Equality Act 2010: Children from Disadvantaged Backgrounds

Andy Carter Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this short but important debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), who has done a tremendous amount of work to raise important issues about children from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is particularly white working-class boys in the north of England and the midlands who are falling behind, as we see from the statistics. We could do so much more to solve the problem.

Fortunately, standards in Warrington South schools have risen dramatically over the past 10 years. Evelyn Street Primary School in Sankey Bridges, which is in one of the town’s pockets of high deprivation, has gone from failing to proudly being one of the top schools in England. I have seen at first hand how the academy trust’s chief executive officer, Mrs Smith, approached the school’s transformation, changing the culture and pushing for improvements at every turn. We have seen the same thing in all the academies in her trust. It is fair to say, looking back at the data, that many of the children who were most at risk of being failed in that school when she first arrived in 2004 were white working-class boys with hard-working parents, many of them on low incomes or struggling to find employment. A key part of the school’s success has been educating parents to have high expectations for their children.

Sadly, not all school experiences are as good as that of Evelyn Street. In towns across the north and the midlands, white working-class boys are falling behind, and they have been for some time. More than a dozen times in recent years, they have been ranked the lowest or second-lowest performing ethnic group in the country. As the chair of the all-party group for school exclusion and alternative provision, I am greatly concerned by that, as is the rest of the group. By the age of five, white working-class boys are 13% behind disadvantaged black boys and 23% behind disadvantaged Asian girls in phonics, and they are 40% less likely to go into higher education than their black counterparts.

The events of recent months have shone some light on why we need a review of the system to give everyone equal opportunities to succeed while providing children, parents and teachers with the tools to do so, and supporting children like those at Evelyn Street Primary School. I am particularly pleased to see the £1 billion catch-up fund to help children to recover some of the learning that they lost when schools were closed. Although that funding is hugely welcome, it is critical that it is focused on disadvantaged cohorts such as white working-class boys.

This short debate is about the Equality Act 2010. It is interesting that the Act introduced many protected characteristics, including age, disability and sex, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield mentioned, whereas one key determinant of success in school is socioeconomic background, which is not a protected characteristic. There are many arguments for and against making socioeconomic circumstances—including where someone was born—a protected characteristic. Given that white working-class boys are clearly identifiable as being more at risk of exclusion and failure in the system than almost any other group, perhaps it is time to review that. I urge the Minister to look carefully at the data on exclusions outside London. I also ask her to commit to looking into whether making socioeconomic background a protected characteristic could be a way to protect the forgotten group that is white working-class boys, or whether the Act could be amended in some other way. Part 1 of the Act, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield mentioned, puts a duty on public authorities to have regard to socioeconomic inequalities when exercising their functions, but that section of the Act is not in force.

To conclude, hon. Members will find nobody who is more supportive than I am of the Government’s commitment to levelling up across our country and investing in communities that need it most. The fastest way to help people out of poverty is to help them to get a job, and the best way to make sure that young people have a fighting chance when they enter the workforce is to make the most of their talents and ensure that they get a great start in life with a first-class education.

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[Vicky Ford]

Positive action is designed to enable opportunities to be given, as opposed to positive discrimination, which is unlawful. That is why it is so important that the guidance is clear on the subject. We need to promote the level playing field and enable levelling up, and not encourage behaviour that could constitute levelling down.

We need to avoid taking a tick-box approach. Amending part 1 of the Equality Act would not necessarily lead to what my hon. Friend seeks, because there is a real danger that it could create a tick-box mentality, which might be seen as an acceptable substitute for meaningful action. We want to avoid such distractions and concentrate on real help. I assure him that the action he has taken today has ensured that the Government will keep both the legislation and the guidance under review.

We are also improving our approach to equalities. We are reshaping the Government Equalities Office, bringing it closer together with the race disparity unit and the disability unit to create an equality hub. We need to move away from the idea that we are simply dealing with groups that already enjoy Equality Act protection, and instead ensure that we are looking at individuals across the country and identifying those who are most in need, what their biggest barriers to success are and where there is unequal delivery of public services. We want to examine issues such as geography, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) mentioned, where communities in certain areas risk being held back. We also should be focusing on analysing the data, looking closely at individual dignity and opportunity and also at areas such as income and background, so that we have a more holistic view.

We understand, however, that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, including boys, may face greater challenges at every stage of education. We are committed to addressing those challenges, levelling up education standards and improving outcomes.

[Andy Carter]

Will the Minister tell us a little bit about how the Government are particularly addressing the issue of boys from disadvantaged backgrounds, to get that levelling-up agenda delivered?

[Vicky Ford]

Absolutely. One of my passions is the early years of development, and too many children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are falling behind in those early years. It is then so hard to close the gaps once they have emerged, and evidence shows us that what happens in a child’s pre-school years—those very early years—are the most important and have a huge influence on later outcomes. That is why the Government have been making record investments in early education, including 15 hours of free education for all disadvantaged two-year-olds as well as three and four-year-olds. It is also why we have doubled the amount of free childcare available to three and four-year-olds for working parents.

These investments have led to a real improvement. The latest early years foundation profile shows that the proportion of all children reaching a good stage of development by the time they start school—year 1—has gone up from 51%, or one in two children, in 2013 to nearly 72%, or two in three children, in 2019. Furthermore, over the same period, the gap between the children who are eligible for free school meals and their peers at age five has narrowed from 19 percentage points to just under 18 percentage points. Indeed, the same is true in school: because of the education reforms that were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter), 86% of schools are now judged to be good or outstanding, compared with only 68% of schools in 2010. As a result, the disadvantage attainment gap has narrowed by 13% at age 11 and by 9% at age 16, and it has narrowed at every stage from early years to age 16 since 2011. However, we know there are still issues in other areas, so we have committed an extra £18 million to the £72 million opportunity areas programme to transform the life chances of young people in 12 of the most disadvantaged areas of the country—those with particularly low social mobility.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South also mentioned the very important issue of exclusions. It used to be the case that looked-after children—children in care—had the very highest rates of permanent exclusion, and we are making sure that those children in care, who often have the worst life outcomes, are supported to succeed in education. For example, we have put in place virtual school heads, designated teachers for looked-after children, and extra funding through the pupil premium plus for this group. The virtual school heads, in particular, have made a significant impact since they were introduced in 2014. Data shows progress across maths, reading and writing for looked-after children, and today, looked-after children are less likely to be permanently excluded from school than all other children. Interventions of this nature are making a real impact on some really disadvantaged groups.

However, we know that the disadvantage gap is at risk of widening because of the pandemic. Lack of digital access is of particular concern, and that is why we have committed over £160 million to support remote education access and provided nearly half a million laptops and tablets to those most in need. We have also announced the £1 billion covid catch-up fund, of which £350 million is going into the national tutoring programme. That will particularly focus support from high-quality tutors on disadvantaged and vulnerable children who are most at risk of falling further behind. The first group of tutors starts on 1 November, and I strongly urge all my hon. Friends to ensure that schools in their constituencies are aware of that element of the catch-up programme and ensure that the vulnerable students in their area receive support.