Munira Wilson debates involving the Department for Education during the 2019 Parliament

Tutoring Provision

Munira Wilson Excerpts
Tuesday 19th March 2024

(1 week, 3 days ago)

Westminster Hall
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Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
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I beg to move,

That this House has considered tutoring provision.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, and I thank hon. Members in all parts of the House who supported my application for it. Unfortunately, it clashes with a meeting of the Education Committee, but the Chair—the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker)—and various members of the Committee have been very supportive.

This debate is about the Government’s national tutoring programme and the 16 to 19 tuition fund, which will end at the end of this academic year. Like other hon. Members, I am really disappointed that no new money was announced in the Budget to allow it to continue. As a result, schools and colleges have two options: they can try to fund the scheme from their own meagre budgets, which would be hard to achieve given the cuts that they are already having to make, or they can scrap it altogether, which would be a travesty.

During the pandemic, children were

“at the back of the queue”

and “always overlooked”. Those are the words of Anne Longfield, who was Children’s Commissioner during covid. Despite the remarkable efforts of our teachers and education leaders, who heroically adapted their lessons for online learning, we lost tens of millions of hours of valuable classroom time, and disadvantaged children were most affected.

Sir Kevan Collins, the Government’s adviser, acknowledged that children needed £15 billion to bridge the educational gap created by the pandemic. When just a fraction of that was given, he promptly resigned. In a recent interview in Tes magazine, he recognised the value of tutoring and said that he had wanted to scale it up dramatically so that 5 million pupils would receive tutoring by the end of 2024. He was also clear that tutoring should be best managed and led by schools. He said:

“Schools know their children best.”

I could not agree more, but as we all know, the recovery programme for which Sir Kevan called was not delivered.

I have to be totally honest: I was not always a fan of how the Government’s national tutoring programme was implemented. It encountered numerous challenges from ineffective outsourcing to tortuous application processes, tutoring shortages and—dare I mention the word—Randstad. Even the Education Committee, which was then under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who is now an Education Minister, recognised in a 2022 report that

“a complex bureaucratic system for applications may have hampered some schools’ ability to access…support”.

It further noted:

“Teachers and school staff know their pupils and know what interventions are likely to bring the most benefit.”

As Sir Kevan identified, the size of the tutoring programme also fell drastically short.

Despite all its failings, the tutoring programme managed to achieve some positive outcomes. When implemented correctly, tutoring has proved its worth time and again. It has helped pupils to catch up on lost learning and has shown many additional benefits such as improved confidence and school attendance. In the run-up to the Budget, more than 500 schools signed a letter to the Prime Minister, to the Secretary of State for Education and to the Chancellor, calling for more national tutoring programme funding. The letter was delivered to No. 10 by representatives of Action Tutoring, Tutor Trust and Get Further. I pay tribute to them for their amazing work in this area; several of them are watching from the Gallery today.

The Government responded that they would continue to support tutoring through pupil premium funding, but school leaders will be dismayed by that response. The pupil premium, which was established by Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government, was once a fund to support disadvantaged children, but since 2015 its value has eroded by 14% in real terms, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and I think we all acknowledge that in recent years it has more often been used to plug gaps in school funding. The hon. Member for Worcester recognised that when he said:

“I’m not sure there is sufficient space in the pupil premium to support tutoring becoming part of the system.”

Why am I such a fan of tutoring? We are lucky that so much research has been done on the impact of tutoring. The Sutton Trust, Public First, the Education Endowment Foundation and others have all looked at it. This Government claim that they are led by evidence, so let us look at some. The Sutton Trust says that the attainment gap, which had been decreasing gradually throughout the early 2010s,

“stalled in the years before the pandemic. Since the crisis, the gap has widened considerably, with 10 years of progress now wiped out.”

It believes that tutoring is

“a key method of boosting learning”

for disadvantaged children. It also notes:

“The programme has had a considerable impact on levelling out access to tutoring, with 35% of working class Year 11 students receiving private or school-based tutoring, compared to 36% of students from professional homes.”

Work by the Education Endowment Foundation has shown the effectiveness of tutoring, showing an average impact of four months’ additional progress over the course of a year with small-group tutoring. It also recognised the particular benefits that tutoring can bring to disadvantaged children:

“Studies in England have shown that pupils eligible for free school meals typically receive additional benefits from small group tuition”.

It stands to reason: allowing a teacher to focus on the needs of a small number of learners and provide teaching closely matched to that pupil’s individual understanding will reap greater rewards than teaching a larger number of students. Small groups offer the opportunity for greater levels of interaction and feedback than whole-class teaching.

Let us take the example of Dylan, a typical student who has benefited from an Action Tutoring tutor. Dylan struggled with maths and was considered unlikely to meet the expected standard. His school set him up with tutoring, and he attended 16 sessions over a period of two years. As a result, he moved from a grade 3 standard to a grade 4 pass. However, the benefits were so much more than just getting the grade that he needed. Dylan said:

“Before I started my tutoring sessions, I dreaded maths because I didn’t enjoy it. But my tutoring sessions were amazing and really helped boost my confidence in maths. When I found out I passed my GCSE maths, I didn’t believe it. Dead serious, I literally was flabbergasted. I was like, what is even going on? I looked twice at it as I was just so flustered.”

That hope and excitement expressed by Dylan—that promise of being able to move on to the next stage of your life and pursue your dreams—is priceless.

Public First research shows the impact that tutoring has had on GCSE pass rates and overall grades in key subjects. Some 62,000 additional pass grades in GCSE maths and English were achieved as a result of Government-funded tutoring in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years. Tutoring is an intervention with an impact on pupils right across the grade spectrum: it provided 430,000 grade improvements in total, with 220,000 in maths and 210,000 in English. The long-term economic impact on earning potential is significant, and so is the very real impact of strong foundations in numeracy and literacy on people’s lives.

We all know that under-18s in England must retake GCSE English and maths if they do not achieve a grade 4 pass. In 2023, that resulted in a staggering 167,000 students having to retake maths and 172,000 resitting English. When combined, that is the highest number of retakes in a decade. We are setting those children up for repeated failure unless different help and support is provided. Just 16.4% of students resitting GCSE maths in England passed with at least a grade 4 this year, and the pass rate for English was only slightly higher. That group of children need targeted help, support and time with a tutor in small-group sessions to get to the bottom of what they find difficult, with personal, structured work plans to boost progress. Targeted tutoring has been exceptionally effective in helping that group.

I was lucky enough to see the work of Get Further when I visited Southwark College last year. Sitting in on a few sessions allowed me to see tutoring at first hand. It was fascinating to see how tutors engaged one on one with pupils, helping them to unpack a maths question or discussing the meaning of a particular word in English. The children I spoke to all had aspirations and plans for the future, and they really valued the time they spent with teachers one on one or in a small group.

Aiden, at London South East Colleges, had twice missed out on a grade 4 at English GCSE. He was supported by a Get Further tutor, who helped him to understand things for the first time in a tailored small group and one-to-one setting. He said this about his experience:

“I was only aiming for a 4 as it was my third time retaking English and I wanted to get it over and done with. As I continued my tuition, I started to understand things I didn’t understand before and quickly improved. Now, I have a 6 and it’s all thanks to my tutor. I am so pleased with the grade I achieved and proud of how far I have come! In September, I aim to go on to Level 2 Health and Social Care and then move on to Level 3 or an Access to Higher Education course so that I can do Paramedic Science at university with awesome classmates who share what I aspire to be: someone who helps people at their highest and lowest moments.”

Tutoring can be truly transformational.

We should also acknowledge the many other spillover benefits that tutoring brings, which speak to many current concerns in our educational system. Some 85% of parents say that tutoring has had a positive impact on their child’s confidence, while 68% say that it has improved attendance. CoachBright recently published its impact report and has done interesting work on the relationship between tutoring and attendance. The results show that tutoring can reduce persistent absence by 11%. At a time when thousands of pupils are missing from school, tutoring can offer children and young people the opportunity to have a new trusted adult in their lives, giving them a new way to engage with their education.

The bottom line is that for every £1 spent on tutoring, £6.58 is generated in economic returns as a direct result of pupils achieving higher grades and having a higher lifetime earnings potential. The benefits are felt not just by those who receive the tutoring, but by our whole economy and society. The evidence is compelling, but there is also a strong political case for continuing tutoring: it is popular. Public First research found that pupils like tutoring: students were positive about their experiences and were willing to have more of it if available. Parents like tutoring: over three quarters of parents would support increased tutoring provision. Teachers like tutoring: they welcome the impact on academic attainment and the wider benefits such as pupil confidence, increased engagement in the classroom and reduced anxiety. This is a policy that is popular with pupils, parents and teachers. I have no wish to help the Government, but surely that sounds like a vote winner.

Liberal Democrats believe in tutoring, which is why we have said that we will offer a tutoring guarantee for every disadvantaged pupil who needs extra support, recognising that tutoring is most effective when we allow headteachers and college leaders to decide themselves how to run the scheme. I think tutoring is so important that I joined the Conservative Chair of the Education Committee and a former Labour Education Secretary—the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—to try to convince the Government to maintain funding for the tutoring programme beyond the end of this academic year.

As we have heard from the case studies, tutoring can be a life-changing intervention. Those of us who are parents and are privileged enough to afford tutoring for our children do not hesitate to pay for it in order to boost their attainment and confidence. In the words of Lorraine Spence, whose daughter Naomi benefited from Get Further’s tutoring after she failed her maths GCSE:

“My daughter is now thriving at university but without the extension of this kind of funding, countless young people from low-income families will miss out on securing the gateway qualifications they need to unlock opportunities like this. Should tutoring return to being a luxury for the rich and a sacrifice for the poor? I urge the Government not to allow this to be the case. Instead, let’s make a more equitable educational system, where tutoring is accessible to all—and one positive legacy to come out of the pandemic.”

I could not agree more with Lorraine’s words. If the Government are serious about levelling up, I hope that the Minister will make a commitment today that he is willing to do battle with his Treasury colleagues to ensure that funding continues both for the national tutoring programme and for the 16 to 19 tuition fund. Schools and colleges need that assurance urgently to plan for the next academic year.

--- Later in debate ---
Damian Hinds Portrait The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
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It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for securing this important debate today. I also thank everybody who has taken part: the hon. Member herself, my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who brought the Northern Ireland perspective, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who spoke for the Opposition.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North rightly spoke of the hard times of covid, which we all remember. Our home and professional experiences were indeed very difficult. They were also very difficult to plan for, because they were experiences that our country, like others, had not had before. I do not think it is right to say that people were slow to react. For example, I thought that what happened in respect of Oak National Academy was amazing and came together quickly. The work that teachers and headteachers did converting to virtual education and enabling home learning was remarkable, but there is no doubt that it was an incredibly hard time. International studies such as the programme for international student assessment show that the whole world, with the exception of only one or two jurisdictions, took a really big knock from covid. Almost every country took a serious hit in educational attainment from covid.

England held up relatively well. That is part of the reason why in the most recent PISA results, in mathematics for example, England was ranked 11th in the world. That is an improvement on recent times, particularly so if one looks back to the period before 2010 when England had been ranked 27th. We also saw improvements in reading and in science. In the progress in international reading literacy study 2021, primary school readers in England were ranked fourth in the world and first in the western world. However, none of that changes the fact that covid was a terrible knock to education here and elsewhere in the world.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson
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Would the Minister give way?

Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Would she let me get going? No, sorry; go ahead.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson
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The Minister and his colleagues talk a lot about the PISA scores, and obviously we cannot deny that evidence. He talked about the impact of the pandemic, but does he recognise that the attainment gap had been starting to dwindle? I noticed that he smarted when I mentioned that the pupil premium was a Liberal Democrat commitment that we delivered with the Conservatives in government.

Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

It was in every party’s manifesto.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson
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Sorry, I was not wishing to make a political point. My question is: will the Minister recognise that the attainment gap was actually starting to widen again before the pandemic, and that the pandemic accelerated that trend? That is what we are all here to try to tackle through the tutoring programme.

Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Let us not pursue the thing about the pupil premium. That happened to be in both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat plans for Government ahead of 2010. The two parties worked well together in coalition, and that is a good thing that we should welcome. There had been progress on the disadvantage gap. It is also true, as I was just saying, that covid hit the whole world, but it also hit different groups of children differentially, and we are still seeing the effects of that in the disadvantage gap. I will come back to that.

Tutoring has been a key part of our recovery plan, and I thank everybody who has been involved in it: the tutors, the tutoring organisations, the teachers and teaching assistants, and everybody else who has made it possible. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield mentioned the particular role and contribution of volunteers, and I join him in that. It is a very special thing to do.

The national tutoring programme is not necessarily what always comes to mind when the person in the street thinks of tutoring. A lot of it, as the hon. Member for Twickenham alluded to, is small group work; it is not just one to one. Although very important work has been done by outside tutoring organisations, most of the work on the national tutoring programme has been done by existing staff in schools. We have committed £1.4 billion to the four-year life of the national tutoring programme in schools and colleges, and invested in the 16 to 19 tuition fund.

For the second year of the programme—my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North referred to this—funding has gone directly to schools. That has enabled schools to choose the right approach for them and their children through the use of their own staff, accessing quality-assured tuition partners or employing an academic mentor. We created the find a tuition partner service to put schools in touch with those opportunities, and also provided training through the Education Development Trust for staff, including teaching assistants who deliver tutoring.

Nearly 5 million courses have been started since the NTP launched in November 2020, and 46% of the pupils tutored last year had been eligible for free school meals in the past six years. That is the “ever 6” measure—a measure of disadvantage. The 16 to 19 tuition fund will also have delivered hundreds of thousands of courses.

The tutoring programme has been part of the wider £5 billion education recovery funding, which is made up of the £1.4 billion for tutoring, £400 million for aspects of teacher training, £800 million for additional time in 16 to 19, and nearly £2 billion directly to schools for evidence-based interventions appropriate to pupils’ needs.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North rightly mentioned speech and language interventions. I can tell her that already two thirds of primary schools have benefited—211,000 year R children so far—from our investment in the Nuffield early language intervention programme. The evidence suggests that the programme assists children in making four months’ worth of additional progress, while children eligible for free school meals make greater progress of seven months.

Covid hit the world, including us. It did not hit every discipline in exactly the same way. Some of us will recognise from our own time at home with children that some things were easier to do than others. Reading at key stage 2 and junior school held up pretty well during covid. Maths has now improved and the standard is now close to what it was in the years before covid. Writing is still behind, although we have had a 2% improvement since last year.

Big challenges remain. No one denies that the No. 1 issue is attendance. This almost sounds trite, but there is an obvious link between being at school and the attainment achieved. It bears repeating that even if there are difficulties in having many children in school, we really have to work on attendance. As well as the overall attainment effect of attendance, there is a differential factor between the cohort of pupils as a whole and disadvantaged pupils; in other words, there is a bit more absence in the latter group than the former. There is also a link—some studies say it plays a really big part—between attendance and the attainment gap, which makes it doubly important that we work on attendance.

As colleagues know, schools are doing many things brilliantly, as are local authorities and others, to try to get attendance back up to pre-covid levels. Obviously, every child needs to be off school at some time because of sickness—all of us were when we were children. That will always be true, but we need to get back to the levels we had before covid.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North alluded to specific things that we do around breakfast clubs. It is important to do them in a targeted way, and not just in primary school, as the Labour party plans to do, but in secondary school as well. There are issues around mental health support, which is why we are gradually rolling out the mental health support teams across the country. Again, we think that it is right to have that in both phases—it is important at both primary and secondary school—and schools are also doing an immense amount of work.

Although the national tutoring programme was always a time-limited programme post-covid, tutoring will continue to play an important role and we know that the evidence shows that tutoring is an effective, targeted approach to increase pupils’ attainment. Headteachers are best placed to decide how to invest their funding, depending on their particular circumstances and priorities, and that approach underpins our whole approach to the school system, in that we put headteachers in charge. I anticipate many schools continuing to make tutoring opportunities available to their pupils and we will continue to support schools to deliver tutoring in future, including through pupil premium funding, which will rise to more than £2.9 billion in 2024-25.

Schools decide how to use their funding, aided by the Education Endowment Foundation, which sets out good knowledge and advice on the best uses of funding for the education programmes with the most efficacy. I do not think there is a conflict between universal and highly targeted programmes. We target via the funding formula and then headteachers are best placed, armed with the knowledge from the EEF and others, to decide how to use that funding. The overall national funding formula has the disadvantage element, which next year will be a bigger proportion than has previously been the case. Then, of course, there is the pupil premium.

Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
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It is absolutely appropriate to embed tutoring into schools’ wider progress, because we know from our gold standard analyser the EEF and other studies that that approach has efficacy and achieves results, although obviously it depends on how it is done. As my hon. Friend puts it, we will keep an eye on the matter, but that is not the same as specifying that Mrs Smith the headteacher should do this but not that. We think Mrs Smith should be able to decide. We also have Ofsted inspections and the results are published as part of a system that is transparent but that also empowers schools, school leaders and trusts to make those decisions.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson
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I completely agree with the Minister about giving headteachers and teachers autonomy. As a Liberal, I do not believe in things being controlled from the centre, and teachers know best, but the reality of the funding situation, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) pointed out, is that many schools are setting deficit budgets for the first time ever. We can talk about how money has gone up in cash terms, but it has not gone up in real terms. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that schools’ spending power has been reduced massively by inflationary costs.

I pointed out that the pupil premium has been cut by 14% in real terms. The tutoring fund underspent because many of the schools cannot match the funding that is available. The Minister may really believe that this is an effective, evidence-based intervention, but schools will not be able to continue without ringfenced, dedicated funding. I was told that last year when I went to visit Southwark College, which is dealing with some of the most disadvantaged pupils, who otherwise will have no life chances at all if they do not get the support they need.

Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
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On the subject of funding, including the pupil premium and the recently announced additional amounts for covering pension contributions, overall school funding next year will be £2.9 billion higher than it was in 2023-24. That will take the total to over £60 billion in 2024-25—the highest ever level in real terms per pupil.

We also remain committed to improving outcomes for students aged 16 to 19, particularly those yet to achieve their GCSE English and maths. That is a subject that came up earlier. I should stress that not having English and maths is not an impediment to starting an apprenticeship; the person just has to continue to study them while doing their apprenticeship.

I know that this subject stirs strong feelings in many people. We know that the workplace and life value of English and maths is immense, and that is why there is so much focus on those subjects as we develop the advanced British standard and in our design of the T-levels and some of the apprenticeship reforms. English and maths are so important for the futures of these young people, which is why in October we announced an additional £300 million over two years to support students who need to resit their GCSEs.

There is no rule that everybody has to resit a GCSE. Whether the person resits GCSE mathematics or takes a functional skills qualification depends on the GCSE grade that they got the first time around. The £300 million is part of what we call an initial downpayment on the development of the advanced British standard. As colleagues know, it will be a new baccalaureate-style qualification, bringing together the best of A-levels and T-levels in a single qualification and ending the artificial distinction between academic and vocational for good.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham for securing this debate, and to everybody who has been and continues to be involved in the national tutoring programme and the 16 to 19 programme. Tutoring can have a transformational effect on pupils’ and students’ attainment, and I am proud that the Department’s flagship tutoring programmes have been supporting so many in catch-up following covid-19. I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate, all the schools and colleges that have participated in these programmes, all the tutors—including the volunteer tutors—who have delivered them, and of course all the pupils and students for engaging so enthusiastically.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson
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I start where the Minister ended: by extending my thanks to all those involved in the tutoring programme, particularly the volunteers, including Douglas, who is here today and was namechecked earlier, from the office of the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell). The contribution that volunteers and teachers—who work extraordinarily hard, day in, day out—make to our children is invaluable. Thank you to all of them.

I also thank all hon. Members who turned up to participate today. I know that many others could not be here today, but they are also very strongly committed to the tutoring programme. The hon. Member for Sedgefield talked about the excitement that pupils often experience when they receive tutoring. That goes to my point about tackling persistent absence. We know that tutoring helps to bring down some of those absence levels. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the importance of extending these programmes right across our four nations, given the benefits involved.

I think this is a first for me: I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis), and it is not very often I find myself saying that. Where I am in violent agreement with him is on something that I and the Liberal Democrats constantly point out. As a party, we see money spent on education and our children and young people as a long-term investment. I am afraid that the Treasury often sees children as a cost. We need to see them as part of our current society and also of our future society and our economy. Investing heavily early on will pay dividends and generate returns for generations to come.

As the hon. Member pointed out, levelling up starts here, with children. That is why I am so perplexed as to why the Government are not extending the programme. I know that the Minister said it was time-limited to start with, but given that the attainment gap continues to grow, and given the evidence that has been generated to show the impact, I am slightly surprised that we are not seeing a continuing commitment.

I am also disappointed that, following persistent questioning by the Minister, we heard no commitment from the Labour Front Bench to continue tutoring should there be a change of Government later this year or at the start of next year. Tutoring really does help tackle the attainment gap. I repeat my point to the Minister. He has said that it is a great intervention, but without the money, too many more children are going to be left behind.

Even if he may not have said so publicly right now, I urge the Minister to please go away and talk to the Treasury about whether money can be found to continue this important intervention, because our children really do deserve the very best start in life. We cannot just keep writing off those who do not have the same advantages as many of us. I speak as a parent who has invested in tutoring for my daughter. I want the child down the road who lives in much more challenging conditions, who does not necessarily have the support at home, to have the same benefit as my daughter, so that they can achieve great things, because every child has that potential.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered tutoring provision.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts
Monday 11th March 2024

(2 weeks, 4 days ago)

Commons Chamber
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David Johnston Portrait David Johnston
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I thank my hon. Friend for continuing to champion this sector. She is absolutely right about the importance of paying on a monthly basis, which we encourage all local authorities to do. We will be saying more about that in the coming weeks, and I will be happy to meet her to discuss this further.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
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The Minister will be aware that private equity firms have been causing great damage in other parts of the education sector, such as children’s homes and special schools, but we are now starting to see this in childcare. Oakley Capital has acquired Lilliput nursery in Hersham and Elmbridge, and has hiked up prices by a staggering 25%; that is an additional £365 per child per month, which parents simply cannot afford. Does he agree that it is quite wrong for private equity firms to be making these eye-watering profits on the backs of hard-working parents? What is he going to do to stop this happening?

David Johnston Portrait David Johnston
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Lady is right to raise the issue of profiteering that we have seen in some areas of children’s care and social care. We will be setting out some steps that we will be taking on that shortly. I do not know the specifics of the case she has just referenced, but, again, if she writes to me, I will be happy to look at it.

--- Later in debate ---
Robert Halfon Portrait Robert Halfon
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I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his question. Arthur Balfour was a great man and identified the need for a homeland for British Jews. That is why antisemites do not like him and are slashing his picture. I and the Secretary of State are spending a lot of time with Jewish student groups. I have been to Leeds University to spend time with Jewish students, because the chaplain there was attacked, and we are working with Universities UK. We have announced a £7 million package to give to Jewish student groups, including the University Jewish Chaplaincy, to try to stop antisemitism on campus. We are also developing a quality seal that we will ask universities to adopt, so that they deal properly with antisemitic incidents. Last week, I and the Secretary of State had a meeting with the Office for Students, to make clear to the regulator that antisemitism across our universities is not acceptable.

Kinship Care Strategy

Munira Wilson Excerpts
Wednesday 6th March 2024

(3 weeks, 2 days ago)

Westminster Hall
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Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern) on securing this important debate. I pay tribute to the fantastic work of many campaigners on this issue, several of whom are in the Public Gallery today. It is thanks to their hard work and their tireless commitment to the cause that we even have a kinship care strategy, published just before Christmas.

The publication of that strategy was a real milestone. It has finally put kinship on the map—an achievement for which I pay tribute to the campaigners. However, that strategy was a real missed opportunity and fell far short of the ambition that the Minister himself set out in his response to my debate in this Chamber back in September. Indeed, while much of the text of the strategy set out the challenges, I am afraid that many of the solutions fell far short of addressing them.

First, on allowances, the Minister said back in September that

“kinship carers need more support than is currently available to them.”

He pointed out that there is no “great logic” to foster carers’ allowances not being on a par with kinship carers, and he recognised

“the strain that many kinship families are under.”—[Official Report, 14 September 2023; Vol. 737, c. 425WH.]

But only eight local authorities are going to be part of the pilot, and even in those local authorities it will be a tiny subset of kinship carers. We have a perverse situation in which only families of previously looked-after children will be able to claim an allowance, yet it is local authorities that, in trying to save money, go to families to prevent children from going into care in the first place.

In the September debate, even the Minister recognised that it is much more cost-effective for local authorities to put children into kinship care rather than local authority care. The savings are very realisable. in the short term as well as in the long term. The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) talked about long-term savings, but about £35,000 per child can be saved by putting children into kinship care rather than local authority care. If the Minister is going to stick to just eight local authority pilots, I beg him to at least look at expanding the eligibility criteria.

Many hon. Members have already talked about the lack of movement on employment support and the lack of a commitment to statutory pay or leave, which are hugely disappointing. Kim, the constituent who first brought my attention to the issue of kinship care, had to reduce her hours significantly. So many people do. They are typically women, because kinship carers are often grandmothers, who are already suffering the gender pay gap and losing out. That is a key barrier that must be removed.

There are so many things that I do not have the time to say. In September, the Minister said that he was determined to do as much as he could. He needs to go back to the Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade and ask for more, because the strategy is just scraps. Kinship carers deserve an awful lot more.

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David Johnston Portrait David Johnston
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

We have not announced the local authorities, so let us do that bit first. Members asked why we are starting with the particular subset of children who have special guardianship orders; they are one of the easiest groups to define, they often have the highest need and they are the quickest for local authorities to make the payments to. We want to get the programme going as quickly as possible, but subject to its success we want to broaden it to the full range of people in kinship care and to the other local authorities. However, we have not chosen the eight yet.

On virtual school heads, while some children in kinship arrangements have already been able to benefit from education entitlements and support, one of the constant conversations I have with kinship carers is that at times they find it very difficult to get the school to engage with them. Even though they are acting as the parent, they do not get the same conversations and treatment that a parent would get. That is why we announced £3.8 million to expand the role of virtual school heads to children in kinship care. All children in kinship care arrangements will get that, regardless of their status. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) raised that point and mentioned making sure everybody is aware that the heads are there. The local authority grant letters are being published imminently, delivery will start in September and we will do all we can to make sure everybody knows that they exist.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) and others mentioned kinship leave, and we recognise the challenge many kinship carers face when continuing to work alongside the pressures of taking in and raising a child at an unexpected moment. We continue to explore what we can do. We have published guidance for employers, as some hon. Members have mentioned, to better support kinship carers in work. Some employers are already doing that. The Department for Education will give kinship leave to its staff who are kinship carers and we expect other Government Departments to do similarly in the coming weeks and months.

On training and support, which was raised by the hon. Members for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) as well as others, we announced a £1.6 million extension to our peer support funding, which will be delivered from July. It will mean that all kinship carers, regardless of their care order, will be able to network and learn from each other until the end of March 2026. Following the progress and positive impact that the peer-to-peer support contract has already made, we have committed to delivering a package of training and support that all kinship carers across England can access. We were pleased to confirm that the charity Kinship will be the training partner and that training is on track to be delivered from spring 2024.

We know that many kinship carers feel that a clear definition of kinship care will help to reduce barriers to them accessing services and support, creating a common understanding of what kinship care means. We are proud to have published the first Government definition of a kinship carer. This year, we will implement that in statutory guidance to improve understanding and awareness from practitioners about what kinship care is.

On a related matter raised by the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire, we have asked the Law Commission to review and simplify the framework for kinship care status. On the point made by him and the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) about inconsistent support from local authorities, we are publishing an updated version of the family and friends guidance this spring, and we will be monitoring compliance. I had a conversation with the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish at his APPG about the fact that we have found local authorities not paying the minimum fostering allowance, which we give them the money to do. Local authority compliance is very much in my sights.

This year, we will recruit the first-ever national kinship care ambassador to advocate for kinship carers and work directly with local authorities to improve services. That should go live for recruitment this month, and I look forward to working with the appointed candidate. They will help us to ensure that local authorities provide a consistent service that complies with what we require them to do. We are creating a board of sector experts, in addition to our kinship carer reference group, to advise me on priorities for future funding and policy development.

Let me quickly respond to some of the other points that were raised. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) asked about family group conferencing and New Zealand. We are exploring using legislation to mandate the use of family group conferencing at pre-proceedings and my predecessor met colleagues from New Zealand to discuss how it works there. The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) described what sounded like good local offers to support kinship carers in their areas, and I will ask officials to follow up with them to ensure that we are aware of the good work they are doing. I need to leave a couple of minutes for the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire, so if there are any points I have not addressed, I am happy to write to hon. Members.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson
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Would the Minister address the issue of the pupil premium plus and priority admissions for children in kinship care? We know that looked-after children get those benefits, but kinship children do not, and it was not in the strategy.

David Johnston Portrait David Johnston
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I will write to the hon. Lady about that because it is a longer answer than the 30 seconds I have before the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire winds up.

We are proud of the progress we are already making to support kinship carers through the strategy, but we know there is more to do. I am fully committed to reducing the barriers to kinship care where it is in the best interests of the child to offer a safe, stable and loving alternative to becoming looked-after. I am determined that we keep the profile of kinship carers as high as possible and that people understand the vital role they play for the children in their care and the country as a whole.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts
Monday 29th January 2024

(2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
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Of course, there are multiple layers to mental health support. The mental health support teams programme, which we are rolling out gradually across the country, continues to expand. At the end of March 2023, 35% of pupils in school or further education were covered by that, including 47% at secondary. When the figures for this year come out, I expect them to be higher. Unlike the Opposition, we are putting mental health support not only into secondary schools but into primary schools, where it can make a big difference.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
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The reality for mental health support teams in schools is that funding is not guaranteed beyond 2025, and the coverage is patchy. Earlier this month I heard about a teenager in a secondary school in my constituency who has not attended for four months because of mental ill health. The school is convinced that if there were dedicated, qualified mental health practitioners in secondary and primary schools, attendance would improve. Will the Minister back my ten-minute rule Bill to commit to exactly that duty, to be paid for by trebling the tax on social media companies, which so often are at the root of those problems?

Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
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The hon. Member identifies important problems. There are important links between mental ill health prevalence and non-attendance. We will see benefits from the offer to all state schools and colleges of a grant to train a senior mental health lead, as well as the wider mental health support teams that I mentioned.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts
Monday 11th December 2023

(3 months, 2 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
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I value all those activities that my hon. Friend sets out that schools undertake for their children. Like her, I represent a rural constituency—indeed, we have next-door constituencies. I recognise what she says about small rural schools. Inspections have an important role to play, but Ofsted also has the flexibility in the framework to take account of the particular position of smaller schools.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
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Teacher workloads are being exacerbated by teacher vacancies that schools are struggling to fill, and funding pressures are resulting in cuts to support staff, who often support the most vulnerable and needy children. That is leading to an exodus of teachers from our schools. Just last week, we saw the staggering figures from the Government that teacher training recruitment targets have been missed by a whopping 50% in our secondary schools, with the sharpest fall in maths, which is allegedly a priority for the Prime Minister. How bad does it have to get before the Government will produce and implement a proper workforce strategy?

Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
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I can confirm that there are 27,000 more teachers and 60,000 more teaching assistants in our schools compared with 2010. We have the most talented generation of teachers ever, and we continue to focus on a strong recruitment and retention strategy, so that we continue to get the best talent to teach our children.

Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity

Munira Wilson Excerpts
Wednesday 8th November 2023

(4 months, 3 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Gillian Keegan Portrait The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)
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It is an honour to open today’s King’s Speech debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Government.

Education is the key that unlocks the door to opportunity. Get it right, and it is the single most transformative thing that any Government can do. That is why this Conservative Government have spent the last 13 years doing just that. We have been taking the long-term decisions to ensure that the next generation have a brighter future, because we know what happens when Governments get it wrong—[Interruption.] When we started this journey in 2010—Opposition Members are going to like this—we inherited Labour’s legacy. It was a legacy defined by politicians saying, “Education, education, education” but failing to deliver. The results speak for themselves. At that time, more than a fifth of children left primary school without achieving basic levels of literacy and numeracy, and two fifths finished full-time education without even the bare minimum qualifications. That failure entrenched inequality and locked the door of opportunity. The education system worked against children from places like where I grew up in Knowsley. It was a system that widened the gap between the richest and the poorest in society.

Politicians often say that talent is everywhere but opportunity is not, and they are right. I know that, because I lived it. My failing comprehensive school left many of my classmates without those precious opportunities. Although some came to education later, many others never did—so much so that some are now in prison and others sadly have died many years before their time. It did not have to be this way. For five years, I sat next to those children. We all thought we had a bright future ahead of us, as children often do, but sadly that was not the case for too many of them. Education is about removing the barriers to opportunity and the belief that talent is everywhere. It is about the growth in confidence that our teachers inspire and the understanding that if the playing field is levelled, no one’s dream will be out of reach. That is what this Government are delivering, from the moment someone enters this world until they retire.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
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Will the Secretary of State give way?

Gillian Keegan Portrait Gillian Keegan
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Let me make some progress before I take interventions.

Earlier this year, we announced the largest ever investment in childcare in England’s history. Very soon, we will be spending £8 billion a year. That investment will ensure that every child gets the best start in life. It means that working parents will be entitled to 30 hours of free childcare from the end of parental leave until their child starts school. To give parents the flexibility they need, we are rolling out universal wraparound childcare for primary school children from 8 am to 6 pm. These Conservative policies will end the choice that some working mums and dads feel they need to make between having a family and having a career, and it will save parents up to £6,500 a year.

The generation having children now will not remember what was on offer under Labour, but let me remind the House: 13 years of Labour delivered only 12.5 hours of free childcare for some three and four-year-olds. That is less than one hour for every year in office. Our childcare package gives people wanting to start a family the confidence to do so. May I invite the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), when she stands at the Dispatch Box, to finally offer Labour’s support for our record childcare investment? Can she tell hard-working parents in Wales why her party is not rolling out the same support that English parents will benefit from?

I know that the right hon. Lady, like me, did not grow up with privilege. I have heard her speak eloquently and passionately about the help and support she received from Sure Start, and I know she was grateful for that support. I am sure there were many positives from that programme—indeed, my best friend used to run a Sure Start centre—but there were also some serious failings in the design and delivery. First, Sure Start was not a universal offer, and it stigmatised people who used the services. Plus, it only helped families for the first five years of a child’s life, but any parent will say that challenges can arise at any time. [Interruption.] This is important: the National Audit Office found that Sure Start had failed to target the most disadvantaged families and was even unable to identify families needing support in the most disadvantaged 30% of communities. It simply did not reach the right people.

When we launched our family hubs programme, we ensured that the hubs provided a service to anyone who needed it. They are supporting families with everything from mental health to breastfeeding, and housing and debt services—challenges that many of us need support with. The service is universal, available to anyone. Family hubs support families with children of all ages, from conception to 19, or up to 25 for those with special educational needs. They join up services, ensuring that every family gets the right support at the right time. As part of that, the best start for life programme provides focused support during the crucial first 1,001 days of a child’s life, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) for her work to get that right.

Before I talk about how we have transformed our schools, I will address one of the key challenges we face in delivering opportunity: school attendance.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson
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Will the Secretary of State give way?

Gillian Keegan Portrait Gillian Keegan
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I will in a moment, honestly, but this is important. I want to address one of the key challenges we face, which is school attendance. Following the pandemic, we have seen a phenomenon where more children are staying home and not going to school. That challenge is not unique to the UK. At the G7, my counterparts from the US to Japan were all grappling with the same issue. I reassure the House that it is a top priority. We are making progress through our attendance hubs and mentoring programmes, as well as more specialised support for key cohorts, such as those with mental health issues or special educational needs. In just the past year, 380,000 fewer children are persistently absent, and we will keep driving at this issue until all our children are back in school.

I notice that the Labour party had a lot to say about attendance this morning, but the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) may have missed the 380,000 fewer children persistently absent in the past year. Yet again, Labour offers little more than empty words, with a touch of student politics. In Labour-run Wales, attendance rates are still far behind those in England. Last year’s attendance data showed that Wales only managed an attendance rate of 85.5%, compared with England’s 92.5%. That means that English children are benefiting from well over a week more education than those just over the border. I advise the Labour party to spend a little less time playing politics, and more time helping children. The children of Wales deserve better.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson
- Hansard - -

I thank the Education Secretary very much for giving way. What was crystal clear from the King’s Speech yesterday was that, despite her grandiose statements here, education is not a priority for this Government. There were two re-announcements, nothing new and no new legislation, and her speech so far is revisiting old announcements, which is shocking, considering the crisis in our schools and colleges. She talks about persistent absence, so can she explain to the House why there was no announcement yesterday about bringing forward legislation for a “children not in school” register, which Ministers promised to do when they scrapped the Schools Bill in the last Session?

Gillian Keegan Portrait Gillian Keegan
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The progress we have made on education is phenomenal. The legislation we have put in place has enabled us to make many of these improvements, but we remain committed to legislating to take forward the “children not in school” measures, and we will progress those at a suitable future legislative opportunity. We continue to work with local authorities to improve the non-statutory registers, and have launched a consultation on revised elective home education guidance. There is a lot of work going on. The consultation is open until 18 January 2024, and we intend to bring forward that legislation.

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Angela Rayner Portrait Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I just say well done to the Education Secretary for the level of creativity and imagination in her opening remarks?

In opening this debate on behalf of the Opposition, Iusb want to offer a note of optimism after the miserable vision for this country’s future presented by the Government. Britain is crying out for lasting change that will see the ambition of our young people harnessed, the drive of our businesses rewarded, and the aspiration that exists around every kitchen table fully realised.

We promise our children and grandchildren that if they work hard, they will be able to get on, no matter what their background. We tell them that with enough graft, everyone has the opportunity to build a good life around what they do best and love most. But opportunity is built on security, so that people can live without fear that they might be evicted or lose their job for no good reason at all. It is built on the foundation of a decent wage and a secure home.

The Prime Minister and his party have taken a sledgehammer to those foundations on which a good life can be built. People can no longer be sure that by working hard they will get on, or that where they come from will not hold them back. The only certainty is that this Government will sit on their hands while working people graft and Ministers promise more of the same.

Last year, it was the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who led the second day of debate on the Queen’s Speech for the Government. This year, she was dancing away through her party’s conference with Nigel Farage—dancing the right away, we might say—but it is the current Home Secretary who is dancing to his tune. This week, she told us her answer to homelessness: “Take away their tents.” And her answer to crime? To waste police time arresting charity volunteers for giving the tents out. Then there is the Prime Minister, who is so weak that he does not dare put the proposals to us but does not dare to distance himself from them either. He chooses delay, while his Cabinet argues behind closed doors. We know who is leading this dance and who is following.

That is the story of this King’s Speech through and through: party before country. We needed a King’s Speech that would draw a line under 13 years of Tory decline, but instead we have a party so devoid of leadership that the only fight left in them is to fight among themselves. But while Cabinet Ministers argue over headlines, schools across our country are literally crumbling, with children cowering under steel props to stop the roof falling in. Is there any clearer example of a Government failing in their basic duties than the constant drip, drip of schools being added to the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete list? At the current rate, over 2 million children are at risk of regularly missing school by 2025. That is one in four of all children currently at primary and secondary school. A lost generation of children in England are facing a tidal wave of mental ill health, unable to get treatment through the NHS.

Yesterday, we waited for a plan for our children and young people that would see aspiration and ambition for everyone, a plan to prevent a child’s background from being a barrier to their getting on, a plan to deliver a broad, inclusive and innovative curriculum, a plan to get to grips with the epidemic of persistent absence and mend the broken relationship between schools, families and Government, and a plan to enable every child to achieve and thrive. Yet this sorry excuse for a Government offer no plan for crumbling buildings, no plan to broaden the narrow, outdated curriculum, no plan for the children missing from classrooms since the pandemic, and no plan for the future.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson
- Hansard - -

One of the things that we did not hear about from the Education Secretary is the attainment gap between the wealthiest pupils and the most disadvantaged, which is growing, as evidenced by the Education Policy Institute and many other experts. We have seen that small-group and one-to-one tutoring can be a really effective intervention for disadvantaged children, yet the national tutoring programme is not due to continue beyond this year. Will the right hon. Lady join me in calling on the Education Secretary to extend the national tutoring programme and fully fund it so that schools can help the most disadvantaged pupils?

Angela Rayner Portrait Angela Rayner
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I will do better than that: I call on the Education Secretary and the Prime Minister to call a general election and let Labour take over. We will make sure that every child in this country has an opportunity. All too often, the prospects of children in Britain are limited by the circumstances of their birth, not opened up by their opportunities in life. Led by our formidable shadow Education Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), Labour has a serious plan to boost child development and young people’s school outcomes, as well as to expand training routes so that more people than ever are on pathways with good prospects by 2035.

This starts at school. I do not think the Secretary of State understands that. I remember all too well feeling hungry all day at school and being unable to focus. I am proud to say that Labour will introduce breakfast clubs in every primary school. As my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South announced, Labour will be on the side of children and families. We will boost standards across schools by reinstating the requirement for qualified teacher status, ensuring that teaching is a respected and valued profession. We will reset relationships with families, schools, teachers and school staff. And Labour will end the tax breaks for private schools to fund that investment in excellent state education for everyone.

The fact is that young people are caught in a vicious Tory doom loop, denied the opportunities their parents had, left behind by their Government from school to employment, and unable to rely on the security of a decent home and a secure job.

What the Tory party has successfully built is a boulevard of broken dreams. The Conservatives have broken their promises to renters, to leaseholders, to house builders, and to all those who dream of owning their own home. Like a bad Santa at Christmas, they are doling out broken promises in every direction. There is a broken promise to renters, with the ban on no-fault evictions kicked into the long grass in an indefinite delay and with the Government blaming a court system that they themselves have broken, appeasing the vested interests on their own Benches rather than doing the right thing for the country. There is a broken promise to leaseholders —not the integrated package of recommendations for enfranchisement, commonhold and right to manage proposed by the Law Commission, but more cherry-picking and space-saving from the Secretary of State. There is a broken promise to house builders: the Government said that they would bring back amended proposals to reform nutrient neutrality rules after their flawed first attempt was rightly rejected by those in the other place, including many Conservative Lords. We stood, and we stand, ready to agree on reform to build the homes that we need while protecting the rivers from pollution, but yesterday we heard not a word. The Government were never serious; they were just playing political games.

And what about first-time buyers? There are no targets, no ideas and no ambition. The Government were too weak to take on the blockers in their own party and deliver the change that our country needs. The dream of a safe, secure and affordable home is moving ever further out of reach. Instead of homes, all that the Government have built is a house of cards. That is the difference between us. We have a recovery plan for secure homes: a plan to build 1.5 million homes across the country, with a reformed planning regime that will unlock our potential. This is no time to wait. Let us get Britain building again with a generation of new towns, unlocking growth across Britain with the biggest boost to affordable housing in a generation. The Government cannot fix homelessness without increasing the supply of housing, and they cannot boost real growth unless workers have the homes they need. We will not duck the difficult issues as the Tories have. We would abolish no-fault evictions and fix the broken leasehold system once and for all. Labour is the only party that is serious about boosting the supply of new homes to buy or to rent and unlocking the dream of a safe, secure and affordable home for all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts
Monday 23rd October 2023

(5 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Gillian Keegan Portrait Gillian Keegan
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Just to remind everybody, under Labour, parents got just 12.5 hours for three and four-year-olds—less than an hour of free childcare per year in office. We will be spending more than £8 billion a year by 2027-28 to fund 30 hours of free childcare for working parents of children aged nine months to the start of primary school and giving every parent access to wraparound childcare between 8 am and 6 pm, Meanwhile, Labour still does not have a policy for parents.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
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A nursery owner in my constituency told me how the Government’s funding for so-called “free” hours covers only about half of their costs, and even with the recently announced uplift for three and four-year-olds, the rate simply does not meet their needs. The Early Years Alliance found that a third of childcare providers suggested that they may close within a year due to rising costs. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that all these parents who are being told that they are now eligible for free childcare are actually able to access some?

Gillian Keegan Portrait Gillian Keegan
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Specifically, I will deliver free childcare for all parents of nine-month-olds until they start school. We have worked with 10,000 businesses to make sure that we get this right. We are supporting the development of new places, by increasing the rates by up to £200 million this year and £288 million next year. We also have a huge programme of work. We will be considering all options to make sure that we are increasing the capacity in the system and that there is enough money in the system to deliver on our policies.

School Building Closures

Munira Wilson Excerpts
Tuesday 19th September 2023

(6 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

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Gillian Keegan Portrait Gillian Keegan
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I confirm that Haygrove School is not subject to RAAC. It is a Caledonian Modular build, and we are looking at the quality of a small number of those schools. We are working right now on what solutions we can put in place. There is another such school in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, and we are putting temporary school structures in place for those schools.

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
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The crumbling concrete crisis has been years in the making, exacerbated by the catastrophic failure of the Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor, to sign off on the school rebuilding programme that Department for Education officials requested. Yet the current Chancellor, as we have heard today, will not give the Department any new money to fix the roofs. So what does the Secretary of State say to the hundreds of schools currently managing asbestos, leaky roofs and cold classrooms, which will be put to the back of the queue for a rebuild yet again because the Treasury still does not understand the importance of investing in our children and education?

Gillian Keegan Portrait Gillian Keegan
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

As someone who has been the Secretary of State since October and has secured record funding for our schools—going up to £60 billion a year next year, which is higher than it has ever been by any measure hon. Members wish to use—I feel that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister very much invest in our schools.

There has been a lot of nonsense talked about Building Schools for the Future. Opposition Members consistently claim that that would have fixed the issue. I know they are not normally across the details, so I thought they might be interested in a few facts. Park View School in Tottenham, which was recently visited by the Leader of the Opposition, Hornsey School for Girls in Hornsey and Stepney All Saints School in Stepney Green were all refurbished or rebuilt under BSF, but all three are still suffering from RAAC. The Opposition do not even know how to solve the problem when it is right in front of their nose.

Safety of School Buildings

Munira Wilson Excerpts
Wednesday 6th September 2023

(6 months, 3 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
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I do hope that the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) is okay. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the House for allowing me to go and lead a Westminster Hall debate just now; that is why I was out of the Chamber for 30 minutes. The crumbling concrete crisis is one that I first raised with the Secretary of State on the Floor of the House back in January. It is extremely damaging for several reasons. It is not just because anxious parents have had to tell their children why their schools are shut, or drive them to alternative sites. It is not just because children’s learning has been disrupted yet again, with some eating lunch in marquees or going to the toilet in portacabins. It is a concrete sign of a Government who have given up on communities up and down the country.

For many families, the school is the public service that they interact with most. When parents read about crumbling concrete; when the parent-teacher association has to fundraise for basic repairs and maintenance; and when the local school’s rebuilding plans are rejected year after year, they know that the Government have let them down and taken them for granted. Just consider how that makes our young people feel. If their classroom has buckets in various corners; if they spend all day in a coat because the boiler is broken; or, worse, if their school closes altogether, the message that they hear is that they do not matter—that their education, their future, is not worth investing in.

When the announcement was made, parents looked to the Conservative Government for three things: empathy, responsibility and leadership. I am sorry to say that they have provided none of them. A Government with empathy would not put out a social media advert saying that “most schools are unaffected”. Instead, they would tell concerned parents that one school with risky RAAC was one too many.

This may be just the tip of the iceberg. Some schools in Twickenham and Richmond are awaiting surveys. Other councils are wading through the guidance and complaining that the DfE has lost the questionnaires they have sent in. Pupils just over the river from my constituency at St Paul’s Primary School in Thames Ditton, at Langney Primary Academy in Eastbourne, or at the Royal College Manchester in Cheadle will now want the Government to give them a concrete timeline on when their at-risk buildings will be repaired.

An Education Secretary who understood collective responsibility would take the flak for her Government’s failings, not pass the buck and fish for compliments. A Prime Minister who showed leadership would listen to his officials and invest in our children. Is it “completely and utterly wrong” to blame him for the crisis? Let me ask this: who was Chancellor in 2022, when, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the three-year average spend on education capital was at its lowest since 2004? Who was Chancellor when education officials told the Treasury that it would cost £5 billion to mitigate the most serious risks of building failure, yet signed off only two thirds of that amount? Who was the Chancellor who was told to build more than 200 schools a year but approved only 50? It was the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak). These penny-pinching tactics are coming back to bite him, yet even now, the Treasury will not stump up new cash to remove the RAAC; it is putting off repairs to other dilapidated school buildings.

Every crumbling classroom stands as a concrete sign of years of Conservative neglect of our children and our communities. Of course, pupil safety is paramount and unsafe classrooms should be shut, but we should never have got to this point. This crisis was years in the making.

Liberal Democrats know that when we invest in the fabric of our schools, we invest in our children’s future. Our nurseries, schools and colleges should have been treated as critical infrastructure, yet too often with this Government, children are an afterthought. Liberal Democrats would have invested in our schools, removing risky RAAC and clearing the backlog of school repairs.

In May, I told the House:

“Neglecting school and college buildings endangers our children and may well contribute to this Government’s downfall.”—[Official Report, 23 May 2023; Vol. 733, c. 249.]

I am sorry to say, on behalf of parents, pupils and school staff, that the chickens are coming home to roost.

Rosie Winterton Portrait Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
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Before I call the shadow Minister, I want to emphasise how important it is that those who contributed to the debate get back in good time for the wind-ups. There are those who are not here, which is discourteous to the shadow Minister.

Education

Munira Wilson Excerpts
Thursday 20th July 2023

(8 months, 1 week ago)

Ministerial Corrections
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Nick Gibb Portrait Nick Gibb
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The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study was published in May this year. England had come fourth among 43 countries that tested children of the same age, nine and 10-year-olds. In 2012 we introduced the phonics screening check, testing year 1 pupils for their progress in reading and phonics.

Topical Questions

Munira Wilson Portrait Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
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The chairs of the governing bodies of 19 primary and secondary schools across the London Boroughs of Richmond and Kingston upon Thames have today written to the Education Secretary, requesting an urgent meeting to discuss the crippling funding and recruitment challenges they face. Will she agree to meet them?

Nick Gibb Portrait Nick Gibb
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Of course the Secretary of State will agree, as she has just said to me. We are spending record amounts of funding on schools. The Secretary of State achieved an extra £2 billion in the autumn statement last year and we are now spending £59.6 billion on school funding.

[Official Report, 17 July 2023, Vol. 736, c. 620.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for Schools:

An error has been identified in the response given to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson).

The correct response should have been: