Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Platt Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

I am delighted to warmly congratulate the teachers in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Nuneaton on the significant improvement in key stage 2 results. Of course, we need to do more to raise standards further, which is why we are investing £76 million to raise the standard of maths education through the 35 maths hubs referred to earlier by my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation. We are also spending £26 million on developing 32 schools across England into English hubs, which will take a leading role in supporting schools to improve their teaching of early language and reading.

[Jo Platt (Leigh) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. During a Westminster Hall debate on social mobility last month, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), boasted of the Government’s early-years pilots. He even visited the local pilot in Wigan. However, Leigh—part of the Wigan borough—has recently been ranked 533rd out of 533 for early-years provision in the country. When will the Minister and this Government wake up? Their sticking-plaster schemes are not working. If we want to improve social mobility, we first have to address child poverty.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the central importance of the early years when it comes to social mobility. We know that the gaps between the rich and the poor develop very early on, which is one reason this Government are spending more than any previous Government on early-years education and childcare. There are 154,000 two-year-olds benefiting from early-years education in a programme that was never available to any child before 2010. But we can do more. I want to ensure that we integrate our approach with helping to support parents in what happens at home because, particularly in the very early years, what happens at home is crucial to what happens later at school.