Safety of School Buildings

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts
Wednesday 6th September 2023

(6 months, 3 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Rebecca Long Bailey Portrait Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
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While it is welcome that it has been reported today that RAAC has not been found in any of our schools in Salford, I must stress that the fact that the Government were unable to produce that information until today, having known about the risk since at least 2018, when a school roof in Kent collapsed, is completely unacceptable.

Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
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I am glad that Salford has no schools with RAAC problems, but in Bolton we found out on Friday that St William of York, St Andrew’s Church of England and St Bernard’s were affected. St Bernard’s was not even on any list, and St Gregory’s is still awaiting the result. Do you agree that the Government should publish the full list, not the half-baked one that they published this afternoon?

Rosie Winterton Portrait Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
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Order. The hon. Lady knows that she must not address her hon. Friend as “you”; otherwise, she is addressing me.

Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi
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I apologise.

Rebecca Long Bailey Portrait Rebecca Long Bailey
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I completely agree with my constituency neighbour. I stress that not just schools are affected by this crisis; it extends to public buildings, and concerns have been raised in recent days by the building industry that certain residential properties, particularly social housing, could also be affected. On hospitals alone, a report by the National Audit Office in July this year said that structurally unsound RAAC was present in at least 41 hospitals. The Turnberg building at Salford Royal Hospital is reported to be one of them.

Despite this clear national building safety crisis, there is no detail from Government on what action will or will not be taken, no detail on the urgent funding and support that will be provided to remediate and no assurances so far that the costs will not come out of existing school, NHS and local authority budgets. Worse still, there appears to be an emerging message today from Government that this crisis is stand-alone—that it is simply a sad indictment of less-regulated old building practices that are now outdated.

That is not the true story. The real culprit here is the unashamed pursuit of austerity by this Government and the coalition before them. Let us not forget that, to start with, the coalition ripped up Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme in 2010 and never adequately replaced it. Worse still, between 2009 and 2022 the Department for Education’s capital spending declined by 37% in cash terms and 50% in real terms. That is in addition to NHS and local authority budgets being slashed on a similar basis, with the effect that most ongoing public sector estate upgrade programmes were torn to shreds.

Sadly, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies states:

“The current crisis illustrates just how costly failing to keep on top of necessary investment in buildings and infrastructure can be.”

How much money was actually required, had the Government taken action on schools when it should have? The National Audit Office in 2017 published a report on capital spending that stated that it would cost £6.7 billion to return all schools to a satisfactory or better condition. That report was also clear that there is a significant risk of major costs arising from deterioration of the estate.

Action was needed in 2017, but in November 2020, in the Government spending review, they allocated only £3.1 billion—less than half the amount of investment required just to keep buildings ticking over safely. Then the story becomes even more absurd: in March 2022, realising that there was a problem, the Department for Education sent a questionnaire to all schools asking if they had RAAC on their estate, but later told schools not to spend any money on surveys to find out.

Even after that, in May 2022, when Government documents were leaked to The Observer showing that school buildings could be a risk to life—causing great alarm in schools up and down the country—half the schools then applied for funding to remediate and did not get a penny from Government. In June 2023, the National Audit Office said the condition of school buildings was “declining” and warned that 700,000 pupils were learning in buildings that it described as unsafe or ageing. It stated clearly that the DfE had received significantly less funding for school buildings than it estimated it needed between 2016 and 2023.

The Government knew that this crisis was coming, and the causes of this crisis were very deliberate. Austerity is, was and always will be a political choice, but it is both immoral and economically illiterate. The only political choice the Government should have made was to ensure the safety of their people. Sadly, if they had made that choice, the cost borne then would be a mere shadow of the cost required today.

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Alun Cairns Portrait Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
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It is a privilege to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate, but I must say that I am particularly disappointed by the tone with which it has started. This is a very serious issue: there are a high number of concerned parents and teachers and headteachers who work in those buildings, and obviously, their primary concern is the children.

I would specifically point out the selective interpretation and opportunism shown by Labour Members, because they only have to look the other side of Offa’s Dyke or the Prince of Wales Bridge to see what is happening in Wales. They forget that Labour has been in power in Wales for 26 years—if that has not been sufficient time to reform education and rebuild these buildings, I do not know how long they will need. Let us remember that education in Wales is entirely devolved. That gives the Administration the freedom to survey, assess and repair buildings, and rebuild them where necessary. Labour has been in power for 26 years, but the reality is that we still do not know the state of the buildings in Wales. That is the truth of the Labour Administration.

The synthetic anger we have heard from the Labour Benches has created an awful lot of hot air, but I can direct exactly the same questions and accusations at the Administration in Wales. They have been there for 26 years, but we still do not know. Can we imagine the synthetic anger that we would hear from Labour Front Benchers, and Back Benchers, if the Secretary of State or the Minister said today, “I am sorry, but we still do not know; it is going to take another couple of weeks”? There would be understandable outrage, but Labour Members are completely ignoring the situation and the state of the education service in Wales.

Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi
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The right hon. Gentleman is talking about Wales. Speaking as an English MP, the BBC is reporting that at least 13 schools with RAAC were set to be rebuilt under a Labour plan, but those building projects were scrapped by the Conservative-led Government in 2010. The former Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), said that he scrapped that scheme because he did not want to “waste any more money”, and work on 700 schools was halted. Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that that was an appalling thing for him to do?

Alun Cairns Portrait Alun Cairns
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With the greatest respect to the hon. Lady, I am not sure whether she is referring to Wales or to England. The point I am making is that Labour has been in power in Wales for 26 years. Two schools have been identified as having RAAC issues, but we simply do not know about the rest. There would be understandable anger and frustration if the Secretary of State or the Minister dared to come out with that response.

No Welsh Labour MP has participated in this debate, and up until now, none has even been present in the Chamber. Let us remember that the former First Minister in Wales said in relation to education that the Welsh Administration had taken their “eye off the ball”. I do not think their eye has ever been replaced on the ball, bearing in mind the standards in Wales.

Many colleagues on the Conservative Benches have listed a whole host of education outcomes and uplifts—my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) just went through a whole host of successes, and other colleagues have mentioned the number of good, excellent and outstanding schools here in England—but sadly, my constituents do not get the same benefits. Any international comparison, be it the programme for international student assessment or any other, shows that Wales has fallen back in comparison with England.

The Opposition day motion is opportunistic, as we have already highlighted, but let us at least humour it for a moment. When the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) responds for Labour, will she assure me that if my colleagues in the Welsh Senedd table this motion, Labour Members will support it? Exactly the same questions apply in Wales as in England, so I ask her to respond specifically to that question. I will happily give way if any Labour Front Benchers want to intervene now, but I notice that they are all keeping their heads down. They are frightened; I suggest that they are embarrassed to look at me, and to respond to the questions that we are raising.

The investigation started in England 18 months ago, and it started at a much later point in Wales. The reality is that we still do not know the outcome, and we have two weeks left to wait. I can imagine the anger that would be felt by Labour Members if that position was shared by my right hon. Friend the Minister. However, let us be realistic about this: new evidence comes to light and therefore new decisions need to be taken, and that is exactly what has happened in this situation. There is a whole host of Ministers, officials, teachers and parents co-ordinating efforts to make a real difference and get through this immediate challenge, much of which will be very short-term. This has been a long-standing problem, and there is a need for a whole host of quick decisions to be taken, as well as for transparency and for clarity.

Let me close my contribution with the comments of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales. This is not from any party political person, but from an independent individual appointed by the Welsh Government. She has said that the statements issued by the Welsh Government Minister so far

“don’t give families the clarity they need on what this means for them or the next steps for their school”,

and on

“what exactly will happen over the next few weeks and reassurance that schools are safe.”

That is from the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, appointed with statutory responsibility to protect the interests of children, and even she has lost faith in the decision making, transparency and clarity of the Welsh Government.

Finally, will the shadow Minister reassure me that, if my friends or colleagues in the Senedd table this motion, Labour Members will support it?

Kinship Carers

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts
Tuesday 18th October 2022

(1 year, 5 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Kelly Tolhurst Portrait Kelly Tolhurst
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We need also to look at this through the lens of our work in the Green Paper on special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision. In my experience, this issue affects not just children in kinship arrangements but looked-after children. My focus throughout this whole process is achieving better outcomes for children. That will always be front and centre of all decisions and all information that I receive.

Despite the good outcomes for children in kinship care, they still lag behind those children who have never had involvement with children’s services. There is much more to do, with greater Government focus and close collaborative working with local authorities, schools and colleges. I am convinced that we can reduce that gap.

As hon. Members will no doubt recognise, the theme underpinning many of my points today is that we have made progress but far more remains to do. Last year we announced £1 million of new funding to deliver high-quality peer support groups for kinship carers across the country. We know that becoming a kinship carer for the first time is often a frightening and bewildering experience, as the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish illustrated.

The support of peers can act as a beacon to help people through. Those support groups are already building powerful communities and enabling kinship carers to connect with those in similar situations. The Government recently confirmed that we will invest a further £1 million next year to ensure that more than 100 peer support groups are established across the country by January 2024.

Hon. Members have raised with me, including in this debate, the issue of educational entitlement for children in kinship care. That area is important to me, and I recognise how much has been done, but there is more to do. Since 2018, virtual school heads and designated teachers have had a responsibility to promote the educational achievement of pupils who leave state care to live with an adopter or special guardian. Children who live with special guardians and were previously looked after by the state are eligible for the pupil premium, as the hon. Member for Twickenham outlined.

Kinship children who were not previously looked after but had been entitled to free school meals, at any point over the past six years, attract the pupil premium funding. We constantly review that and assess the effectiveness of the pupil premium, to ensure that it supports pupils facing the most disadvantage. Last year we consulted on changes to school admission codes to improve in-year admissions. Children in formal kinship care were in scope of those changes, which mean that kinship carers can secure an in-year school place for their child when they are unable to do so via other means. Those new measures came into force on 1 September 2021.

Finally, children living with special guardians who have previously been in state care can access therapeutic support via the adoption support fund, which has already been outlined. This year, we have also made that support available to those children who live with relatives under child arrangements orders. We are looking to improve local authorities’ engagement with the adoption support fund, to increase the proportion of eligible kinship carers who apply.

As hon. Members have eloquently outlined, I recognise the strain that kinship families are under, and will continue to work collaboratively with local areas to ensure that children, young people and families have access to the support they need to respond to the cost of living pressures. I am committed to supporting kinship carers. The independent review of children’s social care recommended a financial allowance for carers looking after children under a child arrangements order and those looking after children under a special guardianship order. My Department is considering each recommendation, and will respond by the end of the year.

Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
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I wanted to be part of this debate, but I had two meetings about my private Member’s Bill next week, so I could not be here at the beginning, for which I apologise. I wanted to implore the Minister, in considering the financial issues, to reflect on a situation in my constituency, where the grandmother ended up having to look after the grandchildren while the parents were having issues. The problem was that she had to spend her own money, and she did not have a lot of it. When we asked social services, they said, “Only if we place the children in her care will she get some financial funding, but not until then.” For weeks and weeks, nothing happened. This issue may have been discussed, but I wanted to raise it.

Kelly Tolhurst Portrait Kelly Tolhurst
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I know that the hon. Lady is passionate about this area, and I recognise what she has illustrated. The stories that Members have told in this debate have alluded to similar pressures that they have come across in their constituency casework, and it is something that I have seen at first hand, prior to becoming a Member of Parliament. Given that we recognise the value of kinship carers, we are taking the recommendations very seriously, and I am doing my best to show that the Government are committed to looking at this area and taking reasonable decisions.

Kinship carers often develop strong bonds with children who have just entered their homes, and taking leave from work could play a role by giving those carers time to do so. There is currently a range of Government support for such carers and employers, and some employers provide significant support to employees without a legal requirement to do so. We would encourage employers to continue to respond with this flexibility, but we will be considering the case for extending parental leave to kinship carers as part of our response to the independent review of children’s social care later this year and—I hear the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—when I speak to my successors in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on this topic.

I also recognise the importance of making informed choices about the legal status of children entering the homes of kinship carers. The Ministry of Justice laid a statutory instrument yesterday to make legal aid available for special guardianship orders in private family proceedings, which will help prospective special guardians to get advice and assistance on the order before processing. My Department is working closely with colleagues in the MOJ on implementing the recommendations from the social care review, and on giving access to legal aid to some kinship carers.

Today’s debate has rightly focused on some real issues that we know kinship carers face. My hope is that we will be able to respond to the concerns and recommendations with the implementation strategy by the end of the year. I am absolutely committed to that, and to listening to and learning from kinship carers, who make the selfless decision to care for a child who cannot safely remain with their parents. I look forward to working with them and all hon. Members on this important issue, because it is important not only for many of us across this Chamber, but for our country and for how young people develop and thrive in the United Kingdom.

Children’s Education Recovery and Childcare Costs

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts
Tuesday 7th June 2022

(1 year, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
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Every day, tens of thousands of working parents across the country are being failed by inadequate childcare policies that leave families financially crippled, stagnating in their careers and desperate for radical change. Families are being let down by Ministers, who are simply not doing enough. Indeed, in June 2021 the Government’s own education recovery adviser, Sir Kevan Collins, resigned in protest at the Government’s failure to support children’s recovery.

The average price of a full-time nursery place for a one-year-old child is a staggering £14,000, and one in three parents spend more than a third of their entire income on childcare. More often than not, it is families on the lowest incomes or on universal credit, single parents and those with disabilities who suffer the most.

Labour’s Sure Start scheme aimed to help people and was very successful. It supported working families with childcare. Naturally, the Conservative coalition cut its funding by two thirds, despite the policy’s success. One in three parents with a household income of less than £20,000 have had to cut back on essential food or housing as a direct result of childcare costs. A staggering 92% of parents said that the cost of childcare had affected their standard of living because the cost was completely unaffordable and had resulted in a substantial impact on them.

It is not as if the nurseries and childcare workers themselves are the ones benefiting from this. Research by the National Day Nurseries Association found that 95% of nurseries in England did not even have enough funding to cover their basic costs after the impact of the covid pandemic on their incomes. Now, in the midst of a cost of living crisis, nursery finances will be squeezed even more by the rise in national insurance and the cost of heating and electricity bills. Nurseries such as Grosvenor nursery in my constituency are fighting for survival because of serious funding shortages caused by the disparity between funding and overhead and staffing costs, not to mention the large deficit created by the pandemic. In a recent visit last year, I saw at first hand the hard work that its staff and management do in nurturing our future generations This crisis is only going to get worse as more and more childcare providers go out of business, increasing demand for places and pushing prices even higher for families struggling with the rising cost of living.

Until recently, Government underfunding was one of the main reasons nurseries were going out of business, but now we are seeing more nurseries unable to open because of a recruitment crisis, with demoralised staff leaving the profession in droves. Part of the reason for that of course is that wages for early years staff are embarrassingly low. May I remind the Minister that these are people we trust and hand our children over to, to look after? Many of them are on the national living wage, which is not enough for them to survive on, bearing in mind the work that they are doing. Nursery workers do not just play with our children; they are preparing them for school, and helping in their development and with their educational opportunities.

The first 1,000 days of any child’s life are crucial to their development and their life chances. People working in early years care are crucial to this and should be paid fairly as a result. That is even more important for disadvantaged children. Being in early education is one of the most important things that can help to close the gap for them. Lower-income parents will be forced to withdraw their children, who have the most to gain from not being a year behind their peers when they start school.

Childcare has not only been neglected; it has been deliberately starved of funding, and has forced parents—many mothers—out of work and into poverty. Labour would introduce breakfast clubs, and support children in sporting and social activities to broaden their horizons. We would give children access to a counsellor to support their mental health and we would introduce an education recovery premium to prevent children from falling behind.

I remind the House that Nelson Mandela once famously said:

“The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.”

I have to say that the Government’s neglect of childcare is pushing us deeply into this. Finally, I would like to wish Brannagh Logan a happy birthday, bearing in mind that she is the daughter of my constituency neighbour.

Budget Resolutions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts
Tuesday 2nd November 2021

(2 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Nadhim Zahawi Portrait Nadhim Zahawi
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I thank him, not least because of his deep experience in local government. We will continue to engage with the MacAlister review and we will take very seriously the points that my hon. Friend made about the pressures on local government.

As I said, this is about skills, schools and families, which is why we are setting aside £50 million over three years—

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Nadhim Zahawi Portrait Nadhim Zahawi
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The hon. Gentleman will know that, as Children and Families Minister, I tried to follow the evidence, and I will do the same as the Secretary of State. I will always be evidence-led. My difficulty with his statement about Sure Starts is that when we look at the evidence, we see that much of the investment went into buildings rather than to the families that we really needed to access those services. The difference here, as I saw through the evidence from family hubs in Harlow and elsewhere, is that with this multi-agency, wraparound approach, we can get to the families that need to access the service. I am glad to hear that he welcomes this announcement, because I know that he will probably be an outlier in his party in wanting to work constructively to get the 75 centres up and running.

We also continue to invest in early education, with around £170 million every year—the sector was slightly confused, but I know that the Children and Families Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), set them straight—to increase the hourly rate for free early education entitlements, supporting families with the cost of childcare. As we would expect from a Government who are as committed to levelling up as this one, much of our focus is on those who need additional help, especially the most vulnerable in society.

Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi
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Will the Secretary of State give way?

Nadhim Zahawi Portrait Nadhim Zahawi
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I know that Mr Speaker is looking at his watch, so perhaps the hon. Lady will forgive me if I make some headway and let others into the debate.

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Kate Green Portrait Kate Green
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I have absolutely no idea where that £400 billion figure comes from. The hon. Member says that it is uncosted, but there is no such uncosted plan; he needs to check his figures. The £15 billion costed plan—a plan advised by the Government’s own expert adviser—will, of course, be covered by the covid funding pot that the Government themselves admit has to be set aside to meet the costs of the pandemic. If the hon. Member cares to examine the tax burden from the Budget, he will see that it is not Labour that is increasing taxes on hard-pressed families. Taxes will hit families by an extra £3,000 as a result of his Chancellor’s Budget.

Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi
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The hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) talks about financial prudence, but this Government spent £39 billion on the failed Test and Trace. How can Conservative Members talk about financial prudence?

Kate Green Portrait Kate Green
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My hon. Friend makes the case.

Labour’s plan would deliver the wellbeing and academic support needed to meet the scale of the challenge and ensure that all children can reach their potential. That is the level of the investment that the Government should have been making in the nation’s children.

When we look at overall school spending, the picture does not get much better. The Chancellor announced a 2% per annum real-terms increase in school budgets over the next three years. I want the Secretary of State to listen to this very carefully, because we are messing around a bit with figures here. That increase will finally return school spending to 2010 levels, in real terms, in 2025. As Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has said,

“To have no growth in 15 years in such an important part of public services is unprecedented’’.

This means that 732,000 children in state-funded reception classes in 2010 have seen their whole school careers affected. A whole generation of children has been failed by consecutive Conservative Governments.

The Secretary of State spoke of a cash increase in school spending as a result of the Budget, but schools are facing a host of rising costs to set against that: covid costs, energy bills, and employer national insurance contributions. The ending of the public sector pay freeze is overdue, but it is schools that will have to fund the teacher pay settlement.

The impact of this underfunding is plain to see. Some 200,000 children are growing up in areas with not a single primary school rated good or outstanding. Forty per cent. of young people leave compulsory education without essential qualifications. By the time they finish their GCSEs, pupils from poorer families are 18 months behind their wealthier peers in terms of attainment, and a third of teachers leave our schools within five years of qualifying. Last week’s Budget was an opportunity to fix those deep-rooted problems, but the Chancellor failed to do so.

Youth services help to equip young people with the skills and confidence that they need for life. They provide careers guidance and mental health support, they are one of the most effective ways of tackling the root causes of crime, and they help to build community cohesion. However, although they have already experienced a decade of cuts, last week’s Budget went on to inflict on them the single biggest one-off cut in youth services for a decade, leaving a £470 million hole in the youth budget. The Chancellor’s boasts of investment cannot disguise this crippling cut. Under the last Labour Government, youth services were accessible to people whatever their background; today, they are a patchy postcode lottery.

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Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
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Last week, the Chancellor came into this Chamber with great optimism, but many of us needed to hear much more than just hot air. Instead, we ended up with a Budget that the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), has described as offering

“no plan to tackle the growing cost of living crisis”,

and doing nothing to remove the enormous tax burden that the Government have put on working people.

More than 13,000 families in my constituency have just been hit by the devastating cut to universal credit, taking £1,000 out of their pockets. While we welcome the fact that the Government have followed Labour’s lead and reduced the taper rate, the Chancellor will know that nearly one quarter of universal credit claimants cannot work because of disability or caring responsibilities. What does he have to say to them as they face an incredibly difficult winter off the back of the biggest ever cut to our social security system?

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimated that the changes to the universal credit taper rate would fail to cover the rise in energy costs, national insurance and inflation for many families. Can the Minister tell the House how many children will be pulled into poverty thanks to his Government’s £1,000-a-year cut to universal credit? Even before that cut, one in eight working households lived in poverty in the United Kingdom.

The Resolution Foundation found that taxes on working households would increase by £3,000 or more after this Budget compared with when the Prime Minister first entered office. Yet bankers get tax relief, and the grossly undertaxed Amazon and online retailers escape again. This Government do not care about the growing cost-of-living crisis. The Chancellor gleefully boasts about how his economic policies are working, but I want him to tell that to the families in Bolton who are struggling to make ends meet after the £20 cut to universal credit, or the nurses who will be hit by a pay cut as inflation rises.

The money for local government is meagre compared with the £15 billion of cuts to local authorities since 2010 and the punishing effect that that will continue to have on social care, blocking more NHS beds as care homes close. What about the other, less visible services, such as those covering squalid prisons, delayed courts, excluded children and those children who cannot get to child and adolescent mental health services? Working families needed a plan to boost pay across the whole economy, but instead, after 11 years of this Government, they got a triple whammy of tax hikes, fast-rising energy and food bills, and a universal credit cut that was tweaked, not reversed.

I welcome the fact that the Chancellor has listened to the campaign from me and my university for priority funding to be given to the Bolton College of Medical Sciences partnership bid, which will add a huge amount to our local economy and provide jobs. However, £20 million was only half the bid. We asked for £40 million. I must declare an interest here, since the University of Bolton is in my constituency and this year awarded me an honorary doctorate, but that is not why I am pushing for the money—this is something I have been campaigning on for many years with the university. I remind the Chancellor that the towns fund gives back only a tiny proportion of what this Government have stripped away in cuts to our councils, which has seen spending cuts of £16 million over the past 11 years for Bolton Council alone.

While we sit here in the Chamber, in Glasgow, we are hosting the world at COP26. Yet the Chancellor did not mention climate change once in his speech—neither its impact abroad nor its impact at home. Where is the commitment to funding flood defences? In my constituency yesterday, the Environment Agency issued a flood warning. These communities have suffered year on year and they live in abject fear of flooding.

I have raised this question in the House for a number of years. I brought a petition to the House, I went to the Prime Minister—to 10 Downing Street—with a petition, and I have asked Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to come to see the area in my constituency that gets flooded. To date, no Minister has bothered to attend my constituency to see that, and no money has been given. We are told that some money will be given, but when I last spoke to the Environment Agency locally, it said that there has been no firm commitment. We need £5 million to build flood defences in Bolton, and I ask the Chancellor to consider providing that.

There are many other things that I could say about the Budget, but I will end with a short plea. Many Members will know that for the last nine years I have campaigned for the victims of the hormone pregnancy test Primodos and their families. Their battle has been long, and they are often compared with the forgotten thalidomide victims. Last year, an independent review by Baroness Cumberlege, a former Conservative Minister, found that victims of Primodos, mesh and sodium valproate had all been negligently harmed by their medical treatments. The review recommended that a redress scheme should be set up to compensate the families. To date, the Government have not done that.

The Chancellor has constituents affected by this issue; many years ago, when he was not a Minister, he approached me to register his interest in the all-party parliamentary group on hormone pregnancy tests. The Prime Minister has constituents affected by it, too, as do Mr Speaker and the Leader of the House. Will those Ministers work with the Department of Health and Social Care to set aside funds for a redress scheme?

These people have suffered for decades, through no fault of their own but because of Government negligence and cover-ups—I do not mean this Government; successive Governments have failed to deal with the issue since the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s—and there is now an opportunity. The review was set up by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). It clearly recommended redress for these families—for all three groups of victims—yet, to date, the Department of Health and Social Care has done nothing and the Treasury has done nothing. I ask the Chancellor to consider this issue. It is time we did the right thing and supported these people.

Remote Education and Free School Meals

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts
Monday 18th January 2021

(3 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]
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The provision of home schooling—[Inaudible.]

Eleanor Laing Portrait Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
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Order. There is something deeply wrong with the sound system. We will try to come back to Yasmin Qureshi, but meanwhile we will go to Brendan Clarke-Smith.

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Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]
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The provision of home schooling is really important, because in the lockdown last year we saw that education provision for those in the private sector was very different from that for those in state schools. We all know that the state school budget is a bare minimum, and the schools were not able to respond to the crisis properly.

The Office for National Statistics reports that 700,000 11 to 18-year-olds had no home internet access from a suitable device, and 68% said that they could not do their work without it. For some reason, last year the Government decided to cut the allocation of laptops by 80%. They have now found another £100 million to get more laptops, but we know that £135 million is required.

Last year, when Scotland used predicted grades for exam results, the Government caused another problem that affected poor people and students in state schools by insisting on using the algorithm. Many constituents rang me about their futures, crying their hearts out, and although the Government did a U-turn, it was too late for some of them.

Now the Government have cancelled GCSEs and A-levels, which I welcome. However, no decision has been made on the BTEC, which about 1 million students will be taking. My local community college principal, Bill Webster, contacted me to ask what he should be doing. In the end, he decided to cancel the BTEC. I have to say, I agree with him. Frankly, the lack of preparation by the Government is unacceptable.

On food provision, since 2010 in my constituency child poverty has gone up from 25% to 39%. That is unacceptable, bearing in mind that we are the fifth largest economy in the world. Recently, we saw those food packages—£5-worth of food from a company given £30. It is not surprising that the company is linked to the Tory party. We have also had countless PPE procurement scandals from using the VIP lane without scrutiny. I ask the Government why track and trace was given not to local authorities, but to Serco, whose bosses are connected with the Conservative party.

A number of Conservative Members have said that we in the Labour party are making a party political point. We are not. The fact is that the children who are suffering the most tend to be in our constituencies, and this Government have not bothered about them. The Government should provide decent food and decent education.

Students’ Return to Universities

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts
Tuesday 29th September 2020

(3 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Gavin Williamson Portrait Gavin Williamson
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I pay tribute to the University of Bolton for all the work that it has been doing in order to be able to welcome back its many thousands of students. The University of Bolton plays an important role in providing education not just for students who have travelled internationally and across the country but locally for many young people. We will continue to work with the University of Bolton to ensure that people understand how the rules are applied. We need to make sure that people understand who needs to isolate and how long they should be isolating for, but equally, they need to understand that many young people can go about their normal business while observing the restrictions and courtesies that we ask all universities and all people within society to observe.

Yasmin Qureshi Portrait Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]
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What concrete action did the Secretary of State put in place over the summer to ensure that all students and staff requiring a covid test will be able to have one?

Gavin Williamson Portrait Gavin Williamson
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As I mentioned, we continue to work with the Department of Health and Social Care and with Test and Trace to expand the footprint of testing facilities, which are going to be increased to 500. We are making sure that all universities are within walking distance of a testing centre. Many universities will be making some of their facilities available so that testing centres can be placed there. We have also had assurances from the Department of Health and Social Care in terms of mobile testing facilities that will be made available if there are any local outbreaks and that is required.