Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

17. What recent assessment he has made of the impact of removing funding for BTEC qualifications on students.

[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)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[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 Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

rose—

[Alex Burghart]

I am honoured to give way to my opposite number for the first time.

[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 (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[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

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Ministerial Corrections

The following are extracts from the urgent question on 23 September 2021.

[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

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

[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.

School Funding

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and others on securing this debate.

Let me first acknowledge the efforts that preceding Conservative-led Governments have made over the past decade, constantly increasing the schools block budget. Funding for our children’s primary and secondary schools has gone up from £30.4 billion in 2010 to £43.5 billion for next year—a £13 billion increase. Since 2010, more children are in good or outstanding schools, the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils has been lowered, and there are tens of thousands more teachers and teaching assistants. However, funding is only one measure. Schools are performing so much better than before, but I must recognise concerns raised by my local headteachers and parents about available funding, as schools are having to meet costs that they never did before, and I am speaking today to give them a voice in this Chamber.

The Library estimates that my constituency has benefited from a 6% real-terms increase to the schools block funding since 2013, from £57 million to £61 million. This is good news, but per pupil funding has gone down, indicating that there are more pupils than before. There is more money, but it is being thinly spread, and this is one reason that school budgets are under more pressure.

Locally, headteachers at Helena Romanes School, Saffron Walden County High School and Joyce Frankland Academy, among others, have told me about the issues that they and their staff are facing. These issues include more lessons being taught with fewer teachers, as those who retire from the profession are not replaced; schools having to rely on donations from generous parents and carers for extracurricular clubs; stopping the late school bus service; and simply not having enough resources. Additionally, although school spending has increased since the end of the last decade and now stands at just under £5,100 per pupil, reductions to sixth-form funding and local authority services have affected budgets and provisions for school transport and pastoral care. Teachers in my constituency continue to do fantastic work despite these pressures, because they are motivated first and foremost by giving children the best possible education.

I know that the Minister acknowledges the hard work of teachers across the country, and ask him also to recognise the passion shown by my local teaching staff and to help support them by taking into account our rise in pupil numbers when considering funding allocations. More still needs to be done, but I appreciate that the Government have already taken positive steps to bridge current funding gaps, which is encouraging. Earlier this month, the Secretary of State wrote to colleagues to confirm that the Government would be funding all state-funded schools, further education and sixth-form colleges to cover increased employee contributions in the teachers’ pension scheme, helping to relieve pressure on schools. This is a measure that I personally lobbied for, so I thank the Government.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend, I am an Essex MP, and like her, I have heard concerns from my local headteachers about funding. Does she agree that the national funding formula is a necessary reform, but that we need to put more money into it at the spending review this year to ensure that more school pupils benefit?

[Mrs Badenoch]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point; I agree with him completely.

Just over 13,000 new school places have been added in Essex, alongside seven new free schools and a further eight schools to follow. There is a need for more funding, as my local schools have called for, and I am pleased that the Government have already started to account for this. Over the next two years, total funding in the county will rise by £48.7 million to £855.8 million. This is welcome news and demonstrates continued progress under this Government to improve the quality of teaching.

The Government have a record to be proud of, as 90% of children in Essex attend schools rated good or outstanding, compared to 67% in 2010, and 66% of pupils are reaching the expected key stage 2 standard in reading and writing. [Interruption.] Opposition Members may laugh, but the truth is that it is not just about the money that is spent, but the outcomes that we measure, and we are doing very well on outcomes. We are asking schools to do much more than they ever have, and it is only right that we give them much more money to do so. I encourage Ministers to listen closely to my schools’ funding concerns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

Yes, clearly further education—and indeed all 16-to-19 provision—has to be properly funded, but I do anticipate that more young people will do T-level qualifications in the future, because they will be very high-quality qualifications, with those extra hours, the maths, the English, the digital content, and that high-quality industry placement.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

13. Over the years, I have heard a lot of employers complain that vocational courses do not adequately prepare young people for the workplace. Will the Secretary of State commit to including business in the development of T-levels so that they can provide that service?

[Damian Hinds]

I will. In fact, about 200 employers have already been involved, in one way or another, in their development. Business is at the heart of this major upgrade to our technical and vocational education, including T-levels.

Children’s Social Care

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

It is a real honour to be able to talk in this debate and to follow the speakers who have already contributed, particularly my very old friend, the former Children’s Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), with whom I worked between 2008 and 2010. He did not blow his own trumpet enough in his speech. While I would not want to blow his trumpet for him, I might at least acknowledge that he has a trumpet.

The work that my hon. Friend did first as shadow Children’s Minister and then as Children’s Minister over a long stretch, between 2004 and 2012, created a Conservative policy on children’s social work where frankly one had not really existed before. During that time, children’s services, particularly children’s social work, were under considerable strain following the tragic death of baby P, Peter Connelly. It was clear that the systems governing children’s social work were not delivering for vulnerable families and were not enabling talented social workers on the frontline to give the care that they wanted to give to families and children in need. The work that he did exposed that and developed the idea.

My hon. Friend wrote “No More Blame Game” and, while I was working for him, he produced “Child Protection: Back to the Frontline”, which introduced the idea of the Munro review of child protection. That whole-system review was brought in following the 2010 general election and was brilliantly conducted by Professor Eileen Munro from the London School of Economics. It showed how we needed to take a new approach that allowed frontline social workers to be in charge of the work they did, and not governed by central systems, such as the integrated children’s system, which was put in place by the former Administration. I put on record my ongoing and continued admiration for the work that my hon. Friend did outside and inside Government. He continues with that work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for children.

I want to focus on something slightly different from the issues my hon. Friend has run through. Having worked for him, I went to work at Barnardo’s and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, the Centre for Social Justice and various places in Whitehall. I looked at fostering, children in care and the root causes of the problems that families in those situations face. It became apparent that, although a great deal of public policy had rightly focused on the needs of children who were in foster care and children who needed to be adopted—another great thing that my hon. Friend did was streamline the adoption process and rapidly increase the number of children who were going into good and loving homes—a large group of children were not in care, but were on the social services’ radar. The Children Act 1989 defines them as children in need. They are numerous, they are needy and they absolutely warrant the increased attention that the Government are now giving them.

There are about 75,000 children in care at any one time, but over the course of any one year there are about 400,000 children in need. Recent work by the Department for Education has shown that in any given three-year period there will be more than 1 million children in need at one point or another. Their GCSE results and future employment prospects are extremely limited: in fact, they are often as poor as, or worse than, those of children in care, for the simple reason that children in care have been taken out of their disruptive, dysfunctional homes and—hopefully—placed in stable foster placements or stable children’s homes and given a second chance, whereas children in need, many of whose families face acute problems, are left in those disruptive environments.

That group was ignored under successive Governments, which was a policy gap, but I am glad to say that this Government and this Minister have started to fill the hole. The review of children in need is starting to expose issues whose existence my preliminary research had led me to suspect, but which I had not been able to flesh out.

One of the most striking statistics is that 51% of young people who are long-term NEETs—not in education, employment or training for a year after they have left school— will have been either in care or in need at one point in their childhood. Such experiences have lasting scarring effects. If we do not deal with them effectively when we notice them, providing the early intervention services that are necessary to prevent children from slipping into these categories, we are storing up problems for the future: problems for society, but also severe problems for those individuals.

The solutions are complex, because the reasons why children and families find themselves in such circumstances are themselves complex. The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) made many important points, and she was right to identify the scarring effects of poverty, but there are issues besides money that are also important. Some are exacerbated by a lack of money, but some are not. Another striking statistic is that half the children in need in this country are not on free school meals.

[Lyn Brown]

Some of my constituents who are working are not entitled to free school meals for their children. They could well be poorer financially than those who are entitled to free school meals. Free school meals are no longer a proper measure of which child is in poverty. I should be happy to have a conversation with the hon. Gentleman about this over a cup of tea.

[Alex Burghart]

I should be delighted to take the hon. Lady up on that. I know that what she is saying is absolutely right. However, there are also many children in need who have one parent in work and whose other parent has severe mental health problems or an addiction. The difficulty in such families is not solely related to money; it is caused by the fact that an individual has a very severe problem that is not being adequately met by social services.

When we find a child who is in need and on the edge of care, we need to take a holistic look at that child’s family. In the past, children’s social care sometimes looked very narrowly at how the child was at any one time and not at the immediate environment in which they were living and what could be done to improve it. Indeed, sometimes children ended up in care without their parents being given—or even approached about—the services that were necessary in order to improve that family environment. I would much rather fix the family’s problems in order to keep that family together so that the child can grow up in a stable home.

In terms of what can be done, I am glad the Minister has undertaken this work, which is starting to flush out good practice in the system and areas where more work needs to be done. I venture to suggest some things on which we need to focus. We must look at those slightly older children who are moving towards leaving school. In my experience over the years, I have found that additional professional mentoring conducted in and out of school can be highly effective. There is a wonderful programme in the east of London called ThinkForward, which gives long-term mentoring to children in disruptive homes. The presence of a stable adult to give advice, be a shoulder to cry on and be a support in a time of need is invaluable.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

Child poverty levels in my constituency are really high. We have also had the impact of the full roll-out of universal credit recently. Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge the impact that UC is having? It is exacerbating the problems that a lot of families are suffering from.

[Alex Burghart]

I am happy to acknowledge that, when families have less money, they can find themselves in debt, which adds to stress and can contribute to poor mental health. I do not know about the cases the hon. Lady is talking about in her constituency, but I have seen the consequences of people being trapped in problem debt for a long time and not being given help to get out of it. That can certainly be a major problem. That issue is slightly off the subject I was talking about. I hope that, if the hon. Lady is unaware of the ThinkForward programme in the east end of London, she will visit it and promote it.

[Lyn Brown]

I agree that programmes like that in my constituency make a difference, but may I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that additional youth workers and adults for my children to talk to who enable my children to have options and ways out of gang-related activity is what is massively lacking? I made a speech about this just a few weeks ago, if he would like to look at it in Hansard.

[Alex Burghart]

I will happily look at it. I hope that Opposition Members will realise that they are agreeing with me and perhaps take a slightly different tone when coming back on me on this subject, because what we are all saying is that it is important for families to have the support they need and for vulnerable children to have the support they need, ideally in home but, if it is too late for that or that cannot be made available, in school.

So what needs to be done? I encourage the Government, local authorities and schools to look at long-term stable mentoring projects for those slightly older children. For other families, as has been raised by other Members, the Troubled Families programme is of profound importance. It got off to a slightly bumpy start but has come to be the mainstay of a lot of local authorities’ earlier intervention plans.

When I was in a different job a couple of years ago, I went to see how Camden had completely integrated its Troubled Families programme as part of a spectrum of care running from health visiting all the way through to the most intensive work in children’s homes. It would be terrible if those Troubled Families contracts were not renewed in some way, and I have every confidence that the Government will renew them. As we do it, it is important to consider what we mean by troubled families. I would venture to suggest that this group of young people, classified under the Children Act 1989 as children in need, and this large group of families who suffer from poor mental health, addiction and other such strains, are, by definition, troubled families. As I say, many local authorities already take this approach, but I think it would add a coherence to Government policy in this area if the work being done with troubled families in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and that being done with children’s social care in the Department for Education were brought together. Some local authorities are very good at merging these approaches. Some are less good. I commend those that are.

[Lyn Brown]

rose—

[Alex Burghart]

I can see the hon. Lady trying to get in again. I happily give way.

[Lyn Brown]

This is the last time. As the hon. Gentleman can hear, I am actually listening to his speech. That is why I am so engaged in it. He is absolutely right about the Troubled Families programme. Many parts of the country do it very well—Manchester, for example, has totally and utterly integrated its services and done it really well—but other local authorities game the money and take it elsewhere. We need to make sure that our next programme gets proper and effective results.

[Alex Burghart]

I could not agree more. The freedoms given to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority by this Administration have allowed it to become a Petri dish for new ways of doing things, breaking down silo budgets and taking a whole-area approach. I have absolute confidence that the lessons being learned in Manchester will eventually be taken and spread elsewhere. I feel that the hon. Lady made another point other than Manchester that I wanted to come back on.

[Lyn Brown]

Getting results.

[Alex Burghart]

Yes, that was it. Getting the data we need to prove effectiveness is one of those extraordinarily valuable holy grails. Successive Governments have found it very difficult to prove the efficacy of individual programmes, but there is a way forward. In New Zealand a few years ago, the Government brought together a huge amount of personal data through what was known as the integrated data initiative. They spliced together data from social services, housing, tax and so on, and then anonymised it and established ethical rules in advance, so that the data could never be used to find out whether someone had not paid their car tax, for instance. It could never be used against people and could only be used at a community level.

As a result, the New Zealand Government are capable now of effectively performing randomised control trials on all their social impact programmes. They know which programmes to give added investment to and which to wind down. Admittedly, New Zealand is a slightly smaller jurisdiction than the United Kingdom. The combining of data on that sort of scale in the UK is a bigger project, but one that would be unbelievably valuable. I have no doubt that we have the expertise in the Office for National Statistics to do it, and do it well, and I am sure the moment we have it, it will be one of those things we wish we had had long ago.

To conclude, Mr Deputy Speaker—I mean, Madam Deputy Speaker. How very nice to see you there, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was enjoying the company of the Opposition so much I did not notice that your colleague had left and you had arrived. We must consider not just the children with the most acute needs, important though they are and must remain, but young people on the edge of the system who may come in and out of that hinterland many times during their childhoods but might not qualify for the highest level of support.

Before I conclude my remarks completely, I want to dip into one more policy area that I forgot to mention earlier, and this goes back the issue that I was debating with the hon. Member for West Ham. About half of children in need are not eligible for free school meals, which means that about half of children in need do not receive the pupil premium. That has always seemed like a crazy peculiarity. It is laudable that a child whose parents were briefly unemployed six years ago receives the pupil premium, but I would question whether their need is greater than someone who lives in an abusive home and has been in and out of contact with social services, perhaps over a prolonged period of years. I am a full supporter of the pupil premium programme that this Government introduced in 2011, but as it reaches maturity after eight years it would be worth looking at exactly how that pot is allocated. I would always like it to be a bit bigger, but we also need to consider whether some groups have an eligibility that has not been recognised and could be brought into the system.

We have to think about children who are on the edge, we must consider the needs of their families, and we need to examine the Government programmes and local authority structures that can provide for those families and those children. I have high hopes for the local government financial settlement and for the comprehensive spending review next year, and I am pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), is here to hear my concerns. I am sure that he will take them forward with the same energy that he has brought to the children in need review in his time in office so far.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Karen Lee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee), and it is great to see such a strong Essex presence in the Chair and in the House.

The Children’s Society has been looking out for our most vulnerable children for 138 years. It has a long history in Essex, and its Essex headquarters are, of course, in Chelmsford. The Children’s Society, Barnardo’s and other children’s organisations wrote to all MPs before this debate with a helpful briefing that particularly highlighted the importance of early intervention in helping to avoid problems for children.

Early intervention is the subject of a detailed study by the Select Committee on Science and Technology, which particularly considered the issue in relation to childhood adversity and trauma. The study shows the importance of early intervention in tackling potential long-term problems. I urge the Minister to look at the report, which particularly points out that the increasing variety of early intervention programmes have been shown to improve life outcomes for those affected by childhood trauma. However, the report says that provision is fragmented and highly variable, and it encourages the Government to identify areas that are working well.

I am delighted that one area that is working exceptionally well is Essex, which is the second largest area of the country for children’s services. Essex is a significant provider of children’s services, and just last week it received the fantastic news of an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted for its children’s services.

The Ofsted inspectors said:

“Inspirational leaders, supported by good corporate and political support and strong partnerships, are tenaciously ambitious for children.”

Ofsted praises the work of the children and families hub, and the exceptional early intervention services. Ofsted says the social workers are

“passionate about securing and sustaining improvement”

in children’s lives. It mentions the joined-up approach to safeguarding, and the county-wide approach to addressing homelessness, whereby children and families who are at risk of becoming homeless are identified and problems are resolved before they become homeless. Ofsted refers to the work of the gangs intervention team; the private fostering team; the adoption managers, who work to keep families together; the support given to unaccompanied asylum seeking children; and the ongoing work to support children after they have left care and grown up, as it were. This really is an exceptional piece of work. We are very proud of this work in Essex and I wish to put on the record my huge thanks and respect to everyone involved.

[Alex Burghart]

I wish to join my hon. Friend, as a fellow Essex MP, by putting on record my admiration for everyone who is working in children’s services in Essex, the extraordinary journey they have been on and the remarkable results they are now achieving.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my hon. Friend for that.

It is important to recognise that this has not always been the position; in 2010, the council’s service was rated as “inadequate”. At that time, its spending was £148 million a year. The turnaround in Essex has not come as a result of pouring more money into the system—quite the opposite. The performance in Essex has been turned around despite the fact that £30 million less is being spent on children’s services. The turnaround whereby the second largest authority in the country for children’s services has gone from “requires improvement” to “outstanding” has been done despite funding coming down from £148 million to £118 million. It has been achieved because of a continual focus on early intervention and preventing children from having to go into care in the first place. In 2010, the number of children in care was 1,615, whereas the latest figure is 1,017—so 600 fewer children are in care because we are getting them support earlier. Essex is working with other councils to improve their local children’s services and I particularly wish to put on the record my thanks to Councillor Dick Madden, who co-chairs the LGA taskforce in this area.

The council has just written a lengthy submission to the Select Committee’s report, not only looking at what the council has achieved, but mentioning some of the challenges ahead: there is growth in demand for services; the county, like many others close to London, has experienced migration, with the children from London boroughs being moved out towards Essex; as some colleagues have mentioned, we are facing new phenomena, such as the criminal and sexual exploitation of young people by gangs via county lines; the casework the council is seeing is increasingly more complex; and of course the national shortage of social workers puts pressure on the service and on salaries. That comes on top of the pressure that many local authorities see in their budgets, partly because of the increased number of older people and then the pressure on adult social services. I hope that the Minister will look at this report that the council submitted to the Select Committee because it outlines the problems and makes detailed suggestions.

It is not only Essex’s children’s services that have just got an outstanding ranking. Just before Christmas the inspectors came in to look at our probation services, particularly the multi-agency youth offending team, who have also achieved an outstanding ranking. Essex social care services have just been awarded the best social worker employer of the year award.

Our children are our future. There are issues to address in children’s social services. The Government will be looking at how to plan for the future. I will leave with one plea to the Minister and to any members of the Select Committee: if they would like to learn a little more about how this works in Essex, they should just pop on the train to Chelmsford—we are only an hour away from Westminster—where they will be able to see it all for themselves.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

11. What progress his Department has made on strengthening the social work profession.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

12. What progress his Department has made on strengthening the social work profession.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

Social workers do an invaluable job in protecting the most vulnerable children and families in our society. We are improving initial education standards, and providing professional development at key stages throughout a social worker’s career. A new independent regulator, Social Work England, will have a strong focus on better standards, while the national assessment and accreditation system will provide additional confidence in the quality of practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My right hon. Friend is right to point out that the national assessment and accreditation system is a critical means of embedding high standards in the social work profession. We are currently in phase 1, and more than 100 social workers have been accredited so far. We will be considering questions like my right hon. Friend’s during the national roll-out.

[Alex Burghart]

Initiatives such as Step Up to Social Work and Frontline have done a very good job in bringing high-qualities graduates into the profession, but what is the Department doing to encourage better continuing professional development for those who are already in the workforce?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Continuing professional development is crucial to high-quality social work. The Department funds it through the assessed and supported year in employment for new social workers, and an aspiring practice leaders programme. This autumn we launched a programme for more than 1,000 people moving into supervisory roles.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

High-needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs, including those with autism, is £6 billion this year—the highest it has ever been—and an increase from £5 billion in 2013. We have increased overall funding allocations to local authorities for high needs by £130 million in 2017-18 and £142 million in 2018-19, and we will increase this further, by £120 million, in 2019-20.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Will the Minister update the House on the progress of the national assessment and accreditation system for children’s social workers?

Children in Need: Adulthood

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) on securing the debate. It is a pleasure to serve with him on the Work and Pensions Committee; I know he cares deeply about the matters it deals with. I am particularly delighted that we are discussing this subject.

A few years ago, having worked in child protection for a number of years, I became acutely aware of the needs and problems of children who were not in care but were on the edge of it—children who never quite reached the threshold to be taken away from their parents, but who nevertheless faced considerable problems in their lives. As more research was done on children whose needs were assessed under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, it became clear that a large proportion of those children faced the same terrible outcomes as children in care—indeed, some would suffer worse outcomes. That stands to reason: the children who were taken into care were taken out of the disruptive, abusive, neglectful family environment, and put into long-term, stable foster care, or adopted, so their lives were changed, whereas children who did not reach that threshold often stayed under the observation of children’s social services but did not receive services adequate to improve their condition.

I take my hat off to Social Finance UK, which in Newcastle a few years ago did a seminal piece of work ago that exposed just how poor the outcomes were. It identified that children in need or in care formed a small but substantial proportion of young people in Newcastle, but went on in the long term to form the majority of those not in education, employment or training in the city. That is why it is excellent that the Department, under the current Minister, took up that work and ran it on a national scale. The report published earlier this year showed that children who were in care or in need at some point during their childhood accounted for about 10% of the youth population, but went on to account for 51% of all long-term NEETs in young adulthood. Such disruption to family life has long-term consequences.

It is always a pleasure to speak after my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who spoke so eloquently about the need to mend broken families.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. I saw a statistic yesterday that highlighted to me the need to focus much more on prevention than we do. Family breakdown costs about £50 billion per annum—various figures are quoted, but that has been quoted recently in many places. However, for every £100 spent on that, the Government spend only £1.50 on trying to prevent the breakdown of families. Something is wrong when it costs £50 billion to mend that brokenness.

[Alex Burghart]

Yes, my hon. Friend eloquently sets out the problem. We need to reconsider our approaches to prevention, early intervention and recovery. The problem faced by children in need is not, I believe, a marginal one, although it has been treated marginally for many years. There are about 380,000 children in need at any one time; the number of children in need at some point during any given year is considerably higher—many hundreds of thousands higher. So it was wonderful that the Children’s Commissioner for England, for whom I used to work, and the Conservative party, took on the cause. I was pleased to see that in our 2017 manifesto we committed to the review of outcomes for children in need that the Minister is currently undertaking. I know everyone in the Chamber awaits the findings of that review with eager anticipation. We need to know exactly what is going on behind the scenes that leads to those young people having such poor educational and employment outcomes. I suspect that the findings will not necessarily come as any great surprise to us, but they will have the “kitemark” seal of the Department behind them.

For too long, we have looked at the symptoms, rather than the causes of the problems that these young people face. We talk about neglect, abuse and family dysfunction, and those are obviously important, but we do not always talk about why that neglect, abuse or family dysfunction occurs in the first place. The causes are painfully predictable: poor mental health, long-term unemployment, addiction, family breakdown and the rest. Only when we turn our attention to fixing those root-cause problems will we start preventing the next generation of problems and helping to rebuild the family lives of those children already in the system.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman and I are both on the all-party parliamentary group on adverse childhood experiences, which is very much about the issue we are debating. I fully agree that prevention is the way to go, but in my constituency councils are so cash-strapped that they can deal only with the absolute minimum statutory obligations; they do not have the money for prevention. Is not it time that we looked around to release money for councils to do the preventive work that is necessary?

[Alex Burghart]

As the hon. Lady says, we are both in the all-party parliamentary group on adverse childhood experiences, which I co-chair. There is no doubt that we need to work out how we can shift intervention to prevent problems from escalating. We know that there is limited money around, but I feel that there is a number of things we can do, and perhaps do better.

The Government have a major opportunity with the end of the current phase of the troubled families programme in 2020. I—like, I am sure, everyone in the Chamber—am keen to see those contracts reinvigorated for another phase, but the end of the current phase is the time to take stock of the considerable successes of the programme, as well as to consider whether we want to put a particular focus on that money in future. To my mind, the vast majority of children in need are by definition in troubled families. I know how many local authorities already spend the money, and data from the troubled families programme show that when it is spent well, it is excellent at tackling the root-cause problems and stabilising families so that they form a foundation on which young people can rest as they go into adult life. I rehearse all that because I think the best thing we can do to help children in need to move into adult life is to stabilise their childhoods. For some children, that will not be possible and they will need additional, ongoing support, but our first priority must be to make sure that young people do not need further help from us in the future because we have fixed the problems that they face.

An initiative I was glad to look at when I worked at the Centre for Social Justice works by giving children in need long-term mentoring at school. That gives them a stable adult in their lives who can give them the sort of advice that a parent might in a normal family. It is extremely successful in Tower Hamlets and in Hackney, and if we are to find the money for the sort of initiative proposed by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak—a form of pupil premium for children in need; perhaps any child who has been in need in the past six years—that is the sort of thing that schools should spend that money on. I am conscious of the time, so I will rest my remarks there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for securing this important debate on supporting children in need in adulthood. His excellent speech showed us yet again the valuable knowledge and expertise he has regarding children in need.

Yesterday, I reminded the Minister of the dire state of children’s social care thanks to his Government’s lack of cohesive strategic direction and swingeing cuts to local authorities. Early intervention grants have been slashed by up to £600 million, there is a predicted £2 billion gap in local authorities’ budgets for children’s social care by 2020 and, according to the National Children’s Bureau, more than one in three councillors are warning that those cuts have left them with insufficient resources to support children. It was recently revealed that 41% of children’s services are unable to fulfil even their statutory duties. The troubled families programme, which saw the demise of dedicated child in need teams, has spent more than £1.3 billion and had no measurable impact on families. Wider support services, youth services, family support workers—the services that children in need relied on—have fallen prey to the Government’s austerity programme and are disappearing.

In that environment, in any organisation, the roles and responsibilities that have the weight of legislation behind them—the things that absolutely must be done—are always the ones that take prominence. There is no legal requirement for local authorities to continue to support children in need when they turn 18, so it should come as no surprise that those children, on the cusp of adulthood, fall into the abyss. Looking at the current figures for 16 and 17-year-olds classed as children in need, that means that approximately 58,000 children are being cast adrift.

The referral rate to children’s services for those aged 16 to 17 years old is the same as for children of other ages, but they are less likely to be accepted for services and help as children in need. If they are, they are less likely to be subject to future support under a child protection plan than younger children. I do not know about other hon. Members, but at 18 years old, I do not feel that I was ready to make important decisions or to make my own way in the world. I still needed support, and I was damn lucky that I had it, but these children in need often do not. They are grappling with multiple intersecting challenges that many adults would not be able to cope with—and many are grappling with those issues alone.

Department for Education figures show that such children are more likely to go missing or be victims of sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation. They are more likely to have mental health issues or substance misuse issues, and more likely to be homeless or not in education or training. Those serious issues are not fleeting; they can leave enduring and deeply painful physical and emotional scars that last throughout people’s lives.

Similarly, children in need are not given prominence in terms of access to child and adolescent mental health support, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) mentioned. That is not surprising, because cuts to CAMHS have reached more than £50 million and some children are waiting 18 months for treatment. Despite half of mental health problems being present by the age of 14, across England, only 8% of mental health funding goes to services for children and young people.

According to the Children’s Society, 16 and 17-year-old children in need are three times more likely to cite child sexual exploitation as a factor in their assessment than nought to 15-year-olds. Sexual exploitation is vastly underreported, and it is likely that even that is an underestimate. In a report that looked at 16 and 17-year-olds, the Children’s Society found that 50% do not feel that it is worth reporting something to the police. That is for a good reason: 75% of reported cases of sexual offences against 16 and 17-year-olds result in no police action. Again, that is no surprise when up to 43 police forces have pleaded with the Government about cuts that are leading to impossible workloads and delays in investigating complex child sexual exploitation cases.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Lady is raising important points. How much money would a future Labour Government commit to children’s services, and specifically to the issues that she has raised? How would that money be raised, given that it did not feature in “Funding Britain’s Future”, the document that Labour published in advance of last year’s general election?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I ask the hon. Gentleman to go and read our manifesto again, because threaded through our manifesto were things to help children, such as investment in mental health and in school counselling. Unlike his own party’s manifesto, it was all fully costed. I would have another look if I were him.

As referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, the Children’s Society estimates that 12,000 children who approach local authorities at risk of homelessness are sent away without an assessment even taking place. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 does not address the vulnerability of 16 and 17-year-olds, who are often sent back to their families, which are the source of the issues that they face such as domestic violence or substance abuse. It is no wonder that those children in need are more likely to go missing, or that they become another statistic in the ever-burgeoning rough sleeping stats.

All those factors make it even more disappointing that the Government’s long-awaited child in need review is narrow in focus, and will look only at the educational outcomes of children in need. Of course, I acknowledge that children in need have poorer educational outcomes than their peers, and I wholeheartedly echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), but focusing only on educational outcomes—there are approximately 390,000 children in need—and ignoring the other difficulties they are suffering that we have discussed is a little short-sighted.

Respectfully, the Minister should take note of his Department’s figures, because they show stable numbers of children in need, but a high rate of re-referrals. In short, people are not getting the service they need first time round, and things are reaching a crisis point. The Children’s Society found that one in three 16 and 17-year-olds who were referred to children’s services were re-referrals from within one or two years. The reasons for those re-referrals were that their needs did not previously meet the threshold but their situation had now escalated, or that their initial referral did not resolve the issues. Sadly, at that stage, there is no time available to address those now acute issues, because when they turn 18, their case will be closed.

This cohort of young people are in desperate need of a Government who care about their future. The Minister has an opportunity today to prove that they do. He could commit to exploring changes to legislation and/or guidance that would allow properly resourced transitional plans to be put in place for children in need who are approaching 18, similar to those for children who have been looked after—a suggestion that has been advocated by my hon. Friends. He could commit to letting us know what cross-departmental pressure he will put on his colleagues to address the gaping holes in mental health provision and policing, and, vitally, to properly fund children’s social care.

It will simply not be enough, nor will it be acceptable, to say that those children’s needs will be addressed by adult services, should they need them. We all know that that just will not happen. I cannot think of any other scenario where people are identified as being in desperate need of help but they are deemed no longer worthy of that support and their case is closed, purely because of their age. I sincerely hope the Minister will not let us down in his response and, more importantly, I hope he will not let these children down.