Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 13th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

On 9 January, I was lucky enough to be drawn No. 1 in the ballot—the first private Member’s Bill of this parliamentary Session. I will admit that at first I was not aware of the significance of that, until the avalanche of emails started to arrive, as did the meeting requests, the demands from the press and, of course, a mighty big lobby for very worthy causes. It gives me a real opportunity as a Labour MP to change the law—something of a rarity in recent years. Although the date of the Second Reading of the Bill is Friday the 13th, which may be unlucky for some, I am hoping that for thousands of hard-pressed families up and down our country, this day will be a milestone on the way to helping those in our schools and our constituencies.

My Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill gives MPs from across the Chamber the chance to step up and do the right thing for our constituents. It is a genuine opportunity to put words into action, to change the law and to make school uniforms more affordable for families struggling with often very high and prohibitive costs. Today is an opportunity to help children such as Emily who, rather than facing the indignity of her classmates knowing that her family did not have the money to replace lost PE uniform, asked her mum to write a sick note saying that she was injured. Today, Members across the House have the opportunity to help children such as Callum, who was put in detention because his parents did not have the cash to replace his blazer, which no longer fitted him because of a growth spurt.

As is often the case with yah-boo politics and spin in the media, the intentions of legislation can get lost in the narrative. I assure Members that the Bill is not anti-school uniform. The Bill is not a gateway to some slippery slope that paves the way to the abolition of school uniforms—far from it. As a teenager who went to a school in the ’80s that did not have a uniform, I can vouch from experience that that was not a good thing. It highlighted the haves and the have-nots and the fashions of the day.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this important measure forward. Does he agree that a well-structured uniform policy can work out significantly cheaper for parents than a non-uniform policy?

[Mike Amesbury]

I do; I concur completely with the hon. Gentleman. When I was at school and people did not have a uniform—as I said, it highlighted the haves and the have-nots—the fashions of the day were really bad, particularly if someone had a highlighted mullet or, in some cases, Day-Glo leg warmers.

I believe, as does the Minister, that school uniforms are a good thing if they are affordable and inclusive. They are one of the ways that schools can poverty-proof the school day. They make children equal and take away the pressures to have to wear the latest fashionable and often very expensive branded clothes and shoes. Yet, too many schools needlessly apply high prices to a multitude of branded items of uniform, including jumpers, blazers, ties, hats, PE bags, coats and even drama socks.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the issue is also the quality of the uniform? I speak from experience as the mother of two teenagers. One attends a girls’ comprehensive just down the road. I bought her blazer when she was going into year 7. She is now in year 11 and about to leave the statutory part of school and she is still in that blazer. It has been excellent quality.

My son, who is in year 9, is now on his fourth blazer because the quality has not been the same. He is in a different school. I absolutely support this Bill, but it must be about quality and ensuring that parents do not have to keep buying uniform. Obviously, children have growth spurts, but the quality of the uniform should be as good as we would expect.

[Mike Amesbury]

I do not disagree about quality, but we should also think about choice and affordability, and that is the key thing that this Bill addresses.

One parent wrote to me about a particular school that demands a different uniform for each house group. The march towards “if a child wears it, brand it with an embroidered logo” must end, to drive down costs and make uniforms genuinely inclusive.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I am delighted to sponsor the Bill. The hon. Gentleman mentions branding. Will he confirm that it is not his intention to stop all branding on school uniforms? It is quite appropriate for schools to require a badge on the blazer to promote the identity of the school and pride in the school, and he is not trying to restrict the ability of a school properly to brand its uniform.

[Mike Amesbury]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for sponsoring the Bill. I can confirm that it is not anti-branding. As we go through proceedings on the Bill, things will become clear. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention.

The Bill also paves the way to extending choice and stimulating competition in the local retail market to bring down costs for many hard-pressed families—a point well made by the Competition and Markets Authority back in 2015, when it reminded school heads and governors to avoid making their uniforms available only from a single specialist retailer, which undermines competition and the equalising properties of school uniforms. Many parents are left unable to afford the right uniforms and have got into debt. There is also an effect on children. Wearing the wrong school uniform can lead to a child being bullied, left out or even excluded from school, which of course impacts on their education. The Children’s Society estimates that 500,000 children were sent home for wearing the wrong clothes—something I have had confirmed by many of my constituents.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Sometimes people are sent home for really petty things like the wrong colour of socks. I know of a case in which a badge was cut out and put on a black jumper, but that still did not conform with the requirement for what was supposed to be the appropriate jumper.

[Mike Amesbury]

I agree with my hon. Friend; this is just simply sad and unacceptable. Children should never lose out on education because of the family’s financial situation. Research released and updated today by the Children’s Society, which has been working very closely with me on the Bill, found that parents spend around £337 per year on school uniforms for each secondary school child and as much as £315 a year for a primary school child.

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

It would be remiss of me not to mention research that I have seen from the Schoolwear Association, which says that the average per year is £101.19, rather than the figure the hon. Gentleman cites. Is he aware of that research?

[Mike Amesbury]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have met the Schoolwear Association, which shared that research with me. The research I am referring to is from 1,000 parents who talked about the real costs of uniforms. The hon. Gentleman is right to cite some very good retailers and manufacturers out there that are providing good-quality manufactured goods. This Bill is not about penalising them—far from it.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Further to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) about the cost of uniform, the £340 in the research is not just for the uniform. It is also for shoes, bags and other things. The cost of the branded items, according to the research, was only £100 and they normally last for two years, so the actual cost of the branded items is more like £50 a year. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that point?

[Mike Amesbury]

The cost, of course, varies and the uniform is the uniform. If a school says a cap, a coat, a bag, a tie—all branded—are needed, some children will definitely feel left out if their parents do not buy those things, and families will struggle. It is a story I have heard numerous times from my constituents, and I know it is a national issue. Members across the Chamber will know of stories of hard-pressed families in their local communities. One of the most concerning things that the researchers found—I am sure we have heard these stories across this Chamber—was that too many parents choose a school based on the cost of the uniform. The Children’s Society has estimated that this has affected 500,000 children, and I hope we can all agree that parents should never be put in that position.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for introducing this important Bill. Dozens of constituents have told me how the high price of uniforms leads parents to cut back on food, how kids get detention for not having the right items and how that leads to feelings of shame and embarrassment. Does my hon. Friend agree that in the sixth richest country in the world, parents should not have to cut back on basics to meet the needs of uniforms for their kids?

[Mike Amesbury]

I wholeheartedly agree. My hon. Friend makes a strong point.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

Can we just be clear that this Bill will not affect the ability of schools to enforce school uniform policy?

[Mike Amesbury]

That is not the intention of the Bill.

I am not the first MP to campaign on this issue, and I must give credit to the sponsors of the Bill from across the Chamber. I also give a nod to the former MP for Birkenhead, Frank Field and, indeed my hon. Friend the current Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), who is campaigning alongside me. I also want to give a nod to the former MP for Peterborough, Lisa Forbes. In her brief time in Parliament, she was a champion of this issue, while highlighting the unfair demise of the school uniform grant—a fact recognised by our shadow Secretary of State for Education, my good friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who continues to press the Government every step of the way.

This Bill is not about the school uniform grant or extending the provision for projects such as breakfast clubs. It is part of our legislative landscape and should not be viewed in isolation to those campaigns. Alongside others in this House, I will continue to press the Government on these matters.

My Bill will require the Secretary of State for Education to produce new guidance that would make it a legal requirement for schools and their governing bodies to make affordability the top priority when setting uniform policies. In 2013, the Department for Education produced good non-statutory guidance, but there lies the problem. While some schools progressively responded to it, others have unfortunately chosen to ignore it. This Bill gives teeth to those good intentions.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his choice of this issue and the progress he has made with it. Does he agree that it would be very helpful if the guidance that he is arguing for included a cap on the cost of the uniform specified within the guidance?

[Mike Amesbury]

That is not the intention of this Bill. I am sure that some of this will be explored in Committee stage, if the Bill gets there.

The Bill also intends to break down monopolies with single suppliers, which, at times, is based on a historical nudge and wink. Fair and transparent tendering and increased competition will help to drive down prices for hard-pressed families, while rewarding good retailers and manufacturers.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

I just want to take a step back for a minute. What does the hon. Gentleman think about the inclusion of PE kits, DT kits and things such as that? Much of the time, what a school specifies to parents is not just about the blazer, the shirt and the shoes, but about the other things as well. How does he think that that could be dealt with in this Bill, or does he think that we need to go wider still? May I also commend him for bringing this absolutely fantastic initiative before the House today?

[Mike Amesbury]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and indeed for his support. This Bill does cover the broad scope, as did the 2013 guidelines, so yes to his question.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he accept that one aspect of the cost of school uniforms is the value added tax, which is imposed on secondary school uniforms in particular? Does he agree that, now we are leaving the European Union, it is time for the Government to put their avowed intent into practice by removing VAT on school uniforms?

[Mike Amesbury]

I thank the hon. Member for that question. I cannot quite believe this, but I am actually going to agree with him. As a remainer, yes, I really think that people should take control of this issue; and, yes, this is an opportunity which, of course, the manufacturers and retailers have lobbied for over a number of years. However, although I agree wholeheartedly that that should be an opportunity, it is beyond the scope of this Bill.

The requirement by some schools for a branded logo on everything needs to be curtailed, to allow parents the choice of where to buy more items of their uniforms from a wide range of competitive retailers, including from supermarkets and low-cost retailers. I am not against schools having their own identity, far from it, but why not limit the number of branded items to a maximum of two, or have a badge that can be sewn on to a generic shirt or blazer? This Bill is about being fair while being smart, and making a real difference to families who are struggling.

The past three Governments have publicly stated that they intend to legislate on this matter—most recently in 2019, prior to the general election, when the Secretary of State responded positively to the Sunday People campaign—but legislation has been noticeable by its absence in the most recent Queen’s Speech, and in every other one since 2015. After a number of meetings over the past few weeks, I have gained an encouraging amount of cross-party support, including from the Minister and his team, and I sincerely thank them for that.

In conclusion, this Bill is constructed in such a way that it will allow for a swift, effective passage through Parliament, and it has Government support. I look forward to reassurance from the Minister on how parents and schools will be engaged on the content of the guidance as part of this process. Most importantly, today, parliamentarians can help many families in their own constituencies and beyond by getting this done. They should do the right thing by making sure that school uniforms are affordable for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Amesbury]

With the leave of the House, I thank everyone who has attended and spoken today, some at more considerable length than others.

I thank the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), the hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton), my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) —an excellent speech by the way—my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), my new found friend the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly), my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) and the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts). A number of Members have also made powerful interventions.

I thank my good friend and former boss, the shadow Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who again made a powerful speech and, very importantly, has been a long-standing champion of this issue. I also thank the Secretary of State, the Minister and the formidable team behind the Ministers who are predominantly women—we should note that—as well as the 20 or so organisations that have been champions of the Bill for some time. Other significant people include the sponsors of the Bill. I will not go through individual names—they know who they are. I thank them for their fantastic and powerful contributions.

Finally, and very importantly, I thank the children involved with the Children’s Society who shaped and contributed to some of the original guidance in 2013. They paved the way for the Bill. As well as consulting with manufacturers and retailers—there are some great ones out there—the Bill, with fair, transparent and competitive tendering, will open up opportunities for them. The shadow Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), wrote to me only yesterday about a manufacturer that is a little concerned about aspects of the Bill. That manufacturer is an absolute bargain basement and it offers quality, so the provisions of the Bill should offer it opportunities.

I again thank the Children’s Society, which has been a key supporter of the Bill. I look forward to contributing to its passage through the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

Of course, the workforce in FE colleges are a vital part of delivering the high-quality turnaround we want in our technical education. We are increasing the funding in FE colleges, and we have also increased funding specifically for workforce development. These are independent organisations, of course, so we do not set the pay and salary scales.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Apprenticeships are down 46% since the introduction of the levy. What will the Minister do in National Careers Week to turn that around?

[Gillian Keegan]

Apprenticeships are at the heart of our vision for a world-class technical education system, and we have specifically focused on quality in the past year or so. High-quality starts have increased to 63% from 44% the previous year. Quality is the most important thing, and we are pleased to say that the number of starts is increasing this year.[Official Report, 16 March 2020, Vol. 673, c. 5MC.]

Education and Local Government

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

The first thing to say is that I will not focus solely on education today. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I always focus on my favourite line in the Queen’s Speech, which is the last one:

“Other measures will be laid before you.”

It gives us the option of talking about whatever we like. I should also, en passant, like to say a personal thank you to the Secretary of State for his announcement of the extra funding for special needs. He may know that I have a special interest in this, a personal interest, and this funding will go to a very important sector.

This Queen’s Speech was the longest ever Queen’s Speech I have known in terms of duration. At the beginning of the debate on the Queen’s Speech before Christmas, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) said that these had been “troubled times” for Parliament. But that is always the case when this country faces a point of inflection and a change of historic position. Our nation now faces a reset moment on a par with 1945, when the Attlee Government came in, and with 1979, when the Thatcher Government came in. Both of them had enormous national problems to solve, and we are in the same position. Thatcher’s revolution, controversial as it was, was above all a revolution of expectations, in which the United Kingdom once more realised it was able to stand on its own two feet. In truth, we are facing something similar today.

However, in the next decade, Brexit will not be the biggest challenge to the UK Government and our nation. Fast globalisation of trade and massive technological change will create bigger challenges and bigger opportunities even than Brexit. In the past 30 years, that globalisation has raised half the world out of poverty, but that trend is not secure. We as a nation need to be ready to act, both politically to ensure that free trade remains central to the world’s economic operating systems, and commercially to seize the advantages in that for ourselves. Brexit is the catalyst in that process; it is not the outcome. Brexit by itself is not enough. To exploit the opportunities given to us by Brexit, we need to overhaul British society and the British economy. That is the challenge in front of us.

High-quality public services, education, healthcare, social support and the rule of law are vital parts of a decent society, but the Government can provide them only if they have the resources to pay for them. That is our first challenge, and the fundamental weakness in all the Opposition arguments so far today. The reason why Labour lost hundreds of thousands of votes in the north of England is that nobody believed it was able to pay for its promises. The public were right, as always, and the Labour party was wrong.

So what will dictate whether we are able to meet our own aims for our society? The key issue that determines the affluence of citizens, the delivery of public services and even the level of opportunity in society is one boring technical term: productivity. From shortly after the war in 1948, when they started measuring it, until 2008, productivity in this country—whether it was total productivity or labour productivity—grew by 2.25% a year. It bounced around a bit, but never by very much. It grew by 2.25%, year on year, every year in the 60 years from 1948 to 2008. Since 2008, it has been at 0.5%.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

On that point about productivity, people in my constituency and constituencies across the country cannot get trains or buses because the infrastructure has been decimated. That is because it has not been invested in for the past 10 years or so, and that has a real impact on productivity up and down the country. How are the Government going to address that?

[Mr Davis]

I will come directly to the hon. Gentleman’s question later in my speech. He is exactly right in one respect: that is a contributory factor for productivity. But he should not look just at the past 10 years if he wants to comment about our infrastructure. The most used phrase by George Osborne when he was Chancellor was to say, while pointing at Gordon Brown, that he never mended the roof when the sun was shining. That is exactly what happened through those Labour years: profligate spending—poor spending, inadequate spending —that nevertheless did not provide the services that we needed.

Now, what has been the effect of that change in productivity? What is the size of the impact? Had productivity continued at the level it had been for the previous 60 years, had we not had the financial collapse, which happened largely under the watch of the Labour Government and the earlier Clinton Administration in the US, then wages, income and the economy would have been about 22% bigger than they are today. The tax take would have been higher, the deficit would have been easier to pay off, austerity would have been more manageable and shorter. All those things stemmed not just from the crash, but from the damage to our ability to recover from the crash as productivity was allowed to collapse. This dramatic and apparently permanent reduction in productivity has had spectacular consequences across the whole of society and the entire economy, and that is what we have to solve.

The productivity problem is a universal problem. No productivity means no progress. How do we deal with that? The answers include education, skills, training, research and investment, and of course, as the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) rightly said, infrastructure. If we are to reset our economy and our society, we must be unflinching in our analysis and in the critique of our own past as well as those of the other parties.

Children’s Future Food Inquiry

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for securing such a vital debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for the amount of work she has put in, over a considerable number of years, to chairing the APPG. Special thanks also go to the 15 young food ambassadors, all the young people and stakeholders who have offered their insights to this valuable report, and of course Dame Emma Thompson for giving the matter such a strong media profile, as well as for her impassioned work on the subject.

As we have heard, the report is an excellent and engaging piece of work, and it is all the more important because it involved young people so closely. As a result, it is something that all parties should give serious attention to. We on the Labour Benches would very much welcome the inquiry report and the #Right2Food charter’s being submitted as a contribution to our current review of social security, and I hope the Government and other parties are also giving the report’s findings serious consideration, and action in some parts of devolved Government.

It has been clear for some time, and made even clearer today, that we are facing a child poverty and child hunger crisis in our country, right from birth. For babies and pre-school years, the report raises serious concerns over support for breastfeeding—highlighted by the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous)—policies to support babies in low-income households and food provision in early years and pre-school environments.

The report goes on to find that free school meal provision is inconsistent across the Westminster and devolved Governments, while expressing concern about the way the free school meal policy works, including concerns that the allowance is not sufficient to buy a meal, as hon. Members have pointed out, and the higher price of healthier food options. It also highlights issues related to advertising and access to cheap, fast food. For example, the report states that children from the poorest families are

“more exposed to fast food outlets and more affected by the relatively higher costs of healthy food”.

Children, as the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire rightly pointed out, are becoming more obese, comparing London with the likes of Paris. Of course, that has drastic consequences for our nation’s health.

These findings should come as no surprise. Last month, the Trussell Trust published its annual statistics on food bank use, which show that in 2018-19 the trust distributed almost 1.6 million food parcels, of which 578,000 went to children—a fact highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods), who noted that 7,000 such parcels were distributed to local children in Durham. That is the highest level since the charity opened in 2013-14 and nearly a 75% increase in the past five years.

Furthermore, the Government’s own figures for households below average income, released in March, tell a shocking story. Child poverty is at 4.1 million, half a million more than in 2010, and beneath that headline charities such as the Child Poverty Action Group and others have even more concerns. Despite Government claims that work is the best route out of poverty, 70% of children in poverty now live in working households, up from 67% last year. Every time we hear a Government Minister talk about record levels of employment, they are also presiding over record levels of families working, only to continue in poverty.

The Child Poverty Action Group also finds that the face of child poverty is getting younger; the proportion of children living in poverty who are under the age of five has risen from 51% to 53%, representing over 2 million children. We know that these early years often define our children’s outcomes and expectations for a lifetime, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) argued.

Indeed, the inquiry report tells us:

“Up until their second birthday children’s brains and bodies are developing fast and laying down the foundation for the future. The food, energy and nutrients which children eat during this period determine how well they grow, how well they do at school and are also a good predictor of long-term health.”

Tragically, under the current Government, those years are increasingly being damaged by poverty and empty stomachs.

The picture is worsening for larger families too. The risk of poverty for children in families with three or more children has also gone up, from 32% in 2012 to 43% today. Will the Minister admit that his policies, such as the two-child limit, the benefit cap and universal credit, have helped to drive this scandal? If so, will he commit to doing something about it and reversing these unfair and callous policies?

Poverty and food poverty are, of course, about more than just numbers. Behind the statistics, as hon. Members across the Chamber have pointed out, are real children, real families and real experiences. The inquiry report gives us some chilling examples and experiences from the food ambassadors about their experiences of going hungry, or of living and working alongside children suffering from not having enough to eat.

We have heard many other stories from colleagues here today. Hon. Members have given us examples of families having to choose between paying for heating or for eating. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West spoke about the need for water dispensers, with thousands of children going thirsty day after day in the school environment. The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) spoke about children’s experiences of being stigmatised by the way free school meals are currently administered. Those tales show us just how important it is to ensure that, in one of the richest countries in the world, all our children can have access to that most basic of rights: enough to eat so that they can live and learn without the pain of hunger.

Related to that point is the shocking observation in the report that children living in households who have migrated to the UK and been granted leave to remain with no recourse to public funds cannot claim free school meals. That is affecting thousands and thousands of the most vulnerable children—something the Government must address. Will the Minister commit to recording that data, which is not currently recorded, so that we can have a true picture of some of the starkest examples of hunger in this country?

Will the Minister also commit, as hon. Members across the House have advocated, to extending holiday provision throughout the UK and funding all local authorities to do that? We certainly welcome the announcement of the increase from £2 million to £9 million, but let us go further.

I will finish by once again thanking all those who have contributed to the report and the several hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. I await the Minister’s answers with interest, while also recognising that we all have a responsibility to understand the true picture of child and food poverty in our country and to improve that picture for the future. We are certainly committed to doing so on the Labour benches, and I hope that the Government will respond as a matter of urgency to the five asks in the report.

School Funding

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

The Education Committee’s inquiry on school and college funding has sought to bring together two seemingly irreconcilable views of the world. The first view is that schools are seeing year-on-year funding reductions and, having largely exhausted non-staff savings through efficiencies, are increasingly moving to the bulk of their budget, which is spent on staff, to find savings. The second view is that, amid the challenging public finances of 2010, difficult decisions were made that saw the core schools budget protected over the lifetime of that Parliament.

Of course the Government have a sense of the public finances, but so do schools, teachers and parents with whom we are in almost constant communication. I visit schools in my Harlow constituency every week and am well aware of the funding pressures they face. William Martin infant and junior schools have had to restructure staff and make £360,000 of savings to set a viable three-year budget. It is a matter of some regret that the debate on education funding has become so polarised. I hope that through our report we will be able to reduce the distance between the different viewpoints.

I am pleased that, with the emergence of a strong and independent evidence base provided by the National Audit Office, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Education Policy Institute, among others, the additional cost pressures faced by schools and the effect of rising pupil numbers are now understood and accepted as fact. The 2015 spending review missed a real opportunity by failing to anticipate the pressures that schools face and by not seeing the importance of transitional funding to support the implementation of the national funding formula.

Throughout our inquiry, we have been told that the school funding picture is much more complex than a simple question of inputs and outputs. Andreas Schleicher from the OECD explained how increasing education expenditure does not necessarily lead to greater performance, either in productivity or in international surveys such as PISA. Pumping huge amounts of money into the school system without a proper plan or programme of reform is unlikely to lead to good results. That has been illustrated throughout our inquiry.

We need to look at the pupil premium, because its accountability mechanisms seem totally ineffective. Teachers and headteachers have repeatedly told us that the money ends up being spent on matters wider than targeted support for disadvantaged children. What is to be done? In the past, the Government had something of a strategy for the school system, and the Minister for School Standards will update the Committee on that during a hearing on accountability next week, but we need to go beyond a more direct relationship between the Department and schools and articulate the purpose of education policy and schools at the moment. Is it to top the PISA rankings? Is it to produce a higher proportion of graduates? Is it to prepare the economy for the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution? Most importantly, is it to address social injustice in our education system?

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I respect the right hon. Gentleman’s considerable experience in this field. Simon Kidwell, a headteacher in my constituency, has called for a more long-term funding arrangement. The current funding arrangement is just not sufficient to fund schools in my constituency and beyond.

[Robert Halfon]

I think what I am about to say will answer the hon. Gentleman’s point, because I strongly agree with him.

I want Ministers, in the strongest possible terms, to embrace wholeheartedly our proposal to have a 10-year strategic plan for education. Indeed, I am encouraged by the Minister’s response to the Committee at the beginning of the month. There has to be a shared vision beyond the next election, whenever that might be. The principle of school-based autonomy lay at the heart of policy in 2010. We have identified some of its limitations, particularly when it comes to governance, financial management and accountability. But autonomy within boundaries is a sound principle from which to start.

A 10-year strategic plan ought to be accompanied by a long-term funding plan, as the hon. Gentleman has just said. That funding plan, if not stretching beyond the spending review period, should set clear expectations for what it would cost to fund schools and colleges to do their jobs.

The NHS now has a long-term, 10-year strategic plan and a five-year funding settlement, which has come about following serious advocacy by NHS England and by the previous and current Health Secretaries, who strongly made the case both for more funding and for funding accompanied by proper reform. It mystifies me that perhaps the most important public service of all, education and skills, does not seem to receive the same attention or public advocacy for a similar path.

I have said in the Education Committee that the Department is sometimes like the cardinals at the Vatican in its negotiations with the Treasury, hoping that a bit of white funding smoke may appear from the rooftops, but, as the NHS argument has shown, this is not the right approach. I very much hope the Department will negotiate a 10-year plan with the Treasury and come to the House, as the Health Secretary did, to set it out. We need a proper funding settlement lasting at least five years, just as the national health service has had, so we can stop having these day-to-day battles on the finances of schools and further education colleges and so that our wonderful teachers can carry on teaching and our children can carry on learning.

School Funding

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. At the start, I pay tribute to the many teachers and teaching assistants in my constituency; I do not often get to publicly pay tribute to them, and this is a timely moment to do so. They are some of the best public servants that we have, along with all of the others who we routinely talk about. However, in the context of what has become such a toxic debate, it has to be remembered that MPs are public servants too, and that MPs on all sides of the House are trying to do the best that they can. Some of these debates have become so unpleasant that we are slowing down progress that might put some of these things right for our constituents, our schools, and our teachers and teaching assistants.

During debates on this subject, we routinely hear two sides of the story: the Opposition side and the Government side. The Government have a good tale to tell on schools. I know as I say that that some people will laugh and make comments, but it is not right to say that there is only one side of the story.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

The Institute for Fiscal Studies talks about real-terms cuts of 8%. When Members go through the Division Lobby and vote for such policies, people—teachers, parents and the community—will remember.

[Royston Smith]

This is the very point I am trying to make. If we are to make progress, we need to listen to Members such as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who are talking about how politicised the debate has become,. We know that more needs to be done. We know that schools need more money. I know that schools in my constituency are struggling with their budgets, but it does not do to constantly—[Interruption.] That is the point I am trying to make. Every time someone tries to make a point, it becomes a political argument. We do not make progress by saying one side is right and the other side is wrong. Many of the increases to school budgets we have seen in recent years have been in no small part due to the lobbying skills of people like my hon. Friend. Those increases have come about because of such people, not because they have always been playing the political game.

Education Funding: Cheshire

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Presumably, the right hon. Lady was sitting at the Cabinet table in July when the latest school funding formula was discussed. I do not know whether she made representations to the Chancellor at the time, or even pressed the Cabinet for a vote, as there are well-documented claims that she did in the case of Brexit. We share some of her analysis of school funding cuts, but this matters when it comes to the Division Lobby, and in the right hon. Lady’s case, when it comes to her collective responsibility as a member of the Cabinet.

[Ms McVey]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the fact that the extra £1 billion was put in place was particularly due to the pressure applied by my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton and for Eddisbury. As I only returned to the House at the 2017 election, I too applied pressure, because I think it is vital that schools get the money they need for education. For me, education is one of the key building blocks of social mobility that every child needs, so I did indeed make sure that we pressed for further funding. I would like that to be on the record.

Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The national funding formula is distributing funding across our schools system in a far fairer way than in the past, and this recruitment and retention strategy should ease the cost pressures on schools. We have also introduced a teaching vacancy website, which is a free resource to enable schools to recruit free of charge, as the profession has been calling for a long time.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Now that the Minister has acknowledged the scale of the recruitment and retention crisis, will he commit to funding the 3.5% pay offer in full? No ifs, no buts: in full.

[Nick Gibb]

We have already said that we are funding the pay rise to which we have agreed. The 3.5% is being funded, over and above the 1% that schools have already budgeted. That is what the pay grant is all about, and we are distributing over £500 million this year and next year to fund that pay rise.

College Funding

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

As always, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is very difficult for people working in the sector to plan ahead. With years of area reviews, and all the rest of it, it has been a tough time. At the moment, the situation ahead does not look that good.

Further education colleges provide our communities with access to skills across the board. We see even more diverse challenges there. Although, in their response to the petition, the Government acclaimed their commitment to the adult education budget, in reality the initial teaching and learning funding allocations for adult further education and skills in England fell from a baseline of £3.18 billion in 2010 to £2.94 billion in 2015-16—a reduction of 14% in real terms—and more for the non-apprenticeship part of the adult skills budget. Since then, there has been an increase in funding for apprenticeships, but that really cannot make up for the thousands of people across the country who have suffered as a consequence of these cuts, and who want to upskill and reskill, as technology changes our jobs and our lives.

What about those who work in colleges? College staff were mentioned earlier. Staggeringly, college teachers are paid on average £7,000 a year less than those in schools, according to the University and College Union. In conjunction with busier jobs and fewer resources, this is stretching staff to breaking point, as any of us who go into colleges will hear.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

On that point, 57 members of staff were recently made redundant at Warrington and Vale Royal College in my constituency when the Northwich campus was closed. It is facing funding pressures of about £4 million as a direct result of this under-resourcing.

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend is right and sadly there is a familiar story of not only redundancies, but insecure contracts. The level of morale is really challenging for so many staff. Unison’s head of education, Ruth Levin, pointed out that colleges have faced underfunding, leading to job cuts, course closures and larger class sizes “for many years”. She went on to say:

“Pay in further education has fallen by more than 21% in real terms over the past nine years”.

It is clear that further education colleges have been hit the hardest in recent years, and it is simply not possible to continue down this road of less funding and more demand.

Apprenticeships and Skills Policy

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Judith Cummins]

I agree that schools have a lot to offer when it comes to redressing the imbalance. I will address schools a little later in my speech, when I will speak about the specific situation in Bradford and the specific project that we have there.

That situation is something of a vicious cycle. The lack of skills makes Bradford a less attractive place for businesses to locate and invest in. A good example is Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which cited the lack of appropriate skills as one of the reasons to relocate its offices from Bradford. That is why getting the skills policy right is essential to give places such as Bradford the economic boost that they so badly need.

The issue is becoming ever more urgent as we face the impact of new technologies in the world of work. The Future Advocacy report places Bradford South in the top 40 constituencies that are likely to be affected by automation in the coming years. It also says that 35% of jobs in Bradford are in occupations that are likely to shrink by 2030. It is clear that Bradford will need to adapt to secure good-quality and sustainable jobs.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

The Federation of Small Businesses has raised concerns about the 40-day requirement for placements associated with T-levels. Is that a concern for employers in the Bradford South constituency?

[Judith Cummins]

That certainly is a concern for employers in my constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing that person out, and for the way in which he described them. It is fitting to include them in the debate.

It is important to get other people involved in providing work placements—it is not just something for politicians to provide. We need to encourage small businesses to become involved in that, so that people get a feel for the entrepreneurship that is involved in setting up and running a small business. There are a couple of examples of companies in my constituency that do that, such as Williams Jet Tenders, which makes boats to go on other boats. It has a scheme of taking 10 people from the most deprived area of the constituency each year, some of whom go on to do apprenticeships. That training provides them with a lot of experience, and also with a lot of fun, because they end their experience by building little boats that they race against each other. I have been along to present the prizes to the winners, and all of that might sound like great fun, but there is also a seriousness to the skills that they learn: how to make model boats, and how to scale them up from that. Other companies provide that experience as well, including a cabinet and kitchen maker that I have also visited.

Those work placements take a whole lot of learning away from the apprenticeships. I am principally going to mention three areas of learning, the first of which is working well with other people. That may sound obvious, but for young people, working with other people and dealing with the dynamics of that is a skill that needs to be learned. Another skill that is crucial to learn and which work placements can provide is how to cope with criticism. Of course, coping with criticism is something that we as politicians take for granted, so maybe the work placements in our offices do have a purpose, but that is an important thing for people to learn. The third thing is people managing their own time, and making sure that that is part of how they approach life. Those are three examples of skills that work placements can provide, which will take away the need to pick up on those areas of learning during apprenticeships and will also help to make apprenticeships more attractive.

Having dealt with the work placement side, let me turn briefly to the schools side. Schools need to participate. We have been only partially successful in encouraging schools to encourage people to go into apprenticeships and skills training rather than to university. Certainly, among the schools in my constituency, there is a huge variety of attitudes towards encouraging students to go into apprenticeships. Some still have a very old-fashioned view of life and only measure success by the number they send to university.

[Mike Amesbury]

I am an MP but I am also a former careers adviser. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is about time that we re-establish a careers service—formerly the Connexions service—that will help people make well-informed and realistic decisions?

[John Howell]

I am open minded. I just think back to my time at university when there was a careers service. I will not tell the House the advice that I was given, but I did not follow it at all—not one iota. I am not sure whether that was down to the quality of the advice or my own sheer cussedness, but I take the hon. Gentleman’s point.

It is important that schools focus on promoting apprenticeships as a legitimate option that is equal to going to university, and we need to judge where people go according to their own skills and inclinations. I am pleased to have been able to contribute on the topic of how we get people to go into apprenticeships in the first place. I think we need to put a little more finesse into the work placements that are offered around the country.