Parental Involvement in Teaching: Equality Act

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Godsiff]

I will not.

The question that those who have sought to characterise the disputes at both schools as a clash of cultures should be asking is, what have the headteachers and their staff at 256 primary schools got right with the support of their parents, while in two schools it seems to have gone very wrong? I turn briefly to the protests outside the school in my constituency.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mr Godsiff]

No, I will not.

The school is in an area with a very large Muslim population. Nearly all the children who attend are from Muslim families. When the protests began outside the school in my constituency I did not take sides or make public comment. I took the view that parents of young children do not protest against their child’s school unless they have some grievance. Parents protest against many things, including the Government and the local council, but to protest against their child’s school is rare, and there has to be some particular reason for it.

I went and saw the headteacher. I asked questions and put suggestions to her. I have deliberately not put her responses in the public domain, because I believe that if I had done so it would have inflamed the situation, but I did tell the leader of the council what they were. Three officials from the Department for Education were present, and they took detailed notes, which presumably were conveyed to the Minister. I have known the headteacher for a number of years, and I respect her academic achievements at the school, which follow the excellent work initiated by the previous head, Anne Bufton, at the school. Before leaving the meeting with the headteacher, I did say that if she or her staff felt threatened by the protests outside the school then she should apply for a restraint injunction to get them moved elsewhere, and I explained to her the procedure for doing that. No such injunction was sought until more than a month later.

I then invited, through my Muslim assistant, the leaders of the protest to come and see me at my house. I was shown copies of letters written to the headteacher expressing their concerns, which were not replied to. I saw statements from parents saying that the headteacher would not have a parents meeting, but would talk to parents only on a one-to-one basis. I saw statements saying that, when such meetings took place, the individual parents were told that what the school was doing was the Equality Act. I saw letters and statements that, time and again, emphasised that the protesters—mostly young mothers—were not seeking to undermine the Equality Act, not least because it protected Muslims from Islamophobic criticism, and that all they were asking for was meaningful consultation about what was the appropriate age for the nine protected characteristics to be introduced to their children. They told me that they had ongoing contact with the appropriate police superintendent every day a protest was organised. They told him when the protest would start and finish, and they always asked for the police to be present to ensure that no laws were broken by the demonstrators.

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[Mr Godsiff]

I will not give way anymore.

If parents say they have concerns, and if they have sought to raise those concerns with the headteacher and have not been allowed to do so, I believe it is incumbent on a Member of Parliament to articulate those concerns. That does not mean to pass judgment, but if they have concerns, they are entitled to have them addressed. So far as the parents at these two schools are concerned, there has been no engagement and no meetings, whereas 256 other schools in Birmingham are doing things differently.

What is this “homophobic hatred” that these parents are supposed to be spreading? That is massively serious. Let us look at some of the police witness statements. As I have said, the police were at every protest. These statements are not hearsay or recycled versions that have been fed to social media to feed the frenzy; they are legal daily reports by police officers who were present. They say the chants were repeated over and again, and what were those chants? “Our children, our choice.” “Listen to parents.” “Let kids be kids.” “We are not homophobic.” “Parent governor step down.” “Headteacher step down”. That is not nice for the headteacher or the parent governor, but I do not accept that as being homophobic.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Godsiff]

No.

[Lilian Greenwood]

This is on a point of information.

[Mr Godsiff]

No, I have given way on a lot of things.

Furthermore, the police who were present wore body cameras and were asked by the organisers of the protest to check whether any placards contravened the law. I understand that only one placard was deemed inappropriate at an early protest, and the people carrying the banner were told not to bring it again.

I make these points because I believe the parents have not had a fair chance to put their side of the dispute. They have been branded professional agitators, accused by a councillor of not having children at the school, called a “mob” and told that they are spewing out homophobic hatred. These mothers have been smeared, and the fact that the local Member of Parliament, having weighed up the evidence and listened to all sides of the argument, came to the conclusion that the people protesting had just reason to complain and protest merely added a target for the witch hunters and increased the lust for a sacrifice, irrespective of the facts.

I return to a couple of specific questions, which I supplied to the Minister before the debate. I ask these questions because I suspect many primary school head- teachers watching this debate, like their colleagues in Birmingham, want to know whether they are inadvertently contravening the law in how they impart the nine protected characteristics of the Equality Act to their pupils.

As I have said, 256 of 258 primary schools in Birmingham are, in different ways, ensuring that their pupils know when they transfer to secondary school that any form of discrimination, victimisation, prejudice or bullying of other people who fall within the nine protected characteristics is unlawful. They do this by engaging with parents to explain the nine characteristics, by having workshops about the individual characteristics, by having ongoing consultations with the parents and showing them the type of material they propose to use, and by engaging with parents about what age is most appropriate for the various characteristics.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Quite! We all know how the game of Chinese whispers works, and the danger is that if children learn things second hand, the message will have been garbled or lost by the time it reaches the third child down. If we are going to teach our children about these ideas of respect and if we are going to keep them safe, we need to do that in a whole way.

I was taught by my parents that of course it did not matter who you fell in love with. I can remember as a child hearing nursery rhymes about falling in love with different groups of people. That is the kind of family I grew up in, and I feel very proud to have had parents who introduced those concepts. My sister is a happily married heterosexual, and she had those songs sung to her as well when she was young. They did not make me gay, but they made me feel comfortable with who I was. Let us be honest, however. Parents are loving, but there is no qualification to be a parent. There are some good parents and some bad parents. My mother is a linguist and an English teacher, but she knows absolutely nothing about physics or maths—she dropped out of science at GCSE—and if I had been taught science by my mother, I would not have been able to go on to do my physics and chemistry A-levels, as I did. We understand that parents are the primary lovers of their children, but they are not always the best people to give them a holistic, rounded education, because they have not experienced all the different elements and aspects of the world.

People in positions of responsibility, whether they are teachers or Members of Parliament, have a responsibility in these debates to show leadership. It was the Labour Government between 1997 and 2010 who showed leadership. If we had followed the mob and listened to what the opinion polls were saying at the time, it is unlikely that we would have made much progress at all on LGBT rights. We would not have made progress on abolishing section 28, for example, because Brian Souter was busy ploughing money in to garner public opinion in one way. We as politicians have to recognise that public opinion can be whipped up by dangerous forces, and we have a moral responsibility to sometimes make a judgment, not on whether there has been consultation—that was a totally vacuous argument that had no content to it—but on the content of the objections, to analyse and review them. That is something that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) has failed to do in this debate even once. Not once did he articulate the problems with the content of the curriculum.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Like many Members in this debate, my hon. Friend is making a powerful and moving speech. Does he share my concern that although lots of parents are perfectly satisfied with what is being taught in schools and perfectly happy that their children are being taught about respect and about different families, the kind of protests we have seen could result in those parents feeling unable to express that view because they feel intimidated and unable to stand up for the things that they would like their children to be taught about and that children themselves want to be taught?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I totally agree. It is even more important that a Member of Parliament, and I would not want to tell anyone how to do their job, should not go and plonk themselves down on one side of the debate without analysing—my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) gave resources to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green—the content of what is being discussed. It is extremely dangerous not to show that leadership, and that is why the debate was wrong from the beginning. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green has been deeply wrong in how he has handled the issue. Pandering to the mob is never right. It is always easy for an MP to do, but we go in the wrong direction if we do it.

Let us remember that one of the things that instigated section 28 was the book “Jenny lives with Eric and Martin”. It is a pretty mundane and boring book: Jenny goes and has an ice cream; Jenny has a book read to her by one of her fathers. It is hardly high literature. There was a backlash, against a backdrop of rising right-wing tension—[Interruption.] I thought you said something, Mr Speaker. Of course, that led to the introduction of section 28. I do not think that we are on the verge of section 28 being introduced again, but we must be vigilant about bringing people along on that journey.

I shall conclude with two points. First, there is a place for parents on that journey, not to consult them on whether something should be included in the curriculum or not but, to some extent, to make up for the fact that we had section 28 for so long. Many parents failed to receive that level of education and understanding. There is a purpose in reaching out to the community.

Secondly, before I became an MP, I wrote an education resource for the Council of Europe on how we talked to educated children under 10 about sexuality and different families. The Council of Europe hardly draws its members from purely progressive countries—it includes Russia, Turkey and Poland—and the resource was accessible in all those countries. I am proud of that resource, which a team helped to write. People in the Council of Europe, including British Ministers, helped to lead a debate at that level to change attitudes and run campaigns to change minds and educate people.

We have not really received an apology. What we heard was a defence of the position taken by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green, with a little apology at the end. I wish that he had just been honest about having real problems with the content of the teaching or said that he had not decided to take one side or the other. What we now have is a very disappointing outcome.

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[Nick Gibb]

I will give way to all Members in just a moment.

As I was saying, it would be right for that pupil’s peers to understand about families with same-sex parents, to ensure that the pupil feels included and that their peers understand and respect their family. We can all agree that in those circumstances, the school would be right to change its approach and to teach the issue earlier.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Many of my colleagues will have anticipated what I am going to ask, which is: how will schools know whether they have pupils with an uncle or aunt in a same-sex relationship, or with a friend who has same-sex parents? Surely, it is appropriate that every child, from the earliest age, should know that there are all sorts of different families—some with one parent, some with two parents, and some with two mums or two dads. The school is not going to know everybody’s experiences, and everyone should know that it is right to respect difference, irrespective of where we come across it.

[Nick Gibb]

As I said, we consulted very widely on the content of the draft guidance and brought in experts such as Ian Bauckham—a very experienced headteacher —to help us draft that guidance. We wanted to form the widest possible consensus on landing this policy, and that is what we have achieved very successfully, and it is something that Governments of the past have not achieved. It is important that we try to get that consensus, which means leaving to schools the decision about when these issues should be taught. It is important that schools decide when it is appropriate to teach these very sensitive issues in their community, but what is clear from the guidance is that it is a requirement that children will learn and be taught about LGBT issues at some point during their school career. This is the way to ensure that the policy has the widest possible consensus—although we cannot bring into that consensus those at the polar ends of this debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for schools.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

20. What recent assessment he has made of the financial sustainability of school budgets.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Congratulations on your 10 years in office, Mr Speaker.

We are spending £43.5 billion on schools this year, but we recognise the budgeting challenges that schools face and will continue to listen to teachers, to help us to inform decisions about future funding. As we prepare for the spending review, the Government are determined to ensure that schools have the resources they need to deliver high-quality education and that our reforms continue to drive up education standards.

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[Lilian Greenwood]

In March, I surveyed Nottingham South schools about the effects of funding cuts, and their responses were frankly disturbing. They revealed concerns not only about their inability to buy books and equipment but about pupils being unable to attend school full time because a lack of special educational needs provision. One headteacher even told me that their school may have to close the hall and dining room because it cannot afford to undertake the urgent repairs that are needed. Will the Minister tell parents in my constituency what he is doing to secure extra funding for Nottingham schools in the forthcoming spending review?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Lady will be aware that, since 2017, every local authority has been given more money for every five to 16-year-old pupil in every school, with the biggest increases being allocated to schools that have been most underfunded. As for special educational needs funding, that has increased from £5 billion a year in 2013 to £6.3 billion this year, but as I have said to other hon. Members we will be making a strong case to the Treasury as part of the spending review process.

Relationships and Sex Education

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Our response is that there is a long-standing right to withdraw from sex education. We took the view that that right should not be extended to relationships education, as Parliament also decided during the passage of the Children and Social Work Act 2017. It is important that every child has the opportunity to learn about and to discuss the different types of relationship there are in the world. That does not start with intimate relationships. It starts with sharing, taking turns and being kind to people, with an understanding about permission that then moves into discussing consent before getting on to some of these matters about intimate relationships. Obviously, schools do much of that anyway, but grounding the content for later years in school with regard to some of these basic building blocks is really important.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. I strongly support the introduction of compulsory relationships education. It is vital that all young people grow up understanding and respecting the diversity of modern relationships and modern families. How will his Department monitor the delivery of these subjects to ensure that all children are taught effectively, including about LGBT issues, and that same-sex relationships are always presented in a positive and respectful way?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. Of course we expect schools to follow through on this. It is about core curriculum content, and schools do follow such guidance. It is also in scope for inspection by Ofsted, or aspects of it are, and by the Independent Schools Inspectorate—for example, through the way that inspectors look at pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare, and their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. As she will know, the Ofsted framework is a core part of the infrastructure around education.

Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The national funding formula contains an area cost adjustment that takes into account the cost pressures of employing both teachers and non-teachers in such areas. This strategy involves £130 million of new funding, because we strongly believe that we want teachers in the second year of their careers to have time off- timetable so that they can develop their teaching skills with support from a mentor and teacher training programmes.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

It is welcome that the strategy finally acknowledges the need to tackle excessive workloads for teachers if we are to bring the recruitment and retention crisis to an end. Given that secondary school pupil numbers are set to rise by 15% in the next decade, can the Minister guarantee that the funding that our schools need to implement the strategy will be provided quickly and effectively?

[Nick Gibb]

The funding will be provided when the strategy is fully rolled out in September 2021. We are rolling it out earlier, in September 2020, to Bradford, Doncaster, Greater Manchester and the north-east—I think I said Bristol earlier, but I actually meant Bradford. The strategy will be fully funded, and £130 million has been agreed with the Treasury despite the fact that it goes into the next spending review period.

College Funding

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and to hear so many excellent contributions.

It is no secret that this Government are presiding over rising inequality in education. All 26 schools in my constituency face real-terms cuts to their budgets; university tuition fees have risen threefold; and maintenance grants and education maintenance allowance has been scrapped, hitting students from the poorest and most deprived households the hardest.

Colleges are a beacon of hope and opportunity in our local communities. As John van de Laarschot, chief executive officer of Nottingham College, says:

“Rooted in local communities and with broad and deep links to local employers, Further Education Colleges like ours help people of all ages and backgrounds to make the most of their talents and ambitions through top-class technical education, basic skills and lifelong learning. We play a crucial role in driving social mobility and boost local and regional economic competitiveness.”

But colleges are dealing with sustained under-investment that is nothing short of a financial crisis.

Recently, the Institute for Fiscal Studies crowned further education “the biggest loser” in education over the last 25 years, and no wonder, as its research has revealed that since 2009 college funding has fallen by 30%, and funding per sixth-form student has fallen by 21% since 2010-11. Of course, we may soon say goodbye to European funding, which often helps colleges over the line.

This is all happening at a time when colleges’ costs have increased substantially. As has been recognised, the 16 to 18 budget has been frozen by this Government for seven consecutive years at £4,000 per student. A recent report by the Children’s Commissioner states that by the end of this decade, as a country we will be spending the same amount of cash per 16 to 18 student as we were in 1990. That simply cannot be right, especially when we know that the years from 16 to 18 are such a critical time in young people’s lives. It is the time when they often need the most support and when they face multiple pressures. From sitting or perhaps resitting some of the most important exams of their lives to deciding whether to apply to university or seek an apprenticeship, they are getting to grips with adulthood and making choices that will often shape their whole future. Too many students of that age face mental health problems, but a survey by the “Raise the Rate” campaign has found that many colleges are having to make significant cuts to mental health support just when it is most needed.

The continuing budget freeze, teamed with rising costs, means that ultimately colleges are being asked to do more with less. Nottingham College is currently working with a total income of £86.8 million—a 26% reduction since 2012-13. In the last year alone, it has rationalised sites and closed an on-site nursery. Of course, this is not happening just in my constituency. As we have heard, college students all over the country face less choice in the curriculum on offer and reductions in teaching and learning support, and they are often unable to access the same extracurricular activities, work experience opportunities and university visits as their peers in private and selective schools.

Adult further education, which plays a vital role in increasing social mobility, is also dependent on the success of our colleges, but funding has fallen by 45% in nine years, and enrolments of adult students have dropped from 5.1 million to just 1.9 million over the same period. Learning is not just for the young; it is something for all of us and we should be able to access it throughout our lives. As the nature of work changes, we need to be ready to reskill and retrain, to adapt to new technologies and take up new opportunities. The Government say that they are committed to increasing social mobility, yet funding for vocational and adult education has been decimated. Gone are the days of taking an evening class at a local college after work. The second chances that life-changing lifelong learning courses provide are being destroyed. As has been recognised, that not only makes people’s lives less fulfilling; in many cases, it just makes them less fun.

It is not just college students and potential learners who are affected by the lack of funding. Since 2009, college staff have seen their pay fall by 25%. According to the UCU, teachers in further education colleges earn on average £7,000 a year less than teachers in schools, often for the same work. No wonder that they have been leaving the further education sector in their droves. Since 2010, 24,000 have left, which is one third of the total teaching workforce. In Nottingham College alone, there has been a 34% reduction in teaching staff since 2012-13; the number has gone from 937 down to 616. Hard-pressed staff simply cannot be expected to continue doing more for less.

I am proud to speak today on behalf of Nottingham College’s 40,000 students and 1,500 staff. There is of course some good news: the new City Hub campus will provide excellent learning facilities and transform a brownfield city centre site.

We are asking the Minister to increase funding to sustainable levels. Will she give a guarantee of real-terms funding rises for the coming five years? Will she commit to extending the pupil premium to cover post-16 students? Will she ensure that everyone can access lifelong learning, particularly those who have not achieved a level 3 qualification? Will she ensure that colleges can offer their staff a decent pay deal this year and in the years ahead? We in this Chamber all love our colleges; I hope that our colleges love the Minister’s reply.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

I would be delighted to join my hon. Friend on a visit to Corby. We are seeing the success that he describes right across the country. It is an awful shame that Opposition Members do not join us in congratulating good colleges on the work that they do.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

T7. My constituent, Keith Tilson, a senior maths teacher in Nottingham, asks:“Given the real-terms funding cuts to schools, growing class sizes, year-on-year decline in properly qualified teacher numbers, and given also the fact that the Government has missed its teacher recruitment targets for the last 6 years, how does he intend to reduce the hours worked by UK teachers, which are the longest in Europe by 20% and the third longest in the world?”

[Nick Gibb]

We are spending record amounts on school funding—£43.5 billion by next year—we recruited 2,600 more people into teaching last year, which is an 8% rise on the prior year, and record numbers of pupils are taking A-level maths.

School Funding

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Main]

I completely agree. I will touch on that issue later in my speech. Links Academy in St Albans says that it is mopping up the very pupils that the hon. Gentleman says are being cold shouldered or refused positions elsewhere.

The National Association of Head Teachers carried out a survey on SEN funding, and a mere 2% of those surveyed said that the top-up funding received was sufficient to meet the growing needs of SEN pupils. That was recognised by both teachers and parents in St Albans. Inevitably, that will have an impact on the way that schools look after SEN pupils. Department for Education figures say we have 2,800 fewer teaching assistants and 2,600 fewer support staff in our schools. That puts even more pressure on teachers and can be especially challenging for teachers dealing with SEN pupils. The increased amount of money paid to some of those who are lower paid and work as assistants or support staff was welcome, but it puts an additional pressure on school resources. We welcome the additional funds for people paid lower wages but we must recognise the true impact.

To return to the remarks of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), I have been in contact with David Allen, headmaster of Links Academy, which I recently visited, and he welcomes pupils with special needs. He described his despair at the rising number of SEN pupils being permanently excluded from mainstream schools. In fact, I was due to meet him there on Thursday with parents and the SEN group, but as soon as the SEN group heard that I was coming, it said it would pull out. Unfortunately, I have had to pull out in order to ensure a fair hearing for the pupil in that school. I was concerned to hear that SEN children are regularly subjected to bullying at school and have resorted to either drugs or knife crime as a result—that is anecdotal and not in my schools in St Albans, but the teacher has backed that up.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making some very important points on behalf of pupils with special educational needs. The Department for Education’s statistics show that at the start of this year 4,500 pupils with a statutory right to special educational needs support were not in school at all; they were awaiting a suitable place, and a lot of them were being home schooled because they could not get a place. That is only the tip of the iceberg, because those are only the pupils with a special education need statement or an education, health and care plan. The actual number of young people with special educational needs who are not in school is even higher.

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[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this timely debate.

This is not a boast I want to make, but when I came into this place York was the seventh worst funded authority, and today it is the very worst funded authority. We have exchanged places in the league tables. That is why I am speaking in this debate. Some 18 out of 23 primary schools and two thirds of secondary schools in my constituency have had their funding cut. Like most MPs, I meet with my schools on a regular basis. The crisis in funding has come to the fore. I want the Minister to take away the point that when schools are struggling, the outcomes of those schools are affected.

York has one of the biggest attainment gaps in the country, particularly around early years, and we have seen severe cuts to our primary schools. We are therefore seeing a significant minority underachieving by 10%. The Minister needs to focus on those figures, which correlate with funding.

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is quite right to draw attention to what is happening in primary and secondary schools, but does she share my concern that sixth forms have been hardest hit? I was shocked by the Institute for Fiscal Studies submission to the Education Committee on school and college funding, which found that per-pupil funding in post-16 education will be the same in real terms in 2019-20 as it was 30 years ago. Does that not show that the Government are failing to address the needs of young people in the future?

[Rachael Maskell]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I meet with colleges in my constituency, which are absolutely on their knees with regard to funding. We know that this is an issue right across the education system. It has a real impact on outcomes, which is what I want to focus on.

While our schools have excellent outcomes, in the areas in my constituency where the cuts have been the greatest in real terms, the attainment is the worst. We can easily see the correlation between money and outcomes. If we make those cuts, we must expect those children to be short-changed, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

We are also seeing a change in class sizes. York has the second biggest increase in the teacher-classroom ratio in its primary schools and the fourth biggest fall in staffing numbers in primary schools, with 20 teachers leaving between 2014 and 2017—that has an impact. We have seen the biggest increase in class sizes in secondary schools across the country—the relevant figure is 2.9, with the next biggest being 1.8. In secondary schools, York has the joint biggest teacher-classroom ratio. Pupil numbers are increasing. I know at least one school in my constituency that is really struggling and does not know how it will accommodate its children next year.

We have also experienced a real turnover of teaching staff, as hon. Members have mentioned. Experienced teachers are leaving and being replaced. In one school around 60 teachers have moved and newly qualified teachers have been brought in. That has an impact on the experience of staff and therefore on the teaching of students. We are also seeing the impact on vital support staff. When the pay increase was announced, schools had to find the resource to pay their support staff, which resulted in many having to leave. We must focus on them as well.

The excellent head teacher of Millthorpe School in my constituency, Trevor Burton, had to write to parents to inform them of the reality and what they can expect. The school is unfunded by £169,000, for four years of 1% pay increases, £56,000 for increased employer pension contributions, £78,000 for national insurance, and £21,000 for the apprenticeship levy. The school’s expenditure has increased by £324,000. The school had an 8% real-terms cut, but it received increased funding of only 3.6%, so it has had a 4.4% cut. Of course, that has had a real impact on children through increasing class sizes, cutting events, doing without teacher posts, stopping all year 10 and 11 vocational courses—as we just heard, that has a real impact on children—and not replacing staff when they leave. On top of that, the school, like many others, has had maintenance issues. It has had to spend £900,000 on double glazing in classrooms, to keep them warm and dry, and to replace school roofs in the dining hall, sports hall, gym, language lab and one of the classrooms.

Tang Hall Primary School also faces the pressure of maintaining its building—a matter I have raised since being elected. The school, which has had one of the largest cuts in the constituency, was top of the Building Schools for the Future list to have a new school built. However, that programme was cut, and the school is still struggling and desperately needs a new building. The school is so cold, because it is such an old building, that they have had to change the school uniform so that the children can wear hoodies to school. It is a disgrace that in 2018, after eight years, they are still waiting for their new school. Children cannot study when they are cold. This has an impact on children throughout their time at the school. The head teacher has pleaded for a new school.

Westfield Primary Community School, in perhaps the most deprived area of my constituency, has had the largest cut in my constituency. How can that be the case when children and families desperately need the support? The school does extraordinary work in the face of such cuts. That needs to be looked at, because we are failing some of the most needy children in our communities.

My final point is about budgets and where we need to go.

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[Lilian Greenwood]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s disingenuous attempts to override the statistics are failing, because parents, pupils and teachers know precisely what is happening? That is why I welcomed children and parents from SOS East Midlands to Parliament a fortnight ago. They know that 82 out of 84 schools in Nottingham city face cuts, including every single school in my constituency, they know that their children’s schools are losing an average of £296 per pupil, and they say that that is not good enough. It has to be addressed in the forthcoming Budget.

[Mike Kane]

My hon. Friend articulates the point for Nottingham city brilliantly, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) did for York, where 32 schools are facing cuts.

The hon. Member for St Albans also talked about special educational needs and disability—SEND—which is vital. Last year alone, 20,000 children were off-rolled because of it. She talked about a school in her constituency, the Links Academy, which takes in many off-rolled children, but we lost 20,000 to the system. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) highlighted that problem with regard to mental health too—we do not know where 10,000 of those children are in the system. In an age when we have criminal child exploitation going through the roof and the running of county lines, the school system does not know where 10,000 children are.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has stated that the stats that we have heard used are simply not accurate, and the UK Statistics Authority has rebuked the Education Secretary for his inaccuracy. The figures quoted by Education Ministers attempting to defend their pitiful record on state school funding included money spent by parents on private school fees. There has been a concerted effort by the Secretary of State and the Minister to fudge the figures and deflect attention away from the cuts to school funding that they have presided over.

Let us assess the facts. Some £2.8 billion has been cut from school budgets since 2015, and we will find out in a couple of weeks that that will be a lot more. That means that 91% of schools are facing real-terms budget cuts per pupil. For the average primary school, that will be a loss of about £50,000 a year. For the average secondary school, it will be a loss of about £178,000 a year. But those figures are based on last year’s data. When can we expect the Department to release the schools block funding data for 2018-19? With the inclusion of those figures, it is likely that the outlook for our schools will be even bleaker.

Perhaps the Minister will try to deflect the House’s attention away from the reality of the impact of his Government’s cuts to school funding again, but hon. Members already know the impact on the ground all too well, as headteachers and parents are telling us about it. It is right that we are well represented by the hon. Members from West Sussex, the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and for Chichester (Gillian Keegan). The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said that schools are x millions of pounds down in that borough in his constituency. I have the statistic: they are £8.9 million down based on last year’s data. It will be interesting to see what next year’s data will be when the Minister releases the block funding grants. The Minister’s own schools are threatening a four-day week because of the funding cuts.

We know that the £1.3 billion of additional funding announced by the Secretary of State is nowhere near enough to reverse the £2.8 billion that has been cut since 2015. We also know that none of the money announced so far is actually new money for education. While I, of course, support the principle that all schools should receive fair funding, the answer is not to take money away from existing schools and redistribute it. A fair approach would be to apply the lessons of the best-performing areas in the country to schools everywhere. A fair approach would look objectively at the level of funding required to deliver in the best-performing schools, particularly in areas of high deprivation, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Central pointed out, and use that as the basis for a formula to be applied across the whole country.

The F40 group, which includes my constituency of Trafford, has told us that school funding requires an injection of £2 billion to meet the needs of all schools, and that an early indication is that the shortfall for 2019-20 will be £3.8 billion. Schools need to see plans for the funding formula beyond 2020. They need a three to four-year rolling budget settlement so that they can plan for the future with confidence, and any settlement should take into account inflation, the cost of living increases and the wage and national insurance increases that have been pointed out by several hon. Members.

When will the Secretary of State and the Minister remove their heads from the sand and begin to truly hear the voices of schools, teachers, parents and Back Benchers from across the country? If that does not happen soon, our children’s education in St Albans, Harrow, Plymouth, York and West Sussex will continue to lose out.

Deaf Children’s Services

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, my Select Committee colleague.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on securing this debate and for so comprehensively and effectively setting out the issues facing deaf children. I know how passionate he is about the issue, and he is a great advocate for the deaf community in this place.

It is important that the focus of today’s debate is services for deaf children. Children’s voices are not heard often enough in this place, and it is right for us to talk about them. I am also absolutely delighted that Parliament is making the debate accessible for all those who might want to follow it live. I hope that will be rolled out more widely.

There are 282 deaf children in the city of Nottingham. The majority attend their local mainstream school, supported by the sensory team at Nottingham City Council. Firbeck Academy in Nottingham, a mainstream primary school in the north of the city, has specialist provision for 12 deaf children—the school is actually in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris)—but all the children in the school are surrounded by British Sign Language in classrooms and assemblies, and many of the hearing children grow up signing and can communicate with their deaf classmates using BSL.

In addition to ensuring that deaf children get an excellent education at school, many parents require support from outside agencies, whether that is the BSL teacher, speech and language therapists, doctors, social care or audiology services, to name but a few. Managing those relationships adds to the increasing extra workload of the two full-time teachers of the deaf at Firbeck Academy. They increasingly spend more time out of the classroom, juggling budgets and timetables, because the school’s overall budget has been reduced. Those at the school told me that

“it is the same old story, if the Government want an outstanding education system, there needs to be more funding for schools.”

They are concerned that many SEN children’s needs are not being met due to lack of funding. Firbeck has been set up with specialist deaf provision and it is struggling. I am concerned for those schools that do not have the same set-up but provide education for a deaf child. How can the Minister be confident that such children and their families are getting the support that they need to thrive?

Looking to the future of deaf children’s education, as my hon. Friend said, 57% of peripatetic teachers of the deaf are over the age of 50, and insufficient new trainees are being brought through. The training itself to become a teacher of the deaf has been reduced from one year full-time or two years part-time, which is less than in many other countries. As a result, some topics cannot be covered in detail and others not at all. There is no requirement for continuing professional development and very little budget to support it. I hope that the Minister tells us in his response what is being done to recruit more teachers of the deaf and to ensure the quality of their training. Also, will he reassure us about the mainstream training of all teachers; that it properly alerts them to the needs of deaf children and how to meet those needs?

Some children cope well in mainstream education, but others struggle in that setting. Nottinghamshire Deaf Society tells me that, in its experience, too many children do not get the specialist support that they need, find communication difficult and, of course, then leave school with lower attainment. The society told me that those children can lack a sense of identity, so missing out on the support and richness of deaf culture. That is worth addressing.

Deaf children do not need access just to deaf services; they rely on health services too. The NICE—National Institute for Health and Care Excellence—guidelines on acceptable criteria for cochlear implants are now out of date and out of step with those in most other developed countries, such as the USA and Australia. Lots of parents are understandably frustrated by that. The children might not be reaching their potential with a hearing aid, but they do not meet the UK criteria for implants. Over the past year the Ear Foundation, a charity in my constituency, has lobbied NICE to review the guidance so that clinical discretion may be applied in the best interests of the children. I hope that the Minister will liaise with his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care about what benefits access to that technology could bring for deaf children.

I am conscious of the time, but I hope that the Minister will also tell us a little about what is happening to ensure that deaf children and young people get access to proper careers information, advice and guidance, to help them as they enter the world of work. As we know, poorer educational opportunities mean poorer opportunities for life, and that impacts on things such as mental health and isolation, as my hon. Friend said. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

2. What steps she is taking to increase the number of foster carers.

[The Minister for Children and Families (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

The national fostering stocktake is currently under way, and it will report to Ministers with recommendations by the end of the year. It is exploring a wide range of issues, including the recruitment and retention of foster carers, giving us a better understanding of the current situation. The House should be aware that we have invested £900,000 supporting local authorities to develop new and innovative ways to recruit and train foster carers.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I have had the privilege of meeting some of our Nottingham foster carers, and I know what an amazing job they do, often for very little monetary reward. However, local authority children’s services departments are under immense pressure—we have record numbers of young people in care, yet some departments have been forced to cut specialist support staff—and potential foster families are also under pressure, including from Government policies such as the bedroom tax. I welcome the national stocktake, but it is long overdue. What steps will the Government take to address the urgent need to recruit additional carers?

[Mr Goodwill]

I certainly echo everything the hon. Lady says about the value of foster carers. Indeed, 74% of looked-after children are in foster care, and the stocktake will give us more information on which to base our future policy. I met foster carers last week to discuss some of the problems they face and, indeed, the support we can give them following the stocktake.

Higher Education (England) Regulations

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I give way to the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood).

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

We already know that 75% of students will not pay back their loans, or will not be able to do so. How can the Secretary of State say that the system is sustainable? And what about the young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who increasingly drop out of university because they cannot afford to stay? Is not the removal of maintenance grants part of what is disadvantaging those young people, and they cannot maintain their places at university even if they are fortunate enough to win one?

[Justine Greening]

The facts simply do not support the point that the hon. Lady has made. The facts are that more disadvantaged young people are making the decision to go to university, which I think is hugely welcomed and hugely important.

If Labour is able to pursue its catastrophic policy, our higher education system will be much more broadly at risk. It will not be just a case of students missing out. We have universities that are among the best in the world, but being the best in the world requires continued investment, and a no-fees policy would undo all that success. Funds for universities would dry up, and within a few years there would be a big funding crisis all over again.