Education and Local Services — House of Commons, 2017-06-27
Topic: Education
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): May I say how glad I am to be back in this place after a very close and hard-won general election campaign? It is wonderful to hear so many brilliant maiden speeches from colleagues in all parties; they are certainly going to give us old-timers a run for our money. I am particularly thrilled to welcome my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker), for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock), for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird) and for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), who will make brilliant additions to the House In the general election, people in Wakefield rejected the planned cuts to our public services—our schools, hospitals and police. I am delighted that the Government have dropped their mean-spirited plan to cut free school meals for infants. Parents in Wakefield told me how worried they were for the children in our city who rely on that as their only hot meal of the day. It is interesting that although the Secretary of State for Education declined to answer questions from Members on this side of the House, while we have been debating she has slipped out a written answer stating that there will be no new grammar schools during the term of this Parliament. Labour’s ban on those drivers of inequality remains in place Education has the power to change lives. Most of us here know that because we know that it changed our lives. I am proud to have spent seven years working as a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Cranfield School of Management, which is a brilliant institution. I want every child in this country to get a decent education, no matter where they were born, but the odds are stacked against far too many children in Wakefield. A quarter grow up in poverty and are eligible for free school meals. That is double the national average Wakefield Council and our local enterprise partnership have taken steps to tackle the low levels of tertiary education locally with a new £6.9 million advanced innovation and skills centre opening in Wakefield this summer, and Wakefield College has just received a silver award in the teaching excellence framework. Wakefield is on its way, but the planned cuts are making life hard. The area has lost 11 Sure Start centres since 2010, and every 16-year-old who was eligible no longer gets the education maintenance allowance to help them to stay on in college I pay tribute to Wakefield headteachers, who are doing so much for our young people despite the £21 million of funding cuts that they will see over the next two years. There will be fewer teachers, bigger class sizes, fewer choices for students taking GCSEs and A-levels, a reduction in vocational courses, less support for children with special educational needs or mental health problems, fewer extra-curricular activities and enrichment opportunities, and less money for textbooks and computers. That is what the headteachers in Wakefield wrote in a letter to parents, asking them to campaign against the Government’s cuts I pay tribute to our brilliant headteachers. I visited Clare Kelly at Dane Royd Junior and Infant School in March to present her with a British Council award for the amazing work she does with our local children on languages. They come out learning not just French and Spanish but Chinese, putting those of us who like to think of ourselves as old-school linguists to shame. Another example is Miriam Oakley at Horbury Academy. When I was making a film to go on Facebook about the cuts that her school faces—16 teachers and £550 per pupil—she came out and said, "I thought you were a truant." That was one of the lighter moments of my campaign; no one has called me a truant for the past 30 years. I also pay tribute to Rob Marsh at CAPA College, which is waiting for a response from Education Ministers on what is going to happen to its award-winning performance arts provision I urge the Government to look again at these cuts; they are harming children in Wakefield.