Schools White Paper

James Berry Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that my figures are absolutely not pie in the sky. We publish a huge amount of information and if he wants to write to me about how much it will cost to academise all the schools in his constituency, I will be happy to respond.

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

rose—

[Nicky Morgan]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear!

[James Berry]

I am glad that Members have been waiting for this. In Kingston, we have the best GCSE results in the country, bar the Isles of Scilly, and only one of the schools is not an academy. It is legitimate to have a debate about whether that model should be mandated throughout the country. Does my right hon. Friend agree, however, that whatever the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) misrepresented, what she did not misrepresent—[Interruption.] I am saying that she did not misrepresent—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: I know he wants to withdraw that immediately.

[James Berry]

What she did not misrepresent was the guff about asset stripping, privatisation and profit that many of her colleagues have engaged in.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Mr Berry, we are not being helpful to each other. You are withdrawing the comment about misrepresentation. I think you have got your question across. I am going to hear the Secretary of State. You have withdrawn the remark. That is great. Thank you.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Berry Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern that a large number of children are still being placed out of area in residential care—although of course there are always exceptions to the rule where it is better for them to be so. That is why we have commissioned the independent review from Sir Martin Narey to look at residential care in the round of all care options for children. The review will include how we can have a better spread of residential care in terms of geography and types of care on offer so that children who do see this as their best possible route through the care system have a better prospect than they do currently.

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

I welcome the consultation on a fairer funding formula, especially since it includes high-needs funding, which is underfunded in Kingston. What is my hon. Friend’s Department doing to support families navigating the new system in place for special educational needs provision?

[Edward Timpson]

One of parents’ biggest frustrations with the old SEN system was not knowing about, or finding it hard to access, the right support for their children. That is why I recently announced a further £80 million of support for the SEN reforms in 2016-17, including an additional £15 million for the independent supporters who act as catalysts for change in enabling families and young people better to navigate the system. Some 45,000 families have already benefited from that extra support.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Berry Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is timely for me to accommodate, on this question, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry).

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

14. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does my hon. Friend the Minister welcome the 2,580 apprentices that have been started in my constituency since 2015, and will he join me in welcoming the “100 in 100” campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), which encourages MPs to go out to their employers in their constituencies and get them to take on apprentices?

[Nick Boles]

I do welcome that; all the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) is marvellous, but this is a particularly marvellous aspect of his work. I say to all Members on both sides of the House that it is a simple scheme about going out and encouraging employers in their constituencies to create 100 apprenticeships in 100 days. I urge all Members of all parties to take it up, and we will do everything we can to help.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Berry Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I would like to get a couple more in if possible, so pithy questions and pithy answers.

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

According to analysis in The Daily Telegraph, Kingston was the best local educational authority in the country for GCSE results. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State join me in paying tribute to teachers and pupils in Kingston? Will she explain to the House how learning from the best schools will be rolled out across the country to help those schools that still have some way to go?

[Nicky Morgan]

As somebody who was educated in Kingston, I pay tribute to all the schools and teachers who operate there—they are much better than they were in my day. I pay tribute to the fact that my hon. Friend is talking about excellence and positivity, and about learning from other schools, which is much better than the constant negativity we hear from the Opposition.

Childcare Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

James Berry Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Pat Glass]

I am not saying that we should do that, but if we say that local authorities must provide “reasonable flexibility”, that forces those who are not doing anything about that now to start to do something. Unless the Minister tells me that he is prepared to look at that flexibility in regulations, we may need to make an issue of this.

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that councils as public authorities have a duty in law to act reasonably, so the insertion of the word “reasonable” into legislation is superfluous?

[Pat Glass]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman looks at the Education Act 2005, which has “reasonable” in every third sentence. It is not superfluous. It makes the point that this measure is not about giving everyone what they want or what they think they need; it is about giving something that is reasonable to the taxpayer and to the parent or child.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

I apologise if it is carelessly worded; that was not my intention. I simply want to make clear in the Bill that it is illegal to refuse a place on the grounds of a child’s disability, in exactly the same way as it is under the Disability Discrimination Act 2005. I do not know whether there is a criminal penalty attached to that, but that is the current legislation, and that was my intention.

[James Berry]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pat Glass]

Before I give way, can I make it clear that we do not want to put anyone in prison? As I said to the Minister, if the amendment is carelessly worded, I am happy to change it. The current situation cannot continue and I simply want to change it, however that may be possible, so that it is line with Disability Discrimination Act.

[James Berry]

The examples the hon. Lady gave are horrific. However, if the measure is already on the statute book, should she not call for proper implementation of the legislation we already have, rather than duplicating it?

[Pat Glass]

That is exactly what I want to do. I have a Bill in front of me, and I want in some way to ensure that the current position—that what I have described is illegal—is used to improve the situation for the parents of disabled children, however we do that.

Childcare Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

James Berry Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Pat Glass]

I am shocked that women end up in prison because their children will not go to school. It is not necessarily something that a mother living in a refuge, separately, can do anything about. This is serious stuff, and it is really scary stuff for parents. If they get it wrong, they could end up in prison or with a hefty fine. It is really important that the Committee probes exactly what is meant by eligibility. I want to see how far the Minister is prepared to go on that, because I am not quite clear about who is eligible and who is not. He needs to help us with that.

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that there should be penalties for what is, essentially, fraudulent activity, but that the thresholds for those penalties and the circumstances in which they come to play should be set out very clearly in the guidance?

[Pat Glass]

Could the hon. Gentleman say that again?

[James Berry]

Does the hon. Lady agree that there ought to be penalties when a parent takes an action that is tantamount to fraud on the state, but that the circumstances in which those penalties might arise should be specified clearly in the guidance?

[Pat Glass]

That is exactly what we are asking for in this probing amendment. Yes, I agree that there need to be penalties if someone is deliberately defrauding the state. I do not want to get parents into a situation in which they are affected unintentionally because the guidance or the eligibility criteria are not clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

Exactly. I hope that that clarification helps the Minister and others. The issue is leadership and different qualifications within the workforce in any one setting.

Despite knowledge of the failure of people in poverty and the 75% of children who are less likely to have the expected standard in language and communication at the age of five, we have seen childcare in England failing to meet the quality standards necessary to improve the outcomes for those children. Only if early education and childcare is of the highest quality and delivered by well qualified staff will there be a positive impact on children’s learning and development, which will help to narrow the gap in attainment for the most disadvantaged. My new clause would provide the Government with the power and the responsibility to ensure that children are cared for and stimulated by a highly qualified workforce.

Ofsted grades are not just a stand-alone proxy for the standard, because the inspection framework does not capture all the elements of quality that are predictive of outcomes for children. Evidence shows that, to ensure that the free offer meets its primary intended purpose of improving outcomes for children, the Government should focus on delivering high-quality, graduate-led care from the age of two to school age through a qualified and well supported early years workforce.

We had a debate earlier today about the needs of disabled children and the specific training that people need. I hope that the Minister will address that when he talks about the workforce and how we can ensure that the people in our nurseries have the necessary qualifications and experience to deal with a whole range of disabilities in the children who come their way.

Back in 2012, the coalition Government commissioned Professor Cathy Nutbrown to undertake an independent review of early years workforce qualifications. Her findings recommended that, if the Government set out a 10-year plan to move to a fully qualified early years workforce and increased the proportion of settings led by a graduate, it would have the greatest measurable impact on children’s outcomes. However, the coalition did not take a lead on that, nor does the Bill.

The quality of childcare is gradually improving, but there are still insufficient high-quality, free places for three and four-year olds, and disadvantaged two-year-olds.

[James Berry]

The hon. Gentleman should read my speech on childcare. He would see that we agree on a lot, and in fact some of the lines are very similar. Does he agree that we could achieve what he intends in his new clause with encouragement from the Government rather than the straitjacket of legislation?

[Alex Cunningham]

I am pleased that we can agree on much that was in my speech. I cannot understand what the problem is with requiring people to have qualifications. If you want to be an engineer, you are required to get an engineering degree. I think that if you are required to lead the best-quality care, perhaps you need some form of graduate qualification in childcare, or something associated with it. Of course, we face the possibility that we will have children attending poor-quality settings where they will be unable to access provision that meets their individual needs. This is why new clause 1 would require the Government to publish proposals for the development of the early years workforce to ensure that all three and four-year-olds receive access to high-quality, flexible and accessible early education and childcare provision, delivered by those well qualified, confident and experienced practitioners, and led by that early years graduate.

Childcare Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

James Berry Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Pat Glass]

I am coming back on to it very quickly.

Tax-free childcare, although some way from being delivered, is designed to put cash in parents’ pockets, but it does not contain the levers to deliver quality or to control prices. The two-year offer aims to reduce inequalities rather than be an economic driver. However, the chief inspector of schools pointed out last week in his annual report to the Government that in this area the Government’s policy on disadvantaged two-year-olds is failing at least 113,000 of our most disadvantaged two-year-olds and therefore arguably has the potential to widen rather than narrow the attainment gap.

The extension of the 15-hour offer to 30 hours should be about delivering both objectives, but that requires both quality and funding, and the huge funding gap will, if not addressed, damage both quality and capacity in childcare. This, I think, is what their Lordships were most concerned about when they looked at this amendment, which the Government now seek to remove. As I have said, we support the Bill, we want it to work and we want it to deliver quickly, but there remain a number of challenges with the Government’s plan and it is only right that we scrutinise them.

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

The hon. Lady wants this to be implemented quickly, but when she gets on to the substance of the amendment she will tell us it proposes a review that will delay implementation, will she not?

[Pat Glass]

I am sorry, I just do not accept that. Nobody is going to see any of this—apart from the early implementers, and there will be very small numbers of those—until 2017. The Government have plenty of time to get this right, and if they do not, we risk ending up with either less provision or poor provision. It is really important that we take our time up to 2017 to make sure that we get this right for families.

At the heart of our concerns, and those of their Lordships, is a serious funding gap. The Chancellor’s recent announcements only go some way to answering those. The other place voted to amend the Bill on three separate occasions, mainly on procedural grounds because the Bill lacked substance and clarity about funding. It has been dogged by lack of detailed information and costings. The Minister really needs to respond to those concerns and answer those questions over the next couple of days.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Berry Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

We have introduced generous bursaries—up to £30,000—for top physics graduates coming into teaching. If we look at this year’s teacher training recruitment, we see that in physics we recruited 746 graduates, compared with 637 last year, and in mathematics we recruited 2,407 graduates, compared with 2,170 last year. There is more to do, but we are heading in the right direction.

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

Head teachers in my constituency tell me that the biggest block to the recruitment and retention of teachers is the cost of housing. Can my hon. Friend confirm that in the review of the funding formula the price of property in local areas where teachers have to rent or buy will be factored in?

[Mr Gibb]

As the Secretary of State has said, we are determined to tackle the historic unfairness of the funding formula. The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), will be consulting on that in the new year.

Childcare Bill [Lords]

James Berry Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt). He says that this is a Labour policy. I do not remember its being chiselled on to the Edstone, but perhaps the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) will refresh my memory. Anyone who saw the photographs of the visit by the Prime Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) to Advantage children’s day nursery in Tolworth, in my constituency, will know that the policy literally had blue fingerprints all over it.

I am pleased that the Childcare Bill was one of the first that the Government introduced following the Queen’s Speech. By doing so, they made it clear that promoting social aspiration is on all fours with the heart of their agenda. Ensuring that young people are given the very best start in life, regardless of their background, is at the core of the progressive, one-nation Conservative mission. For me, it is one of the core duties of any Government. It is certainly what I hope to try to achieve as a Member of Parliament, and it is certainly what my parents worked to achieve throughout their lives in the teaching profession.

The policy of providing 30 hours of free childcare has two principal objectives. The first is to ease the burden on parents who want to go back to work, but who are either prohibited or restricted in that ambition by the gap between their low pay and the high cost of childcare. It is absolutely right that the provision of 30 hours of free childcare formed the central plank of our offer to hard-working families at the time of the general election, and we are working to deliver it now.

The second objective of the policy is to improve significantly the life chances of the next generation, and it is on that objective that I want to concentrate this afternoon. For too long, early-years education has been the Cinderella of schooling policy, but, during all that time, more and more evidence has pointed to the fact that the emotional and physical health, the social skills and the cognitive linguistic facilities that we develop in the early years are the principal prerequisites for attainment at school, in the workplace, at home and in the community. It is not surprising, therefore, that research suggests that early-years education is the critical ingredient in the process of closing, pre-emptively, the educational achievement gap between children from low-income households and those from high-income households before they start primary school.

Investment in early-years education is also cost-effective. More than one study conducted in the United States has found that the average benefit to the public purse for each child who underwent a quality pre-school programme was nearly $200,000. Recent Department for Education figures show that in England one in four children are starting primary school without the expected level in early language skills. Last week, Save the Children carried out a survey that found that 75% of teachers see British children arriving in reception class struggling to speak English properly. Sixty-five per cent. said they see five-year-olds struggling to follow simple instructions. That is simply not good enough.

Children in my local authority, Kingston upon Thames, perform above the average in speech and language development at age five, thanks in part to the excellent teaching in the borough. However, the poorest children are almost twice as likely to fall behind and are around a year behind their peers by the age of five. The implications for children failing to master these basic skills are patently clear. It is little surprise that those children who start behind tend to stay behind, with fewer opportunities and limited chances of success throughout their lives at school and beyond. As those from deprived backgrounds are most likely to start behind, the cycle of poverty is perpetuated by the education attainment gap.

In order to help children to escape the cycle of poverty, we must ensure that, when children arrive for their first day of primary school, they have been equipped with the basic skills they need to be ready to learn. For our part, we must apply some of the same rigour that we have applied to schools in the past five years to the education that children receive during those most formative years of their lives, at nursery.

One of the most progressive policies of the last Government was the pupil premium. Children who are eligible for the pupil premium at primary school will get the best out of the extra support it offers at primary school only if they arrive with the tools to learn and to benefit from it. There is evidence that the presence of trained early years teachers in nurseries has a huge impact on children’s early development. That is particularly the case for boys and children from disadvantaged backgrounds who are most at risk of falling behind in early language development. Yet at the moment almost half of independent nurseries do not employ a single early years teacher. Therefore, I ask the Minister to look at ways to support graduates and apprentices working in early years, including in nurseries.

The Bill presents us with an unprecedented opportunity to deliver more early education, to deliver better early education and significantly to improve social mobility, ensuring that children are able to benefit more from education and from the opportunities even if they come from the poorest households. We must grab that opportunity with both hands. That is why I am proud to support the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Berry Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Gentleman is not quite right, because the regional school commissioner, who is responsible for commissioning schools in his or her area, is always going to be part of the area reviews and can bring in the perspective of sixth forms in schools, but I do not think the hon. Gentleman would think it practical to include every single school with a sixth form in the review and actually achieve a result. We are determined to achieve a result in a short space of time so that we have strong, specialist institutions that are able to provide a high-quality education.

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

Kingston college in my constituency has federated with Carshalton college in a neighbouring constituency. Will my hon. Friend congratulate their move to consolidate their efforts and to provide better provision for young people going into further education, and will he visit Kingston college with me?

[Nick Boles]

The reason I would love to visit is that that is a model example of what the sector should be doing. It is very important for hon. Members to remember that the sector is independent: Government cannot force institutions to merge, but we can encourage them to do so and show great examples such as that outlined by my hon. Friend.