Foster Carers

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. As has been said, the funding that is being taken out of the system means that, unfortunately, we are not continuing to provide the support that is needed, in terms of both social workers and the many other people who are involved in children’s care.

The system South Tyneside Council has in place means that if a breakdown occurs between the child and foster family, the local authority is accountable, thus upholding the fostering standards to improve outcomes. With such support mechanisms in place, more people will be encouraged to become foster carers.

However, we must recognise that South Tyneside’s model relies on factors for which the responsibility lies truly at the feet of Government Ministers. The cuts to local authorities over the past 12 years, along with the present day record levels of children needing emergency foster care mean that my local authority, like most others, must turn to independent fostering agencies to plug the gap. The money local authorities have to spend from Government grants, council tax and business rates has fallen by 16% since 2010. That means that local authorities have an increasingly limited capacity to respond to significant inflationary pressures.

While I respect the work that members of IFAs do to alleviate the pressure felt by local authorities, those agencies have the ability to add another complex, unnecessary layer between the child and the local authority, meaning that when crisis hits, unnecessary delays, which are detrimental to all involved, are often hard to avoid. In South Tyneside Council, 50% of children are placed into IFAs.

We also need to break down the popular perceptions of fostering, which undermine the diverse and varying shapes that it can take. Fostering should not be compared with adoption, although it often is. We need to break through the perception that fostering is a means, whereas adoption is the end, because one size does not fit all. We also need to recognise that circumstances in the lives of carers can change. The value of a carer fostering one child needs to be recognised as the same as a carer who may foster many children.

Finally, we need to appreciate that, more often than not, foster carers can be thrust into a situation at extreme short notice. Their presence in the safeguarding process can often be to provide emergency care.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. The House is always at its best when Members draw on their personal experience and my hon. Friend’s speech shows that she knows what she is talking about. I add my thanks to Fostering Network, who I have worked with a lot in the past and who I have found to be incredibly helpful.

I want to pick up on black, Asian and minority ethnic foster carers and children from BAME communities. BBC analysis shows that two thirds of councils in England have a shortage of BAME foster carers, but 23% of children on the waiting list are from BAME backgrounds. Black boys are left longest on the waiting lists. I wondered whether my hon. Friend might comment, and I hope the Minister will also pick up on that point.

[Kate Osborne]

That point came up in my meeting with the head of children’s services in my local authority. As my hon. Friend says, we are desperately short of BAME foster carers.

Often children arrive into foster care with nothing apart from the clothes they are wearing. The responsibility lies firmly with the fostering family to pick up from there, otherwise the child would have nothing.

What do we need from the Government? I would like the Minister to look at and seriously consider the Mockingbird strategy as adopted by South Tyneside and many others, and to listen to best practice from my and other local authorities. I hope we will hear more on that today from other Members.

The Mockingbird model is based on the idea of an extended family. The strategy focuses on a fostering hub, where satellite carers work in sync to provide specialist and centralised care to children along with real-time support for those satellite carers. Mockingbird means intervention can take place without the need to necessarily remove children completely from their support network, should an emergency occur. Depending on circumstances, the programme can be adjusted to include birth families and adoptive families, and to provide support for independent living, while giving assurance to foster carers and those in care that a secure and close support network is at hand.

I also want the Minister to listen to the recommendations set out by the Fostering Network, which with others is calling for a fully funded national fostering strategy, a national fostering leadership board and a national register of foster carers. In addition, the Government need to carry out a comprehensive review of the minimum levels of fostering allowance, using up-to-date evidence to ensure foster carers are given sufficient payment to cover the full cost of looking after a child.

There is no one quick fix to address the issues relating to the retention of foster carers. The themes of carers feeling unsupported, making a financial loss and not being treated as workers would lead to a high turnover rate and chronic difficulties in recruitment in any workforce. I hope that today’s debate acts as an opportunity to address Members’ concerns from their constituencies and encourages the Minister to put recommendations in place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

1. What steps he is taking to help ensure that families are able to access adequate early years support.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

It is wonderful that the hon. Lady has returned to the theme of families; I remember the passion she showed in her time as shadow Minister for Children and Families.

The Government are investing £300 million to transform family help services in 75 local authorities. That money includes funding for family hubs, the supporting families programme and start for life services.

[Tulip Siddiq]

The Labour Government built more than 3,600 Sure Start centres, which provided a vital lifeline for many families throughout the country. This Government proceeded to close 1,000 Sure Start centres and then undertook a review of the early years sector that found that every parent and child should have access to early years support. Frankly, I could have told the Government that without undertaking a review. The review was published more than a year ago and I have not yet seen any plans for or details on having a family hub in every community in the country. When will the Secretary of State’s Department publish details of the family hubs in every community in the country? Or is this another instance of the Government paying lip service to the early years?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

What the hon. Lady omitted to say was that Sure Start was a good policy that was badly implemented under the Labour Government. They focused on bricks and mortar rather than on actually reaching and helping the families we will reach with the family hubs. We will announce very shortly the half of England’s local authorities that will have evidence-led, multi-agency family hubs that will reach exactly those families—exactly like I saw when I visited the family hub in Harlow with the Chair of the Education Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon).

Early Years Educators

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the role of early years educators.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Gray. Looking around me, I also see many friends and supporters of our early years sector. I thank them for taking time out of their schedules to come to debate this issue; I know that there are a lot of important competing issues in Parliament today.

I start with two declarations of interest. First, I am married to a hard-working early years educator, who will be arriving home very shortly to pick up the school run and then juggle all the different things that working mums do while working dads are in Parliament—or vice versa. Secondly, for the last couple of years it has been my pleasure to chair the all-party parliamentary group on childcare and early education; we held our annual general meeting in the last hour, actually. I want to extend my thanks to parliamentary colleagues who have supported our work over the last year and have committed to do so for the year ahead. I was somehow re-elected chairman of the group for the next year. I also thank many colleagues old and new who have agreed to serve as officers for the coming year: we have much to do.

This afternoon’s debate is timely. It rather wonderfully coincides with the all-party group’s annual childcare and early education week, which celebrates and promotes the hard work of our early years educators and sector. Our theme for this year is celebrating the role of the early years workforce as educators, which is what I wanted to place at the heart of my chairmanship of the group, and seeking to explore the challenges that the workforce faces and celebrate the good work that it does.

Last week, the all-party group held a forum for parents to share their experiences of early years educators and settings. It was chaired by the brilliant Professor Kathy Sylva of Oxford University. Professor Sylva is at this very moment providing an update to the meeting of our all-party group, which is being chaired in my absence by the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). The session is being recorded, and I urge any colleagues who would like to catch up on it to follow our social media channels. Parents provided some incredible examples. I see this as an example of the very best work that we can do in Westminster, and I am sure that Professor Sylva will not mind me touching on some of the things that were said. One parent spoke about the empathy, patience and humour an early years educator shows when working with both her and her child, who has significant special educational needs. Another reminded us of the little freedoms that early years settings empower families to have. One lady said she occasionally has lunch with her partner; that may sound frivolous, but one the best things that we can do for our children is provide them with a loving, secure home environment—and making sure that mum and dad stay mum and dad is rather important, too. One phrase that touched me was from a parent discussing the key worker in their child’s early years setting, who said:

“Simply, we would be lost without these people. They are truly amazing.”

Of course, there are areas for development in the early years workforce as we strive for its continued betterment. At our forum, parents raised the issues of settings’ opening hours and, overwhelmingly, the need to ensure that early years educators are properly paid, a subject to which I will return.

I commend the Government for acting on this issue in the spending review. Following a meeting that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) and I had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), he placed early years at the centre of some of his announcements in this area in the Budget. He quadrupled the funding for early years settings over the next three years. That was most welcome, and an important step towards shoring up a sector that has been heavily hit, it is fair to say, during the pandemic.

However, as I have said before, this is not just about money. The early years sector faces an existential crisis as settings are being forced to close, and the valued early years educators that we are talking about are then lost to other lines of work, often due to remuneration. Most worryingly of all, bright young prospects are put off a career as an early years educator. At a meeting of our all-party group in December, two apprentices spoke compellingly about their work with children under five. However, those brilliant talents were pursuing careers in social care and not in early years. Social care is an important vocation, but they are a great loss to the potential early years workforce of tomorrow, and we need them. So more must be done to draw the early years educators of tomorrow towards the profession, and not push them away.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Steve Brine]

I will give way to my predecessor as chair of the all-party group.

[Tulip Siddiq]

I know the hon. Member is a doughty champion for the early years sector. I have heard him mention his wife on several occasions and admire the work that she does. In an ideal world I would stay and make a speech in this debate, but I have to leave because I have moved to the shadow Treasury team and I have a commitment.

I wanted to come and pay tribute to the early years educators, and I am pleased the hon. Member still uses the term “educators”, because they are educators. They are not just key workers. They are the unsung heroes of our nation who make a massive difference to our children’s life chances. I do not think he mentioned how much they are paid, but on average, as he knows, it is only £7.42 an hour, which is dismal compared with how much it costs to live.

I wonder whether the hon. Member will comment on the fact that we need a cultural change in how we value and talk about early years practitioners and educators. Instead of just referring to the early years sector as childcare, we should also refer to early years educators and talk about early education. I could go on about this for ever.

[Steve Brine]

It is funny how often, in my almost 12 years in this House, people say, “That is amazing; I was just about to come on to that in my speech”, and funnily enough, I was. The hon. Lady led on this subject when she led the all-party group, and she is absolutely right. Far too often we have seen early years practitioners presented as well-meaning amateurs who are good at changing and plasticine. They are good at those, but they are also educators, so she is absolutely right. Following on from what she said, I think a major contributing factor to the fact that we are losing people from the profession and not attracting them into it is that early years educators have been subject to so many misconceptions about their role that it has affected how their profession is viewed and then how it can attract people.

First and most commonly is the notion that early years educators somehow do not hold the same status as those who work in the subsequent parts of the education profession. That could not be further from the truth. The first few years of early education is the foundation on which lifelong learning, health and wellbeing are built. Handling this phase of a child’s life requires specialist knowledge and specialist approaches from trained, qualified practitioners. Early years educators are highly trained professionals and they hold specialist qualifications accordingly. Despite that, many settings are struggling to pay competitive salaries, and providers have therefore reported that staff are increasingly moving into sectors such as retail.

Natural History GCSE

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I am standing in today for the previous shadow Schools Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who is no longer in the role. I thank the shadow Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), for her help in advance of the debate, and I congratulate her on her recent appointment. I also thank the previous shadow Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for the enthusiasm and passion that she brought to the role and to this topic. I will take all the points that were made in the debate back to my colleagues who cover the curriculum as part of their Front-Bench briefs.

I thank the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) for making such a passionate speech and for securing an interesting and timely debate on how natural history is a central part of children’s education. Having two small children myself, it is something in which I am very interested. The Labour party believes that natural history, and the damage to the natural world brought about by climate change, must be at the heart of every child’s learning. Indeed, with global temperatures continuing to rise, we have a duty as legislators to introduce our nation’s children to the beauty and wonders of nature, and to ensure that they understand our planet, our place and our dependency on the natural world. Currently, however, only 17% of teachers report that climate change is taught at schools in core subjects other than science and geography. That is why it is so important that nurseries, schools and colleges are supported to instil a love of nature in future generations and to educate children about natural history, how climate change has impacted on that history, and how the damage can be reversed.

It is important to recognise that teachers and school leaders are already working across the country to teach their students about sustainability and the natural environment—whether that is through school vegetable patches or planting trees to mark achievements and special occasions.

I know that the hon. Member for Eastbourne was a teacher, and I believe she is married to a teacher, so she is well versed on the teaching world. I am sure she will join me in celebrating the efforts of all teachers who try to teach sustainability as much as possible. Like me, she is also a school governor, as I think are many MPs. We recognise that schools are trying and doing their best to teach as much as possible. For example, there is the work of the Eco-Schools green flag programme, which is supported by many of the schools in my constituency and others, as well as by nurseries and colleges. It consists of seven steps that educational institutions can take to engage their students on climate change and the natural world, including putting environmental issues in learning plans and choosing texts that explore those issues in subjects such as English. I must admit that that did not happen when I was at school, and I wish it had.

Sadly, despite the fantastic work that is taking place in many parts of the country, many children are still being denied an environmental education. I looked at some of the recent research from the youth-led Teach the Future campaign, which revealed that 70% of UK teachers have not received adequate training to educate students on climate change. It also found that 41% of teachers say that climate change is rarely or never mentioned in their school. Perhaps most shockingly, just 5% say that climate change is integral to many aspects of the curriculum and teaching in their school, which is deeply concerning.

The hon. Member for Eastbourne referred to a report commissioned by the Treasury, “The Economics of Biodiversity”, which warns that the absence of the natural world in our children’s education is a risk to future prosperity. In a time of extreme climate change in which we have seen a loss of biodiversity, it is essential that young people have the knowledge and tools to tackle the climate crisis, because long after most of us have gone, our children will still be here. That is why I once again ask the Minister to carefully consider the report that the Treasury commissioned, and to look at what it recommended.

The research also shows that outdoor learning can improve children’s educational outcomes, particularly for those who are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and that regular contact with nature makes children happier, healthier and better able to learn. This point was made in a very articulate fashion by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who mentioned that she had to leave the room to attend a Select Committee. She talked about the impact that contact with nature can have on children. I go back to a recent poll commissioned by the Wildlife Trust, which revealed that 75% of adults believe that children do not spend enough time enjoying the natural world. As I represent the inner-city constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn, I have certainly seen that for myself.

Of course, the situation has got even worse in the past 18 months. A survey by Save the Children found that more than half of all children were spending less time playing outside with their friends since the outbreak of covid-19. That is very worrying. Once again, while such cross-party agreement might be rare in this House, I agree with the hon. Member for Eastbourne that natural history should be at the centre of children’s learning. The Labour party believes that children should have a strong understanding of the environment, and we look warmly on any proposal that fosters that ambition.

I also agree with the hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond)—I hope I pronounced her constituency correctly. When I speak to schoolchildren, as I often do when visiting local schools, climate change is the one issue they passionately care about and will bring up without fail every time I address a school assembly. It is important to ensure that every child, not just those who choose to study for a particular GCSE, understands the challenges facing our planet and our society. That would require the natural world to be integrated across the whole curriculum, not just in science and geography lessons or a natural history GCSE, but in all subjects, from English literature to history and others.

We must support schools and educators to do that if we want to see a genuine difference in the way natural history is taught. Embedding natural history, biodiversity and climate change within the curriculum will require new training for teachers and teaching assistants, which is why the Labour party has committed to giving all teachers a right to continuing professional development, with £210 million extra a year for CPD. That funding could be used to deliver training on the climate and the natural world, and I hope that is something the Government will also consider.

The Labour party has also announced plans for 400,000 green jobs, and it is essential that we enable young people to develop the skills for those employment opportunities. That has to start in schools and colleges, and climate change and green skills should be a priority for schools as well as for further and higher education, a point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—I think he had to go, but obviously no Westminster Hall debate is complete without his contribution, so I had to mention him.

I have a series of questions for the Minister that I hope he will answer. How are the Government working to ensure that natural history and climate change are embedded across the education system? What are the Government doing to ensure that teachers receive adequate training to educate students on climate change? We cannot just tell them to do it; we have to help and support them. How will the Government ensure that outdoor learning is a key part of children’s experience at school? That question is particularly important in the light of the statistics I talked about relating to covid-19. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that young people are gaining the skills they need at school and college to prepare them for the green economy?

Ensuring that the future generation value and respect their natural environment will be fundamental in the struggle to reverse the climate crisis, so I wholeheartedly welcome this important debate on how best to secure that end. I urge the Minister, who I know is willing to listen, to reflect on today’s discussion to ensure that the natural world and climate change are at the heart of children’s education and learning.

School-based Counselling Services

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) for leading this important debate on school-based counselling. It is a testament to how much we value this topic that on the day the House rises everyone has stayed back to contribute to this debate.

Lots of issues have been raised. The importance of looking at mental health holistically was talked about passionately by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). The right hon. Member for Harlow passionately discussed the impact of social media on mental health. We heard repeatedly about the stigma around tackling mental health, including from my right hon. Friend.

Every Member who spoke talked about the impact of covid on young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) cited the survey by the charity YoungMinds showing that throughout this pandemic, in the past 18 months, the mental health problems for two thirds of young people have been exacerbated enormously. My right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East also talked about covid-19 and how it has restricted access to mental health services for far too many people. He also made important points about the impact on deaf children, and similar points were made to me when I met a group of headteachers from special needs schools, all of whom talked about the impact covid has had on people with physical disabilities and the mental health impact that moves on from there.

This is a perfect storm, which is likely to have devastating consequences for young people. We are already starting to see this impact as constituency MPs, with an astonishing 96% increase in under-18s being referred to mental health services between spring 2019 and spring 2021, according to the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Yet just two in five children with a diagnosed condition can actually access specialist support. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) talked powerfully about how shocked he was when he heard local children talk about the lack of access to specialist support. I felt similarly when I spoke to a group of young people in my constituency. When we are sitting here in the Chamber, we do not often think about how people struggle to access support. We think it is there and they can access it, but I felt the same as he did when I spoke to people. I was shocked when I read that an estimated one in six children and young people now have a mental health condition—that has increased from one in nine just four years ago. It is also shocking to see that the number of accident and emergency attendances for young people with a psychiatric condition has tripled since then. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central used a statistic that I had also looked up, which was that in 2017 almost a quarter of 17-year-olds had self-harmed. The situation was bad before and it is getting worse, just at the same time as access to mental health services, both in and out of school, has been restricted.

Many of the answers to how we tackle this crisis can relate to school. As well as wider positive impacts that schooling can have, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East talked about ample evidence that school-based counselling can improve wellbeing and attainment. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South talked about the IPPR report, which I also read and which showed that far fewer state schools are providing on-site counselling than were doing so a decade ago, when nine in 10 schools offered it—the figure is now about half that, according to a recent survey of teachers. When children returned to school after lockdown, just one in five teachers thought that their school’s mental health services were sufficient to support their pupils. We know how much pressure teachers are under, so I hope that the Minister will pay attention to teachers returning to find that not enough mental health support was in place.

My hon. Friends the Members for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and for York Central both talked about the importance of trained professionals, and the former talked about the missing middle. I know from my experience as a school governor, and we will all know from our experiences in our constituencies, that many teachers and school staff are currently taking on additional responsibilities for supporting pupils’ mental health, on top of their day jobs. They are mostly not trained to do it and neither do they have the resource to do it.

The Labour party believes that there is an alternative. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) talked about the economics of mental health and how it pays off to invest in it, which is what Labour believes. We want to give all schools the additional resources they need to hire specialist counselling and mental health support. That was one of the key commitments of the £15 billion children’s recovery plan to deal with the fallout of the pandemic that Labour announced earlier this year. The Welsh Labour Government have made huge progress on this issue by legislating to put counselling support for 10 to 18-year-olds on a statutory footing.

Under Labour’s costed proposals, every secondary school would have a full-time staff member whose job is to support pupils’ mental health, and primary schools would have access to such specialist support, shared among schools in the local area. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central said, that would mean that problems would be caught and resolved before they could escalate, and teachers and other school staff would be able to focus on their jobs. We know what demanding jobs they have already.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West said, schools have to be part of the solution, but fixing the crisis in children and young people’s mental health cannot just be left to schools, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said. Even with the support and resources that we would provide if we were in government, we would have to look at the support provided by CAMHS and other NHS services as well, and I am afraid that the situation in that respect is even worse. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham talked about early intervention; the truth is that waiting lists for mental health support are currently unacceptably long, thereby allowing problems to escalate well before young people can be seen by a specialist. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central also made that point.

I say again that there is an alternative. Labour has pledged to implement a new national NHS target that guarantees mental health support within a month, backed up by our plan to recruit 12,000 mental health professionals and to introduce a lock to ensure that mental health spending always rises when NHS funding is increased.

Lots of people talked about the local organisations that are so important in our areas. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham talked about Rollercoaster and my hon. Friend the Member for York Central talked about the Island. In both Camden and Brent in my constituency, several organisations provide support for young people. We in the Labour party want to make sure that every community has an open-access mental health hub for children and young people. Having visible, easy-to-find, drop-in mental health support centres is so important and complements the counselling support offered in schools, because the hubs ensure that those who are marginalised or feel unable to come forward at school can get the support they need.

There is a crisis of children and young people’s mental health in this country that we cannot ignore. The crisis is deepening as a result of the pandemic, as we heard over and over again, and the mental health support that is available in and out of school is not sufficient to tackle it. Those facts have come through loudly and clearly in this important debate. The situation in far too many schools does not match the ambition that parents, teachers and we in the Labour have for our children, mainly because of the huge pressures on school budgets following real-terms cuts of 9% in the past decade. We really need a proper plan from the Government to address that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington advocated well for his constituent and his wife, but he also spoke passionately about a comprehensive strategy, which is what I urge the Minister to produce. It is time for change. We want the Minister to look at what Labour proposes on in-school counselling and a one-month support guarantee. We want mental health workforce expansion, community hubs and much else. The wellbeing, learning and prospects of an entire generation could be transformed by the bold step change in mental health support that we are calling for. I hope the Minister will listen to all the voices in the House that have made their points so passionately today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The new recovery funding will help schools deliver evidence-based approaches to support the most disadvantaged pupils, including eligible pupils with special educational needs and disabilities or education, health and care plans. That funding is on top of this year’s £8.9 billion of high-needs funding for children with more complex needs, and there is £42 million for projects that support children and young people with SEND.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

The Government’s own early years health adviser, the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), has said that every family in England should have access to a local hub, with parent and child support services. That is exactly what Labour ensured while in government, by building 3,600 Sure Start centres; this Government have closed 1,000 of them and then provided piecemeal funding for what they call “family hubs” in only half of local authorities. If the Secretary of State will not match Labour’s ambition for families, will he at least match the ambition of his early years health adviser, who, I notice, is in the Chamber?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Where we disagree, respectfully, is that there are now 3,000 family centres. All the evidence suggested that the Sure Start scheme invested in buildings rather than in the families we needed to reach. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) was absolutely on the right track in championing the first 1,001 critical days. I saw that at first hand at the family hub in Harlow—I was with the Chairman of the Education Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon)—which combined multi-agency services to bring in the families we really want to reach, not just the families who are capable of accessing Government services. That is the big difference. My hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families will lead on the launch of 75 such hubs, which will make a real difference to the families that we need to reach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I ask the Secretary of State to clarify what he meant by “3,000 family centres”, because we know that they are not 3,000 family hubs?

[Mr Speaker]

Does the Secretary of State want to answer? Does somebody want to clarify whether that is right or wrong? Secretary of State, go on.

Childcare Bill

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) for bringing forward this Bill, and for working so closely on the Bill with me, the shadow Education team and Members across the House, including the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris). I think this is cross-party working at its best, especially on a topic that is so important and so often overlooked. He is truly a champion for working parents and for children whose life chances are going to be shaped by early education and early years education. I also thank all the organisations that have helped him with the Bill and worked so closely with us throughout the process, including the Nuffield Foundation, the Sutton Trust, the National Day Nurseries Association, the Centre for Research in Early Childhood, the Coram Family and Childcare Trust, and the Early Years Alliance.

I will go quickly through the parts of the Bill. First, the Bill addresses a discrepancy between the appeals system for the Government’s schemes for tax-free childcare and free childcare entitlements. The change will allow more disputes to be settled by agreements with HMRC rather than at tribunal, which will save parents time. Any MP with small children sitting in Parliament today, during half-term, will recognise the importance of time. It will save parents time, for anyone who is disputing the Bill, and it will also save taxpayers money. So it is simple fix for a discrete problem and we as a party will support the Bill.

Secondly, the Bill will begin to address the problem, which has been referenced a few times by Conservative Members, that not everyone who is eligible for childcare support is actually accessing it. A Sutton Trust report on the 30 hours free childcare scheme found that this problem came from a lack of awareness among parents and also supply-side issues such as poor availability and the affordability of childcare places in many parts of the country. The Bill would make Ministers look again at how we can promote childcare schemes more effectively so that all families who benefit from the support are able to access it.

It is also clear that the existing childcare support is not sufficient. That brings me to the third substantive part of the Bill, which is a review of the entire childcare system to ensure that it delivers high-quality, value-for-money early education that also enables parents to work. This must be our ultimate goal and I hope, as a Parliament, cross-party, we can work to achieve that. A recent Pregnant Then Screwed survey found that 95% of working parents think that the Government are not helping enough with the cost and availability of childcare. We know from recent research by the Sutton Trust that the 30 hours free childcare offer can often exclude the poorest children, because only 20% of families with earnings in the bottom third of the income distribution qualify.

In no way do I want to ruin the non-confrontational mood of Parliament today, which you have spoken of so highly, Mr Deputy Speaker, but it would be remiss of me to stand here and not mention the fact that the early years sector is currently struggling with a £660 million gap. I hope that we can find the time to review childcare schemes and how they are funded, if we are really serious about addressing early years education and making sure that children, no matter their background or where they were born, get to achieve success in life.

We welcome the Bill as a means of setting us on the path to a better, more sustainable childcare system—one that delivers the high-quality early years childcare that families need, without breaking the bank or the providers. I once again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East for promoting this important Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

She should be right hon. She raised a really important point in her tribute to early years teachers. A lot of my family, including both my grandmothers and my mum, were primary school teachers. Those involved in teaching our children and in early years education—particularly over the past 18 months, when so many across the country have faced challenging circumstances—need a shout-out from this place whenever possible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) raised a particularly important point on the cross-Government approach that is needed. This issue touches so many different areas. Members from all parts of the House have raised the issue of family hubs, which was brought out by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom). That holistic approach, working with local government so that families have somewhere to go when in need, is very important. There is a broader requirement here, therefore, going a little further than just early-years childcare for two and three-year-olds: we need to look, too, at shared parental leave. At present far too few men are taking up opportunities to spend more time at home with their children, and perhaps a broader education drive is needed to push that, especially in early years. As more women are in higher-powered careers—a great thing for our country—we can perhaps share some of these responsibilities more broadly.

[Tulip Siddiq]

My office manager Oliver Denton Lieberman is today going off for a whole year on paternity leave. I want to applaud the fact that more men are doing so; it is good to recognise that.

[Mr Holden]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s office manager for doing that; it is great to see people leading by example. It has been good to see the Prime Minister taking some proper paternity leave as well in recent years, and Ministers, too. It is still at far too low a level, however, and I think the hon. Lady would agree that we need to promote this more broadly across the board.

The hon. Member for Reading East raised some interesting issues. We need to look at the ratios of staff to children. It seems to me to be iniquitous that for a four-year-old in early years education the ratio has to be 1:8, but for a four-year-old in a school it can be 1:30. Perhaps we can look at childcare more broadly to ensure that it is cost-efficient and can deliver for parents.

I also want to pick up on some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt). One of the great pieces of news in the Budget was the increase in per-hour spending per child. That will go even further if we address those ratios, and it will help improve pay levels in the sector as well. Many of the childcare organisations in my constituency have been telling me that is a real issue, as it is in other sectors such as social care. We want jobs in those sectors to be seen as high-skilled professions offering careers where people can not just work, but go on and succeed more broadly.

I welcome the cross-party approach of the hon. Member for Reading East; it is exactly the right way to proceed as we share a common view on this matter on both sides of the House, particularly with more parents being in employment. Credit is due to the Government over the last year and a half for the excellent support they have put into the economy to ensure that there are jobs and that vacancy rates are at record highs. Indeed, perhaps this great economic success makes the concerns raised by the hon. Gentleman even more pressing.

However, I agree with my Conservative colleagues that, rather than legislating for a review, the Government could perhaps take this forward without legislation being necessary. I leave that thought with the Minister.

Sustainability and Climate Change (National Curriculum)

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I should just say that I am not the shadow Minister on this subject, but the shadow Schools Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), is on a Bill Committee, which is why I am covering today. I want to thank him and the shadow Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for their help in preparing for this debate. I will pass back any points made today, so hon. Members can rest assured that everyone’s comments have been heard and noted.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) for securing this important debate, which is also very timely, as everyone has mentioned. I pay tribute to her for the work she has done to highlight the importance of embedding climate change and sustainability in everything we do, including education, and for all the organisational work she has done for this campaign, not least bringing a delegation of young, bright people from the Teach the Future campaign to Parliament yesterday. I am delighted that some of them are in the Public Gallery: Scarlett, Stella, Tess, Yasmin and Charlie are very welcome to Parliament, but we also need them to educate us, as many Members have said during today’s debate.

My hon. Friend made many good points, but I particularly want to pick up on one of them, which was about how the education system is not preparing children for climate change. It is failing them, which is a damning verdict on the education system that we are living with, and of what the future holds for a lot of our children. I also want to take a minute to say that my hon. Friend may be generation Z, she may be the youngest Member of the House, and she only joined in 2019, but we can already see the impact of all the work she has undertaken. When Opposition Members start paying tribute to her for her work on the Environmental Audit Committee—that does not always happen in this House—we realise the strength of her capabilities, so I give her a huge “Well done” for having secured this important debate.

My fellow millennial Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), talked about the importance of teaching not just young people, but adults as well, about climate change and sustainability. That point was echoed by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), who said that a lot of adults do not even know what we are talking about—I know that I could do a crash course on this topic as well.

Turning to the topic at hand, many Members from both sides of the House who spoke today talked about how we need to do more to embed climate change within the curriculum. When I go to my local schools, teachers and school leaders are already aware of that need, and some amazing work is going on around the country to engage with pupils about climate change. However, the onus cannot just be on them, which is another point that has been made in the debate. The Government, and we as politicians, have to help them.

One example of that is the Eco-Schools green flag programme, which many schools, nurseries and colleges are a part of. It consists of seven steps that education institutions can take to focus their communities of pupils and staff on the climate emergency, including putting environmental issues in learning plans and choosing texts in subjects such as English that will explore those issues. That work has been supported by education unions, who to their enormous credit have been pushing the Government to recognise that we are in a climate emergency, and that we have to pay more attention to it and put it at the top of our agenda. I pay tribute to the National Education Union, the National Union of Students and the University and College Union in particular for all their hard work on this issue, including promoting Climate Learning Month in the run-up to COP26, which as we all know starts next week.

There was a lot of talk about schools in this debate, and how they are being innovative in their teaching of environmental issues. From school veg patches that teach children about sustainability as well as healthy eating, to planting trees to mark achievements and celebrations, our schools are leading the way in creating a more sustainable, greener future. Our curriculum should empower that work, and we should be supporting those schools. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) talked about local gardening projects in schools in his constituency. I join him in paying tribute to Islington Council, which is doing an enormous amount of work on this, as well as the councils in my constituency, Brent and Camden Councils, which are doing similarly impressive work.

At the risk of this debate sounding like a north London takeover, I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), who talked about taking a holistic approach to this issue. I wholeheartedly agree: we cannot just have a box-ticking exercise, but have to look at this properly and make sure there is an integrated way of teaching. I also pay tribute to him for his important work on the APPG for nature, which does not get recognised so much in this House, but is a crucial part of the work we do in Parliament.

If we are going to transform education, we must support our educators to do so. Embedding climate change within the curriculum will mean new training for teachers and teaching assistants. At Labour conference, the shadow Education Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston, announced that we would give all teachers a right to continuing professional development, with £210 million extra per year for CPD, which could certainly be used to deliver this kind of training. I would like the Minister to pick up on this issue and say whether that proposal is something his Government might consider.

However, we have to recognise that this is not just about the curriculum. We should be looking to make our school estate and all our school environments eco-friendly and fit for the future. That point was eloquently made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) also spoke about young people demanding that their school buildings be sustainable. If any Members have been to speak in schools, they will recognise young people’s passion about that.

What does concern me—I wonder whether the Minister will answer this—is that at a time when we need to be upgrading our school buildings as part of our national effort to get to net zero carbon emissions, since 2010 the capital spending on schools has been cut by 44%. That worries us. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) said, our education system must prepare children and young people for the jobs of the future, which will be shaped by our transition to net zero.

The Labour party has announced plans for 400,000 green jobs. It is essential that we equip young people to develop the skills for those employment opportunities as we go into the future. That cannot happen only in schools, but it does require climate education and green skills to be embedded in further and higher education. That is why we welcome the new report from the Association of Colleges, “The Green College Commitment”, which recognises the need to go much further to embed those skills across courses. Will the Minister consider that carefully?

The leader of the Labour party has described climate change as

“the biggest long term threat we face”,

and from this debate it sounds like many Members agree. Tackling climate change is at the heart of our agenda and our manifesto as we move forward. However, the reality is that those who are most affected by the impact of climate change are those who are going through schools, colleges, nursery and early years education right now. We must act more strongly if we are to stem the tide of climate decline and protect the younger generations from catastrophic consequences. I really hope that the warm words we are hearing from the Government are finally translated into tangible progress at COP26 next week.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles also spoke about the brutal cost that young people will bear. There is a harsh reality to that. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about leaving something behind for his five grandchildren. That is how I feel about my children; I feel that we need to leave something of the planet behind, and to prepare our children and young people for the challenges of the future.

That is why embedding learning about climate change and sustainability into our curriculum and our education system is vital; that is why this debate is vital; that is why we must equip young people with the skills they need to work in the green industries of the future. Far more innovation is needed from the Government when it comes to education and skills. It is crucial if we, as a country, want to leave the world in a transition to net zero. I hope that the Minister has been listening to the many important points raised in this very good debate. I also hope that the Minister will meet my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East, as she requested.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

May I remind colleagues that for any messages that need to be shared with other Members, it is best to do so through the doorkeepers or the Parliamentary Private Secretaries rather than the Clerks.

Childcare

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I would like to thank all my colleagues across the House who took the time to speak in today’s important debate. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), and little Pip, I want to begin by paying tribute to Joeli Brearley and everyone at Pregnant Then Screwed for starting this important petition and for the inspiring work that they have done to support women and parents in this country and to fight against gender inequalities.

On no issue is it more important to have dedicated campaigners like Joeli than on childcare, which is all too often ignored by politicians, despite it being a fundamental building block of our economy and our children’s development, as has been repeated several times in the debate. Its importance is highlighted by the fact that well over 100,000 people signed the petition, including 400 of my constituents in Hampstead and Kilburn.

In the Chamber last week I raised the Government’s own statistics, which show a loss of over 3,000 childcare providers in England in the first half of this year alone. This comes on top of a net loss of over 100,000 providers since 2015. I was very surprised that the Minister responded by claiming that there were no problems with sufficiency in the early years sector, given that a third of English councils do not have enough childcare places for parents working full time. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow raised this in her speech. I was surprised by the Minister’s remarks on childminders, which have now drawn much criticism, including from the chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, who commented:

“To hear the Children and Families Minister so casually dismiss the closure of thousands of childminders—and falsely imply that what they provide is just care, rather than education—is both insulting and infuriating.”

I do not want the outside world to think that that is how politicians in this place think when it comes to early education.

Every year, Coram Family and Childcare publishes a survey of childcare costs and availability, and every year it shows that there is a postcode lottery in childcare provision. All too often, the costs are soaring well above inflation. My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) outlined her own experience of living through this postcode lottery and how much misery it has caused so many people in her constituency. A survey published before the debate by Pregnant Then Screwed found that a staggering 19 out of 20 working parents said the Government are not helping enough with childcare, with a third paying more for it than their rent or mortgage—again, a point that has been made over and over in the debate. That is because a full-time childcare place in the UK costs £14,000 a year. As my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow and for Putney constantly said, ours is one of the most expensive childcare systems in the whole world. That should make our heads hang in shame.

The sad truth about the eye-watering costs of childcare in this country is that it was a predictable result of the decision that the Government took to underfund the free childcare policy by a third in the last financial year alone. We know that because the Department for Education itself predicted it. Secret Government documents from 2015, uncovered by the Early Years Alliance, warned over and over again that failing to fully fund this policy would drive up costs for parents. Ministers pushed ahead regardless, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) said, left the sector with a £662-million annual funding gap even before covid hit.

As if that was not bad enough, there was almost no targeted support either for early years or for wraparound childcare providers during a pandemic that has seen their attendance levels and income plummet to the ground. Then came what early years analyst Ceeda calculated as a quarter of a billion pounds’ funding cut this spring term, due to the premature withdrawal of pre-covid funding levels. It is no wonder that 85% of childcare businesses expect to make a loss or break even this year, as research by the National Day Nurseries Association shows.

It is not just about statistics. There is a very real impact on families, who are struggling to make ends meet. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) talked passionately about equal parenting, the pay penalty, proper flexible working, and how children are being priced out of education at the most important stage of their development. Not only are private fees for early years childcare well out of reach for many families, including those in Hampstead and Kilburn, but a recent Sutton Trust report confirmed that the eligibility for the 30 hours free childcare scheme excludes the poorest. Are these the policies we want to have in our country, where we exclude the poorest from accessing high quality childcare?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) pointed out, parents are being forced to cut hours and quit jobs because they cannot find or afford childcare. Of course, this affects women disproportionately. Three quarters of working mums were forced to cut working hours in the first lockdown due to a lack of childcare. In 2018, there were over 800,000 mothers who wanted to work, but could not for financial reasons.

[Jim Shannon]

The shadow Minister is making some very important points. Does she agree that it is not fair for the burden of childcare to fall upon the shoulders of grandparents, who do not have the physical ability to look after children in the way they probably did at one time? I believe that the onus is on the Government and the Minister to come back with a response that helps people.

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I was listening to his speech very closely, because I was reflecting that there is no way I could have got through six years of being an MP without relying on my mother—who, by the way, turns 65 today. She is someone who helped me with my childcare, because my father is in a wheelchair; she was responsible for looking after the children when I did not get proper maternity leave from this place. I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I hope that the Government will recognise the pressure that is put on grandparents. My mother is 65, but there are lots of grandparents who are a lot older and struggle physically to look after small children. I hope the Minister takes heed of what the hon. Gentleman has to say.

I also want to talk about childcare workers, 93% of whom are women, who are languishing on poverty pay after suffering years of real-terms pay cuts under Conservative Governments. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge pointed out, the average wage in the sector is £7.42 per hour, and shamefully, one in 10 staff earn less than £5 an hour. These talented and dedicated workers are unsurprisingly leaving the sector as quickly as they can. It is clear to anyone who has direct experience of the childcare system in this country that there is something seriously wrong with it, and it could get a lot worse if nursery and childcare closures continue as they are at the moment. This petition should be a wake-up call for Ministers and the Government to rethink their approach to child- care funding.

That is why my Labour colleagues and I have been banging on about the need for targeted support to halt the collapse of the childcare sector. We are not being dramatic, and we are not scaremongering: this is the reality of the situation. Our childcare recovery plan also proposes a real, substantial hike in the early years pupil premium, from £302 per person per year to £1,345, as part of a £15 billion package to give every child new opportunities to learn, play and develop. I believe it is time to give childcare the attention and the funding it deserves, so that we can be a country that values children, parents and family and so that childcare becomes a part of the country’s infrastructure, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North so eloquently put it when she opened this important debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I would be absolutely delighted to meet my hon. Friend and colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group on sixth-form education. He will no doubt be aware that we have already been putting extra resources into 16-to-19 education. An additional £400 million was awarded in 2019. We recognise that it is important to invest in the quality of estate, which is why we are putting £1.5 billion into upgrading that estate.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Earlier this year, in June, I stood at this Dispatch Box and confronted the Minister about the number of nurseries and childcare providers that were closing because of the Government’s inability to fund the early years sector properly. The Minister accused me of scaremongering. Since June, there has been a further loss of 500 childcare providers in the sector, which brings the net loss for this year alone to nearly 3,000. Will the Minister make up for dismissing the concerns of parents, children and carers by providing targeted funding for the early years sector from this Government?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

The Ofsted data from March shows a 4% dip in the number of childcare providers since 31 August, which is a fall largely driven by childminders and carers, not nursery settings. Sufficiency is the key measure and we have not had any reports of sufficiency issues in early years settings since they reopened in June 2020. We put £3.5 billion into our early years entitlements because we care about childcare.