Education Recovery — House of Commons, 2021-06-29
Topic: Education
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): It is nice to follow the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson), and his pithy but thought-provoking speech. I am also grateful to the Chair of the Education Committee for giving us a wide-ranging and thoughtful introduction to the whole debate, and for setting the tone so very well The pandemic has swung a wrecking ball through our schools and the Government have left students and teachers to do the heavy lifting of recovery alone. A student I spoke to just last week reported having sat through 54 assessments in order to help their teachers determine an appropriate grade. Rather than complain or give up, they carried on, despite incoherent and panicked changes to the Government guidance right to the last minute. From the chaotic mishandling of exams last year to the lack of timely guidance to teachers this year, and from the huge covid absence rates made worse by the lack of mitigation measures to forcing kids back to school for a day and then announcing the January lockdown, this Government continue to fail young people who simply want to get on with learning This Government are failing to match the ambition that young people have for themselves. In March this year, we thought that the Government might have listened. They appointed Sir Kevan Collins, a highly respected educationalist, to lead an education recovery review. They even told the press that our children were the Prime Minister’s No. 1 priority. The difference between the Government and the Labour party is that when we say children are our No. 1 priority, we actually mean it. Ninety per cent. of the recommended funding was slashed by the Chancellor. He happily butchered plans to help state-educated students, but found all the money in the world to fund a super deduction for the wealthiest companies in the land There was no investment in wellbeing after a year of intense stress, and no investment in social recovery or creative activity. As for the promise to address this in the spending review, Sir Kevan Collins said before the Education Committee today that he wanted to break out of this cycle. "Children cannot wait for another year", he said. According to Sir Kevan, the attainment gap may grow by as much as 20% due to the pandemic. He warned the Chancellor and the Prime Minister that failure to act would make the situation worse, yet the Chancellor says that he cannot give money to every cause that "comes knocking" at his door. Why should students, in their time of greatest need, have to knock on the Chancellor’s door Oliver-style, saying, "Please, sir, can I have some more help to learn?"? No Government with their priorities straight would need students to come knocking at the door in the first place The Chancellor likes to talk about levelling up, but all we have seen is hammering down. Which students are being hardest hit? Those from deprived backgrounds. Which regions are suffering most? Those in parts of the midlands and the north of England that have had the longest lockdowns. Levelling up should be about people, not just bricks The Treasury’s refusal to fund educational catch-up is not just morally reckless; it is fiscally irresponsible too. According to the Education Policy Institute, pandemic-related learning loss could cost the economy between £60 billion and £420 billion. That burden far outweighs the multi-year £50 billion that Sir Kevan was asking for and the Labour party has backed According to the Government, we have entered an era of global Britain. Our economy needs people with the knowledge—technical, social, academic, skills—to compete with South Korea, Germany, Singapore and the United States. Instead, the Government are throwing a spanner in the works of educational recovery and the transformation in skills development of the students who will be the workers, entrepreneurs and wealth creators of tomorrow. We cannot have global Britain without global skills. The Government have been set a test by students: will they work across the political divide to help students overcome the current challenges and unleash their potential into the future? Labour’s educational recovery plan shares many similarities to the Collins report, and we stand ready to help find areas of common ground and to work constructively with the Government to make it happen The one programme that survived the Treasury cuts was the national tutoring programme, which was awarded to a provider with little experience of education. The Secretary of State for Education promised sessions for 6 million children; not only was he contradicted by his officials, but so far only 173,000 have actually begun tutoring. Big promises; little delivery—and all because kids do not matter as much as VIP contracts, tax breaks for the 1% of biggest businesses or royal yachts The Government’s failure to prioritise schoolchildren is having a disastrous consequence here and now. Just last week, 250,000 students were forced to self-isolate. Each of the families affected deserves an apology for the Government’s refusal to secure our borders back in April. They failed to prevent the delta variant from arriving into England in such volume as to rip through communities and threaten the entire recovery Because of past failure, we have no margin for error when it comes to the future. If the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation approves any vaccine for use among children, every student must be offered it this summer, before the next academic year starts. Such a programme needs to be accompanied by plentiful information so that parents can make informed choices in the best interests of their child, family and whole community. A child’s development and future success are badly affected by school absence, and that is a factor that parents need to consider. Such a programme can happen only if the Government start to plan now and are ready to act the moment that the JCVI issues its guidance We also need the Government to get a grip on next year’s exams right now and to lay out a proper plan for 2022 before schools return from their summer break. Students going into exam years have missed mock exams in halls and months of in-school education. We cannot return to a pre-pandemic norm in an instant. Teachers need to know what they are preparing students for at the start of term, not after Christmas, like this year The Labour party Front-Bench team is united in its goal. We have an education recovery plan in which investment in tutoring sits alongside wellbeing and teacher development. We have planned for additional time at school that is enriching, creative, healthy and active—and that includes school facilities being open over the summer, too, not slammed shut to most students, as they have been by this Government. For students, teachers and staff, this is their hour of need. I ask the Minister: please, do not let them down again.