Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) I beg to move, That this House has
considered tutoring provision. It is a pleasure to serve under your
chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I thank the Backbench Business Committee
for granting the debate, and I thank hon. Members in all parts of
the House who supported my application for it. Unfortunately, it
clashes with a meeting of the Education Committee, but the
Chair—the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker)—and various members
of the...Request free trial
(Twickenham) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered tutoring provision.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I
thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate,
and I thank hon. Members in all parts of the House who supported
my application for it. Unfortunately, it clashes with a meeting
of the Education Committee, but the Chair—the hon. Member for
Worcester (Mr Walker)—and various members of the Committee have
been very supportive.
This debate is about the Government’s national tutoring programme
and the 16 to 19 tuition fund, which will end at the end of this
academic year. Like other hon. Members, I am really disappointed
that no new money was announced in the Budget to allow it to
continue. As a result, schools and colleges have two options:
they can try to fund the scheme from their own meagre budgets,
which would be hard to achieve given the cuts that they are
already having to make, or they can scrap it altogether, which
would be a travesty.
During the pandemic, children were
“at the back of the queue”
and “always overlooked”. Those are the words of Anne Longfield,
who was Children’s Commissioner during covid. Despite the
remarkable efforts of our teachers and education leaders, who
heroically adapted their lessons for online learning, we lost
tens of millions of hours of valuable classroom time, and
disadvantaged children were most affected.
Sir , the Government’s adviser,
acknowledged that children needed £15 billion to bridge the
educational gap created by the pandemic. When just a fraction of
that was given, he promptly resigned. In a recent interview in
Tes magazine, he recognised the value of tutoring and said that
he had wanted to scale it up dramatically so that 5 million
pupils would receive tutoring by the end of 2024. He was also
clear that tutoring should be best managed and led by schools. He
said:
“Schools know their children best.”
I could not agree more, but as we all know, the recovery
programme for which Sir Kevan called was not delivered.
I have to be totally honest: I was not always a fan of how the
Government’s national tutoring programme was implemented. It
encountered numerous challenges from ineffective outsourcing to
tortuous application processes, tutoring shortages and—dare I
mention the word—Randstad. Even the Education Committee, which
was then under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for
Harlow (), who is now an Education
Minister, recognised in a 2022 report that
“a complex bureaucratic system for applications may have hampered
some schools’ ability to access…support”.
It further noted:
“Teachers and school staff know their pupils and know what
interventions are likely to bring the most benefit.”
As Sir Kevan identified, the size of the tutoring programme also
fell drastically short.
Despite all its failings, the tutoring programme managed to
achieve some positive outcomes. When implemented correctly,
tutoring has proved its worth time and again. It has helped
pupils to catch up on lost learning and has shown many additional
benefits such as improved confidence and school attendance. In
the run-up to the Budget, more than 500 schools signed a letter
to the Prime Minister, to the Secretary of State for Education
and to the Chancellor, calling for more national tutoring
programme funding. The letter was delivered to No. 10 by
representatives of Action Tutoring, Tutor Trust and Get Further.
I pay tribute to them for their amazing work in this area;
several of them are watching from the Gallery today.
The Government responded that they would continue to support
tutoring through pupil premium funding, but school leaders will
be dismayed by that response. The pupil premium, which was
established by Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government, was
once a fund to support disadvantaged children, but since 2015 its
value has eroded by 14% in real terms, according to the Institute
for Fiscal Studies, and I think we all acknowledge that in recent
years it has more often been used to plug gaps in school funding.
The hon. Member for Worcester recognised that when he said:
“I’m not sure there is sufficient space in the pupil premium to
support tutoring becoming part of the system.”
Why am I such a fan of tutoring? We are lucky that so much
research has been done on the impact of tutoring. The Sutton
Trust, Public First, the Education Endowment Foundation and
others have all looked at it. This Government claim that they are
led by evidence, so let us look at some. The Sutton Trust says
that the attainment gap, which had been decreasing gradually
throughout the early 2010s,
“stalled in the years before the pandemic. Since the crisis, the
gap has widened considerably, with 10 years of progress now wiped
out.”
It believes that tutoring is
“a key method of boosting learning”
for disadvantaged children. It also notes:
“The programme has had a considerable impact on levelling out
access to tutoring, with 35% of working class Year 11 students
receiving private or school-based tutoring, compared to 36% of
students from professional homes.”
Work by the Education Endowment Foundation has shown the
effectiveness of tutoring, showing an average impact of four
months’ additional progress over the course of a year with
small-group tutoring. It also recognised the particular benefits
that tutoring can bring to disadvantaged children:
“Studies in England have shown that pupils eligible for free
school meals typically receive additional benefits from small
group tuition”.
It stands to reason: allowing a teacher to focus on the needs of
a small number of learners and provide teaching closely matched
to that pupil’s individual understanding will reap greater
rewards than teaching a larger number of students. Small groups
offer the opportunity for greater levels of interaction and
feedback than whole-class teaching.
Let us take the example of Dylan, a typical student who has
benefited from an Action Tutoring tutor. Dylan struggled with
maths and was considered unlikely to meet the expected standard.
His school set him up with tutoring, and he attended 16 sessions
over a period of two years. As a result, he moved from a grade 3
standard to a grade 4 pass. However, the benefits were so much
more than just getting the grade that he needed. Dylan said:
“Before I started my tutoring sessions, I dreaded maths because I
didn’t enjoy it. But my tutoring sessions were amazing and really
helped boost my confidence in maths. When I found out I passed my
GCSE maths, I didn’t believe it. Dead serious, I literally was
flabbergasted. I was like, what is even going on? I looked twice
at it as I was just so flustered.”
That hope and excitement expressed by Dylan—that promise of being
able to move on to the next stage of your life and pursue your
dreams—is priceless.
Public First research shows the impact that tutoring has had on
GCSE pass rates and overall grades in key subjects. Some 62,000
additional pass grades in GCSE maths and English were achieved as
a result of Government-funded tutoring in the 2021-22 and 2022-23
academic years. Tutoring is an intervention with an impact on
pupils right across the grade spectrum: it provided 430,000 grade
improvements in total, with 220,000 in maths and 210,000 in
English. The long-term economic impact on earning potential is
significant, and so is the very real impact of strong foundations
in numeracy and literacy on people’s lives.
We all know that under-18s in England must retake GCSE English
and maths if they do not achieve a grade 4 pass. In 2023, that
resulted in a staggering 167,000 students having to retake maths
and 172,000 resitting English. When combined, that is the highest
number of retakes in a decade. We are setting those children up
for repeated failure unless different help and support is
provided. Just 16.4% of students resitting GCSE maths in England
passed with at least a grade 4 this year, and the pass rate for
English was only slightly higher. That group of children need
targeted help, support and time with a tutor in small-group
sessions to get to the bottom of what they find difficult, with
personal, structured work plans to boost progress. Targeted
tutoring has been exceptionally effective in helping that
group.
I was lucky enough to see the work of Get Further when I visited
Southwark College last year. Sitting in on a few sessions allowed
me to see tutoring at first hand. It was fascinating to see how
tutors engaged one on one with pupils, helping them to unpack a
maths question or discussing the meaning of a particular word in
English. The children I spoke to all had aspirations and plans
for the future, and they really valued the time they spent with
teachers one on one or in a small group.
Aiden, at London South East Colleges, had twice missed out on a
grade 4 at English GCSE. He was supported by a Get Further tutor,
who helped him to understand things for the first time in a
tailored small group and one-to-one setting. He said this about
his experience:
“I was only aiming for a 4 as it was my third time retaking
English and I wanted to get it over and done with. As I continued
my tuition, I started to understand things I didn’t understand
before and quickly improved. Now, I have a 6 and it’s all thanks
to my tutor. I am so pleased with the grade I achieved and proud
of how far I have come! In September, I aim to go on to Level 2
Health and Social Care and then move on to Level 3 or an Access
to Higher Education course so that I can do Paramedic Science at
university with awesome classmates who share what I aspire to be:
someone who helps people at their highest and lowest
moments.”
Tutoring can be truly transformational.
We should also acknowledge the many other spillover benefits that
tutoring brings, which speak to many current concerns in our
educational system. Some 85% of parents say that tutoring has had
a positive impact on their child’s confidence, while 68% say that
it has improved attendance. CoachBright recently published its
impact report and has done interesting work on the relationship
between tutoring and attendance. The results show that tutoring
can reduce persistent absence by 11%. At a time when thousands of
pupils are missing from school, tutoring can offer children and
young people the opportunity to have a new trusted adult in their
lives, giving them a new way to engage with their education.
The bottom line is that for every £1 spent on tutoring, £6.58 is
generated in economic returns as a direct result of pupils
achieving higher grades and having a higher lifetime earnings
potential. The benefits are felt not just by those who receive
the tutoring, but by our whole economy and society. The evidence
is compelling, but there is also a strong political case for
continuing tutoring: it is popular. Public First research found
that pupils like tutoring: students were positive about their
experiences and were willing to have more of it if available.
Parents like tutoring: over three quarters of parents would
support increased tutoring provision. Teachers like tutoring:
they welcome the impact on academic attainment and the wider
benefits such as pupil confidence, increased engagement in the
classroom and reduced anxiety. This is a policy that is popular
with pupils, parents and teachers. I have no wish to help the
Government, but surely that sounds like a vote winner.
Liberal Democrats believe in tutoring, which is why we have said
that we will offer a tutoring guarantee for every disadvantaged
pupil who needs extra support, recognising that tutoring is most
effective when we allow headteachers and college leaders to
decide themselves how to run the scheme. I think tutoring is so
important that I joined the Conservative Chair of the Education
Committee and a former Labour Education Secretary—the noble Lord,
Lord Blunkett—to try to convince the Government to maintain
funding for the tutoring programme beyond the end of this
academic year.
As we have heard from the case studies, tutoring can be a
life-changing intervention. Those of us who are parents and are
privileged enough to afford tutoring for our children do not
hesitate to pay for it in order to boost their attainment and
confidence. In the words of Lorraine Spence, whose daughter Naomi
benefited from Get Further’s tutoring after she failed her maths
GCSE:
“My daughter is now thriving at university but without the
extension of this kind of funding, countless young people from
low-income families will miss out on securing the gateway
qualifications they need to unlock opportunities like this.
Should tutoring return to being a luxury for the rich and a
sacrifice for the poor? I urge the Government not to allow this
to be the case. Instead, let’s make a more equitable educational
system, where tutoring is accessible to all—and one positive
legacy to come out of the pandemic.”
I could not agree more with Lorraine’s words. If the Government
are serious about levelling up, I hope that the Minister will
make a commitment today that he is willing to do battle with his
Treasury colleagues to ensure that funding continues both for the
national tutoring programme and for the 16 to 19 tuition fund.
Schools and colleges need that assurance urgently to plan for the
next academic year.
9.45am
(Sedgefield) (Con)
It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Mrs
Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham () for securing this important
debate. I want to say a few words in support of the Government’s
national tutoring programme, an outstanding initiative that has
provided invaluable support, particularly for children whose
education was impacted during the global coronavirus pandemic. I
would also like to share my first-hand experience of the
programme.
I am the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield in County Durham,
and the programme has helped Dean Bank Primary and Nursery
School, in Ferryhill in my constituency, to support some of the
most disadvantaged students in the north-east. This is a school
where 79% of students receive free school meals, and it is in the
area that is the focus of my all-party parliamentary group for
left-behind neighbourhoods. As it happens, it is also the school
that I first attended. The school is based in one of the mining
communities in my constituency, which deserve all the help they
can get to stimulate social mobility and aspiration.
The national tutoring programme has brought about 430,000 grade
increases and 62,000 additional passes in maths and English since
it was launched. Indeed, Professor Becky Francis, chair of the
Education Endowment Foundation, referred to tutoring as
“one of the best evidenced interventions we have to support
disadvantaged pupils’ attainment.”
Meanwhile, according to Public First data, a projected lifetime
earnings boost of £4.34 billion can be ascribed to the national
tutoring programme, based on the tutoring delivered in the two
years from 2021-22 to 2022-23 for just £660 million.
Despite what that data does to illuminate the education, tutoring
is not all about numbers. At Dean Bank Primary and Nursery
School, 20 pupils have been supported in their maths and English
since October last year; in a tiny primary school, that makes
such a difference to their world. The school is supported by
Action Tutoring, an education charity hugely supported by the
national tutoring programme. The school’s deputy head teacher,
Will Haynes, has said:
“After the initial set-up period, the children had clearly gotten
into it. They came into school, all excited, saying, ‘It’s
tutoring day today!’ It’s going really well. It’s quick and easy
to set up the laptops each week. The children look forward to
seeing their tutors.”
In the past, a disadvantaged but rural community such as
Ferryhill would have struggled to get tutoring support, but
thanks to the internet, that is no longer the case. I thank
Action Tutoring and its brilliant volunteers for what they do;
indeed, one reason I am here today is that one of my staff,
Douglas Oliver, who is here today, also volunteers with Action
Tutoring, and he has massively enlightened me about how important
its work is. Action Tutoring’s analysis shows that 65% of
disadvantaged pupils pass their maths GCSE after attending at
least 10 tutoring sessions with the charity. Action Tutoring
pupils were nearly 13 percentage points more likely to pass maths
GCSE than other disadvantaged pupils nationally. Those are
significant interventions. I could continue, but what I want to
say is that Action Tutoring’s work is indicative of so much of
the valuable tutoring provided by volunteers and others. We must
celebrate that work.
Pupil premium funding was introduced 14 years ago by a
Conservative Government working in coalition with the Liberal
Democrats. Although the Government gave something in the order of
£400 billion of temporary support during the crisis of 2020 and
2021, it is vital that one small part of that support is renewed
as the legacy of the pandemic endures for our youngest people. Of
course, the Government live in a time of fiscal pressure
following the shock of the pandemic and the illegal war in
Ukraine, but we must continue to focus on education outcomes and
the investment they afford us in our future. I hope the
Government will look at the national tutoring programme as an
option after this school year, because much needs to be done to
look at how we embed tutoring for all students in the years
ahead. Tutoring can stimulate aspiration in those furthest away
from opportunity, and I encourage the Government to give it all
possible support.
9.49am
(Strangford) (DUP)
It really is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs
Cummins. I look forward to you being in the Chair every time I am
here. Thank you for being here and for your fairness.
I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham () for leading this debate on a
very important issue. As always, I will try to bring a Northern
Ireland perspective, not because the Minister has responsibility
for Northern Ireland but because it adds to the debate. I will
give some stats and talk about what we have done back home, and
hopefully we can share those experiences for our betterment.
The hon. Lady and the Liberal Democrat party have done much work
on children’s education, and specifically on tutoring. She set
the scene well and talked about what she and her party espouse
and hope to achieve. She spoke about the benefits of tutoring,
which were endorsed by the hon. Member for Sedgefield (). There is certainly a
disparity across the United Kingdom, but we must ensure that
children from all backgrounds can take advantage of good
educational learning. It is great to be here to give a Northern
Ireland perspective on this issue.
The Government set up the national tutoring programme in England
in response to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on
education. Those two and a half to three years really did change
life for everyone. The programme provided subsidised, small-group
catch-up teaching and mentoring for pupils impacted by covid. It
is crazy to think about where we were just a few years ago and
about how much school young people missed out on. Although
teachers did their best, it was always going to be a difficult
task, so it was important that we looked at different ways of
providing education. The Government did that, especially for key
worker parents.
The latest child poverty figures for Northern Ireland show that
82,000 children live in absolute poverty. Remember that we have a
population of 1.95 million, so those figures show the enormity of
the situation and what we are trying to achieve back home—we are
talking about almost one in every five children. Just under
100,000 children in Northern Ireland live in relative poverty.
Adding those two figures together gives a sum of 182,000 living
in absolute or relative poverty. Those figures worry me. They
highlight not only the situation in Northern Ireland but the need
for better one-to-one tutoring provision.
Key worker parents provided essential services, but their
children had less face-to-face teaching at home, so it is likely
that many of those children suffered due to that too. The hon.
Members for Twickenham and for Sedgefield talked about a
combination of issues, and I know that the hon. Members for
Stoke-on-Trent North () and for Newcastle upon
Tyne North () will do likewise.
I always look forward to the Minister’s response, because he
tries to encapsulate our fears, concerns and questions, and gives
us some encouragement as elected representatives. Funding for
Northern Ireland was secured by the Halifax Foundation for
Northern Ireland and the Charities Aid Foundation. That allowed
for the creation of a free online tuition service for the
children of key workers from socially disadvantaged backgrounds
and for children with special educational needs. The combination
of those two issues—parents who are away at work, and the
education of children with special educational needs—is a massive
problem. I have realised from all the debates we have here that
the issues relating to children with special educational needs
affect not just Northern Ireland but the whole of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Ask a Tutor
scheme really did make a difference, and I thank the Halifax
Foundation for Northern Ireland and the Charities Aid Foundation
for that.
The Government have said that raising children’s attainment is at
the heart of their agenda, and that is very true. Being able to
obtain good tutoring services is one thing, but that must be
deliverable across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland. I am a passionate believer in the
strength of the Union, and I am sure everybody in this Chamber is
of a similar disposition. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent
North spoke at my association dinner two weeks ago about the
strength of the Union, and he enthralled that audience of true
Unionists in Newtownards with his words. I put my thanks for that
on record, and I am pleased to see him here.
Although it is fully understood that education is devolved, we
need to ensure that the initial budget is there to support
one-to-one tutoring in our schools. The Assembly is now up and
working again, and the Minister for Education back home is my
colleague . I know him and I know that
he will work hard on this issue, but there also needs to be the
support from Westminster. I am sure the Minister will give us
encouragement on that through his words, as well as his
actions.
One of my staff members was tutored in maths through her fourth
and fifth years of secondary school, and her sessions cost £32
for one hour each week. That was almost eight years ago, so I
imagine that they cost at least another £10 to £15, which would
make it quite challenging for any person to afford that
individually—it could cost over £200 a month, depending on how
many sessions someone was having. Although there are people out
there who will be able to afford that—that is fine, and those are
the sacrifices we make—there are those who simply will not be
able to. Giving consideration to those families should be made a
priority, and that is the first of my requests in this
debate.
We all want our young children to grow up and excel at school,
and to have the best opportunities possible, and providing extra
one-to-one tutoring sessions is an excellent way to ensure they
do. I see that through the staff in my office and what they have
told me, and we heard it in the introduction from the hon. Member
for Twickenham, who explained why tutoring is important, and
others have added to that message and will add to it in a
minute.
I urge the Minister to engage with the devolved nations to ensure
that we can all play a role in improving educational outcomes for
young people in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland. Isn’t it great that we have that Union? Isn’t
it great that we can share these ideas? Isn’t it great that we
can do that for our children?
9.57am
(Stoke-on-Trent North)
(Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I
congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham () on securing this incredibly
important debate.
If I may, I will briefly thank the hon. Member for Strangford
() for giving me a plug and saying why I might have a
career in the diplomatic corps in the not-too-distant future,
which may come as a shock to many. I appreciate that he invited
me, and it was obviously a pleasure to speak to the fine people
of Strangford and surrounding areas about our precious and
important Union.
The issue before us is very important for me, and I refer to my
entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I was a
schoolteacher professionally, working in both London and
Birmingham before entering this place. My partner is also an
employee of Teach First, which analysed elements of the programme
and was involved in delivering some of the tutoring in the
earlier days. Although she was not an employee at that stage, it
is important to ensure that the record is clear.
The national tutoring programme plays a massively important part
in ensuring that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in
particular—those who are registered for free school meals, and
those who are not yet registered but who are technically
eligible—have the academic ability to attain the grades they
deserve. For levelling up to mean anything, we have to get
education right. In Stock-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, I
can build every shiny building going and bring in every new job
going, but what is it all for if kids from Stoke-on-Trent do not
end up in those new high-skilled, high-wage jobs, in those
buildings or in the new homes we are building in our local
area?
Sadly, Stoke-on-Trent has remained in the bottom 20% for academic
attainment and achievement for far too long. In the past, the
Office for Students has ranked my constituency as the seventh
worst in England for kids going on to higher education. Twelve
per cent of my entire workforce have no formal qualifications,
which is 8% higher than the national average. The number of kids
achieving level 3 and 4 qualifications—A-levels or college and
apprenticeship qualifications—remains in the bottom fifth
nationwide. That is not something that I want to see.
Sadly, the city has languished under a disastrous private finance
initiative deal. This is not meant to be a party political dig,
but it was administered under the last Labour Government back in
2000. There are 88 schools trapped in a PFI contract run by the
council and are seeing huge inflationary increases in their
costs. It is predicted that up to £100,000 in additional funding
will potentially have to be found for the annual contributions
that need to be made, leaving us scrambling. I collared the
Minister in the voting Lobby last night to demand more funding,
and that goes to the heart of the point. I appreciate that the
Government will point to pupil premium funding, which is a superb
initiative, but I agree with the Chair of the Education
Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker),
who the hon. Member for Twickenham quoted: the reality is that
the money simply will not be there.
There are huge inflationary increases in food and equipment
costs, and with teachers’ salaries going up, which the Government
have covered in part but not in full. There are also additional
costs in Stoke-on-Trent, where we have those increased PFI
contributions. Those inflationary pressures, again, driven by
covid and Vladimir Putin’s illegal and immoral war in Ukraine,
mean that schools are having to use every penny that they can
find. They will not be able to continue the important tutoring
scheme out of their own existing budgets because of the pressures
that they are facing right now.
Stoke-on-Trent is exactly the area where that kind of
intervention is absolutely necessary. I share the concern that at
the end of this academic year, we will potentially see the end of
the national tutoring programme as it is funded currently through
additional Government support. I implore the Minister, and I will
do everything I can with him, to lobby Treasury colleagues to
demand that the scheme continues.
I will say this about the Prime Minister. Back in summer 2022, I
supported my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon
() during the Conservative
party leadership contest—it feels a long time ago, I know—because
he had mentored me for a long time. I had a sense of loyalty to
that, and I believe him to be a very good man. However, after he
dropped out, I met all the leading contenders, including the
current Prime Minister. When I sat down in the room with him for
the first time and had a conversation about non-Treasury matters,
seeing the fire behind his eyes when he talked about education
was inspiring. It is so important, and it is something that sadly
I had not heard enough of since the Blair years of “Education,
education, education”, although I fear that that was more slogan
and gimmick than actual delivery. Still, most importantly, at
least it was on the forefront of the education agenda at that
time.
Does my hon. Friend agree that expenditure should be focused on
initiatives like this programme, as opposed to the broader
schemes that try to cover everybody from middle-income families
to high-income families and do a broad sweep across the bottom?
These are the interventions that the Government should really be
focused on.
I completely agree. I have huge problems with universal schemes
because they are not a benefit if everyone is receiving them, in
my personal opinion. Having universal free school meals for every
child in primary school is not a good idea, because why on earth
would my children be given access to a free school meal when I
myself can afford it? I would rather see that additional funding
for middle-class and higher-income parents who can afford it
invested in children from disadvantaged backgrounds, so that we
can have those well-funded breakfast clubs but also ensure that
schools can invest further in such things as the tutoring
programme.
We should not forget that the Education Endowment Foundation’s
own research says that small group tuition adds four months of
progress on to students’ lives. Tes reported that as of January
2024, 390,000 grade improvements in English and maths have been
attributed to progress made due to the national tutoring
programme over the previous two academic years. That goes to show
the importance of the scheme, particularly for English and maths,
and particularly when we still have an archaic system in place
that means that people must get a pass in those subjects to be
able to do an apprenticeship, yet they would not need that to do
their A-levels. We have a two-tier system, despite having a major
skills shortage in this country. We talk the talk about ensuring
that apprenticeships are equal to an A-level, but there are these
bizarre barriers in place that mean they are not.
I hope that the Minister will take back the idea of abolishing
the requirements at the foundation stage, in order to allow
people to get on to apprenticeships and study their English and
maths while on those courses to get them up to grade. Of course,
any responsible company will want that for their employees
because it will improve the outcomes and productivity of the
company.
The Government should be applauded for around 5 million tutoring
courses that have begun since the inception of the programme, and
the fact that they were bold and brave in going for it, despite
the fact that Randstad is a dark stain on the Department’s
ability to procure. However, going back to what the hon. Member
for Twickenham and I were calling for in those early days, it is
vital to give the money to the schools and trust the headteachers
in large part to deliver this particular programme.
The school-led approach is a much better system. Why? Teachers
know who those pupils are. They know their backgrounds and their
learning and support needs; they know their parents and have a
relationship with them. Teachers are and have always been willing
to stay behind after school. If we give teachers the opportunity
to have a little more money in their pocket, bearing in mind they
probably work double the hours they are actually paid for—I
certainly used to do 60 hours a week as a bare minimum while on
the frontline as a head of year—that could have a huge and
positive impact for them. It could also have a positive impact on
the many fantastic smaller focused third sector organisations
that, again, have existed for a long time.
I hope we never see a repeat of Randstad, because that was an
utter disaster. I was pleased to see that the Government were
nimble on their feet and followed a school-led approach; giving
that money to the schools directly had a positive impact. I saw
that in my albeit very brief time as Minister for School
Standards between September and October 2022. During that time, I
went on a number of visits to schools in the Black Country that
were using that funding. I spoke with the pupils themselves, who
said that without the programme, they would not have had the
confidence to put up their hand in class to ask teachers
questions when they did not understand what was being taught to
them.
The national tutoring programme has given pupils
confidence—sixth-formers interacting with year 7 and 8 pupils who
are new to the school, to build that sense of collective
responsibility and help one another. The older pupils learn
important leadership skills, using their lived experience to
impart the knowledge they have learned from their excellent and
outstanding teachers. It all goes to show the power of the
scheme. I do hope we will see that.
In February 2023, the National Audit Office said that in the
2021-22 academic year, only 47% of the pupils accessing the
scheme were disadvantaged. Like myself, the hon. Member for
Twickenham and many other Members present will be worried by
that. The national tutoring programme was designed for
disadvantaged pupils; it should not be supplementing the tutoring
of children whose parents could afford private tuition if needed.
While I want to ensure that every child has the opportunity, we
need to find out from the Minister— I hope we will hear this
today—what the Government have done since that report to really
drive up the number of disadvantaged pupils to hopefully reach
the 65% target that was initially given to Randstad as part of
the contract. That is exactly the type of figure that we would
like to see. I agree with Lee Elliot Major, the professor of
social mobility at the University of Exeter, that it would be
“a national travesty if we fail to embed tutoring”
into our core schooling day in, day out. We therefore have that
responsibility.
Schools Week reported that as of July 2023, there was a £240
million underspend in the tutoring programme over the 2021-22 and
the 2022-23 academic year. Can I ask the Minister whether that
money was reinvested back into the national tutoring programme to
help to cover schools’ costs, which are obviously rising in year
in, year out, and to deal with the tutoring programme? That was
something I requested within the Department while I was a
Minister: for any underspend to go into the next academic year to
give schools more cover and give them longer to get the programme
up and running, build more trust with pupils and put things in
place. That is important as well.
My final contribution is simple. If the Government do not want to
go ahead with the national tutoring programme in its current
form, I personally believe there is only one other way we can go
forward. As any other hon. Member would, I will shamelessly plug
my own research paper, which I did with Onward back in November
2020. It calls for not only an extended school day, which I have
long supported, but a shortening of the school holidays over the
course of an academic year—reducing the summer holiday from six
weeks to four.
I support that for two reasons. First, childcare is extremely
expensive; it is even more expensive now than when I wrote that
report. It was estimated that that change would save the average
family £133 a week based on costs associated back in November
2020, which will obviously have massively increased since then. I
appreciate that the Government have done a lot in the childcare
space with the new scheme providing 15 hours of free childcare as
of April. I must confess that my own child, who is two years old,
will benefit from it, and we have started the process of getting
our code to give to our childcare provider.
The second and most important reason is that from research I have
conducted, I understand that it takes around seven weeks for a
disadvantaged pupil at the start of a new academic year to
finally surpass where they were at the end of the previous
academic year. That is seven weeks of lost learning, during which
time disadvantaged pupils are unable to accelerate at the same
pace as their better-off peers, which is simply unfair. Reducing
that holiday to four weeks—I am happy to have a two-week October
half term, which would be better for pupils and teachers in terms
of rest and wellbeing, as well as trying to spread the cost of
the school holidays throughout the year more fairly—would give
those younger people a better opportunity.
There are other ideas in the pipeline. I have a research paper
that I will happily send the Minister to have a look at and tell
me what he thinks. Ultimately, I think it is the right thing. I
appreciate that multi-academy trusts can do that of their own
volition, and some do, but it should be driven nationally as
well.
As I said, education is the absolute bedrock to levelling up. It
is the bedrock to making sure that life chances can be achieved.
I have no fiscal rules when it comes to education, because I
believe that if we shove all the money there, we will have better
outcomes on health and work, fewer people needing to use the
welfare state, better home ownership, better wages, and less
poverty in our country. Education is at the epicentre of
achieving that, and we should therefore be pouring money into the
sector. That 92% of my schools are now rated “good” or
“outstanding”, compared with around 60% in 2010, and 75% of my
kids are now reaching the necessary levels in phonics, compared
with 53% when we inherited government back in 2010, shows that we
have got it right, and that all the changes and hard work can go
on to build something more.
I am so passionate about making sure that we get education right.
It is essential that the people I serve—my masters and mistresses
back in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke; my Lord Sugars
who will hire or fire me when the general election comes later
this year—have every opportunity to make sure that their children
can have the opportunities and ability to access the
high-skilled, high-wage jobs I am bringing to my local area to
improve their life outcomes. Stoke-on-Trent’s achievement of the
levelling-up agenda is driven through the education sector.
Please, Minister: we have to keep this tutoring programme on the
tracks. If we do not, an extended school day and shorter school
holidays are the alternative, in my opinion.
10.11am
(Newcastle upon Tyne
North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I thank
the hon. Member for Twickenham () for bringing forward this
debate on tutoring provision, and all hon. Members who have
spoken very passionately on behalf of the children, families and
school communities they represent here in Parliament.
I think we all agree that the scale of the challenge that many of
our children and young people are currently facing is immense. We
know that children and families have really struggled with the
combined impact of years of reduced investment in our public
services, compounded by the impact of the pandemic. Indeed, the
attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers,
which many have mentioned, has widened across all educational
phases since 2019, so any limited progress made in the decade
before was wiped out in a couple of years. The hon. Member for
Twickenham also highlighted that issue.
We know that what happens outside the school gates reinforces the
impact of what happens inside them. With the rising levels of
child poverty, the cuts to youth services in communities and the
dwindling support for children with additional needs, schools are
increasingly becoming the frontline, with teachers having to buy
food with their own money and wash clothes for families, and the
increasing challenge of mental health issues.
It has now been four years since the enormous disruption and lost
learning experienced by so many children began during covid. What
was most concerning at that time was the lack of planning for
children and for the inevitable impacts: no plan for learning
from home in the early days; no plan for ensuring that all
children had the equipment they needed; no plan for schools,
teachers, or how to support children afterwards. So when the
classrooms finally reopened after covid, it was not surprising to
anyone that children found it hard to adjust. They had had little
socialisation or interaction, and some had received barely any
education at all.
I saw the impact on my own children. My youngest had only just
started school when he found himself back at home being taught by
two parents who had no teaching experience, two other children to
try to teach and support, and two full-time jobs that they had to
undertake from home. It was an incredibly challenging time for
families everywhere, and in far too many households, particularly
where less support was available, children paid a very heavy
price. was therefore commissioned by
the Government to set out a long-term recovery plan for our
children, but the Prime Minister, who was then Chancellor, opted
out: he was simply not willing to make that investment in other
people’s children. Our country continues to pay a very heavy
price for the decision he took then, and it will for some time to
come.
The National Audit Office reported last year:
“Disruption to schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic led to lost
learning for many pupils, particularly disadvantaged
children.”
It also reported:
“Left unaddressed, lost learning may lead to increased
disadvantage and significant missing future earnings for those
affected.”
As a key measure to address that, the Government introduced the
national tutoring programme, which was initially provided through
tuition partners. As hon. Members have noted, there were many
missteps, from a very low uptake at the start to schools
struggling to find the tutors they needed to deliver the support,
but as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North () highlighted, once the
Government introduced the school-led tutoring element in
September 2021, there was some success and take-up was
higher.
Evidence gathered by the National Foundation for Educational
Research showed that increasing the number of tuition hours
“led to better outcomes in maths and English.”
Crucially, however, the foundation noted:
“Less than half of pupils selected for tutoring were from
disadvantaged backgrounds.”
As the match-funding requirements kicked in and Government
funding went from 75% to 50%, schools that were trying to make
the scheme work and that needed it the most found it ever more
difficult to deliver. This year, many schools, especially those
in the poorest areas, have used up almost all of their pupil
premium and recovery premium funding to pay for tutors, leaving
them little to pay for other interventions such as enrichment or
training. Indeed, the benefits of the scheme risked being
undermined by the way it was delivered because it was poorly
targeted, so lots of children who needed the support the most
were not able to benefit from it.
Tutoring was not mentioned in the Budget earlier this month, so
it seems that the national tutoring programme is coming to an
end. Just a few months ago, the then Schools Minister, the right
hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (), stated:
“The Department has committed that, from the 2023/24 academic
year, tutoring will have been embedded across schools in
England.”
However, without a specific budget for tuition, it is assumed
that schools will need to use their main budgets to fund that
support.
The Minister for Schools ()
Will the hon. Lady give way?
I will just finish my point.
As I was saying, it is assumed that schools will need to use
their main budgets to fund tuition support, absorbing the costs
into what is already a shrinking pot. It would therefore be
helpful if the Minister set out the Government’s vision of the
national tutoring programme in the future. I was going to ask if
he could do so in his response to this debate, but he is welcome
to make an intervention now.
I will speak in a moment. I just wondered whether the hon. Lady
is committing, in the event of her party coming into government,
to having a separate line item for the tutoring programme over
and above core school budgets.
The question that I am putting to the Government is how they
envisage the future of the national tutoring programme. I would
be grateful if the Government set out their vision. I will
respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s point, as I deal with it in
my speech—
It will not be long until there is a general election. We do not
know exactly when, but there will be a general election at some
point in the months to come. If the hon. Lady is saying that she
thinks the Government’s course of action is a mistake, I am
interested in hearing the alternative that she is setting
out.
As I said, I am really interested to hear what the Government’s
vision is. Given that they have committed to ensuring that
tutoring is embedded within the national school system, what is
their plan for ensuring that that happens? We will inherit that
plan from them, so I am very keen to hear the Minister’s response
to my question. I will set out Labour’s costed plans in detail,
but I am interested to hear how the Government will deliver on
their pledge to ensure that tutoring is embedded within the
national school system.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that schools funding
in England is already not increasing as fast as the cost
pressures schools are facing. That means that the poorest schools
are likely to struggle the most to find the cash for tutoring,
and that our most disadvantaged pupils will miss out. With access
to tutoring seemingly diminishing, what is the Minister’s plan
for children to recover the learning they lost, which they have
still not recovered from? I appreciate that he would like to move
these issues on to the next Labour Government to solve, but given
that this Government are currently in charge, I am sure that,
like me, listeners to the debate are interested in hearing what
this Government’s plans are.
In government, Labour will consider how more tailored support
could be most effectively delivered to ensure that children
achieve what they need to in school. Crucially, we will look at
introducing a range of measures to ensure that we close the
attainment gap. We know that children’s speech and language have
really suffered since the pandemic, which has the potential to
affect their educational attainment in the much longer term, so
Labour has pledged to equip every school with the funding to
deliver evidence-based early language interventions to tackle the
problem.
We understand that quality teaching is key to unlocking
children’s potential, so we would use the funding available from
ending the tax breaks currently enjoyed by private schools to
hire 6,500 more teachers in our state schools, giving every child
the teachers they need to benefit from a quality education.
It is a totally noble aim to bring more teachers into the system.
Of course, the Government do an extensive work by providing
grants for people taking specific courses; in some cases—science,
for example, these are worth up to £20,000. What specifically is
Labour’s plan for recruitment of new teachers that the current
Government are not doing? I have previously asked shadow
Ministers similar questions, because I genuinely want to
understand what will be done differently by Labour, bearing in
mind that this Government are giving out tens of thousands of
pounds to people simply for turning up to the training course,
let alone then staying on, with the levelling-up bonus payments
in education investment areas. I am keen to hear what the Labour
plan looks like.
I appreciate the sincerity of the hon. Member’s wish to talk
about the challenge in recruitment and retention. Clearly, it is
related to this debate today, in the sense that if we had all the
teachers we need, would we need a national tutoring programme?
Labour has set out quite detailed plans about how we will go
about resolving the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, and
we continue to have conversations with the sector to ensure that
the money in the current spending envelope for bursaries and
incentives is spent as effectively as possible, because clearly
there is a problem. The Government are seriously missing their
recruitment targets. We have a range of measures, but I do not
think it would be appropriate to go into the detail that the hon.
Member wants me to go into today. However, I recognise the
sincerity of his challenge in that regard and his recognition of
the challenge, and Labour is absolutely determined to meet
it.
We know that children’s mental health is a huge challenge, so we
will put a specialist mental health professional in every school
and ensure that young people have access to early support. We
will also invest in mental health hubs to ensure that young
people can access mental health support where they most need it.
We will offer free breakfast clubs in every primary school, to
ensure that children have a softer start to the school day and
the opportunity to learn, play and socialise. The evidence is
clear that such clubs increase attainment and attendance; they
will also put money back in parents’ pockets and ensure a start
to the school day that can help parents to get to work.
We recognise that there is no one fix, given the level of
challenge in our system, but we will focus not only on taking a
more targeted approach, so that children who need additional
support the most get it, but on making sure that there is a wider
network of support for every school community. That network will
ensure that every child has the best chance of having the best
start in life.
This is all about Labour’s mission to break down the barriers to
opportunity and to ensure that every child gets the firm
foundation and high-quality education that sets them up for life.
Because education is a priority for us, as it has been for every
Labour Government, we will put it back at the centre of national
life. We will prioritise our children, schools and families once
again.
10.24am
The Minister for Schools ()
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I thank
the hon. Member for Twickenham () for securing this important
debate today. I also thank everybody who has taken part: the hon.
Member herself, my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (), the hon. Member for
Strangford (), who brought the Northern Ireland perspective, my
hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North () and the hon. Member for
Newcastle upon Tyne North (), who spoke for the
Opposition.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North rightly spoke of
the hard times of covid, which we all remember. Our home and
professional experiences were indeed very difficult. They were
also very difficult to plan for, because they were experiences
that our country, like others, had not had before. I do not think
it is right to say that people were slow to react. For example, I
thought that what happened in respect of Oak National Academy was
amazing and came together quickly. The work that teachers and
headteachers did converting to virtual education and enabling
home learning was remarkable, but there is no doubt that it was
an incredibly hard time. International studies such as the
programme for international student assessment show that the
whole world, with the exception of only one or two jurisdictions,
took a really big knock from covid. Almost every country took a
serious hit in educational attainment from covid.
England held up relatively well. That is part of the reason why
in the most recent PISA results, in mathematics for example,
England was ranked 11th in the world. That is an improvement on
recent times, particularly so if one looks back to the period
before 2010 when England had been ranked 27th. We also saw
improvements in reading and in science. In the progress in
international reading literacy study 2021, primary school readers
in England were ranked fourth in the world and first in the
western world. However, none of that changes the fact that covid
was a terrible knock to education here and elsewhere in the
world.
Would the Minister give way?
Would she let me get going? No, sorry; go ahead.
The Minister and his colleagues talk a lot about the PISA scores,
and obviously we cannot deny that evidence. He talked about the
impact of the pandemic, but does he recognise that the attainment
gap had been starting to dwindle? I noticed that he smarted when
I mentioned that the pupil premium was a Liberal Democrat
commitment that we delivered with the Conservatives in
government.
It was in every party’s manifesto.
Sorry, I was not wishing to make a political point. My question
is: will the Minister recognise that the attainment gap was
actually starting to widen again before the pandemic, and that
the pandemic accelerated that trend? That is what we are all here
to try to tackle through the tutoring programme.
Let us not pursue the thing about the pupil premium. That
happened to be in both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat
plans for Government ahead of 2010. The two parties worked well
together in coalition, and that is a good thing that we should
welcome. There had been progress on the disadvantage gap. It is
also true, as I was just saying, that covid hit the whole world,
but it also hit different groups of children differentially, and
we are still seeing the effects of that in the disadvantage gap.
I will come back to that.
Tutoring has been a key part of our recovery plan, and I thank
everybody who has been involved in it: the tutors, the tutoring
organisations, the teachers and teaching assistants, and
everybody else who has made it possible. My hon. Friend the
Member for Sedgefield mentioned the particular role and
contribution of volunteers, and I join him in that. It is a very
special thing to do.
The national tutoring programme is not necessarily what always
comes to mind when the person in the street thinks of tutoring. A
lot of it, as the hon. Member for Twickenham alluded to, is small
group work; it is not just one to one. Although very important
work has been done by outside tutoring organisations, most of the
work on the national tutoring programme has been done by existing
staff in schools. We have committed £1.4 billion to the four-year
life of the national tutoring programme in schools and colleges,
and invested in the 16 to 19 tuition fund.
For the second year of the programme—my hon. Friend the Member
for Stoke-on-Trent North referred to this—funding has gone
directly to schools. That has enabled schools to choose the right
approach for them and their children through the use of their own
staff, accessing quality-assured tuition partners or employing an
academic mentor. We created the find a tuition partner service to
put schools in touch with those opportunities, and also provided
training through the Education Development Trust for staff,
including teaching assistants who deliver tutoring.
Nearly 5 million courses have been started since the NTP launched
in November 2020, and 46% of the pupils tutored last year had
been eligible for free school meals in the past six years. That
is the “ever 6” measure—a measure of disadvantage. The 16 to 19
tuition fund will also have delivered hundreds of thousands of
courses.
The tutoring programme has been part of the wider £5 billion
education recovery funding, which is made up of the £1.4 billion
for tutoring, £400 million for aspects of teacher training, £800
million for additional time in 16 to 19, and nearly £2 billion
directly to schools for evidence-based interventions appropriate
to pupils’ needs.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North rightly mentioned
speech and language interventions. I can tell her that already
two thirds of primary schools have benefited—211,000 year R
children so far—from our investment in the Nuffield early
language intervention programme. The evidence suggests that the
programme assists children in making four months’ worth of
additional progress, while children eligible for free school
meals make greater progress of seven months.
Covid hit the world, including us. It did not hit every
discipline in exactly the same way. Some of us will recognise
from our own time at home with children that some things were
easier to do than others. Reading at key stage 2 and junior
school held up pretty well during covid. Maths has now improved
and the standard is now close to what it was in the years before
covid. Writing is still behind, although we have had a 2%
improvement since last year.
Big challenges remain. No one denies that the No. 1 issue is
attendance. This almost sounds trite, but there is an obvious
link between being at school and the attainment achieved. It
bears repeating that even if there are difficulties in having
many children in school, we really have to work on attendance. As
well as the overall attainment effect of attendance, there is a
differential factor between the cohort of pupils as a whole and
disadvantaged pupils; in other words, there is a bit more absence
in the latter group than the former. There is also a link—some
studies say it plays a really big part—between attendance and the
attainment gap, which makes it doubly important that we work on
attendance.
As colleagues know, schools are doing many things brilliantly, as
are local authorities and others, to try to get attendance back
up to pre-covid levels. Obviously, every child needs to be off
school at some time because of sickness—all of us were when we
were children. That will always be true, but we need to get back
to the levels we had before covid.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North alluded to specific
things that we do around breakfast clubs. It is important to do
them in a targeted way, and not just in primary school, as the
Labour party plans to do, but in secondary school as well. There
are issues around mental health support, which is why we are
gradually rolling out the mental health support teams across the
country. Again, we think that it is right to have that in both
phases—it is important at both primary and secondary school—and
schools are also doing an immense amount of work.
Although the national tutoring programme was always a
time-limited programme post-covid, tutoring will continue to play
an important role and we know that the evidence shows that
tutoring is an effective, targeted approach to increase pupils’
attainment. Headteachers are best placed to decide how to invest
their funding, depending on their particular circumstances and
priorities, and that approach underpins our whole approach to the
school system, in that we put headteachers in charge. I
anticipate many schools continuing to make tutoring opportunities
available to their pupils and we will continue to support schools
to deliver tutoring in future, including through pupil premium
funding, which will rise to more than £2.9 billion in
2024-25.
Schools decide how to use their funding, aided by the Education
Endowment Foundation, which sets out good knowledge and advice on
the best uses of funding for the education programmes with the
most efficacy. I do not think there is a conflict between
universal and highly targeted programmes. We target via the
funding formula and then headteachers are best placed, armed with
the knowledge from the EEF and others, to decide how to use that
funding. The overall national funding formula has the
disadvantage element, which next year will be a bigger proportion
than has previously been the case. Then, of course, there is the
pupil premium.
I have outlined in detail why I think schools need the additional
funding due to the financial pressures they are under. However,
if the Government are not seeking to do that—which, personally, I
think is a mistake—is the Department for Education planning to
somehow monitor how many schools continue to deliver tutoring and
the percentage of disadvantaged pupils? Or is the Department
simply not going to keep an eye on the ball after the funding
ends and rely on headteachers, who will, as the Minister has
rightly said, do things in the best interests of their pupils?
Ultimately, that will leave us in this place with less knowledge
about the spending decisions and whether the support is
continuing and embedded, which was the aim of the programme when
initially introduced.
It is absolutely appropriate to embed tutoring into schools’
wider progress, because we know from our gold standard analyser
the EEF and other studies that that approach has efficacy and
achieves results, although obviously it depends on how it is
done. As my hon. Friend puts it, we will keep an eye on the
matter, but that is not the same as specifying that Mrs Smith the
headteacher should do this but not that. We think Mrs Smith
should be able to decide. We also have Ofsted inspections and the
results are published as part of a system that is transparent but
that also empowers schools, school leaders and trusts to make
those decisions.
I completely agree with the Minister about giving headteachers
and teachers autonomy. As a Liberal, I do not believe in things
being controlled from the centre, and teachers know best, but the
reality of the funding situation, as the hon. Member for
Stoke-on-Trent North () pointed out, is that many
schools are setting deficit budgets for the first time ever. We
can talk about how money has gone up in cash terms, but it has
not gone up in real terms. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has
said that schools’ spending power has been reduced massively by
inflationary costs.
I pointed out that the pupil premium has been cut by 14% in real
terms. The tutoring fund underspent because many of the schools
cannot match the funding that is available. The Minister may
really believe that this is an effective, evidence-based
intervention, but schools will not be able to continue without
ringfenced, dedicated funding. I was told that last year when I
went to visit Southwark College, which is dealing with some of
the most disadvantaged pupils, who otherwise will have no life
chances at all if they do not get the support they need.
On the subject of funding, including the pupil premium and the
recently announced additional amounts for covering pension
contributions, overall school funding next year will be £2.9
billion higher than it was in 2023-24. That will take the total
to over £60 billion in 2024-25—the highest ever level in real
terms per pupil.
We also remain committed to improving outcomes for students aged
16 to 19, particularly those yet to achieve their GCSE English
and maths. That is a subject that came up earlier. I should
stress that not having English and maths is not an impediment to
starting an apprenticeship; the person just has to continue to
study them while doing their apprenticeship.
I know that this subject stirs strong feelings in many people. We
know that the workplace and life value of English and maths is
immense, and that is why there is so much focus on those subjects
as we develop the advanced British standard and in our design of
the T-levels and some of the apprenticeship reforms. English and
maths are so important for the futures of these young people,
which is why in October we announced an additional £300 million
over two years to support students who need to resit their
GCSEs.
There is no rule that everybody has to resit a GCSE. Whether the
person resits GCSE mathematics or takes a functional skills
qualification depends on the GCSE grade that they got the first
time around. The £300 million is part of what we call an initial
downpayment on the development of the advanced British standard.
As colleagues know, it will be a new baccalaureate-style
qualification, bringing together the best of A-levels and
T-levels in a single qualification and ending the artificial
distinction between academic and vocational for good.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham for securing this
debate, and to everybody who has been and continues to be
involved in the national tutoring programme and the 16 to 19
programme. Tutoring can have a transformational effect on pupils’
and students’ attainment, and I am proud that the Department’s
flagship tutoring programmes have been supporting so many in
catch-up following covid-19. I thank everyone who has taken part
in this debate, all the schools and colleges that have
participated in these programmes, all the tutors—including the
volunteer tutors—who have delivered them, and of course all the
pupils and students for engaging so enthusiastically.10.43am
I start where the Minister ended: by extending my thanks to all
those involved in the tutoring programme, particularly the
volunteers, including Douglas, who is here today and was
namechecked earlier, from the office of the hon. Member for
Sedgefield (). The contribution that
volunteers and teachers—who work extraordinarily hard, day in,
day out—make to our children is invaluable. Thank you to all of
them.
I also thank all hon. Members who turned up to participate today.
I know that many others could not be here today, but they are
also very strongly committed to the tutoring programme. The hon.
Member for Sedgefield talked about the excitement that pupils
often experience when they receive tutoring. That goes to my
point about tackling persistent absence. We know that tutoring
helps to bring down some of those absence levels. The hon. Member
for Strangford () talked about the importance of extending these
programmes right across our four nations, given the benefits
involved.
I think this is a first for me: I strongly agree with the hon.
Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (), and it is not very often
I find myself saying that. Where I am in violent agreement with
him is on something that I and the Liberal Democrats constantly
point out. As a party, we see money spent on education and our
children and young people as a long-term investment. I am afraid
that the Treasury often sees children as a cost. We need to see
them as part of our current society and also of our future
society and our economy. Investing heavily early on will pay
dividends and generate returns for generations to come.
As the hon. Member pointed out, levelling up starts here, with
children. That is why I am so perplexed as to why the Government
are not extending the programme. I know that the Minister said it
was time-limited to start with, but given that the attainment gap
continues to grow, and given the evidence that has been generated
to show the impact, I am slightly surprised that we are not
seeing a continuing commitment.
I am also disappointed that, following persistent questioning by
the Minister, we heard no commitment from the Labour Front Bench
to continue tutoring should there be a change of Government later
this year or at the start of next year. Tutoring really does help
tackle the attainment gap. I repeat my point to the Minister. He
has said that it is a great intervention, but without the money,
too many more children are going to be left behind.
Even if he may not have said so publicly right now, I urge the
Minister to please go away and talk to the Treasury about whether
money can be found to continue this important intervention,
because our children really do deserve the very best start in
life. We cannot just keep writing off those who do not have the
same advantages as many of us. I speak as a parent who has
invested in tutoring for my daughter. I want the child down the
road who lives in much more challenging conditions, who does not
necessarily have the support at home, to have the same benefit as
my daughter, so that they can achieve great things, because every
child has that potential.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered tutoring provision.
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