Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

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 (Twickenham) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Gillian Keegan]

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]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Gillian Keegan]

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]

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]

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

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]

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]

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 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

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 (Twickenham) (LD)]

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]

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 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

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 (Twickenham) (LD)]

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]

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 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

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.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

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 Ministerial Corrections

[Nick Gibb]

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 (Twickenham) (LD)]

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]

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:

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

We have engaged in an extensive reform of teacher training, introducing what we call the golden thread: a higher level of requirements in initial teacher training and a two-year early career framework for teachers just starting off in their career. Those standards will mean that in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and in all subjects, teachers are better prepared to enter the profession.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

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]

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. We have recruited 2,800 more teachers this year than last year and we have a record number of teachers in the profession, at 468,000, but of course I am happy to talk to the hon. Lady and the teachers in her constituency to discuss their particular concerns.

Higher Education Reform

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for all the work that he did in this area. Yes, I understand the difficulty of choosing a blunt number or tool. That is why I have asked the Office for Students to consider how such things could be used and what approaches we need to ensure that we do not throw the baby out with the bath water, or end up with unintended consequences. On innovation, I am absolutely encouraging all our universities to innovate, working with businesses. The pace of technological change across the world and what is to come in the future is immense, and I want our universities to work with our further education colleges, training providers, businesses and others, to ensure that we innovate and give everybody the best opportunities for the future.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

There is no clearer sign of a Government who are out of ideas and have run out of steam than when they re-announce policies and badge them as new. The Office for Students already has these powers, and has already capped four specific providers. Rather than putting down our universities and capping our young people’s aspirations, why does the Secretary of State not invest in them by restoring maintenance grants, and finally signing the dotted line on Horizon membership?

[Gillian Keegan]

Not all the things I have brought forward today have already been announced. The information on foundation degrees is new, and the work we are doing with the OfS is also new. We have asked the OfS to consider the impact of recruitment limits, and how those can be introduced. I personally think this is an important set of reforms. We need to make sure that we have access to these fantastic courses at our universities so that through programmes—such as Horizon, when we complete those negotiations—we can continue to offer the very best in science from this country.

Childcare Reform Package

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

I will of course look at everything we can do to support all settings. As part of the work we did to assess costs, we looked at other costs, including things such as business rates, to assess the level of funding we should give for the hourly rates, but of course I will always look at anything I can do to support nurseries.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Looking at the existing childcare entitlements for two, three and four year olds, the Early Years Alliance and the Women’s Budget Group estimate that the current offer falls short by about £1.8 billion—and that is even before we expand the offer, as was announced in the spring Budget. The Government are providing only an extra £204 million this year and £288 million next year, before we expand the hours. That clearly falls well short. There is no point expanding the hours if the providers are not there, so could the Minister explain what she is doing to ensure that early years providers actually remain financially viable?

[Claire Coutinho]

As I said, it has been a challenging time for providers, but the work we have done to come up with the hourly rate has been based on a lot of evidence. I do not recognise that figures that the hon. Lady talks about. As I said, we surveyed 10,000 providers and 6,000 parents, and looked at providers’ finance reports, to look deeply at the costs and come up with the hourly rate. I continue to talk to all providers as we continue the expansion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

We have set out ambitious reforms to give parents greater confidence that their child’s needs can be met in mainstream provision. When they need specialist support, we are building many more special and alternative provision free schools—127 so far since 2010, with 67 in the pipeline.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Freedom of information requests from the Liberal Democrats recently revealed that three in four primary schools will not have a mental health support team in place by 2024, when the funding runs out. Officials have suggested to MPs that hard-pressed NHS budgets could be squeezed to fund those schemes further. Will the Minister please commit to prioritising this area and committing new cash? If not, will she put a counsellor in every school?

[Claire Coutinho]

We take this issue incredibly seriously, which is why we are rolling out mental health support teams. We are ahead of schedule, with 35% of pupils covered this year and another 100 teams on the way to cover 44% of pupils next year, alongside other proposals.

Pupil Roll Numbers and School Closures: London

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend for making such an important point; her constituency neighbours mine, so a number of my constituents attend schools in her constituency and vice versa. This is about parental choice. The fact is that if schools are closing in some London boroughs and the Government do not address the situation now, there could be a ripple effect. I will come to that point later.

This process happening in secondary schools. Our national education funding model works on a per pupil basis and across the country schools are struggling. In Lambeth, where my constituency is, we are sadly at the forefront of these pressures. It is predicted that we will be hit harder than any other London borough, with an anticipated drop of 15% in the number of reception pupils by 2027. Secondary school numbers are also predicted to reduce by more than 12% over the same period.

The reality is that this trend can be linked to the Government’s record. In the years before they came to power in 2010, Lambeth experienced a 19% increase in demand for reception places. As a result, schools were built, refurbished or redeveloped across the borough to account for this fast-growing population of school-age children. I feel proud that I added to their number with my son, who is six years old today, and my daughter, who is eight; they both attend Lambeth schools.

The Tory failure to manage the economy has led to the spiralling cost of living crisis and the situation is not helped by the lack of affordable housing being built. This has priced people out of their communities and caused the decline in school numbers across Lambeth. Sadly, we are witnessing the harsh impact of this situation. Two schools in Lambeth are closing because they do not have enough pupils to be financially sustainable.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. She made a powerful point about the sky-high childcare and housing costs in London, which are driving people out of the capital. In Richmond upon Thames, we have not quite seen the level of reduction in pupil numbers that there is in Lambeth, but in my constituency of Twickenham we had to close down eight reception classes in the last academic year and seven reception classes this year. In a few years, that will feed into the secondary school sector, where, of course, academies can raise their pupil numbers at will and local authorities have no control over them. Does she agree that it is high time that local councils were given strategic powers to co-ordinate all school places and admissions in their area, so that every child can go to a good local school?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I agree. That is something that my party is committed to. I hope that my colleague—the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan)—will be able to outline why it is important that we have that approach.

Archbishop Tenison’s School in my constituency announced in May that it will close at the end of this academic year, and it was closely followed by St Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls in Tulse Hill, which is represented by another constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), although young pupils also attend it from my constituency of Vauxhall and that of my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy). Both these secondary schools have histories dating back to the 17th century and their closures will leave a huge hole in the communities they have served.

I will say a bit more about Archbishop Tenison’s School, because its closure has directly impacted my constituents. The beautiful, grand, 1920s school building is matched by the school’s history. The school overlooks the Oval cricket ground and has proudly offered high-quality education to many generations of south Londoners who have studied there. I have had the pleasure of visiting on many occasions, and every time I have been struck by the strong sense of community. Pupils from all different backgrounds feel at home there.

The school’s closure has caused an outpouring of sadness. I was contacted by so many constituents who were shocked by the announcement, many of whom were former pupils with so many happy memories to share. The closure has caused significant practical disruption for the current students, which brings me back to the people at the centre of what we are discussing: the children and the school staff who have to bear the brunt of what is happening.

Mr Hollobone, I want us all to imagine what this would feel like: imagine what it would be like to be in the middle of your school journey, in a place you know like the back of your hand, having navigated the corridors where you have made friends you have seen every day for years; you feel at home. Then, one morning—out of the blue—you come to school to hear that your school is closing. You are probably preparing for exams and coping with the stress of being a teenager, but at the same time have to start at a completely new school, maybe in a new area, with new teachers, new classmates and new buildings. The uncertainty of the situation is having an impact on our young people mentally, and this will happen to many children in the years ahead if we do not act now.

Fortunately, neighbouring schools have rallied round to help minimise the impact for students from Archbishop Tenison’s. I am particularly grateful to St Gabriel’s College, which has agreed to take on a majority of the students in exam years, as well as a majority of the teaching staff. Earlier this week I had the pleasure of visiting St Gabriel’s with my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South, and we saw preparations for the new students. Many areas would not be lucky enough to have such a sustainable alternative nearby, but even where a new school is found, the process will be disruptive for all involved.

My central point is a simple one: without action to address falling pupil numbers, Archbishop Tenison’s and St Martin-in-the-Fields will be joined by other good schools across London being forced to shut their doors. Data from London Councils shows that there are 14 parliamentary constituencies in London where at least one school has already closed or is consulting on closure—that is just in the last two years—but it does not have to be inevitable.

The Government have to act to address the core issues driving young families out of the capital and causing the birth rate to fall. There are a number of factors behind this behaviour. During the pandemic, we saw many families move away from London to be closer to relatives during the lockdown. Some have chosen to resettle where they are, because moving back to London is, frankly, too expensive. The picture has not been helped by the loss of many young European families who were living here in recent years. The uncertainty of the Government’s post-Brexit immigration policy has meant that we have lost the stability we had in previous years, and this has caused many to move away from the UK, leaving a hole in London’s workforce and meaning fewer people are settling here. Those factors have played a part in putting schools under pressure in recent years.

The single most important reason for the fall in the number of children growing up in London is the affordability crisis. It is an issue frequently discussed in the context of the cost of living. Sky-high inflation has pushed up the cost of everything from food to energy bills and household goods; we have all spoken about the issues and the pressing need for the Government to do so much more, but London’s affordability problem has long-term roots, starting with the extortionate cost of housing. The impossibility of finding an affordable place to buy as a young adult is a problem across the country, but it is particularly significant in London.

The average property sale price in London is now over half a million pounds. That is wildly out of reach for so many young couples wanting to start a family, and the private rental market is not a suitable alternative. Private rents have soared in recent years, driven by rising demand and falling supply. I have heard from so many of my Vauxhall constituents who face the choice between paying nearly double the rent to renew their tenancy or having to battle—in some cases, with up to 60 people—just to view a rental property. For a young family with children, that is no option.

Despite the best efforts of our councils to cope with the rapid rise in demand, social housing waiting lists are at an all-time high. Taken together, that means that young couples on lower and middle incomes simply have no choice but to leave London and look for cheaper housing elsewhere. Fewer children are being born here because of that, which fuels the drop in demand for school places. The housing crisis runs through so many issues we face, but if we are serious about protecting the future of our fantastic schools, Ministers must ensure that London remains a place where people of all backgrounds can afford to live.

Without more young families staying in London, we may sadly lose more schools. I have already spoken about the impact of school closures, but the loss of a school is also a wider risk to national education standards. As schools close and pupils are relocated, existing schools become larger. Over time, that creates a culture of survival of the biggest, where smaller schools are consumed by those with more capacity. We have already seen that locally with larger academies seeking to expand at the expense of neighbouring schools. That trend threatens the mix of small and big schools that defines London’s school ecosystem, reduces parental choice, and leaves smaller schools unable to compete, even if they are performing well.

For most pupils, what does that mean? It means longer commutes, and bigger class sizes, which puts pressure on our teachers, who are so stretched that some are at breaking point. Some are leaving the profession they love and care about, while the others are left with less time to spend with our children. Also, resources for specialist teaching are squeezed, and those with special educational needs are adversely impacted. Collectively, all those factors damage school standards.

The reality is that where education declines, the life chances of future generations suffer. That is what is at stake when schools close. The importance of that has been reflected in recent media coverage. Last month, the BBC reported that London is becoming “a city without children”. That should worry us all. London is a vibrant, diverse and young city, built on young people. If there are less of them living here, our economic strength to compete in a global world will be harmed. The UK economy will be hit hard by our capital city falling behind.

But what do we have? So far, Ministers have been silent, acting as if this is not happening on their watch. There are spatial impacts: if people are priced out of their home communities, gentrification will accelerate. I am proud to be a working-class girl from Brixton, and I still live there today. I know how important lifelong Londoners are to this city. I am proud to meet so many of them on my walkabouts across my constituency. They are the lifeblood of London, which would be so much poorer without them.

I have five simple asks of the Minister to help. First, further school closures can be avoided if the Department for Education recognises the pressure in the system. Will the Government please work with school leaders and local authorities to identify schools at risk of closure and to work out a plan?

Secondly, London’s birth rate means that pupil roll numbers will fall over the next few years. We have to plan ahead. Will the Minister address the inequalities in school funding? Will he work with the sector to develop a collaborative approach to the challenges ahead, so that we do not see disruption to education standards?

Thirdly, affordable housing shortages are driving young families out of London. The Mayor of London and many of our councils do all they can to increase the supply of affordable housing, but the reality is that the national planning framework, which the Government control, is stacked in favour of developers building high-end housing that no one can afford. Will the Government bring forward their long-awaited planning reform? Will they put power back in the hands of local communities, so that those communities can have development that meets the needs of the local population?

Fourthly, the local housing allowance is a lifeline for many low and middle-income families in the private rented sector, but the Government have frozen its rate since April 2020. Rents have gone through the roof since then. Will the Minister please ask the Chancellor to reverse that real-terms cut to housing support and give hope to the millions of people who have been forced out of their homes?

Finally, will the Minister meet me and other interested MPs to discuss the issue in more detail? Will he work with us to find a solution?

I will end by taking us back to the heart of the issue: the children who have their life chances impacted by what has happened to our schools in recent years. The Government may want to look away and pretend that this is nothing to do with them—that it is the fault of, and down to, the multi-academy trusts or MATs, the education authorities and the schools—but the reality is that Ministers are the ones with the power to do something. I urge them to act now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman is making a well-informed speech. On that point about pupil admission numbers, it is my understanding—I am happy to be corrected—that if a school has a published plan of 60 and 45 parents put down that school as a first choice, those 45 places have to be granted and therefore the school has to open two classes, even though it is only one-and-a-half classes full. As a result, the school ends up with the shortfall in cash that the hon. Gentleman has outlined.

Does the hon. Gentleman think that, as well as some of the strategic planning powers I talked about for local authorities, there needs to be an interim measure whereby the Department for Education provides some sort of additional funding or grant for those classes that are not full? Schools in my constituency are asking parents for money for glue sticks and to be in sports teams, and are cutting teaching assistants because they are struggling so much financially.

[David Simmonds]

The hon. Member makes a good point. We also see the converse of the situation in which a school has fewer applications than it has places, and this creates additional pressure on places: rather than maintaining a PAN of 60 with 45 applications, a school makes a decision to reduce its PAN to 30, which means that 15 children who want to be in that school but do not have a place are put somewhere else in the system. I will discuss later a way in which we might be able to address that.

Within the context of reducing pupil numbers, we are consequently seeing significant localised pressure on school places where local authorities are still having to look to expand schools to meet demand. There has always been a need for some spare capacity—5% was the traditional rule of thumb to allow for normal fluctuations —but because we have seen the loss of many of the strategic levers that local authorities could use for planning that, we now see a hotch-potch of situations in which some schools remain under acute pressure to find capacity for more children while others relatively close by struggle for numbers and reduce their planned admissions number.

From a parent’s perspective, everything seems absolutely fine if their child is the one that gets into their school of choice. If that school has reduced its planned admissions number from 90 to 60, but their child is one of those 60, that is fantastic. But if someone’s child is one of the 20 that cannot get in, they are displaced to a school that is not of their choice. That situation creates unhappy children and a financial challenge for the system, which tries to find another place for the children to go.

None of this is helped by the fact that although councils have no control over the dedicated schools grant—the ringfenced budget that funds schools—it is still legally part of councils’ budgets, so a duty is imposed on them to ensure that over a period of time the dedicated schools grant breaks even. I know Ministers have been working on that with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, which has overall responsibility.

We see the converse of this challenge in respect of SEND places. The Timpson reforms represented an enormous transformational change in the approach to SEND education across the whole country. The downside is that the huge expectations that were raised by the reforms—particularly the extension to the mid-20s of the age entitlement for young people to access education and training—did not come with sufficient funding to ensure that they were delivered in reality. That is one reason why we see such enormous pressure on SEND in the capital.

Audit data from the London boroughs on the children who are given education, health and care plans and those who have some form of diagnosis demonstrates that the decisions are entirely the right ones. The children are meeting the relevant tests and criteria for the NHS, educational psychologists and so on, so the levels of need are undoubtedly being correctly assessed. We can see councils across the capital—I certainly include in this Hillingdon and Harrow, which serve my constituents—that are enormously challenged by rising demand against a backdrop of the reforms not being funded in line with the expectations that families now reasonably have.

There are many small, specialist SEND providers in the capital—for example, Sunshine House in my constituency—that are very popular with parents. They can offer a very high-quality service, but they are also often extraordinarily expensive, with a single place funded by a local authority not infrequently costing in excess of £1 million a year per child.

The delivery of the additional capacity that we require has been quite slow in the centralised programmes compared with the council-led ones. In my constituency we have seen additional SEND place capacity created through the local authority, such as the Eden Academy and specialist resource provision at other schools, all delivered on time and on budget. But some of the larger free school programmes, which are to deliver the bulk of the additional places we need, are many years behind where they need to be. Although there might be good reasons for the delays—we all understand the period of covid—the reality is that they impose massive cost pressures on our DSG high-needs blocks.

Although safety-valve agreements are being reached at individual local authority level, we need to recognise that the failure of programmes to deliver places on time, even if they eventually arrive, is the main reason why we see such a high level of pressure on the DSG across London for SEND. We know that the in-borough SEND—the state school places—is significantly cheaper than the private sector provision, but the awaited reform of SEND financing cannot come soon enough to make sure that the cost pressures are eased and that parents and children’s expectations can be met.

Let me conclude with some ways forward. I know there has been some consultation on this matter, but my first ask of the Minister is that we look at the enhancement of local authority flexibility to allocate budgets much more strategically in order to ease the way forward, especially when schools go through a transition period of downsizing. Rather than a sudden step from 90 children down to 60, which has a huge impact on the ability of parents to get their kids into a school, as well as a major financial impact on the institution itself, we should smooth that process out and recognise the fluctuations in rising and falling demand.

My second ask is for greater powers for local authorities to strategically plan, recognising that in the context of falling rolls there are areas of growing demand, not just for SEND but mainstream as well. There is an urgent need to be able to direct the overall school-planned admissions number to ensure that the provision matches the demand in a local area.

My third ask is that we do not forget that London is likely to see its population increase again at some point in future. We know that our capital’s population is smaller at the moment than some of its past peaks, that the density of the population has been reducing and that the crowding has been dropping for decades, but it will almost certainly begin to rise again in due course. To facilitate that, multi-academy trusts should be prohibited from selling or disposing of any land or closing sites without the agreement of the local authority that has the legal duty for school places in the area.

I finish by thanking London Councils, and in particular the leader of one of my local authorities, Councillor Ian Edwards, who is the lead member for children’s services at London Councils, along with the officer team that have been supporting him. I place on the record my thanks to the leaders and members in Harrow and Hillingdon, particularly Councillors Hitesh Karia and Susan O’Brien, for their work. I also thank the hon. Member for Vauxhall again for securing the debate on this important issue.

On a positive note, this is an opportunity for us to thank the teachers and councils of London for the work they have done to ensure that this remains, to this day, one of the best cities in the world in which to get an education.