Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I think I had probably better get the names of the schools and check the details, but I believe that they will still be going ahead if they have already been approved. If my hon. Friend can give me the details, I will make sure I get an answer to her quickly.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee rightly drew attention to the National Audit Office report that highlighted the serious underfunding of the capital programme in the Department for Education, which is the real cause of these problems. That report also said:

“DfE currently lacks comprehensive information on the extent and severity of potential safety issues across the school estate”.

That is a damning indictment. The Secretary of State cannot stand up in this House today and say that our children are safe, because she does not know whether any more systemic failures of schools presenting safety problems are going to occur.

[Gillian Keegan]

We have done three building and conditions surveys, plus we have had the RAAC surveying and questionnaire programme, so we know a lot more than anybody has ever known, including everybody on the Opposition Benches.

Colleges and Skills: Covid-19

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. In order to ensure that we have enough time for the winding-up speeches and a response from the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), I will begin by giving hon. Members five minutes in which to speak, but I may have to drop that to four minutes at some point.

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[Gill Furniss]

I do love a fairy tale, but I will touch on that later on.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the impact that the previous 10 years have had on the sector’s finances. The brutal cuts to the further education sector have been felt most harshly by adult learners. In real terms, 35% of adult education funding has been cut since 2013. Over the same period, funding for those aged 16 to 19 has fallen by 7%. Those cuts have meant that fewer adults can learn core skills such as literacy and maths to be able to meet many jobs’ English and maths requirements.

The National Audit Office has said the FE sector’s financial health is fragile, warning that core funding has fallen significantly. The Government have had to intervene in half of colleges to prevent or address financial difficulty. There are too many examples where schools have received further funding while colleges have been ignored. I have spoken to staff at my local college and the morale among both teaching and support staff, who are now being asked to do more, is incredibly low. To add to that low morale and the sense of being ignored, when the Education Secretary announced a pay rise for schoolteachers, he made no such announcement for further education lecturers. The gap in pay between schoolteachers and FE lecturers now stands at just over £9,000 a year.

That background meant many of us were already deeply concerned about FE funding. Then the coronavirus pandemic highlighted more clearly than ever before the truly devastating consequence of widespread cuts. After a decade of cuts, I want to be able to welcome wholeheartedly the Prime Minister’s announcement of the lifetime skills guarantee. However, I fear that it is too little, too late and too slow.

We are facing an unprecedented crisis. Levels of unemployment have risen sharply while earnings have fallen across many sectors as a result of the economic impact of covid-19. In my constituency of Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits has almost doubled since March, accounting for 9.5% of the working-age population. Colleges cannot wait for the funding to trickle through over the course of this Parliament; action must be taken to address the challenges they face now.

In our recovery, we have the opportunity to bridge the skills gap in a way we never have before. However, I feel that the Government are not being that ambitious. The introduction of the job support scheme at the start of next month will see many workers on reduced hours. I believe that the Government should integrate training into the scheme and allow workers to improve their skills. I am also concerned that the lifetime skills guarantee appears to offer little to those who have a level 3 qualification or above. People with qualifications of all levels have felt the impact of covid-19 and, sadly, many with a level 3 qualification or above will lose their jobs. Therefore, people with qualifications of all levels who will face unemployment should be able to access college courses and reskill should they need and want to do so.

The crisis in social care is an example of where cuts to colleges have had a wider impact. Since 2010, qualifications for health and social care have fallen by 68%. Year after year, we have been promised reform in social care. Instead, we have seen a consistent failure to boost the number of workers in social care or implement any long-term plan. There can be no doubt that after the events of this year the need for an effective social care system is paramount. Colleges can and should play a leading role in training future health and social care workers, and they should receive full Government support to bring the level of qualifications back to their previous levels, at the very least.

With the further education White Paper and spending review on the horizon, I urge the Minister to take the points raised in this debate and the strength of feeling in which they are made back to the Chancellor to urge him to fund our further education sector properly. I wait apprehensively for any announcement and hope that the finances needed to upskill our workforce will be provided. In the meantime, Labour will continue the fight for more funding for further education, and I will continue to proudly back the Love Our Colleges campaign.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

We will have to reduce the time limit to four minutes. I may have to take it down further, now that other Members have arrived. I call Robert Halfon, Chair of the Education Committee.

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[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, as always, Mr Betts. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for securing the opportunity to highlight important issues in respect of colleges.

I am not going to repeat what others have said. My constituents are very fortunate in that they are served, following the area review, by the merged institution created from Harrow College and Uxbridge College— two of the highest-performing colleges in London. Having been engaged with those colleges for many years, I would like to highlight one strength of the sector that is especially relevant to all of us and the different local economic circumstances that our constituents face: the amazing flexibility that colleges have shown in tailoring their offer to the opportunities that exist in the area for young people.

I am fortunate to represent a constituency that is part of a wider west London economic community in which we have a particularly vibrant tech hub. The video assistant referee systems that support high-level football are located at Stockley Park—I see wry smiles from the football fans in the room—as are a number of the companies that programme some of the world’s most popular computer games. There is a nexus of opportunity for young people—not necessarily those who will be pushed by their schools into the traditional A-level academic route—to gain access to well-paid, prestigious jobs in a desirable working environment close to their home area.

I am impressed by the efforts the local college has made to link up young people who are studying and pursuing those topics with those businesses and to ensure that they are able to access those opportunities and find their way into those very good, highly-paid jobs in an internationally competitive environment. That can lead to people doing amazing things with their lives, from what to many people, when they first look at the prospect of college, perhaps seems a less promising beginning than going down a route that ultimately leads to university. The more we can publicise those opportunities in Colleges Week, the better, because the more our constituents—particularly the mums and dads—understand that that route of opportunity is open to young people, the better it will be.

I will finish by touching on finance. Quite a few Members have made the point that, compared with the schools sector, colleges often feel a bit like a Cinderella service. When we simply look at the money, that is a fact, but we also know that we can sometimes do great things on a relatively modest budget. I think colleges deserve praise for that. I do not simply say that the that the answer is to make sure that more money and resources go to vocational education, although that would be welcome; we should recognise that these are institutions that demonstrate that they can create fantastic opportunities for young people that are not driven simply by the Government spending more and more money.

The more that we can extend that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) alluded to, to a wider age group in this country, the better. I agree we need to look at young people, such as those who might have considered the technology college route in the past, but what about those slightly older people, who may be looking to get their lives back on track with further education later on? This could be exactly the opportunity they require.

I hope that those points provide a summary, but I also place on the record my thanks to the Harrow College and Uxbridge College principals, who have done such a fantastic job for my constituents over the years.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

We have only two minutes before the wind-ups. I dropped the hon. Member for Warrington South down the list for the simple reason that he arrived well after the start of the debate.

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[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for securing the debate. He is a powerful advocate for our colleges as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for further education and lifelong learning. It is clear that all contributors recognise the crucial role our colleges play. Many took the opportunity to specifically thank and acknowledge the work of their local colleges, and I have no doubt that all those contributions about the role of our colleges were genuinely felt.

As I know from my regular visits to Chesterfield College, our colleges are the providers of second chances. They are the home of about 30% of all apprenticeship learning and the focal point for our skills strategy. For so many, they are the road between school failure and academic and career success, and they have changed the life chances of people in my family. They are fundamental to our country having the skills it needs to cope with the twin threats to our economy of covid-19 and Brexit.

We have heard during this debate a familiar refrain: that our colleges have been ignored too long by successive Governments, and that they must finally be taken seriously. However, I somewhat take issue with that lazy characterisation, and with the suggestion that recent announcements by this Government constitute some kind of golden age of FE. In welcoming the campaigning zeal of the hon. Member for Waveney I also want to ensure that the record of this Government is properly put under the spotlight, because it is not a case of “it was ever thus”.

As was revealed by my recent written question, £2.61 billion was invested in further education capital expenditure in the final five years of the previous Labour Government. In the following five years, the Government reduced that spending in actual terms by a shocking 64%. In all, colleges have endured a decade of cuts amounting to a third of their budget, while attempting to continue to be at the forefront of equipping young people and adults in every area of the country with the skills they need to succeed. What is more, we have seen adult education funding slashed by 50% in real terms and appalling failure on careers guidance, and the Government announcement just this week that they were scrapping their “Get Help to Retrain” initiative—the centrepiece of the national retraining scheme—less than three years after it was announced should give us all pause for thought.

As we enter this period in which we are asked to believe that the Government have finally accepted the need for a skills-based economy, we do so in the shadow of the vindictive and destructive announcement that they are scrapping funding for the Unionlearn programme that their own assessment was so complimentary about. That is perhaps more revealing than 1,000 press releases. At the same time, we know that, just a few months ago, the Government sent £300 million of apprenticeship levy funds back to the Treasury. There is far more generous funding for the commitment-free kickstart programme than for apprenticeships, and the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) was absolutely right to say that SMEs are shut out of our apprenticeships far too often. The Association of Colleges has stated that colleges face a shortfall of £2 billion this academic year.

There is so much more to say about our further education sector, but unfortunately there is not the time in which to do it, so I will close with this: we need a Government that recognise that colleges are a fundamental part of our skills and economic ecosystem and that do not pit them against universities or even see them as opponents of the independent provider sector, but that see them working collaboratively across the piece. We need a Government that introduce policy based on evidence and then give policies a chance to work. We need a Government that are honest about the fact that the scale of funding cuts means that the current investment is a tiny step back up the mountain.

We need a properly resourced Department for Education that sees FE colleges working collaboratively with employers, universities, trade unions and Government schemes, and we need a Government that recognise that not all people can get careers advice from their father’s friends at the golf club. We need a skills system that works around real people’s lives and supports them to retrain without their families going hungry while they are doing so. Colleges are capable of playing the role we need them to, but not unless the Government show the humility and resolve to recognise where those colleges are starting from and what is required to help them back to the place they should be in: at the heart of a skills system relied on by employers, valued by learners and every bit as good as the very best in the world.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Minister, you have 10 minutes, in order to give the mover a brief opportunity to wind up.

IHRA Definition of Antisemitism: Universities

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clive Betts in the Chair]

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind hon. Members as they take their seats that, with the new rules, they should make sure to wipe their microphones and everything else. That is part of the arrangements that we have all agreed to. I have just done mine. Welcome to the debate. Four Members have indicated that they would like to make speeches—please keep speeches very short as the Minister needs to have time to reply. I call Christian Wakeford to move the motion.

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[Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) for securing today’s debate. It is important that we keep pressing universities to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and I am proud that our Government have been helping the Union of Jewish Students and others such as the Jewish Leadership Council, the Antisemitism Policy Trust, the Community Security Trust, and local champions such as Ruth Jacobs in the west midlands who work really hard to get councils and universities to adopt the definition.

However, I am deeply saddened when the argument is made that in order to protect freedom of speech, the IHRA definition cannot be accepted. What world are we living in where we are more concerned about protecting our right to be racist than the right of minorities to live without fear or intimidation on our university campuses? Too often that argument is made by those concerned about the consequences of their own language. I ask those people to learn, engage, and understand why it is so important to adopt this definition, so that institutions can have the tools genuinely and fairly to distinguish between what constitutes antisemitism and what does not. Adopting the definition harms no decent person, but allows communities to trust that these institutions are doing what is right.

I want to use this opportunity to briefly highlight what more universities can do to tackle this age-old hate crime, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South has acknowledged. So many universities are going above and beyond, and I am proud that the Government have provided another three years’ funding for the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Union of Jewish Students to continue their joint venture, educating students about the Holocaust and the consequences of antisemitism. So far, 30 senior leaders and 95 sabbatical officers from 47 English universities have attended the project. As a result, at least 24 universities marked Holocaust Memorial Day in 2019, reaching over 6,000 people. As well as holding commemorative events, participants in the project invited survivors to speak and share their testimony on campus, brought forward motions to combat antisemitism at their student union, and hosted events with speakers highlighting the dangers of antisemitism and hatred.

Thanks to support from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Union of Jewish Students will be expanding the “Lessons from Auschwitz” universities project for student unions and campus leaders. That will bring together almost 450 student leaders from across English universities through education on the Holocaust, anti-racism work, British values and faith values. I pay tribute to all that HET and UJS do to tackle antisemitism wherever it may appear.

Adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism is just the start. It is the beginning of universities’ efforts to prevent this age-old hate crime from having a safe space on our university campuses. Universities should be places where all should thrive, and no one should fear not belonging because of who they are or where they are from.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. I think we are just about to have a vote, so rather than interrupt the Minister as she is responding, it is probably best if we suspend the sitting for 15 minutes. I will certainly not resume the sitting until the Minister and the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) get back, and then hopefully we can get down in the queue and move forward.

Education Settings: Wider Opening

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. We want to give schools the maximum flexibility to get as many children as possible through the doors before the summer holidays so that we can maximise their learning opportunities as a result.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

At the end of May, the respected director of public health in Sheffield, Greg Fell, wrote to all Sheffield schools strongly advising against opening because, among other issues, he had concerns about the availability of personal protective equipment and was not convinced about the effectiveness of the test, track and trace system then in place. Does the Secretary of State agree that schools, as on this occasion, should follow the advice of their local based directors of public health and not seek to second guess that advice and think they know better about public health issues?

[Gavin Williamson]

We encourage all schools to return and open their doors to pupils. As I think we all recognise, children gain vast benefits—both physically and mentally, as well as in their learning—from being able to return. We very much encourage Sheffield City Council to engage with us to ensure that it is supporting schools to open their doors and get children learning once again.

Education and Local Government

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I thought the hon. Lady was going to raise some exciting prospects. One of the key areas where we can get so much benefit is schools working together right across the country, whether through multi-academy trusts or local education authorities, and I thought the hon. Lady was going to suggest that we have more collaboration between England and Scotland, which we would very much want. The hon. Lady has already heard of our commitment to raise the starting salaries for teachers and to negotiate in terms of teachers’ salaries, and to make sure we listen to what the pay review board comes forward with. But I would like English schools and Scottish schools and those in Wales and Northern Ireland to have much more collaboration—whether in the university sector, the FE sector or the school sector, we can all benefit from that. We have seen great attainments, as were celebrated in the PISA results, where we saw English schools making very good progress. It would be good to have the opportunity to work closely with our Scottish colleagues on how we can share best practice from both Scotland and England.

Our future economic prosperity will depend on having a workforce that has the skills that businesses need now and into the future. We will invest an additional £3 billion over the course of this Parliament to support the creation of a national skills fund, which will build on existing reforms, including ongoing work to develop a national retraining scheme. This is on top of additional capital investment of £1.8 billion into the further education estate, investing in the skills and education required for our nation’s future.

Talented international students and researchers are queuing up to study in the United Kingdom, and they enrich our universities culturally and economically, bringing fresh ideas and new perspectives. That is why the Government aim to host 600,000 international students by 2030. Our new student visa will help us attract the brightest and best and allow those students to stay on to apply for work here after they graduate.

As we prepare to forge a new place on the international stage we want our young people to have the opportunity to study abroad through exchange programmes. The United Kingdom is open to participation in the next Erasmus+ programme, and this will be a question for future negotiations with the European Union. We do truly understand the value that such exchange programmes bring all students right across the United Kingdom, but to ensure that we are able to continue to offer that we will also develop our own alternative arrangements should they be needed.

I have been focusing until now on the ways that we are going to enrich the educational experience for all our pupils and students, but in just the same way as our postcode should not be a lottery that decides the kind of schooling our children receive, it should not determine whether we feel safe when we close our front door. For that reason, we are bringing forward legislation to further the recommendations from Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review on building safety, and we will give residents a stronger voice, ensuring that their concerns are never ignored.

We also committed to taking forward the recommendations of the first phase of the Grenfell Tower inquiry report to ensure that the tragedy of Grenfell Tower never happens again. We are working to deliver a rental system that protects tenants and supports landlords to provide the homes the nation needs. We will abolish no-fault evictions, helping tenants to stay in their homes while ensuring landlords are given the protections they also need. We are determined to improve standards in rented accommodation and to professionalise the sector. There is no place in this country for squalid or unsafe rented properties. We will make sure that all tenants have a right of redress if theirs is not of an acceptable standard.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

This may be a question more appropriately directed at the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who is sat next to the right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench, but he mentions Grenfell and dealing with fire safety issues. The problem is that, at present, there is a difference according to where you live. I know the Government are doing a review, but if leaseholders have a form of cladding that is not of limited combustibility but is not ACM cladding, basically there is no help for them. Many are living in flats that are now unsaleable. The Government really have to address that issue. I look forward to a commitment that that will be done, if not from him then from his colleague next to him.

[Gavin Williamson]

As the hon. Gentleman said, that is currently being reviewed by an expert panel. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government will go into more detail when he responds to the debate at close of business today.

We, as a Conservative party, understand the importance of owning your own home. As a Government committed to a fairer society, it is crucial that we address the divide between those who can afford their own home and those who cannot. Our first home scheme will provide local people with a discount on the costs of a new home, which will save them tens of thousands of pounds. Our shared ownership reforms will provide a further route to home ownership. We will deliver at least 1 million more homes over the next five years to help more people on to the housing ladder. We will also put an end to the abuse of leaseholds by banning new leasehold houses and restricting future ground rents to a peppercorn.

No less important than people’s homes are the communities they live in. We are committed to keeping our town centres vibrant. We are changing the business rate system to give small retailers a bigger discount on their rates, as well as extending the discount to cinemas and music venues, and, importantly, introducing additional discounts to pubs. We will conduct a fundamental review of business rates and we will increase the frequency of business rates revaluations.

It is the Government’s intention to unleash the potential of every corner of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by bridging the productivity gap, levelling up opportunity and prosperity across the nation, and starting a skills and infrastructure revolution. We will create more Mayors across England to devolve power away from Westminster, and we will bring forward a framework for devolution and a White Paper.

I do not want to delay any further in getting straight on with the work of this challenging and ambitious agenda; an agenda that is driven by fairness and that will make a difference to more people, enabling them to look forward to a future with optimism and confidence. In Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech, we see the beginnings of a better Britain for everyone. I commend the Gracious Speech to the House.

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[Mr Davis]

I will come directly to the hon. Gentleman’s question later in my speech. He is exactly right in one respect: that is a contributory factor for productivity. But he should not look just at the past 10 years if he wants to comment about our infrastructure. The most used phrase by George Osborne when he was Chancellor was to say, while pointing at Gordon Brown, that he never mended the roof when the sun was shining. That is exactly what happened through those Labour years: profligate spending—poor spending, inadequate spending —that nevertheless did not provide the services that we needed.

Now, what has been the effect of that change in productivity? What is the size of the impact? Had productivity continued at the level it had been for the previous 60 years, had we not had the financial collapse, which happened largely under the watch of the Labour Government and the earlier Clinton Administration in the US, then wages, income and the economy would have been about 22% bigger than they are today. The tax take would have been higher, the deficit would have been easier to pay off, austerity would have been more manageable and shorter. All those things stemmed not just from the crash, but from the damage to our ability to recover from the crash as productivity was allowed to collapse. This dramatic and apparently permanent reduction in productivity has had spectacular consequences across the whole of society and the entire economy, and that is what we have to solve.

The productivity problem is a universal problem. No productivity means no progress. How do we deal with that? The answers include education, skills, training, research and investment, and of course, as the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) rightly said, infrastructure. If we are to reset our economy and our society, we must be unflinching in our analysis and in the critique of our own past as well as those of the other parties.

[Mr Betts]

The right hon. Gentleman denigrates the efforts, policies and achievements of the previous Labour Government on productivity. Will he therefore explain why productivity went up by over 2% under that Labour Government on a consistent basis? Since 2010, however, productivity has hardly risen at all.

[Mr Davis]

Productivity had been at that level for 60 years. It is not difficult to keep things the same as they were before; the really hard thing is to smash productivity down from 2.3% to 0.5%, which is what the hon. Gentleman’s Government did.

If we are to reset the economy, let us look at what we got wrong, as well as at what Labour got wrong. Take research. The past 30 years, under Governments of all persuasions, have seen the UK decline from one the most research-intensive economies to one of the least. In the past decade, China has overtaken us, and South Korea now spends three times as much as we do. The Queen’s Speech committed to establishing the UK as a world leader in science with greater investment—so far so good. In my view, we need to do even more than that in quantitative terms. In the short term, we need to double the amount of research spend not just by the Government, but by the private sector. In the longer run, we need to treble that joint expenditure, and I stress that it should be joint expenditure. We should also address the things that we have not been so good at. It is easy to put money into genetics, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars or IT—the things we are historically world leaders in—but we should also try to ensure that that money goes where it will make a big difference by improving the things that we have not been so good at.

Historically, we have not been so good at what is called translational research. That means taking a good idea from the laboratory and making a great product, which leads to a great company, which leads to more and more jobs, more wealth creation, more tax and the rest of it. We would do well to build on some of the great institutions that we currently have. The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, which is essentially an aviation-based operation, is doing fantastic, world-class, world-beating work. We should do similar things with the Warwick Manufacturing Group. There is a great deal of work to do to encourage those operations and build on them. Maybe we should even look to build a Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the north, because that is the sort of thing that we should be considering if we are to fix our economy.

I have some sympathy with one area of Opposition Members’ comments, which is the university underpinning of the research and the response to the Augar report. I know Philip Augar very well, and I spoke to him about his review before the report. If anything, it pulled its punches. The truth is that the university tuition fees and loans scheme invented and implemented by the Blair Government and carried on by us has failed. It has done a bad job. It has delivered poor-quality education, high levels of expectations and low levels of outcome. It has landed young people—some are now middle-aged—with liabilities for almost their entire lives, putting a cap on their aspirations. It has not delivered what it was intended to deliver, which was people paying for their component, not the public advantage component. It does not work that way. It has encouraged all sorts of perverse consequences and behaviours in our universities, so we must deal with it. I would argue to the Secretary of State for Education—I know that this is wider and much bigger than just the Department for Education—that he and his colleagues should be radical and brave.

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[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is good to see you in your rightful place again, in the Chair.

I make no apology for saying that I want to be a champion for local government in this Parliament. Over the past 10 years, local government has had bigger cuts than any other part of the public sector. When we come to the comprehensive spending review, it cannot simply be about rearranging the amount of money as part of some fair funding settlement; it must actually put more money into local councils so that they can deliver the services that our communities want and need.

With a time limit rule, I had thought that I would not be able to stand again as Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, but I understand the Government might be thinking about removing the time limit. If so, and if the House supports it, I will probably allow my name to be put forward again.

There are things in the Queen’s Speech with which I do not necessarily agree. If the Labour party were in government, I am sure we would have done things differently, but my approach to life as a Select Committee Chair was to try to find areas where we can reach agreement and encourage, prod and enthuse the Government into going further than they might want to. I will briefly mention three areas.

First, on devolution, I welcome the Government’s commitment to levelling up the powers of the Mayors of the combined authorities. I hope the Government might do more and give them all more powers, particularly on skills, training and transport. Those Departments probably have not been as enthusiastic about devolution as others have been.

I would also like the Government to address two other matters in the White Paper. Mayoral combined authorities probably should be rolled out in other areas, but devolution, if it is to work properly in this country, has to be devolution to all councils in all places, not just to those in combined authorities. I hope the Government will seriously consider that. They were going to do it with their 100% business rate retention policy, but it was dropped when we went to 75% retention.

The other key issue is: how can we allow local authorities to raise more of their own funds, rather than simply having more power to spend the money that is handed out to them? We have the most centralised system of local government funding anywhere in Europe, and that needs to change.

Secondly, the Government are offering an all-party approach to social care, which I welcome. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee produced a unanimous report in the last Parliament, with 22 MPs from both sides of the House recommending a social care premium and a percentage of inheritance tax as a way of funding social care. The report has been lying around for 18 months. We have a blueprint to get on with it. Germany did it 30 years ago in a cross-party, consensual way, and it has worked there, with the public generally supporting it. I hope there will be a genuine attempt by both Front Benches to reach cross-party agreement. It is on both sides to take this forward in a consensual way.

Finally, I generally welcome the promises on housing, but obviously there are big challenges. The first is the abolition of section 21 evictions. We know that evictions from private sector housing are a major cause of home- lessness in this country. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s inquiry into homelessness identified that as a problem.

Equally, if we are to abolish section 21 evictions, we need to think about how we deal with rent increases without having an overbearing rent control regime. That is a big challenge, and it might be something the Select Committee will want to consider. We recognise the good intention, but we want to know how it will be delivered in practice.

At the same time, we want to see legislation on housing courts so that there is an easier way for landlords to evict tenants who simply do not pay their rent. Landlords normally wait for the section 21 time to elapse before doing it, but if section 21 is not available, landlords need to have those powers. It is recognised in the Queen’s Speech, but we need a timetable for that to come into effect.

Another issue is how we deal with the problems of leases. Reference was made to a draft Bill at Question Time yesterday, and I think that is probably the right way forward. I know it will take a bit longer, but there are some real challenges, not about how we stop leases on new houses and deal with the unfairness of leases on new flats, but about how we tackle the problems of existing leases, including the unfairness in how some of them have been sold, the unfair service charges and the difficulties people have in buying their freehold. The Select Committee’s report recommended action on all those challenges. It is much more difficult to deal with existing leases, and a draft Bill is therefore probably the right way forward to try to make sure that we get all the nuances and the details correct. Hopefully we can also do that on a cross-party basis.

Finally, on the issue of cladding, there is a building safety Bill in the Queen’s Speech to implement the recommendations of the Grenfell inquiry and the Hackitt report, on which the Select Committee has had various hearings. There is still a challenge. The Government have put money in to deal with ACM—aluminium composite material—cladding, but there are still too many properties where, because of disputes between freeholders and leaseholders, the cladding has not been removed. The Government need to put their weight behind getting that work carried out.

The second issue to address is what to do about other forms of cladding, such as zinc cladding and high-pressure laminate cladding, which many experts believe are as dangerous as ACM cladding. Although they will not be allowed on new buildings, they are still on existing buildings. Where leaseholders have this on their homes, they often find that they cannot sell those homes and are stuck in them. That is a real problem and the Government need to undertake a more comprehensive review of that issue.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is making the point about the cladding in buildings, because this issue affects some properties in my constituency too. We have different building standards in Scotland, but the UK Government’s advice note 14 is still having an impact on people’s ability to get mortgages on their properties. Does he agree that urgent action needs to be taken by the Minister on this?

[Mr Betts]

Yes, I do. People cannot sell their properties and they cannot get mortgages on them, and this whole area presents a real challenge. It is no use Ministers saying, “We don’t think this is quite as dangerous”, because the fact is that that cladding on a building means that people will not buy, and people cannot get a mortgage and are stuck. The Minister needs to act at some point on that. The freeholders have not got the money to pay for this and neither have the leaseholders, and people are stuck in unsaleable properties, which is a real difficulty for them.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman does stand again to be Chair, because it has been a pleasure to serve on the Select Committee under his tutelage over the past four and a half years. He mentions not only the problems of local authority financing and their finances, but the social care premium. Does he see those two things as being correlated? The biggest issue for local authorities is the funding of social care, and if a different solution is provided for that, the financial pressure on many local authorities is relieved.

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that, although perhaps I should call him my hon. Friend for this purpose, given how we have worked together on the Select Committee. The problem with the great and rising demand for social care is that it means that there is proportionately less money to be spent on important things such as the environment, road repairs and refuse collection, the things that everybody receives from their local council. Many people then start to say, “Why am I paying my council tax? I am getting less and less for paying more and more.” That issue can be addressed by a social care premium as well.

Finally, on the cladding issue, it came to my attention over Christmas—I did a bit for the “You & Yours” programme—that the National House Building Council is refusing to pay out on a warranty for properties where the cladding put on was not the right type but it had been improperly passed by the building inspector. The NHBC said that it was not its building inspector and the warranty applied only in cases where its building inspector had done the work. That is a major loophole in people’s circumstances. When people have bought a house and got a warranty, they think that that warranty is going to cover them for defective materials. However, if that defective material was passed off by a building inspector that was not the NHBC’s inspector, as in this case, they are not covered. I hope the Secretary of State will look at that issue too. I recognise the time limit, Mr Deputy Speaker, but these are major issues that arise from the Queen’s Speech. I hope that there will be some cross-party working, perhaps through the Select Committee, that will help us move forward.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I will consider that a Budget bid and pass it on to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. We will certainly blend it with things such as shared ownership and reform that model to take out some abuses that we have seen in recent years.

In addition to the building safety Bill, we will bring forward another Bill on fire safety sooner than that to ensure that we act urgently on the recommendations of the judge in the Grenfell inquiry. Again, I hope that those Bills can command cross-party support. We will answer some of the questions raised by numerous Members on the position of leaseholders not only through publishing a draft Bill shortly to outlaw leasehold for new homes and to reduce ground rents to a peppercorn, but by listening to the recommendations of the Law Commission and the Competition and Markets Authority to ensure that leasehold works for everyone and is a fair and sustainable system into the future.

[Mr Betts]

Will that include proposals to help existing leaseholders as well as future leaseholders?

[Robert Jenrick]

The draft Bill we intend to publish shortly will be about the future. A second piece of legislation will follow, following the reports from the Law Commission and the CMA, which is the right way to approach the task.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, among others, in different ways spoke of levelling up. It is a challenge that we have confronted as a country since the second world war and which Conservative Prime Ministers since Harold Macmillan have taken forward. It is a difficult challenge that will involve closing the productivity gaps and raising living standards sustainably across the country, with more transport investment, education and skills and full-fibre broadband. It will also mean ensuring that the benefits of Brexit are felt across the country, such as through new free ports—the proposal from my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich is duly noted—and the £3.6 billion towns fund, which is working in over 100 communities, including the constituency of the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn). As I said, it will not be easy, but levelling up all parts of the country and making sure that prosperity and opportunity are shared by everybody is one of the Government’s central missions.

We will also publish a devolution White Paper showing how we can spread the devolution revolution we saw under the last Conservative Government across more parts of the country: more Mayors, more combined authorities and more opportunities for local authorities that wish to reform to do so—I note the proposal from my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson)— and by doing so to earn further autonomy and control over public funds. We know that Mayors can work. In that regard, we heard from the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth). Incidentally, we are indeed taking forward the western powerhouse, only we call it the western gateway, as it will combine parts of Wales and the west country. It has now been launched and I hope she will get behind it. There will then be routes to devolution for great metropolitan areas and for non-metropolitan areas, and we will publish those proposals shortly.

As the shadow Secretary of State said, we must ensure that local government, which provides so many important services in all our lives, is properly resourced, and that is why we are bringing forward the best settlement for local government in a decade. This includes a 4.4% real-terms funding increase, a £1 billion grant for social care and measures to place the sector on a sustainable financial footing ahead of the three-year settlement, which will come forward in the spending review and which I hope will answer some of the critical questions we have heard today, including on the future of social care. I take the shadow Secretary of State up on his offer to work on that on a cross-party basis.

In conclusion, one could not have listened to the fantastic maiden speeches today and failed to be optimistic about the future. The gridlock is broken and the country is no longer going round in circles. We have a functioning majority Government, Brexit is being delivered, and now the task for this Government is to repay the trust the public have placed in us and get on and deliver on the people’s priorities. That is exactly what we will do and what is in the Queen’s Speech. In education, in housing, in levelling up, in funding local government properly and in ensuring that public services are reformed and delivered, we will take forward the people’s priorities and get on and deliver for the people of this country.

Relationship Education in Schools

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am so impressed.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

You were meant to be.

[Thelma Walker]

Top of the class there, Mr Speaker.

A few weeks ago, along with members of the National Association of Headteachers and my former colleagues, I signed the following pledge:

“I support education in all schools which promotes equality, enabling children to leave school prepared or life in modern Britain, understanding difference and respecting diversity.”

Does the Minister agree with the wording of the pledge, and does he agree that every parent and, indeed, every member of society should support it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

The issue in that particular school is not to do with the relationship and sex education guidance—that comes into force in September 2020—and we are making very clear in the supplementary guidance the processes that are needed in terms of consultation. Consultation with parents is hugely important, not so that parents have a veto over the curriculum—they will not have a veto over the curriculum—but because it helps to dispel myths, and it helps to deal with the very misinformation that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) has raised this urgent question to discuss. That consultation is hugely important, and I believe that as and when schools do consult up and down the country, this new policy will attract widespread support from parents.

[Mr Clive Betts]

I appreciate what the Minister has done on this issue in many respects, but does he not understand that while prescription will not necessarily stop the protests, it will make it clear to the protestors that it is no use bullying the schools and the heads into trying to change the policy because the requirement lies elsewhere? He says that the parents do not have a veto on this, but if a school sits down and consults with parents, and those parents who want to stop same-sex education being taught know that the head has the ultimate decision, then there is enormous pressure on that head, and parents will believe that they have a veto regardless of whether they do or do not?

[Nick Gibb]

I can make it clear from this Dispatch Box that parents do not have a veto over the content of the curriculum. That has been absolutely clear: it is clear from the guidance; it is clear from what I have said; it is clear from what the Secretary of State has said. In addition to that, we strongly encourage schools to start teaching about LGBT issues in primary school.

School Funding

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Main]

I do not have experience of that, but I recognise the picture the hon. Gentleman paints. It is vital that we address those concerns about funding.

The UK tax burden is at a 50-year high, so the Minister will be pleased to hear that I do not propose additional tax rises. We are at the limit of how much tax we can reasonably ask ordinary people to pay. Working families have felt the squeeze since 2010 as the Government have tried to tackle the enormous financial burden we found ourselves with. It is good that we have made progress. Far be it from me to tell the Chancellor how to do his job, but the Budget is looming, so I am going to put my thoughts on the record. I am certain that the Government can find the money if we prioritise our spending appropriately.

We had a manifesto commitment—the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale will probably profoundly disagree with me about this—to scrap universal free school meals for reception, year 1 and year 2 pupils, but it was dropped. That was misguided. I and some of the teachers who were at the meeting I mentioned think we should have investigated that further. Thankfully, in St Albans only around 6% of pupils are entitled to free school meals. In Hertfordshire overall that figure is about 8%. Perversely, that means we subsidise between 90% and 94% of parents in Hertfordshire who could pay for their own children to be fed. Just as I do not want budgets that should be used for pupils at the poorest margin to be taken away, I do not want wealthier parents to be cross-subsidised when they do not need it. Such largesse is costing my local authority £6 million, and it is money that should be spent on teaching. I would rather St Albans pupils received a universal quality of teaching than that those with more affluent parents should receive a gratuitous free lunch they are not entitled to.

I am a great supporter of the good aid projects that have been carried out around the world, but, again, it seems crazy to me that we ring-fence huge sums of money for foreign aid when vital public services such as the education budget lack funding. The aid budget should be under the same scrutiny and pressures as other Departments’ budgets. We are effectively shovelling money out the door to meet an arbitrary target set in law. That misplaced policy should be brought before the House so we can decide whether to look at that ring-fencing.

I hope that the Minister will listen carefully to the issues raised in the debate, including some of the experiences recounted by teachers and parents. There is a funding problem in schools and it does not seem right that more and more schools have to go cap in hand to parents for even the most basic of provisions, such as textbooks. Alan Gray started the public meeting I attended by asking “What price education?” He did not ask the price for pruning trees, painting the classrooms or replacing some broken paving slabs, but the price of education. Of course it is entirely reasonable for parents to be asked for contributions for bonus offerings such as trips, but when they are asked to contribute for vital reading materials, the central funding formula needs to be addressed.

Teachers in my constituency do not tell me that the NFF is bad policy; they want it to be funded correctly. The aim of ending the so-called postcode lottery for school funding under the NFF is sensible, but the lack of overall funding means that it is difficult to deliver. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, and I hope to see some movement on the issue in the Budget. We must answer the call: what price do we put on our children’s education?

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Six hon. Members want to speak in the debate, and we have to start the winding-up speeches at 20 minutes to 11. That gives us about 50 minutes, so Members have about eight minutes each, maximum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this debate, which is vital for most children in our country.

Every child deserves an equal opportunity to get on in life, with the same access to high-quality education as their peers, wherever they are in the country. I am proud that Chichester exceeds the national average for attainment at key stage 4 and A-level, as a result of the hard work and dedication of teachers from early years through to secondary schooling.

Spending on our children’s education has never been higher and the new national funding formula is a welcome step toward rebalancing some of the disparities in the old system, where there were over 100 different models across the country. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, however, West Sussex historically suffers from being one of the lowest funded authorities. It is currently the sixth lowest recipient of secondary school funding in the country, and eighth lowest for primary school funding.

I am pleased that under the new funding formula, Chichester schools are to receive an additional £1.2 million in baseline funding for 2018-19—a welcome step toward ensuring that our schools are given the resources they need to help and support every pupil. However, speaking to teachers across my constituency, there is concern that the positive impact of the increased funding will not be felt in the classroom, simply because operating costs in the form of salaries, pensions and apprenticeship levies, to name but a few elements, have increased. All the additional moneys are being used to service those additional costs.

There is much innovation across the sector to reduce expenditure and share costs. One example is executive headships. A headteacher’s salary is one of the largest costs faced by schools, particularly small rural primaries, such as those in my constituency. Last term, two rural schools came under the leadership of one head, ultimately saving money. Those schools are just a 10-minute drive from each other, so the arrangement works. The headteacher now divides his time between the sites and is doing a brilliant job of improving Rogate Primary School, just as he did with Rake Primary School. The money saved will go towards additional resources to aid the children’s educational experiences. Of course, such a move comes with strains, particularly because of the close relationships that teachers and staff form with parents and pupils in small villages such as Rake and Rogate. It takes time to build those, and I pay tribute to the commitment shown by headteacher David Bertwistle in that venture.

Rural schools play a vital role in their communities —perhaps even more so than in larger, urban centres. They are the centre of a community and are often the frontline in offering social and mental health support to pupils and their families. The reduction of base funding from £150,000 to £110,000 leaves a £40,000 hole in the budgets of small rural primary schools that cannot easily be filled with additional pupils. Additional pupils will come within a natural catchment area, and schools are not in control of those numbers. It is important that the Government funding formula understands the additional pressures facing rural schools and ensures that the level of funding for which they are eligible through the sparsity grant reflects the uniqueness of their place in our communities.

The number of pupils with special educational needs in West Sussex is well above the national average, with 13.5% of all pupils recorded as needing SEN support, compared with the national average of 11.6%. The number of referrals for education, health and care plans has risen by 43% over the past three years. Although those plans are a much-needed device to ensure that children with special educational needs are given personalised support, we must ensure that the Government are equally adaptable when it comes to tailoring the new higher needs formula to authorities with very high numbers of pupils with special needs.

Let me give an example. I have a constituent who is fighting for her daughter to attend a specialist school equipped to provide the 24-hour care that she needs that is halfway across the country, as she fears that the SEN provision in West Sussex is just not adequate. We need investment in the right provision in West Sussex. No parent should ever feel that their child’s education is worth less than that of others. It is vital that every child has the opportunity to enjoy a high-quality education. It is a one-off shot in most cases and has a massive impact on life chances.

I do understand that the formula is designed to provide more resources for areas with higher levels of deprivation and lower prior attainment. I recently visited schools in Knowsley, where I went to school, and I know that the extra funds are essential to those schools, where 70% of the children are on free school meals and almost half the children are looked after by foster parents or grandparents. Those schools face additional challenges in terms of attracting and retaining the best teachers, but there are additional needs in West Sussex, too. The challenges of rural primary schools and pupil numbers and the unanticipated rise in special educational needs are putting severe pressure on some school budgets. Of course more is being spent on education than ever, but we have increased costs, higher numbers of pupils and more children getting the support they need for their special educational needs.

School standards have been transformed. When I go into my local schools, I am constantly struck by how much better the provision is now than when I went to school, but we should expect the best. We are living in an increasingly competitive world—one that is global and without borders. Providing our children with the best education that we can is vital to their future.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thank all hon. Members for their co-operation so far. There is eight minutes each for the two remaining Back-Bench speakers; the winding-up speeches will start at 20 minutes to 11.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Can you wind up?

[Rachael Maskell]

Yes. I have talked about buildings and attainment, and I concur with all hon. Members about mental health support, which we desperately need. Ultimately, however, schools just need to have funds.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

There are 10 minutes remaining for each of the Front-Bench speakers. If they could give up 20 or 25 seconds of that to allow Anne Main to respond, that would be appreciated.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. We all admired your agility in mental maths at the beginning of the debate.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

A good education.

[Nick Gibb]

I am sure that that is the case.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this important debate. It is always interesting to follow a Labour spokesman talking about school funding. It was the Labour Government who left the coalition Government with a record public sector deficit of £150 billion, which is equal to 10% of GDP—on the brink of collapse—an economy in recession and high unemployment. We have reduced that deficit to under 3%, we have the lowest level of unemployment since the 1970s and we have halved youth unemployment to record low levels. The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) should be more careful when he talks about public finances.

This debate is timely, given the looming Budget next week. I am sure that everybody has listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans and other hon. Members who have spoken. We are determined to create an education system that offers opportunity to everyone, no matter what their circumstances or where they live. That is why we have delivered on our promise to reform the unfair, opaque and outdated school funding system by introducing the national funding formula for schools, which previous Governments had shied away from doing, including the previous Labour Government.

The introduction of the national funding formula means that this year, for the first time, funding was distributed to local authorities based on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country. This historic reform is the biggest improvement to school funding for a decade and it is directing resources to where they are needed most.

This Government want to ensure that all children receive a world-class education, and we have made significant progress. More schools than ever before are rated good or outstanding; 86% of schools are now rated good or outstanding, compared with—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane]

rose—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister is not giving way.

[Nick Gibb]

We have made a significant investment in our schools by providing an additional £1.3 billion across this year and next, which is over and above the funding confirmed in the 2015 spending review. The additional money means that core funding for schools and high needs will rise from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £42.4 billion this year, and to £43.5 billion in 2019-20. As the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed, funding for five to 16-year-olds will be maintained in real terms per pupil across this year and next year. The IFS has also pointed out that by 2020 real-terms per pupil funding will be some 70% higher than it was in 1990 and 50% higher than it was in 2000.

Of course we recognise that we are asking schools to do more and that schools are facing cost pressures. That is why the Department is providing extensive support to schools to reduce cost pressures. We have recently launched “Supporting excellent school resource management”, a document that provides schools with practical advice on savings that can be made on the £10 billion of non-staffing expenditure in schools. It summarises the support the Department is offering to help schools to get the best value from their resources, including things such as buying equipment more cheaply and the new teacher supply agency framework, which ensures that fees paid by schools to agencies are transparent and that people are aware of what they are signing up to.

Another issue that was raised was, of course, high needs. We are firmly committed to supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities to reach their full potential. That is why we have reformed the funding for these children by introducing a high-needs national funding formula. We have invested an extra £1 billion in funding for children with high needs since 2013 and next year we will provide local authorities in England with over £6 billion in high needs funding, which is up from just under £5 billion in 2013. We recognise the challenges that local authorities face with their high needs budgets, which is why we have provided them with support to deliver the best value from their high needs funding. We are also monitoring our national funding formula for high needs and keeping the overall level of funding under review.

The issue of teachers’ pay and pensions was also raised. We have responded to the recommendation made by the school teachers’ review body to confirm the 2018 pay award for teachers, which will see a substantial 3.5% uplift for the main pay range, a 2% uplift for the upper pay range and a 1.5% uplift for the leadership pay range. That will ensure that schools are supported to continue to attract high-quality staff members and retain them.

Education and Local Services

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I am absolutely astonished by that, given what has happened over the last 24 hours and the magic money tree that has suddenly been found for a coalition of chaos. I will take no lectures from the Conservative party, especially when the only numbers I saw in its manifesto were the numbers of the pages I was reading.

The Prime Minister also threatened to end universal infant free school meals during the general election. I hope the Government will now confirm that that policy has been abandoned, as part of their full-scale retreat from their own manifesto. Ministers claimed during the election that free breakfasts would be more cost-effective. Their costings left a bit to be desired, though: the original plan would have allowed only 7p per breakfast. I remember that when Labour was in government we got our school meal recipes from Jamie Oliver. The Conservatives must have been getting theirs from Oliver Twist. Even then the new costings were based on take-up of just 20%, so I look forward to hearing a full explanation of their policy on free school meals.

On a similar note, one thing that the Secretary of State has announced today is the Government’s new policy on mental health first aid training in schools. They said they would train the first 3,000 staff for £200,000—£66 per member of staff. At the same time, the charity delivering the policy said it would cost at least £117.25 per person, so the Secretary of State’s figures were out, but only by about £150,000. Having realised that her numbers do not add up, she has now rushed out another U-turn, saying that the £200,000 is for only the first year of the policy. Can Ministers finally tell us how much the policy will cost per year, how many teachers will be trained each year and how she managed to get the policy announcement so badly wrong? It seems a long time ago since the Conservatives were talking about strong and stable leadership. Only one day after the deal for the coalition of chaos was signed, and this Government are even weaker and wobblier than ever before.

Now let me turn to the words that the Secretary of State did get into the Queen’s Speech, which promised reform of technical education. However, she has already legislated for reform of technical education earlier this year, in the Technical and Further Education Act 2017, so can Ministers tell us whether there will be another new Bill on technical education in this Session? Or is the reality that this Government have come to the House with such a threadbare programme that they have been reduced to announcing Bills that they have already passed, in the last Parliament?

The Government had nothing to say on higher education. No wonder they wanted to talk about our policies. It is just weeks since they used a statutory instrument to sneak through their latest rise in tuition fees, while freezing the threshold at which graduates begin to repay their debts. The election came before the scheduled debate and vote on that rise, so I hope the Government will now provide time for that debate on the Floor of the House.

Nor did the Government have anything to say on the even more critical issues of early years education and childcare. At the end of the last Parliament they left early years education and childcare in disarray. They promised an early years workforce strategy but have given no indication of how they will implement it. Providers across the country have told the Government time and time again that the funding they are providing is inadequate, and hundreds of thousands of working parents have been denied the service that they were promised. How many words were there about that in the Queen’s Speech? None whatsoever.

Let me also touch on another issue, which is perhaps more important than any other this week: the safety of our school buildings. The Government had been planning to change the regulations on fire safety in schools contained in “Building Bulletin 100”. Funnily enough, those proposed changes have now been removed from the Department for Education website, but luckily we have a paper copy. The proposed new draft no longer included an expectation that most new school buildings would be fitted with sprinklers, on the basis that

“school buildings do not need to be sprinkler protected to achieve a reasonable standard of life safety.”

Perhaps the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government could take the opportunity later to confirm that these proposed changes have now been abandoned for good.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to carry out a thorough and comprehensive check on the fire safety of every school building in the country? We cannot put too high a price on the safety of our children. In view of the likely costs, does my hon. Friend think that the Government should set up a contingency fund to cover all those costs, as a matter of urgency, so that local authorities do not have to consider cutting other already shredded budgets to find the money to pay for the necessary work?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree—indeed, I was intending to deal with that point later in my speech. I hope that the Secretary of State will take my hon. Friend’s comments on board. We know that local government in particular has been hit by the Government’s so-called austerity agenda. The cuts that our local authorities face need to be looked at.

Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government told the House that the Government had ordered safety checks to be carried out to ensure that flammable cladding was not used on school buildings. Will he update the House on the results of that survey as soon as possible? If there are schools that use flammable cladding, can the Secretary of State for Education give a clear assurance that the costs will be covered by the Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) has requested?

It would also be helpful to know what action is being taken in student halls of residence. Can the Communities Secretary confirm that they are classed as “other residential buildings”, and are therefore subject to weaker requirements for sprinklers? If so, will the Government consider closing that loophole? What action will the Government take to ensure that both university and private halls are checked for flammable cladding?

Let me now turn to the subject of school funding. Yesterday, the First Secretary of State came to the House to announce the Government’s deal with the Democratic Unionist party. Fortunately for them, they seem to have located the magic money tree about which we heard so much during the election. The package included £50 million for schools, to “address immediate pressures”. That is £150 for every pupil in Northern Ireland.

Of course I welcome the Government’s acknowledgement that they were not properly funding schools in Northern Ireland, and the money is to address that; but can the Secretary of State explain why, as schools face billions of pounds in cuts, the Government are doing nothing to address the immediate pressures on schools in England?

The Conservative party manifesto said that the new funding formula would be introduced, and that no school would lose funding as a result—in fact, the Secretary of State said it herself. Achieving that will require an increase in school funding over and above current plans, so, again, it is time for clarity. When will the Department publish a response to the second stage of the consultation on the fair funding formula, and when will the new funding formula be introduced? Will the Secretary of State provide a cast-iron guarantee today that no school will be worse off, in real terms?

If the Secretary of State has been talking to parents and teachers in her own constituency—let alone across the country—she will know that schools are facing severe cost pressures, and that head teachers are being left with impossible choices. I absolutely agree with what she said earlier about the staff and workforces in our schools and public services, but I must say to her that they need more than words. Even given the money that the Government found by scrapping school meals, the Institute for Fiscal Studies—which the Secretary of State likes to quote so often—has found that the implementation of their plans for school spending would mean a real-terms cut of nearly 3% in per-pupil funding.

The Gracious Address referred to a highly skilled workforce in high-wage jobs, but in-work poverty is at a record high, and the UK has the second lowest wage growth in the OECD since 2010. The only country where wage growth is lower is Greece, and that is a direct result of the failure of this Government. Their failure to invest in education will lead to a generation of children not getting the education they deserve, and not getting on in life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for the eloquence of her maiden speech. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) and for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird) for the enthusiasm and commitment that they will clearly bring to the task of representing their constituents, and I congratulate them on their success.

The Queen’s Speech did not contain a single mention of local government or the services that it provides. Since 2010, local government has experienced bigger cuts than any other area of public service—in real terms, there has been a 40% cut in local government spending—but there was not a single mention of the issues. During the election campaign, my constituents expressed concern to me about longer waits to see GPs, about cuts in school budgets, and about delays in police attendances because there are fewer police officers. They also expressed concern about highway safety schemes and improvements that cannot be enacted—there are now more than 500 on Sheffield City Council’s list—and about playground equipment that cannot be replaced because there is no money. They mentioned that about two thirds of the libraries in Sheffield are now run by volunteers; in many instances they are run very well, but the permanent staff are not there any more. Of course, they also expressed concern about the crisis in social care funding. The message that we are receiving appears to be “Austerity continues”—unless, of course, you live in Northern Ireland.

There was also no mention of devolution in the Queen’s Speech. There was not a single word about it, although under the previous Chancellor it was a flagship policy, was it not? Are the Government committed to deepening the devolution arrangements that are already in place? Are they committed to extending arrangements to other areas? In that context, I am thinking particularly about the issue of Sheffield City Region. I accept that it is the region’s fault that we have not got further than we have so far, and the last Minister for the northern powerhouse was extremely helpful in that regard, but are the Government still open to new deals?

I have to mention the 100% business rate retention scheme, which features in the Local Government Finance Bill. On Second Reading, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—who is present—described it as a “revolutionary measure”. I always thought that he was an unlikely revolutionary, but he does seem to run away rather quickly at the first sound of electioneering gunfire. What has happened to the measure? Are the Government still committed to it, or have they given up on fiscal devolution as well?

Let me return to the subject of social care funding. Before the election, the Government promised a Green Paper; now they are promising consultation. I think they have probably worked out now that quick fixes in the middle of an election do not work for social care funding. Will they come back to the idea, raised by the Select Committee before the election, of having a cross-party attempt to bring about an agreement that we can all sign up to, so that we can put a permanent solution in place for the future?

I raised the issue of tower blocks yesterday. What are local authorities and housing associations supposed to do if they suddenly find themselves facing great new bills because of the need to carry out urgent and essential work on tower blocks? Local councils and housing associations cannot raise rents; they are restricted by the Government’s rules to control them. They cannot borrow more, because they are restricted by a Government cap. Local authorities facing new bills have no mythical reserves to turn to; all they can do is cut the maintenance programmes for other parts of their housing stock. What an awful position for us to get into. We are trying to deal with an urgent problem in tower blocks, and we end up cutting the maintenance for all the other social housing stock. For heaven’s sake, Government, come forward with a comprehensive funding arrangement to deal with this problem!

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[Mr Jones]

The Government have had to look extremely carefully at funding in a number of areas over the past seven years, because when the Government the hon. Lady was part of left office in 2010, they left behind a deficit of £150 billion—the country was spending £150 billion more than it was earning every single year.

We have also given councils financial freedoms and flexibilities to manage their own budgets. In 2015 we provided them with more certainty and stability through the offer of a four-year financial settlement, and 97% of eligible local authorities have accepted that. It enables them to plan service delivery, transformation and more effective collaboration with local partners.

[Mr Betts]

Will the Minister give way?

[Gareth Snell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jones]

I will make some more progress before I give way.

We are also responding positively to help councils meet the cost of increasing service pressures. In the spring Budget we provided an additional £2 billion to put social care on a more stable footing, and allowed relevant authorities the flexibility to raise more income through the adult social care precept. My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) raised the important issue of social care. The former mentioned the importance of social care for the working-age population and what more we can do to get people with learning disabilities, for example, into work. That is an extremely important aspiration for the Government. The latter talked about what more we can do to deal with the social care challenges that we face, on which the Government will bring forward plans during this Parliament.

[Mr Betts]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jones]

I will not, because I am just coming on to the point that the hon. Gentleman raised.

Before I cover the details of local government finance, I want to mention the important points made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) about housing, which I think we all see as a critical issue. That is why we are devolving £3.4 billion to the Mayor of London for affordable housing during this spending period and why, to answer my hon. Friend’s question, we are fully committed to implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, a piece of legislation that secured agreement right across the House and on which I had the pleasure of working with him.

To answer the hon. Member for Sheffield South East—this was a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East and the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish from the Opposition Front Bench—local government devolution is still very much on the agenda. The Government are committed to delivering the manifesto pledge that we made to help local authorities control more of the money they raise and we will work closely with local government to agree the best way of achieving that.

[Mr Betts]

Before the election there was a Bill before Parliament to introduce 100% retention of business rates by local councils. That was due to start in 2019. This is a two-year Queen’s Speech with no mention of that measure. Can the Minister therefore confirm that this measure will now not go ahead in 2019 as planned?

[Mr Jones]

As I have said, we are absolutely committed to allowing local government to keep more of the money it raises locally and we will work with local government to achieve that.

Some of our councils have also been sorely tested in recent weeks, dealing with major terrorist attacks in London and Manchester, and the appalling fire at Grenfell Tower. Our thoughts across the whole House are with the victims and their families, friends and communities. It is essential, as the Prime Minister has said, that the people affected get the support they need. The efforts of the fire service, the police and the emergency services have been outstanding. As the Prime Minister said last week in her statement on Grenfell Tower, we pay tribute to the London boroughs for their fantastic response. That includes a number of chief executives, who are currently working at the new central command centre, as well as the Mayor of London and leading figures from a number of councils outside London.

It is well documented that the initial response was not as good as it should have been, but since then we have acted quickly, working with local authorities on the immediate issues in advance of the public inquiry into the fire. We rapidly provided funding to help the residents affected by the tragedy and we have the Bellwin scheme available to meet the immediate and uninsurable costs of responding to the disaster. We have also guaranteed funding for temporary accommodation for those whose homes have been destroyed as a result of the fire while permanent homes are found. Funding for legal representation for residents to ensure that their voices are heard during the inquiry will also be provided.

We have seen extraordinary acts of selflessness and spontaneous acts of good will associated with these tragedies, which show just how strong and resilient our communities are. We must foster our togetherness and create the conditions for strong local public services to serve our communities. We value the important work that our public sector workers do in delivering these essential public services. This Government’s proposals will strengthen the economy, generate the tax revenues needed to invest in public services and ensure that all our citizens are provided with high-quality public services, at local and national level, at every stage of their lives. I commend this Gracious Speech to the House.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Craig Whittaker.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

School Funding: North-east of England

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. We have got about 50 minutes before I need to start calling the Front Benchers. We have got six Members wishing to speak in the debate, so I think you can work it out for yourselves. It is about eight minutes each. If Members can keep to that without a formal time limit, that would be helpful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. Speeches are overrunning. If we continue to overrun, that will cut the time down for other colleagues, so we will now have a seven-minute guideline time, please. I call Roberta Blackman-Woods.

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[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The Government’s priority is an obsession with the educational policy of the 1950s and bringing back grammar schools. All of the evidence shows that those schools favour the wealthy. A child from a private prep school is 10 times as likely to get into a grammar school as a child on free school meals.

It is becoming crystal clear that the Government are not interested in the views of the profession, but I wonder whether they are interested in the views of children and parents. After all, it is their lives, hopes and dreams that the Government are playing with. Nathaniel Smithies is a year 9 pupil at Whitburn Academy in my constituency. He wanted me to say to the Minister:

“I feel worried when a school like mine with an Ofsted Outstanding is so worried that it has so little money in the coffers that it has to ask our parents to pay to try and give us the level of education I know my teachers want to give us. I’ve noticed extracurricular and enrichment activities are diminishing, and we have to pay for little extras for art or for materials like Corriflute or balsa wood for graphics lessons or modelling. And we have a set limit on printing—like if you need to print your homework out at school. I didn’t have to do this when I was in year 7.”

Nathaniel’s mam, Lisa, added:

“When I was asked to help fund my child’s education by contributing £10 per month I felt myself torn. As a mother who wants to provide my child with the best chances possible to fully realise his wonderful, as yet unrestricted potential, I will do whatever I can afford to make this happen…But by contributing to my school do I help create a two-tier education, whereby children whose parents can afford to contribute get a better education than those children whose parents are not able to contribute? Does it mean that later on I will be told by the Government that school budgets are adequate because I have helped bridge the funding gap and will now have to continue to do so to maintain the status quo?”

She went on to say:

“I often hear politicians say we need to invest in the future. Surely there is no sounder investment in the future than for a Government to invest in educating children and providing all children the opportunity to be the best they can be, so that all our futures are the best they can be. Somewhere out there among today’s schoolchildren there are future Prime Ministers and the next generation of innovators, artists, writers, athletes, engineers, soldiers, scientists, leaders, doctors, nurses and educators. A good education for all leads to a more tolerant, fairer and integrated society. We should be saying what more is needed—not how little can we spend on our schools before we break them!”

The coming election is a real chance for parents to make a choice for the future of our education system. I know what Labour’s response is to Lisa’s questions. We want an education system that works for all of our children, not just the lucky few, and we will invest to ensure the highest standards in schools, where every single child is cherished and supported. Will the Minister answer Lisa’s questions? I am sure that parents up and down the country want, and are fully entitled to, all of the answers.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I will leave two minutes at the end for the mover of the debate to respond. I call the Minister.

Birmingham Schools

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I shall certainly look at this week’s Education Select Committee report in detail. One thing explored in previous evidence sessions—I gave evidence to that inquiry—was the growth of collaboration, which we are seeing up and down the country, regardless of the type of school. When I visit schools up and down the country, whether they be converter stand-alone academies, part of a chain or still working within the local authority, and talk to heads and teachers, I see evidence of how much collaboration there has been and how much strength heads and teachers are drawing from working with other schools—locally, but thanks to modern technology, also in other parts of the country and even other parts of the world.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

If our constituents have problems with the delivery of public services, ultimately they have recourse to the ombudsman. That was true of parents who had problems with working relationships in their children’s schools until 2012, when the Government changed the policy. Now, if a parent has a problem with an academy, they can go to the Education Funding Agency, but not with a complaint about the school, only with a complaint about the operation of the complaints procedure itself. Does that not need addressing?

[Nicky Morgan]

We of course have a very strong inspection system through Ofsted. In my experience as Secretary of State for Education over the course of the past few months, parents find many ways in which to complain, whether it be through Ofsted, the EFA or directly to me as Secretary of State or via the Department for Education. There are mechanisms to enable parents to raise complaints about their children’s schools, but of course they often start with the local school itself.