As we announced last year, we are increasing core schools funding by £2.6 billion this academic year and by £4.8 billion and £7.1 billion by 2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively, compared to 2019-20, including additional funding for children with special needs and disabilities.

[Official Report, 7 July 2020, Vol. 678, c. 894.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for School Standards:

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the debate on Support for Left-Behind Children.

The correct response should have been:

As we announced last year, we are increasing core schools funding by £2.6 billion this financial year and by £4.8 billion and £7.1 billion by 2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively, compared to 2019-20, including additional funding for children with special needs and disabilities.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the Committee Chair, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) on opening this debate during these unprecedented times. I echo my hon. Friend’s thanks to all teachers and educational staff for their commitment during the crisis, going that extra mile for their communities, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey). That sentiment was shared by other Members during this debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore). I welcome the shadow Education Secretary, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), to her place—it is nice to see her in that role.

When we presented the estimates to the House a year ago, we talked about creating a world-class education system that offers opportunity to everyone, irrespective of their circumstances or where they live. We talked about greater, fairer investment in our education system and our success in raising standards since 2010 that has seen the proportion of pupils in good or outstanding schools increase from 66% in 2010 to 86% in 2019. But we could scarcely have imagined how life would change in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. I share the sense of urgency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South in respect of the extraordinary measures that we shall need to recover from the effects of school closure, but I am confident that we are providing the tools and resources for schools to succeed.

Let me set out the overall funding picture. In 2020-21, the Department for Education resource budget is around £72 billion—an increase of £3.5 billion since last year. Of that £72 billion, £57.1 billion is for early years and schools; £14.1 billion is primarily for post-16 and skills; and £400 million is for social care, mobility and disadvantage.

This debate is on closing the disadvantage gap and support for left-behind children. Closing the attainment gap has been the driving force behind all our education reforms since 2010, and since then we have been determined to drive out the dreary culture of low expectations that hold back the ambitions of too many children from poorer backgrounds. That point was reflected in the excellent contributions made by my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) and for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis).

We are unapologetic about our commitment to teaching all children to read fluently at the very latest by the time they leave primary school. The Government’s championing of synthetic phonics has improved performance, such that in 2019 some 82% of pupils met the expected standard in the phonics screening check, compared with just 58% when the check was introduced in 2012. During that period—an “ambitious decade”, in the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), one of the contributors to that ambition—school standards have risen, and between 2011 and 2019 the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers narrowed by 13% at age 11 and by 9% at age 16, as measured by the gap index. Indeed, most disadvantaged pupils now attend good or outstanding schools and the attainment gap has narrowed at every stage from the early years to 16.

Even before the pandemic, we recognised that there was more to do, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) rightly said. Academies continue to embody our belief that autonomy, combined with strong accountability, is the most effective approach to raising standards. The success of leading multi-academy trusts such as Dixons, Star, Ark and Harris show that geography and background need be no barrier to success and high academic standards.

In 2014, we introduced a more knowledge-rich curriculum across England’s schools, alongside reforms to GCSEs to make them more rigorous. The changes were driven by a desire to ensure that all children should benefit from the same curriculum and high expectations that are common to the best state schools in the country. We saw the proportions of pupils taking the EBacc—English baccalaureate—combination of subjects increase to 40% in 2019. The proportion of pupils entered for at least two science GCSEs has risen from 63% in 2010% to 95.6% today. The proportion taking a foreign language has risen from 40% to 46.7%.

Nevertheless, no one should underestimate the scale of the challenge following the closure of schools in March to all but a small number of pupils. Education recovery lies at the heart of our national mission as we emerge from the disruption caused by the coronavirus epidemic. No child should see their life chances damaged by their being out of school for so long.

As my hon. Friend will know, sixth-form colleges are not included in the catch-up premium. We are continuing to work with sixth-form colleges and other post-16 institutions to establish the best way to make up the disruption due to covid-19. On free school meals over the summer, we will provide further details for FE colleges in due course. During term time, FE colleges should continue to provide support to students eligible for free school meals.

We have secured significant additional resources from the Treasury so that every school will have extra funding to respond to this unique challenge. On 19 June, we announced a £1 billion covid catch-up package to directly tackle the impact of lost teaching time, including £650 million directly to schools over the 2020-21 academic year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South intimated, the Education Endowment Foundation will provide evidence-based advice on the most effective approaches to helping children catch up, but the discretion lies at school level, with the teachers and headteachers.

The catch-up package also includes a national tutoring programme worth £350 million to increase access to high-quality tuition for the most disadvantaged young people. This £1 billion package is on top of the three-year £14.4 billion funding increase announced last year and the £2.4 billion pupil premium. We have also committed more than £100 million to supporting remote education. By the end of June, over 202,000 laptops and tablets and over 47,000 4G wireless routers had been delivered or dispatched to academy trusts and local authorities for pupils without the means to access remote education. It was a huge logistical exercise in a demanding global market for these pieces of equipment. To support pupils at home, 40 top teachers came together to create our new virtual school, the Oak National Academy, which offers 180 online lessons a week for all pupils. In response to the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), I should add that £205 million has been redeemed in food vouchers by families and schools.

As we announced last year, we are increasing core schools funding by £2.6 billion this academic year and by £4.8 billion and £7.1 billion by 2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively, compared to 2019-20, including additional funding for children with special needs and disabilities. On top of that, we are providing £1.5 billion per year to fund additional pension costs for teachers. Overall, this will bring the schools budget to £52.2 billion by 2022-23.[Official Report, 15 July 2020, Vol. 678, c. 9MC.]

Our commitment to helping every child to reach their potential applies just as strongly to children with special educational needs and disabilities as to any other child. We know that schools share that commitment, but we recognise concerns raised about the cost of high-needs provision. We have increased overall funding allocations to local authorities year on year, and high-needs funding will be £7.2 billion this year—up from £5 billion in 2013. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) was also right to highlight the £1.7 billion of accumulated surpluses in local authority schools.

Creating more school places is a key part of the Government’s plan to ensure that every child has the opportunity of a place at a good school, whatever their background. We have committed £7 billion for school places between 2015 and 2021, on top of the free schools programme. This money means we are on track to have created 1 million school places this decade—the largest increase in school capacity for at least two generations.

Alongside new school places, we have allocated more than £7.4 billion since 2015 to maintain and improve school buildings. On 29 June, the Prime Minister announced over £1 billion to fund the first 50 projects of a new 10-year school rebuilding programme as part of radical plans that will invest in our school and college buildings to help deliver the world-class education and training needed to bring prosperity to our country.

I thank all those who work in the early years sector, who dedicate their time, effort and skills to provide high-quality childcare. Our ambition is to provide equality of opportunity for every child and to support parents and carers. Disadvantaged two-year-olds are entitled to at least 15 hours of free early education each week, and over 1 million children have benefited from this since we introduced the programme in September 2013. In addition, in 2017 we introduced the 30-hours entitlement for working parents of three and four-year-olds, and in January 2020 some 345,000 three and four-year-olds benefited from a 30-hours place—an increase on the previous year.

This has been a good debate, and today’s estimates are a reflection of the country’s commitment to education and the key priority that it is for this Government. Since 2010, most children are now attending good or outstanding schools. The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has narrowed at all stages. A record proportion of disadvantaged students are going to university, and we have a world-class curriculum and ambitions for world-class technical education.

The effects of the current epidemic will be felt across society for a considerable time. It was right that we moved rapidly to secure a massive one-off investment in our schools to tackle lost time in education and to foster a greater focus on proven approaches so that all pupils can receive the education that they have a right to expect.

Since 1 June, we have taken positive steps in welcoming children back to school. Teachers and heads have done an excellent job in opening schools to more pupils, and our latest attendance figures show that approximately 92% of education institutions are open with thousands more children back in classrooms, where they can learn best, reunited with their teachers and friends. SAGE papers are being published in tranches, including those of the Children’s Task and Finish Working Group.

We are working towards bringing all children and young people back to school in September. The Government’s ambition is that all organisations running holiday clubs and activities for children over the summer holiday will be able to open if, of course, the science allows. The time anticipated for holiday clubs to open is no earlier than 4 July as part of step three of the Government’s recovery strategy.

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about disadvantaged children. Schools have been open to vulnerable children and the children of critical workers since schools closed, and we have encouraged more and more of those children to be in school where it is best for them. The scientific advice indicates that a phased return that limits the number of children in education settings and how much they mix with each other will help to reduce the risk of transmission. We are led by the science but our ambition is that all schools will return in September, but that will, of course, be subject to the science.

Our recruitment and retention strategy sets out our plans to attract high-quality recruits to the profession. The “Get into teaching” marketing campaign provides information to trainees, including on the availability of tax-free bursaries and scholarships worth up to £28,000 in certain subjects. We have also set out plans to increase the minimum starting salary for teachers to £30,000 by September 2022.

The organisation Now Teach, which was set up by Lucy Kellaway and which we support, has seen a huge surge of interest from people like the ones my hon. Friend suggests. It helps career changers to come into teaching. We have also seen a 12% increase in applications to teacher training in the last quarter, to the end of May.

The Government have provided a £100 million package of advice and support to enable remote teaching. That has included delivering laptops and tablets to vulnerable and disadvantaged children and working with the new Oak National Academy, the BBC and others to ensure strong national availability of remote educational resources.

We are very grateful for the hard work and dedication of our teachers during this time and have highlighted the innovative work of schools in a series of recently published case studies. I congratulate those children at Ysgol Dinas Brân on producing more than 800 visors. It is a prime example of that very innovation.

Remote teaching has been a significant challenge for teachers across the sector, and I am grateful to all those who have worked so hard to ensure their pupils’ education has continued despite the difficulties of lockdown. Some innovations will no doubt continue to be beneficial, and we are working with organisations such as the Education Endowment Foundation to take an evidence-based approach to establishing how schools can best use remote practices in future.

The Government want all schools to be fully reopened in September. We have produced guidance on protective measures that schools will take, and all staff, children and families will have access to testing if they display symptoms. We are working with local authorities and regional schools commissioners to address any particular local issues, but it is in the interests of all children to be in school with their friends and their teachers.

The Government want to ensure that all children get an active start in life and engage in daily physical activity, which is why we launched the school sport and activity action plan last year. We will confirm arrangements for the primary PE and sport premium in the 2020-21 academic year as soon as possible.

The key is to get more children walking and cycling to school, and using other forms of transport other than public transport, but we are working across Government, with the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to address the necessary transport issues in order to get children back to school in September.

The Government will do whatever they can to ensure that no child falls behind as a result of the covid-19 crisis. That is why we have announced a £1 billion package of support, which includes a catch-up premium for schools and a tutoring programme for those in need, including, of course, children in Blackpool.

I have seen the hon. Member’s letter. On this anniversary of Windrush, as much on as any day, we need to understand the strong feelings on this issue. People do suffer racial prejudice, and we need to eliminate discrimination and bigotry wherever it occurs in our society. So far as the curriculum is concerned, we give schools the autonomy to decide what and how history is taught, provided it covers a wide range of periods of British and world history, but that very autonomy means that schools can and do teach about black and Asian cultures and history. The citizenship curriculum and the new relationships curriculum teach the importance of respect for other cultures and respect for difference.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) on securing this important debate. I know that he is particularly passionate about schools in his constituency, and he continues to feed back his views and the views of his constituents about various local education issues. The Stoke-on-Trent area is one of huge potential, as he said, and an area targeted by the Government for additional support through the opportunity area policy, which I will talk about in a moment. He also shares the Government’s ambition that every state school is a good school, providing a world-class education that helps every child and young person to reach his or her potential, regardless of background.

Since 2010, the Government have worked hard to drive up academic standards in all our schools, and we continue to provide support to the schools that require it most. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that some schools are still on a journey of improvement, and those schools continue to benefit from the Government’s commitment of support.

An example of that support was the introduction of opportunity areas in October 2016, when the then Education Secretary announced that six social mobility coldspots would become opportunity areas. These opportunity areas were expanded further in January 2017, with six additional areas, including Stoke-on-Trent. As part of this announcement, £72 million of funding was made available to those areas to support education and communities. Stoke-on-Trent and those 11 other areas are benefiting from a range of additional support, which I think will have a huge impact in the long run in Stoke-on-Trent.

I join my hon. Friend in recognising the tremendous work of headteachers and teachers in Stoke-on-Trent, which has resulted in 80% of schools being judged good or better by Ofsted. Part of the support that the Government offer to all schools nationally is through the academies programme, which my hon. Friend talked about. This programme builds on our ongoing vision to develop a world-class, school-led system, giving school leaders the freedom to run their schools as they see fit. We now have more than 9,000 open academies. This system is working. My hon. Friend will have seen improvements in Whitfield Valley Primary School, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) also mentioned, reflecting the strength of the academies programme. The school joined the Inspirational Learning Academies Trust as a sponsored academy, and following its sponsorship, performance improved rapidly. The school was judged good in January last year, and its 2019 academic performance places it well above the national average. The trust also includes Newstead Primary Academy, located in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South.

In a bid to support academy trusts in Stoke-on-Trent and nationally, we have launched a trust capacity fund, which will help trusts to expand. As my hon. Friend knows, the statutory duty to provide sufficient school places sits with local authorities. We provide capital funding for every place that is needed, based on local authorities’ own data on pupil forecasts. They can use that funding to build new schools or expand existing schools. Stoke-on-Trent has been allocated £32.7 million to provide new schools and new school places between 2011 and 2022.

Building on the need for more school places nationally, the Government have delivered a hugely ambitious free schools programme, through which we have funded thousands of good school places and opened hundreds of new schools across the country. That happens in waves, and we are now on wave 14. My hon. Friend mentioned Florence MacWilliams Academy. There have been 89 applications received for wave 14 of free schools, two of which came from Stoke-on-Trent. One application has been withdrawn. Florence MacWilliams Academy is a free school proposal submitted by the newly formed trust, Educo Academies. The application seeks to establish a co-educational 11-to-16 school in the south of the city of Stoke-on-Trent. We will make an announcement on the successful bidders to that scheme in due course.

In the final seconds left, I again pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his commitment to education in general and to the schools in his constituency in particular.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on his success in the private Member’s Bill ballot and thank him for choosing the cost of school uniform as the subject of his Bill. School uniform has so many positive benefits for pupils and schools alike, and I, along with many of the House today, greatly value its contribution to school life. I am pleased that the Government are able to support his Bill and, indeed, to be working with him, so that families are financially reassured, not burdened, at back-to-school time.

As the hon. Gentleman stated, this Bill is not anti-school uniform—“far from it,” he said—because he remembers his time at a school without a school uniform in that fashion golden age of the late 1970s and early 1980s. He pointed out that a lack of school uniform highlights the difference between

“the haves and the have-nots”.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) cited pupils from William Harding School and St Edward’s Catholic Junior School in his constituency, who said that school uniforms stop children being judged on what they wear. He also went to a school that did not have a school uniform at the time and where the result was close to a “catwalk competition” that he claimed he never won, which frankly surprises me—[Laughter.] My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) raised the cost implications of dress-up day, which was an issue of particular concern at his old school: Hogwarts—[Laughter.]

We debated this issue just a few months ago in a Westminster Hall debate secured by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy). Then, as now, our position is that school uniforms should be affordable and good value for families. I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Weaver Vale for choosing this topic, as it is a subject that crosses party lines and the Bill will positively improve the lives of families across this country. I support the way that the hon. Member constructed the Bill as a straightforward mechanism to put the non-statutory guidance on school uniform costs on to a statutory footing. I hope that that approach means it will progress quickly through the House.

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Those issues are important and are all covered in the non-statutory guidance. The Bill does not seek to put those items on to a statutory basis; they will remain in the non-statutory guidance. The Bill seeks to put the cost elements—just the items relating to the costs of school uniform—into statutory guidance.

A school uniform is important. It helps to create a school’s identity. It fosters belonging and, with that, a sense of community. It can make background and family income less transparent, working instead to highlight commonality among pupils. It is a “social leveller”, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer). For many pupils, wearing their uniform gives a sense of pride. As the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) emphasised, that is a key objective of a school uniform. When pupils represent their school at events or competitions, their uniform plays an important part in creating a team spirit.

The Government encourage schools to have a school uniform because of how it can contribute to the ethos of a school and help them set an appropriate tone, supporting good behaviour and discipline. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) cited a school in his constituency that saw a marked improvement in academic standards following the introduction of a zero-tolerance policy on school uniform. That is why affordable uniforms are so important. School uniforms are also important in teaching children how to dress professionally, as pointed out in the tour de force of my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts). For many schools, a school uniform can be a reflection of the school’s history or the history of the local area, and it is right that schools are able to continue to honour tradition in that way and preserve their long-standing identity.

The Government also believe that it is right for the responsibility for setting school uniform policy to rest with the governing body of a school, or the academy trust in the case of academies. It is for schools to decide whether there should be a school uniform and, if so, what it should be and how it should be sourced. The Bill upholds and protects schools’ decision making in those areas. It upholds all the freedoms that are so important to the Government and to my hon. Friends the Members for Witney and for Harborough (Neil O’Brien).

In an increasingly autonomous school system, it is right for schools to make those decisions, but in doing so, it is essential that they consider value for money for parents. Issuing statutory guidance will enable schools to take decisions within a sensible framework that prioritises the issue of costs for families.

My hon. Friend raises an important point. No matter how much we try to have uniform swap exchanges, as I will come to, or, indeed, hand-me-downs, when there are different schools with different uniforms, inevitably parents will need to buy a new uniform, and in those circumstances we want to make sure that the costs are affordable for those families.

If the hon. Lady turns her eyes to the civil service Box, she will see that six out of seven members are women, reflecting the gender balance that is prevalent in the Department for Education. She raises an important point about the statutory guidance, and we will be talking to schools, suppliers of uniforms and all the stakeholders about making statutory the guidance that has already been drafted.

We can all appreciate the positive impact that a school uniform can have on the sense of cohesion and community, but equally, we understand the financial burden that it can present, particularly for lower-income families. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) said, a school uniform can often be less expensive than not wearing school uniform. In 2015, the Department commissioned the cost of school uniform survey, which showed that the average cost of a school uniform was £213 and that the average cost of most uniform items decreased between 2007 and 2015, once adjusted for inflation—a point referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). More recently, the Schoolwear Association undertook a survey that found that the average cost of branded items for a child starting secondary school was £101 for both uniform and sportswear, and that the average annual spend per parent on branded items was between £35 and £45.

The Children’s Society has today released a report which found that parents said they spent on average around £315 on primary and £337 on secondary school uniforms per child. These reports may not all present the same picture of the cost of school uniforms for parents and will depend, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) pointed out, on what is included in the survey. How many pairs of trousers, for example, are included in what parents buy for their children? However, I think we can all agree that the cost can have an impact, particularly on lower-income families, and that it is therefore crucial that school uniform costs are affordable. That is why this Bill is so important and why statutory guidance is needed.

Many schools have, in fact, already made efforts to support vulnerable families with the cost of school uniforms, whether through pupil premium grants or through second-hand uniform schemes such as the school uniform exchange in Barnsley, as pointed out by the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock). I would like to see every school finding a way to make second-hand uniforms available. My younger brother, who you know, Mr Speaker, had the advantage of wearing my hand-me-downs on occasion, and it did not do him any harm.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) is right that schools should be able to help the poorest families with the costs of school uniform. This Bill sends a clear signal to schools that the costs of the school uniform must not be a barrier to parents choosing a particular school for their child or for a child attending a particular school. School uniforms must not be unreasonably priced, and schools must not disregard the importance of achieving value for money for parents. We will be producing statutory guidance on the cost aspects of school uniforms that makes it clear to both parents and schools that uniforms must be affordable and value for money. We will be engaging, as I have said, with key stakeholders to understand their views as statutory guidance on uniform costs is drafted.

The non-statutory guidance says that branded items should be kept to a minimum, and we support that view. On issues such as hairbands, I would ask the hon. Gentleman to visit the Thomas Jones school in Saint Mark’s road in west London, which has very strict guidance for pupils on issues such as hairbands and other things—small things, such as not having dangly keyrings hanging from their school bags. The consequence is that pupils there are very smart, despite the fact that many of them come from disadvantaged backgrounds. It does create a sense of community, a sense of work ethic and a sense of equality among children from different financial backgrounds. Issues such as hairbands can, sometimes, be more important than the hon. Gentleman might think.

I bow to my hon. Friend’s experience of fashion as to whether they look good or not. He is right that just requiring a certain colour of sock, or indeed a hairband, does not necessarily add to the costs for the parents, but it does send a clear message that the school has very high standards of dress and appearance, and that can have an impact on academic standards and the work ethic of a school.

A number of hon. Members have raised issues that relate to the contents of the statutory guidance, and the starting point for that guidance will, as I have said, be the existing non-statutory guidance on school uniforms, but there are two particular issues that I wish to address. The first is branded items. Of course, it is understandable that schools will often want to have branded items of uniform that are specific to their schools, such as a branded blazer or a particular tie, and, at present, the Department’s guidance advises schools to keep such branded items of uniform to a minimum, because multiple branded items can significantly increase costs. Although the Government believe that that is the right approach, we do not want to ban branded items altogether. Branded items such as a blazer of a particular colour or style may well be part and parcel of a school’s history or ethos and may not be available, for example, from a supermarket.

The second issue is single suppliers. The Department’s guidance already recommends that schools avoid exclusive single-supply contracts unless a regular competitive tendering process is run to secure best value for parents. Again, the Government believe that this approach provides the right balance to secure open and transparent arrangements and good value for money. Competition is key to keeping costs down, as pointed out in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton.

I take on board my hon. Friend’s important point.

For the supply of certain bespoke items, which form part of a school’s uniform, single-supplier contracts can have value. It ensures year-round supply; it allows the supplier to provide a full range of sizes, not just the popular sizes; and it secures economies of scale, so I do not believe that we should ban those arrangements. None the less, we want them to be transparent and competitive.

My hon. Friends the Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) and for Northampton South, as well as the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), raised the issue of the quality and availability of school uniform, which is something that a single supplier from a specialist school uniform retailer will be able to deliver.

We trust headteachers to take the right decisions on these issues, and once the statutory guidance is issued, to abide by it. Where that does not happen and parents have a legitimate grievance, however, there must be an enforcement mechanism. As now, if parents have concerns that their school’s uniform is too expensive, they should raise that with the school and, where issues cannot be resolved locally at the school level, parents may raise it with the Department for Education. Were a school to be considered to be acting unreasonably on the cost of its school uniform, the Bill would enable the Department to act. In extreme cases, the Secretary of State could issue a direction to a maintained school under sections 496 and 497 of the Education Act 1996 to comply with the guidance.

In the case of academies, a provision in the funding agreement states that an

“Academy Trust must comply with…any legislation or legal requirement that applies to academies”.

That means that the duty to have regard to statutory guidance can be enforced using the Department’s enforcement powers under the funding agreement.

School uniforms play a vital role in school communities and are deeply valued by parents and pupils alike. We want uniforms to continue to be held in positive esteem by families, so that the benefits outweigh the costs for families. The Bill ensures that families will not have to worry about an excessively priced school blazer or forgo sending their child to a school for fear of an expensive PE kit. Fundamentally, we want to secure the best value for families and to do so by introducing statutory guidance. The Government support the Bill, and I urge Members of the House to support its Second Reading.

It is a pleasure to debate yet again under your careful and, if I may say so, unbiased stewardship, Mr Gray. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) for raising this important issue and the excellent way in which he opened the debate. He is right to warn about the coarsening of political debate in the country, which concerns many of us in this House. He is also right that young people should be encouraged to be passionate but not coercive in political debate and how they engage in it.

One of the most important principles that we want to uphold in education is political neutrality, in relation to both the knowledge taught through the school curriculum and the professional conduct of teachers in how they support pupils in and out of the classroom. Political education is an important part of a broad and balanced education that prepares young people for adult life, and we want young people to be informed and engaged citizens. To ensure that they receive such an education in an unbiased way, all state-funded schools must meet duties regarding impartiality and balanced treatment of political issues in the classroom.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) correctly said, that is provided for in legislation. Section 406 of the Education Act 1996 requires teachers to provide a balanced political view in relation to the direct teaching of pupils by forbidding

“the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject”.

Teachers may express their personal views, which can sometimes be useful in prompting debate and discussion within the classroom, but in doing so they must have regard to the teacher standards governing professional competence and conduct to ensure that they show tolerance of and respect for the rights and views of others.

My right hon. Friend is right, and I try to do the same thing. One piece of advice in the legislation is that, when teachers teach about political issues, they do not express their views in a way that would exploit pupils’ vulnerability or undermine fundamental British values. When I speak to young people, I always bear that in mind and point out that although I am a passionate supporter of the free market, which I think creates and helps spread wealth in the most effective way across society, there are others who believe that a planned economy and more regulation is a fairer and better way of running an economy. I try to make those points before saying that my personal view is the former. I am delighted to hear that he takes a similar approach.

Section 407 of the 1996 Act requires that where political issues are brought to the attention of pupils, they are offered

“a balanced presentation of opposing views.”

Balanced in that context means fair and dispassionate. The law does not require teaching staff to adopt a position of neutrality between views that accord with the great majority of scientific opinion and those that do not. Therefore, if a particular theory represents mainstream opinion, there is nothing to prevent a school indicating a strong preference for that theory while making minimal but dispassionate reference to the minority view. However, many of the issues to which my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend refer are not in that category but those where large sections of society take opposing views.

My hon. Friend raised the reporting of Stormzy’s visit to a primary school. Schools remain responsible for what is taught and we expect them to have in place robust safeguarding policies that should set out clear protocols ensuring that visiting speakers are suitably supervised. The school should have a clear understanding of why the speaker was chosen and make guests aware of the school’s expectations, such as: abiding by its equality commitments; there must be no statements that might cause offence to others or otherwise undermine tolerance of other faiths or beliefs; and there must be no extremist material.

I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to do more to equip children to question and evaluate the information they are presented with, whether that is in newspapers, on television or online. Apart from how teachers present political or any sensitive or controversial subject, the content of the curriculum they teach is vital. Schools have a role to play in teaching children to be savvy consumers of media and information. The best way to do that is by providing them with the fundamental knowledge they need to be able to make informed decisions and critical judgments. That is why we reformed the curriculum to provide the core knowledge that children need to understand the world.

Daniel Willingham, the American academic, author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?”—I highly recommend that book to anyone interested in the education debate—and proponent of the use of scientific knowledge in the classroom, says that processes of thinking are intertwined with the content of thought—that is, domain or subject knowledge. Therefore, if a student is reminded to look at an issue from multiple perspectives often enough, he or she will learn that they ought to do so, but if they do not know much about an issue, they cannot think about it from multiple perspectives. We can teach students maxims about how they ought to think, but without background knowledge and practice they will probably not be able to implement the advice they have been asked to memorise. Therefore, just as it makes no sense to try to teach students factual content without giving them opportunities to practise using it, it also makes no sense to try to teach critical thinking devoid of factual content.

The national curriculum we inherited in 2010 had been stripped of too much knowledge, with a heavier focus on the skills of learning. The Government therefore embarked on significant reforms to the national curriculum with the aim of restoring the importance of subject knowledge in all its complexity and fascination. In 2014 the new, more ambitious and knowledge-rich national curriculum came into force in England, and from 2015 we introduced more rigorous GCSEs. That is the most efficacious approach to helping young people to be more discerning and challenging of the views expressed online and in wider society.

The reformed national curriculum sets out a core body of knowledge that should form part of a school’s curriculum, giving schools the autonomy to decide how to teach it to maximise pupil understanding and address their misconceptions. The 12 national curriculum programmes of study not only avoid political bias by focusing on core subject knowledge, but enable teachers to consider how pupils can better evaluate and challenge fake news or misleading information, which can often be presented to them in social media as facts.

My right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend referred to guidance. We issued amended guidance in summer 2018 to remind schools of their responsibilities. The online staffing and employment advice for all schools was updated to say:

“All staff have a responsibility to ensure that they act appropriately in terms of their behaviour, the views they express (in particular political views) and the use of school resources at all times, and should not use school resources for party political purposes.”

I hope that provides my hon. Friend with some reassurance that we take these issues extremely seriously.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That legislation is still in force. Being from the same era as him, I too recall the debates that took place at that time.

The Government have actively supported teachers in developing their school curriculums beyond the national curriculum. Most relevant to this debate is the Government’s educate against hate website, which hosts resources for schools to support the promotion of democracy, including those on media literacy. Between September and November 2019, the website was visited over 80,000 times.

Schools do many other things across the curriculum to ensure that pupils are equipped to question and challenge what they read, watch and listen to. An online piece written by the headteacher of Passmores Academy in Harlow on the topic of fake news comments on how vital it is to teach young people to check their own facts. The head of English at that school organised activities including students learning the truth behind the scaling of maps in geography, how propaganda has been used throughout history, diet myths, the manipulation of statistics, and the role of computer-generated imagery in the creation of fake news. Additionally, media bias was debated, leading to extended pieces of writing being produced on the subject.

Online safety is an important component of the new relationships, sex and health education. From September 2020 it will be mandatory for schools to teach those subjects. They are about empowering pupils with the knowledge that will support their current and future relationships and health, enabling them to become active and positive members of society. Pupils will be taught about online relationships, the implications of sharing private or personal data online, harmful content and contact, cyber-bullying and where to get help and support.

In Ofsted’s new inspection framework, the personal development judgment focuses on the development of pupils’ character, their confidence, resilience, independence and knowledge. It includes matters such as pupils’ ability to recognise and respond to online and offline risks to their wellbeing.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil for securing this debate. He has raised important concerns, shared by other hon. Members, as we have heard. I hope that he is reassured that there is legislation and support for schools in place, to mitigate the threat of political bias in our school system and to help young people be resilient to the concept of fake news.

It is a pleasure to debate under your chairmanship again, Sir Charles.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) on securing this debate and on a powerful opening speech. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for participating and making important contributions.

Continuously improving this country’s education system starts with the early years. High-quality early education can have a huge impact on children’s development, not just when they are in the education system but throughout their life. Our ambition is to provide equality of opportunity for every child, regardless of background or where they live, and to improve access to high-quality early education across the country.

This Government are therefore prioritising investment in free early education support to parents and carers. Disadvantaged two-year olds can access at least 15 hours of early education each week, and since we introduced the programme in September 2013, more than 850,000 children have benefited from it. In addition, in 2017, we introduced the 30 hours’ entitlement for working parents of three and four-year-olds, which benefited about 600,000 children in the first two years. The 30 hours’ entitlement makes childcare more accessible for parents and carers, saving up to £5,000 per child per year and giving them the ability to balance work and family life.

We are continuing that investment. We plan to spend more than £3.6 billion on early education entitlements in the next financial year. In April, all local authorities will see an increase to the hourly funding rates for two-year-olds and an increase in the vast majority of areas for three and four-year-olds.

Those are issues always debated in debates such as this, but what is important is that we introduced the concept of free early years education for disadvantaged two-year-olds. We always want to do more, of course.

In addition, we offer financial support for childcare costs through universal credit and tax-free childcare. The issue, however, is not only about parents and carers of young children being able to work, safe in the knowledge that their children are in good hands. Evidence from longitudinal studies, including the effective pre-school, primary and secondary education project, EPPSE, and the study of early education and development, SEED, suggests that the duration in months and years is more important for child outcomes than the average hours per week. Education and childcare from an early age can make a huge difference.

For example, both EPPSE and SEED found that an earlier start in childcare from the age of two has benefits for the 40% most disadvantaged children. The recent SEED report on age five found that, for the 40% most disadvantaged children, starting in childcare from age two, combined with using the 15 to 20 hours per week, had benefits for those children’s verbal development in year 1 and on their overall achievement in the early years foundation stage profile in reception. The international evidence base is also consistent, finding that the quality of childcare affects child outcomes: higher quality provision improves children’s outcomes in the short and the long term.

The early years workforce plays a key role in the delivery of high-quality early education and childcare. It is testament to them that 96% of childcare settings are now rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, which is an increase from the 74% so rated in 2012. The latest early years foundation stage profile results show that the proportion of all children achieving a good level of development is improving year on year, with 71.8% of children having achieved it in 2019, compared with 51.7% in 2013.

That progress is welcome, but too many children still fall behind. I take on board all the points made by the hon. Member for Nottingham North. The gap between children eligible for free school meals and their peers has narrowed overall since 2013, but still too many finish their reception year without the early communication and literacy skills that they need to do well. Early years education, including in the reception year, presents a key opportunity to close the gaps referred to by the hon. Gentleman in his speech.

We have piloted and consulted on an important package of reforms to the early years foundation stage statutory framework which sets the standards for education, development and care for children from birth to five. Revisions to the early learning goals and education programmes will see greater focus on language and vocabulary development, which is key to tackling the word gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. Our proposed reforms are intended to reduce workload and to free up teachers to spend more time teaching, interacting with and supporting children—disadvantaged children in particular—to ensure that they are developing the rich vocabulary, skills and behaviours that they need to succeed when they start school. Our consultation on those reforms closed on 31 January, and we plan to publish a response in the spring.Alongside that, we are revising the early years curriculum guidance from birth to reception, to ensure that teachers and practitioners have the right information to support children and to give them rich activities and experiences on a daily basis. We have also invited schools to opt in voluntarily to implement the reforms from this September, a year ahead of the full roll-out planned for September 2021.

Alongside changes to the curriculum, we are committed to supporting the early years workforce to develop the appropriate skills and experience to improve outcomes. That includes an investment of £26 million to set up a network of English hubs, to strengthen the teaching of phonics and early language in schools around the country. We continue to support graduates joining the early years sector through the early years initial teacher training, including with fees, bursaries and employer incentives.

Since the publication of the early years workforce strategy in 2017, the Department has worked closely with the early years sector to deliver our commitments to support employers to attract, retain and develop early years practitioners, including more robust levels 2 and 3 qualifications, and a new early years T-level qualification that will be available this year. There is growing evidence that investing in professional development is key to improving those skills, which is why we are investing £20 million through our early years professional development programme to provide early language, literacy and maths training for the pre-reception workforce in disadvantaged areas.

As I said earlier, what happens in a child’s home is hugely important. What happens before they start school can have a huge influence on later outcomes, and the quality of the home learning environment is a key predictor of a child’s early language ability and future success—that was referred to by all hon. Members participating in this debate. We cannot consider improving early education in isolation. Unfortunately, children from some low-income homes are more likely to arrive at school with below-average language skills, leaving them at an educational disadvantage from the start.

We have therefore launched Hungry Little Minds, a three-year campaign to encourage parents to engage in activities that support their child’s early development and set them up for school and beyond. The campaign, working with partners from across the public, voluntary and private sectors, promotes simple everyday things that every parent can do.

We have already announced a £66 million increase in funding for early years—I referred to that when I made the point that there will be increases in the hourly rates to local authorities up and down the country.

I want to conclude the debate by re-emphasising the importance we attach to the early years sector to improving outcomes, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. That is why we introduced the entitlements to free childcare; it is also why we are reforming the early years foundation stage profile and the guidance on the curriculum. A Better Start, the programme raised by the hon. Member for Nottingham North, is hugely exciting—in central Government we look to it as an innovative approach, building on the evidence base, and we look forward hugely to the evidence that it produces, which we can learn from right across the country.

Question put and agreed to.

The Government back headteachers to create calm and safe schools by giving teachers the powers they need to enforce discipline and good behaviour. We are taking forward an ambitious programme of action on behaviour, exclusion and alternative provision, which will back headteachers to use exclusion, enable schools to support children at risk of exclusion and ensure that excluded children continue to receive a good education.

I am very happy to host a meeting, and I would enjoy discussing these issues in greater detail. The hon. Lady will know, of course, that permanent exclusion, at 0.1%, is extremely low, and is actually lower than it was in 2006-07. The research on the link between exclusion and knife crime shows it is more complicated than simply a correlation because, for example, 83% of 16-year-old knife-possession offenders in 2013 had been persistently absent from education at some point during their school career. It is absence from school that is the key factor, which is why this Government so emphasise the importance of children attending school.

As I said in answer to the question from the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), the rate of exclusions today is lower than under the last Labour Government in 2006-07. We take the issues referred to in the Timpson report, such as off-rolling, very seriously. Off-rolling is unacceptable in any form, which is why we continue to work with Ofsted to define and tackle it. Ofsted already looks at the records of children taken off roll. Its new inspection framework, which came into force this September, has a strength and focus on off-rolling that we support.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his review of school exclusions. Both he and I support our headteachers in the use of exclusion, where appropriate, to ensure that they have good discipline in their schools. My hon. Friend is correct that it is possible for children to be excluded from school for 45 days in an academic year, though it is actually rare for children to reach that limit. In 2017-18, just 94 pupils were excluded from schools in England for 45 days in a single year. The Government are considering these arrangements and we will make a further announcement about our plans in due course.

My right hon. Friend is right. We know that we have to give headteachers the tools to ensure that we have safe, calm environments in our schools. No headteacher excludes without giving the matter very careful consideration, with permanent exclusions used only as a very last resort. What is key is that exclusion from school must not mean exclusion from education, so timely access to high-quality alternative provision plays a critical role in improving excluded children’s outcomes. Our objective is to improve the quality and capacity of alternative provision.

I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady and her team. The Government regard music education as hugely important. We are allocating £75 million a year to music hubs up and down the country, and hundreds of thousands of children are being introduced to musical instruments through that programme. I would be delighted to have further discussions on this subject.

Academisation takes place when a school is put into special measures by Ofsted. We want high standards throughout our school system. The academies programme has resulted in standards improving in schools. When we came into office in 2010, 68% of schools were graded good or outstanding. Today that figure is 86%—in part, due to the very successful academisation programme.

I know that my hon. Friend feels very strongly about this issue. The curriculum gives teachers and schools the freedom to use specific examples from history to teach pupils about the history of Britain and the wider world, and this does mean that there are opportunities to teach pupils about the Commonwealth and Britain’s overseas territories.

Our tech strategy seeks to support teachers to make the right choices about technology that meet the needs of their school and the challenges they face. It was this Government who replaced the ICT curriculum with a computer science curriculum, so that we can lead the world in creating the next generation of computer programmers.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on securing the debate and on her excellent opening speech.

I listened carefully to what she had to say, and she said that there are not enough high-quality school places in our system. I have to say to her that we have raised the proportion of schools graded by Ofsted as good or outstanding from just 68% in 2010 to 86% today, and in the period between May 2010 and May 2018 we created 920,000 more places in our school system. We have also changed the admissions code to allow schools to prioritise in their admissions arrangements, their over-subscription criteria, children who are eligible for free school meals, those who qualify for the pupil premium, so there are incentives on schools to actively seek children from disadvantaged backgrounds. That is particularly the case with the pupil premium. It pays £935 per pupil in a secondary school and £1,320 per pupil in a primary school. And of course in the national funding formula we allocated significant sums to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In relation to the school admissions system, only about 1% of schools are referred to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator, which administers the school admissions system to ensure that they are fair. Anyone can object, if they think the admissions arrangements are unfair, but only 1% of schools are referred to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator. In her annual report, Shan Scott, the chief schools adjudicator, said that it was

“an admissions system that as a whole works effectively in the normal admissions rounds and that in those rounds the needs of vulnerable children and those with particular educational or social needs are generally well met.”

We are concerned about children in need who are known to social workers and seek their support. That is what our review of children in need was about. Our forthcoming changes to the school admissions code focus on in-year admissions and the fair access protocols, to ensure that they work better for the most vulnerable children, including children who have been excluded.

Our system is producing more good school places, which has been the thrust of everything that we have done with our school reforms since 2010. The academies programme has been at the heart of this Government’s reforms. Today, over 50% of pupils in state-funded education study in academies, the number of which has grown from 203 in 2010 to over 9,000 today. Our vision is for a world-class school-led system, which gives headteachers the freedom to run their schools in the way they know best. We believe that the academies programme can provide opportunities for that through its key principles: autonomy, accountability and collaboration. Therefore, we do not agree with Labour’s policy to bring academies under political control or with its hostility to the free schools programme.

Some 75% of sponsored primary and secondary academies that have been inspected are now good or outstanding. Those are sponsored academies, which are schools that have underperformed for years. Only one in 10 of those schools were judged good or outstanding before they became sponsored academies. Pupils at those schools are getting a significantly better quality of education thanks to that academies programme.

Through the free schools programme, this Government have funded thousands of good new school places and opened schools across the country, and we are committed to delivering choice, innovation and higher standards for parents. We want it to challenge the status quo and drive wider improvement, injecting fresh, evidence-based approaches into our education systems. Free schools are created to meet the need for pupil places in areas that need them and to address the concern about low- quality provision.

We are also concerned about the increase in the number of children in elective home education. That is why we issued a call for evidence on home education and we are looking at it carefully. We have consulted on the proposal to create a register of children not in school. A range of factors have led to the increase, but in my judgment, it is not due to a shortage of high-quality school places in our school system.

As of 1 February, 508 free schools are open, providing 275,000 school places. In 2019, the top seven of the top 15 progress 8 scores for state-funded schools in England were achieved by free schools, and three of those schools were in the top five: Eden Boys’ School in Birmingham, Eden Girls’ School in Coventry and the Michaela Community School. Each of those successful schools teaches a stretching knowledge-rich curriculum, has a strong approach to behaviour management and is committed to high academic standards.

This morning I visited West London Free School, for the second or third time. It has an excellent quality of education and superb behaviour. I was hugely impressed by what I saw. There were very high quality lessons in music and arts. Over 80% of pupils there enter the EBacc combination of GCSEs. Eden Boys’ School and Eden Girls’ School were opened by Star Academies, which has grown through the free schools programme from running a single school in the north-west to running 28 schools across the country. Ark John Keats Academy is an outstanding open free school. In 2019 its progress 8 score was well above average at 0.76 and 82% of students entered the EBacc.

At Michaela Community School, 84% of pupils were entered for the EBacc, and in its first set of GCSE results, the school reported that more than half of all grades awarded were level 7 and above, which is equivalent to A and A*. That school serves a very disadvantaged community. The London Academy of Excellence is a free school sixth form in east London that was set up in collaboration with seven independent schools. In 2019, the school had an average A-level progress score well above average. It recently reported that 37 students received offers to study at Oxford and Cambridge. King’s College London Mathematics School is a specialist maths free school. In 2019, 100% of its pupils achieved an A or A*.

Thank you, Ms Buck. I was addressing the concern raised at the start that there are not enough high-quality school places, whereas we have been focused on creating more good school places, because that is a key part of our education reforms. However, I will adhere to your strictures, Ms Buck, and address the statutory duty to provide enough school places, which sits with local government. The Government provide basic need funding for every place that is needed based on the statistics supplied by the local authority. The local council of the hon. Member for Edmonton, the London Borough of Enfield, has been allocated £122.7 million to provide new school places between 2011 and 2021.

We have an effective admissions system to ensure that schools and parents are supported when school places are allocated. All mainstream state-funded schools, including academy schools, are required to comply with the school admissions code, which is designed to ensure that the practices and criteria used to decide the allocation of school places are clear, fair and objective. The code is clear that admissions authorities must ensure that their arrangements will not unfairly disadvantage, either directly or indirectly, a child from a particular social or racial group, or a child with a disability or special educational needs. It is for a school’s admission authority to set its own admission arrangements, provided that they are lawful. For community and voluntary control schools, the admission authority is the local authority; for foundation and voluntary-aided schools, it is the governing body; and for academies, it is the academy trust.

For normal admissions rounds, parents can apply to the local authority in which they live for places at their preferred schools. Parents can express a preference for at least three schools. If a school is undersubscribed, any parent who applies must be offered a place. When oversubscribed, a school’s admissions authority must rank applications in order against its published over-subscription criteria. Parents then receive a single offer of a place at the highest preference school that is able to offer their child a place. If a local authority is unable to offer a place at any of the parents’ preferred schools, it will offer a place at a suitable school. The latest report from the offers of the schools adjudicator, published on Monday, states that we do have an admissions system that works effectively in those normal rounds, as I have said earlier.

The latest preference data confirms that the admissions system is working well for most families. In 2019, 97.5% of applicants were offered one of their top three preferred primary schools and 93% of applicants were offered one of their top three preferred secondary schools. In the London Borough of Enfield, the hon. Lady’s local authority, 95.8% of applicants were offered one of their top three preferred primary schools and 85.5% were offered one of their top three preferred secondary schools in 2019.

We understand that where demand is high, parents cannot always secure a place at their preferred choice of school, but parents refused a place at a school for which they have applied have a right of appeal to an independent appeal panel. The schools admission authority is responsible for establishing that appeal panel, but the panel itself is an independent body. The admission authority has no control over its decisions. The appeal panel must come to its own conclusions.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Edmonton for introducing the debate. It is timely, because next Monday will be national offer day, when thousands of parents up and down the country will hear what school their child will go to in September. We want all children to have fair access to a good school place, regardless of their background. Academies and free schools create a healthy choice for parents, while raising standards in education. The school admissions system, underpinned by the statutory school admissions code, supports the system effectively, providing the tools that schools need to allocate places in a fair and objective way.

Or we could meet.

I should like to start by congratulating the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) on securing this important debate. I know that he is particularly passionate about supporting schools in his constituency, and he has raised these concerns with the previous Secretary of State and with the Department in the past. I also know that he shares the Government’s ambition that every state school should be a good school, providing a world-class education that helps every child and young person to reach his or her potential, regardless of background. Since 2010, the Government have worked hard to drive up academic standards in all our schools, and we continue to provide support to those schools that require it most. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that some schools are still on a journey of improvement. Those schools continue to benefit from the Government’s commitment of support and they are the focus of the Government’s school improvement objective.

We have introduced the English baccalaureate school performance measure, consisting of GCSEs in English, maths, at least two sciences, history or geography and a language. These subjects form part of the compulsory curriculum in many of the highest-performing countries internationally, at least at the age of 15 or 16, and they ensure that young people keep open the widest opportunities for the next stage of their education. Since the EBacc performance measure was first introduced in 2010, the proportion of pupils entering it has increased from 22% in 2010 to 40% in 2019, but in Cheshire West and Chester, the hon. Gentleman’s local authority, 48% of pupils entered the EBacc. The Government’s ambition is that 75% of year 10 pupils will start to study GCSEs in the EBacc combination by 2022, and that 90% will by 2025.

High standards have been a key focus of our reforms since 2010, but we recognise that there is still work to be done and we remain committed to ensuring a sustained improvement in standards in our schools. While the proportion of secondary school pupils eligible for free school meals in Ellesmere Port is similar to the national average, rates vary among schools in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. He raised the issue of Ellesmere Port Catholic High School. As he knows, it was inspected in March 2019 under the old Ofsted inspection framework, and it was found to be inadequate. When a local authority-maintained school is judged inadequate by Ofsted, the Secretary of State has a legal duty to issue an academy order to convert the school into a sponsored academy. Each school is assessed on a case-by-case basis, and we work with trusts, sponsors, local authorities and dioceses to find the best plan for the school and give it a fresh start with a strong trust as soon as possible.

Although it is a priority to improve standards as quickly as possible, it is also important that time is taken to ensure that the right solution is found for the school and its pupils, parents and community. In the case of Ellesmere Port Catholic High School, we are continuing to work with the diocese of Shrewsbury and the local authority to identify a strong sponsor. As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, in the case of voluntary-aided schools, the diocese has an essential role to play, in line with the memorandum of understanding on Church schools. In the interim, school improvement support from Loreto Grammar School is being funded by the Department. Whitby High School is a local authority-maintained school that was inspected in February 2019, again under the old inspection framework. It was found to require improvement, and it is now receiving school improvement support.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of Ofsted. Of course we always continue to keep these issues under review, but as the independent inspectorate, Ofsted plays a vital role in providing a rounded assessment of school and college performance. That role has helped to raise standards in our schools. Ofsted is directly accountable to Parliament, and the vast majority of inspections go without incident. Ofsted has, as he said, a quality assurance process and a complaints procedure to deal with those rare instances when things do not go according to plan. As it is an independent organisation, I always say to hon. Members on both sides of the House who have concerns that they should raise them directly with Ofsted, as he and the school have done.

I want to touch on the Government’s support programme. When a school is put into “requires improvement”, we offer it a whole raft of school improvement measures to help to address the concerns raised by Ofsted. The Government have launched a number of programmes. For example, we fund 37 maths hubs to spread evidence-based approaches to maths teaching, including the new Cheshire and Wirral Maths Hub, led by Our Lady of Pity RC Primary School and Alsager School. Part of the maths hubs’ work nationally includes delivering our £76 million teaching for mastery programme, which aims to reach 11,000 primary and secondary schools by 2023. The programme focuses on building a deep understanding of mathematics throughout primary school and into key stage 3.

The Government’s commitment to supporting young people across the entire curriculum is recognised by other funding. For example, we have put nearly half a billion pounds into funding a range of music and cultural programmes, including music and education hubs. We also launched a four-year computing programme supported by £84 million of Government funding. Through a National Centre for Computing and a national network of 34 computing hubs, we are supporting schools to deliver the reformed, knowledge-rich curriculum.

The hon. Gentleman rightly focused on secondary education, but I want to take the opportunity to recognise the performance of primary schools in his constituency, which is reflected by Ofsted’s judging the majority to be good or outstanding. In England, phonics performance has significantly improved since we introduced the phonics screening check in 2012. At that time, just 58% of six-year-olds correctly read at least 32 of the 40 words in the check. In 2019, that percentage increased to 82%. One of the Government’s top priorities is giving all young people the best start in life—even before they begin school. It is why we are committed to improving access to early years education and supporting parents to improve their child’s life outcomes.

Five academy trusts operate in Ellesmere Port and Neston, and only seven primary and secondary schools are academies within the five trusts. That equates to just 20% of schools in the constituency. At secondary level specifically, there are only two academy trusts: the Frank Field Education Trust and Neston High School, which is a single academy trust. It is clear that schools’ appetite nationally to convert to academy status remains, with the number of academies growing from 200 in 2010 to over 9,000, including more than 500 new free schools. Today, more than 50% of pupils in state-funded schools study in academies. As the hon. Gentleman will know, where an academy is underperforming, the Department will move to intervene and assess the trust’s capacity to improve standards.

We have a range of school improvement offers, including a programme offering support to schools meeting certain criteria involving their Ofsted judgment and key stage 2 or key stage 4 outcomes. Such schools receive free advice from a national leader of education to help them identify and access school improvement resources, and the hon. Gentleman’s constituency contains both providers and recipients of that support. The offer is supplemented by emergency improvement funding, which supports schools facing unexpected challenges. The emergency school improvement fund has directly funded support for two schools in the Ellesmere Port and Neston area, benefiting both Ellesmere Port Church of England College and Ellesmere Port Catholic High School. In total, funding activity worth over £155,000 has been provided by local effective school leaders.

In conclusion, I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for this issue. He has raised some important concerns, which have been raised with Ofsted, and I hope he accepts that we have heard them and we take them seriously. I hope he also understands that, when a school requires improvement, a raft of support, including funding and advice from local experts and experienced headteachers, is available to help that school secure a good or outstanding rating at the next Ofsted inspection.

Question put and agreed to.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) on securing the debate. In her excellent opening speech, she rightly said that we all agree on one thing—that every child in this country should have the benefit of a world-class education that prepares them for adult life and helps them to fulfil their potential, including children who have been excluded at some point during their school career.

The Government are committed to ensuring that all teachers are equipped to tackle the low-level disruption and the serious behavioural issues that compromise the safety and wellbeing of pupils and school staff. Ensuring that schools are safe and disciplined environments benefits all students. In 2018, the Department for Education’s school snapshot survey of teacher opinion found that 76% felt that behaviour was good or very good in their school. According to recent data from Ofsted, behaviour is good or outstanding in 85% of primary and 68% of secondary schools. Although behaviour in schools is broadly good, those figures show that there is still more to do to tackle the casual disruption that deprives children of up to 38 school days a year, according to Ofsted’s estimates, as well as the challenging behaviour that can result in permanent exclusion. Behaviour cultures are set from the top, and the Government are determined to support headteachers to build and maintain a culture of good behaviour in their schools. For example, we are investing £10 million in behaviour hubs, so that schools with a track record of effectively managing pupils’ behaviour can share that best practice with other schools. That programme will launch in September 2020 under the supervision of a team of expert advisors on behaviour management led by Tom Bennett.

Alongside that, we are reforming teacher training as part of the early career framework, and we have bolstered the behaviour management element in the core content for initial teacher training, so that all new teachers will be taught how to manage behaviour effectively on entry to the profession.

I will come to headteachers having to take into account the circumstances of pupils before they make a decision about exclusions, and to ensure that support is available for children who have special educational needs. I point out to Opposition Members that for the coming financial year we have increased spending on high needs education by 12%—an extra £780 million—which demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that special needs education is properly funded.

Visiting outstanding schools has shown me that a strong behaviour culture can help children who might otherwise struggle to engage in their education to succeed. Michaela Community School, a free school in Wembley to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) referred, is unapologetically strict in its standards of behaviour. The whole institution emits a sense of positivity and purpose quite unlike any other school that I have visited. In an area of significant deprivation, children are brimming with pride at the progress they are making.

At Reach Academy Feltham, behaviour is tracked on a transparent points-based system called “Payslip”, which gives rewards and privileges for good behaviour and deducts points for disruption. The school has a notably low number of fixed-term exclusions, and has not excluded a pupil permanently in the last two years.

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will come to exclusions in just a moment. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) pointed out, permanent exclusions are at 0.1% of pupil attendance in our school system.

The approach at Reach Academy Feltham indicates that when children know what is expected of them and how poor behaviour will be dealt with, they are less likely to display the persistent disruptive behaviour that is still the most common cause of exclusion. As my hon. Friend the Member reiterated, exclusion is an essential tool for headteachers to use when a pupil oversteps the bounds of what is acceptable in a school, either because of one serious incident or through persistent disruption. This Government therefore back, and will always back, headteachers who use exclusion to ensure they have good discipline in their schools, including permanent exclusion where it is used as a last resort. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North said, speaking from his eight years of experience as a secondary school teacher, it is important to protect all pupils and their teachers from disruptive or violent behaviour in schools. He is right: all teachers have the right to teach and all children have the right to be taught in a safe and disciplined environment, without danger, intimidation or distraction.

It is important to put this debate on exclusion rates into perspective. As I said in response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Croydon Central, the rate of permanent exclusions last year was 0.1%, and the longer-term trends show that the rate of permanent exclusions across all state primary, secondary and special schools has followed a downward trend. In 2006-07, the rate was 0.12%; by 2012-13, it had fallen to 0.06%. That rate has since risen, but it is still lower now than in 2006-07. That is because, as set out in the DFE’s exclusions guidance, we expect all schools to

“consider what extra support might be needed to identify and address the needs of pupils”

from groups more likely to be excluded

“in order to reduce their risk of exclusion.”

The hon. Lady raises an important point. Analysis has shown that excluded children have a higher risk of being a victim or perpetrator of crime, but although there is a strong correlation between those two issues, we have to be careful to not draw a simple causal link. The evidence does not suggest that exclusion causes children to be involved in crime; what it does suggest is that engagement in education is a strong protective factor for children who might otherwise be vulnerable to involvement in crime. It is therefore vital that schools and colleges enable all children to achieve, to belong, and to remain safe in education. That is the part played by the Department for Education in a wider cross-Government approach to tackle crime and serious violence. We will continue to work closely with other Departments, including the Home Office, to ensure that young people remain safe.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North pointed out, the focus must be on attendance, which research suggests is associated with risky behaviour linked to serious youth violence. Ministry of Justice research on the educational background of young knife-possession offenders showed that 83% had been persistently absent in at least one of the previous five years; overall, school attendance has improved significantly since 2010. That is why we have put such an emphasis on ensuring that children attend school.

Headteachers are best placed to judge what extra support may be needed in their school. Ofsted’s new inspection framework continues to include consideration of the reasons for exclusions and their rates and patterns, as well as any differences between pupil groups, as referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury. Inspectors also consider evidence of off-rolling, and they are likely to judge a school to be inadequate if there is evidence that pupils have been removed from the school without a formal permanent exclusion, which my hon. Friend has also mentioned as a concern.

I am happy to meet the headteacher in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency to discuss these issues; I always learn something in those meetings, and they can be extremely helpful. However, I point out that we are increasing high-needs funding by 12% and overall school funding by 5% this year alone, with a three-year settlement, and that school funding will rise to £52 billion by the end of that three-year settlement period.

Nothing I have said detracts from the fact that for the one child in 1,000 who is permanently excluded, their exclusion is a sign that something has gone seriously wrong. Without the right support, vulnerable children and young people can be left at risk of harm, including becoming involved in serious violence. We need to offer those children a fresh start—a school that can re-engage them with their education. For many excluded pupils, that will mean alternative provision. Good alternative provision offers excluded pupils a second chance to develop those core skills and readiness for adult life.

I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. Although 85% of state-funded alternative provision across the country is rated good or outstanding —an increase, by the way, from 73% in 2013—it remains the case that in some areas, permanently excluded pupils are not able to secure good-quality AP quickly, increasing the risk of them becoming caught up in knife crime. The report on knife crime produced by the all-party parliamentary group chaired by the hon. Member for Croydon Central emphasised the importance of full-time education for all children, including those vulnerable to exclusion. The hon. Lady referred to the fall in the number of pupil referral units between 2014 and 2017. The facts are that in 2014, there were 371 PRUs and alternative provision academies; in 2017, there were 351; and as of June 2019, there were 354. Eight alternative provision academies are in the pipeline to open before 2023.

Our focus must be on improving the availability of good-quality AP, so that when a child is excluded from school, that does not mean exclusion from good-quality education. Those children must have timely access to the support and education they need to help reduce risk, promote resilience, and enable them to re-engage with education and make good progress. We know that is possible, because there is excellent and innovative practice out there.

One great example is the parent and carer curriculum taught at the Pears Family School in Islington, which is an AP free school that opened its doors in 2014 and was found to be outstanding three years later. What is unusual about that school is that parents attend with their children several times a week, and in those sessions parents help pupils to make progress with their reading and are taught how best to support their children in their education. As a result, a high proportion of pupils are successfully re-integrated into mainstream school after a short placement. That model is currently being trialled by the Pears Family School and the Anna Freud Centre in three other AP settings across England. That is just one of the nine projects supported by our £4 million AP innovation fund, which we established to test the effectiveness of innovative approaches to improving alternative provision, an approach that I know my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury supports.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Croydon Central and to other hon. Members for having raised their concerns about this issue. I assure the hon. Lady and other Members that we take this issue very seriously and are addressing it, including by improving school behaviour and providing the right support to those at risk of exclusion.

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend. He has raised the issue of accountability measures: expectations for pupils in AP have not been high enough in the past, and as part of our drive to improve quality across the AP sector, we will consider how we can better assess performance and strengthen accountability for pupils in AP. We will have more to say on that in due course.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) and for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) for their passionate commitment to wanting to improve the education and life chances of the most disadvantaged pupils in general and, in this particular debate, white disadvantaged boys. The statistics cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield at the start of his speech have driven the Government’s education policies since 2010. Closing the attainment gap between those from disadvantaged backgrounds and their more advantaged peers has driven our obsession with ensuring that children are taught to read effectively at the age of four or five, and that every six-year-old can decode words using phonics. It has driven our desire for children to develop a love of reading and our desire to help them develop a wider vocabulary. It has driven our determination to adopt the practice of the best performing countries in the world in the teaching of mathematics in primary schools, and to improve the cultural literacy of all children, regardless of their background or gender, ensuring they have the vocabulary that will not only help their reading, but will mean they have the knowledge required for academic progress.

As Harold Stevenson and James Stigler wrote in their book “The Learning Gap”, the error is,

“the assumption that it is the diversity in children’s social and cultural background that poses the greatest problem for teaching.”

In fact, a far greater problem is variability in children’s educational background and thus in their levels of preparation for learning the academic curriculum.

I am sorry; I will not give way because of the time.

There is a philosophy behind the Government’s drive to close the word gap and the attainment gap, and to level up opportunity, ensuring every child, regardless of background or gender, can fulfil their potential. The philosophy lies behind successful multi-academy trusts, such as the Star multi-academy trust cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln. It has driven our curriculum reforms, our GCSE reforms, and our determination to move this country’s education system away from a so-called competence-based curriculum to a knowledge-rich curriculum.

E D Hirsch, the great American educationist, wrote about the example of France in his most recent book, “Why Knowledge Matters”. He looked at the history of France’s curriculum reforms and the effect of the move away from a knowledge-based curriculum towards a competence or skills-based curriculum in the late 1980s. Comparing standards in 1987 and 2007, all socioeconomic groups saw a decline in standards, with a decline of a third of a standard deviation on average. Strikingly, children from disadvantaged backgrounds saw the greatest fall in standards, with a decline of two thirds of a standard deviation. That is one piece of evidence, but it is part of a pattern of international evidence that competence-based curricula are most disadvantageous to the pupils we are most keen to help.

After 10 years in office, the Government’s education reforms are beginning to show results. Standards are rising and the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils is beginning to close: by 13% in primary and 9% in secondary since 2011. Thanks to our reforms, more pupils are taking core academic GCSEs, more children are reading fluently, and more are attending good and outstanding schools, but, as my hon. Friend so clearly set out, too many pupils still leave school without the qualifications that they need.

We know that synthetic phonics is the most effective way of teaching reading to all children, so we have embedded it in the key stage one curriculum. Following a greater focus on reading in the primary curriculum, England achieved its highest ever score in the 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. The result was largely attributable to increases in the average performance of boys and lower performing pupils. As Her Majesty’s chief inspector said recently,

“In the schools that teach reading really well, really systematically using phonics, the gap narrows or is even eliminated.”

That is the essence of ensuring that our schools adopt teaching methods and curricula that the evidence suggests narrow or eliminate the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils and between girls and boys.

All children, particularly pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, including white working-class boys, need a knowledge-rich curriculum that introduces all pupils to the powerful knowledge that best prepares pupils for their futures. We see it in schools such as Michaela Community School in Wembley, where the school regards knowledge about the world as essential. Its academically rigorous curriculum has enabled pupils to achieve exceptionally well. In 2019, Michaela’s results ranked among the best in the country, with all pupils, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, making well above average progress. Some 41% of pupils at that school were eligible for free school meals at some point in the past six years, but its progress 8 score of 1.53 is one of the highest in the country, and its EBacc entry was 84%.

It is a similar story at Dixons Trinity Academy in Bradford with its unrelenting focus on improving the life chances of its pupils. The academy offers a rigorous knowledge-rich and evidence-based curriculum, which has seen it right at the top of the league tables over the past few years. Similarly, we can look at the work of leading multi-academy trusts such as Outwood Grange Academies Trust, which time after time radically improves schools that have had a long history of entrenched failure. That MAT provides long neglected communities in this country with the transformational education that they need.

My hon. Friend noted in his speech that the standard of education suffers when schools lose their grip on behaviour. I absolutely agree, which is why we have bolstered the powers of teachers and headteachers to deal with unruly pupils. I also agree with my hon. Friend that it is vital that this country has a world-class technical route for pupils to pursue technical and vocational training. Our reform of apprenticeships puts technical and vocational education on a par with academic study for the first time, in tandem with T-levels.

Apprenticeships ensure that people can gain the training and qualifications that they need to enter the job market and ensure that employers can access the skills that they need to make the country globally competitive. T-levels are at the centre of our plans for world class technical education, preparing students for entry into skilled employment or higher levels of technical education in areas such as engineering, manufacturing, health, science, construction, and digital. They will ensure that all post-16 students can make an informed choice between high-quality options that support progression, whatever their attainment or aspirations. We have made real progress since 2011, particularly in improving the education of disadvantaged children and those of lower attaining pupils as well.

In conclusion, I share my hon. Friend’s deeply held belief in the power of education to transform the life chances of pupils, particularly those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Although I know there is more to do, the Government’s school reforms and plans to improve technical education through T-levels and the proposed £3 billion national skills fund are the right ones for every pupil and student in our education system, including the most disadvantaged pupils.

Question put and agreed to.

My hon. Friend raises a good point. Veterans make attractive members of staff in our schools, they inspire young people and help to improve behaviour. Our Troops to Teachers scheme was slow to begin with, but it is now proving successful in recruiting Army leavers.

[Official Report, 20 January 2020, Vol. 670, c. 6.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for School Standards, the right hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb):

An error has been identified in the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone).

The correct answer should have been:

My hon. Friend raises a good point. Veterans make attractive members of staff in our schools, they inspire young people and help to improve behaviour. Our Troops to Teachers scheme was slow to begin with, but its successor, the Troops to Teachers initial teacher training bursary, is now proving successful in recruiting Army leavers.

Further Education

The following is an extract from Questions to the Secretary of State for Education on 20 January 2020.

There are over 453,000 teachers in our schools, 12,000 more than in 2010. Postgraduate recruitment to teacher training is at its highest level since 2010-11, and just under two thirds of teachers who started teaching six years ago are still teaching today.

Since we conducted the workload challenge survey in 2014, we have worked hard to reduce the unnecessary demands on teachers’ time, whether that is cumbersome marking practices or excessive data collection. Since 2016, teachers’ working hours have fallen by five hours per week, according to the second teacher workload survey, which measures teachers’ own reporting of their working hours. There is still more to do—the hon. Gentleman is right—but this success so far demonstrates the seriousness with which we take excessive workload and the effectiveness of our early initiatives.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and pay tribute to him for his work in his years as Secretary of State for Education. It was a pleasure to work with him during that period. He is right—the School Teachers’ Review Body has recommended a 2.75% pay rise for teachers across the board, and we are also proposing a £30,000 starting salary for teachers from 2022. In addition to the £26,000 tax-free bursary, teachers of maths, physics, chemistry and languages who start their training this September will receive early career payments of £2,000 in each of their second, third and fourth years of teaching. So this is a good time to start training as a teacher. It is a worthwhile profession and I encourage all graduates to consider teaching as a career.

I do not agree. We are living in a very strong economy, with the lowest level of unemployment for more than 40 years and demand for graduates is strong. We are responding to those pressures. As I said earlier, we have recruited the largest number of graduates into teacher training. I have announced the salaries for teachers when they finish their training and start teaching; 2022 is the right date for that salary increase. The average pay of a headteacher is £70,100 a year, and it is £36,200 a year for a classroom teacher. This is a good time to join the teaching profession and I urge Opposition Members to talk up the attractiveness of that profession and not continually to talk it down.

My hon. Friend raises a good point. Veterans make attractive members of staff in our schools, they inspire young people and help to improve behaviour. Our Troops to Teachers scheme was slow to begin with, but it is now proving successful in recruiting Army leavers.[Official Report, 4 February 2020, Vol. 671, c. 3MC.]

The pupil premium ensures schools receive extra money to benefit disadvantaged pupils who need it most. Schools are helped to make effective decisions and good use of the grant by the Education Endowment Foundation’s research and guidance. The Government remain convinced of the effectiveness of the pupil premium in helping to narrow the attainment gap and are committed to this policy.

The pupil premium is for any pupil who has qualified or has been eligible for free school meals in the last six years. It is £935 for pupils in secondary schools and £1,320 for pupils in primary schools—some £2.4 billion a year. Since 2011, we have allocated more than £15 billion to schools to help to narrow that attainment gap. We have the lowest level of unemployment for over 40 years, so there will be different eligibility for free school meals, which depends on the benefits system. When there is a higher level of employment, fewer people are eligible for the benefits system.

The Education Endowment Foundation has produced a very good guide for schools on how to use the pupil premium in the most effective way to narrow the attainment gap. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spelled out the fact that we have closed the attainment gap by 13% in primary schools and 9% in secondary schools. Between 2011 and 2018, there was an 18 percentage point increase in the proportion of disadvantaged young people taking the EBacc combination of core academic GCSE subjects; the subjects that provide the widest opportunities in later education, training and career choices.

Officials have worked with their counterparts in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on all aspects of planning policy for new schools and existing academies. New national policy and guidance sets out the positive approach that local planning authorities should take in the assessment and determination of planning applications for schools.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s commitment to the schools in his constituency and his support for the Gatwick School in particular. As he said, the Gatwick School opened in 2014 and is providing good school places in Crawley, with its EBacc entry level significantly above the national average, for example. Officials are engaged in the planning process to achieve permission from Crawley Borough Council, which will enable us to deliver the permanent school accommodation and facilities for pupils.

The hon. Member will be aware of the review of children in need. It highlights the importance of schools being aware of those children who are known to social workers and who have particular problems so that we can make sure that they get pastoral support in school and that expectations remain as high for them as for other pupils in the school.

I will certainly read my hon. Friend’s report, and again I pay tribute to her for what she has achieved with Michaela Community School. The free schools programme as a whole is hugely successful and she can be assured we are committed to continuing it. In 2019, seven out of the top 15 secondary schools in terms of progress 8 scores were free schools, including three in the top five: Eden Boys’ School in Birmingham, Eden Girls’ School in Coventry and of course Michaela Community School in Brent.

Delivering good quality school places is a top priority for this Government. We are on track to create 1 million places between 2010 and 2020, with 920,000 already created. That is the largest increase in school capacity at least two generations. As at August 2019, 86% of schools inspected by Ofsted were rated good or outstanding, compared with 68% in 2010.

We are providing funding to local authorities for every place that is needed, based on local authorities’ own data. In addition, when future housing developments are driving pupil numbers, we expect the local planning authority to negotiate significant developer contributions to help to meet the demand for new schools. In our manifesto, we committed to amending planning rules so that the infrastructure, including schools, comes before people move into new homes. I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about this issue, and I would be happy to meet him and his local authority to ensure that the right action is being taken in his area.

It is for local authorities to decide how they allocate funding to providers in their local area. I am very happy to look at the issue the hon. Lady raises. We have announced a £66 million increase in funding for early years, which is a good settlement, for the year before we come into the spending review period.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his election as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on independent education. He is absolutely right to allude to the many unpopular and damaging proposals in Labour’s election manifesto, particularly when it comes to education. We should be working with the independent sector, not seeking to outlaw the freedom of parents to spend their money as they wish. I would be delighted to join him on 11 February to celebrate the many successful partnerships between the state and independent sectors.

Yes, I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the standard of education in that school.

As I said, we have just announced £66 million of extra funding for the coming financial year, which means 8p an hour for early years providers in most local authorities. In addition, we have also announced a £60 million top-up for maintained nursery schools. We continue to monitor the marketplace to ensure that there is sufficient provision, and we keep that under review, but, as I said, a £66 million increase was agreed for the coming financial year.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I hope it will not be for the last time, even if it is the last time during this long parliamentary Session. I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), whose views I share. It is a worthwhile occupation to stand for election to public office in our great democracy. It is a pity that politicians are treated in the way that too many of us are. We need to do more across parties to re-establish the safety and position of politicians and how they are regarded by the public. I am sure that together we can do a lot to enhance their reputation.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) on securing this important debate and on her powerful opening speech. I am aware of the hon. Lady’s concerns, given her role as a member of the Education Committee. I also congratulate her on her work with the RE:Uniform campaign, and the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) on similar campaigns in her constituency. Such campaigns facilitate the exchange of second-hand school uniforms for many in both their constituencies. I am sure that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East, will not be the only person stealing her ideas.

The hon. Gentleman said that school uniforms reduce bullying and that when he was a teacher he dreaded non-school uniform days, which reveal too harshly who has designer clothes and who does not. That is why I am a keen adherent and supporter of school uniform in this country. Where I disagree with him is on how we ensure that poverty is reduced to an absolute minimum. A driving objective of Conservative economic policy is to reduce poverty. We have the lowest level of unemployment since the mid-1970s. There are fewer workless households and fewer children living in workless households today as a consequence of our presiding over a strong and what I would call a stable economy, which is our objective going forward. We want to maintain a stable and strong economy, keeping unemployment low and the number of jobs at record levels. That is how we reduce poverty in this country. Opposition Members should know that no Labour Government has ever left office with unemployment lower than when they came into office. People need to take that very seriously if they are as determined as we are to reduce poverty in this country.

The way to reduce in-work poverty is to have a strong economy that creates the wealth that everybody can benefit from. We introduced the national living wage to ensure that people on low wages gain a bigger share of the wealth that our economy creates. Also, we have raised the personal allowance tax threshold to something nearer £11,000 or £12,000, so that people on low incomes pay significantly less tax. Millions of people have been taken out of tax altogether. That is how to tackle poverty and low income. A strong economy with very low levels of unemployment means that wages are pushed up because of market forces.

We can all agree that the cost of school uniform is an important issue for many families. I was grateful for the opportunity to speak about it in response to a debate on this topic secured by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) last year, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss the issue again today. If schools can ensure that uniform items are available at a reasonable cost to parents, there are significant positive benefits that school uniforms can provide. The Government strongly encourage schools to have a school a uniform.

It is common for schools also to have a school dress code, and the overwhelming majority of schools require pupils to wear a uniform. A school uniform can play an important role in contributing to the ethos of a school and setting an appropriate tone. It can help foster a sense of equality and belonging for pupils and reduce pressure for pupils and parents to have to spend money on keeping up with the latest fashions or trends. It can also support discipline and motivation among pupils as part of a wider behaviour policy.

A primary purpose of a uniform is to remove differences between pupils. If everyone is dressed the same, it underlines that we are all equal. With a standard uniform in place, it is harder to tell a pupil’s background. In such ways, uniforms can play an important part in helping pupils feel safe and happy at school. Although decisions about school uniform are made by head teachers and governing bodies, and it is right that they continue to make such decisions, I encourage all schools to have uniform policies for the reasons I have outlined.

When speaking about this topic, I have consistently said that I am clear that the cost of uniform should not act as a barrier to obtaining a good school place. I want all children to be able to attend a school of their parents’ choice wherever possible. No school uniform should be so expensive as to leave pupils or their families feeling unable to apply to or attend a school of their choice. That is made very clear in the admissions code.

Certainly schools should be careful in requiring purchases of equipment that is not needed. It is a loose use of other people’s money by the school, so I share the hon. Lady’s concern about that. I am proud of the pupil premium, which the previous Conservative-led Government introduced. It is about £2.5 billion a year—nearly £1,000 for every secondary school pupil and about £1,300 for every primary school pupil on free school meals. The money can be used to pay for uniforms and equipment that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds might need to have.

The hon. Lady raises a good point. It is something that we will reflect on. I have often seen schools and academies, in such circumstances, provide the uniform for existing pupils, because of course it is a cost that parents will not have expected. There are many ways around the issue, but it needs to be addressed and taken seriously, as the hon. Lady says.

While school uniform can have a hugely positive impact on a school, by providing cohesion and community for the pupil population, it may present a financial burden to some—particularly to families on low incomes —as has been widely discussed in this important debate. In 2015, the Department commissioned the “Cost of school uniform” survey, which provided the most recent information that we hold on the cost of school uniform and indicated that the average cost of most items decreased between 2007 and 2015—the date of the report—when adjusted for inflation. Moreover, most parents were pleased with the overall cost and quality of their child’s uniform. More than two thirds of parents were happy with the cost of uniform and PE kit. However, in the same survey nearly one fifth of parents reported that they had suffered financial hardship as a result of purchasing their child’s school uniform. It is therefore vital that we do what we can to ensure that school uniform is accessible for all, no matter what the family’s budget.

It is for the governing body of a school, or the academy trust, in the case of academies, to decide whether there should be a school uniform policy, and if so, what it should be. It is also for the governing body to decide how the uniform should be sourced. However, we are clear that governing bodies should give cost considerations the highest priority when making decisions about school uniform. The Department published best practice guidance for school leaders on developing and implementing school uniform policy. That guidance sets out that a school should ensure that its school uniform policy is fair and reasonable for all its students. It should make certain that the uniform is affordable and does not act as a barrier to parents when choosing a school.

School uniform should be easily available for parents to purchase. In particular, the guidance specifically states that schools should seek to select items that can be purchased cheaply—for example, in a supermarket. If parents can shop around for items of uniform, that can encourage competition and enable them to buy their uniform from a retailer at a price that suits their household budget. The Department’s guidance advises schools that, in setting their school uniform policy, they should give the highest priority to cost considerations and achieving value for money for parents.

I am aware that a concern is often mentioned in this context about branded items of uniform, and how those are supplied—something that has been mentioned in the debate. We recognise that schools will often want to adopt items of uniform that are specific to that school, such as a branded blazer or tie. The Department, however, advises schools to keep such branded items of uniform to a minimum, as multiple branded items can significantly increase costs. We recommend that schools should avoid exclusive single-supplier contracts, as those could risk driving up costs. Where schools choose to enter into such contracts, which in some cases may be the best option, they should ensure that they are subject to a regular competitive tendering process to ensure the best value for money.

The hon. Member for Barnsley East raised the issue of schools that receive a financial incentive to use a specified supplier. The guidance explicitly states:

“Schools should not enter into cash back arrangements.”

It is very clear about that. If parents have concerns about the school uniform supply arrangements in relation to competition law, they can raise them with the Competition and Markets Authority. As you may be aware, Mr Pritchard, the CMA wrote an open letter to schools and school uniform suppliers, which provides more detail about its policy, and what powers it has, regarding the appointment of exclusive suppliers for school uniform.

With reference to the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), he will be pleased to know that the Government have committed to putting our best practice guidance on school uniform on to a statutory footing. Opposition Members also made that request. The Secretary of State and the CMA recently engaged in an exchange of open letters on the matter of single-supplier contracts.

We keep those issues under review. As has been pointed out, we are running out of time in this Session, but if a Conservative Government are returned with a functioning majority, I am sure that we will give urgent priority to legislating on the matter in question.

The CMA stated its approval of our commitment to place our guidance on a statutory footing when a suitable legislative opportunity arises, as I am sure it will after the general election. In turn, the Secretary of State has reaffirmed our commitment to do so, which will send a clear signal that we expect schools to ensure that uniform costs are reasonable. I should make it clear that the Government’s stated intention to make school uniform affordable does not undermine our commitment to the principle of uniform itself. Putting our guidance on a statutory footing is directly intended to ensure that school uniforms are affordable for all.

In England, some local authorities provide discretionary grants to help with buying school uniforms. It is a matter for the local authority to decide whether to offer those grants and to set their own criteria for eligibility. Schools may offer individual clothing schemes, such as offering second-hand uniform at reduced prices, as in the uniform scheme that we have heard about today. As I have said, schools can choose to use their pupil premium funding to offer subsidies or grants for school uniforms. Again, that will be a decision for the school to make.

I am enormously grateful for the support that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle has given on this issue. She has raised some important concerns, and I hope that she is relatively happy that the Government also recognise the cost of school uniform as important. We want all children, wherever they are and whatever their background, to be able to secure a good school place, and we do not want the cost of uniform to act as a barrier. The steps that we have taken underline the importance of the cost of school uniform in helping the most disadvantaged members of our society to get access to a good education. The Government have made a commitment to legislate on the issue, which we intend to honour.

Under this settlement, all schools will receive more money, at least in line with inflation, and schools with the highest proportions of children from disadvantaged backgrounds will receive the highest level of funding. Since 2011, we have closed the attainment gap by 9.5% in secondary schools and by 13% in primary schools.

[Official Report, 9 September 2019, Vol. 664, c. 489.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for School Standards.

An error has been identified in the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins).

The correct answer should have been:

Under this settlement, all schools will attract more money, at least in line with inflation, and schools with the highest proportions of children from disadvantaged backgrounds will receive the highest level of funding. Since 2011, we have closed the attainment gap by 9.5% in secondary schools and by 13% in primary schools.

Topical Questions

The following is an extract from Topical Questions to the Secretary of State for Education on 9 September 2019.

In August, the Prime Minister announced an extra £14 billion for schools in England over the next three years. That will bring the schools budget to £52.2 billion in 2022-23. This will allow funding increases for all schools. In particular, our pledge to level up pupil funding means that every secondary school will receive a minimum of at least £5,000 per pupil next year, with every primary school getting a minimum of at least £4,000 from 2021-22. This is the largest cash boost in a generation, and that has only been possible because of our balanced approach to public finances and careful stewardship of the economy since 2010.

What the hon. Gentleman says is not actually true. We have given extra money to fund employer pension contributions this year and to partially fund the pay grant over and above the 1%, and now the 2%, that is affordable, so we have provided schools with extra money this financial year.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work and campaigning he has done to secure extra funding for schools in his constituency. He has been successful in ensuring we have the most generous schools settlement in a generation, and that is in part a tribute to his work, as well as that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who has heard his request for a visit to Bradford and I am sure will comply.

We take this issue as seriously as the hon. Lady does, which is why we have announced within the £14 billion a £700 million increase for special needs. That is an 11% increase. We absolutely understand the pressures that local authorities have been under and we are addressing it.

My hon. Friend has been a redoubtable campaigner for school funding in her constituency. Thanks to her efforts and the balanced approach we have taken to the public finances, the school funding settlement will mean that every school in her constituency will attract an increase in funding and that 75% of secondary schools there will benefit from our pledge to level up school funding to at least £5,000 per secondary school pupil.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that this funding represents a large increase in per pupil spending and reverses the reductions to real-terms per pupil funding for five to 16-year-olds. The hon. Gentleman is right about MMR. It is very important that parents vaccinate their children. There is a lot of information available about the safety of the MMR vaccine from the NHS, and we would encourage parents to look at that information before making a decision.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This funding will mean that we can continue our education reforms and continue to drive up standards—standards of reading and maths in our primary schools and in the whole range of the curriculum in our secondary schools.

I wish that the hon. Gentleman had cited the figures in my constituency, given that he is asking me the question although it was pre-prepared for the Secretary of State.

As I have said, the IFS has stated that this funding fully reverses cuts in funding for five-to-16-year-olds. We have only been able to deliver such a large increase in school funding because of the way in which we have managed the public finances since the banking crisis in 2008. That is why we can do this today, and why we have been able to announce the three-year spending package that all schools, including schools in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, have been seeking.

The Government remain committed to making the necessary changes to allow children to start reception at age five where this is what parents want.

My hon. Friend has been a formidable campaigner on this issue, and I pay tribute to him for his work in this area. He will be aware that since my letter to local authorities the evidence shows that school admission authorities are becoming more flexible when receiving requests for children to start reception at age five.

But of course this will not be right for all children; the majority will do well in reception at age four, and the Government are therefore giving careful consideration to how we will make these changes in a way that avoids unintended consequences.

The hon. Lady will have been here last week when the spending round was announced and she will know that there is a £66 million increase in early-years funding.

I will be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss these issues further, but as he knows we on these Benches are responsible for the education system in England.

In 2019 King’s College London mathematics school reports that 100% of its students achieved a grade A or A* in A-level maths and 90% achieved an A* in A-level maths. The school also reports that more than 25% of its students in 2019 have secured Oxbridge places. This school and Exeter mathematics school are spectacular examples of the success of this Government’s free school programme, a programme that the Labour party wants to abolish.

Given the success of the two maths schools so far, we are committed to opening more maths schools as we continue to drive up academic standards and social mobility. There are four more in the pipeline, including the Surrey mathematics school, which should benefit young people in North East Hampshire. My hon. Friend will also be pleased to know that, due to the large increase in school funding announced last week, 100% of secondary schools in his constituency will benefit from the new minimum of at least £5,000 per pupil.

The Prime Minister has announced a £14 billion increase in investment for schools in England, including for schools in Congleton. This means that by 2022-23, core schools funding will increase by £4.6 billion more than a real-terms protection, and we will be announcing further school-level details in October.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, because it was as a result of her intervention that we introduced minimum per-pupil funding into the national funding formula. She and her constituents will be pleased to know that, as a result of last week’s funding announcement, all seven of the secondary schools in her constituency will benefit from our pledge to level up per-pupil funding to at least £5,000 per pupil, and that 16 primary schools in her constituency will benefit from the new level of at least £3,750 per pupil.

Minimum per pupil values benefit the historically lowest-funded schools. We recognise that schools with more disadvantaged pupils require additional resources, and the national funding formula and pupil premium allocate additional funding in relation to disadvantaged pupils, so that schools with a higher proportion of disadvantaged pupils are the highest funded.

Under this settlement, all schools will receive more money, at least in line with inflation, and schools with the highest proportions of children from disadvantaged backgrounds will receive the highest level of funding. Since 2011, we have closed the attainment gap by 9.5% in secondary schools and by 13% in primary schools.[Official Report, 25 September 2019, Vol. 664, c. 8MC.]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. It has been a pleasure working with him and other colleagues from Northamptonshire to raise standards of education in the area. I am sure that he and his constituents will be pleased about the funding settlement for schools in Northamptonshire.

As the independent inspectorate, Ofsted plays a vital role in providing a rounded assessment of school and college performance, and that role has helped to raise standards in our schools. Ofsted’s latest statement on its performance was set out in its annual report and accounts presented to Parliament in July, which reported solid operating performance across all areas of work.

I know the hon. Gentleman has been concerned about those inspections, and he met Ofsted’s north-west regional director. Ofsted is directly accountable to Parliament, and the vast majority of inspections go without incident. Ofsted has a quality assurance process and a complaints procedure to deal with those rare instances where it does not go according to plan.

I congratulate Mr Snelson, the head of Red Hill Field Primary School, on achieving a good grading in the Ofsted inspection, and I pay tribute to him and all the staff for the excellent education they are providing to pupils.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware, from the funding settlement, that we are increasing funding for high needs—for special needs—by £700 million. That is an 11% increase, and it is because we absolutely recognise the cost pressures that schools and local authorities have been under when it comes to special needs. We hope that the funding announcement made last week by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will go some way to addressing those concerns.

Decisions about school uniform are made at school level by headteachers and governing bodies. In formulating a uniform policy, a school must consider its obligations not to discriminate unlawfully. I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss her work to try to resolve the issue locally.

Yes. The awarding organisations have protocols in place for such issues, but I am very happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the case that she is concerned about.

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. It is important that we allow opportunities to be widely available to children and to young people, regardless of their special needs. Bursaries are available for particular children, and that funding can be used for transport. I would be very happy to meet him so that we can take this issue forward together.

The Department’s current guidance on school uniform does place an extra emphasis on the need for schools to give the highest priority to cost consideration. No school uniform should be so expensive as to leave pupils or their families feeling unable to apply for or to attend a school of their choice due to the cost of the school uniform. If the hon. Lady has examples of schools that are not abiding by that guidance, I would be very grateful if she let me know.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. Let me start by welcoming my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and congratulating him on a very passionate and moving speech. We are all very grateful to him for organising and securing the debate and for the way he introduced it today. We are also grateful for the very moving and powerful speeches from the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard).

My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham said that he was the first Conservative MP, the only Conservative MP, to have been born in a communist country—it was in Poland, in 1972. Let us hope that the forthcoming general election does not lead to a Corbyn-led Labour Government lest in 20 years’ time we have many more MPs who have been born in a communist country.

My hon. Friend asked about conversion therapy. He is right to point out that in the Government’s 2018 “LGBT Action Plan”, we committed to bringing forward proposals to end the unacceptable and abusive practice of conversion therapy in the UK. We are currently engaging with stakeholders and will set out further steps in due course, but my hon. Friend can rest assured that we take that issue very seriously and will be taking action.

Schools play a critical role in promoting integration and widening opportunities for all communities, including LGBT young people. Many schools already do that successfully, creating inclusive environments in which children are able to learn the values that underpin our society. Through education, we can ensure that the next generation learns about those values of fairness, tolerance and respect.

The Government are clear that every pupil, regardless of their sexuality, deserves the opportunity to progress and fulfil their potential and to do so in an environment free from prejudice and discrimination. I am personally committed and determined to stop, for example, the use of the word “gay” as a pejorative term in our schools, as that can often cause anxiety to LGBT pupils—in fact, to all pupils. The Department for Education is providing more than £2.8 million of funding, between September 2016 and March 2020, to four anti-bullying organisations to support schools to tackle bullying effectively. The Government Equalities Office is also providing £3 million, between 2016 and 2019, to help to prevent and respond to homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying, and has invested a further £1 million to extend that funding to March of next year.

Respect for all is fundamental to the reforms that we have made to the curriculum. We are making relationships and health education compulsory in all primary schools and relationships, sex and health education compulsory in all secondary schools. We are encouraging as many schools as possible to start teaching the new subjects from September 2019; they will be required to do so from September 2020. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rotherham for the huge part that she played in campaigning for relationships education and in helping the Government to develop and then implement their policy so successfully.

Let us remember what these subjects actually address and why their introduction gained the overwhelming support of the House. At the heart of relationships and health education in primary schools is a focus on putting in place the key building blocks of healthy, respectful relationships, focusing on family and friendships, in all contexts, including online. At secondary level, teaching will build on the knowledge acquired at primary level and further develop pupils’ understanding of health, with an increased focus on risk areas such as drugs and alcohol, as well as introducing knowledge about intimate relationships and sex.

These subjects also represent a significant step forward in terms of equality by ensuring that young LGBT people will receive teaching relevant to their lives, preparing them for the adult world and supporting them to form positive, healthy, nurturing relationships. In the statutory guidance, we are clear that all pupils should receive during their school years teaching on LGBT relationships. Secondary schools should include LGBT content in their teaching, and primary schools are strongly encouraged and enabled, when teaching about different types of families, to include families with same-sex parents. Of course, the reality of that will be reflected at the school gates of many primary schools, with some children being dropped off and picked up by two mums or two dads. It is right that pupils understand that these families in which their classmates are growing up are characterised by love and care, just like any other family, and are equally deserving of respect.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs asked about the discretion that we have given primary schools for teaching about LGBT. We think that it is right for schools to decide their curriculum, based on the needs of their particular cohort of pupils. We have been clear that, for the majority of primary schools, teaching about LGBT people and relationships will be age-appropriate for their pupils and we strongly encourage them to do that. But we have been at pains to ensure that this groundbreaking policy carries as much support as possible and achieves a broad consensus. That has been generally achieved.

We have applied the requirement to teach RSE not only to the schools in the state sector; we have applied that requirement also to schools in the independent sector, including independent orthodox faith schools. The law applies to those schools as well, and we have managed to achieve consensus with many of the religious organisations. That is why we have had that discretion in relation to teaching.

The hon. Member for Rotherham asked about training material to enable teachers to teach RSE, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs raised the same issue. The Department is committed to supporting schools to deliver high-quality teaching of relationships education. To support schools, we are investing up to £6 million, in this financial year, for the Department to develop a programme of support for schools. The funding will not be distributed to schools; it is about preparing the materials.

Further funding, beyond the next financial year, is, of course, a matter for the spending review that has just been announced. The programme of support will focus on tools that improve schools’ practice, such as the implementation guide that my right hon. Friend referred to, easy access to high-quality resources and support for staff training. The Department is currently working with schools and teachers to develop a programme of support suited to their needs. To support that, we are also setting up a new working group, and it will provide insight into how the guidance is working in practice. That is chaired by Ian Bauckham CBE, who is our education adviser and a senior headteacher.

We are very clear that parents from all faiths and none do not want their children to feel bullied or excluded at school or to feel that their family is not equally valued. Through our call for evidence and the consultation on the content for these subjects, there was an absolute consensus that all pupils should be taught, as a minimum, about respect for themselves and for others.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham for his passionate speech. I hope we can all agree that children are never too young to learn about love, kindness, tolerance, difference, compassion and empathy, as part of creating a cohesive school community and in building a tolerant society. We need to do all we can to loosen the knot in the hearts of LGBT young people with relationships lessons and with role models, such as some of the hon. Members who have spoken in this important debate with such eloquence, passion and honesty.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing this debate in the week that many schools are starting the new academic year and just days after the Government announced a giant cash boost for schools across all parts of the country. I add my thanks and admiration to all teachers and teaching assistants starting the new term this week.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will set out in a statement to the House just after the statement on preparations for leaving the EU, we have committed an extra £14 billion of funding to schools throughout England over the next three years. That delivers on the Prime Minister’s pledge when entering Downing Street to increase school funding by £4.6 billion over and above inflation, levelling up education funding and giving all young people the same opportunities to succeed regardless of where they grow up or go to school.

We have been able to do this because of our balanced approach to the public finances and careful stewardship of the economy, which has resulted in the lowest level of unemployment since the mid-1970s and record levels of people in employment, a state of affairs that would be wrecked by any Labour-led Government. This funding settlement means that we can continue to build a world-class education system, helping to continue to raise standards in our schools.

The funding package includes a cash increase of £2.6 billion to core schools funding next year, which increases to £4.8 billion and then £7.1 billion in 2021-22 and 2022-23. That is in addition to the £1.5 billion per year that we are injecting into the school system to cover additional pensions cost for teachers over the next three years, ensuring that employer contributions to teachers’ pensions—equivalent to 23% of gross salaries—is fully funded. That addresses the concern raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham), who asked whether that teacher pension employer contribution would be fully funded. The answer is yes and it will be in addition to the £14 billion that we have announced.

This is a three-year settlement. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) criticised it for going into a period beyond this Parliament, but schools are seeking a three-year settlement; most schools with which I discuss school funding have been asking for a three-year settlement. In total, across the country, core funding for schools and high needs will rise to £52.2 billion—my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk was right about that figure—by 2022-23. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, this funding will reverse the reductions in real-terms per-pupil funding for five to 16-year-olds since 2015. That should address the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Norwich South.

As part of this significant investment, we will also deliver on the Prime Minister’s pledge to level up funding, providing increases for our lowest funded schools. Every secondary school will be allocated at least £5,000 per pupil next year, and every primary school will be allocated at least £3,750 per pupil, putting primary schools firmly on the path to receiving at least £4,000 per pupil in the following financial year. In East Anglia this means that per-pupil funding for 46% of secondary schools in the region—160 secondary schools—will level up to at least the minimum of £5,000 next year. In addition, per-pupil funding for 30% of primary schools in the region will level up to at least the minimum of £3,750 next year—that is 594 primary schools on the path to receiving at least £4,000 per pupil. We are also allocating funding so that every school’s per-pupil funding can rise at least in line with inflation and to accelerate gains for areas of the country that have been historically underfunded, with most areas seeing significant above-inflation gains.

I challenge the hon. Member for Norwich South on his characterisation of this year’s school funding. Even before this major announcement, funding in Norfolk has increased from £460.3 million in 2017-18, to £482 million, which is a 4.7% rise and equates to a 3% per-pupil rise.

The hon. Gentleman will have to wait, because we have not made the announcement for early years funding. If he can be patient a little longer, we will be making that announcement.

We will continue to distribute this money through the national funding formula, which is our historic reform to the schools funding system that continues to ensure that funding is based on the needs and characteristics of schools and pupils, rather than on the accidents of history or geography.

Today we have reaffirmed our intention to move to what is called a hard formula, whereby all school budgets are set on the basis of a single national formula, guaranteeing equity among all schools, wherever they are in the country. Moving to this approach will mean that neighbouring schools that happen to sit on different sides of a local authority boundary will be funded on the same basis, and it will no longer be the case that different decisions made by different local authorities mean that similar schools receive different budgets. We intend to move to this hard formula as soon as possible. Of course, we recognise that this will represent a significant change and we will work closely with local authorities, schools and others to make this transition as smooth as possible.

The hon. Member for Norwich South said that he was opposed to academies. He has publicly expressed what I would regard as unwarranted hostility against the Inspiration Trust—a multi-academy trust that is doing huge work to raise school standards in his part of East Anglia. That probably explains why he failed in his speech to congratulate Jane Austen College in his constituency, a free school, which this year published its first GCSE results. Its provisional Progress 8 score places it in the top 10% of schools nationally. Some 75% of pupils achieved grades 9 to 4 in maths and English, and 30% of students at that school achieved a grade 8 or 9, which are the top grades that can be achieved in a GCSE. I offer huge congratulations to Jane Austen College and all the staff and teachers at that school.

My hon. Friends the Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for North West Norfolk raised the hugely important issue of special educational needs funding. We are absolutely committed to supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities to reach their full potential, and we expect all schools to play their part. That funding increase therefore includes more than £700 million of extra funding to support children with special educational needs and disabilities to access the education that is right for them. We recognise that local authorities have pressures on these budgets for next year, and alongside that additional funding we will continue to work with local authorities and schools to ensure that this investment is working well for those children in greater need. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney also raised the important issue of funding for 16 to 19-year-olds.

I will look at that point. Ultimately these are matters for the schools themselves. The schools have an autonomous system, but we want to ensure that they have the funding they need to employ sufficient numbers of sufficiently well-trained SENCOs and teachers who are trained in helping children with special educational needs.

My hon. Friend raises a very important issue. We take the issue of mental health very seriously. He will also know, given that he is in the medical profession, that very significant extra funding was announced last year for the health service, with £20.5 billion more per year by 2023—these are huge sums of money—which will help to address many of the issues he has raised.

We also take mental health issues seriously in schools. We have published the Green Paper on the mental health of children and young people, which will put a mental health lead in every school. I think that issue was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk. At the moment, I think—this is off the top of my head, but I think my memory is right—that about half of secondary schools have such leads. We want every school to have them, supported by a mental health support unit. That is part of the Green Paper’s proposals and it will be very significantly funded as well. We also, of course, want to reduce the waiting times for children who need more specialist help with their mental health issues through CAMHs. We have given a commitment on reducing those waiting times.

On the issue of 16-to-19 funding, in addition to the schools and high needs blocks the investment also includes an additional £400 million to provide better education in colleges and school sixth forms in 2020-21. This means a 7% uplift to overall 16-to-19 funding, in addition to funding for staff pensions. We will also protect and increase the 16-to-19 base rate with funding worth £190 million, and provide a further £120 million for colleges and school sixth forms so that they can deliver those crucial but expensive subjects, such as engineering, that are vital for our future economy. This investment will help to ensure that we are building the skills that our country needs as we prepare to leave the European Union.

Of course, there are no great schools without great teachers. That is why this settlement offers a pledge to the members of this hard-working profession to put teaching where it belongs—at the top of the graduate labour market. Subject to the School Teachers Review Body process, this latest investment will make it possible to deliver the biggest reform of teacher pay in a generation, lifting teachers’ starting salaries to at least £30,000 by 2022. I reassure the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) that that will apply to all teachers; it will not differ by subject.

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk raised the issue of sparsity funding. The national funding formula includes support for small schools, especially in rural areas, and provides a lump sum of £110,000 for every school as a contribution to the costs that do not vary with pupil numbers. That gives schools certainty that they will attract a fixed amount each year in addition to the pupil-led funding. Last year, the sparsity factor in the formula allocated additional funding of £25 million specifically to schools that are both small and remote. Last year, therefore, 161 schools in East Anglia attracted a combined total of £3.2 million of sparsity funding.

With other schools in East Anglia that do not attract sparsity funding, either because they are not among the smallest schools nationally or because they are not far enough apart to meet the distance threshold, we have been clear that we want all schools to operate as efficiently as possible, and we believe that there is scope for rural schools in close proximity to work together to get the best value from their resources. However, we of course keep the formula under review and we are always prepared to change approaches to how we calculate sparsity. For example, should it be calculated based on as the crow flies, or should it be based on the actual distance travelled between schools?

While this additional funding will provide a crucial foundation on which to continue to build an excellent education for every pupil, it will also be vital to make sure that we get the very best value from every extra pound. Therefore, the Department’s support stretches much further than providing additional funding. Our announcements sit alongside our efforts to drive greater efficiency in school spending, and the Department’s school resource management strategy, which was launched last year, supports schools to make the most of every pound of their budgets. It includes deals to help schools to save money on the things they buy regularly, such as printers and photocopiers, and the roll-out of a free teacher vacancy listing website to help schools to find teachers and drive down recruitment costs.

In conclusion, I thank Members for their contributions to this debate and I am sure that many will want to know what the recent announcement means for their area and the schools in their own constituency. This information will be published early next month, once illustrative school-level allocations and provisional local authority-level allocations through the national funding formula are announced. I will end by reaffirming that this Government are committed to ensuring that all young people get the best possible start in life, and that includes ensuring the right funding for our schools. The substantial investment that we are making in our schools, the fairer distribution and levelling up of school funding, and the support to use those resources to the best effect are proof that that commitment is being delivered on in full.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury North (James Frith) on securing this debate. He speaks with a passion for music, which I share. He is preaching to the choir—excuse the pun. I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) that this funky Gibb will and does stand up for music in our schools. One of the initiatives that I am most proud of in my time as Schools Minister is the Classical 100 website, promoting classical music in primary schools, which was produced by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, Classic FM and Decca Records. Over 5,000 primary schools are already signed up to the site and I urge every primary school to do so.

The opportunity to study and explore music should not be a privilege; it is a vital part of a broad and balanced curriculum. All pupils should have access to a world-class music education. That is why music is compulsory for all pupils aged five to 14 in state-maintained schools. Academies, which do not have to follow the national curriculum, have to provide a broad and balanced curriculum. Ofsted’s new inspection framework, coming into force from September, will support that, providing a greater focus on the provision of a broad and balanced curriculum.

This Government are committed to music education. We are putting nearly half a billion pounds into arts education programmes—more money than any subject other than PE—to fund a range of cultural and music programmes between 2016 and 2020, in addition to the funding schools receive to deliver their curriculum. In November 2011, we published the national plan for music—referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage—which sets our vision for music in schools: to enable children from all backgrounds in every part of England to have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, to make music with others, to learn to sing and to have the opportunity to progress to the next level of expertise. We will refresh the national plan. We will consult widely on it and make further announcements in the coming plans.

Schools are responsible for delivering the music curriculum, but they cannot do it alone. Our network of music education hubs supports schools to provide high-quality music tuition. I pay tribute to the vital role my right hon. Friend played in the development of that policy. Between 2016 and 2020, we are providing in total over £300 million of ring-fenced funding for music education hubs, in addition to the funding that goes to schools to deliver the curriculum. Earlier this year, we announced an extra £1.3 million for those hubs. That funding supports pupils, whatever their background, family income, or special needs. No child should be excluded from music because their parents cannot afford to pay for lessons or an instrument, or because they have physical disabilities or other special needs.

Music education hubs help hundreds of thousands of young people learn to play an instrument in whole classes every year. They also ensure that clear progression routes are available and affordable. Many hubs subsidise the cost of lessons for pupils. The programme helps schools to nurture the budding seeds of musical passion that can unlock so much pleasure throughout life, as we heard from the hon. Member for Bury North. In the years to come, many adults with a passion for music will have the work of music hubs to thank for first introducing them to the joys of playing an instrument and playing in ensembles. In the provision of music education, the Government believe in excellence, as well as equity. Talented young musicians need the opportunity to make music with others of a similar standard, and access to selective ensembles and a demanding repertoire. Music education hubs provide high-quality borough or county-wide ensembles and direct the most talented towards specialist provision.

Bury North is served by the Bury music hub, which works as part of the collaborative Greater Manchester music hub. In this academic year, the Bury hub has received over £292,000 of funding from the Government. Last year the hub delivered over 3,500 individual singing and instrumental lessons, and 14,000 small group singing and instrumental lessons. A report by Birmingham City University showed that in 2016-17, hubs worked with 89% of schools on at least one core role and helped over 700,000 pupils to learn to play a musical instrument in whole-class ensemble teaching. That is an increase of 19% on 2013-14, the first year in which like-for-like figures are available, when the number was 596,000.

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) spoke about singing. The Government recognise the value of singing in schools. Developing a singing strategy to ensure that every pupil sings regularly is a core role of the music education hubs. According to the last published figures, 70% of schools in England were supported by hubs with singing strategies.

I want to ensure that the music lessons young people receive are of the highest quality and that pupils leave school having experienced an excellent music education, so that those who wish to do so can take up opportunities to pursue musical careers. To ensure that, we have started work with music experts to develop a high-quality model music curriculum, which builds on the national curriculum and forms part of our plans to ensure that all pupils can benefit from knowledge-rich lessons. It is being drafted under the direction of an expert panel composed of practitioners, education leaders and music specialists, and will provide schools with a sequenced and structured template curriculum for Key Stages 1, 2 and 3. I hope that the curriculum will make it easier for teachers, including non-specialist teachers, to plan lessons and will help to reduce their workload. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Henley that folk songs are an important part of our musical heritage and I hope they will be included in that curriculum.

The hon. Member for Bury North raised concerns that careers in the arts have become the preserve of the privileged and privately educated. To ensure that that is not the case in years to come, the Government are continuing to fund more than 500 full-time places at four specialist music schools, including the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Purcell School, and a similar number of places at four specialist dance schools, including the Royal Ballet School, through the music and dance scheme. The vast majority of pupils board, and means-tested bursaries are available to ensure that entry to the schools is based on pupils’ talent, not on their parents’ ability to pay fees. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage pointed out, funding for the music and dance scheme has been maintained since we came into power. The scheme also funds places at the junior departments of six music conservatoires.

As well as supporting the music hubs, the Government are committed to a number of programmes, including the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain and the National Youth Orchestra, that aim to enhance the musical opportunities of young people and ensure that the talent pipeline that is so important to this country remains open. Our funding helps to ensure that no one is turned away because their parents cannot pay. We also provide funding for In Harmony, an intensive orchestral experience focused on schools in some of the country’s most deprived communities.

The EBacc, which the hon. Member for Bury North and others raised, was introduced to give young people the same chances to succeed through education. It is key to increasing social mobility, and an important part of that is giving all children the opportunity to study the five core academic areas at GCSE: English, maths, science, humanities and a foreign language. The range of subjects that the EBacc offers provides a sound basis for enriching pupils’ studies, opening up a variety of careers beyond the age of 16 and giving a broad general knowledge that will enable pupils to participate in and contribute to society. Research published in August 2017 by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies found that studying the EBacc combination of GCSEs increases the likelihood that a pupil will stay on in full-time education.

It is not the case, however, that the EBacc has had an impact on the uptake of music GCSEs. Since 2010, the proportion of pupils entered for GCSE music has fluctuated but remained broadly stable at approximately 6% or 7% of the total GCSE cohort. People tend to cite the raw numbers, which have fallen since 2010 along with the total number of secondary school pupils, but the proportions have remained broadly stable.

The proportions have remained broadly stable during that period. I do not have a breakdown of the free school meal figures, but there is nothing to suggest from the raw proportions that there should be any change in those figures. However, I will come back to the hon. Lady with the precise numbers, which I hope will reassure her.

The EBacc was designed to be limited in scope to allow pupils to study additional important subjects such as music. The percentage of time spent teaching the arts subjects in secondary schools remained broadly stable between 2010 and 2018, and our survey of primary schools indicates that they spend the same amount of time teaching music as they spend teaching other important subjects such as history and geography.

It should also be recognised that many pupils decide not to study the arts as academic subjects, but continue to take part in artistic activities in and out of school, such as singing in choirs, playing in orchestras and bands, and performing in school plays. The DCMS Taking Part survey in 2018 showed that 96% of children aged five to 15 had engaged with the arts in the previous 12 months. We are investing more than £70 million this year to support young people and adults to get high-quality careers provision, including careers advice on arts-related careers.

Northampton School for Boys is an example of how the EBacc does not necessarily mean a reduction in the arts. It has more than 20 ensembles and choirs, yet it also enters 70% of its pupils for the EBacc combination of GCSEs—significantly above the national average of 38%. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage cited Didcot Girls’ School in his constituency for its exemplary music provision; at 52%, its EBacc entry figures are way above the national average.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) pointed out, the music industry is vital to this country; the hon. Member for Bury North was absolutely right to pay tribute to it. We are a nation with natural musical talent and a love for music that we all have an interest in cultivating. UK Music’s report “Securing Our Talent Pipeline” helpfully highlights the importance of the music industry to the UK economy, and I agree with its conclusion that if we want to produce the stars of the future, we must invest in talent for the future. I hope that it is clear to all hon. Members present that the Government are committed to doing precisely that.

I am enormously grateful to the hon. Member for Bury North for his securing this debate and for his passionate case for the importance of music education. He raised some important concerns, and I hope that I have reassured him that the Government share his commitment to ensuring that music can be enjoyed by every young person. The new model curriculum, the refreshed national plan for music, the ongoing support for our successful music hubs and our other music programmes will make sure that the next generation of music superstars have all the support that they need in schools, from their first exposure to the joys of music at a young age to provision for the brightest and most talented young musicians. All children deserve the chance to fulfil their musical potential. Thanks to the national network of music hubs, the music and dance scheme, and the support of organisations such as UK Music, I believe that pupils are being provided with that opportunity.

West Suffolk.

You do.

It is a pleasure to reply to this debate under your beady eye, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O'Brien) on having secured this debate, and on his excellent opening speech. The Government recognise the importance of rural schools and the need to maintain access to good local schools in rural areas, which, as hon. Members have said, are so often at the heart of their communities.

I also echo my hon. Friend’s recognition of the strong educational standards in many rural schools. Although we know those schools face special challenges, we also know that they rise to those challenges and perform well. In terms of attainment, both primary and secondary, rural schools have on average outperformed urban schools over the past three years, and 89% of rural primary schools have been rated either “good” or “outstanding”.

We want to ensure that school funding levels support an education system that offers opportunity to every child in this country. To continue to support all schools, including those in rural areas, the Government have prioritised education funding while having to take difficult decisions in other areas of public spending, as we seek to reduce the unsustainable annual budget deficit from 10% of GDP in 2010—some £150 billion a year—to under 2% now. As a result, core funding for schools and high needs has risen to £43.5 billion this year, and high needs funding has risen to £6.3 billion. However, we recognise the financial pressures that schools face, as described so well by my hon. Friends the Members for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) and for Witney (Robert Courts).

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) reminded me of our visit to St Erth Community Primary School, which I enjoyed. I remember being lobbied by its school council, which was almost as compelling as my hon. Friend in making the case for capital for the school hall. Although I cannot pre-empt decisions that will be made as part of the forthcoming spending review process, we are of course looking to secure the best deal possible for our schools, both revenue funding and capital funding. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough recognises the decisive and historic move towards fair funding that this Government have made by introducing the national funding formula. The NFF is now directing money where it is most needed, based on schools’ and pupils’ needs and characteristics rather than accidents of geography or history.

Schools are already benefiting from the gains delivered by the national funding formula. It has allocated an increase for every pupil in every school, with significant per-pupil increases for the more underfunded schools, including those in rural areas. For example, as my hon. Friend mentioned, funding for schools in his local area of Leicestershire has increased by 5.5% per pupil compared to 2017-18. That is equivalent to an extra £31 million when rising pupil numbers are taken into account. As he stated, we do direct funding to provide additional support for small and remote schools, especially those in geographically challenging areas that do not have the same opportunities to find efficiencies as schools elsewhere.

The national funding formula provides a lump sum for every school as a contribution to the costs that do not vary with pupil numbers. That gives small schools certainty that they will attract a fixed amount each year, in addition to pupil-led funding. Although there is general agreement that schools face fixed costs, the evidence available suggests that there is no agreement on the scale of those costs, or that they are the same for all schools. In the previous system, local authorities awarded their schools very different lump sums, ranging from £48,480 to £175,000, and there was no obvious reason why local authorities chose those different amounts. It is important to maximise the funding available for the factors that are directly related to pupils’ characteristics, so following our extensive consultations with schools, we set the lump sum at £110,000 for each school within the national funding formula. However, the beauty of a national funding formula is that we can tweak it from year to year.

The formula also includes a sparsity factor, which allocates an additional £25 million specifically to small and remote schools. When the lump sum is coupled with that sparsity factor, it provides significant support for the small and remote schools that play such an essential role in rural communities. A small rural primary school eligible for sparsity funding can attract up to a total of £135,000 through the lump sum and the sparsity factor. Of course, we continue to look for ways in which the national funding formula can be improved; in particular, we are considering how to improve the methodology for calculating sparsity eligibility in future, and we will consider the suggestion my hon. Friend the Member for Witney made of a dedicated rural school funding stream.

Local authorities have a duty to provide sufficient school places for all pupils in their area, including reviewing provision where populations have grown or declined. Consequently, local authorities have the power to close maintained schools; that is a local decision, and neither Ministers nor the Department play a role in the process. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) will be pleased to know that given their importance, we have a presumption against the closure of rural schools. Although that cannot mean that no rural school will ever close, the case for closure must be strong and in the best interests of educational provision for pupils in the area. When a local authority proposes the closure of a rural school, it must follow a well-established statutory process that takes full account of that presumption against closure. That includes a representation period, during which all those affected by the proposals can submit their views and suggestions.

To enable my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough to respond to the debate, I will conclude. Our rural communities are part of the historic fabric of this country, and the schools that serve them are fulfilling a vital and valued service both locally and nationally. I believe that by working closely together, we can make sure we deliver on our ambition to give every child a world-class education, wherever they live.

This spring, Parliament passed the relationships, sex and health education regulations with overwhelming support. We know that many parents agree that these subjects should be taught by schools. We also know that for some parents, this raises concerns. Parents have a right to understand what we are requiring schools to teach and how their child’s school is intending to go about it. That is why we will be requiring schools to consult parents on their relationship education or RSE policy. Open and constructive dialogue can only work, however, if the facts of the situation are known to all.

We are aware that misinformation is circulating about what schools currently teach about relationships and what they will teach when the new subjects are introduced. The Department for Education has undertaken a number of activities in response. In April this year, we published frequently asked questions designed to bust myths on the subjects. They have been translated into three languages. In June, we published the final version of the relationships, sex and health education guidance, as well as guides for parents on the subjects. Alongside that, we produced infographics that can be easily shared on social media—including WhatsApp, where we know much of the misinformation is shared—setting out the facts. We also sent an email to almost 40,000 teachers, providing them with factual information and links to various documents.

The Department has also been working on the ground with Birmingham City Council, Parkfield School, parents and other interested parties to convey the facts of the policy and dispel myths, to support a resolution to the protests in that school and nearby Anderton Park School. Nationally, we have worked with the National Association of Head Teachers to understand where there might be parent concerns in other parts of the country and to offer support. We will continue those efforts to support the introduction of the new subjects, which we strongly believe are hugely important for children growing up in modern Britain.