Education Recovery

Debate between Robert Halfon and Peter Kyle

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman, whom I regard as a friend, gets it exactly right. People often focus just on the loss of academic attainment, but there are also the mental health problems facing children during the pandemic. We know that eating disorders have gone up by 400% among young people, which is a pretty horrific figure. We also know that one in six children has mental health difficulties when it used to be one in nine. The Minister is putting a lot more money—many millions of pounds—into mental health, and I welcome that, but I would like to see a mental health practitioner or counsellor in every school in the land, with proper time not just for the kids but for the parents and teachers as well. We have almost a mental health epidemic sweeping through the younger generation because of covid and many other factors that are much more complex.

To go back to the ghosted children, we must implement rigorous methods for tracking where each of these children is and assessing what educational standard of learning they are receiving. I applaud the investment that Ministers and the Government have made so far to address lost learning. The £3 billion of additional support for children to make further progress in the curriculum after a significant amount of time away from school during the pandemic is a genuine commitment to this generation—it is a significant amount of money that should not be sniffed at—but we need to ensure that there is further funding down the track. Let me tell hon. Members about two wonderful schools in my constituency to showcase how that funding can translate to on-the-ground catch-up offers in schools. Abbotsweld Primary Academy has allocated the additional funding to allow for four days of 8 am starts for year 5 and 6 pupils. The start of the day includes a free breakfast alongside physical education lessons, and there is additional time for English and mathematics during the school day. Burnt Mill Academy is using £5,000 of its catch-up funding to offer summer schools to support students’ literacy and numeracy skills, ensuring that the gaps in learning are closed through enrichment activities. Our teachers and support staff all around the country are working hard to put the money to good use so that it has the most significant impact possible, and we give them our thanks.

Let me remind the House that the objectives of the measures to support education recovery are to recover the missed learning caused by coronavirus and to reduce the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. As I have said, I commend the Department for the money that has been put in—the £3 billion and the increase in pupil premium funding to £2.5 billion for 2021-22. However, will the Minister confirm whether changing the date of the school census in 2020 from October to January has meant a loss of £90 million to schools, as 62,216 children became eligible but did not attract pupil premium in 2021-22? I also ask him whether the catch-up funding proposed by the Government is not new money, but funds repurposed from existing budgets, which are now being shared out among all students instead of focused on those who suffer the most disadvantage and are at the most threat of lost learning. Will he confirm that this is really new money for catch-up and recovery?

As I have argued before, the Government should set out a long-term plan for education and education recovery, with a transparent funding settlement, much as we see from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Defence. If the Department of Health and Social Care can have a 10-year plan and a secure funding settlement, and the Ministry of Defence can have a strategic review and a long-term funding settlement, why can education not have a long-term plan and a secure funding settlement?

I really welcome the catch-up programme, and I campaigned for it, but my worry is that just 44% of the children who are using the tutoring programme are eligible for free school meals. The Sutton Trust also says that 34% of pupil premium funding is being used to plug gaps in school budgets—to fix leaky roofs, for example. The funding is not always used for the purpose it should be. The whole reason for today’s debate is to shine light into the darkest corners of budget allocation and highlight where we can concentrate funding in the areas that are often overlooked.

My Education Committee’s report, “The forgotten: how White working-class pupils have been let down, and how to change it”, draws attention to how white British pupils eligible for free school meals already suffer from persistent and multi-generational disadvantage and disengagement from the curriculum, from early years through to higher education. That is compounded by place-based factors, including regional economics and under-investment, and family disengagement from education, all of which combine to create a perfect storm of disadvantage. Carefully allocated catch-up funding can support those pupils to weather that storm.

What Sir Kevan Collins was proposing, as he set out again to the Education Committee this morning, was more from the catch-up offer, to extend the school day, providing enrichment and sporting activities to promote soft skills such as teamwork, negotiation and problem solving, which have all fallen by the wayside during remote learning.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way on that point. During the last education debate, he intervened on me and the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), in his characteristically inquisitorial way and pressed us to say whether we agreed with the extension of the school day and, if so, whether we agreed to an academic focus in that extension. I responded that we did support the extension and out-of-hours activity, but we wanted it to be more creatively focused and used quite imaginatively.

I noticed that Kevan Collins said today, in response to the right hon. Gentleman’s questions, that he wanted to create a space for children to be involved in a much broader range of experiences—the things they have missed, such as sports, drama and art. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is a reflective person. Does he now agree that the approach for any extended time at school needs to be along those lines, rather than the purely academic lines that he was proposing before?

[Robert Halfon]

If the hon. Gentleman looks at everything that I have said in the House, in the Select Committee and in newspaper articles, he will see that I have made it very clear from day one—the Minister will vouch for this, because I have nagged him about it often enough—that I absolutely believe in a longer day. It should be not just for academic catch-up, but for enrichment activities, mental health support and sporting activities; I have made the case and cited statistics to show that those also increase educational attainment. The reason I said what I did to the Opposition was that Opposition Members had been in the media giving quite confusing messages about whether they supported a longer school day. If they support a longer day now with both academic and enrichment activities, I strongly welcome that.

The mental health of young people has sustained worrying damage as a result of extended social isolation during a critical stage of their development. A longer school day provides opportunities to socialise and interact with many more peers than just having lessons can offer. The Department should leave no stone unturned to find underspend in its budget and re-channel the money into catch-up to make Sir Kevan’s vision a reality.

I present a proposition to the Minister. Schools and teachers have carried out the marking and assessment that exam boards normally undertake and are paid handsomely for. Of course, exam boards spent money on exams before they were cancelled, such as on creating and printing exam papers, but substantial refunds to reflect the lack of exam marking are likely to be given to schools and colleges. Last year, OCR gave back a total of £7.9 million, while AQA—the UK’s largest provider of academic qualifications—returned £42 million to schools and colleges, a rebate of approximately 25%. It is suggested that as much as 50% will be refunded this year. There is a strong ethical argument for that rebate to be used to fund pilot schemes in secondary schools to extend the school day, which will help to make the case for funding from the Treasury. Given that the Minister and the Secretary of State have said that the Government are seriously looking at this, I hope that something will come out of the comprehensive spending review.

I have made clear my feelings that the catch-up money is a welcome starter, or possibly what the French refer to as an amuse-bouche—a small bite, or even a big bite, before the main meal—but it should not yet be considered as a nourishing main course. I urge the Department to look at the recommendations in the Education Committee’s report on white working-class children to offer tailored funding at local and neighbourhood level and, as the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities also recommends, to level up educational and extracurricular opportunities.

The Department could start by combining the catch-up funding and the pupil premium in one almighty package, an approach that Sir Kevan Collins supported at our Committee evidence session this morning. Money would be available for pupils whom schools identify as in need—such as SEND students and those who struggle with mental health problems as a result of the lockdowns, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out—but there would be money clearly ring-fenced in the estimates memo for the most disadvantaged, and it would be microtargeted to reflect regional disparities in learning loss.

Only by ensuring that the catch-up programme achieves value for money and is focused on disadvantaged pupils will the Government head off the four horsemen of the education apocalypse that are galloping towards our young people: attainment loss, mental health damage, vulnerability to safeguarding hazards through persistent school absences, and a loss of lifetime earnings. Let us get these children back on the education ladder of opportunity.

Investing in Children and Young People

Debate between Robert Halfon and Peter Kyle

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I put on record my thanks and gratitude to every student, teacher and support worker who has worked so hard in these difficult times. I also thank the Minister for School Standards for kicking off the debate with his usual leadership skills. So effective were they that in his 15-minute speech he pretty much failed to mention the catch-up plan or the moment that we are living through. That trend was followed by most of his hon. Friends.

It was a debate where there was sometimes more constructive agreement than was apparent. I was struck when the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) made a passionate speech calling for a whole-society approach to supporting children. I really hope he finds the time to read our plan, because we have championed that in opposition. I know that the shadow Education Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), has a driving passion for it too, and it is riven through our educational catch-up plan.

This is a pivotal moment: one when students and school communities across our country will discover whether Ministers match the ambition that young people have for themselves and for our country, or whether this week will be like the last, when those in government, from the Prime Minister down, made the decision—yes, it was a decision—to become the barrier to young people bounding forwards after the challenges that pandemic life has presented them with. Anyone who has played a role, large or small, in the running of schools, colleges or nurseries will pay testament to the resilience, character and sense of purpose with which most students approach their education. Even in the last 13 years, as the core curriculum and testing became myopic, funding per pupil was slashed, class sizes grew and teaching assistants dwindled, students and their teachers found ways to move forward.

The challenges disproportionately placed on those living with disabilities was covered very well by my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), and, in a very thoughtful speech, by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt). For too many individual youngsters down the generations, insurmountable barriers have existed. The doors to the education they deserve need to be broken down—they are not wide open, as they should be. Tackling that has been the central mission of education policy across the political divide for as long as I have known it. We may disagree over how to achieve it, but both parties have usually tried their very best, until now. The events of the last week show us that the challenge is no longer just about knocking down barriers for individual student learning; it is about the Government slamming the brakes on an entire generation, making it harder for every student to learn, capping the potential—the essence of what is possible—for young people up and down the country. This is a new low, even for the party that voted against feeding hungry kids over the holidays. For all of history there has been one great leveller: education. Yet before us is a party that promises to “level up”, but in practice puts bricks before people. You can’t level-up without giving people who are trying to overcome the greatest barriers all the support they need.

To take just one example, students in the north-west are seven times more likely to be absent from school for covid-related reasons than those elsewhere. They need the greatest support to overcome this simple but immense challenge. The only significant catch-up programme to survive the butchery by Government of the Kevan Collins report is the national tutoring programme. Overall, it is reaching only 1% of students, but, crucially, even then 40% fewer students are participating in the north than in the south. It is about time Ministers heard the truth: this is not levelling up; this is robbing opportunity from those in greatest need. Covid has disrupted the incredible effort that our students and teachers are putting in every single day. The average pupil has missed 115 school days and the attainment gap has widened by a devastating 24% in some circumstances, and this has come on top of many wasted years, when no progress was made on helping those with barriers to learning to keep up with those who do not have such barriers.

Perhaps most shocking of all is this Government’s inability to make the link between investment in education today and economic prosperity for all tomorrow. In that, their lack of imagination is breathtaking. The Collins report outlined colossal scarring to our economy in the absence of immediate, large-scale intervention. The Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that half a year’s lost learning could cost our economy £350 billion in lower lifetime earnings. At the start of the pandemic, the Chancellor announced a furlough scheme, which Labour supported, at a cost of £14 billion per month. He did not tell workers to wait six months until his spending review to see whether they would be supported. Individual workers and our economy as a whole needed support then, and, rightly, they got it. At the last Budget, the Chancellor announced a super deduction—£25 billion in tax breaks for the 1% of companies at the top. He said they needed that much, right at that moment, so he delivered it.

However, when it comes to the moment of greatest need for education, the difference is stark and everyone sees it. Furlough covers 80% of workers; the National Tutoring Programme covers 1% of students. The difference could not be more stark. Instead of doing “whatever it takes” to support students in their quest to learn, the Government have given them a tenth of what their own adviser said was needed, and shelved most of the recommendations in a report that they commissioned.

The National Audit Office tracked how much different Departments have spent in additional spending during the pandemic. The Department for Education came eighth. The Prime Minister said that education was his priority and the Chancellor said the same, but now we know the truth. The education, wellbeing and resilience of our nation’s youngsters are the Government’s eighth priority. They are all but forgotten, and the Secretary of State is all too forgettable in the Prime Minister’s eyes.

[Robert Halfon]

Further to my question to the shadow Secretary of State, does the hon. Gentleman agree with the core part of Sir Kevan Collins’s plan that there should be a structured, longer school day? Is that the Labour party’s position or not?

[Peter Kyle]

What struck me when people said throughout the debate that we are against a longer school day is that if they read Labour’s plan, they would see that we are calling for a day that is long and full of activity. The shadow Secretary of State has called for that consistently in the past week. We want to discuss how that extra time is used, which should be a cause for considerable deliberation by the House. However, given the number of Members who stood up today to say that they do not want any extra money to be spent on additional days, I do not see how the right hon. Gentleman can call for anything.

The House will shortly divide and Members will have the chance to support key priorities in the Collins report and Labour’s national children’s recovery plan: a temporary uplift in the pupil premium; resources so that school facilities can be used out of hours; and emotional support so that every student can focus on the learning, and those challenged by stress in these times are not held back. If the motion falls and the Government continue on their current course, students will have more challenges to overcome, not just in the weeks to come, but into the future. Our economy will be scarred for decades as will our ability to compete around the world against countries, which, in this moment of crisis, are investing 30 times more in their students than we are. That will haunt our nation and hold back our economy.

In the weeks and months ahead, our schools should be hubs of buzzing, healthy activity during school hours and way beyond. A school without students is not a school; it is just another empty building. This summer, whenever we pass a quiet, empty school, that building will also represent something else: it will be a monument to this moment of greatest need, when students and those who support them were truly abandoned by this Tory Government.