House of Commons
Thursday 11 September 2003
The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
EDUCATION AND SKILLS
The Secretary of State was asked—
Teacher Recruitment
1. Mr. Piara S. Khabra (Ealing, Southall): How many teachers have been recruited by schools as a result of teach first. [128968]
4. Dr. Doug Naysmith (Bristol, North-West): What assessment he has made of the number of teachers recruited by schools as a result of teach first. [128971]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Mr. Stephen Twigg): One hundred and seventy-eight trainees on the teach first scheme began working in London secondary schools last week. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will join me in wishing them well.
Mr. Khabra : My constituency encompasses people from a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. May I ask the Minister how successful the scheme has been in attracting teachers from minority groups? Will he tell me how he intends to utilise the national skills strategy to address the imbalance between the skills offered by unemployed Londoners and those that are needed by employers?
Mr. Twigg: My hon. Friend raises an important issue. As we heard in the education debate earlier this week, we face a challenge in ensuring that our classrooms truly reflect the communities that they serve. I am delighted to be able to inform my hon. Friend that 22 per cent. of teach first students entering classrooms in London over the past fortnight were from ethnic minorities. That sets a very positive example.
Dr. Naysmith: Teach first is an interesting initiative that has potential in many respects. Does the Minister plan to roll it out in other parts of the country after the monitoring that must, of course, take place?
Mr. Twigg: I thank my hon. Friend for those remarks. This is a brand new scheme, which started in London because of the particular challenges that it faces with
recruitment and retention. We will evaluate the scheme closely, as will those who organised it and the Teacher Training Agency. I certainly would not rule out its extension to other parts of the country.
Mr. Damian Green (Ashford): May I echo the Minister's delight that teach first is recruiting high-calibre teachers? We have supported the scheme since its launch and will continue to do so. Will the hon. Gentleman reciprocally acknowledge that the numbers recruited through teach first are just a palliative, given that this week the Department issued figures showing that the number of qualified regular full-time teachers is down by 1,400 this year? Will he acknowledge that his Government's constant boasting about rising teacher numbers is bogus?
Mr. Twigg: I welcome the support for teach first from Opposition Members, including the Liberal Democrats.
The hon. Gentleman refers only to part of the figures that were published this week. He is correct to say that the figure for full-time qualified teachers fell by 1,300 over the past year. However, that was more than offset by the increase in full-time-equivalent part-time qualified teachers. The overall statistic was a net gain of 200 full-time-equivalent teachers over the past year. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join us in welcoming those extra teachers in schools across the country.
Mr. Green: I note that it is significant that the Minister does not repeat the bogus number of 25,000 that his colleague, the Minister for School Standards, is fond of repeating. Can he tell the House how many of those teachers are unqualified and how many are short-term appointments from other countries, many of which are poorer than this country, whose schools we are raiding to fill the gaps in our own schools? Does he recognise that the problems have been made much worse by the funding crisis that has led to the loss of 2,500 teaching posts purely because the Department has been staggeringly incompetent in spending its money?
Mr. Twigg: We are not going to take lectures from Conservative Members on this subject, given that they presided over the loss of 50,000 teaching posts between 1979 and 1997. He is right to say that we have significant numbers of teachers from overseas, but they are not unqualified—they are qualified in their own countries. Some 4,200 teachers are on employment-based training routes. In fact, the majority of teachers in schools today are now qualified; many have qualified since January. Part of the reason why so many teachers are on schemes such as the graduate teacher programme is that we are dealing with teacher shortages by providing other routes for people to get into teaching. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would want to welcome that.
Jim Knight (South Dorset): I, too, congratulate the Government on teach first as part of their success in recruiting more teachers. May I ask the Minister, when
considering the roll-out and extension of teach first, not to forget our rural areas, including the south-west region?
Mr. Twigg: I heard my hon. Friend's comments and I am sure that South Dorset would benefit from such an extension.
Mrs. Ann Cryer (Keighley): What success is my hon. Friend having in recruiting ESOL—English as a second language—teachers? Given the changes in the requirements for citizenship, we shall need many more good quality ESOL teachers. The subject should not continue to be the poor relation in education; it is important for our northern cities.
Mr. Twigg: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who has been assiduous in pursuing the matter. She knows that, last academic year, we published our document "Aiming High—Raising the Achievement of Ethnic Minority Pupils", part of which addressed the precise topic to which she referred. We shall shortly publish our response to the consultation and methods of taking forward our strategy to ensure that every child in this country gets the best possible start in life, regardless of ethnic background.
Children's Centres
3. Mr. Barry Gardiner (Brent, North): If he will make a statement on the progress made in establishing children's centres. [128970]
9. Mr. Win Griffiths (Bridgend): What the latest developments are in the establishment of children's centres. [128977]
The Minister for Children (Margaret Hodge): We designated the first 32 children's centres in June. We intend to designate a further similar number later this month. Local authorities are currently preparing their plans for developing children's centres and will submit them to us by 15 October. We are confident that the children's centre model, which provides care and education for young children alongside community health and family support services, is excellent for ensuring the best start for our children.
Mr. Gardiner: I am grateful to the Minister not only for her reply but for the £2.3 million indicative figure for capital programmes that Brent has received for children's centres.
When my hon. Friend examines the submissions, will she ensure that emphasis is placed on the model of multi-agency working? In particular, will she ensure that the incredibly valuable role of health visitors is incorporated in the model so that in the progress from zero to five years the education and health aspects of children's lives are genuinely integrated?
Margaret Hodge: I agree with the thrust of my hon. Friend's contribution. I draw to his intention the fact that, as well as capital, Brent is getting £1 million revenue to support the development of children's centres.
The multi-agency approach is crucial and an essential part of our policy to put children at the centre and develop services around their needs rather than around the traditional professional silos. I also accept the importance of the role of health visitors and therefore welcome our announcement on Monday in the Green Paper that my colleagues in the Department of Health will undertake a review of the role of health visitors to ensure that they can contribute to giving our young children a good start.
Mr. Griffiths : I thank my hon. Friend for the work that is already being done. Can she tell me, on the basis of the centres that have been approved, the extent to which local authorities and other agencies have gone beyond simply integrating existing services and are taking the opportunity to improve the total service for young children and families?
Margaret Hodge: Many exciting experiments are taking place in the emerging children's centres, as well as much innovation. I could give endless examples of the practices that are being introduced. Much work is being done with families to ensure that parents are supported in the early years with their children. I draw the voluntary organisation Home-Start to my hon. Friend's attention. It is doing a good job in providing peer group support, involving mums visiting other mums in their homes to help them through the difficult early days when they bring their child home.
Mr. Speaker: I call Phil Willis.
Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough): I wanted to come in on the next question, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I must tell the hon. Gentleman that Question 4 has gone, but perhaps he wants to come in on Question 5.
Mr. Willis: Yes, I wanted to come in on Question 5.
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest): Unusually, I welcome what the Minister for Children has said. I also welcome the work that has been done on children's centres, because of the help that it will bring to parents of very young children and to families in need of support. But what exactly is the Minister going to do to protect the minority of children who are specifically at risk from criminals who have the intention of harming them? I use the word "criminal" rather than "paedophile" because we must understand that there are criminals who are deliberately targeting young children. While children's centres will help families and children at risk from neglect, they will not help the children at risk from such criminals, and I would like the Minister to give us guidance on that problem.
Margaret Hodge: In the Green Paper that we published on Monday, we said that the way in which we can best protect children from risk of abuse or harm is to ensure that the universal services provided for children are of a particular quality and that the protection of children is central and integral to them.
The protection of children must run like a thread through all the services, so that ensuring that children are protected is part of the role of every GP, teacher, nursery assistant and child care worker. Another issue in the Green Paper was that the emphasis must be on prevention. We must try to intervene and to put in place all sorts of levers to ensure that children are prevented from falling into risk of abuse. For example, the sharing of information and the training of the work force—both of which we highlighted in the Green Paper—are two aspects of the policies that we are pursuing to ensure that children are not at risk of abuse or harm.
Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield): Can my hon. Friend tell me whether the children's centres could be the base on which to build a universal provision of child care? Has she seen this week's PricewaterhouseCoopers study which states that investment in a universal child care system would be an enormous boon to our economy?
Margaret Hodge: My hon. Friend and I have worked together for many years, and he will know that I have long been a campaigner for the universality of early-years services for children, in terms of child care and early-years education. Children's centres have great potential for being a universal model to meet the needs of children and their families, and I look forward to working with colleagues across government to translate that ambition into a reality.
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