Oral Answers to Questions
Claire Coutinho Excerpts(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
At the spring statement, we announced the single largest investment in childcare in England ever. By 2027, the Government will be spending in excess of £8 billion, doubling the amount that we do now and helping working families with their childcare costs.
Samantha Dixon
Good-quality childcare is essential to a child’s early development, to parents and to the economy. The owners of the Best Friends Day Nursery and the Spinney Day Nursery in Chester have told me of the real struggle faced by so many nurseries across the country, despite the Government’s latest funding announcement. Many have been forced to close, including five nurseries in the Hoole area alone in five years. What more will the Government do to alleviate the situation set out by my constituents?
Claire Coutinho
As I have mentioned, we are putting the single largest ever investment into childcare over the next few years, to provide funding to settings such as the one she mentioned. We are also looking at things such as workforce, which we know can be a challenge, making sure that we remove barriers to additional routes to entry.
Mr Mohindra
South West Hertfordshire is home to lots of young couples, particularly those who have moved out of London to start their families. Could the Minister tell the House how her Department is supporting new parents as they return to work?
Claire Coutinho
That is a huge priority for this Government. The funding that we are setting out will provide parents with support worth, on average, £6,500 a year from maternity leave right up to primary school. We are doing additional work to support things such as wraparound care.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Across the early years sector, nurseries and childminders are raising concerns that the Government have no coherent plan for the expansion of the early years workforce to meet the requirements of an expanded offer. The only ideas on the table so far are the relaxation of ratios and a reduction in the proportion of level 2 qualified staff—plans that the Sutton Trust has found could lead to worse outcomes for children. Why are this Government so uninterested in the quality of childcare and the outcomes that high-quality early years education delivers for children?
Claire Coutinho
The Government care about education standards. That is seen across every single result across the board, whether reading or maths results. It is this Government who care about education standards. Over 90% of our early years providers are rated good or outstanding. We will do everything we can to keep them that way.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
All children should have access to a calm, safe and supportive school environment. In addition to school behaviours policies that must include measures to prevent bullying, we have provided more than £3 million in funding between August 2021 and March 2024 to five anti-bullying organisations supporting schools in tackling bullying.
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I congratulate my hon. Friend for all her work tackling bullying. So many constituents write to me about the problems their children are experiencing. How are the behaviour hubs making a difference in schools and tackling the bullying that is so prevalent, particularly as a result of online harms and social media, which are all too frequent?
Claire Coutinho
We are confident that the behaviour hubs programme is helping schools to create calm, understanding and positive environments by spreading best practice. The behaviour hubs programme is being evaluated and impact assessed. We will publish an interim report in 2024. I would be delighted to discuss those findings with my right hon. Friend.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Last week I introduced by ten-minute rule Bill on bullying and respect at work. It is not just children who experience bullying in the school environment but teachers and other staff. Will the Minister look at my Bill, which will establish a legal definition of bullying at work and a route to employment tribunal to protect the people who are looking after our children in our schools?
Claire Coutinho
I have not seen the hon. Lady’s Bill, but I would be happy to take a look and have a discussion with her.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
We know that we need more foster carers. That is a really important part of our plan, “Stable Homes, Built on Love”, to reform the care system. We are investing £27 million in recruitment and retention over the next two years. We have also increased the national minimum allowance for foster parents by 12.4% as part of those plans.
James Morris
Does my hon. Friend agree that foster carers can play a vital role in improving the health and wellbeing of a looked-after child, and that we need to encourage more people to go into foster caring by removing unnecessary bureaucratic barriers so that we can build a network of foster carers across the country to improve the life chances of children in care?
Claire Coutinho
This is a big priority for me. Some children end up in children’s homes when they should have ended up with foster carers, so we need to recruit more. As I have said, we are making a significant investment in recruitment and retention so that we can keep some of our brilliant, experienced foster carers as well as attracting more into the system.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
We recently changed the location of the Warrington free school from the Bruche Primary School to a better suited site at Padgate, with the agreement of the local authority and the trust. We are now working with all parties to begin design preparation work and the school is on track to open in September 2025.
Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)
Claire Coutinho
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. This is really important. We are trying to make sure that all staff in early years settings are better equipped. We will be setting out a practice guide specifically on early years speech and language, as well as working with the NHS on better diagnostics.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Claire Coutinho
Rates for teaching assistants are set by the local authority. Teaching assistants are highly regarded by all of us. As the hon. Lady says, they provide important pastoral care alongside the mental health support that we are rolling out via the mental health support teams.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Recently I visited Rushmere Hall Primary School in Ipswich, which is doing a fantastic job to support all neurodiverse pupils, particularly dyslexic pupils; however, its head spoke of a need for all regular teachers to have a better base understanding of neurodiversity, not just new specialists. In the special educational needs and disabilities improvement plan, the Government committed to that. I would like an update on how far we are getting with delivering that in practice.
Claire Coutinho
I thank my hon. Friend, who I know is an amazing campaigner on this issue. We are doing a lot to progress the support in schools, making sure that we have access to a specialist workforce and that teachers have proper training. We will set out a best practice guide on autism specifically, for which we have seen a big rise in need.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
The price of school meals has increased by more than a third in some parts of the UK, yet the Government, and indeed the Labour Front Benchers, will not commit to universal free school meals for primary school-age children. The Scottish Government are rolling out free school meals across all primary schools. The question is when this Government will take the lead from the Scottish Government and act decisively to help struggling families.
Water Safety: Drowning Prevention
Claire Coutinho Excerpts(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) on securing this important debate. I understand that Sunnah’s mother and grandmother are here with us today, and I would like to start by sharing my deepest condolences. It is surely the deepest nightmare for all of us that we might lose someone we love in such a tragic manner.
My hon. Friend rightly spoke about the importance of educating young people. We absolutely support the teaching of swimming and water safety to all children during their time at school, recognising the vital importance of this life skill and that we must do all that we can to help eliminate the tragedy of children and young people drowning.
The national curriculum for physical education states that by the time they leave primary school, children should be able to perform safe self-rescue in a variety of different water-based environments, swim a minimum of 25 metres unaided and perform a range of strokes. A survey that we conducted in 2022 reported that 80% of primary schools provide pupils with swimming and/or water safety lessons. Primary schools are supported to deliver high-quality lessons through the £320 million a year PE and sport premium. Schools can use their funding for teacher training and additional top-up lessons for pupils not yet able to meet the national curriculum expectations after core PE lessons.
However, we will publish an update to the school sport and activity action plan shortly. The action plan encourages schools to teach pupils practical water safety techniques in the pool, such as how to float to live, tread water, signal for help and exit deep water. That can be complemented by classroom-based lessons that go further and cover aspects such as cold water shock, beach flags and the dangers of rip currents, which my hon. Friend mentioned.
Schools can also use their personal, social, health and economic education programme to equip pupils with a sound understanding of risk and the knowledge necessary to make safe and informed decisions, which is an integral part of water safety. Schools can draw on resources available from many providers, including the PSHE Association. They include resources for pupils, lesson plans and teacher guidance, in partnership with the Environment Agency, to help pupils understand potential hazards and manage emergency situations, which cover rivers, canals and flooding.
We are also working in partnership with members of the National Water Safety Forum, in particular the Royal Life Saving Society—which my hon. Friend rightly praised—and Swim England and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The Department was pleased to accept an invitation from the National Water Safety Forum to sit on its education sub-group. That will support the forum to understand the needs of teachers and to improve the dissemination of resources and vital messages in schools. We have supported the National Water Safety Forum to make new free water safety resources available for pupils in key stages 1 to 3.
The Department has continued to support RLSS UK’s Drowning Prevention Week in 2023. I am delighted that more pupils than ever participated in this year’s campaign, with more than half a million children taking part. RLSS UK reported a 72% increase in pupils participating in comparison with the 2022 campaign. We will support World Drowning Prevention Day on 25 July, helping put key water safety advice such as float to live at the front of families’ minds as they start their summer holidays.
In partnership with sector organisations, we are supporting more schools to teach primary and secondary pupils important aspects of water safety, which will include cold water shock, rip currents and keeping safe near frozen water. We are serious about supporting schools to provide opportunities for all pupils to learn to swim and to know how to be safe in and around the water.
I thank my hon. Friend for taking the time to bring this important issue to the House. It is a very good chance for us to talk about it as we come into the summer holidays, albeit under the most tragic of circumstances. I look forward to continuing to work with him on his future work in this area.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am sure that the whole House will wish to join the Minister and the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) in sending our sincere condolences to Sunnah’s family. With heartfelt sorrow, we have every sympathy for them and with them.
Question put and agreed to.
Early Years
Claire Coutinho Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
From 4 July 2022 to 16 September 2022, the Department for Education (DFE) consulted on the following proposed amendments to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework:
a change to the current statutory minimum staff to child ratios in England for two-year-olds from 1:4 to 1:5;
clarifying that childminders can care for more than the currently-specified maximum of three young children, when caring for siblings of children they already care for, or when caring for their own child; and
clarifying that “adequate supervision” while children are eating means that children must be within sight and hearing of an adult—rather than the current wording of “sight or hearing”.
Alongside the consultation, the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and Frontier Economics—commissioned by DFE—conducted a study with early years providers to assess the impact of the proposed changes.
In the Government response to the consultation, published in March 2023. we announced that we would be proceeding with the proposed changes to ratios, childminder flexibilities and supervision while eating.
Today, 12 July 2023, we have laid a Statutory Instrument (SI) in both Houses to amend the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework (EYFS) to make the changes referenced above. These changes will come into force from 4 September 2023.
The updated version of the EYFS—which will apply from 4 September 2023—is available on www.gov.uk, alongside the current version of the EYFS—which still applies until 4 September 2023.
A full impact assessment has been prepared for these regulations. It is annexed to the explanatory memorandum, which is available alongside the SI on the OPSI website https://www.legislation.gov.uk.
In the written ministerial statement published on 7 July we also announced additional funding to uplift the rates for the existing entitlements from September 2023. We will be investing £204 million of additional funding in 2023-24 and £288 million in 2024-25. For 2023-24, this means we will effectively increase the funding rates that local authorities receive by an average of 32% for the current two-year-old entitlement, and by an average of 6.3% for three and four-year-old entitlements, compared to their current 2023-24 rates. Further detail can be found in that statement.
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Early Years Funding
Claire Coutinho Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, Baroness Barran, has made the following statement.
Today I am confirming the distribution of £204 million of additional funding for the early years entitlements in 2023-24 via a new Early Years Supplementary Grant (EYSG); and the hourly funding rates that each local authority will therefore receive from September 2023.
At the 2023 spring Budget the Chancellor announced an increase to the funding for the existing early years entitlements for two, three and four year-olds of £204 million from this September, and £288 million in 2024-25. This is for local authorities to increase the rates paid to childcare providers.
For 2023-24, the additional £204 million will be distributed to local authorities through a new standalone top-up grant called the Early Years Supplementary Grant (EYSG). Given that the funding increase is coming in mid-way through the financial year, providing this funding through a stand-alone grant will help reduce complexity and support local authorities to pass the additional funding on to providers from September in a timely manner.
This additional funding through the EYSG, coming on top of local authorities’ existing allocations, will effectively increase average funding rates by 32% for the current two-year-old entitlement, and 6.3% for the three and four-year-old entitlements, from September.
The EYSG rate for two-year-olds is, on average, £1.95 per hour—this means that the national average two-year-old funding that local authorities will receive will increase from the current £6 per hour to £7.95.
The EYSG rate for three and four-year-olds is, on average, 33p per hour—similarly, the national average three and four-year-old hourly rate received by local authorities will increase from £5.29 to £5.62. The minimum funding floor for the three and four-year-old funding hourly rate will increase from £4.87 to £5.20. All local authorities will see at least a 1% increase, and up to a maximum of 10%.
We will also shortly be launching a consultation on our proposed approach to distributing the funding for the new entitlements for working parents of children aged nine months to two years, to local authorities in 2024-25, along with the accompanying local rules for local authorities to follow when passing on this funding to providers. I will update the House accordingly.
Alongside this additional funding, I am also announcing that £12 million of funding will be made available to local authorities this financial year, to support them prepare to roll out the new early years entitlements. We will announce further information, including the allocations methodology being used, in the autumn.
Separately, the Government have today set plans in motion to deliver their ambition for all parents of primary school aged children to access childcare in their local area between 8 am and 6 pm. The 16 local authorities, from Barnsley to Wiltshire, have been selected to work alongside the Government to develop plans for this universal provision, with some of these areas expected to be amongst the first to start delivery, as soon as summer 2024.
Further details and guidance on the Early Years Supplementary Grant and funding rates will be published on www.gov.uk.
[HCWS923]
Childcare Reform Package
Claire Coutinho Excerpts(10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the progress we have made towards delivering the genuinely radical childcare reforms announced in the Chancellor’s spring statement.
The Chancellor announced that from September 2025, working parents will be able to access 30 hours a week of childcare, for 38 weeks a year, from the term after their child turns nine months to when they start school. I am pleased to announce that from today, the Department for Work and Pensions has raised the amount working parents on universal credit can claim for their childcare to £951 a month for one child and £1,630 for two or more children. That is an increase of roughly 50% from the previous limits, which were £646 for one child or £1,108 for two or more children.
The Government are also helping eligible parents to cover the costs for the first month of childcare when they enter work or increase their working hours. Those parents will now receive up to 85% of the first month’s childcare costs back before next month’s bills are due, meaning that from then on they should have the money to pay for childcare one month in advance.
When I have spoken to families on universal credit, many have told me that they have struggled with up-front childcare bills, making it harder for them to get back into work. These childcare reforms support one of the Prime Minister’s five key priorities—to grow the economy—by giving families on universal credit up to £522 extra each month to cover childcare costs. This is a transformational package that is designed to remove as many barriers to work as possible.
The evidence is clear: the earliest years, before a child goes to school, are the most critical stage of a young child’s development. That is when they are learning most rapidly, and when the foundations are being laid for future success.
We are also committed to improving the availability of wraparound childcare. Reliable wraparound childcare, before and after school, helps parents to work and can offer children great activities around the school day. The education and care provided in childcare settings up and down the country is pivotal for children. Visiting and talking to nurseries, childminders and other providers is one of the best parts of my job. I wish to put on record my thanks for the hard work and dedication of the talented people who work in the sector.
I have travelled across the country visiting providers: from Chestnuts Childcare in Shirebrook to Kids Inc in Crowthorne; from Little Stars in Peterborough to Imagination Childcare in Moredon; from Curious Caterpillars in Stroud to Playsteps Day Nursery in Swindon; and from Bright Horizons in Didcot to Acorn Day Nursery in Emberton. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Paul Bristow), for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), for Bracknell (James Sunderland), for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt), for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) and others for hosting me on those visits. They all share my determination to get this right for parents and providers.
When I am out on those visits, I often hear how much of a lifeline the settings are for parents, allowing them to work and develop their own careers, while providing the high-quality early education that gives our youngest children the best start in life.
I support the ambitious expansion of childcare support for working parents that the Chancellor announced in his spring statement. It represents the single biggest investment in childcare this country has ever seen. It will make sure that parents are able to access the high-quality, affordable childcare that they need.
Today’s changes are just one part of our generally radical plans. By 2028, we expect to be spending more than £8 billion per year on early years education, which is double what we spend now. This will build on the 30 hours of funded childcare for three to four-year-olds that this Government introduced in 2017, extending the entitlement to eligible working parents of children aged from nine-months-old to when they start primary school. It will remove one of the largest hurdles that working parents face, and it will save parents £6,500 per year on average.
We have heard it loud and clear from the sector that getting the funding right is crucial. From this September, we will provide £204 million of extra funding for local authorities to increase the hourly rates that they pay providers, and we will make sure that rates continue to go up each year. That means that, from September, the average hourly rate for two-year-olds will go from £6 per hour to around £8 per hour, and the average rate for three to four-year-olds will be over £5.50 per hour. From 2024-25, the average rate for under-twos will be around £11 per hour. We will confirm the September rates for each local authority before the summer break. We will also ask the sector for its views on how we should distribute the funding for the new entitlements from April 2024, including the rules that local authorities will have to follow when distributing the funding to providers.
Of course, money is not everything. We also want to boost the early years workforce, who are so crucial to the success of nurseries across the country. There are multiple ways that we are doing that. I have heard from many people who manage nurseries that the way that we regulate staffing in settings is stopping providers from making the most effective use of their staff and giving their best people responsibilities that match their abilities.
Likewise, childminders and nurseries have been telling us about barriers to delivering the education and care that they want for children. That is why we have launched a consultation on proposed changes to the early years foundation stage requirements. Every single one of our proposals has come from conversations with people working in the sector. They will give settings more flexibility and help address some of those barriers, while maintaining high-quality provision and keeping our youngest children safe. Indeed, 96% of childcare providers in England were judged good or outstanding at their most recent inspection, which should give parents huge confidence in the standards of provision.
Some of the new measures will help free up staff to pursue professional development opportunities. We are investing up to £180 million in the early years education recovery programme, which offers a package of training, qualifications, expert guidance and targeted support for everyone working in the sector.
To train people up, we need to get more people in, so we are also going full steam ahead with a new national campaign early next year to promote the sector and support the recruitment and retention of talented staff. We will also consider how to introduce new accelerated apprenticeship and degree apprenticeship routes, so that new entrants can build careers at all levels of the sector.
I wish to reassure Members that we will work closely with the sector to deliver these historic reforms, just as we did on previous successful roll-outs of the 30 hours entitlement for three to four-year-olds, the 15 hours entitlement for two-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the holiday activities and food programme. We cannot do this without early years providers, childminders and local authorities. We have a strong track record of working together to deliver childcare for parents, and I will be listening closely to them when considering our next steps.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I commend this statement to the House.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for advanced sight of her statement.
The Government’s realisation of the importance of childcare remains striking, despite what the Minister says, for how long it has taken. Childcare is important for so many reasons—for giving every child the best start in life, for helping every parent to take on and succeed at the jobs they love, and for the foundation that it provides for success at school and throughout education. Above all, as my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Education has rightly said, childcare is important for supporting families to achieve and thrive together. Yet it is only now that the Government have arrived at the party. It is typical of this Government that they are not only late but focused on tweaks that they trumpet proudly but that do not deliver the scale of reform that is urgently needed.
The reforms reflect some of the changes to universal credit that the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has repeatedly called for. But, as he has also warned Ministers, they do not go far enough in giving people the chances and choices to go back to work at the scale necessary to tackle the challenges.
On childcare, the Government’s fixation on their broken hours model leaves them blind to the wider challenges around supply and demand of childcare and the extraordinary structure of the market for extra hours. The failure of that market is felt by every family. A decade of sticking-plaster politics from the Conservative party has caused them pain. But the announcement does nothing to ensure that childcare places are available in the cities, towns, and villages of our country. In some places, nursery and childcare spaces are outnumbered 10 to one by the children who need them.
I am delighted that the Minister has visited the seats of so many of her newest and presumably most nervous colleagues, but, as well as talking to parents who have found childcare, she would have done better had she spoken to parents who have not. The announcement does little to deliver the extra staff who will be needed to deliver the extra entitlements for parents that the Minister so enthusiastically announces. It does nothing to deliver the childcare places in which our children will be cared for and in which, we hope, they will learn in those extra hours and months of their lives. It is great to hear that the Minister will be listening to providers and local authorities, but listening is no substitute for action. It does little to retain or upskill the existing staff in the sector who are leaving in their droves for work that is more clearly valued. It does little to enrich childcare, to drive up quality, to make it a part of our education system, and to deliver a foundation for achievement and success right through school and life. It does little to deliver the flexibility that parents need not merely at work, but to get into work—to get the training and skills that they need and that our companies, communities and country need. In short, the announcement today is little more than a post-dated cheque. It is a promise of jam tomorrow—a promise that brings more questions than answers.
Madam Deputy Speaker, let me briefly set out a few questions in the hope that the Minister can address them in the debate today. When the 30-hours childcare entitlement is spread over a year, it is the equivalent of 22 hours a week. What steps is she taking, right now, to address the cliff-edge in costs between the Government-funded hours and the hours for which parents have to pay? Will she repeal the restrictions that councils face in making more childcare provision available? Is she genuinely confident that a new advertising campaign will be enough to attract workers to the sector? Is she aware that, for an increase in entitlements to childcare places to work, there must be more staff, and more settings, otherwise more parents will simply find that they cannot get the childcare that they need and to which they have entitlement? Finally, how does the Minister intend to ensure better uptake of childcare entitlements among eligible families given the complexity and bureaucracy of the existing system?
Claire Coutinho
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his reply. Let me address some of the points that he raised in turn.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the ability of parents to look for childcare in the holidays. We have the £200 million holiday activities and food programme, which is particularly targeted at disadvantaged children. Last summer, more than 600,000 children accessed that. When we did our initial survey of that programme, about 70% of those children said that they had never been to anything like that before, which is a great sign of the opportunity that it is spreading. He talks about the work that we are doing with local authorities. To understand sufficiency and any challenges, we are contacting every single local authority as part of the roll-out.
The hon. Gentleman talked about getting more staff, and we have set out some flexibilities; I talked in my statement about the recruitment campaign we are doing next year. He talks about better uptake, but I would say that the uptake of the offer for three to four-year-olds is in the 90% range; for two-year-olds it is in the 72% range and tax-free childcare in recent years has gone from 172,000 up to 500,000. Yes, there is more to do, but we have very good uptake and any parent thinking about more childcare should look at our Childcare Choices website to see what they might be entitled to.
Overall, however, I get the sense from the hon. Gentleman’s comments that he did not listen to my statement. I talked about the £4 billion extra that is going into the sector, about plans for staff and for childminders and about routes for apprenticeships. I remind him that it was a Conservative Government that expanded the offer for three to four-year-olds and introduced the offer for two-year-olds, and now it is the Conservative Government making the single largest-ever investment into childcare.
What do we know about the Labour party policy? We know the Opposition wanted to do universal childcare, but they denied that last week. That was last week’s flip-flop—or I should say one of last week’s flip-flops. They have talked about means-testing childcare, which would mean taking away childcare from middle-class parents at a moment when we know that families are struggling with their finances. On the Government side we recognise that childcare is important for families and important for growth. Our childcare plans, as announced at the Budget, were called by the International Monetary Fund a serious point of growth in this country. We recognise that that is important.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I call the Chair of the Education Committee.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on this important statement. I agree with her and, more importantly, I agree with the Treasury that childcare is worth investing in. I welcome the changes to universal credit, which I think will make a significant difference, but I particularly welcome the £204 million of extra funding for local authorities to distribute to providers; from what the Select Committee has heard from providers, that is urgently needed. We need to make sure we have capacity in the system to meet the challenge of providing all that additional childcare for families. I urge her to make sure that as much of that funding as possible is distributed, and to talk to local authorities about ensuring they do not top-slice it too aggressively. When the Government announced the £8 and £11 rates for the younger years, we heard from childminders in particular that they simply did not believe that they would receive that. We want a system in which the providers on the frontline of providing childcare get the funding that the Government announce.
Claire Coutinho
We have a rule at the moment that local authorities have to pass on 95% of the funds that they receive, and our returns show that they pass on 967%. However, as the years go on, with the amount of extra money that we have put into the system, we can definitely look at those figures and at what can be done. Some of that will be set out in our consultation before the summer.
Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)
The Minister told us about several childcare providers that she has spoken to, but she has clearly not spoken to Munchkins Village Nursery in Burscough in my constituency. The nursery got in touch with me to say that, while the help for parents is very welcome, the Government have by their own admission underfunded the sector to the tune of about one third of the funding promised—about £2 billion—and the nursery staff believe that the sector is in financial risk. Does the Minister appreciate that, regardless of any funding for parents, they simply cannot find the childcare that they need?
Claire Coutinho
I recognise that it has been a challenging few years for the sector. In this piece of work we have surveyed about 10,000 providers, we have a providers’ finance report and we have surveyed about 6,000 parents, so we used a very data-driven estimate to come up with the figure. We will be consulting on the funding before the summer and, as I said, there will be funding coming in September before any expansion of the entitlements, which start in April next year. There will be additional money next year and by 2027-28 we will be spending an additional £4 billion that will be distributed via local authorities to those settings.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on such an excellent statement today—I think the shadow Minister needs to read it, because he clearly did not listen to it.
My hon. Friend has clearly thought about the need for top-quality childcare, which for many young children is vital when their home life is perhaps not all it could be. One thing she has not talked much about is the provision of new workforce. Can she comment a bit more on her consultation on changing the requirement for high-level qualifications to a requirement for qualifications that are more appropriate to providing empathetic and supportive care?
Claire Coutinho
I know my right hon. Friend is incredibly passionate about this area, and I share her passion. In the consultation we have set out some flexibilities after talking to the sector; an example of that would be relaxing some of the requirements around having level 2 maths for level 3 qualifications, which we know has been a barrier for some people. We are looking at all kinds of flexibilities that mean we will get the right staff at every stage to make sure that our children get the right education.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The Minister would have been very welcome in the north of England, particularly in Westmorland. This announcement is welcome in many ways and will help many parents in my constituency who cannot afford to work at the moment. It is a good step forward. However, many childcare providers—probably the majority in my constituency—are linked to the primary school in that community, and primary schools have never faced such awful financial circumstances as they do now. I have visited many schools in Westmorland the last few weeks, from Appleby to Windermere, from Kendal to Brough, from Shap to Witherslack and many others. They all tell me that the deserved pay rises for teachers and other staff are unfunded by Government and that energy costs, which they have seen go through the roof, are also largely unfunded, leaving many schools in deficit and having to shed staff. All that undermines their ability to provide childcare and other forms of education. What has the Minister to say to our local schools in Westmorland, which are desperate for her support so that they can carry on providing education and childcare?
Claire Coutinho
We are taking schools funding to a historic real-terms high. We are also making the single largest ever investment in childcare. I recognise that it has been a difficult time for public sector services, and the most important thing we can do is to grip inflation and make the pound go further, but overall we are putting record funding into both areas.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
We do need more childcare, and I wish the Minister every success with these policies, but we are going to need a lot more people, businesses and other institutions to come forward to provide that care. Will the whole Government do more? Can we get rid of IR35, a tax on the self-employed? Can we raise the value added tax threshold for small business? We must look at making childcare more worthwhile, because we need the teachers and the childcarers.
Claire Coutinho
I thank my right hon. Friend—I have just had a bit of a flashback to my days as a Treasury Parliamentary Private Secretary. He is absolutely right that the supply of childcare will be a really important part of growth, as has been reiterated by the IMF and others.
Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)
Progress in this area is very welcome and necessary, but parts of the statement will be dispiriting for families in Northern Ireland, as we fall even further behind. Can the Minister confirm that Northern Ireland will receive commensurate funding through the Barnett formula, and have she and her officials given any thought to how the new regulations and resources might be applied in Northern Ireland? Furthermore, given the extremely austere budget settlement in Northern Ireland, does she acknowledge that even where there are improvements in childcare, many children will be going on to increasingly degraded and under-resourced primary schools?
Claire Coutinho
The money will be passed on in the normal way across the education budget. We regularly meet Education Ministers from the devolved Administrations, and the Secretary of State held such a meeting, I think from memory, in early June.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
An excellent statement—on behalf of nurseries in Winchester and Chandler’s Ford, I thank the Minister. The recruitment drive in particular is much needed. However, it would be easier to do that, and to retain staff, if we could give staff a pay rise. The sector tells my all-party parliamentary group on childcare and early education—I thank the Minister for coming to address us—that if it were not paying business rates, that would be a lot easier. School-based settings do not pay them, but the rest of the private, voluntary and independent sector does. I realise that that is a matter for Treasury, but will she please take that away and look at it again? That would make a her a true hero in the sector when she continues her very welcome visits.
Claire Coutinho
I will of course look at everything we can do to support all settings. As part of the work we did to assess costs, we looked at other costs, including things such as business rates, to assess the level of funding we should give for the hourly rates, but of course I will always look at anything I can do to support nurseries.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Looking at the existing childcare entitlements for two, three and four year olds, the Early Years Alliance and the Women’s Budget Group estimate that the current offer falls short by about £1.8 billion—and that is even before we expand the offer, as was announced in the spring Budget. The Government are providing only an extra £204 million this year and £288 million next year, before we expand the hours. That clearly falls well short. There is no point expanding the hours if the providers are not there, so could the Minister explain what she is doing to ensure that early years providers actually remain financially viable?
Claire Coutinho
As I said, it has been a challenging time for providers, but the work we have done to come up with the hourly rate has been based on a lot of evidence. I do not recognise that figures that the hon. Lady talks about. As I said, we surveyed 10,000 providers and 6,000 parents, and looked at providers’ finance reports, to look deeply at the costs and come up with the hourly rate. I continue to talk to all providers as we continue the expansion.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
It is a tribute to the Minister that she secured the single largest ever increase in funding in this important area and that the Labour Opposition could not even be bothered to turn up today. She will know at first hand from visiting Imagination nursery, which is now an outstanding provider, that it has the sort of provision that we want to expand. For it to have the confidence to do so, it needs certainty on funding to recruit and retain staff and secure additional premises. Will she keep pushing for as much advance clarity and certainty as possible so that all children can benefit from this wonderful announcement?
Claire Coutinho
I absolutely will. It was a joy and a delight to visit Imagination nursery, which does outstanding work, and I congratulate it on its recent grade. I will take my hon. Friend’s point on board.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
This is the first time in history that a Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have put the early years at the centre of the country’s growth strategy. I note that an International Monetary Fund analyst singled it out in saying that
“supply-side measures, notably the increase in childcare support…should have a positive effect on medium-term growth”,
so that is absolutely welcome.
I cannot thank the Minister enough for visiting BarBar Nursery, Allsorts, and Curious Caterpillars Day Nursery. In our work with Onward, we have called for a national campaign on recruitment. If there is any possibility of that happening this year rather than next, I would like a commitment from the Department that it will get a wriggle on, because that is important.
Will the Minister work with the Local Government Association to have a good look at what different councils are doing, not only with the money flowing down from Government but on how often childminders are paid? I know of childminders who are paid only about three times a year. Not many of us could cope with that type of cashflow.
Claire Coutinho
As always, my hon. Friend makes excellent points on this matter. I will absolutely consider her point about childminders and will ensure that I continue to talk to her. She has been incredibly helpful throughout this process and in securing the funding.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
I warmly welcome my hon. Friend’s statement, which will help some of those on the lowest incomes either to take up work or to take on more work. She will recall that when I had the pleasure of taking her to a nursey in Didcot, it raised the varying rates that nurseries are paid by local authorities across the country for the same work. Does she agree that, although the Government’s largest single investment in childcare ever is welcome, it is important that local authorities pay a broadly comparable amount of money to providers?
Claire Coutinho
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for taking to me to Bright Horizons in Didcot, which was a useful visit. Local authorities have different rates. We will set out funding rates before the summer, and will consult on them. We take different costs across the country into account, but he makes an interesting point.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Minister’s announcement and thank her for all the work that she has done for childcare providers. I was going to raise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) about business rates. Will the Minister explain what help she is giving to local authorities to help providers deliver the expanded childcare offer to parents?
Claire Coutinho
At the moment, the way the policy works is that providers have to pass on at least 95%, and can keep 5%, of the funding rates that they are given. Most pass on more—from our returns, most pass on 97%—but they can use the additional money for the administration of payments and such.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
May I congratulate my hon. Friend on her statement and on the hard work she has put in to get us here? I held a roundtable of early years providers in Barrow a few weeks ago. The issue that came up time and again was that they are losing good staff—staff the kids like and the parents get on with—because of the qualifications requirements for English and maths. Can the Minister confirm whether part of the consultation will look at that? May I invite her to come and visit Cheeky Monkeys Childcare and some of the other providers in Barrow at some point in the future?
Claire Coutinho
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That was one of the things that I heard from the sector as well, particularly on the qualification barriers. I can confirm that we are consulting on that—particularly on the maths point—in the flexibilities consultation that we set out at the beginning of the summer. I would be delighted to visit him.
Oral Answers to Questions
Claire Coutinho Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we published the special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision improvement plan in March this year. Although the plan applies only to England, we shared a pre-publication draft with the devolved Administrations to build understanding of our proposals.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for her response and for her interest in exchanging such ideas with Northern Ireland. Whether we are on the United Kingdom mainland or in Northern Ireland, money is under pressure. As someone who has been an elected representative in local government, in the council, as a Member of the Legislative Assembly and as a Member of Parliament, I am very aware that many more people seem to have special educational needs. When people have to wait up to seven months for an assessment, the cut in money is detrimental. Will the Minister share the ideas from the mainland here in the UK with the Department of Education back home? There are many ideas and thoughts on classroom assistants on the mainland, and it would be good to exchange those ideas and thoughts with the Assembly in Northern Ireland.
Claire Coutinho
I know that the hon. Gentleman is a passionate campaigner on such issues. He will know that education is devolved, but Ministers engage with our counterparts through the UK Education Ministers Council, and a session was held just last week, on 8 June.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
I want every child and young person, regardless of their special educational need or disability, to receive the right support to enjoy their childhood and succeed in life. The SEND and AP improvement plan, published in March 2023, sets out the next steps that we are taking to deliver a more positive experience for children, young people and families.
Debbie Abrahams
The Children’s Commissioner has expressed concerns about the gaps in the Government’s plan to improve the system for children with special educational needs and disabilities, identifying:
“A vicious cycle of late intervention, low confidence and inefficient resource allocation”
that needs addressing. In particular, she points to the issues for looked-after children with SEND. Given that the plan is to be implemented by 2025, what are the Government doing now to achieve those things?
Claire Coutinho
We have not waited to take action on this issue. We have increased, for example, high needs block funding by 50% over the last four years to 2023-24. We have set out £2.6 billion to increase the number of specialist schools. We have also hired educational psychologists. We have done a lot of work to date, but the reforms are ambitious and wide-ranging and they will, I hope, help with the issues mentioned.
Jack Brereton
The need for more specialist school places is raised frequently by parents in my constituency, and children are being bounced between mainstream providers that are simply not fit to cater for many advanced needs. Recently, I visited Hillcrest Glebedale School in my constituency, which is keen to expand the number of places. Will the Minister do more to ensure that we support such schools and grow the number of SEND places in Stoke-on-Trent?
Claire Coutinho
I thank all the special schools for the amazing work they do to support children and young people. We have announced more than £1.4 billion of high needs provisional capital allocations to support local authorities to deliver new places for academic years 2023-24 and 2024-25. Local authorities can use that funding to work with any school or institution in their area.
Luke Hall
Work has begun on the new Two Bridges Academy in South Gloucestershire, a new school that will support pupils who have severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties and autism from the age of two right through to sixth form. Will the Minister join me in thanking the educational trust, the council and all the local groups who are helping to deliver this exciting and innovative project and will she use her office to make sure that it is open by the planned date of September 2024 to help us cope with the growing demand for special educational needs services in South Gloucestershire?
Claire Coutinho
I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in thanking all those involved in the project. The Two Bridges site remains on track to open as planned and work is progressing well. We are committed to working with the trust to ensure that that remains the case.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
The cost of childcare depends on hours used a week over weeks per year, provider type, child’s age and region. For this reason, the Department does not produce an official estimate of the average weekly cost of childcare by the number of children in a household. However, this year, Coram estimates the cost of using 25 hours a week of childcare for a child aged under two in a nursery as, on average, £151 across England.
Luke Pollard
In low-wage economies such as Plymouth, families are struggling to afford decent childcare and are having to choose between working all the hours God sends to afford the nursery bills and leaving the workforce to look after the kids at home. I look forward to meeting the Secretary of State tomorrow to talk about how we can keep south-west nurseries financially afloat, but mums and dads need to be kept afloat as well. What can the Minister do to make childcare more affordable and, importantly, not just load those additional costs on to nurseries that are already struggling to pay their bills?
Claire Coutinho
I completely recognise that this has been difficult for families, but that is exactly why we are taking action. We are making the single largest ever investment in childcare. We will be doubling the amount we spend on it by 2027-28, and that will start with additional funding this year.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Parents were delighted to hear in the spring Budget of the extension of childcare provision, which is being phased in to allow the sector to gear up, recruit and train. Will my hon. Friend give me an update on how that is progressing, in terms of having enough highly skilled people in place to do that important work?
Claire Coutinho
That is the crucial issue when it comes to delivery, and we have already taken steps. We are consulting on flexibilities for the sector to make sure that we have the right people in place for the first part of the roll-out, which will be in April 2024. We have also been making sure that more funding is going into the system this year.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The early years sector has had three months to absorb the Government’s Budget announcement on childcare. Wherever I go in the country, early years professionals tell me that without a plan for expanding and developing the workforce and securing additional premises, the Government’s approach will deliver neither affordable childcare for parents nor high-quality early years education for children. They are clear that relaxing ratios is not the solution they need. What does the Minister intend to do about the deficit in the Government’s plans?
Claire Coutinho
As I said, we have already set out some flexibilities in a consultation that was published last week, and I urge every single person in the early years sector to look at that. I urge the hon. Lady to look at it too, because there are much wider flexibilities in there: for example, looking at qualifications relaxations. Overall, the Government have set out the single largest ever investment into childcare; Labour has not set out a plan at all.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
The work of teaching assistants is incredibly important to the SEND arena. We have taken education funding to real-term historic highs for mainstream education and we have increased the high-needs block by more than 50%.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
I often hear from parents whose children remain in mainstream education despite their school not being able to meet the child's special educational needs. Despite Rugby having received some additional SEN places recently, I have had such an email from a constituent in the last few hours. What is being done to make certain that more such spaces are made available?
Claire Coutinho
We have set out ambitious reforms to give parents greater confidence that their child’s needs can be met in mainstream provision. When they need specialist support, we are building many more special and alternative provision free schools—127 so far since 2010, with 67 in the pipeline.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Freedom of information requests from the Liberal Democrats recently revealed that three in four primary schools will not have a mental health support team in place by 2024, when the funding runs out. Officials have suggested to MPs that hard-pressed NHS budgets could be squeezed to fund those schemes further. Will the Minister please commit to prioritising this area and committing new cash? If not, will she put a counsellor in every school?
Claire Coutinho
We take this issue incredibly seriously, which is why we are rolling out mental health support teams. We are ahead of schedule, with 35% of pupils covered this year and another 100 teams on the way to cover 44% of pupils next year, alongside other proposals.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
If and when parents get sight of what their children are being taught about relationships and sex education, will they have the right to withdraw their children from such lessons if they deem the materials to be inappropriate?
Children’s Social Care: Review and Reform
Claire Coutinho Excerpts(11 months, 1 week ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
The independent review of children’s social care was published a year ago today, setting out plans to reset children’s social care in England so it delivers for all the children and families it supports. This statement updates the House on progress made in implementing the recommendations set out in that review.
Around the same time as the independent review, two further reviews were published: the National Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s report into the tragic deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, and the Competition and Markets Authority’s study of children’s social care. These reviews also called for urgency in bringing forward reform, specifically to ensure that the child protection system keeps children safe and the care system provides the right homes for children in the right places. Together, the three reviews provide a platform for fundamental, whole system change.
My predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), started us on the journey towards reform a year ago. He committed in his oral statement to publish an ambitious and detailed implementation strategy setting out this Government’s plans for reform.
The Department published plans for reform in our consultation and implementation strategy, “Stable Homes, Built on Love” on 2 February 2023. We set out how we will help families overcome challenges, keep children safe, and make sure children in care have stable, loving homes, long-term loving relationships and opportunities for a good life. Alongside this strategy, we announced £200 million of investment for these reforms, which builds on an annual investment of over £10 billion in children’s social care. The “Built on Love” strategy and its funding cover phase 1 of our reforms, addressing urgent issues and laying the foundations for wider-reaching reforms.
“Built on Love” sets out six pillars with actions to transform the system. We are seeking to:
provide the right support at the right time, so that children thrive within their families and families stay together through our family help offer;
strengthen our child protection response by getting agencies to work together in a fully integrated way, led by social workers with greater skills and knowledge;
unlock the potential of kinship care so that, wherever possible, children who cannot stay with their parents are cared for by people who know and love them already;
make sure the care system has the right homes for children in the right places, and that we provide children in care and care leavers with the right support to help them thrive and achieve their potential into adulthood;
provide a valued, supported and highly-skilled social worker for every child who needs one; and
make sure the whole system continuously learns and improves and makes better use of evidence and data.
Through this statement, I am also pleased to inform colleagues of progress against day one commitments made to this House a year ago:
We committed to develop a national children’s social care framework. We have published our framework, consulted on it, and intend to issue it as statutory guidance by the end of this year.
We committed to introduce an early career framework for child and family social workers, to give them the best start in the profession. We have set out plans to invest in high-quality early career development, have begun the process of writing the framework document setting out the knowledge and skills social workers need at different stages, and recently invited local authorities to express interest in becoming early adopters of our early career framework this year to help us co-design the programme.
We committed to work with local authorities to recruit more foster carers. Through “Built on Love” we have pledged to invest over £27 million over the next two years to recruit and retain more foster carers, and are working on plans in the north-east to test targeted regional communications campaigns and invest in models that we know work.
We committed to improve data sharing between safeguarding partners. We have introduced a data and digital solutions fund to help local authorities improve delivery for children and families through technology.
We committed to set up a child protection ministerial group and establish a national implementation board. We have set up both forums to champion safeguarding at the highest levels and to receive advice, support and challenge us on the delivery of children’s social care reform.
This action is only the beginning. Just last week, consultations closed on our proposals for reform, our draft children’s social care national framework and data dashboard, and our plan for addressing the high use of agency social workers in the workforce. Thousands of people engaged and responded to the consultations—including those with personal experience of the care system, dedicated professionals providing key services, and civil society. A Government response will be published in September.
The Prime Minister set out that building a brighter future requires us to value family, in whatever form that takes, recognising the common bond is love. Reform of children’s social care is at the heart of that brighter future. I look forward to continuing to work across both Houses, and all parties, as we lay the foundations for a new system.
[HCWS792]
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill
Claire Coutinho ExcerptsTuesday 2nd May 2023
(12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 View all Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Message as at 2 May 2023 - (2 May 2023)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
I beg to move,
That this House agrees with the Lords in their Amendments 10B, 10C and 10D; disagrees to their Amendment 10E, and do propose in lieu of their Amendment 10E Amendment (a) to the words restored to the Bill by Commons disagreement to Lords Amendment 10.
It is almost two years since the Bill was introduced to the House in defence of the fundamental principle that students and academics should be able to express their beliefs and debate controversial ideas without fear of repercussion. We return to the House to resolve the final element on which we seek agreement: the form that the statutory tort takes in the Bill. The tort is the measure that will allow people to bring civil proceedings where they believe that certain duties in the Bill have been breached to their detriment. Since I last brought the Bill before the House, the other place has accepted the inclusion of the tort in principle. That is a huge step forward and a significant victory for freedom of speech on campus.
In February, this House voted to reinstate the tort in full following its removal in the other place. In March, the other place accepted the need for the tort but sought compromise in the form of amendments identical to those tabled by the Government on Report. That is the wording of the clause that we are now considering.
I want to emphasise that this is a significant shift in the terms of the debate. We are considering no longer whether the right to go to court should be included but what form it takes. However, I recognise that colleagues still have some concerns, and I want to reassure them that the two Government amendments will mean that the tort retains its teeth and offers a concrete means of redress for those whose right to free speech has been unlawfully infringed.
Proposed new subsection (2) will make it clear in the Bill that “loss” is not limited to pecuniary loss. That means that academics will be able to go to court if they have suffered, for example, reputational damage or adverse consequences to the progression of their career. Subsections (3) and (4) mirror amendment 10E from the other place. New subsection (5) will ensure that, in circumstances where speed is essential, a complainant can apply for an injunction where there has been an alleged breach of the free speech duties.
I turn to proposed new subsection (2), which builds on amendments 10B, 10C and 10D as voted for by the other place. On 7 December in the other place, my counterpart Earl Howe stated on Report that loss is
“not limited to pecuniary loss and could include damage to reputation, for example.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 December 2022; Vol. 826, c. 195.]
Subsection (2) simply makes that clear in the Bill. The amendment therefore reflects the original policy intent. I hope that offers reassurance to the House and that hon. Members will support its inclusion in the Bill.
I turn to proposed new subsection (5), which builds on amendment 10E as voted for by the other place as now included in new subsections (3) and (4). Amendment 10E would require claimants to have exhausted the complaints schemes of the Office for Students or the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education before they can bring legal proceedings. Some hon. Members have expressed concern that that would prevent individuals from seeking an injunction where a breach of specified freedom of speech duties has already taken place and swift redress is sought. I share the view of many colleagues that access to the courts in those circumstances is crucial.
Subsection (5) will mean that a claimant who is applying only for an injunction will no longer have to exhaust the complaints schemes first. Those claimants will therefore have direct access to the courts. It is important to allow for that to avoid delays that may cause further harm to the claimant. If, for example, a student is expelled from their course because of a free-speech issue, it may take a long time to resolve their complaint, and damages would not be sufficient. The student would be seeking re-entry on to that course to continue their studies. In that scenario, subsection (5) will allow the student to seek an injunction from the courts as quickly as possible. I am sure the whole House agrees that that is sensible and justified.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Yes, it is an excellent change. The only question in my mind is why this rather obvious feature was not included at the beginning. Could the Minister look into that and—if not now, on another occasion—throw some light on it? It was an obvious flaw in the Bill.
Claire Coutinho
I thank my right hon. Friend. I think the fact that we have now included that in the Bill shows that we have worked with both sides to ensure that the Bill is as strong as possible. We have always had the academics, visiting speakers and students that it seeks to protect at the forefront of our mind.
I should reiterate that the provision concerns injunctions where there has already been a breach of the relevant duties. Where there is an anticipated breach of the duties, a claimant can apply for an injunction to prevent that—that has always been the case, since the requirement to exhaust the complaints scheme only applies in the case of an actual breach. It is important to note that we believe that this exception will apply only in a minority of cases, as most claimants will not seek, or have their case result in, an injunction. Nevertheless, we are sympathetic to complainants who find themselves in the difficult circumstances in which an injunction may be required. Further to this, we expect the OfS will take into account the implications of the amendment when drafting the complaints scheme rules.
I hope that the House will therefore accept amendments 10B, 10C and 10D from the other place, and agree with the Government’s proposed new subsections (2) to (5), which are consequential upon the amendments.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
In recent weeks, we have seen a rather unedifying situation whereby Members from both sides of the House have been no-platformed by universities across the UK. In addition, Berkshire has several Facebook groups which purport to be in the public interest, but are actually used mainly by Labour activists to attack the Government. Comments made by Conservative councillors or those who disagree with the sites’ administrators are deleted, with some users even banned from the sites.
Cancel culture is odious, and I believe it exists because the Opposition do not want to hear the truth—they cannot face the truth. Will this Bill go any way towards dealing with cancel culture?
Claire Coutinho
I thank my hon. Friend, who has had his own experience of that in recent weeks. This Bill will not only strengthen the duty of our universities to ensure that they are protecting freedom of speech on campus, but create a new director of free speech, who will champion the cause, and strengthen the powers of the OfS to deal with those who breach that duty. I believe it will speak to my hon. Friend’s real concerns.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The last time I was here debating this Bill, I told the Minister that it had spent more time in Parliament than any other Bill sponsored by the Department for Education since 2010. Indeed, as defenders of free speech, Members would be forgiven for thinking the Government would be determined to see the Bill on the statute book. Yet 721 days—almost two years, as you, a maths connoisseur, will appreciate, Mr Deputy Speaker—have passed since the Bill had its First Reading, and it could have been further prolonged by the prospect of legislative ping-pong with the other place.
Here we are again. This time, we have the Minister, whose remit now includes university campus activity, rowing back on the compromise reached in the Lords. I am sure that this has been pushed by the Common Sense Group. I consider myself to be a member of whatever common-sense group this place may offer, but I am unsure whether we should be here again two years on. We need not be here, but heavy-handed legislative responses to largely exaggerated social problems—I am not saying there are no problems—appear to be this Government’s general modus operandi.
Miriam Cates
I admit to having a sense of déjà vu, because I think this is the third time I have made a speech defending the sharp end of the Bill—which is, of course, the provision allowing students, academics and visiting speakers who have had, or are about to have, their freedom of speech curtailed to bring a claim against a university in court. Most cases can, will and should be settled through the Office for Students’ complaints process, but that could take months. There will be circumstances in which quick recourse is needed, for example when a speaker’s event the next day is due to be cancelled.
The Lords have tried to remove the tort. They have tried to water it down with the requirement to exhaust the complaints procedure first. That is why I initially tabled an amendment for consideration today to ensure that students and academics could still apply to a court for injunctive relief if necessary. However, I am very glad that the Government have tabled their own similar amendment; I have withdrawn mine, and will of course be supporting the Government. I thank the Minister for her commitment to the Bill and its original policy aim, and to freedom of speech. It would have been easy for her to capitulate to their lordships on this matter, and it is to her credit that she has not only identified the damage that the Lords amendments would have done to the success of the legislation, but has actively engaged with academics, Back Benchers and ministerial colleagues to ensure that the Government defend their legislation.
Retaining the full use of the tort is vital to the success of the Bill. After all, the Bill’s aim is not to enable people to sue universities—no one wants that to be the mainstream course of action—but to deter universities from reneging on their free speech duties in the first place. Essentially, we want the Bill to have a deterrent effect to help universities to stand up to those who wish to cancel certain viewpoints by providing for clear boundaries and swift consequences if they fail in their duty to free speech. Facing a long Office for Students complaints process is no deterrent against cancelling an event due to take place tomorrow, but the potential for court action is. Creating a liability risk for universities that neglect their free speech duties is the most effective way to ensure that free speech is always factored, substantively, into decision making.
I am not a free speech absolutist, and of course there should be speech that is illegal, such as racist speech and speech inciting violence. Everyone should take responsibility for what they say, and I believe that anonymous speech is a largely detrimental development in today’s culture. However, the freedom to voice opinions and present evidence, however controversial those opinions and that evidence may be, is a foundation of democracy. Authoritarian regimes, not democracies, censor speech, and when mainstream, evidence-based views, such as the belief in the importance of biological sex or the belief that immigration should be limited—for which my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) was cancelled last week—are being shut down in our universities, we have a problem that needs to be addressed. Our brightest future minds, the young people in our universities, deserve to have an education that helps them to become robust, inquisitive, and appropriately sceptical of new ideas. They will become robust only if they have the opportunity to hear a whole spectrum of opinions and ideas and to learn that being offended is not an injury but an opportunity to learn and mature. We do our young people no favours by pretending that they need protecting from ideas and facts.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), spoke about the mental health crisis that some of our students face. I agree that there is a crisis in mental health among our young people, but the American psychologist Jonathan Haidt links that crisis in mental health with cancel culture and the over-protection of children in schools and universities from viewpoints and ideas that might hurt their feelings. His book confirms my belief that being exposed early on to viewpoints that we might disagree with and want to argue against helps us to become robust and makes us less likely to be injured and have hurt feelings when we come across views that are different from our own.
Those are the kinds of people that we want to be the future leaders of society, and the culture that starts in the universities always makes its way into mainstream culture. That is the point of our higher education institutions, so the Government are absolutely right to protect their policy aim of ensuring free speech in universities. That will be to the benefit of everybody in this House across the political divide and of future generations. It does not just protect one particular viewpoint; it protect everybody’s viewpoint.
Claire Coutinho
I thank the House for today’s debate, which demonstrates the full benefit of open discussion and free speech. I will touch briefly on some of the points raised. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) said that he thought this was driven by the Common Sense Group’s views, but in fact it has been driven by the conversations we have had with academics who have been targeted for sharing their views on campus. They are the people at the forefront of our mind. In our last debate, I suggested that the hon. Gentleman might like to speak to some of them. I would be delighted to relate my conversations with them, but I think he should speak to them as well.
The hon. Gentleman talked about how we would assess costs, and he is right to say that that is a matter for the courts. That is well established. He also spoke about the cost to universities, but it is very simple: if universities would like not to have to spend money on redress, they should simply uphold freedom of speech. He mentioned Lord Willetts, and like everyone whom the Bill concerns, we have been talking to people right across the spectrum as we have moved through this process, and I am confident that people will see that we have come to a good place in our amendments. He also asked whether the money would be better spent on the staff and student experience, but I ask again: should not the staff and student experience of university be one in which they are exposed to different views and can speak freely and debate controversial ideas? Is that not fundamental? That is exactly what the Bill is trying to uphold.
The hon. Gentleman asked about examples of where we might want to use an injunction. An example of where we might want to see swift redress is if a student has been kicked off their course and they feel that their freedom of speech rights have been impinged on. We would want to deal with that quickly so that they can get back on their course and resume their learning swiftly. That been widely agreed on in our conversations as a reasonable example.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates). She is absolutely right about building young people’s resilience. Exposing them to different views is a key part of growing up, and it is something that we all use as we go into adult life.
We remain convinced that the right to go to court is crucial as a way of enforcing the new duties in the Bill and providing redress for those who have had their rights unlawfully restricted. I am thrilled that both Houses now accept that the tort should be part of the Bill. I believe that in accepting amendments 10B to 10D as agreed by the other place, together with the inclusion of the Government amendment we have discussed today, we will have reached the right position to ensure that freedom of speech and open debate remain central to university experience.
Question put and agreed to.
Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel: National Review Phase 2
Claire Coutinho Excerpts(1 year ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
The child safeguarding practice review panel today published phase 2 of its national review into safeguarding children with disabilities and complex health needs in residential settings. I want to thank the panel for their vital work on this review which has focused our attention on this particularly vulnerable group of children and brings to prominence their distinct needs. I am grateful, too, that the review highlights the importance of care provision being respectful and non-discriminatory. All children with disabilities and complex health needs deserve the best support, protection and care from all those who are charged with looking after them.
I was appalled to hear of the abuse and failings in three dual-registered children’s homes and residential special schools in Doncaster, owned by the Hesley Group. Due to the ongoing live criminal investigation, I am unable to comment on the specifics of the case, but my thoughts are with the children and their families who suffered abuse and neglect in settings where they should have been safe and cared for.
I, and the Department’s officials, take the welfare of these children incredibly seriously and we have taken swift action to improve children’s safety in response to phase 1 of the review. Most importantly we have now received assurance that all local authorities have reviewed the safety and welfare of all children placed in specialist residential provision. This is an area where we all need to remain vigilant given the inherent risks in the nature of residential provision which the report identified. In January, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education met with providers of residential special schools and children’s homes to consider the changes needed to ensure that disabled children with complex health needs are kept safe. We have also been working with stakeholders including the Local Authority Designated Officer Network, Ofsted, the Home Office and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services to review the role of the local authority designated officer, the officer responsible for managing allegations against adults who work with children.
Our comprehensive reform programmes to transform children’s social care and the experiences for children and young people with SEND lay the foundation for improving outcomes for this group of vulnerable children. As we consider the review’s phase 2 recommendations, we will continue to engage with providers to tackle the issues that the review highlights. We are working closely with the sector and with care experienced young people to review the current regulatory system governing the care of children who are looked after. In “Stable Homes, Built on Love” we committed to developing plans for a financial oversight regime of the largest providers of children’s homes and independent fostering agencies, and we are working with regulatory bodies to understand what more is needed to strengthen their inspection and regulatory powers to hold providers of children’s homes to account.
We agree with the panel that safe, sufficient and appropriate provision is needed for all children with disabilities and complex health needs. That is why, in the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, we have committed to introducing local SEND and alternative provision partnerships. These will bring together partners across education, health and care to set out the provision and services that should be commissioned, in line with the national SEND and alternative provision standards. We plan to publish non-statutory guidance outlining expectations for local partnerships and will seek to introduce primary legislation at the next available opportunity to put these partnerships on a statutory footing.
In addition to this, in “Stable Homes, Built on Love” we described our vision for regional care co-operatives to promote better collaboration between children’s social care and partners in the commissioning and delivery of homes for looked after children. We are investing in two pathfinders to co-design and test the model, and will work with the pathfinders to include measures to improve commissioning for children with disabilities and complex health needs, as recommended by the national panel.
We value the children’s social care workforce and we agree with the review findings that highlight the importance of a stable and skilled workforce in children’s homes and residential special schools. We have already committed in “Stable Homes, Built on Love” to develop a programme to support improvements in the quality of leadership and management in the children’s homes sector and will be exploring proposals for introducing professional registration of the residential childcare workforce. We recently launched a workforce census which included residential special schools and covers recruitment, retention, diversity and qualifications and training of the workforce. Most significantly, our reforms prioritise compassion at the heart of the care system to create stable, loving homes.
We need to ensure that children with disability and complex health needs are fulfilling their potential and have committed to track the experiences of children with a disability through the care system. We will establish pathfinders in up to 12 local areas, to start delivering our family help reforms. This will provide the right support at the right time so that children can grow up safely and thrive with their families. We will incorporate a strong focus on specific support for disabled children and their families in our pathfinder testing.
Listening to the voice of all children is important and is particularly significant for disabled children. This year we will consult on revisions to the national standards for advocacy and guidance for children and young people. These draft standards apply to children in receipt of social care services, residential settings (including residential special schools) and secure settings. The draft standards have been strengthened and will include a new standard on “non-instructed advocacy” for children and young people unable to instruct an advocate for themselves, to enable children and young people to communicate their views in ways that work for them. Additionally, we have set out in “Stable Homes, Built on Love”, our commitment to work with the sector to develop a model of opt-out advocacy for all children in care that will empower and listen to children and young people.
I am grateful for this review and the recommendations that it makes to improve the system for a cohort of children who are often overlooked. As we consider the review recommendations in more detail, we will work closely across Government and with partners to reflect on the requirements of children with disabilities and complex health needs, recognising the importance of non-discriminatory care for children and families. There is more that can be done to support and protect these children and we intend to focus our existing reform programme to ensure that they consistently receive the care and support that they need and deserve, enabling them to thrive and fulfil their potential.
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Oral Answers to Questions
Claire Coutinho Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
Our reforms will deliver transformational change in children’s social care. The strategy we set out, “Children’s social care: stable homes, built on love”, will put in £200 million of additional investment to lay the foundations for wider reform. Our approach balances the need to scale complex intervention safely and effectively with evidence at its heart and the need to address urgent issues immediately.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for that answer, but here is the reality: 34 children that we know of aged 16 and over in the state’s care have died in unregulated accommodation. The last time I asked the Secretary of State about this, she said that regulations would be introduced, yet those regulations shamefully legitimise unregulated accommodation, placing more of these children in tents and caravan sites, alone and without any care or supervision at all. What on earth is she playing at?
Claire Coutinho
We have taken steps forward on regulating accommodation. We are working closely with the sector. We are going further than we ever have before to make sure that we can have not only quality accommodation for some of our most vulnerable children, but quality of care too. I know that the hon. Lady cares deeply about this issue, and I would be delighted to meet her to discuss it further.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
In the past five years, we have spent more than £20 billion supporting families with the cost of childcare. Since 2010, we have introduced the offer for disadvantaged two-year-olds and doubled the entitlements for working parents of three to four-year-olds, and we are now going further and have announced 30 hours of free childcare for children of working parents from nine months.
Mary Kelly Foy
I recently visited the outstanding Laurels Childcare Company in Durham to listen to its concerns about childcare funding. Such providers are crying out for clarity on the Government’s plan. More free hours must not mean more underfunded hours. The Government admitted in 2020 that it costs £7.49 to deliver an hour of free childcare for a three-year-old, yet in September providers will be paid just £5.50 for those hours. Can the Minister tell me why?
Claire Coutinho
We conducted a survey of 10,000 different providers, and that is what we have used to set out the funding rates. In some of those areas, for example, for two-year-olds, the rate is going up by 30% because we know that is a much higher cost for providers, but overall we have announced the single biggest investment ever in childcare and will be spending £8 billion on this in four years’ time.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
The commitment in the Budget to invest in childcare in the early years was extremely welcome and I congratulate my hon. Friend on her part in securing it. Can she update the House on the feedback she is getting from the sector on the proposed funding rates and whether they will allow it to meet the inflationary pressures it is facing, including soaring business rates bills? Will she continue to address with the Treasury some of the unavoidable costs, such as the increase in the national living wage and the business rates increases, faced by the sector?
Claire Coutinho
As I said, we used feedback from the sector—we surveyed about 10,000 different providers—to come up with the rates, and as we progress we continue to talk and work closely with it. There has been a lot of positivity about the rates we set out, in particular for one and two-year-olds, and the £200 million we are putting in this year and the £288 million we will be putting in next year.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
One thing I am most concerned about in terms of educational attainment in early years and primary is food insecurity, which is rising in all our constituencies. Much of this is devolved, of course, but I do not want to see hungry kids anywhere and hungry kids cannot learn. The Institute for Fiscal Studies found that seven out of 10 children in families on universal credit are not entitled to free school meals. Do Ministers not agree that they should be?
Claire Coutinho
We have increased the number of children on free school meals to the highest ever level. We also have programmes such as the holiday activities and food programme—one of the things I visited over the recess—which is providing nutritious meals alongside activities. We are doing a lot to support parents with the cost of living, too.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend pay tribute to the work done by the private sector, and in particular to Busy Bees, which was founded in Lichfield 40 years ago this year and operates over 400 nurseries in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Europe and the United States of America, and wish it well for the next 40 years?
Claire Coutinho
My hon. Friend is testament to the fact that good things come out of Lichfield. I have met Busy Bees a couple of times. It does some really impressive things, in particular on retention of staff and training programmes. I wish it well in the years to come.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
We are removing one of the biggest barriers to parents working by vastly increasing the amount of free childcare that working families can access. By 2027-28, we expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs.
James Daly
As chair of the APPG on nursery schools, nursery and reception classes, may I welcome the extended entitlement introduced in the spring Budget, but will the supplementary funding to nursery schools be increased to cover the total entitlement, not just the 15 hours universal entitlement?
Claire Coutinho
The Government recognise that maintained nursery schools make a valuable contribution, improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children. We will provide further details on funding arrangements for the new entitlements for 2024-25 in due course.
Greg Smith
One of the multiple barriers to increasing early years provision is the availability of suitable and affordable premises in which to run pre-schools. For example, Chearsley and Haddenham under-fives pre-school in my constituency, known locally as CHUF, is on notice to vacate its current Haddenham site and has just over a year to find brand new premises. What can my hon. Friend’s Department do to support CHUF in its search for a new Haddenham site? What steps is she taking, in particular with colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, to ensure sites for childcare provision are fully included as an essential item to be funded through the new infrastructure levy?
Claire Coutinho
Under the new infrastructure levy, which is being introduced through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, local authorities will have the flexibility to direct funds towards their own infrastructural priorities. That definitely includes childcare facilities. The Department also has regular contact with each local authority in England about its sufficiency of childcare and any issues that it may be facing.
Claire Coutinho
There is a very simple reason: we subsidise Ofsted’s registration costs, so a registration costs it about £35, whereas registering a childminder can cost a childminding agency £500-plus. The discrepancy is simply to balance out the fact that they have different costs. I know that the No. 10 team is collaborating with the commissioner to establish the facts and show that everything has been transparently declared.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
I want every child and young person, regardless of their special educational need or disability, to receive the right support to enjoy their childhood, succeed in their education and feel well prepared for their next step. The SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, which was published last month, sets out the next steps that we are taking to deliver a more positive experience for children, young people and families.
Catherine West
Today’s Guardian front page and our own House magazine lay out the disabling effects of severe mental health crisis among our young people. What urgent action will the Minister take to ensure wider access to crucial child and adolescent mental health services so that talking therapies can be delivered on time and be effective, and so that children can retake their learning and get on with their studies?
Claire Coutinho
We are working closely with our counterparts in the Department of Health and Social Care, which is investing billions to ensure that 345,000 children can access CAMHS support. We are also rolling out mental health support in schools and are setting out best practice guides this year on a range of SEND issues. One of the first will be mental health and wellbeing, so that all teachers in all settings can ensure that they are doing the right thing.
Fleur Anderson
The Children and Families Act 2014 sets out national standards in legislation for children with special educational needs and disabilities, but those legislative safeguards have not succeeded in delivering appropriate support for children and young people. Special needs school staff in Putney are excellent, but they have highlighted to me that the lack of funding or link-up to social care services—and to mental health services, as the Minister has highlighted—is the major barrier to providing the care that is needed. Why does the Minister believe that having new standards in the plan, but no new legislative underpinning, will deliver better outcomes?
Claire Coutinho
One thing that we have tried to do in the reforms is get under the bonnet and find out why local authorities are struggling to deliver. That is why we are setting out a specialist workforce strategy and looking at initial teacher training: to ensure that we can catch things early and address them. I reassure the hon. Lady that we published the strategy in tandem with the Department of Health and Social Care, because we know that it is critical to achieving that.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
It was recently proposed that the caretaker’s bungalow at Bridgewater Primary School in Berkhamsted was to be used for adult social care purposes, against the wishes of the school and many parents, who wanted to use the space to provide wraparound care provision. Of course I recognise the need for adult residential care, but does the Minister agree that we should be jumping at such opportunities to provide on-site provision for SEND students?
Claire Coutinho
That particular decision will be one for the local council, but one thing I will say is that we are asking areas to set out local inclusion plans, not only so that they can assess all the need in their area, but so that we can assess whether they are meeting it.
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Ind)
While we all recognise the importance of increased maths, which has been much discussed today, it is vital for children’s life chances that literacy continues to improve. The only way to achieve that is by having better provision for children with special educational needs, including dyslexia, so will the Minister ensure that that continues to get the drive that it needs? Will she update the House on where she is up to with the improved teacher training that was committed to in the excellent paper earlier this year?
Claire Coutinho
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that literacy is one of the major priorities for the Department. We will be setting out best practice guides on early speech and language. In tandem with the phonics tests, they will be a really good way to screen children for dyslexia and make sure that with our initial teacher training improvements we are capturing and helping children who are struggling with things like dyslexia, as soon as possible.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
Early identification of SEND is vital, which is why we are training 5,000 early-years SENCOs and reforming initial teacher training and the early-career framework for teachers in later stages of education.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)