School Attendance

Debate between Robert Halfon and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon]

I will ensure that the Schools Minister, or the School Buildings Minister, hear what the hon. Lady says; I will pass on her remarks. And I am sure that that meeting will take place.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will my right hon. Friend the Minister give way?

[Robert Halfon]

I want to carry on, if I may, because I only have a few minutes in which to speak and I want to respond to some of the points that have already been made. However, if I do have time to take an intervention, I will give way a bit later, if my hon. Friend will be so kind.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford referred to the School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill, which she herself presented before Christmas. As she has said, that Bill will introduce two new legal duties on schools and local authorities respectively. I am grateful for her work on the Bill and welcome her contribution to the debate. I and the Government look forward to the future stages of the Bill as it progresses through the House, which she will know about, because she will have had discussions with the relevant Ministers. Those stages include Second Reading next Friday.

We absolutely remain committed to making guidance on school attendance statutory, which has already been discussed this afternoon by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford. We are exploring all avenues to do that. That is in recognition of the attendance challenge and to help ensure that local authorities and schools consistently meet the expectations made of them, under our “support first” approach.

There was also some discussion of mental health. All Members here today will be pleased to know that mental health support teams now cover almost 44% of pupils in schools and further education, and that percentage will increase to around 50% by March next year. We have also committed to offer all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025, which will make a huge difference. Over 14,400 schools and colleges have received a senior mental health lead training grant so far, including more than seven in 10 state-funded secondary schools in England.

As a Government, we also remain committed to introducing the statutory local authority registers for children not in school, as well as a duty for local authorities to provide support to home-educating families, which my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) mentioned in his intervention. That is to help ensure that all children receive a suitable education and are safe, regardless of where they are educated. That is the crucial point.

We warmly welcome the Children Not In School (Register) Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) and await its Second Reading on 15 March. I am also grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford for the dedication that she has shown. We will continue to work with local authorities to improve their existing non-statutory registers, and support them to ensure that all children in their area receive a suitable education. Also, the Department recently held a consultation on revised elective home education guidance for local authorities and parents, with the aim of improving consistency of practice across all local authorities. That consultation closed on 18 January and we are currently analysing the responses to it.

My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds also mentioned attendance mentoring and I welcome his support for what the Government are doing. We are currently delivering support in Middlesbrough, Doncaster, Knowsley, Stoke and Salford, and will expand into 10 new areas later this year to reach 10,000 children who are severely absent. Having heard me say that, I hope he will see that a lot is going on to try to resolve this very difficult problem.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; I think he has time. Will he address the problem that I mentioned at the end of my speech, which was about the liaison between local education authorities and the Department of Health and Social Care, and mental health trusts in particular? In Gloucestershire, the waiting lists for children with mental health problems are extremely long. We really need to do better by our young people.

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

I am sure the Minister is aware that he should leave a minute or two for the right hon. Member for Chelmsford to wind up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Halfon and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I am not quite sure what problem the hon. and learned Lady is trying to solve. I mentioned to her that our target was 600,000 international students; we have surpassed that—679,000 international students are coming to our country, which is something we are proud of. But as I said, we have to be fair to not only international students and universities but the taxpayer, who bears the cost of the infrastructure. But I agree with the hon. and learned Lady that international students have a huge impact on the economy, of up to £37 billion-plus.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Time after time, we find that every Government Department is short of young graduates with digital skills. Will my right hon. Friend think about making an application to the Home Office to encourage more visas to be granted to students who want to take digital degrees in this country?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is learned in these matters, but they are for the Home Office. We are developing our digital skills at home with amazing digital apprenticeships. Half of our 670 apprenticeship standards are in STEM subjects, and there are T-levels and higher technical qualifications in digital. We are spending on the digital skills that our local people need. We have to give them the skills they need as well.