Oral Answers to Questions

Bell Ribeiro-Addy Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

Support for the mental health and wellbeing of our young people is important, and the Government are making a major investment in such support. We recently announced a further £79 million boost for mental health services for children, which will accelerate the provision of mental health support teams in schools and colleges. That is on top of the £2.3 billion a year that we have committed through the NHS long-term plan. Since September, our Wellbeing for Education Return scheme has linked schools with local mental health experts in 90% of local authorities.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab) [V]]

This country deserves a well-funded, well-valued teaching profession, but the litany of problems affecting teachers has not gone away, and issues such as increased workload, stress, and a lack of professional autonomy have been documented widely, including by the Department. With a looming recruitment and retention crisis, does the Minister have any long-term plans to allow greater autonomy and trust? Would a potential recruitment and retention strategy promise to do away with the excessive scrutiny of teaching professionals?

[Nick Gibb]

The essence of our academies programme is about delivering autonomy for schools, and it is that autonomy—the hon. Lady is quite right—that is driving up standards. We have also, since 2014, been addressing the workload issues of schoolteachers up and down the country, and that has proven successful in reducing the number of hours in addition to teaching time that schoolteachers face.