History Curriculum: Black History
Helen Hayes Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Theresa Villiers
I am delighted to have been able to give my hon. Friend a platform to advertise his local festival. It is a good reminder that black history is not just for October and is not just about London—it is something that can command interest and engagement right across the country. I welcome the contributions of hon. Members who are making the point that getting more black history into the curriculum really does matter.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way and for securing this very important debate. Does she share my concern that the content on black history currently available within the national curriculum is taught to fewer than 10% of students? It is vital that every child being taught in British schools, whatever their background and heritage, can say with pride, “Our history is British history”, and that makes reform essential. Will she join me in calling on the Minister to do what he has so far been unwilling to do, which is to meet with a group of passionate young people from my constituency who really just want to tell him why this matters so much to them?
Theresa Villiers
The Minister’s diary is of course a matter for him, but I very much agree that I would like to see every child in school in this country learning black history. It is an important opportunity to try to take that agenda forward, and I will certainly make that appeal to the Minister. I think that is important because I love history, and I believe that black history is a fascinating subject to study, but I also believe that every child should learn black history in the classroom so that every child growing up in this country knows that the presence of black people here is not some 20th century novelty.
Most important of all, I want more black history to be taught in the classroom because I want children from BAME communities to understand that people of colour have been a crucial part of our island story for very nearly 2,000 years. I want them to know that it was not just William Wilberforce who campaigned to abolish the slave trade, but such people as Olaudah Equiano, who had themselves been enslaved but who achieved freedom, fame and success against incredible odds and adversity. I want them to know about Ignatius Sancho, who in 1782 was the first black writer in prose to be published in this country. I want them to know about Tom Molineaux, the boxer and former slave who should have been the England heavyweight champion in 1810, if he had not been unfairly robbed of the title by an underhand trick. I want them to know about John Kent, who became the first black police officer as far back as 1837. I want them to know about thousands of soldiers from Africa, the Caribbean and India who fought and died for this country in two world wars.
Taking the Indian subcontinent as just one example, 1.27 million men served in the British Army in the first world war, including in the blood-soaked killing fields of the western front and Gallipoli. More than 2.5 million men from the area now covered by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh volunteered for service in world war two, producing the largest volunteer army in history.
Nick Gibb
I agree with my hon. Friend. I think the gist of what he is saying is, “Please attend the Gloucester history festival, coming soon to a town near you.”
Teachers have freedom over the precise detail, so they can teach lessons that are right for their pupils, and they should use teaching materials that suit their own pupils’ needs. At the same time, the teaching of any issue in schools should be consistent with the principles of balance and objectivity, and good history teaching should always include the contribution of black and minority ethnic people to Britain’s history, as well as the study of different countries and cultures around the world. The history curriculum has the flexibility to give teachers the opportunity to teach across the spectrum of themes and eras set out in the curriculum.
Helen Hayes
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but there is a problem with the approach he describes. Without resourcing, guidance and encouragement from Government, teachers will for very good reasons keep on teaching the content that they have always taught. My 14-year-old daughter is learning the same history that I studied 30 years ago. We will not see progress in this area, and we will not see our children being taught a more rounded, inclusive and truthful version of British history, unless the Government demonstrate some leadership and offer some guidance and resource for teachers to teach new content. That leadership needs to come from the centre.
Nick Gibb
While I take on board the hon. Lady’s important point—in fact, some of the things she said can be applied to other elements of the curriculum—we do believe in autonomy and in trusting professionals. She highlighted in her earlier intervention the proportion of young people taking up the option of studying “Migration, Empires and the People” in the AQA history GCSE, and she was right to point out that it is about one in 10. I expect more and more schools to consider offering that option to their pupils, particularly given the publicity that she and others have given to the issue. She may also be interested to know that the exam board Pearson is currently developing a study option on migration in Britain and, subject to Ofqual approval, it will also provide more choice to schools.
To support that, the curriculum includes a number of examples that could be covered at different stages, drawn from the history of this country and the wider world. Examples include, at key stage 1, teaching about the lives of key figures such as Mary Seacole and Rosa Parks. The key stage 2 curriculum suggests that teachers could explore the Indus valley, ancient Egypt and the Shang dynasty of ancient China as part of teaching on early civilisations. It also calls for study of a non-European society, with examples including Mayan civilisation and Benin in west Africa from 900 to 1300 AD.
At key stage 3, as part of the teaching of the overarching theme of Britain from 1745 to 1901, topics could include Britain’s transatlantic slave trade, its effect and its eventual abolition, and the development of the British empire. Key stage 3 also requires teaching of at least one study of a significant society or issue in world history and its interconnections with other world developments, with examples including Mughal India from 1526 to 1857, China’s Qing dynasty from—as I am sure you know, Madam Deputy Speaker—1644 to 1911 and the USA in the 20th century.
The Department sets out that GCSE history specifications produced by the exam boards should develop and extend pupils’ knowledge and understanding of specified key events, periods and societies in local British and wider world history and of the wide diversity of human experience. The GCSE in history should include at least one British in-depth study and at least one European or wider world in-depth study from the three specified eras. There is significant scope for the teaching of black history within those eras. As I said, two exam boards—OCR and AQA—provide options to study migration in Britain and how this country’s history has been shaped by black and minority ethnic communities in the past.
Many of the issues discussed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet and Members intervening on her can be taught in other curriculum subjects. As part of a broad and balanced curriculum, pupils should be taught about different societies and how different groups have contributed to the development of Britain, including the voices and experiences of black and minority ethnic people. Across citizenship, English, PSHE education, arts, music and geography, teachers have opportunities to explore black and minority ethnic history further with their pupils, helping to build understanding and tolerance.
The UK has a tremendous history of standing up for freedom and tolerance around the world, from Magna Carta and Oliver Cromwell’s readmission of the Jews to the Royal Navy’s five-decade campaign against the slave trade, which captured hundreds of slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans. Black and minority ethnic Britons have played a fundamental part in our island’s story, from black Tudors to the Commonwealth soldiers who served with such distinction in two world wars. It is right that our current curriculum ensures that children have the opportunity to learn about them in school. At the same time, schools must be mindful of their duty of political impartiality under the Education Act 1996. Teaching should be inclusive, not divisive, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) said, and the curriculum must never be co-opted to promote a narrative that is extreme or one-sided.
Polling earlier this summer from Policy Exchange’s history project, chaired by the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, found that 69% of people rightly believed that UK history as a whole was something to be proud of, while only 17% thought it was something to be ashamed of. Similarly, large majorities were found to be in support of retaining statues of our great heroes, such as Sir Winston Churchill and Admiral Nelson, as well as national memorials such as the Cenotaph. As the Prime Minister has said, we should not be embarrassed about our history, and we should celebrate and honour it. At the same time, we should celebrate the voices of those who may not have been heard as strongly in the past.
Helen Hayes
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. I just want to ask him, as I asked the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), whether he will meet a group of young people from my constituency who are campaigning on this issue and are desperately keen to have a conversation with him about their own experiences and why this is so important. They want every young person in this country to be proud of the contribution that their communities of heritage played in the history of this country, but that content is so often absent. Will he meet them?
Nick Gibb
If the hon. Lady will forgive me, at the moment we are in the middle of a covid crisis: we are focused on tackling the issues of GCSEs and A-levels, the autumn season and next year’s summer exams, making sure that schools are reopened safely—getting people back into school, back into study and back into catching up on lost education—and all the other issues that relate to tackling the covid crisis that is confronting this country and the Government. Department officials have actually, though, discussed black issues with a number of organisations, and we do welcome the profile given to the importance of teaching about the contribution of black and minority ethnic people to Britain’s history by bodies such as the Runnymede Trust, The Black Curriculum, Fill in the Blanks, and many other groups and individuals over the years.
On tackling discrimination and intolerance in our schools, I first want to say that there is no place for racial inequality in our society or in our education system. The Department for Education is committed to an inclusive education system that recognises and embraces diversity and supports all pupils and students to tackle racism and have the knowledge and tools to do so. We are funding several anti-bullying programmes that encompass tackling discriminatory bullying—for example, the Anne Frank Trust’s Free To Be programme, which encourages young people to think about the importance of tackling prejudice, discrimination and bullying. Our preventing and tackling bullying guidance sets out that schools should develop a consistent approach to monitoring bullying incidents and evaluating the effectiveness of their approaches. It also points schools to organisations that can provide support with tackling bullying related to race, religion and nationality.
In addition, effective holocaust education supports pupils to learn about the possible consequences of antisemitism and other forms of racism and extremism and to help reduce the spread of antisemitism and religious intolerance. The Department supports schools’, pupils’ and teachers’ understanding of the holocaust by providing funding for the Holocaust Education Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz project and University College London’s Centre for Holocaust Education. Additionally, in October 2018 the Chancellor announced £1.7 million for a new programme in 2019-20 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by British troops. Within and beyond the national curriculum, schools are required to promote fundamental British values actively, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect for and tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet for raising these important matters. I welcome the opportunity to set out how black history is already supported within and beyond the national curriculum. I am confident that our schools will continue to educate children to become tolerant, culturally and historically knowledgeable citizens who embrace the values of modern Britain.
Education Settings: Autumn Opening
Helen Hayes Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Gavin Williamson
I know that my hon. Friend shares my passion to see every child back in school and every school right across the country getting their full curriculum in every class. I hope that those people who have occasionally been tempted to try to block the full return of schools and those who have tried to frustrate the best efforts of headteachers and so many other teachers in their desire to see every child back will recognise that it is important and absolutely vital that we do everything to see all children enjoying that first-class education that we all want them to have.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The coronavirus pandemic threatens to undo 20 years of hard work by teachers, parents and governors in my constituency in successfully narrowing the attainment gap. It is widening and deepening existing disadvantage and disproportionately impacting BAME communities. The number of laptops so far provided by the Government to enable online teaching barely scratches the surface of digital exclusion in Lambeth, Southwark and across the country. How will tutoring take place over the summer months when many of the most disadvantaged children still do not have access to home IT equipment?
Gavin Williamson
Conservative Members have always been clear that we want to see every child back in school at the earliest opportunity, because we know that the best way of delivering education is in the classroom with the teacher at the front. Not only have we had the incredibly ambitious plan to roll-out laptops— 202,000 of those laptops have already been provided—but we accept that we want to do more. That is why have the covid catch-up premium, and tutoring plans, and those are to be conducted within schools and with the support of teachers, all based on the Education Endowment Foundation’s clear evidence on how we can deliver change and improvement for those children.
Free School Meals: Summer Holidays
Helen Hayes Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I pay tribute to Marcus Rashford this afternoon. It is not easy to speak about difficult personal experiences, but by doing so in such a powerful way, he helped to force the Government to act to stop 1.3 million children in England who are eligible for free school meals going hungry over the summer holidays. I also pay tribute to my local councils—Lambeth and Southwark councils—and to the many community organisations that have been working so hard since March to address food insecurity during the pandemic. They show the commitment, care and compassion in our local communities of which I could not be more proud.
While the Government’s U-turn is welcome, we should not be having this debate today, because coronavirus or not, no child should ever go hungry in the UK. Parents do not want to have to rely on a voucher scheme. They want the dignity and freedom to buy healthy, fresh food to nourish their children. Shamefully, childhood hunger and food insecurity are a huge problem in the UK, exacerbated by coronavirus, but a reality for many families, even without the pandemic. It is hard to understand the mindset of a Prime Minister who does not appear to see this as a top priority and who has to be pushed reluctantly into minimal action.
The voucher scheme is welcome and essential, but it is not a solution to food poverty. It is not reaching the thousands of families who fall just outside the income threshold for free school meals, or those who will not claim because of the stigma. We know that many of these families are also on low incomes, with precarious work, facing high housing costs and forced to rely on a social security system that prefers punishment over support.
The Government have a choice: they can keep lurching forward with disorganisation and wrong-headedness, forced to do the right thing only by intense pressure from our communities; or they can start to engage and plan now for a coronavirus recovery that builds back better, addressing structural inequality, low pay, insecure work, the high cost and insecurity of private renting and the ability of our councils to deliver the public services that we all rely on, and they could make sure that no child in the UK ever has to go to bed hungry again.
History Curriculum: Migration
Helen Hayes Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered teaching migration in the history curriculum.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Sir Gary. At the end of last year, I joined a group of young students, members of the brilliant Advocacy Academy in my constituency, in a protest outside the Department for Education. They were delivering a letter to the Secretary of State, and their message was simple:
“Our history is British history.”
Their history—that of a diverse group of young south Londoners—is the history of our nation, and the history curriculum taught in our schools should reflect that.
I was extremely disappointed with the Minister’s response to that letter. It did not really acknowledge any deficiency in the current curriculum; it pointed to flexibility within the curriculum as evidence that there is no problem, and confirmed that the Government have no plans to change it. I am pleased to have secured this debate, because the Minister’s response ignored some really significant issues.
In preparing for the debate, I have drawn on research by the Runnymede Trust and the Royal Historical Society and on engagement work undertaken by the parliamentary digital engagement team. I thank everyone who took part in the online survey on this topic, the results of which I will return to later.
More than one in six children aged nought to 15 in England and Wales is from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. BAME young people make up more than a quarter of state-funded primary and secondary school pupils in England, but despite Britain’s increasingly diverse classrooms, and notwithstanding some recent changes in the options available in the curriculum, the history taught in schools remains focused on narrow and celebrated accounts of “our island story”. As one young person who responded to the Runnymede Trust’s consultation said,
“it’s the Tudors and the Tudors and the Tudors”.
The approach that predominates in history teaching often results in an understanding that is incomplete and inaccurate. Students struggle to connect different periods in our history, to connect British history to the wider global story, or to place themselves within the narrative. Yet British history is the history of migration to these islands. None of our families was always here. Whether our ancestors were Roman invaders, Normans from northern France, Huguenots fleeing persecution or Irish immigrants fleeing starvation during the potato famine, whether our family story is rooted in the painful, shameful history of the colonisation of parts of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, or whether our forebears came to the UK as freed slaves in the 19th century or as Commonwealth citizens after the second world war, all of us can find our story in the history of migration. Teaching that history from every possible perspective helps us to find that story.
Migration has shaped not only individual family stories, but places and communities. The town where I grew up, Ormskirk in Lancashire, has a Viking name. We have Roman cities such as Bath; cities such as Liverpool and Bristol with links to the shameful history of slavery; and Spitalfields, which has been formed, shaped and sustained by successive generations of migrants, as is powerfully illustrated by the mosque on Brick Lane, which was previously a synagogue and, before that, a Huguenot chapel. Every community, as well as every family, has a migration story.
A migration-focused approach to British history both globalises it, placing it within a wider international context, and localises it, opening up previously marginalised and untold stories about specific times and places, yet the history curriculum is struggling to engage students from all backgrounds. The Royal Historical Society’s race, ethnicity and equality report, which was published in October 2018, highlights the low uptake of history as a school subject by BAME pupils and the low levels of undergraduate history admissions for BAME students.
Racial and ethnic inequality affects history more acutely than most other disciplines. What we were taught in history lessons in school has a huge impact on our understanding of history, yet history is not a science; it is never complete and is never completely objective. Sources and perspectives matter. Whose story is told, and from which perspective, informs our understanding of who was important and powerful, who contributed, who were the heroes and who were the villains. A partial telling can leave people and communities entirely invisible and leave stories that affected hundreds of thousands of people completely untold. The way in which history is currently taught contains too many artificial binaries, such as world versus British history, or BAME versus British history. World history is British history, and BAME history is British history too.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that, to genuinely recognise the contribution of communities that have come to the United Kingdom, we need to teach an honest history of Britain, including the repression and exploitation that has occurred in its name, alongside the positive and progressive parts?
Helen Hayes
That is exactly the argument I will go on to make: a migration-focused articulation of British history is also a more accurate, rigorous and—as my hon. Friend rightly says—honest version of British history. That is a really important point.
The understanding that we derive from history lessons in school informs our sense of national identity. It informs the internal narrative that runs in each of our minds when we hear the word “British”—who is included in that term, and who is not. Too often, what we are taught in school leads to a characterisation of Britishness that is only partial. During the Windrush scandal last year, Ministers had to be reminded again and again in the House of Commons Chamber that the citizens who had been denied their right to be in the UK by the Home Office were not foreign nationals whose status was in doubt, but British citizens. They had come to the UK as British citizens as a consequence of the British Nationality Act 1948, which granted citizenship to Commonwealth citizens—itself a consequence of the long and painful history of British colonialism.
The current history curriculum offers some opportunity to teach migration, but there is little explicit focus on internal racial and ethnic diversity within Britain. It also tends to downplay our internal diverse histories; in addition to race, they include gender, class, sexuality and religion.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this subject to Westminster Hall. When we talk about migration, we cannot ignore the fact that our great nation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, came together with the integration of the Ulsterman and the Ulsterwoman from Northern Ireland, the Scots, the Welsh and, to a lesser degree, people from the Republic of Ireland. All those five nations coming together as one—surely that tells us how we can do things if we do them the right way. It is unfortunate that none of our Scots Nats friends is here to hear this, because it is important that we say it and say it often: we are better together.
Helen Hayes
The hon. Gentleman makes a strong point.
In 2016, two new OCR and AQA exam board units on migration to Britain were introduced at GCSE level, both of which include some coverage of empire. They offer exciting and innovative opportunities to engage with important British histories, but they remain optional, and there are some structural barriers to take-up that I hope the Minister might address.
Over the past 10 years, in partnership with Manchester and Cambridge Universities, the Runnymede Trust has led a number of projects to engage young people and teachers with more expansive, representative and inclusive histories of Britain. The lesson from that work is that there is a strong appetite among young people from all backgrounds for history teaching that reflects a broader range of voices and experiences, and there is interest among teachers in engaging with more representative histories of Britain. But there is also a lack of confidence, support and resources for teachers who want to embed those histories in their practice, and teachers feel constrained by the increasing demands on their time and energies in a fast-changing teaching climate.
The appetite for change is also evident in feedback received by the parliamentary digital engagement team in response to a survey posted ahead of this debate. Joanne, a teacher, wrote:
“This would enrich the curriculum by demonstrating that migration had a key role to play in the formation of a more inclusive national identity. It would also offer opportunities for a wider range of voices and perspectives to be heard and valued within our history teaching—crucial for us as a nation moving forward.”
Nick, who is also a teacher, wrote:
“I find that students are usually interested in migration but it is often very new to them, reflecting a wider lack of knowledge about migration in wider society. It helps students realise the connections between history and geography and provides a glimpse of the big answers about the composition of modern society, culture, language and food.”
Interest also extends beyond the teaching profession. John, an immigration solicitor, wrote:
“It’s amazing to think how little we are taught about our awful past relationship with the colonies and indeed our closest neighbouring country, Ireland. Had more people been educated about the colonies and Ireland, there may be more understanding now of the issues we face in modern times, including the Windrush scandal and the Brexit disagreements over the Irish border issue. Forgetting our past is a real failing.”
Following the work of the Runnymede Trust, a web-based resource called Our Migration Story was launched in 2016, in direct response to requests from teachers for classroom-ready materials on histories of empire and migration. Our Migration Story was built in collaboration with more than 80 academic and local historians; local and national museums and archives, including the Imperial War Museum, the National Archives, the Black Cultural Archives, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Migration Museum; and exam boards, teachers and professional history associations.
Our Migration Story is a one-stop shop on Britain’s long migration history, from Roman invasion to the present day. Through a series of case studies driven by historical research and primary source material it presents the stories of the people, ideas and objects from near and far that have travelled to and then shaped the British Isles over the last 2,000 years.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again; her speech, including its introduction, is excellent. Does she agree that it is essential that our children understand the importance of how migrants have flocked to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for years and have integrated well into our systems? It is important to understand that not all immigrants wish to have “their” country and “our” country; indeed, our country is made up of those who live here, integrate and raise their children to be British, and who have made this nation as great as it is today. In my constituency, there are Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, people from eastern Europe, and people from Nigeria and Kenya. All those people together have made this nation great.
Helen Hayes
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and his point is very well made. If we teach our history with a migration narrative, everybody in our society can understand exactly the diversity of which he spoke so well.
Our Migration Story challenges us to rethink British history by capturing the histories of ordinary and otherwise marginalised Britons; by charting histories of welcome and inclusion, as well as those of rejection, exclusion, inequality and violence; by placing histories and conditions of global connectedness at its core; and by making mainstream British identity inseparable from 2,000 years of migration and settlement. The site connects its content with the national curriculum, and it has received several awards. It adopts a rigorous and academically recognised approach; in fact, it reflects the way that history is already often taught at universities.
Even in some of the most diverse communities, such as those in my constituency, our understanding of the history of migration is often limited. Lambeth Archives has just opened a fantastic exhibition at Lambeth town hall called “Before and After Windrush: 350 years of Black People in Lambeth”. It has been curated in response to the assumption that many people made during last year’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Windrush that there had been no black people living in Lambeth prior to 1948, and it charts the area’s history from the first record of a black person living in Lambeth in 1661 to the present day. That longevity is so significant for our current community. We have always been diverse; people from across the world have always contributed to community life in Lambeth. People from everywhere belong here. As the Windrush anniversary logo, which was designed by young people from Brixton, reflected, the Windrush generation are part of our DNA, but long before 1948 our DNA was international.
My plea to the Minister today is not to dismiss this research, as he did back in January, but to engage with it. In our society, which is both diverse and riven with divisions, we need the teaching of history to be inclusive, we need everyone to be able to find their place in it and we need our definition of “British”, based on our understanding of history, to be inclusive. That means not only making migration content available, but signposting it effectively and considering making more of it compulsory. It also means making additional training and continuing professional development available to teachers to equip them with the confidence to teach new material. To return to where I started, it means working to realise a vision in which everyone in our diverse country, whatever their heritage, can say with pride and confidence: “Our history is British history.”
Helen Hayes
I am hugely grateful to all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate. We have heard powerful examples of untold migration stories in the communities of those who have spoken, which include West Ham, Welsh mining communities, and Wythenshawe, and all those examples serve to emphasise the importance of this agenda. As the daughter of a geographer, and someone who is married to a geographer, I will not argue with the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), who said that migration is an important prism through which to teach geography. However, this is not about either/or—our whole curriculum should be inclusive within all the different disciplines on offer to students today, and the resources that he mentioned are welcome.
I am a little disappointed that the Minister did not acknowledge the need for change, which is illustrated most powerfully in the low take-up of history as a discipline by students from BAME backgrounds at GCSE, A-level and degree level. Will the Minister reflect on the need for further promotion of migration curriculum content for history, on the need for more training and CPD to give teachers confidence to teach this curriculum, and on possibly making some of that content compulsory? I hope the Minister will continue to listen to the voices of young people across the country, and to the rigorous academic research from organisations such as the Runnymede Trust, which clearly states that there is a need for change, notwithstanding some of the changes made in recent years.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered teaching migration in the history curriculum.
Children and Young People: Restrictive Intervention
Helen Hayes Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West). I was very glad to support the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) in securing this debate, and I pay tribute to him for his commitment to safeguarding the human rights of people with learning disability, autism or both.
It is important that we debate this matter in this place because it affects the most vulnerable people in our society—children and young people, and most especially children and young people who have learning disability, autism or both, and who are often less able to communicate their thoughts and feelings, or to describe and bear witness to what has happened to them. As a consequence, there is an enormous imbalance of power between children and young people, who often cannot speak for themselves, and the adults into whose care they are placed, whether in a school, healthcare or residential setting. That imbalance of power confers a clear and important responsibility on the staff who work with those young people, but also on the Government to ensure a system that is transparent, accountable and properly resourced and equipped to provide the best possible care, education and support.
We are debating serious concerns about the use of restraint and seclusion, and there are gaps in the regulatory and training framework in some settings, particularly education. Before I set those out, I wish to pay tribute to the many dedicated, highly skilled and tireless staff who work in schools, healthcare and residential settings with children and young people who have learning disabilities, autism or both. I pay particular tribute to the fantastic Turney School in my constituency, and to Marilyn Ross and her exceptional team at the Michael Tippett School. Her visionary work in establishing the Michael Tippett College has enabled 19 to 25-year-old students with learning disabilities, autism or both to remain in education.
Recent research by the Challenging Behaviour Foundation and Positive and Active Behaviour Support Scotland found that nearly 90% of parents of children with SEN or behavioural needs, including autism, reported that their child had been physically restrained. Some 35% said that that happened regularly, and more than half those cases involved children aged between five and 10. Only one in eight parents said that restraint was discussed with families in advance, and just 17% said there were discussions after the event to help prevent it from happening again. Some 50% of parents reported the use of medication to manage challenging behaviour; 58% of children or young people were injured; and 91% reported emotional impacts, including PTSD, heightened anxiety and insomnia.
We know that such restraint is not necessary, and with a little education and training in those settings, proven alternative forms of behaviour management can almost eliminate the need for restraint. Guidance and regulation on the use of restraint in healthcare settings is much more stringent than it is for education settings. Ofsted makes clear that it is good practice to record incidents of restraint and inform parents, but there is no requirement on schools to do so. That is problematic, because it is precisely those schools that already model good practice and have the best leadership and governance that will abide by that advice, while those schools with problems will be less likely to do so.
In 2014, the Government promised new guidance on reducing restrictive intervention in schools, but more than five years later that guidance is still to be introduced. That is not acceptable. No parent or carer should have to worry that their loved one will suffer violence, injury or psychological distress as a result of restraint in an education, health or care setting, yet that is the reality for too many families. The gaps in the current legislative and policy framework are glaring, but they are straight- forward to fill, and the delay by the Government who promised new guidance in 2014 is simply inexcusable. New legislation and guidance must be supported by appropriate training and resources. I call on the Government to introduce that new guidance and regulation as soon as possible and to ensure that all staff working with the most vulnerable children in our society are properly equipped and resourced to implement it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Hayes Excerpts(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Damian Hinds
There are differences between Cheshire and London, including in the composition of the population. For example, the proportion of children on free school meals is materially higher in London than in Cheshire, and there are some cost considerations, but I will of course, as ever, be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
Off-rolling of pupils is illegal. Edward Timpson’s review is in progress and will report very soon. Exclusion from school must not mean exclusion from education. Our priority in the Department is to make sure that AP—alternative provision—works for those children who cannot go to mainstream school.
School Funding (London)
Helen Hayes Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered schools funding in London.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I am pleased to have secured this debate so that Members can highlight the specific impacts that the proposed national funding formula will have on London schools. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me last week, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the leader of Southwark Council, to discuss the challenges that schools in Southwark and Lambeth will face as a consequence of the national funding formula proposals.
Since I was elected almost two years ago, there have been only a handful of issues on which my constituents feel as strongly as they do about the schools funding formula, and few issues around which people have mobilised on such a large scale. In the past few weeks, I have attended meetings in Lambeth and Southwark with a total of more than 500 parents. A further 100 parents and children joined a protest in Dulwich last week, and hundreds more have been in touch with me by email and letter and on social media. I want to speak about the impact the Government’s proposals will have, what exactly is at stake and why it matters so much. I have some specific asks to make of the Minister.
The new national funding formula will see 70% of London’s schools receiving cuts to funding. The proposal comes at a time of unprecedented budget pressures in our schools as a consequence of a series of unfunded costs: the national minimum wage increase; employers’ pension contributions; employers’ national insurance contributions; inflation; and, for local authority schools only, the apprenticeship levy. In that context, the additional cuts introduced by the schools funding formula will be unsustainable for many schools in London. London Councils calculates that the combined impact of introducing the national funding formula at a time of wider budgetary pressure means that collectively, London schools will lose £360 million in 2018-19.
The Conservative manifesto pledged that the funding accompanying every pupil into school would be protected, but the National Audit Office is clear that per-pupil funding has not been protected in real terms. In London, the proposed national funding formula will clearly break that pledge further. The cuts will not fall evenly but will fall disproportionately on areas of London with the highest levels of deprivation. Therefore, while Croydon Central will gain £4.4 million for its schools, West Ham stands to lose £4.4 million, East Ham loses £3.6 million and Bethnal Green and Bow loses £3.5 million.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting the scale of the cuts in my constituency and the scale of the concern among my constituents about that. I have had letters from lots of teachers at Central Park Primary School about the £710,208 being taken out of its budget. Does she agree that that is quite wrong?
Helen Hayes
I agree with my right hon. Friend entirely. The level of pressure our schools are being asked to bear would be unacceptable in any circumstances, but in order to understand exactly how damaging the proposals are, and why parents in my constituency and across London feel so strongly about them, the Government must understand the journey that London schools have travelled in the 14 years since the Labour Government introduced the London challenge programme of improvement for London schools in 2003.
I moved to London in 1996. At that time, parents in the same situation as I am in now, with their oldest child approaching secondary school age, were often trying to do one of three things: move close to a high-performing state or church school; move out of London to a part of the country where schools were better; or educate their children privately. Children whose parents were unable to make any of those choices often attended local schools, which despite the best efforts of their teachers substantially failed generations of children. In my constituency at that time, we had William Penn boys’ school and Kingsdale school, both of which were failing schools that became notorious. William Penn subsequently closed and successfully re-opened as the co-educational Charter School, and Kingsdale was completely remodelled under a change of leadership. Those are now outstanding and good schools respectively.
I have spoken with many parents in my constituency who attended failing schools as children. They remember the crumbling buildings, leaky roofs, shortages of books and materials, very large class sizes and poor discipline. They tell me that any success in their educational outcomes was due to the hard work that they and their teachers put in and happened despite, not because of, the funding and policy environment in which the schools were operating.
The situation could not be more different across London now: 94% of London schools have been judged to be good or outstanding by Ofsted. While London schools were the worst in the country in the 1980s and 1990s, they are now the best. That transformation was achieved through a combination of political leadership, appropriate resourcing, stringent accountability and—most importantly—the hard work of teachers, governors, support staff and parents. I think I speak for all London MPs from across the House when I say that we are deeply proud of our schools and everything they deliver for London children.
Our schools in London deliver for every child. They are not reliant on selection, and as a consequence London children also benefit from being educated in a diverse environment, which helps to build understanding and community cohesion. My children are receiving an excellent education alongside children from every possible walk of life, and their lives are enriched as a consequence. It is that approach, not grammar schools, that delivers the social mobility the Government say they want to see.
London schools are the best in the country, despite having the most complexity among their intake. They have the highest levels of students with English as an additional language, special educational needs and children from deprived households, and they have very high levels of churn, in part due to the large numbers of families now living in the private rented sector, who often have to move when short-term tenancies come to an end.
London schools are able to deliver in that context when they have the teaching and support staff to provide the help and support that every child needs, so that those who need extra help in the classroom can receive it, those who need to be stretched more to fulfil their potential can thrive, and a rich, imaginative curriculum can be offered to all students. The headteachers in my constituency increasingly talk about the new challenges their students face. Chief among them are mental health issues, which are growing in part as a consequence of the pressures children face on social media. They feel the need for additional support in school that students can access, but they are already unable to afford that.
I wrote to every headteacher in my constituency to ask about the impact that they anticipate the national funding formula will have on their school. I want to share just two examples of their feedback today. A primary head wrote to me and said,
“in order to balance the budget this year we had to lose six members of staff. Prior to this academic year we employed one Teaching Assistant per class. This year we have a Teaching Assistant per year group. I can see a time when schools will not be able to afford Teaching Assistants at all. Our building is shabby because we cannot spare the funds to redecorate and carry out minor repairs. Cuts in funding will mean that Headteachers will become more and more reluctant to accept pupils that put a strain on the budget.”
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady and, as I did at the meeting with her and her colleagues, I have paid careful attention to what she is arguing. Is she interested in knowing that in Lambeth, under the new national funding formula, the funding per pupil is £6,199 and in Southwark it is £6,271, whereas in Waltham Forest it is £5,129 and in Surrey it is £4,329? It is that discrepancy that the national funding formula tries to go some way to dealing with.
Helen Hayes
I thank the Minister for his intervention. If he bears with me a little longer, he will hear that I am not arguing that schools elsewhere in the country—or indeed in outer London—should lose out as a consequence of the funding formula; what I am interested in is a funding formula that is fair for all schools.
A secondary headteacher wrote to me and said:
“Effectively our budgeting will be reduced by £500,000 in real terms in the next three years...it will make it very difficult for us to continue to provide a high quality education for our students, and will undoubtedly affect our ability to support student achievement and wellbeing. It will also have a negative impact on the workload of our staff who already work incredibly hard day in day out to support our students.”
Those are experienced headteachers, looking at a spreadsheet in the cold light of day and working out the choices they will have to make to accommodate the Government’s funding cuts.
Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)
To clarify, are not many of the pressures the hon. Lady talks about, which I certainly do not dismiss, the associated costs, rather than necessarily to do with the funding formula itself?
Helen Hayes
My argument is about the cumulative impact of unfunded cost pressures in recent years, and some still to come because of the apprenticeship levy, in addition to the impact that the new funding formula will have.
Seventy per cent. of schools’ budgets are spent on staff, so it will be teaching assistants, speech and language therapists, learning mentors, family support workers, school trips, sports clubs, music specialists and teachers that will have to be cut. Heads across my constituency say that the formula does not work. London schools also face a recruitment crisis, fuelled by the high cost of housing and childcare in the capital, as well as the Government’s failure to meet teacher training targets. More than 50% of London heads are over the age of 50, and the current budgetary pressures, combined with the new inspection regime and changes in the curriculum, are making it harder and harder to recruit. Further reductions in funding will only exacerbate the situation, making it harder for schools to retain experienced teachers and creating a level of pressure in the profession that will cause many hard-working teachers to look elsewhere.
The Government’s stated aim in revising the schools funding formula is fairness. I agree with that aim. There are problems with the current formula in some parts of the country, because of the embedding of resourcing decisions made by local authorities many years ago and their use as the basis for calculating future increases. However, there is nothing fair about a proposal under which funding will be cut from high-performing schools in deprived areas. A fair approach would take the best-performing areas in the country and apply the lessons from those schools everywhere. It would look objectively at the level of funding required to deliver in the best-performing schools, particularly in areas of high deprivation, and use that as the basis for a formula to be applied across the whole country.
London schools should be the blueprint for education across the whole UK, but school leaders in London are absolutely clear that quality will inevitably suffer as a consequence of the funding changes that the Government are implementing. It is simply irresponsible for the Government to put the quality of education in London at risk. Children are growing up in a time of great global change and uncertainty. We feel that today perhaps more than ever, as article 50 is triggered. They need to be equipped with the knowledge, skills and confidence to navigate and compete in a post-Brexit economy. Our schools are essential to that, and to ensuring that children make the maximum possible contribution to the economy and public services in the future.
I ask the Minister this morning to think again and, as he reviews the 20,000 consultation responses that have been submitted, to consider the impact that the changes will have on London schools. I have two specific asks. When I met the Minister last week, it was not clear from what he said that he had recently visited high-performing London schools, so I invite him to visit a primary school and secondary school in my constituency to see at first hand the great work that our local schools do and to understand the current financial pressures that they face.
Helen Hayes
I thank the Minister; I would dearly love to welcome him to high-performing schools in my constituency, so that he can hear at first hand about the pressures that headteachers are talking about.
Secondly, I ask the Minister to go back to the Treasury and to negotiate again. Spending on schools is an investment that the Government make in the future of our economy. It would take just 1% of the education budget to ensure that no school loses out through the introduction of the national funding formula. I ask him please to think again and not to put the success of London schools and their ability to deliver for future generations of London children at risk.
Several hon. Members
Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I shall be brief in making a few points about how the costs—and the associated cost pressures that I mentioned in my intervention—affect schools in Sutton.
All hon. Members welcome the opportunity to get fairer school funding. It has been debated at great length in the House over the past few months, with good reason. It is not fair that pupils with similar needs do not benefit from the same funding, and that that depends on where they live. It is right and proper to look at the issue, but that has not happened for a long time because it has been politically difficult. I welcome the fact that it is happening now. The consultation has just finished, and I am sure the Minister will look at the representations made in the responses and present any changes that he feels are appropriate for us to debate further.
Secondary schools in Sutton receive greater funding from the formula, by about 1.4%. Primary schools lose by 0.5%. However, as was mentioned before, many of the issues that headteachers are dealing with at the moment and that they will face going forward are associated cost pressures. With all the changes being made, now is an apt time to consider them.
There is a lot of concern among headteachers—all the headteachers in the area have written to me and the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). Some headteachers from the London Borough of Sutton have already met the Minister for discussions. They are concerned about such things as the apprenticeship levy, which affects only some secondary schools and is comparatively low when set against the effects of some of the other changes and pressures. However, I find it strange and puzzling when any public sector institution’s money is churned around, as happens when we give a school funding and then claw some back through levies, rates and such things. I would find it easier if we cut through the bureaucracy and paid schools the money they needed to spend on their pupils.
Schools are not really well placed, especially at the moment, to take on apprentices because they are already training centres—they already train newly qualified teachers, Teach First teachers and other student teachers. Where they might be able to take on apprentices, such as in administration, things have already been cut to the bone, because those are in many ways the first places where cuts can be sought. It then becomes difficult to send anyone out on day release. I have a lot of sympathy with headteachers about the apprenticeship levy.
Many headteachers have talked to me about the 1% salary increase for public sector workers. They say that they want to be able to pay teachers more but, without the requisite funding, doing so would effectively mean an extra 1% cut in their budgets. They are not attracting more funding from the centre to pay for it. Again, I understand their concern. A signal is being sent, and it is pushed on to the headteachers to say, “Sorry. I can’t pay you any extra this year because of budget constraints”—despite the mood music in the media about pressure to pay people the extra 1%.
Another headteacher mentioned the cost of recruitment. It is difficult to get teachers, and especially senior teachers. I have been a governor for many years. When I was the chairman of governors at a primary school, we were looking for a headteacher and put many adverts in The Times Educational Supplement. It cost thousands of pounds each time and the response was woeful. I am interested in whether the Minister would consider a centralised recruitment system that everyone could tap into—one source that teachers can use—which would be a great cost saving for schools. The Department has talked about being able to make savings in schools through such things as procurement. It would be great if the Department could help schools by taking that approach.
I talked about the fact that secondary schools are a net gainer and primary schools a net loser. One reason they are all losing is the local authority formula. The local authority in Sutton has caused two issues. First, it had built up a surplus in the part of the grant it left behind, which has been used over the last few years to cushion some of the pressures. The surplus has now been used up and has finally come to an end. That has not been communicated particularly well to the schools, so there is a little bit of a cliff edge this year. On top of that, the local authority has effectively made a 0.5% cut for many schools to the amount it is keeping back, rejigging and then handing out to them.
Whereas the national formula helps us out a lot, the local formula means that Sutton loses out. It is important that parents and headteachers know exactly where the blockages are. In these times of greater devolution, it is important that the right people are accountable for formulae. I ask parents and headteachers to ensure that they question the local education authority and hold their councillors to account, including the council leader in Sutton, on why that money is being held back.
There is a disparity in Sutton between some of our secondary schools of about £1,000 per pupil—some get £4,500 while others get £5,500 per pupil. We have a number of grammar schools, with six fully and partially selective schools in Sutton. I question the argument about a lack of social mobility. There is a good amount of social mobility in those schools, primarily for Asian communities. We have a big Tamil community and a Bangladeshi community.
Helen Hayes
The issue with grammar schools is not what they deliver for the children who are able to access a place there. The evidence across the country shows that children from deprived backgrounds who do not go to grammar schools in areas that have them do demonstrably worse in their education. That is the issue of fairness I was referring to.
Paul Scully
That is an interesting intervention, but I can only use the Sutton example. All our schools are excellent, including the ones that are not selective. Indeed, Stanley Park High School in Carshalton and Wallington won The Times Educational Supplement secondary school of the year award last year. All the schools are being brought up in Sutton. A lot of Tamil and Indian families are moving around to be able to access Sutton’s schools. The problem in Sutton is ensuring that white working-class people can get that social mobility. We need to work harder on that.
My final point is that the funding pressures on the grammar schools are such that they are getting considerably less pupil premium per pupil than those in other areas, despite some of them being in average deprivation, because they are in more affluent areas. They are being disadvantaged because of the fixed costs—buildings cost a lot to heat and light, and there are staffing costs. They are losing out to other schools, which are getting pupil premium on top.
I make a special plea to the Minister to consider some of the work being done by grammar schools. Essentially, the funding formula is fair. It is good we are addressing this issue. I would like the Minister to have a look at some of the associated cost pressures and to answer some of the questions that headteachers have raised with me.
Mr Gibb
Thank you, Mr Hanson; I want to respond to all the points that were made in the debate.
We launched the first stage of our consultation on reforming the schools and high needs funding systems in March last year. We set out the principles for reform and proposals for the overall design of the funding system. More than 6,000 people responded to that first stage of our consultation, with wide support for those proposals. I acknowledge the support that the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) has given to the principles of this formula.
We have just concluded a 14-week second stage consultation, covering the detailed proposals for the design of both the schools formula and the high needs formula. Our proposals will target money towards pupils who face the greatest barriers to a successful education. In particular, our proposals will boost the support for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and for those who live in areas of deprivation but who are not eligible for free school meals—those ordinary working families who are too often overlooked. We are also putting more money towards supporting those pupils in both primary and secondary schools who have fallen behind in their education to ensure that they have the support they need to catch up.
Overall, 10,740 schools would gain funding under our proposals, and the formula will allow those schools to see those gains quickly, with increases of up to 3% per pupil in 2018-19 and of 2.5% in 2019-20. Seventy-two local authority areas will quickly see an increase in their high needs funding, and no local authority will see a fall in its funding.
As well as providing those increases, we have listened to those who highlighted in our first stage consultation the risks of major budget changes for schools. That is why we have proposed to include significant protections in both formulae. No school would face a reduction of more than 1.5% per year or of 3% overall per pupil and, as I have said, no local authority will lose funding for high needs. The proposals will limit the otherwise quite large reductions that some schools, including many in London, would see as the funding system is brought up to date.
The real-terms protection of the core schools budget underpins these proposals. As a result, we are able to allocate some £200 million to schools in both 2018-19 and 2019-20, over and above flat cash per pupil funding. That will combine significant protection for those facing reductions with more rapid increases for those set to gain under the fairer funding formula. High needs funding will see an equivalent real-terms protection.
London will remain the highest-funded part of the country under our proposals. Schools in inner London will attract 30% more funding per pupil than the national average, which is right. Despite the city’s increasing affluence, London schools still have the highest proportion of children from a deprived background and the highest labour market costs, as has been acknowledged in the debate.
We are using a broad definition of disadvantage to target additional funding to schools, comprising of pupil and area level deprivation data, prior attainment data and data on English as an additional language. No individual measure is enough on its own. Each factor reflects different aspects of the challenges that schools face, and they work in combination to target funding. Where a child qualifies for more than one of those factors, the school receives funding for each qualifying factor. For example, if a child comes from a more disadvantaged household and they live in an area of socioeconomic deprivation, their school will attract funding through the free school meals factor and the area-level deprivation factor—the income deprivation affecting children index.
The additional needs factors in the formula are proxies for the level of need in the school. We are not suggesting that the funding attracted by an individual pupil must all be spent on that pupil, but that schools with high numbers of pupils with additional needs are more likely to need additional resources. Using the proxy factors helps us target funding on schools that are more likely to face the most acute challenges. I will give way to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who introduced the debate, if she wants to come in on that point. If not, I will press on.
Mr Gibb
Very good. In addition to the formula, schools will continue to receive additional funding through the pupil premium to help them improve the attainment of the most disadvantaged pupils. We have also included a mobility factor in our formula to recognise the additional costs faced by schools, many of which are in London, where a high proportion of pupils arrive at different points through the year. We were influenced by the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) in making that change. London schools will receive additional funding to reflect the higher cost base they face from being in London, which is particularly important given that so much of schools’ spending goes on staffing costs. The higher funding for London schools will support them to continue their success in recent years, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
I understand the reactions of those Members who are disappointed by our formula’s impact on their constituencies. The formula is not simply designed to direct more money to historically lower-funded areas or areas with the highest levels of deprivation. It is designed to ensure that funding is properly matched to need using up-to-date data, so that children who face entrenched barriers to their education receive the support they need. That includes pupils who do not necessarily benefit from the pupil premium but whose families may be only just about managing.
Helen Hayes
I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have participated in the debate this morning, and I thank the Minister and my Front-Bench colleague for responding to it. It has been a high-quality debate. The strength of feeling and the passion are clear, and Members have represented the interests of schools in the constituencies very powerfully indeed. There is no disagreement on the principle of fairness for school funding. The concerns that have been expressed this morning are about the impact of a funding formula that will see schools in London losing funding on top of the existing severe cost pressures they are suffering.
The Minister continually refers to total sums of money and the ranking of schools according to their allocation, but that is not the concern. No Member in this Chamber is concerned about where their local authority sits in the ranking of authorities across the country. We are concerned that our schools have the funding they need to deliver the excellent outcomes for our children that they deliver at present. Higher levels of funding are good value when they deliver for children in deprived areas.
The point we are making is that the Government’s approach is putting the quality of education in London schools at risk. That is of grave concern. It is simply disingenuous of the Minister to dismiss the concerns of headteachers in London as a response to inaccurate campaign data. They are looking at their spreadsheets and telling us that the Government’s approach is not working. There is nothing fair about a formula that cuts funding for high-performing schools in deprived areas.
I conclude the debate by reiterating the powerful words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy):
“When London slips back…the nation slips back”.
I urge the Minister to reflect on those words and to think again about the impact that the funding formula will have on the quality and performance of London schools.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered schools funding in London.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Hayes Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Justine Greening)
The Government want to ensure that all schools are safe, inclusive environments where pupils can fulfil their potential, and we are actively considering how to improve the delivery of sex and relationships education, including updating the existing guidance, which was originally drafted in 2000.
Helen Hayes
New clause 1 of the Children and Social Work Bill would make sex and relationships education compulsory under the safeguarding duties of schools. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will be supporting that new clause on Report so that all our young people can be equipped and empowered to keep themselves healthy and safe?
Justine Greening
I very much appreciate the support around the House for the fact that it is time to look at how we can do better in regard to sex and relationships education, and we are actively looking at how best to improve the quality of delivery and accessibility so that children can be supported. As the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Edward Timpson), has set out, the Government are committed to updating Parliament further during the passage of the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
We know that when fathers take an active role in childcare, it is not only great for their relationships with their children; it is also important in eliminating the gender pay gap. That is why we have introduced shared parental leave and extended the right to request flexible working, helping both mums and dads to balance their work life with their family commitments.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Justine Greening
The EHRC is an independent body that was established under the Equality Act 2006. It has been subject to a substantial reform programme to ensure that it can carry out its core functions effectively, but it must be able to do that under its own steam because it is an independent body.
School Funding: Greater London
Helen Hayes Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Ms Buck
I am happy to congratulate Hounslow Council, and I completely endorse what my hon. Friend has said. I will come in a second to the comments of headteachers and councillors from across London who have expressed their dismay about the effect of the funding formula changes.
I want to finish what I was saying about the level of deprivation. I think that it is either not understood or glossed over by too many of the representatives from the shires, who want to negotiate a better funding settlement for their own schools—that is something that I completely understand and appreciate—but who do not always recognise the extent of the expense and the pressures faced by the capital city, which is experiencing a redistribution away of funding to meet those needs. Seven of the 10 local authorities with the highest levels of poverty in the UK are in London, so it is horrifying that the new Government formula for distributing schools funding hits London particularly hard. In briefing me for this debate, London Councils and the Mayor of London have made it clear that they are extremely concerned about that.
A higher proportion of London schools—an estimated total of 1,536—will see a reduction in funding than in any other region. Seventy per cent. of London schools face a fall in funding, compared with 58% of schools in the north-west and 53% in the west midlands—and the figures for those areas are bad enough. Eight of the 10 local authorities that face the highest percentage losses in funding are in London. Worst affected are councils known for high levels of deprivation and challenge, such as Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Lewisham, Haringey, Tower Hamlets and Hammersmith.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate, even at this late hour. I have written to all the headteachers in my constituency over the last few weeks, and they tell me that the pressures of the increase in national insurance contributions and the cuts to their funding are already forcing them to make very difficult decisions about cuts to support staff, in particular, and to SEN provision and so on. Does she agree that those are precisely the kinds of resource that have enabled London schools to be so successful over the past 10 years?
Ms Buck
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I will reinforce that point in a minute. The modelling undertaken by London Councils indicates that at constituency level the national funding formula element of the changes alone will mean that 28 schools lose in Barking; 35 in Bermondsey; 42 in Bethnal Green; 41 in Poplar and Limehouse; 37 in Tottenham; and 48 in West Ham, to list just a few. Leyton will lose £4.5 million —equivalent to 6.8% of its funding; Deptford £6.1 million or 7.6%; Hammersmith £5 million or 7.6%; Brent North £9 million or 7.3%; and Hendon £5.5 million.
My council, I am happy to say, is not one of the worst affected. We are still waiting for some of the modelling data, but I think that that is to do with the churn factor that the Government have introduced. Even allowing for that, many individual schools still stand to lose. Westminster Academy, for example—last time I looked, it was the seventh highest on the free school meal indicator, making it one of the most deprived schools in the country—will potentially have its funding cut by a quarter of a million pounds. According to analysis undertaken by the council, all but two secondary schools are potential losers, including Westminster Academy, Paddington Academy, St George’s, St Augustine’s, Pimlico Academy, St Marylebone and Westminster City. Primaries that face losses include George Eliot, St Joseph’s, St Luke’s, Robinsfield and Barrow Hill. Many Westminster children attend schools across the borders in Kensington, Camden and Brent, which are hit even harder. A number of local parents will be affected by the impact of the cuts on schools outside the boundary.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Hayes Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Joseph Johnson
The Home Secretary has announced that there will be a consultation that will look into non-EU work and study immigration routes. This will include consideration of what more we can do to strengthen the system so that institutions that stick to the rules can do more to attract the best talent.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
Maintained nursery schools are a small but very important part of the childcare market, and they do have costs that other providers do not, which is why we are providing £55 million a year in supplementary funding while we consult on how to ensure their future sustainability. The way in which we fund children’s centres gives local authorities the freedom to decide what services are appropriate to meet local need.
Helen Hayes
Some 99% of maintained nursery schools are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, and 65% of them are in the 30 most deprived areas of the country, including in my constituency. Yet, across the early years sector, experts are warning that proposed changes to the funding formula will place many of these nurseries at risk of closure after the two years of supplementary funding run out. Will the Minister commit to a sustainable level of funding to enable maintained nurseries to continue their important work of providing the best possible start in life and addressing disadvantage?