Northern Ireland in this place, and we often learn it from the hon. Gentleman. It is absolutely essential that we support early years, but also children at every stage in their education, to overcome the worst of this pandemic, and I have no doubt that that is what this Department will be doing in the months ahead.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. I commend his Department for its successful efforts to eliminate the barrier of digital exclusion by providing 1.3 million laptops and tablets to disadvantaged students during the pandemic. Can he confirm that that investment will continue for those pupils?
Alex Burghart
Yes, all of the 1.35 million laptops that my hon. Friend refers to are still in use and are still out in the community. It was a major offer that the Government made to children who were digitally disadvantaged and it came, as he will recall, with a wi-fi offer, which made sure they had the connectivity they needed. This was a very important initiative by the DFE, and we are sticking by it.
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Greenfield school in Newton Aycliffe in the Sedgefield constituency, and it was great to see so many children and teachers back where they belong. With the advent of being able to get vaccines for 12 to 15-year-olds, can I ask the Minister to make sure that both the parents and their children are getting the proper information about the validity of vaccines for both groups, not listening to the nonsense on some aspects of social media?
Alex Burghart
Absolutely. The best source of information on vaccines is, remains, and will always be the NHS. Hon. Members can rest assured that the Government are following the Gillick competencies, which have been in place since the mid-80s.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
This year Wales High School in Rother Valley is celebrating its 50th year, and it was a pleasure to join it in its celebrations a few weeks ago. Will my hon. Friend celebrate not only that great achievement, but people’s hard work in keeping the school open during the covid crisis, including putting in measures and guidelines that go above Government recommendations?
Alex Burghart
Absolutely, and I thank not only my hon. Friend’s school but all schools across the country that have gone above and beyond at this very difficult time. We have asked a great deal of our teachers and school leaders, and they have risen to the challenge.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
I am delighted to see my hon. Friend in his place. Will he join me in congratulating schools across Wiltshire, and particularly in my constituency, on getting back to work so effectively and educating all their children once again? Now that 12 to 15-year-olds are eligible for the vaccine, does he agree it is important that all children, and their parents, get the proper information, so that they can make the right decision for themselves and their community?
Alex Burghart
It sounds like Devizes is doing a cracking job in meeting the challenges of covid, and I say again to all parents, teachers and pupils who are looking for advice that the NHS is the place to go, and we are in safe hands when we take its advice.