Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Whately Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
In August, the Prime Minister announced an extra £14 billion for schools in England over the next three years. That will bring the schools budget to £52.2 billion in 2022-23. This will allow funding increases for all schools. In particular, our pledge to level up pupil funding means that every secondary school will receive a minimum of at least £5,000 per pupil next year, with every primary school getting a minimum of at least £4,000 from 2021-22. This is the largest cash boost in a generation, and that has only been possible because of our balanced approach to public finances and careful stewardship of the economy since 2010.
Nick Gibb
We take this issue as seriously as the hon. Lady does, which is why we have announced within the £14 billion a £700 million increase for special needs. That is an 11% increase. We absolutely understand the pressures that local authorities have been under and we are addressing it.
Helen Whately
I welcome the extra £14 billion of school funding that the Government have committed to. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that some of that money goes to schools in my constituency, some of which have been historically underfunded? They are fantastic schools but could do even better with more money.
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend has been a redoubtable campaigner for school funding in her constituency. Thanks to her efforts and the balanced approach we have taken to the public finances, the school funding settlement will mean that every school in her constituency will attract an increase in funding and that 75% of secondary schools there will benefit from our pledge to level up school funding to at least £5,000 per secondary school pupil.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Whately Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)
I am aware of some of the discrepancies between the salaries of FE teachers and schoolteachers. We have several programmes, not least the taking teaching further programme, which will encourage industry professionals into FE teaching. However, as I said, I am aware of some of the issues around recruitment in the FE sector.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Whately Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)
I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Mr Gyimah
The issues of mental health in our universities are extremely concerning, and I am working with the National Union of Students on its plans. Universities UK’s step change project, which calls on higher education leaders to adopt mental health as a strategic priority, is an important one, and one I support.
School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2018
Helen Whately Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the real-terms funding increase that schools across the country are getting between now and 2020?
The Chair
Nick Gibb
There are two points. First, we have only been able to deliver these high levels of spending on schools, rising from £41 billion this year to £42.4 billion next year and £43.5 billion the year after, because the way in which we have managed the economy means we can afford to do so. A Labour Government, particularly a Labour Government under the current leadership—any future Government led by the party opposite—would bankrupt our economy and there would be no chance of any of these increases in funding coming into our public services. We have to have a strong economy first of all. Secondly, responding to the hon. Lady’s point, schools in Bradford West, as she should know, would attract 1.3% more funding if the national funding formula were implemented in full, based on the 2017-18 data. That is equivalent to £1.4 million more funding for those schools.
Helen Whately
Having campaigned for the fairer funding formula on behalf of my Kent constituency, I welcome the formula. For many years, similar schools with similar pupils in other areas were getting significantly more money than schools in my area.
Helen Whately
It gives children in my constituency a fairer chance of getting the good education they need, coupled with rising funding. It is truly welcome.
Nick Gibb
The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East said from a sedentary position that it is 0.5%. Schools in Faversham and Mid Kent would attract 6.4% more funding if the national funding formula were implemented in full based on the 2017-18 data. That is equivalent to £2.7 million, so I understand why my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent made her intervention.
The new funding formula will be fairer. The additional funds mean, as I have said, that spending will rise from £41 billion this year to £43.5 billion by 2019-20. As the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed, that will allow us to maintain schools and high-need funding in real terms per pupil for the next two years. I hope that answers the comments made by the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East. As the IFS also pointed out, by 2020 real-terms funding per pupil will be 70% higher than it was in 1990, and 50% higher than it was in 2000.
Free School Meals/Pupil Premium: Eligibility
Helen Whately Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs Hodgson
Yes. My hon. Friend might not have realised what I was referring to before; it was to the private Member’s Bill promoted by our right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead on holiday meal provision, which the Minister has committed to running some pilots on. Hopefully, they will prove that point.
On the benefits of universal free school meals, I will just add that when they were piloted, the most marked academic improvements were among children from less affluent backgrounds. That is a very important point to make.
I think the Minister is a common-sense kind of guy; I have found that in my dealings with him in all-party groups that we have worked in together over the years. So I am sure that, on hearing the figures that I have cited, he will agree that the reason for all of this work is that children are more attentive and ready to learn, because they have a healthy meal in their tummies that is fuelling their learning.
Mrs Hodgson
I am just about to finish.
The proposals in the consultation would jeopardise all of that, because those children would have to go back to bringing in packed lunches and only 1% of packed lunches meet the nutritional requirements that our fabulous school food does now. It has been improved beyond recognition.
I will give way to the hon. Lady very quickly.
Helen Whately
I know that the hon. Lady is just coming to the end of her remarks, but I just wanted to pick her up on one thing. She is making compelling arguments for the benefits of free school meals and breakfasts. I think that many of us would support her in wanting to make sure that children are well fed at school. However, she has not touched on the costs of doing those things, the trade-offs, and the choices that might have to be made to ensure that a generous supply of free school meals is available.
Mrs Hodgson
The hon. Lady might not be aware, because I do not think that she was a Member at the time, but after the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath commissioned the school food plan, he agreed with all 17 of its recommendations. He put money to 16 of them straight away and the 17th one was for universal free school meals; he accepted the arguments for that recommendation and said he would provide money for it when it could be found. Money was found for universal infant free school meals, under the coalition agreement with Nick Clegg, and those meals were introduced.
The point has already been made; it has been proved. The money can be found, because universal free school meals more than pay for themselves, and the benefits that we get from them outweigh the initial costs, including the amount saved on administration because they are universal. There are a whole host of arguments around this issue, but in a sense I am detracting from what this debate is about, so I will conclude.
I hope that the Minister has been listening intently; in fact, I am sure he has, because he has looking at me and I have seen he is. I hope he will do the same with other speakers. The new system was presented as a way to eradicate poverty, but instead the introduction of the measure that we have been discussing could cement poverty in our society, and at worst there could even be a rise in poverty among “working poor” families. If that happens, we would go through all these changes for naught, and children would be just as badly off in the future—maybe even worse off—and that would be at the behest of the Government. I am sure that is not what they want, so I hope that the Minister will look at this issue seriously and perhaps think again, for the sake of the children out there who we are all here to support.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Whately Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
In 2013, we published a new primary school curriculum that significantly raised expectations in both English and maths, and promoted the use of phonics in the teaching of reading. In 2012, we introduced the phonics check for six-year-olds. The results of the 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study—PIRLS—showed nine-year-olds in England achieving the highest ever scores, moving England up from joint 10th to joint eighth out of 50 countries worldwide.
Nick Gibb
The PIRLS survey links strong performance in the phonics check with high scores in the PIRLS text. Particularly pleasing is the fact that our rise in the global rankings has been driven by improved performance by low-ability pupils. We are now focusing on strengthening the maths, reading and writing elements of the early years foundation stage to help prepare children for year 1 of primary school. The attainment gap has closed by 10.5% at key stage 2, but we want to go further and close the gap altogether.
Helen Whately
I do regular phonics practice with my children, which, as the Minister has said, is helping children get better at reading. However, there does not seem to the same focus on practising core maths skills in primary schools. What is my right hon. Friend doing to improve maths in primary schools, especially the learning of times tables?
Nick Gibb
I thank my hon. Friend for making sure her children learn their phonics, and she is right to emphasise the importance of children knowing their times tables by heart, up to 12 times 12 by the end of year 4 at the latest. That is why we are introducing an on-screen multiplication tables check for all pupils at the end of year 4 of primary school. The prize is to have all pupils leaving primary school fluent in their multiplication tables, ensuring they have the essential foundation for success in mathematics at secondary school.
Budget Resolutions
Helen Whately ExcerptsTuesday 14th March 2017
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Finance Act 2017 View all Finance Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
A few weeks ago I joined a Faversham care worker, Kim, on her rounds. When I joined her at 7.30 in the morning, she had already started washing her first client. That lovely lady needed Kim’s help to get up, get washed and dressed, and have breakfast. So many of us take such things for granted, but there is a time in life when people need help, especially if they suffer from disabilities, as she did.
I spent that morning with Kim because I wanted to see for myself the challenges presented by social care. In my constituency, we have an acute shortage of domiciliary care. Care agencies tell me that they simply cannot recruit enough staff to meet the demand—at least, not at the rates that they can pay. Age UK Faversham tells me that people are going without care who desperately need it, and the local hospitals tell me that at any time about a third of their patients would be better cared for somewhere else.
Kent County Council has made huge efforts to protect frontline care while efficiencies have been achieved, but in my part of Kent it seems that the care system is only just managing, and there are similar stories across the country. That is why, before the Budget, I asked the Chancellor if he could find extra money for social care. I know that I was one of many, and I am grateful that we have been heard. The Budget will give social care £2 billion more over the next three years, of which £l billion will be available in 2017-18. For Kent that means an extra £26 million this year, more than double what it is expecting to raise through the social care precept. That will make a real difference. Also welcome are the £100 million to fund more GPs at A&E departments—which, as we know, are a hospital pressure point—and the £300 million of extra capital funding for sustainability and transformation plans.
There is no escaping the fact—about which the OBR is very clear—that the need for health and social care will rise, and costs will rise with it. The number of over-85s is set to double in the next 15 years, and there are some worrying trends among much younger people—for instance, people in their 60s—who are living with complex life- limiting conditions. The money to care for those people has to come from somewhere, but it should not come from adding to the debt to be paid off by future generations, or from the tax changes that have been proposed by some Opposition Members, which have not been thought through and could result in reduced tax revenue to pay for the costs of care.
The best way to pay for the increasing costs of care is to have a strong and growing economy. I welcome the fact that, with its proposals for investment in infrastructure, skills and education, the Budget has boosting productivity at its core. However, we also need to adapt to changes in the nature of work that are already happening. As the Secretary of State said earlier, jobs are changing fast. About 60% of the jobs that today’s schoolchildren will do have not even been invented yet. More people are choosing to be self-employed or finding work in the gig economy. More businesses are moving online. The tax system needs to respond.
I fully recognise the extra risks and insecurities for the self-employed and entrepreneurs—I am married to one—and I hope that the Taylor report that is due in the autumn will address some of the insecurities of modern work, but there is an enormous imbalance between the contributions made by people in employment and those made by the self-employed, particularly when one adds in national insurance contributions paid by employers. Many business models have developed simply to take advantage of that tax differential and, in the process, the rapid rise in self-employment is eroding the tax base. That simply has to be addressed. We will all get old and may need care one day, so we all need to contribute to paying for that.
I look forward to the planned Green Paper on future social care funding. We need a funding system that means providers of care will invest in facilities and especially in the workforce, because the people who provide care are at the heart of this. It was such a privilege to spend time with Kim in Faversham and to see what she did for the people she cares for. We must ensure that no one has to worry whether they will get the care that they need, when they need it.
National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs
Helen Whately Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Justine Greening
I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. We have seen year-on-year improvements in our education system. As one of my predecessors said on the “Today” programme earlier this week, it is important that we continue the reforms we have already got under way. That is precisely what we will be doing.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
I very much welcome today’s statement on behalf of schools in my Kent constituency, which are significantly underfunded and disadvantaged by the current formula. I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to a rapid introduction of the new formula. In the meantime, will she consider seriously whether there is any possibility of interim funding for schools until the new formula is introduced?
Justine Greening
As I said in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), the additional uplift that was provided last year will continue into the forthcoming year, after which we will introduce the national funding formula in 2018-19. Today, we are coming forward with a fundamental solution to a long-term problem that has been building up not just over the last decade, but for 20 years—some people would argue it has been 30 years in the making. Now is the time, finally, that we sort this out.
Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)
Helen Whately ExcerptsTuesday 13th December 2016
(7 years, 4 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children and Social Work Act 2017 View all Children and Social Work Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 13 December 2016 - (13 Dec 2016)
Edward Timpson
My understanding is that it is relevant to borough councils such as the one my hon. Friend mentions, but I will ensure that I have complete clarity on that point, because it is imperative that this proposal covers the whole of local government where it has responsibility for the children in its care.
Removing “have regard to” would constrain local authority discretion, which is not the outcome we are looking for. Instead, we want to achieve a culture change so that the corporate parenting principles genuinely inform how existing duties are carried out. For example, if the local authority is fulfilling a refuse collection function to a care leaver, the need to promote high aspirations may not be entirely relevant to that function—I think we can all see that. It is something that the authority must have regard to, but it can take the view that it is not possible to do anything towards meeting that need when exercising a particular function, hence the need for local discretion and proportionality. On the other hand, when fulfilling housing functions it may be relevant to have regard to the need to secure the best outcomes for care leavers. To that end, the needs identified in the clause must work in a way that is proportionate, meaningful and pragmatic.
The clause articulates for the first time the guiding principles that will change local authorities’ culture and practice when they discharge their responsibilities as corporate parents. That approach is supported by Dave Hill, the president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. We want to encapsulate in the corporate parenting principles a set of clear and helpful priority needs for this group of children and young people. We want them to be reference points for the local authority to take into account across the discharge of all its functions. That means that everyone in the authority—not only front-line staff in children’s social care and leaving care services, but all local authority services—will have regard to those needs when carrying out functions in relation to care leavers and looked-after children.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
My hon. Friend is talking about how the whole local authority must take responsibility for care leavers. Does he anticipate that the principles will mean that local authorities are far less likely to place children out of their local area and put them into care in other local authorities, and that they will place children outside their boundaries only in exceptional circumstances?
Edward Timpson
My hon. Friend is right to raise what is still an ongoing issue in many parts of the country. I know that many children, often from central London, are placed out of area in Kent, where her constituency is. Although in a small number of cases there is a clear justification for doing so relating to the young person’s needs, we hope that the corporate parenting principles will bind the local authority’s decision making together, so that when a final view is taken on where the child is best placed to meet their needs the local authority will look at how it can improve its local provision, set against the corporate parenting principles, which include housing and the wishes and feelings of the young person. I anticipate that the corporate parenting principles will provide a better mechanism for ensuring that those who are charged with the responsibility of finding the right path for those young people do so in a way that enables them to find a placement that is in keeping not just with their wishes but their needs, which more often than not means being much closer to home than in some cases currently.
Education and Social Mobility
Helen Whately Excerpts(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
I am a Conservative because I believe fiercely in aspiration. I believe, too, that it does not matter where people start in life, what their parents did or how wealthy their family is—people can achieve their dreams and improve their life through their own endeavours, dedication and an attitude of service and community. That, for me, is real compassion, and it is no more abundantly clear than in relation to the education policies and achievements of this Government and this party.
If we look at the evidence, we realise that the Opposition have no grounds to complain. When Labour left office in 2010, two in five children were leaving secondary school functionally illiterate or innumerate—two in five, in a country with some of the best schools in the world. That is unacceptable and a scandal. Employers had lost confidence in exams because of grade inflation, and kids were made to catch up when they got to university. Thanks to the bold reforms of structures and standards, progress has been made. The free schools movement has reinvigorated the teaching profession to inject innovation and allow teachers and schools to provide the standards they want in their community.
Prior to my election to Parliament, I co-founded and now chair one of the early free schools, Michaela community school, in my home town, Wembley. We are now in our third year of opening. It is a secondary school in a run-down part of London. Pupils come from a wide of range of backgrounds—40% are Afro-Caribbean, more than 50% are on the pupil premium, nearly half speak English as a second language, and one in five has special educational needs. One third of pupils start at Michaela community school with a reading age below their chronological age; many have been thrown out of their previous schools. However, our philosophy of an academically rigorous curriculum, high expectations and zero tolerance of poor behaviour has proved popular with children and parents in the area. Every child is treated as though they have the potential to get to Oxbridge, even if some enter with low attainment and poor behaviour. We have children who make five years’ progress in reading in one year. That is because of our invigorated teachers, innovation in teaching and the standards that we apply.
Our teachers recently published a book about what makes Michaela excellent. I am going to read a story about one of our pupils, Korey, who joined Michaela community school last September.
“He is black, has special educational needs and lives on an estate. His mother and grandmother were desperate. His father was absent. His primary school said that he was the worst-behaved child they had ever seen. We happily invited Korey into Michaela.”
We are a very inclusive school. My headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh, explained to Korey’s mother
“how the school works, why we have silent classrooms with hard-working children, learning more than anyone would have imagined possible, even more than their counterparts at private schools.”
At Michaela we have
“silent and orderly corridors, and lunch halls that are free from bullying, our playground where children are able to be children. It works because we do not pander to every parental whim, making exceptions in order to ‘accommodate’.”
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Does the school that my hon. Friend chairs focus on the quality of teaching, which we know is so important for high achievement in schools?
Suella Fernandes
Exactly. It is the quality of teaching that has made the difference to Korey’s life, for example. He is now one of our extraordinary successes. He has progressed in reading and numeracy and his behaviour is transformed. It is quality of teaching and high expectations that make the difference to our children.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
I feel keenly the importance of every child having a chance to succeed, never more so than when I visit schools in my constituency or drop my own children off at school and see bright faces in the playground or lined up with crossed legs in assembly, full of hope and potential. The question today is how we best nurture that potential and enable every child to make the most of their talents. From pre-school, through primary and secondary school, and on to further education, every stage is an opportunity. Indeed, at every stage there is also a risk that some children may do less well, relatively, but fear of difference in results must not drive policy, as I fear it does for some Opposition Members.
There is a clear consensus in the House about the importance of pre-school education and early years education—primary school. Progress is being made in these areas, particularly in the improvement of standards in primary schools, but there is more to be done, particularly so that children arrive at reception already having good language skills, particularly in their first language, which is not always the case.
Today we are talking primarily about selection. Opposition MPs have been attacking academic selection but, oddly, not any other forms of selection. They have not countered the points made about why they are so happy about selection for sports or arts, nor made it clear where they stand on existing grammar schools. They appear to have a pretty confused policy. I stand here representing a constituency in Kent where we have excellent grammar schools that are extremely popular with parents. I urge Opposition Members to listen to parents who like those schools and try to understand why.
Significant misinformation has been put out about achievement in Kent’s education system. Children in Kent achieve above the national average in their GCSEs. The system works well. Within that system, in particular, children from low-income families, on free school meals or in receipt of the pupil premium are doing especially well in our grammar schools. That enables those children to make up the gap between themselves and other children with greater advantages.
Suella Fernandes
Can my hon. Friend inform the House how many children who go to grammar schools go on to university, or to Russell Group universities?
Helen Whately
We know that children are much more likely to go on to Russell Group universities if they have attended grammar schools.
In Kent, an increasing number of children who have received the pupil premium are attending grammar schools, so Kent is working at widening access. I really welcome the points in the Government’s Green Paper on widening access so that more children have a chance to attend excellent grammar schools. One of the critical things is whether primary school headteachers support their pupils in getting into grammar schools. For primary schools that do so, that makes a huge difference; for those that do not, that is a real disadvantage to those children. I would like more schools to emulate our best primary schools, where children are supported to go to what is the best school for them. We also have grammar schools that favour in their admissions criteria children on low incomes. They are undertaking outreach to primary schools to make sure that children who have the right academic potential to do well in grammar schools get a place and can make the most of that potential.
Finally on the experience in Kent, I want to emphasise the cases where selective and non-selective schools are working very well together as part of a trust. An excellent example of that is Valley Invicta Trust. I encourage the shadow Secretary of State to come and visit so that she can see a comprehensive school and a grammar school in one go, and see the excellent results that both those schools are getting for their pupils.
Before I conclude, I should mention the importance, underlying all this, of high-quality teaching. What academies and grammar schools are doing so well is making sure that their teachers provide excellent teaching so that all the children who go to those schools can truly succeed.