Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

I know that the Minister for School Standards, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), will be only too happy to meet my right hon. Friend. It is important that I remind the House that schools are subject to political impartiality, and guidance on this will be updated shortly.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Taxpayer-subsidised childcare is increasingly being taken over by large for-profit companies quartered overseas, according to new research by University College London and the Nuffield Foundation. These companies have growing debts and charge high fees to parents while having among the lowest levels of staff qualifications and pay. They are reinvesting little in childcare provision. Does the Minister believe that repaying corporate debt represents value for money for taxpayers while families across the country struggle to access childcare that they can afford?

[Michelle Donelan]

We are investing additional funding for the entitlements worth £160 million in 2022-23. I know that the Minister for Children and Families, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), will be only too happy to meet the hon. Member to discuss this in detail.

Early Years Educators

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing this important debate to mark Childcare and Early Education Week, and on his work with the APPG on childcare and early education to establish and promote this important week to acknowledge, celebrate and reflect on the vital role of the early years sector.

I pay tribute to everyone who works in early years education and childcare. There are few more important tasks than ensuring that every child has the best possible start in life. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to everyone who dedicates their working time to looking after and supporting very young children to grow, develop and thrive, whether as childminders or in nursery settings. It is a vocation to work with children. Across the country, as we speak, hundreds of thousands of early years professionals, the vast majority of them women, are nurturing and caring for children, and supporting them to develop and grow.

The theme for this year’s Childcare and Early Education Week is, “We are educators”. Under-fives learn in different ways from older children, but they are learning voraciously every single day. The best early years provision is underpinned by an understanding of child development and a richness of curriculum, every bit as complex as that found in our formal school system. Early years educators have the capacity to have a dramatic and lifelong impact on a child’s life, protecting against the effects of poverty and disadvantage, and reducing inequality. They can literally alter the foundations. “We are educators” is an important statement of fact, but it is also a challenge, particularly to the Government, to give early years professionals the status they deserve as a vital part of our education system that has parity with post-five provision.

I thank all hon. Members who have spoken this afternoon. We are in danger of an outbreak of consensus on the importance of improvements in the status and pay of early years professionals, of staffing ratios and of good SEND provision and support for kinship carers. I would like to pay tribute in her absence to my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), who was my predecessor in this role and who for six years tirelessly showed her dedication to the early years sector. I join the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) in paying tribute to Jack Dromey, who was a dedicated champion of early years education and who I know is very much missed by Members from all parties in the House.

Today, we are celebrating the early years and childcare sector, but the speeches we have heard are in stark contrast to the woeful neglect of the sector that we have seen during the past two years of the coronavirus pandemic. Time after time, early years provision has been an afterthought for this Government, considered and treated differently from the rest of the education system, and too often early years providers are left to fend for themselves.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her powerful speech. Does she agree that the situation she just described is reflected in the Government’s decision to cut over 1,300 Sure Start centres in the last decade? In one year alone in Barnsley, nine were shut and we have a quarter of our kids growing up in poverty. Although family hubs are welcome, does she share my disappointment that we could have prevented there being a need for them by not shutting Sure Start centres in the first place?

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. We had that infrastructure in Sure Start centres across the country, but 1,000 of them have closed, which is a shameful part of this Government’s record. Although it is welcome that they have recognised that terrible mistake with the introduction of family hubs, 150 family hubs across the country are no substitute for the 1,000 Sure Start centres that have closed their doors for good.

Early years settings have been open to all children since July 2020, without access to lateral flow tests or to additional funds for enhanced cleaning or personal protective equipment, despite the obvious inability of staff working with very small children to socially distance. Staff have been left vulnerable to infection and anxious about their own health and that of their families. I have been contacted by many providers in recent weeks who are struggling to stay open because of exceptionally high levels of sickness absence, as omicron has whipped through early years settings. With that coming on top of two years of stress and uncertainty, many who work in early years settings are exhausted and burnt out, and they are quite simply bewildered that the Government have not had their back.

Even before the pandemic, there were deep structural problems in the early years sector. The way in which the Government’s 30-hour entitlement is implemented does not work for providers and it certainly does not work for parents. A freedom of information request by the Early Years Alliance revealed that the cost of “fully funding” the entitlement would reach £7.49 an hour by 2020-21. Knowing that, the Government contribute average hourly funding of just £4.89 for a place for a three or four-year-old. Is it any wonder that the cost of childcare for working parents is spiralling up and up, while thousands of providers have closed and child-adult ratios are increasing in many settings?

The UK is among the most expensive places in the OECD for childcare, despite spending more than £4 billion of public money on it a year. The cost of childcare is a huge pressure on household finances at the best of times, but in the context of the current cost of living crisis, the pressure is unbearable for many families. High costs also deepen disadvantage, creating a system in which wealthier families can afford the highest quality provision, while families on lower incomes all too often have to settle for less.

As we begin to emerge from the pandemic, dealing with the devastating impact that it has had on our children should be a top priority for the Government. The youngest children are suffering the consequences of lockdown in their speech and language development, gross motor skills and social skills, and they have been denied many vital, indeed formative, experiences. In contrast to our Prime Minister, most of our youngest children will not have had a birthday party in the past two years—a contrast that shames him.

As a result of all that has been sacrificed, primary schools are reporting higher numbers of children who are not school-ready when they arrive in reception, and the impacts are worst for the poorest children. There is a gaping disadvantage gap that must be addressed urgently.

However, while the Government are mired in defending an indefensible Prime Minister, they have no vision or plan for the early years sector. There was no plan to support the sector through the pandemic; providers felt, in the words of the Early Years Alliance, as if they were “the forgotten sector”. There is no plan to support families with young children who are struggling with exorbitant childcare costs and who now also face a biting cost of living crisis. Most importantly, there is no plan for children, to provide the additional input that the youngest children need to catch up on all that they have lost during the pandemic.

Labour fully recognise the vital role of early years educators, who deserve recognition, gratitude and support, as well as a plan from this Government. I pay tribute to them today and I hope that this afternoon the Minister will provide the plan that is so desperately needed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince]

The hon. Lady is right that there are significant issues within the SEND system, which is why we have the SEND review. There are local authorities with significant pressure on their budgets. We are putting more money into the high-needs budget—about 10%, year on year—but we are conscious that money alone will not solve the issue. That is why we have the SEND review. I am working at pace on that as we speak. The SEND review will conclude and we will launch a Green Paper and a consultation by the end of March, so within the first quarter of the year. The hon. Lady’s point is well made.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) mentioned people leaving the profession. I will come back to that point, because it is really important. Recruitment and retention are key. I hear her call about the pilots in Cornwall and I will certainly look into that; I am always keen to visit Cornwall, whenever possible, so I will bear that in mind.

My hon. Friend also mentioned a largely female workforce, which is something I want to address. I want to see more men working in early years settings. It is really important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester referenced, the Government want families to stay together wherever possible. Where they do not, there is not necessarily a male role model in the household, so it is really important in education settings that there are good male role models for children to look up to. We have the Pulse survey, which monitors the private, voluntary and independent sector. We meet with the sector regularly to keep on top of these issues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) mentioned ratios, which I will come on to very briefly. I assure him that local authorities can retain only 5% of the funding allocated; they have to pass the rest on. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) referenced the whole-child approach, the first 1,001 days and family hubs. I recognise that he welcomes the £300 million investment that the Government are making in this area.

Numerous hon. Members mentioned funding. I agree that high-quality childcare supports children’s learning and development and prepares young people for school, as well as having a huge impact on later outcomes. That is why the sector is working really hard to support children and their parents. It is also why the Government have spent more than £3.5 billion in each of the last three years on early education entitlements, and we will continue to support families with their childcare costs.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester rightly pointed out, we announced additional funding of £160 million for 2022-23, £180 million the year after and £170 million the year after that, compared to the current year. That is for local authorities to increase the hourly rates paid to childcare providers and reflects the cost pressures that are anticipated and the changes in the number of eligible children.

So what does that mean? For 2022-23, we will increase the hourly funding rates for all local authorities—by 21p an hour for the disadvantage entitlement for two-year-olds in the vast majority of areas and by 17p an hour for the entitlement for three and four-year-olds.

I want to come on to the point about recruitment and retention, because they are really important.

[Helen Hayes]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Will Quince]

If the hon. Lady will give me time, I will come back to that point if I can.

Recruitment and retention are really important. Early years provision in 2021 was delivered by an estimated 328,000 staff. The majority of providers work to the required staff to child ratios for each age group, with some providers reporting that their ratios are more generous than the statutory minimum. We recognise that recruitment and retention are key issues for the sector, and local authorities are reporting significant pressures on providers. Importantly, we are working with the sector to build our understanding of the situation and how we might better support providers. We have commissioned qualitative research interviews on the theme of the early years workforce and a survey on the impact that covid is having on the workforce. We are working closely with the sector to identify some of those issues.

To aid recruitment and retention, we have also invested £153 million in programmes to support workforce developments as part of the £180 million package that I referenced. However, I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester said about the pressures and the questions he rightly raised about salary and how that impacts on recruitment. I will continue to listen to him, the all-party parliamentary group and the sector.

On ratios, the statutory framework for early years foundation stage sets out the staff to child ratios to help ensure that there is adequate staffing to meet the needs of, and to safeguard, children. They assume that the youngest children are the most vulnerable—I think that is the right approach—and need the greatest number of staff, but providers may need more staff where other needs are identified—for example, special educational needs. The Government are committed to working with the sector to support covid recovery, as well as on the broader concerns.

I want to clarify that there is a difference in ratios between England and Scotland, and I will look at that closely, but I assure all those who have raised the issue of ratios that I will always take an evidence-based approach. I will be very careful and considered in the way that I approach this and I will always put at the heart of this issue the needs of children and young people and the safeguarding of children. I will of course work with the APPG.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) referenced military-style childcare planning. I very much recognise that myself. Childcare costs and pressures are acute for many families. They are the second highest cost only to their mortgage or rent. We recognise that and it is something I am looking at that closely as part of my portfolio. I am interested to hear about her work on the universal credit offer. At the moment, the take-up for that is, frankly, too low.

With regard to maintained nursery schools, the points were well made and I echo the comments made about the late Member for Birmingham Erdington, Jack Dromey, who was a passionate advocate in this area. He last raised this with me just before Christmas and his voice will be sorely missed. The funding rate for maintained nursery schools will increase by 3.5% next year. That gives them the long-term certainty that they asked for. However, I recognise that they have some unique characteristics, such as a headteacher and a special educational needs co-ordinator, so I am looking at this closely and I will raise this with the Treasury.

Finally, I will touch again on SEND, which is absolutely a passion of mine. As part of the SEND review, we have to get early identification and early action at the heart of that. The earlier we identify the need, the better the support we can put in place, giving parents confidence, but most importantly, providing better outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs.

To close, I am enormously grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester for the support he has given this agenda today and to all those who have contributed to the debate. The steps we have taken underline the importance of early education and the role of educators in that sector. The Government have made a substantial financial commitment that will in decades to come provide the workforce with the skills and expertise to ensure that no child is left behind. I look forward to continuing to work with my hon. Friend, the APPG and the sector to progress these issues further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I will tell her exactly what we are doing. We have increased the high needs funding budget by £750 million a year for each of the previous three years. The spending review of 2021 provides a further £1.6 billion to that budget, an extra £2.6 billion in capital funding, an extra £42 million—but the hon. Lady is right: it is not just about money. That is why we have the comprehensive SEND review, which will report in the first quarter of next year.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The past two years have been incredibly difficult for children with special educational needs and disability. While the Government continue to delay the publication of the long-awaited SEND review, families are suffering now. Some 15,000 children with an education, health and care plan are still waiting to receive the provision specified in their plan, and more than 40% of plans are not issued within the statutory 20-week period.

Can I press the Minister again? Families up and down the country with children with SEND are losing confidence in the Government’s ability to deliver. What is the Minister doing now to support children with SEND and their families who are suffering while this Government continue to let them down?

[Will Quince]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new position. I agree with her that the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on young people with SEND and their families, and we are committed to helping pupils, including those with SEND, to make up for lost learning. We have provided additional uplifts for those who attend specialist settings; we have invested that extra £42 million. I accept that the SEND review is taking longer than we wanted it to, but it is a priority for me and for the Government, and there will be a report in the first quarter of next year.

Ofsted Review of Sexual Abuse in Schools and Colleges

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the issue of consent. It is important, when we look at the testimonials on Everyone’s Invited, to understand that not all of them involved illegal or criminal acts, but some did, and when there is a criminal act, it should be reported and acted on. The victim should have the confidence that it will be safe to report it and that it will be acted on. On the issue of consent, it is very much part of the RSHE curriculum. The curriculum starts at primary school age, where we teach about issues such as healthy relationships and talk about what an unhealthy relationship is and how to report it. Issues such as consent are built in as the child gets older through the period, but it is built into the curriculum, as are issues to do with unacceptable behaviour, harassment, misogyny and sexism. This is all part of the curriculum. I agree with the hon. Lady that it should be taught, and it is being taught.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The figures in this Ofsted report are shocking, and behind each one is a young person—most often a young woman—whose childhood and experience of education are being blighted by the fear, misery and mental harm of sexual harassment and sexual violence. It is important that schools are supported to deliver culture change, but will the Minister accept that schools that fail to make meaningful progress to change their culture and keep young people safe from sexual harassment and sexual violence should no longer be considered to be providing an outstanding educational experience for their students? Will she act to ensure that when schools are inspected by Ofsted, the progress on delivering change in culture and practice to tackle sexual harassment is a formal part of the assessment framework and contributes materially to the Ofsted rating?

[Vicky Ford]

The hon. Member is absolutely right to say that where a school’s safeguarding regime is inadequate, the school is inadequate. That is a core part of the Ofsted inspection, which it will look at and report to us, so where there are concerns about safeguarding, action will be taken. Action is being taken in a number of cases, but I agree that we need to strengthen the Ofsted regime with respect to this element of safeguarding. That is what the proposals suggest, and they will be actioned to ensure that where a school is not acting in a way that safeguards children appropriately, action will quite correctly be taken. This is at the forefront of a school’s responsibility. They are responsible not only for education but for our children’s safety.

Investing in Children and Young People

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. It is a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon).

There is not a part of the UK population that has not felt the severe impact of the covid-19 pandemic over the last 16 months. Whether it is the pain of bereavement or long-term health impacts, the hardship of reduced income or unemployment, all of our communities have suffered. But the impacts of the pandemic have been further fuelled by pre-existing inequality and disadvantage, and that is no more clearly seen than in the impact on children and young people. Our education system should be—and, indeed, thanks to the dedication and commitment of our teachers, often is—a bulwark against disadvantage. From early years through to college and university, education services provide the opportunity to reduce the impacts of poverty and deprivation. But faced with a stay-at-home order and the requirement to switch to online learning, we saw very quickly the impacts that 10 years of cuts to school funding have had on the resilience and capacity of our schools.

The stark reality is that UK schools were lagging far behind on investment in IT. Our schools should not have faced an impossible scramble to get laptops and broadband access to the most disadvantaged children. In the 21st century, the ability to learn through modern technology should have been a basic requirement, as it is in many other countries around the world. Instead, in my constituency, we saw our local council stepping in to provide laptops where the Government were far too slow, with communities fundraising and donating technology. While I pay tribute to all of that work, it should not have been necessary: our schools should have had the investment in basic IT equipment for every child already.

IT is just one example. Throughout the pandemic, the Government’s approach to children and young people has been chaotic and they have often seemed to be an afterthought—from the utter scandal of last year’s exam results, to the abandonment of so many university students, left to pay for accommodation they did not need, with little recourse for poor-quality online provision, to the failure of the catch-up tutoring programme and the shameful reluctance to fund free school meals during school holidays. Our children and young people feel left behind because they have been left behind by this Government.

We turn now to the national recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The Government have a special duty to our children and young people to ensure that the harms they have suffered over the past year remain superficial wounds from which they recover fully, not deep, permanent, debilitating scars. Children must be at the forefront of recovery. Whether it is the babies born during the lockdown who have missed out on the earliest opportunities to socialise with other children so vital for speech and language development, or the teens whose independence was just beginning to expand at the point at which they were confined to the four walls of their homes, or children with special educational needs and disability who simply have not been able to engage with online learning at all and have missed out on months of education and support, we must ensure that no child is left behind.

But the mean and paltry nature of the Government’s response is an insult to every child, every parent and every teacher, school leader, early years practitioner and youth worker in the country. The Government employed Sir Kevan Collins for his expertise to set out what was required to enable our children and young people to catch up and recover, and then decided they would ignore his recommendations and do it on the cheap, with a tutoring offer of less than £1 per day for each day that children were out of school. This insult comes on top of stealth cuts to the pupil premium, which will cost schools in Southwark, which covers part of my constituency, £1.2 million and mean that 723 children in Lambeth are no longer eligible for free school meals. This Government are adding to food poverty for our children and young people, not reducing it.

Our children and young people are the future of our economy and our communities; we cannot afford not to invest in their recovery. Labour has set out an ambitious and comprehensive plan to invest in our children based on a clear understanding of children’s needs. We would ensure that no child is left to go hungry by funding breakfast clubs and free school meals during the holidays. We would deliver the mental health support in every school that is absolutely vital in helping children come to terms with their experiences over the past year. And we would ensure an effective tutoring programme for every child who needs the support to catch up and provide funding for extra-curricular activities, which should be not a luxury for a privileged few but available to every child to expand their horizons, discover new talents and passions and have fun with their friends.

In closing, I pay tribute to the teachers, support staff, school leaders, youth workers and voluntary sector organisations across Dulwich and West Norwood who week by week for more than a year have been straining every sinew to deliver support for our children and young people. There is so much commitment, innovation and creativity in our communities and in our schools, but that work should be in addition to comprehensive, fully funded support provided by the Government, not, as it so often is, plugging the gaps.

I hope the Government will listen today, rethink our approach and fund the recovery programme our children so desperately need.

A Brighter Future for the Next Generation

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate on the Gracious Speech, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman). I pay tribute to all those across my constituency who have worked throughout the covid-19 pandemic to provide support to our children and young people. Early years staff, teachers and youth workers all kept working throughout the pandemic with such dedication in extraordinarily difficult circumstances, often fearful for their own health. Our local councils, Lambeth and Southwark, stepped in at key times to provide free school meals when the Government refused to fund them, and laptops and broadband access as month after month the Government dragged their feet.

Our children and young people have borne the brunt of the pandemic, missing out on learning, extracurricular activities and time with their friends. Their mental health has suffered, and the disadvantage gap in education has widened. Last year’s exam scandal heaped yet more entirely avoidable misery on an already difficult year, with thousands of young people plunged into weeks of turmoil, with their dreams at risk, because of the Government’s botched algorithm. This year’s exam students have also been put through months of anxiety due to dithering and uncertainty about how they would be assessed. I met this morning with year 10 students at the Norwood School in my constituency, who asked for urgent clarity on how they will be assessed in their GCSE and BTEC exams next year and how the Government will take account of the two years of disrupted education they have suffered.

Children and young people have been an afterthought for the Government throughout the pandemic. They must be the first priority for the recovery. We cannot allow the disadvantage and inequality exacerbated by the pandemic to define the future of this generation of children and young people, and that is not inevitable. With political will and resources, we can get our children and young people back on track, yet this Gracious Speech is simply not good enough.

In London, the vacuous phrase “levelling up” means no such thing. We have seen, time and again, the Government cutting the funding for our schools to make politically expedient funding choices elsewhere in the country. The full additional costs of the pandemic have not been covered for London schools and they now face a stealth cut in the pupil premium—a cynical change in the calculation date, which the Government hoped no one would notice. This will cost schools in Southwark £1.2 million, and it is a similar sum in Lambeth. It is utterly reprehensible to cut essential funding from the most disadvantaged children, wherever they live in the country. That is not levelling up; it is deliberately dragging our children down.

It is not only schoolchildren in London who are at the mercy of this Government’s cynicism. There are no proposals at all for the desperately underfunded early years sector, and the Tories are scrapping the London weighting component of the teaching grant for higher education, too. This funding recognises the increased costs of delivering higher education in London. It improves access to higher education for lower-income students in London, wherever they come from in the country. This cut of £64 million will have devastating consequences for London’s universities and those who choose to study at them. Once again, the Tories are levelling down London to the detriment of the whole country.

Children and young people in my constituency care passionately about our planet and about their peers elsewhere in the world. They know the importance of the UK’s contribution through international aid to tackling climate change, global poverty and supporting women and girls across the globe. The children and young people in my constituency do not understand why the Government would choose to make swingeing cuts to aid during a global pandemic and a climate emergency, the consequences of which are being most severely felt by the world’s poorest nations.

The commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on international aid was enshrined in law as the democratic will of the House of Commons, on the basis of a manifesto commitment that the British people voted for and have voted for time and again. Reneging on that commitment is not a matter for the Chancellor alone. It is a matter for this Parliament, so I ask the Minister to confirm whether the Government will bring forward legislation so that the many Members in this place who believe slashing UK aid to be profoundly wrong can vote against it.

Each one of our precious children and young people deserves a brighter future, but the meanness and poverty of ambition in the Gracious Speech will only let them down. They deserve a bolder and more ambitious plan for our country than this meagre offering. I call on the Government to reconsider their cynical cuts to our schools, universities and councils in London and to international aid, and instead to equip, fund and empower our local communities to deliver for everyone.

Education Route Map: Covid-19

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab) [V]]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for securing this important debate. The last year has been extraordinarily challenging for everyone, and I want to put on record my thanks to all the teachers and support staff in schools across Dulwich and West Norwood for their incredible, tireless work to support young people, both in school and via remote learning.

All our brilliant local schools entered the pandemic having suffered 10 years of austerity. Government cuts meant that there had not been investment in IT infrastructure and skills. There was no resilience plan in place for a pandemic. As a consequence, schools were left scrambling to access resources and develop new ways of teaching.

The individual experiences of families and young people during the pandemic have varied enormously. Families living in already overcrowded accommodation, and those without access to laptops, tablets and broadband, have had a completely different experience from those with good IT and space for the whole family to work from home comfortably. Pre-existing poverty and inequality have been deepened and widened by the pandemic. Young people taking GCSEs, BTECs and A-levels this year have faced appalling and unnecessary anxiety and distress as a result of the Government’s long delay in confirming how their qualifications would be assessed.

The scale of the problems that children and young people have faced just have not been matched by the funding provided by the Government to support them during the pandemic or to assist recovery afterwards. The same Government who refused to fund free school meals during the October half-term and specified mean, inadequate food parcels for low-income families have also decided that 43p per child is sufficient to help children and young people catch up on all they have missed over the past year.

We need a much more ambitious package of measures in the short term to support young people both to learn and to have equally urgently needed fun, relaxation and enjoyment of time with their peers for the rest of the current school year and over the summer. For the long term, we need a detailed plan to close the disadvantage gap in education and support children’s mental health.

Supporting our children and young people to recover from the impact of this terrible pandemic, to catch up on their learning and social development and to fulfil their potential is an investment that the Government cannot afford not to make. It is an investment in the capacity and resilience of the next generation, the future of our economy and public services, and the fairness and equality of our society.

Covid-19: Impact on Schools and Exams

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this evening, Mr Gray, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on securing this important debate.

I pay tribute to school leaders, teachers and support staff across my constituency, who have worked tirelessly throughout the coronavirus lockdown to keep schools open for the children of key workers, deliver teaching online in difficult circumstances, and reopen schools to all students. Their commitment has been extraordinary, but they have not had the support from the Government that they should have been able to rely on. First, in relation to laptops, tablets and wi-fi provision, it was completely obvious at the very beginning of the coronavirus lockdown that the impact on education would be far worse for students who did not have dedicated access to a laptop or tablet, and reliable wi-fi. Yet across my constituency the number of laptops provided has not come close to meeting the need, and in October the allocation was revised down. One headteacher tweeted that in September the school was promised

“115 laptops for disadvantaged students”,

that on 22 October schools had a

“legal requirement to deliver remote learning”,

and that on 23 October as the school broke up for half term it received 23 laptops. The headteacher added that the children had not “got less disadvantaged” between September and 23 October.

Secondly, in relation to costs, schools have incurred significant extra costs as a result of introducing covid-safe measures. Many schools in my constituency are seeking to reclaim between £12,000 and £20,000 in extra costs—money that they have already spent; but there is no transparency from the Government about reimbursements. Some schools’ applications have been refused entirely, others have had a partial amount, and others have received the full sum for which they applied. I would be grateful if the Minister would explain how she expects schools to balance their budgets in those circumstances, when the Government do not fully account for and reimburse the significant extra costs. Will she commit to reimburse all the additional costs that schools have incurred related to covid-19?

Finally, on exams, it is important that children can be confident that everything possible will be done to ensure that they do not suffer long-term disadvantage as a result of the terrible year of coronavirus. The handling of exam results was a fiasco. It caused deep, lasting distress to many students and their families, not all of which could be repaired by the Government’s U-turn. Even after that U-turn, there was still a widening of the disadvantage gap in results, with private schools seeing the biggest improvements in grades. Applying blanket measures to all students in the coming year will not address the disadvantage gap either. Students who have had good access to online learning will still fare better than students who have not had the laptops or wi-fi that they need, even with knowledge of the subjects that will be on the exam paper.

Coronavirus has scarred our country enough. The Government must ensure that they do not do long-term damage to young people in relation to either the quality of their education or their mental health. Funding laptops, reimbursing schools for additional costs and delivering a fully functioning, comprehensive catch-up programme are the minimum requirements that children should be able to expect.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on securing this debate. I am also grateful to the petitioners, Ellis, Libby and Alex, and to the Petitions Committee for giving us the opportunity to discuss these important topics of opening schools and colleges and ensuring that exams can fairly take place in 2021.

I offer my thanks, as I am sure all hon. Members would, to teachers and educational leaders for their phenomenal efforts in recent months as they have adapted to the changing environment we all live in. The work of schools and colleges has been critical to ensuring that students have continued to access education in some way, and have continued to feel connected to the classroom and their peers. We accept, however, that that has not been an equal experience across the whole country.

When developing our approach, the interests of students and teachers have always been our priority. Since the pandemic began, we as a Government have rightly put education first, and we will continue to do so. We cannot and must not let covid destroy this year of education, which is why we have taken steps to keep schools and colleges open and exams on track.

The return to school in autumn was driven by the clear benefits to young people and children of a return to educational settings. Those benefits remain unchanged. As many hon. Members said, keeping schools and colleges open is important to mitigate some of the largest risks that have materialised during this period for children and young people who have spent time away from educational settings.

There is clear evidence of the negative educational impact of missing school for all students, but particularly younger children, as investments in children’s learning tend to accumulate and consolidate over time. School and college closures put educational outcomes at risk, especially for disadvantaged students, due to existing inequalities and attainment gaps being exacerbated. The opportunities for early identification of things such as emerging learning problems are also missed when pupils are not in school.

As was mentioned by many hon. Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore), school closures have been found to cause a deterioration in children’s mental health. Evidence suggests that the mental health of adolescents is particularly affected and that their cognitive, social and emotional development outcomes are at risk, as is their physical health. For vulnerable children, the impact of school closures has had an adverse effect on their wellbeing and educational outcomes due to reduced access to essential services. One regional study presents evidence that schools have been the source of 40% of child protection and safeguarding referrals.

Keeping settings open remains the Government’s priority, and we have taken other steps across society to manage down virus prevalence by closing other sectors in order to allow schools to remain open at full attendance. We have prioritised education at all local restriction tiers. The Government’s policy is that education settings will remain open, and parents should therefore continue to send their children to school. Schools have implemented a range of protective measures to minimise the risk of transmission. The risk of children becoming severely ill from coronavirus is low, and there are negative health impacts from being out of school. Senior clinicians, including the chief medical officers of all four nations, still advise that school is the best place for children to be.

To respond to Libby’s specific question—several hon. Members have raised the issue of finishing school two weeks earlier—we will provide guidance to schools and colleges on the end of term and on how to manage the short period afterwards, when their support might be required with contact tracing. Further guidance will be issued, but let us be clear: this will not be a typical Christmas for any of us, and we will all need to take extra care, as the Prime Minister has said. We want to maximise the time in school as much as possible. Young people have missed simply too much of their education.

Let us turn to some of the support that we provide to schools, particularly on their use of technology and on whether they have been able to access technology. The hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), who is no longer in his place, mentioned that. We have taken access to technology very seriously. By the end of this year, over 500,000 laptops, as well as 50,000 4G wireless routers, will have been provided by Computacenter, which has always been on the procurement framework. We have also introduced a service to provide more flexibility and to make sure they get to the right places, if there are specific lockdowns or large areas where kids need them. People can call that service and receive a laptop in just two days—I am sure the people of Darlington will welcome that.

The EdTech strategy, which we published in April last year, set out the Government’s commitment to support and enable schools and colleges to use technology more effectively. Of course, that has been really important, as we have all had to go and do pretty much everything online. The strategy set out the building blocks for effective use of technology in education: good digital infrastructure, capacity building, capability building across the sector, and a better understanding of the things that work in practice.

The same building blocks from the strategy have been an essential part of our response, but at a greater pace than we could have ever anticipated, to ensure that both schools and parents feel supported and that young people continue to thrive. That includes a whole host of measures, such as the introduction of the EdTech demonstrator network, which is a peer support network of schools and colleges that aims to increase expertise in their use of technology. That includes targeted support, weekly webinars and an online library of resources that can be shared. That is to help schools that are not as comfortable or familiar with the technology, so that those that are further ahead on the tech journey can help others in need.

In recent months, the network’s support has included how to maximise the investment that the Government have made to freely access Microsoft 365 or the G Suite for Education digital platform; how to ensure that pupils are safe online, including anxiety-busting strategies and activities; and how technology can help better support pupils with complex needs. There is a lot of work going on in this area. Crucially, that support also considers how our investment in technology can offer long-term benefits for pupils and teachers, as disruption to education could continue. Even after it reduces, there will be a legacy of blended learning.

On 27 November, the Department announced a new covid workforce fund for schools and further education settings to help them remain open. It will fund the cost of teacher absences over a threshold in schools and colleges for those with high staff absences that are facing significant financial pressures. The fund will help schools and colleges meet the cost of the absences that they have experienced from the beginning of November until the end of this term.

A number of Members mentioned budgets and additional costs. Schools have already received payments of £102 million for exceptional costs during the summer months, and there will be a further opportunity later in the year for schools to claim any costs that fell between March and July in the same approved categories for which they did not already claim in the first window. We will continue to review the pressures that schools and colleges are facing in the next term.

[Helen Hayes]

Despite having claimed for costs incurred over the summer, some schools in my constituency have received no reimbursement from the Government. Will the Minister explain why that is happening and how those schools can be expected to balance their books this year?

[Gillian Keegan]

Obviously there are criteria for each of those funds—I do not know the particular situation, but I am happy to write to the hon. Lady—and those schools may not have met them. One of them is to look at the whole of the school budget, and reserves in particular.

Let me turn to exams and Alex’s petition to cancel GCSEs. I understand Alex’s concern and it is admirable that he is concerned, on behalf of others, about the unfairness due to unequal access to education. We are continuing to do everything in our power to ensure that young people are evaluated fairly in the coming year. We have to realise that there is no perfect system. All the other systems have flaws and downfalls. In the current climate, the decision to hold exams demonstrates our commitment to ensuring the fairest possible outcome for all students.

As the Secretary of State set out last week, the fundamental problem with this year’s exams is that we tried to award grades without actually holding exams, and we are not going to repeat that mistake. This is really difficult to do. It got me, like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), thinking back to my own experience. I come from the same area as Alex—Liverpool. I passed 10 O-levels, and I am sure there was not a single teacher in my Knowsley comprehensive school who would have thought that I would do that. The culture of education was such that we had to hide our homework and what we were doing. I am pretty sure that if I had been in school during this period, I would have been lucky if I had passed four. I was not confident enough to think that I could have passed 10. Exams are a really important way of enabling people to show just what they can do.

Holding a successful exam series in summer 2021 remains a vital component of our strategy to maintain continuity of education and support our young people to ensure they can progress with their qualifications, fairly awarded. We will ensure a successful delivery of the 2021 exams. We will consult with key stakeholders, such as schools, unions and exam centres, to discuss the logistics of the series, in terms of venues, invigilators and so on.

We support Ofqual’s decision that, in awarding next year’s GCSEs and AS and A-levels, grading will be generous and aligned with the overall standards awarded this year. Ofqual is working with awarding organisations to ensure that vocational and technical qualifications—a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North—lead to similar progression opportunities as A-levels and GCSEs, and that students studying them are not advantaged or disadvantaged.

To help students target their revision, at the end of January they will be given advance notice of some of the topic areas that will be assessed in their GCSE and A-level exams. We will also provide exam support material, such as formula sheets, in some exams to give students more confidence and reduce the amount of information they need to memorise for exams. We really are trying to reduce the stress that students feel when taking exams by narrowing what they know to expect in exams and providing aid so that they do not need to worry about memorising the formulas and so on.

History Curriculum: Black History

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[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.

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[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

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[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.