Children: Development of Essential Skills
1/11[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan in the Chair]
I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for children developing essential skills. It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I start by declaring that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary groups for schools, learning and assessment; on social mobility; and for classics. It is wonderful to see so many young people in the Public Gallery. We are facing a generational moment. We know the risks that technology and artificial intelligence increasingly pose to our world, but we also know the opportunities. It strikes me that it is up to us to shape a generation that responds to these challenges not with despondency, but with the confidence and authority to make these tools work for humanity, not against it. Without the human skills to properly engage with, discuss and question the world around us, we are setting our children up for failure.
I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for children developing essential skills. It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I start by declaring that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary groups for schools, learning and assessment; on social mobility; and for classics. It is wonderful to see so many young people in the Public Gallery. We are facing a generational moment. We know the risks that technology and artificial intelligence increasingly pose to our world, but we also know the opportunities. It strikes me that it is up to us to shape a generation that responds to these challenges not with despondency, but with the confidence and authority to make these tools work for humanity, not against it. Without the human skills to properly engage with, discuss and question the world around us, we are setting our children up for failure.
As the former vice-chair of the APPG on financial education for young people, I really welcome the Government’s work on that issue, including the commitment to introduce it more firmly in the national curriculum for all ages. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful were the Minister, in her summing up, to provide us with an update on the work to get that ready for young people in the years to come?
Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I am aware that the financial strategy sits with the Treasury but, like many of the tasks that face this Government, there must be a cross-Department approach. It is really important that all Departments grapple with the need to deliver better skills for our young people, and I am sure that the Minister has heard my hon. Friend’s request. Today, when it has never been easier for young people—I should add that it is not just young people—to be misled by mis- and disinformation, and to be sucked in by algorithms and harmful content on social media that comforts them with easy answers in a complex world, essential skills have never been more crucial. I am thinking of skills such as being able to think critically, communicate and reason; having the confidence in ourselves to form opinions; and, above all, having the resilience and will to engage with the world in all its complexities, rather than turn away from it.
As the former vice-chair of the APPG on financial education for young people, I really welcome the Government’s work on that issue, including the commitment to introduce it more firmly in the national curriculum for all ages. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful were the Minister, in her summing up, to provide us with an update on the work to get that ready for young people in the years to come?
Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I am aware that the financial strategy sits with the Treasury but, like many of the tasks that face this Government, there must be a cross-Department approach. It is really important that all Departments grapple with the need to deliver better skills for our young people, and I am sure that the Minister has heard my hon. Friend’s request. Today, when it has never been easier for young people—I should add that it is not just young people—to be misled by mis- and disinformation, and to be sucked in by algorithms and harmful content on social media that comforts them with easy answers in a complex world, essential skills have never been more crucial. I am thinking of skills such as being able to think critically, communicate and reason; having the confidence in ourselves to form opinions; and, above all, having the resilience and will to engage with the world in all its complexities, rather than turn away from it.
I have been contacted in the past week by pupils from Collingwood college in Surrey Heath—it is very close to Bracknell, but I can still claim it. They have been talking to me about mis- and disinformation, and they have said how important it is to receive citizenship education, which is excellently delivered at Collingwood. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that citizenship is one of the core, critical skills that gives children exactly the kind of awareness of mis- and disinformation that is vital as we approach the mid-21st century?
I have been contacted in the past week by pupils from Collingwood college in Surrey Heath—it is very close to Bracknell, but I can still claim it. They have been talking to me about mis- and disinformation, and they have said how important it is to receive citizenship education, which is excellently delivered at Collingwood. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that citizenship is one of the core, critical skills that gives children exactly the kind of awareness of mis- and disinformation that is vital as we approach the mid-21st century?
I absolutely agree with my constituency neighbour, and I will come on to talk a lot more about citizenship, which is vital. Just this week, I have been dealing with my local Reform party using AI to create fake images of our community, which is exactly the kind of fake news being put on social media by bad faith actors that we need to ensure that all people—particularly young people—are equipped to face. Schools have a fundamental role to play in preparing young people for life. Both the recent curriculum and assessment review and the schools White Paper recognise the importance of skills and enrichment as part of a holistic education in and outside the classroom.
Does the hon. Member agree that fostering strong partnerships with educational institutions can play a pivotal role in developing a curriculum that aligns with current labour market requirements? Additionally, I emphasise the importance of collaboration with tech companies to enhance digital skills education.
The hon. Member’s point is well taken. I will talk about the interim report from the Milburn review later, but it is really clear that the skills system that we inherited from the previous Government has not set up our young people for the world of work. Essential skills are about more than just preparing young people for the world of work—they are also about preparing young people for the world of life—but such preparation has an important role to play. I am keen that we work proactively with tech companies to create such opportunities, where doing so in the best interests of young people. Social media companies in particular need to do a lot more to protect young people from harm online. The one thing being true does not detract from the other thing also being true. Returning to the curriculum and assessment review, I welcome the fact that the Government have accepted the recommendation that citizenship be made a statutory requirement for key stages 1 and 2, and that the secondary citizenship curriculum will encompass topics that are vital to raise engaged citizens, including government, law and democracy, climate education, and financial and media literacy. Hon. Members have already made those points. Given the Government’s plans to lower the voting age to 16, those topics have never been more important. The Government are right to recognise that young people are an important voice in our society, but if we are to extend the franchise, we must make sure that we get it right and grasp the opportunity to use the classroom to its full potential, so that young people feel empowered and confident about using their vote. As the chair of the APPG on schools, I have heard from young people and educators both in England and across the devolved nations, where 16 and 17-year-olds already have the vote in some elections, as part of our ongoing inquiry into votes at 16. It was clear from those sessions that young people do not feel as empowered as they should feel by our current democratic education, but that is perhaps not surprising given that many teachers have also reported a lack of confidence in the guidance on how to facilitate conversations about democracy and politics in the classroom. It is right that teachers do not tell young people what to think, but it is deeply concerning that many are so afraid that they might be seen to be doing so that they do not feel comfortable enough to broach the subject of current affairs at all. As a former teacher, I know that the classroom can and should be a place where ideas and questions are explored openly, not feared or hidden from. I ask the Minister to bear that in mind as the Government continue their important work to reform the curriculum, because the best curriculum in the world will not be a success without teachers who feel properly equipped to deliver it. Another theme that stood out strongly from our evidence sessions is the importance of essential skills being integrated into the curriculum, rather than being just the preserve of citizenship or personal, social, health and economic education. I was delighted that the schools White Paper explicitly recognises the relationship between skills such as media and financial literacy and critical thinking, and the wider school curriculum, including core subjects like English and science. It was notable from our sessions that there is a widespread perception that democratic education is often tokenistic, relegating it to a niche, subject-specific interest, rather than making it a fundamental priority of our education system; indeed, I think that is true of all essential skills. The embedding of democratic education throughout the curriculum and connecting it to broader work on employability is an important rejoinder to that perception. On that point, I was also pleased to see the Government recognise in the schools White Paper that oracy is vital not only to education but to employability and the Government’s growth mission, as well as more widely to the confidence and mental health of young people. As we now seek to implement the changes set out in the White Paper, it is important that we do not tokenise oracy and other essential skills but recognise that they represent more of an approach to teaching and learning. In the case of oracy, it is focused on learning through talk and learning to talk. Over the last week, we have heard from Alan Milburn on the essential skills that young people are missing as they leave education and seek to enter the workplace. Embedding oracy into the curriculum and into school-wide teaching can be a significant driver of the very skills that our young people are missing, including increased confidence and communication skills, greater critical thinking ability, and a greater capacity for listening to and empathising with others. I emphasise that all those skills will never be taken by robots. As oracy organisations like Voice 21 highlight, oracy is an explicitly inclusive practice. Oracy-rich teaching supports early identification of children with speech, language and communication needs; it removes barriers that are highest for students with special educational needs and disability, and for those from disadvantaged backgrounds; and it helps to nurture the learning environment that the Government have been clear is their ambition to create, where high standards and inclusion are one and the same. I recognise that we are moving in the right direction, and I thank the Minister for the important steps that she is already taking towards a more holistic approach to education. I also thank her for visiting my constituency last year to discuss the work that we are doing to reform the SEND system and ensure that education is inclusive of everyone. I also thank Voice 21 for the work that it is doing to support schools in my constituency, including at St Joseph’s primary, where, as I heard on a recent visit, oracy is empowering the students to feel more confident and boosting their communication skills. A fully holistic approach to essential skills means not only integrating them into what is taught in the classroom but the wider school and enrichment experience. Both inside and outside the classroom, enrichment opportunities are fundamental to the development of skills like resilience, collaboration and confidence. Just in the last recess, I saw an excellent example of how students volunteering in the community can build essential skills and a spirit of citizenship, through the fantastic MindGreen initiative at Bracknell and Wokingham college. When we have these conversations, we often speak about schools, but it is vital that the same principles are not forgotten in our further education colleges so that all young people are given the opportunity to develop the skills to succeed. With that in mind, I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to an enrichment entitlement for every young person alongside a national framework and benchmark for schools. Some organisations, however, like the Duke of Edinburgh’s award, have raised concerns that enrichment often gets lost in the wider school curriculum and becomes too thin or inconsistent to make a difference. Research has shown that that is especially likely to be true in state schools compared with private schools, with the Sutton Trust finding that one in five teachers in state schools do not think their school provides good opportunities for pupils to develop these non-academic skills, compared with just one in 10 teachers in private schools. Needless to say, no Labour Government would be satisfied with allowing that gap to continue, so I ask for the Minister’s assurance that the Government are committed to making sure that such opportunities exist meaningfully for all young people in all schools, regardless of background or location.
I absolutely agree with my constituency neighbour, and I will come on to talk a lot more about citizenship, which is vital. Just this week, I have been dealing with my local Reform party using AI to create fake images of our community, which is exactly the kind of fake news being put on social media by bad faith actors that we need to ensure that all people—particularly young people—are equipped to face. Schools have a fundamental role to play in preparing young people for life. Both the recent curriculum and assessment review and the schools White Paper recognise the importance of skills and enrichment as part of a holistic education in and outside the classroom.
On the hon. Member’s point about involving all schools, does he agree that the problem is not so much about ensuring that young people who are interested and want to get on develop their skills? Disaffected and disinterested young people are the ones we really have to reach out to, to ensure that they, too, avail themselves of the benefits that he rightly outlines.
Does the hon. Member agree that fostering strong partnerships with educational institutions can play a pivotal role in developing a curriculum that aligns with current labour market requirements? Additionally, I emphasise the importance of collaboration with tech companies to enhance digital skills education.
The hon. Member makes a valuable point. To again reflect on the interim report by Alan Milburn, he highlights that one of the challenges we face is not just that the current education system does not do enough to develop skills; it is also not doing enough to develop a love of learning and inclusion. Young people feeling disaffected, and that they do not belong in schools or colleges, means that we are also unable to make sure that they are accessing a great education. I have always said that the best education is a fun education, because when young people enjoy getting involved in school—enrichment can be a huge part of that for many young people—they are more likely to feel that they belong and to succeed. Over the recess, I was reminded of the importance of enrichment opportunities in young people’s lives at a visit to the Bracknell Cobras, a basketball club in my constituency that works with more than 500 young people a week. During my visit, I heard that the Cobras do not just teach young people to play basketball; they also develop essential skills like teamwork and resilience. They even train them up as referees so that they can gain a nationally recognised qualification. That last point brings me to the crux of my argument: even when young people have the opportunity to develop skills, both in the classroom and through enrichment more widely, they often feel unable to properly identify or quantify their learning, or that the skills can be meaningfully demonstrated to future employers or education providers. That is why, as the Minister knows, I have been working with a wide group of stakeholders to gather views and build the case for reform of the skills passport, inspired by the invaluable work of Skills Builder, which has built a brilliant framework to quantify the skills that young people need to thrive. That idea was first raised with me by young people themselves. On a visit to Garth Hill college in Bracknell, a group of GCSE citizenship students delivered a fantastic presentation to me asking why the school’s curriculum was not better at teaching them essential life skills, such as financial literacy, and why those skills were not measured. Their question, which has stayed with me, was this: why is there no Duke of Edinburgh’s award for life skills? It is obvious to anyone with experience in education that what is not measured is not recognised. I fear that we are failing young people and employers by neglecting to ensure that the essential skills young people develop both in and outside the classroom are properly and meaningfully recorded. As part of its research into the future of the labour market, the National Foundation for Educational Research found that it was essential skills such as collaboration, communication, problem solving and information literacy that will be most needed by employers by 2035. We are already facing deficits in those areas, which are likely to only get worse. It has never been more vital that we equip young people to not just develop essential skills, but record and demonstrate them. That area has strong potential to support the Government’s wider work with regard to growth and supporting young people back into the workforce. I was very pleased to see a commitment to exploring skills passports in the post-16 White Paper, and the recent launch of the UK standard skills classification, which is an important step forwards in a common understanding and vocabulary around skills. I am also grateful to Skills England for meeting with me to discuss that very point. However, it is clear to me that for any form of skills passport to be truly meaningful, introducing it at the end of the school journey is too late. If young people are to be properly empowered to recognise, develop and communicate their essential skills in a way that speaks to them and to potential employers, we must help them to identify those skills much earlier. I want to touch briefly on the new careers service for schools and colleges planned by the Government. I have referred to Alan Milburn’s important interim report numerous times, but another point we have heard over the last few days is the importance of the early years of someone’s career and the long-term impact of missing out on opportunities at that stage. I therefore ask the Minister for assurance that a recognition of the importance of essential skills will be built into the new careers service, so that young people are given the best and most holistic advice possible at this vital point in their educational and personal development. Essential skills are essential for so many reasons. They help us to become more employable and educated, but, more than that, they help to make us better, more resilient, confident and well-rounded people with more capacity for empathy and more curiosity about our world. At a time when we are facing so much uncertainty and volatility, it is incumbent on all of us to equip our young people with the skills they need to be active and empowered citizens in the world. The evidence is clear: our most essential skills are our human skills. Building an education system that no longer overlooks or sidelines but nurtures them is vital. It is up to the Government to build on the great work already started in a truly holistic way so that young people are supported to develop the skills that we as a country need from them, not only as future workers, but as citizens. That is how we break down the barriers to opportunity for every child.
The hon. Member’s point is well taken. I will talk about the interim report from the Milburn review later, but it is really clear that the skills system that we inherited from the previous Government has not set up our young people for the world of work. Essential skills are about more than just preparing young people for the world of work—they are also about preparing young people for the world of life—but such preparation has an important role to play. I am keen that we work proactively with tech companies to create such opportunities, where doing so in the best interests of young people. Social media companies in particular need to do a lot more to protect young people from harm online. The one thing being true does not detract from the other thing also being true. Returning to the curriculum and assessment review, I welcome the fact that the Government have accepted the recommendation that citizenship be made a statutory requirement for key stages 1 and 2, and that the secondary citizenship curriculum will encompass topics that are vital to raise engaged citizens, including government, law and democracy, climate education, and financial and media literacy. Hon. Members have already made those points. Given the Government’s plans to lower the voting age to 16, those topics have never been more important. The Government are right to recognise that young people are an important voice in our society, but if we are to extend the franchise, we must make sure that we get it right and grasp the opportunity to use the classroom to its full potential, so that young people feel empowered and confident about using their vote. As the chair of the APPG on schools, I have heard from young people and educators both in England and across the devolved nations, where 16 and 17-year-olds already have the vote in some elections, as part of our ongoing inquiry into votes at 16. It was clear from those sessions that young people do not feel as empowered as they should feel by our current democratic education, but that is perhaps not surprising given that many teachers have also reported a lack of confidence in the guidance on how to facilitate conversations about democracy and politics in the classroom. It is right that teachers do not tell young people what to think, but it is deeply concerning that many are so afraid that they might be seen to be doing so that they do not feel comfortable enough to broach the subject of current affairs at all. As a former teacher, I know that the classroom can and should be a place where ideas and questions are explored openly, not feared or hidden from. I ask the Minister to bear that in mind as the Government continue their important work to reform the curriculum, because the best curriculum in the world will not be a success without teachers who feel properly equipped to deliver it. Another theme that stood out strongly from our evidence sessions is the importance of essential skills being integrated into the curriculum, rather than being just the preserve of citizenship or personal, social, health and economic education. I was delighted that the schools White Paper explicitly recognises the relationship between skills such as media and financial literacy and critical thinking, and the wider school curriculum, including core subjects like English and science. It was notable from our sessions that there is a widespread perception that democratic education is often tokenistic, relegating it to a niche, subject-specific interest, rather than making it a fundamental priority of our education system; indeed, I think that is true of all essential skills. The embedding of democratic education throughout the curriculum and connecting it to broader work on employability is an important rejoinder to that perception. On that point, I was also pleased to see the Government recognise in the schools White Paper that oracy is vital not only to education but to employability and the Government’s growth mission, as well as more widely to the confidence and mental health of young people. As we now seek to implement the changes set out in the White Paper, it is important that we do not tokenise oracy and other essential skills but recognise that they represent more of an approach to teaching and learning. In the case of oracy, it is focused on learning through talk and learning to talk. Over the last week, we have heard from Alan Milburn on the essential skills that young people are missing as they leave education and seek to enter the workplace. Embedding oracy into the curriculum and into school-wide teaching can be a significant driver of the very skills that our young people are missing, including increased confidence and communication skills, greater critical thinking ability, and a greater capacity for listening to and empathising with others. I emphasise that all those skills will never be taken by robots. As oracy organisations like Voice 21 highlight, oracy is an explicitly inclusive practice. Oracy-rich teaching supports early identification of children with speech, language and communication needs; it removes barriers that are highest for students with special educational needs and disability, and for those from disadvantaged backgrounds; and it helps to nurture the learning environment that the Government have been clear is their ambition to create, where high standards and inclusion are one and the same. I recognise that we are moving in the right direction, and I thank the Minister for the important steps that she is already taking towards a more holistic approach to education. I also thank her for visiting my constituency last year to discuss the work that we are doing to reform the SEND system and ensure that education is inclusive of everyone. I also thank Voice 21 for the work that it is doing to support schools in my constituency, including at St Joseph’s primary, where, as I heard on a recent visit, oracy is empowering the students to feel more confident and boosting their communication skills. A fully holistic approach to essential skills means not only integrating them into what is taught in the classroom but the wider school and enrichment experience. Both inside and outside the classroom, enrichment opportunities are fundamental to the development of skills like resilience, collaboration and confidence. Just in the last recess, I saw an excellent example of how students volunteering in the community can build essential skills and a spirit of citizenship, through the fantastic MindGreen initiative at Bracknell and Wokingham college. When we have these conversations, we often speak about schools, but it is vital that the same principles are not forgotten in our further education colleges so that all young people are given the opportunity to develop the skills to succeed. With that in mind, I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to an enrichment entitlement for every young person alongside a national framework and benchmark for schools. Some organisations, however, like the Duke of Edinburgh’s award, have raised concerns that enrichment often gets lost in the wider school curriculum and becomes too thin or inconsistent to make a difference. Research has shown that that is especially likely to be true in state schools compared with private schools, with the Sutton Trust finding that one in five teachers in state schools do not think their school provides good opportunities for pupils to develop these non-academic skills, compared with just one in 10 teachers in private schools. Needless to say, no Labour Government would be satisfied with allowing that gap to continue, so I ask for the Minister’s assurance that the Government are committed to making sure that such opportunities exist meaningfully for all young people in all schools, regardless of background or location.
I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.
On the hon. Member’s point about involving all schools, does he agree that the problem is not so much about ensuring that young people who are interested and want to get on develop their skills? Disaffected and disinterested young people are the ones we really have to reach out to, to ensure that they, too, avail themselves of the benefits that he rightly outlines.
The hon. Member makes a valuable point. To again reflect on the interim report by Alan Milburn, he highlights that one of the challenges we face is not just that the current education system does not do enough to develop skills; it is also not doing enough to develop a love of learning and inclusion. Young people feeling disaffected, and that they do not belong in schools or colleges, means that we are also unable to make sure that they are accessing a great education. I have always said that the best education is a fun education, because when young people enjoy getting involved in school—enrichment can be a huge part of that for many young people—they are more likely to feel that they belong and to succeed. Over the recess, I was reminded of the importance of enrichment opportunities in young people’s lives at a visit to the Bracknell Cobras, a basketball club in my constituency that works with more than 500 young people a week. During my visit, I heard that the Cobras do not just teach young people to play basketball; they also develop essential skills like teamwork and resilience. They even train them up as referees so that they can gain a nationally recognised qualification. That last point brings me to the crux of my argument: even when young people have the opportunity to develop skills, both in the classroom and through enrichment more widely, they often feel unable to properly identify or quantify their learning, or that the skills can be meaningfully demonstrated to future employers or education providers. That is why, as the Minister knows, I have been working with a wide group of stakeholders to gather views and build the case for reform of the skills passport, inspired by the invaluable work of Skills Builder, which has built a brilliant framework to quantify the skills that young people need to thrive. That idea was first raised with me by young people themselves. On a visit to Garth Hill college in Bracknell, a group of GCSE citizenship students delivered a fantastic presentation to me asking why the school’s curriculum was not better at teaching them essential life skills, such as financial literacy, and why those skills were not measured. Their question, which has stayed with me, was this: why is there no Duke of Edinburgh’s award for life skills? It is obvious to anyone with experience in education that what is not measured is not recognised. I fear that we are failing young people and employers by neglecting to ensure that the essential skills young people develop both in and outside the classroom are properly and meaningfully recorded. As part of its research into the future of the labour market, the National Foundation for Educational Research found that it was essential skills such as collaboration, communication, problem solving and information literacy that will be most needed by employers by 2035. We are already facing deficits in those areas, which are likely to only get worse. It has never been more vital that we equip young people to not just develop essential skills, but record and demonstrate them. That area has strong potential to support the Government’s wider work with regard to growth and supporting young people back into the workforce. I was very pleased to see a commitment to exploring skills passports in the post-16 White Paper, and the recent launch of the UK standard skills classification, which is an important step forwards in a common understanding and vocabulary around skills. I am also grateful to Skills England for meeting with me to discuss that very point. However, it is clear to me that for any form of skills passport to be truly meaningful, introducing it at the end of the school journey is too late. If young people are to be properly empowered to recognise, develop and communicate their essential skills in a way that speaks to them and to potential employers, we must help them to identify those skills much earlier. I want to touch briefly on the new careers service for schools and colleges planned by the Government. I have referred to Alan Milburn’s important interim report numerous times, but another point we have heard over the last few days is the importance of the early years of someone’s career and the long-term impact of missing out on opportunities at that stage. I therefore ask the Minister for assurance that a recognition of the importance of essential skills will be built into the new careers service, so that young people are given the best and most holistic advice possible at this vital point in their educational and personal development. Essential skills are essential for so many reasons. They help us to become more employable and educated, but, more than that, they help to make us better, more resilient, confident and well-rounded people with more capacity for empathy and more curiosity about our world. At a time when we are facing so much uncertainty and volatility, it is incumbent on all of us to equip our young people with the skills they need to be active and empowered citizens in the world. The evidence is clear: our most essential skills are our human skills. Building an education system that no longer overlooks or sidelines but nurtures them is vital. It is up to the Government to build on the great work already started in a truly holistic way so that young people are supported to develop the skills that we as a country need from them, not only as future workers, but as citizens. That is how we break down the barriers to opportunity for every child.
It is an honour to serve under your chairship for the first time, Dr Allin-Khan. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow). It is well known across the House that he is a classics scholar; indeed, he chairs the APPG for classics. Our democracy is based on that of the ancient Greeks, and demos is a Greek word from which we draw our idea of democratic values. One of our greatest ever parliamentarians from Leeds, Denis Healey, was himself a classics scholar. He inspired many others in Leeds and his constituency to study the classics, some of whom are now elected politicians in the city, so this subject is dear to our hearts in Leeds. Substantial democratic political education for our young people can help to comprise a curriculum for life for the future of the UK. I am proud of the commitment in the Labour manifesto at the last election, and many elections beforehand, to give the right to vote at 16. That must go hand in hand with a genuine education in critical thinking and democratic processes, and a guide to citizen participation. Without that education, we are all vulnerable to reductionist populism, as seen on the extremes of our political landscape. Equipping the next generation with the skills they need to identify mis- and disinformation, to call out discrimination and prejudice in politics, and to navigate our political system will forge a brighter and sharper future for our country. It is an education that I am sure we all wish we could have had access to across the United Kingdom. As the MP for the constituency with the youngest electorate in the country, I can say that the young people of Leeds Central and Headingley are switched on to what is going on in the world. As I am sure hon. Members will agree, when we visit schools and sixth-form colleges, we are kept on our toes by the young people there as much as we are in the Chamber itself—more so, actually, the majority of the time. If we can fully enfranchise young people with the tools on how to navigate all the layers of our political landscape, we will have a succession plan for a stable and ethically awake future. These tools are needed now more than ever, at a time when we are at the mercy of faceless social media, bot farms and nefarious online foreign actors that seek to disrupt the stability and the fabric of communities in our country. Furthermore, better political education can help tackle the negative perceptions of politicians and the growing levels of abuse, harassment and intimidation. We need politics to be an environment that is representative of the UK, not one that intimidates colleagues out of the field—or that intimidates people out of even considering entering elected politics. I believe that reducing the voting age will help increase the political engagement of younger people, and I agree with the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that lowering the voting age is a good opportunity to develop a new school curriculum for political education—an education that can enable young people to exercise their right to vote without unduly swaying or influencing them. Let us create the fairest and most democratic UK we have ever seen, with Government support for children to develop skills in political education and with enfranchised 16 and 17-year-olds, hopefully in a fairer voting system where all votes count.
I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.
I thank the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for securing this important debate. For years, we have had an education system that looks pretty good on league tables or spreadsheets but does not really help young people develop essential skills for dealing with this rapidly changing world. Rather than repeat remarks that I have made before, and that other hon. Members have made today, I will cut to the chase and list some issues and solutions that I urge the Minister to consider—so grab your pen, Minister. The first issue is funding. Somerset is one of the 40 lowest funded education authorities in the UK. We need to see a level playing field for funding, with an increase in school and college funding per pupil above the rate of inflation every year. The second issue is the type of skills we are teaching. Yeovil college does an amazing job with vocational and technical education, but we need the Government to go further. Can we make AI and digital skills training a core part of the national curriculum as its own subject? If we want to innovate, we need teaching that focuses on the skills needed for business and self-employment, although I may be biased because I ran my own landscaping company. Thirdly, we sadly have pockets of real deprivation in Yeovil. Will the Minister extend pupil premium funding to disadvantaged young people aged 16 to 18, so they can get the quality education or training they want, rather than having to work any old job—or worse? My final ask, unsurprisingly, relates to SEND. Can the Minister set out when the research into universal screening will conclude, and whether the Government will commit to adopting it, if that is supported by the research? We cannot help young people develop essential skills without working out how they learn best. More broadly, can the Minister please promise that the upcoming reforms to the SEND system will not mean that children with SEND lose the right to dedicated time with teaching assistants or speech and language therapists to help develop essential skills? The maths GCSE post-16 resit policy sees too many young people with SEND forced to retake exams that are just not useful for them. It comes with stigma and takes time away from developing the skills they actually need. Can the Minister commit to abolishing or reworking the resit policy to meet the needs of a wide range of young people with SEND more flexibly? I could go on for hours about this subject, but I have bent the ear of the Minister many times, so I will leave it there.
It is an honour to serve under your chairship for the first time, Dr Allin-Khan. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow). It is well known across the House that he is a classics scholar; indeed, he chairs the APPG for classics. Our democracy is based on that of the ancient Greeks, and demos is a Greek word from which we draw our idea of democratic values. One of our greatest ever parliamentarians from Leeds, Denis Healey, was himself a classics scholar. He inspired many others in Leeds and his constituency to study the classics, some of whom are now elected politicians in the city, so this subject is dear to our hearts in Leeds. Substantial democratic political education for our young people can help to comprise a curriculum for life for the future of the UK. I am proud of the commitment in the Labour manifesto at the last election, and many elections beforehand, to give the right to vote at 16. That must go hand in hand with a genuine education in critical thinking and democratic processes, and a guide to citizen participation. Without that education, we are all vulnerable to reductionist populism, as seen on the extremes of our political landscape. Equipping the next generation with the skills they need to identify mis- and disinformation, to call out discrimination and prejudice in politics, and to navigate our political system will forge a brighter and sharper future for our country. It is an education that I am sure we all wish we could have had access to across the United Kingdom. As the MP for the constituency with the youngest electorate in the country, I can say that the young people of Leeds Central and Headingley are switched on to what is going on in the world. As I am sure hon. Members will agree, when we visit schools and sixth-form colleges, we are kept on our toes by the young people there as much as we are in the Chamber itself—more so, actually, the majority of the time. If we can fully enfranchise young people with the tools on how to navigate all the layers of our political landscape, we will have a succession plan for a stable and ethically awake future. These tools are needed now more than ever, at a time when we are at the mercy of faceless social media, bot farms and nefarious online foreign actors that seek to disrupt the stability and the fabric of communities in our country. Furthermore, better political education can help tackle the negative perceptions of politicians and the growing levels of abuse, harassment and intimidation. We need politics to be an environment that is representative of the UK, not one that intimidates colleagues out of the field—or that intimidates people out of even considering entering elected politics. I believe that reducing the voting age will help increase the political engagement of younger people, and I agree with the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that lowering the voting age is a good opportunity to develop a new school curriculum for political education—an education that can enable young people to exercise their right to vote without unduly swaying or influencing them. Let us create the fairest and most democratic UK we have ever seen, with Government support for children to develop skills in political education and with enfranchised 16 and 17-year-olds, hopefully in a fairer voting system where all votes count.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for securing this debate. I feel it is my duty as someone sadly nearing the end of parenting a child in nursery to talk specifically about early years. When we talk about children developing essential skills, we often start too late. Learning does not begin when a child starts reception; it begins the very moment they are born, if not sooner. The skills they develop during the first months and years provide the foundation that children need to thrive in school. Nurseries, pre-schools and childcare providers play a crucial role in helping children build those skills, day by day, through care, routine support and encouragement. That is why Government support to help parents secure high-quality early years provision is so important. In Bolton North East, we are making progress on early years support. At the Valley community school, Government investment is helping refurbish old spaces, create a new play area and expand nursery provision. Our family hubs—Bright Meadows, Oxford Grove, Tonge and Oldhams—give families somewhere to get support without feeling judged. That progress matters, but it is not enough on its own. Across Bolton, more than a third of children are starting school without the essential skills that they need, making it harder to learn, communicate and build relationships from day one. For parents wanting to do their best for their children, the core question is whether early years support is accessible, affordable and workable in real life. I say that not just as the MP for Bolton North East, but as a single mum with a young son growing up in Bolton. I have often wondered whose idea it was to have school hours set from 8 am to 3 pm, working hours set from 9 am to 5 pm, and vital services operating within those hours. How on earth are parents supposed to make that work? One parent in my constituency told me that they had hoped the Government’s expansion of funded childcare from 15 to 30 hours would bring some relief—just that little bit of breathing space, enough to add one more nursery day so that grandparents did not have to keep filling the gap, or flexible working requests did not have to keep being made. But once the provider’s charges for meals and consumables were added in, and because of the way the hours are structured, their bill barely changed and that extra day remained out of reach. Government support is meant to help families, not be lost in extra charges and inflexible arrangements. This is not about attacking providers. Many early years providers and staff in Bolton do extraordinary work every day, often under real pressure, but at the most crucial point in a child’s development, it is wrong that profit can be made from childcare while families are left fighting for consistent standards, transparency and fairness. As parents, we should not have to rely on guidance that, even when improved on paper, is still inconsistently applied and too weakly enforced. Nor should we have to choose between what we can afford and what our child deserves. Children cannot build essential skills in a system that does not fit around the realities of family life. Too often, it is still mums who are expected to make it fit. Of course parents make sacrifices every day to help their children develop those essential skills, but our early years model still assumes that someone is at home, usually mum, to bridge the gap between nursery hours and working hours—someone who can do the 3 pm pick-up, cover sick days and leave work the moment nursery calls. In reality, that often means reducing her hours, turning down that promotion, losing income and then being told she is lucky to have flexibility, if she even gets it in the first place. Too often, flexibility is just another word for women being expected to bend their lives further and further, being made to feel guilty every time they ask for an adjustment, or being told that they are putting their job at risk. It also completely disregards single parents. Parents who need flexible working are too often treated as a problem to be managed, rather than as people who hold families, workplaces and communities together—and then we wonder why birth rates are falling. We cannot keep making motherhood expensive, uncertain and career-damaging and then act surprised when more and more women feel the choice has already been made for them. My asks of the Minister are simple: strengthen enforcement so funded hours are genuinely free, transparent and usable; review whether funding rates reflect the real costs of high-quality provision; and put the essential skills that children need and the flexibility that families need at the heart of early years reform. Every child deserves the best start, and that has to be something families feel in the support they receive, in the childcare they can rely on and in the confidence their children carry through the school gate. Having children should not be an unmanageable financial burden. It should not be a choice with a cost attached to it. No one should have to give up their dream of having a family because society is not set up to support them or because it punishes them for doing so, and no parent should have to make the tough choice to say no to having more children simply because they cannot afford to. Finally, single parents should not fear having to shoulder the responsibility alone. Every parent deserves to be supported by a society that benefits from all of us having children. [Interruption.]
I thank the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for securing this important debate. For years, we have had an education system that looks pretty good on league tables or spreadsheets but does not really help young people develop essential skills for dealing with this rapidly changing world. Rather than repeat remarks that I have made before, and that other hon. Members have made today, I will cut to the chase and list some issues and solutions that I urge the Minister to consider—so grab your pen, Minister. The first issue is funding. Somerset is one of the 40 lowest funded education authorities in the UK. We need to see a level playing field for funding, with an increase in school and college funding per pupil above the rate of inflation every year. The second issue is the type of skills we are teaching. Yeovil college does an amazing job with vocational and technical education, but we need the Government to go further. Can we make AI and digital skills training a core part of the national curriculum as its own subject? If we want to innovate, we need teaching that focuses on the skills needed for business and self-employment, although I may be biased because I ran my own landscaping company. Thirdly, we sadly have pockets of real deprivation in Yeovil. Will the Minister extend pupil premium funding to disadvantaged young people aged 16 to 18, so they can get the quality education or training they want, rather than having to work any old job—or worse? My final ask, unsurprisingly, relates to SEND. Can the Minister set out when the research into universal screening will conclude, and whether the Government will commit to adopting it, if that is supported by the research? We cannot help young people develop essential skills without working out how they learn best. More broadly, can the Minister please promise that the upcoming reforms to the SEND system will not mean that children with SEND lose the right to dedicated time with teaching assistants or speech and language therapists to help develop essential skills? The maths GCSE post-16 resit policy sees too many young people with SEND forced to retake exams that are just not useful for them. It comes with stigma and takes time away from developing the skills they actually need. Can the Minister commit to abolishing or reworking the resit policy to meet the needs of a wide range of young people with SEND more flexibly? I could go on for hours about this subject, but I have bent the ear of the Minister many times, so I will leave it there.
Given the thunder, I think someone upstairs agrees with you. I call Jim Shannon.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship as always, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for highlighting this essential issue. The Democratic Unionist party is committed to the development of early years skills. It is good to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), and the Minister in their places. I thank the Minister for all her hard work and wish her well in that role. Whether in strategy or policy, the focus on children is so important. The importance of investing in children’s essential skills in the early years cannot be overstated. Success in that has been shown to have an impact on broader society and the economy. Studies conducted by the effective pre-school, primary and secondary education project demonstrated that having a trained early years teacher often leads to better long-term chances for children. I have witnessed that as grandfather to six children, and will later mention their progress. That evidence has sometimes sadly been neglected, as reflected across the United Kingdom where only one in 10 nurseries has an early years teacher. Children with an early years education were found to go on to gain higher English and maths GCSE results, and were more likely to achieve five or more grades A* to C. The facts and evidence base are clearly there. Children who experienced high-quality pre-school education were better at self-regulation, social behaviour and less inclined to hyperactivity. That is all evidence based—I speak according to the evidence. Children who experienced high-quality pre-school settings were more likely to follow a post-16 academic path. Despite that evidence, more than 80% of parents say they have struggled to access services such as parenting support, health visitors and high-quality early education. I would like to highlight one issue. My son and daughter-in-law control and restrict screen time on the iPad but, over my time as an elected representative, I have noticed one thing coming back from those involved in nurseries and primary school. This is not a criticism, because people deal with things in their own way, but what happens if the child is busy, hyper or giving a bit of bother? They are handed the iPad. It takes their attention and they are okay for a while, but the amount of time a child is on an iPad must be restricted. I am not sure that every parent understands that. That is about teaching skills, not telling them how to parent. It is about making them aware of the issues. Some of the nursery staff I spoke to told me of the damage of a child being on an iPad screen for three or four hours a day. That will have a very negative effect on the child. I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that, because that important point is made by nursery school teachers and some parents. Increased screen time for children should be raised as a potential barrier to the development of children’s essential skills.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for securing this debate. I feel it is my duty as someone sadly nearing the end of parenting a child in nursery to talk specifically about early years. When we talk about children developing essential skills, we often start too late. Learning does not begin when a child starts reception; it begins the very moment they are born, if not sooner. The skills they develop during the first months and years provide the foundation that children need to thrive in school. Nurseries, pre-schools and childcare providers play a crucial role in helping children build those skills, day by day, through care, routine support and encouragement. That is why Government support to help parents secure high-quality early years provision is so important. In Bolton North East, we are making progress on early years support. At the Valley community school, Government investment is helping refurbish old spaces, create a new play area and expand nursery provision. Our family hubs—Bright Meadows, Oxford Grove, Tonge and Oldhams—give families somewhere to get support without feeling judged. That progress matters, but it is not enough on its own. Across Bolton, more than a third of children are starting school without the essential skills that they need, making it harder to learn, communicate and build relationships from day one. For parents wanting to do their best for their children, the core question is whether early years support is accessible, affordable and workable in real life. I say that not just as the MP for Bolton North East, but as a single mum with a young son growing up in Bolton. I have often wondered whose idea it was to have school hours set from 8 am to 3 pm, working hours set from 9 am to 5 pm, and vital services operating within those hours. How on earth are parents supposed to make that work? One parent in my constituency told me that they had hoped the Government’s expansion of funded childcare from 15 to 30 hours would bring some relief—just that little bit of breathing space, enough to add one more nursery day so that grandparents did not have to keep filling the gap, or flexible working requests did not have to keep being made. But once the provider’s charges for meals and consumables were added in, and because of the way the hours are structured, their bill barely changed and that extra day remained out of reach. Government support is meant to help families, not be lost in extra charges and inflexible arrangements. This is not about attacking providers. Many early years providers and staff in Bolton do extraordinary work every day, often under real pressure, but at the most crucial point in a child’s development, it is wrong that profit can be made from childcare while families are left fighting for consistent standards, transparency and fairness. As parents, we should not have to rely on guidance that, even when improved on paper, is still inconsistently applied and too weakly enforced. Nor should we have to choose between what we can afford and what our child deserves. Children cannot build essential skills in a system that does not fit around the realities of family life. Too often, it is still mums who are expected to make it fit. Of course parents make sacrifices every day to help their children develop those essential skills, but our early years model still assumes that someone is at home, usually mum, to bridge the gap between nursery hours and working hours—someone who can do the 3 pm pick-up, cover sick days and leave work the moment nursery calls. In reality, that often means reducing her hours, turning down that promotion, losing income and then being told she is lucky to have flexibility, if she even gets it in the first place. Too often, flexibility is just another word for women being expected to bend their lives further and further, being made to feel guilty every time they ask for an adjustment, or being told that they are putting their job at risk. It also completely disregards single parents. Parents who need flexible working are too often treated as a problem to be managed, rather than as people who hold families, workplaces and communities together—and then we wonder why birth rates are falling. We cannot keep making motherhood expensive, uncertain and career-damaging and then act surprised when more and more women feel the choice has already been made for them. My asks of the Minister are simple: strengthen enforcement so funded hours are genuinely free, transparent and usable; review whether funding rates reflect the real costs of high-quality provision; and put the essential skills that children need and the flexibility that families need at the heart of early years reform. Every child deserves the best start, and that has to be something families feel in the support they receive, in the childcare they can rely on and in the confidence their children carry through the school gate. Having children should not be an unmanageable financial burden. It should not be a choice with a cost attached to it. No one should have to give up their dream of having a family because society is not set up to support them or because it punishes them for doing so, and no parent should have to make the tough choice to say no to having more children simply because they cannot afford to. Finally, single parents should not fear having to shoulder the responsibility alone. Every parent deserves to be supported by a society that benefits from all of us having children. [Interruption.]
I totally agree that screen time can be damaging for young people just given a phone or an iPad, but does the hon. Member not agree that screen time can be beneficial if used in the right way to help people with disabilities such as dyslexia?
I agree with the hon. Member. I know that from my grandchildren—the wee ones in particular, who are both educationally challenged—though my son and daughter-in-law restrict time. It is important to have the opportunity, but also to control that time so that it does not impact them adversely. The hon. Gentleman is right that it is a tool that can be used for benefit, as well. It is important to put that on the record. It has been recognised that excessive screen time could limit the vocabulary of children, particularly damaging the ability to speak of those under five. Research found that 98% of two-year-olds watch screens daily. Higher screen time was independently associated with lower vocabulary development: the more the screen time, the less the talking and voice and word development. Children with the highest screen time could say 53% of the 34 test words on average, while those with the lowest screen time could say 65%. It is clear that we need a UK-wide approach to help parents understand why screen time balance is as essential to development as a nutrient-filled diet. It is vital that outcomes in reading and writing assessments continue to be monitored, in recognition that many children are still underdeveloped in essential skills and may require extra support due to covid educational preventions. I believe that essential skills are also provided by the voluntary sector. I want to mention some of those, such as local churches. We must recognise the volunteers in the Boys’ Brigade and Girls’ Brigade, the Campaigners, the Scouts and so many others who teach skills for badges. Their work with local community groups is so valued and must be highlighted in any debate on essential skills, as a child’s skills are more than academic; they are social and moral as well. So many volunteer organisations sow into children’s lives, and this must be recognised and applauded. In Northern Ireland, the publication of the 2024-25 end of key stage assessment outcomes highlighted the urgent need for renewed focus on literacy and numeracy. Data showed that 28% of pupils at the end of primary school are not achieving at the expected levels, so there is a real challenge there for us back home, and for the Education Minister to do much better. That is almost three in 10 pupils, to give an idea of the significance. That is of significant concern particularly as the foundational skills and the basics are essential for pupils’ future learning, wellbeing and life opportunity. I will finish with this mantra: every child should be allowed the best start in life, and it is our duty as elected representatives in positions of power—whether MPs here or representatives in the regional Governments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales—to ensure that future generations are protected. We can do that if we choose to do that. I look forward to what the Minister will say to encourage us all.
Given the thunder, I think someone upstairs agrees with you. I call Jim Shannon.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) on this really important debate. I hear an awful lot of guff and bluster in this place, and I just wish that we had more of these sorts of debates. I am only sorry that there is not a single Member of His Majesty’s Opposition on the Back Benches. I will take us back to the skills required by preschool children, as has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), because an essential skill for children is the ability to read, and 2026 is the National Year of Reading. In collaboration with the National Literacy Trust, the Department for Education is seeking to address the steep decline in reading among children and young people. A child’s earliest years are crucial to their development and life chances. When children start school, early communication and language skills make a huge difference. Being able to talk, listen, understand words and share stories helps children make friendships, ask for help from teachers and participate in learning and play. Literacy and communication skills lay the foundation for children to enjoy and take part in all aspects of school life, from imaginary games in the playground to activities in the classroom. These skills impact children’s success later too, which is why their start at school really matters. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, children who have good language skills at the age of five are far more likely to achieve the expected levels at the age of 11. Yet at a time when parents face enormous pressures, more than one quarter of five-year-olds in Cornwall start school without the communication, language and literacy skills that they need to thrive. For too long, our society has been failing Cornish children—not just them, clearly, but children all over the country. Research consistently shows that the home learning environment—the activities that children engage in at home, such as chatting, singing, sharing stories and playing outside—has a powerful impact. The National Literacy Trust’s Early Words Matter campaign supports parents and carers to build their children’s early language, communication and literacy skills. In my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency, the Everyone Ready for School project run by the National Literacy Trust in Cornwall provides early literacy support for families with children starting school soon. It offers free books—more than 4,000 have been distributed already—as well as resources, events and activities in the local community, empowering parents and children as they prepare together for the adventure of starting school. But the National Literacy Trust needs to secure funding for its remarkable ongoing work across one of the most deprived regions of northern Europe. I respectfully ask my hon. Friend the Minister to address that funding point when she responds to the debate. I am proud to say that I am a literacy champion for the National Literacy Trust in Cornwall. By working together with parents, teachers, early years professionals, volunteers and the wider community, the National Literacy Trust in Cornwall hopes to inspire parents to feel confident, knowing the amazing role that they play in their child’s school journey. The way that parents and children spend time together now is preparing children to succeed and be happy at school.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship as always, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for highlighting this essential issue. The Democratic Unionist party is committed to the development of early years skills. It is good to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), and the Minister in their places. I thank the Minister for all her hard work and wish her well in that role. Whether in strategy or policy, the focus on children is so important. The importance of investing in children’s essential skills in the early years cannot be overstated. Success in that has been shown to have an impact on broader society and the economy. Studies conducted by the effective pre-school, primary and secondary education project demonstrated that having a trained early years teacher often leads to better long-term chances for children. I have witnessed that as grandfather to six children, and will later mention their progress. That evidence has sometimes sadly been neglected, as reflected across the United Kingdom where only one in 10 nurseries has an early years teacher. Children with an early years education were found to go on to gain higher English and maths GCSE results, and were more likely to achieve five or more grades A* to C. The facts and evidence base are clearly there. Children who experienced high-quality pre-school education were better at self-regulation, social behaviour and less inclined to hyperactivity. That is all evidence based—I speak according to the evidence. Children who experienced high-quality pre-school settings were more likely to follow a post-16 academic path. Despite that evidence, more than 80% of parents say they have struggled to access services such as parenting support, health visitors and high-quality early education. I would like to highlight one issue. My son and daughter-in-law control and restrict screen time on the iPad but, over my time as an elected representative, I have noticed one thing coming back from those involved in nurseries and primary school. This is not a criticism, because people deal with things in their own way, but what happens if the child is busy, hyper or giving a bit of bother? They are handed the iPad. It takes their attention and they are okay for a while, but the amount of time a child is on an iPad must be restricted. I am not sure that every parent understands that. That is about teaching skills, not telling them how to parent. It is about making them aware of the issues. Some of the nursery staff I spoke to told me of the damage of a child being on an iPad screen for three or four hours a day. That will have a very negative effect on the child. I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that, because that important point is made by nursery school teachers and some parents. Increased screen time for children should be raised as a potential barrier to the development of children’s essential skills.
I totally agree that screen time can be damaging for young people just given a phone or an iPad, but does the hon. Member not agree that screen time can be beneficial if used in the right way to help people with disabilities such as dyslexia?
It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) on securing this really important debate. Whether children leave school with the skills that they need is not just an education question but an economic one, and one that the Government have a particular responsibility to get right. As mentioned, the Milburn review, “Young People and Work”, published just last week, underlines how complex and deep-rooted the problems are and how much depends on getting the foundations right. Skills England has noted that members of the UK workforce are more likely to be underqualified for their occupations than counterparts in other OECD countries. We are talking about 26% of UK workers, against an OECD average of 18%. That is not an accident; it is the accumulated consequences of choices made about what we teach, how we teach it and whom we invest in earliest. If we want to understand where things go wrong, we should start at the beginning, as the hon. Members for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and others have highlighted. The early years foundation stage data for 2024-25 shows that 68% of children achieved a good level of development at the end of reception, meaning that nearly one in three did not, falling short on personal, social and emotional development, physical development, communication, literacy or numeracy. Children who arrive behind tend to stay behind. The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers opens early and rarely closes, sadly.
The hon. Member is making a really important point about the need to focus on early years. Given that, does he regret the decision taken by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government in 2010 to cut Sure Start?
The point is well made about the importance of early years. That decision was sadly before my time, but it has certainly had consequences that we should all attempt to put right. Investment in high-quality early years provision, properly funded and staffed, is the most cost-effective skills intervention available for the long term. The Liberal Democrats broadly welcome the curriculum review, but we are concerned about the scrapping of the EBacc, at least in isolation—that is to say, without more clarity about accountability. The EBacc fulfilled an important role in mainstreaming subjects that were in decline, such as the humanities and languages. The right response to that is to build on its success by broadening it further to encompass arts, coding and physical education, rather than removing the accountability framework altogether. Without clear guidance, vital subjects risk being sidelined as schools struggle with budget pressures. That is why the Government’s commitment to give arts GCSEs equal status to humanities and introduce a core enrichment entitlement matters. It is also why the test now is whether those commitments translate into actual curriculum time in actual schools—particularly those serving disadvantaged communities, where the squeeze has been sharpest. It is important to recognise that breadth is only part of the answer; the quality and relevance of the core curriculum matters just as much. Too many young people leave school without feeling equipped to use maths in their lives or careers. Financial literacy, data interpretation and proportional reasoning are not optional extras but critical foundations. We should be asking not just whether children can pass their maths exam but whether the maths they are taught actually serves them. That same question—does what we teach serve children in the world they are entering?—applies in many respects. The hon. Member for Bracknell and others highlighted civic skills, and I would pick up artificial intelligence, given the world we are entering. The curriculum review is the right moment to embed AI literacy, not simply as a bolt-on qualification but as a genuine thread running throughout what children learn. Understanding those tools and their capabilities and limits is becoming a basic competency. The Government’s instinct is right, and we encourage real ambition in following it through. Skills alone are not enough if children cannot see where they might take them. Even a child who leaves school with strong skills, broad knowledge and digital fluency may still struggle if nobody has helped them to see what is possible, so careers guidance really matters. It matters most for the children who do not have family networks reaching into professional life. For children in that position, a well-timed conversation about what their aptitudes could lead to is not peripheral support; it is transformative. The Liberal Democrats are clear that the earlier that guidance begins, the more powerful it is. To pick up the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), children with SEND must be included in every part of our ambition for essential skills. Too many children with SEND still cannot access support for their education, health and care plans. The system remains slow and adversarial, and is too dependent on families fighting for entitlements that should be automatic. Early identification and intervention is not happening at the scale or pace required, and when that does not happen, the consequences are compounded through adolescence and into adulthood. The Government’s reforms are a step in the right direction, and we genuinely welcome their intent, but SEND reforms must be judged not by the stated intentions but by the outcomes for children. That is the standard we will continue to hold the Government to.
I agree with the hon. Member. I know that from my grandchildren—the wee ones in particular, who are both educationally challenged—though my son and daughter-in-law restrict time. It is important to have the opportunity, but also to control that time so that it does not impact them adversely. The hon. Gentleman is right that it is a tool that can be used for benefit, as well. It is important to put that on the record. It has been recognised that excessive screen time could limit the vocabulary of children, particularly damaging the ability to speak of those under five. Research found that 98% of two-year-olds watch screens daily. Higher screen time was independently associated with lower vocabulary development: the more the screen time, the less the talking and voice and word development. Children with the highest screen time could say 53% of the 34 test words on average, while those with the lowest screen time could say 65%. It is clear that we need a UK-wide approach to help parents understand why screen time balance is as essential to development as a nutrient-filled diet. It is vital that outcomes in reading and writing assessments continue to be monitored, in recognition that many children are still underdeveloped in essential skills and may require extra support due to covid educational preventions. I believe that essential skills are also provided by the voluntary sector. I want to mention some of those, such as local churches. We must recognise the volunteers in the Boys’ Brigade and Girls’ Brigade, the Campaigners, the Scouts and so many others who teach skills for badges. Their work with local community groups is so valued and must be highlighted in any debate on essential skills, as a child’s skills are more than academic; they are social and moral as well. So many volunteer organisations sow into children’s lives, and this must be recognised and applauded. In Northern Ireland, the publication of the 2024-25 end of key stage assessment outcomes highlighted the urgent need for renewed focus on literacy and numeracy. Data showed that 28% of pupils at the end of primary school are not achieving at the expected levels, so there is a real challenge there for us back home, and for the Education Minister to do much better. That is almost three in 10 pupils, to give an idea of the significance. That is of significant concern particularly as the foundational skills and the basics are essential for pupils’ future learning, wellbeing and life opportunity. I will finish with this mantra: every child should be allowed the best start in life, and it is our duty as elected representatives in positions of power—whether MPs here or representatives in the regional Governments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales—to ensure that future generations are protected. We can do that if we choose to do that. I look forward to what the Minister will say to encourage us all.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Dr Allin-Khan, and may there be many more. I thank the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for opening the debate, and for his thoughtful contributions that we have heard throughout. I know that he is a long-standing champion of this issue, for which he made his case, and I am sure we will hear more from him. I also thank all Members across the House who made contributions. In particular, I want to single out the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), who I thought made a really valid contribution. Having just welcomed my third child, and having seen the sacrifice that mums make, I can attest to the fact that she made some very valid points, and she will certainly get a lot of sympathy from me. My good friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about screen time. With three children under five, I can tell him that the battle of the screen time has already begun; I know the anguish that parents face, so I have a huge amount of sympathy. While I am always careful not to talk about silver bullets in politics, I believe that education is a silver bullet that can transform a child’s life and their chances. School is an essential part of a young person’s development, equipping them with the skills they need to succeed in life. The academic lessons we learn in the classroom prepare us for the world of work, and the social lessons we learn in school teach us so much that will be needed later in life. The official Opposition are very clear that our children deserve a first-class education, and I am proud that the previous Conservative Government delivered a world-class curriculum to facilitate that. Under previous Conservative Governments, England became one of the top performing countries in education; children in England were named the best in the west for reading, and we were ranked the best at maths in the western world in 2023, according to international standards. At the heart of those results was the previous Government’s rigorous curriculum, which raised standards and helped pupils soar up the international league tables. This debate has centred on some of the softer but equally important skills that a good education can instil in a young person. While I believe that we cannot underplay the importance of academic rigour, this debate plays a vital role in getting our young people ready for life—or the school of life, shall we say. There is no doubt that so much more needs to be done to ensure that our young people are equipped with the right essential skills. I would like to go back a few years. I believe that the pandemic played a huge role in some of the outcomes that our young people are facing. Many of them spent time away from home and outside the classroom, which really impacted on skills. With that in mind, I invite the Minister to comment on whether the Government should be working to fill those gaps and ensure that those people are supported into adulthood. The Opposition are clear that a rigorous curriculum that demands high standards is vital to developing critical skills, which is important in areas such as maths and literacy, and the previous Conservative Government are really proud of our legacy of driving up standards. However, I am concerned about some of the changes in the curriculum review. While I agree with many of its principles, I worry that if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. I want to talk about the practical implementation of the curriculum to see whether the Minister can shed some light on it. We all want to see our children equipped with the skills that are needed in life. The hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) talked about getting our children ready for the digital age, especially with the onset of AI and the waves of disinformation we are seeing online. As a former tech Minister, I share those concerns. I invite the Minister to discuss what she thinks the new curriculum will do to ensure that our children are ready for the advent of AI, as it is already upon us. Does she worry that we risk diluting the core education that I mentioned, which underpins our academic success and those high standards? What will be sacrificed to deliver some of that extra work? This will also be incredibly important because, as has been mentioned, the Government have decided to push down the voting age to 16. If millions of young people are enfranchised in that way, how will the Minister be confident that they will have the skills to engage in our democracy? How will they be encouraged to critically analyse the information they are given? In addition, I would like clarity from the Government on the time being taken away from core education. How will they ensure that time is given to the new aspects of the curriculum review to ensure that high standards are achieved? When the Government have been challenged previously by Opposition Members, they have not been forthcoming on that issue. Parents and students are anxious about how the reforms will change their education in the long term, so I invite the Minister to give a bit more clarity, specifically on the citizenship curriculum. As for teaching, what training will teachers require to be ready for those changes? On financial literacy and education, we can all recognise the benefits of ensuring that young people enter adulthood knowing how to manage their money. In 2023, the “Building Beyond Barriers” report by the all-party group on financial education for young people found that more than half of teachers did not know that financial education was already part of the curriculum. As the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), made clear in a report last week, the importance of financial education cannot be overstated. That report found that “Four in ten people in the UK have poor financial literacy”, which is holding back our economy. The APPG’s report also found that one of the barriers to delivering financial education was a feeling that there is simply not enough time in the school year to deliver those lessons—a similar argument to the one I just made about citizenship lessons. So I ask the Minister: how will they be implemented? Other Members asked about the standards that will be expected. What assessments will be in place to make sure that the quality of the education is of the highest level? Focusing on core skills does make sense in this regard because good maths is a gateway to lifelong financial stability. That is not just my opinion; the programme for international student assessment found a strong correlation between performance in financial literacy and performance in mathematics. I have no doubt that our hard-working teachers are keen to play their part in delivering the skills education that we have discussed today in an appropriate way in the classroom. But a key part of that is innovation, and the Government’s compulsory curriculum risks inhibiting that innovation from teachers. The Government’s curriculum review praised innovation in teaching and made clear the benefits of flexibility for teachers, but I worry that the opposite will happen in practice. Lastly, in my regular meetings with stakeholders—both in education and industry— and when I have spoken to students, I hear time and again about the importance of better career support in schools. Understanding the world of work and what steps are needed to get to where a person wants to be in later life are essential. Young people are seeing profound and substantial changes in the world of work, none more so than the impact of AI on professional careers, such as accountancy and law. With that in mind, it is more important than ever that young people are equipped with the right skills to navigate a changing world of employment and the economy at large. I invite the Minister to elaborate on the work that she will do with the Department for Work and Pensions to make sure that young people get the quality career advice that they need. Children deserve a world-class curriculum that sets them up for the best possible chance in life. I support a knowledge-rich curriculum and will continue to urge the Government to answer some of the constructive questions that the Opposition have put forward. We all want to ensure that our young people have the best chances in life and also have the skills to live their lives and thrive.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) on this really important debate. I hear an awful lot of guff and bluster in this place, and I just wish that we had more of these sorts of debates. I am only sorry that there is not a single Member of His Majesty’s Opposition on the Back Benches. I will take us back to the skills required by preschool children, as has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), because an essential skill for children is the ability to read, and 2026 is the National Year of Reading. In collaboration with the National Literacy Trust, the Department for Education is seeking to address the steep decline in reading among children and young people. A child’s earliest years are crucial to their development and life chances. When children start school, early communication and language skills make a huge difference. Being able to talk, listen, understand words and share stories helps children make friendships, ask for help from teachers and participate in learning and play. Literacy and communication skills lay the foundation for children to enjoy and take part in all aspects of school life, from imaginary games in the playground to activities in the classroom. These skills impact children’s success later too, which is why their start at school really matters. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, children who have good language skills at the age of five are far more likely to achieve the expected levels at the age of 11. Yet at a time when parents face enormous pressures, more than one quarter of five-year-olds in Cornwall start school without the communication, language and literacy skills that they need to thrive. For too long, our society has been failing Cornish children—not just them, clearly, but children all over the country. Research consistently shows that the home learning environment—the activities that children engage in at home, such as chatting, singing, sharing stories and playing outside—has a powerful impact. The National Literacy Trust’s Early Words Matter campaign supports parents and carers to build their children’s early language, communication and literacy skills. In my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency, the Everyone Ready for School project run by the National Literacy Trust in Cornwall provides early literacy support for families with children starting school soon. It offers free books—more than 4,000 have been distributed already—as well as resources, events and activities in the local community, empowering parents and children as they prepare together for the adventure of starting school. But the National Literacy Trust needs to secure funding for its remarkable ongoing work across one of the most deprived regions of northern Europe. I respectfully ask my hon. Friend the Minister to address that funding point when she responds to the debate. I am proud to say that I am a literacy champion for the National Literacy Trust in Cornwall. By working together with parents, teachers, early years professionals, volunteers and the wider community, the National Literacy Trust in Cornwall hopes to inspire parents to feel confident, knowing the amazing role that they play in their child’s school journey. The way that parents and children spend time together now is preparing children to succeed and be happy at school.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I welcome today’s constructive and thoughtful debate and the constructive tone of both the hon. Members for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) and for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti). I know we all share a desire to ensure that our children are supported to grow up into well-rounded adults. It is brilliant to see young people in the Gallery listening to the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for securing this debate. He has been such a champion of these issues, and almost on a daily, or at least weekly, basis he stops me to discuss these questions. As he said, I have visited his constituency and seen some of the work that he is leading in practice. As we have heard today, these are massively important topics. The Milburn review has shown the real cost of unemployment for young people and how critical it is to ensure that they have the skills that can support them into the workplace, but also, as we have heard from so many people, support them to be active citizens participating in community life. I will start where my hon. Friend did in his speech and focus on the importance of children and young people feeling confident to face challenges and shape the world around them. So much change is happening, and we cannot fully imagine the world that young people will go out into. It is therefore critical that they have the core foundations of knowledge as well as a love of learning. We want young people to return to and enjoy learning as their time in the workplace goes on; learning should be core throughout their lives. They must feel that they have the skills to be able to deal with uncertainty, to shape the world and to feel confident. So many young people tell me that that is not how they feel at the moment. That is why the curriculum and assessment review and this debate are so important. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East asked whether we have to choose between knowledge and skills and standards and inclusion. For me, they are two sides of the same coin. It is absolutely critical that we support our children to attain academically. We all know that too many young people are being left behind, and we have stark gaps for disadvantaged young people that we need to address. A big part of that is how they are engaged in education. School has to be unmissable, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell said, the joy of learning is critical. It is important that children are engaged and want to come to school to develop their knowledge, whether that is through enrichment or through teaching the core things that they really want to know about, such as financial education. In this Chamber and the main Chamber, we often talk about inclusion and the importance of supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities to feel a sense of wellbeing and belonging. Too often, they have not felt that, and that has left them feeling disengaged from education. We will pursue both knowledge and skills and inclusion and high standards for our young people. We have heard throughout the debate about the curriculum and assessment review and the work that we commissioned Professor Becky Francis to do with an incredibly expert panel. It did a really careful and thoughtful piece of work for the Government, setting out the things that it felt needed to change to support children to be able to go out confidently into the modern world. Lots of the themes that came up in this debate—media literacy, digital literacy, the importance of citizenship, oracy—came out in the review, and we have committed to embedding them. In terms of next steps, a huge amount of work is going on to draft programmes of study and to test them with a range of different partners. We have committed to giving schools four terms to prepare for implementing the new curriculum. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East asked about space in the curriculum. What was really powerful about the work that Dr Becky Francis led was that it gave careful thought to the sequencing of the curriculum, how things fit together and how duplication can be prevented. We are developing a digital curriculum for the first time, so it will be much easier for teachers to make links between different subjects. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell also raised enrichment and its importance in making school unmissable and making young people excited about coming to school. I travel around the country talking to young people, and they often say that it is the thing they really look forward to and that it helps them to feel part of the wider school community. We will publish an enrichment framework with a focus on developing wider life skills relating to arts and culture, civic engagement, nature, outdoor adventure, and sport and physical activities. Many Members made really important points about making sure that the enrichment offer is open to students who feel further away from those opportunities, and we are working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to build up the enrichment offer in 400 schools in the most disadvantaged areas. We are investing £22.5 million from the dormant assets fund to make that a reality, as well as working with a whole range of partners to ensure that the enrichment framework for all schools is a really powerful tool. Another point raised by a number of Members was about citizenship and political education. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) made a really powerful speech about how important that is for votes at 16, but also for our democratic institutions and our ability to disagree agreeably and have these political debates. When we have so much misinformation and division, embedding that in our education system is incredibly important. We have committed to citizenship being statutory in key stages 1 and 2, and to strengthening and modernising citizenship across the curriculum, looking at many of the themes that we have talked about, including media literacy. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) talked about digital literacy and AI and about making sure that those are core skills. We are looking to embed key areas such as digital and media literacy across the curriculum, because every single subject will have an element of these AI and digital skills, but we are also refreshing the computing GCSE so that particular content is focused on that. On media literacy, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) mentioned misinformation. That is another really important theme that will sit in citizenship but also in other subjects. In history, for instance, people will really think about sources and how to decipher information, and in English people will look at emotive language. Those are areas where we can look at these core themes embedded into the wider curriculum. My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Claire Hazelgrove) and others mentioned financial literacy, which comes up more than anything else from young people as being a skill that they really want to have and learn about. We are working across the maths curriculum and the wider piece to look at how we really embed financial literacy, and we will be doing a number of test and learns around implementation and working with teachers. Turning to the different contributions on early years childcare, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle). She made an incredibly powerful speech about what a lifeline childcare is for families, and I completely agree. I see that all the time as a constituency MP, and particularly how essential it is for mums, who often end up doing so much of that childcare. My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of the 30 hours of free childcare; that has made a difference for people taking up the full entitlement, which we think has saved them an average of £8,000. She also mentioned how fees and different practices can pull away at some of that really important cost of living support. The Secretary of State for Education has written to the Competition and Markets Authority to request a review of the early years childcare market, which is to look precisely at many of the issues that my hon. Friend mentioned. It is worth having a look at that letter, and it is a really important issue to pursue. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the importance of early years, and my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) spoke powerfully about the long-term impact of delayed language development for children. Sadly, since the pandemic we have seen many more children coming into school with delayed language. We know the long-term impact on children, so that has been a key focus for the Government in developing Best Start hubs, which will give that wraparound support to children, but also introducing new programmes such as the early language support programme, which brings NHS services to schools to identify needs earlier, and the Nuffield early learning intervention programme, which puts support in for reception children. I would be interested to hear more about what is going on in Cornwall and some of the challenges that my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth mentioned, and to discuss that further. This is also a key part of our thinking around the SEND reforms, putting more investment, earlier, into speech and language support and the new Experts at Hand service, which will include speech and language therapists.
First, may I welcome the Minister’s comments on all the issues that have been raised, particularly mine on screen time? Sometimes we must engage with parents in a way that shows that we understand that children should be given a bit of time on their iPads but that that time should be restricted, too. Does the Minister have any thoughts on that?
It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) on securing this really important debate. Whether children leave school with the skills that they need is not just an education question but an economic one, and one that the Government have a particular responsibility to get right. As mentioned, the Milburn review, “Young People and Work”, published just last week, underlines how complex and deep-rooted the problems are and how much depends on getting the foundations right. Skills England has noted that members of the UK workforce are more likely to be underqualified for their occupations than counterparts in other OECD countries. We are talking about 26% of UK workers, against an OECD average of 18%. That is not an accident; it is the accumulated consequences of choices made about what we teach, how we teach it and whom we invest in earliest. If we want to understand where things go wrong, we should start at the beginning, as the hon. Members for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and others have highlighted. The early years foundation stage data for 2024-25 shows that 68% of children achieved a good level of development at the end of reception, meaning that nearly one in three did not, falling short on personal, social and emotional development, physical development, communication, literacy or numeracy. Children who arrive behind tend to stay behind. The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers opens early and rarely closes, sadly.
The hon. Member is making a really important point about the need to focus on early years. Given that, does he regret the decision taken by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government in 2010 to cut Sure Start?
I thank the hon. Member for raising that issue. We have developed guidance for parents to support them with screen time in early years. As a parent of a two-and-a-half-year-old, I know how confusing it can be. It is not something that I was spoken to about when I had my son. It is important we have guidance that is not judgmental but gives parents the best advice. We have put that out now. A lot of expertise has gone into developing it and I have had really positive feedback. Certainly, I have found it very helpful personally in shaping those important decisions. It is also important that through our Best Start hubs we are able to have that conversation and support for children, not just about not being on screens, but about what engagement looks like: what are the activities, how does one encourage a child to speak, and as they get older what are the enrichment activities that they can engage in after the school day? The hon. Member for Yeovil is always a passionate advocate of support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and I welcome him mentioning that as part of these wider issues. On the questions on identifying needs, he will know that we are developing national inclusion standards which include research into identification around the needs we have set out in our SEND consultation document. That work is ongoing and it will form part of national inclusion standards. We are working on appointing the panel of independent experts at the moment. It is critical that we get that right, and have that early identification of needs, whether on speech and language or others. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the importance of support for young people who are constantly having to re-sit English and maths. He will know we have been consulting on a new level 1 English and maths qualification, which is precisely designed to support children and young people to consolidate their knowledge and be a gateway qualification to deal with exactly that problem, which is one I have heard time and time again.
The point is well made about the importance of early years. That decision was sadly before my time, but it has certainly had consequences that we should all attempt to put right. Investment in high-quality early years provision, properly funded and staffed, is the most cost-effective skills intervention available for the long term. The Liberal Democrats broadly welcome the curriculum review, but we are concerned about the scrapping of the EBacc, at least in isolation—that is to say, without more clarity about accountability. The EBacc fulfilled an important role in mainstreaming subjects that were in decline, such as the humanities and languages. The right response to that is to build on its success by broadening it further to encompass arts, coding and physical education, rather than removing the accountability framework altogether. Without clear guidance, vital subjects risk being sidelined as schools struggle with budget pressures. That is why the Government’s commitment to give arts GCSEs equal status to humanities and introduce a core enrichment entitlement matters. It is also why the test now is whether those commitments translate into actual curriculum time in actual schools—particularly those serving disadvantaged communities, where the squeeze has been sharpest. It is important to recognise that breadth is only part of the answer; the quality and relevance of the core curriculum matters just as much. Too many young people leave school without feeling equipped to use maths in their lives or careers. Financial literacy, data interpretation and proportional reasoning are not optional extras but critical foundations. We should be asking not just whether children can pass their maths exam but whether the maths they are taught actually serves them. That same question—does what we teach serve children in the world they are entering?—applies in many respects. The hon. Member for Bracknell and others highlighted civic skills, and I would pick up artificial intelligence, given the world we are entering. The curriculum review is the right moment to embed AI literacy, not simply as a bolt-on qualification but as a genuine thread running throughout what children learn. Understanding those tools and their capabilities and limits is becoming a basic competency. The Government’s instinct is right, and we encourage real ambition in following it through. Skills alone are not enough if children cannot see where they might take them. Even a child who leaves school with strong skills, broad knowledge and digital fluency may still struggle if nobody has helped them to see what is possible, so careers guidance really matters. It matters most for the children who do not have family networks reaching into professional life. For children in that position, a well-timed conversation about what their aptitudes could lead to is not peripheral support; it is transformative. The Liberal Democrats are clear that the earlier that guidance begins, the more powerful it is. To pick up the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), children with SEND must be included in every part of our ambition for essential skills. Too many children with SEND still cannot access support for their education, health and care plans. The system remains slow and adversarial, and is too dependent on families fighting for entitlements that should be automatic. Early identification and intervention is not happening at the scale or pace required, and when that does not happen, the consequences are compounded through adolescence and into adulthood. The Government’s reforms are a step in the right direction, and we genuinely welcome their intent, but SEND reforms must be judged not by the stated intentions but by the outcomes for children. That is the standard we will continue to hold the Government to.
I thank the Minister for giving way and for answering all my questions, as always. Concerned parents in Yeovil also tell me that kids who have autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, sensory issues or attention deficit disorder cannot find apprenticeships or work, nor have they had help developing the skills they need to get into the creative or agricultural sector. Can the Minister set out what more the Government are doing to support rural schools and employers to get neurodiverse people into those industries?
I really appreciate that question. Again, talking to families and young people around the country, that comes up all the time. I welcomed the Milburn review’s focus on the experience of young people with SEND and disabilities, and on some of those barriers. There is action we are already taking, through supported internships and our work with further education, but it is an area in which we need to go further. It is something we are continuing to work on with the Department for Work and Pensions. I am happy to have further conversations about those issues. I want to conclude by thanking everyone for this really important debate. These are areas we are actively looking at as we develop the new curriculum and think about developing the oracy framework we have committed to. Employers have said to us that it is essential young people have the skills they need for later life. Many of us will have seen how powerful some of these interventions are. I was recently with the Duke of Edinburgh, talking to young people in a school in my constituency. They talked about the confidence and problem-solving skills that the programme gave them, changing their sense of what was possible for them. That sits alongside the core knowledge that young people must learn, supporting young adults to be well rounded and able to shape their futures confidently. I hope that we can continue these conversations, as a lot of important ideas were mentioned today. We will consult fully on the new curriculum, which I am sure that all Members will look at with interest.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Dr Allin-Khan, and may there be many more. I thank the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for opening the debate, and for his thoughtful contributions that we have heard throughout. I know that he is a long-standing champion of this issue, for which he made his case, and I am sure we will hear more from him. I also thank all Members across the House who made contributions. In particular, I want to single out the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), who I thought made a really valid contribution. Having just welcomed my third child, and having seen the sacrifice that mums make, I can attest to the fact that she made some very valid points, and she will certainly get a lot of sympathy from me. My good friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about screen time. With three children under five, I can tell him that the battle of the screen time has already begun; I know the anguish that parents face, so I have a huge amount of sympathy. While I am always careful not to talk about silver bullets in politics, I believe that education is a silver bullet that can transform a child’s life and their chances. School is an essential part of a young person’s development, equipping them with the skills they need to succeed in life. The academic lessons we learn in the classroom prepare us for the world of work, and the social lessons we learn in school teach us so much that will be needed later in life. The official Opposition are very clear that our children deserve a first-class education, and I am proud that the previous Conservative Government delivered a world-class curriculum to facilitate that. Under previous Conservative Governments, England became one of the top performing countries in education; children in England were named the best in the west for reading, and we were ranked the best at maths in the western world in 2023, according to international standards. At the heart of those results was the previous Government’s rigorous curriculum, which raised standards and helped pupils soar up the international league tables. This debate has centred on some of the softer but equally important skills that a good education can instil in a young person. While I believe that we cannot underplay the importance of academic rigour, this debate plays a vital role in getting our young people ready for life—or the school of life, shall we say. There is no doubt that so much more needs to be done to ensure that our young people are equipped with the right essential skills. I would like to go back a few years. I believe that the pandemic played a huge role in some of the outcomes that our young people are facing. Many of them spent time away from home and outside the classroom, which really impacted on skills. With that in mind, I invite the Minister to comment on whether the Government should be working to fill those gaps and ensure that those people are supported into adulthood. The Opposition are clear that a rigorous curriculum that demands high standards is vital to developing critical skills, which is important in areas such as maths and literacy, and the previous Conservative Government are really proud of our legacy of driving up standards. However, I am concerned about some of the changes in the curriculum review. While I agree with many of its principles, I worry that if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. I want to talk about the practical implementation of the curriculum to see whether the Minister can shed some light on it. We all want to see our children equipped with the skills that are needed in life. The hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) talked about getting our children ready for the digital age, especially with the onset of AI and the waves of disinformation we are seeing online. As a former tech Minister, I share those concerns. I invite the Minister to discuss what she thinks the new curriculum will do to ensure that our children are ready for the advent of AI, as it is already upon us. Does she worry that we risk diluting the core education that I mentioned, which underpins our academic success and those high standards? What will be sacrificed to deliver some of that extra work? This will also be incredibly important because, as has been mentioned, the Government have decided to push down the voting age to 16. If millions of young people are enfranchised in that way, how will the Minister be confident that they will have the skills to engage in our democracy? How will they be encouraged to critically analyse the information they are given? In addition, I would like clarity from the Government on the time being taken away from core education. How will they ensure that time is given to the new aspects of the curriculum review to ensure that high standards are achieved? When the Government have been challenged previously by Opposition Members, they have not been forthcoming on that issue. Parents and students are anxious about how the reforms will change their education in the long term, so I invite the Minister to give a bit more clarity, specifically on the citizenship curriculum. As for teaching, what training will teachers require to be ready for those changes? On financial literacy and education, we can all recognise the benefits of ensuring that young people enter adulthood knowing how to manage their money. In 2023, the “Building Beyond Barriers” report by the all-party group on financial education for young people found that more than half of teachers did not know that financial education was already part of the curriculum. As the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), made clear in a report last week, the importance of financial education cannot be overstated. That report found that “Four in ten people in the UK have poor financial literacy”, which is holding back our economy. The APPG’s report also found that one of the barriers to delivering financial education was a feeling that there is simply not enough time in the school year to deliver those lessons—a similar argument to the one I just made about citizenship lessons. So I ask the Minister: how will they be implemented? Other Members asked about the standards that will be expected. What assessments will be in place to make sure that the quality of the education is of the highest level? Focusing on core skills does make sense in this regard because good maths is a gateway to lifelong financial stability. That is not just my opinion; the programme for international student assessment found a strong correlation between performance in financial literacy and performance in mathematics. I have no doubt that our hard-working teachers are keen to play their part in delivering the skills education that we have discussed today in an appropriate way in the classroom. But a key part of that is innovation, and the Government’s compulsory curriculum risks inhibiting that innovation from teachers. The Government’s curriculum review praised innovation in teaching and made clear the benefits of flexibility for teachers, but I worry that the opposite will happen in practice. Lastly, in my regular meetings with stakeholders—both in education and industry— and when I have spoken to students, I hear time and again about the importance of better career support in schools. Understanding the world of work and what steps are needed to get to where a person wants to be in later life are essential. Young people are seeing profound and substantial changes in the world of work, none more so than the impact of AI on professional careers, such as accountancy and law. With that in mind, it is more important than ever that young people are equipped with the right skills to navigate a changing world of employment and the economy at large. I invite the Minister to elaborate on the work that she will do with the Department for Work and Pensions to make sure that young people get the quality career advice that they need. Children deserve a world-class curriculum that sets them up for the best possible chance in life. I support a knowledge-rich curriculum and will continue to urge the Government to answer some of the constructive questions that the Opposition have put forward. We all want to ensure that our young people have the best chances in life and also have the skills to live their lives and thrive.
I thank Members for taking part in today’s debate. It has been fantastic to hear support from across the House for improving access to skills for our young people. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) for reminding us that skills can be delivered across the curriculum. Classics is an excellent example, as it can teach young people not just about declensions, but democracy; not just Augustus, but oracy. Other subjects are available. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) is a doughty champion for young people, particularly those with SEND. He made many excellent points about some of the barriers faced by young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) was right to highlight early years. I am grateful for the work being done in Bracknell Forest to roll out new services through our Government-backed Best Start family hub. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) brought, as always, a thoughtful insight from the Northern Irish perspective. He was right to highlight the need for screen time guidance, which I know the Government are committed to delivering. I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) raise the issue of reading. As a member of the Education Committee, I have been working on its inquiry into reading for pleasure. The evidence we have heard was echoed in my hon. Friend’s contribution. I respectfully disagree with the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) on the EBacc. As the Minister has heard me say many times before, it did not support all humanities subjects equally. Citizenship GCSE, for example, was not included. I do, however, welcome his comments about early years and careers guidance. I thank the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) for his contribution, but I will quote to him from Alan Milburn’s interim report, which says “the school system is built on young people gaining qualifications which is not the same as ensuring they are ready for work.” I encourage the hon. Member to read Milburn’s interim report thoroughly. Finally, I thank the Minister for all the work she is doing in this space. I am excited to see the enrichment framework when it comes forward. I will scrutinise it closely, as she would expect, but I welcome her commitment to delivering it inclusively. As we have all agreed today, getting this right is crucial to supporting our young people’s futures. We all want to see opportunities for young people in our constituencies, and that is what has inspired each of us to speak today. I thank you, Dr Allin-Khan, and all Members for their contributions. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered Government support for children developing essential skills.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I welcome today’s constructive and thoughtful debate and the constructive tone of both the hon. Members for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) and for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti). I know we all share a desire to ensure that our children are supported to grow up into well-rounded adults. It is brilliant to see young people in the Gallery listening to the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for securing this debate. He has been such a champion of these issues, and almost on a daily, or at least weekly, basis he stops me to discuss these questions. As he said, I have visited his constituency and seen some of the work that he is leading in practice. As we have heard today, these are massively important topics. The Milburn review has shown the real cost of unemployment for young people and how critical it is to ensure that they have the skills that can support them into the workplace, but also, as we have heard from so many people, support them to be active citizens participating in community life. I will start where my hon. Friend did in his speech and focus on the importance of children and young people feeling confident to face challenges and shape the world around them. So much change is happening, and we cannot fully imagine the world that young people will go out into. It is therefore critical that they have the core foundations of knowledge as well as a love of learning. We want young people to return to and enjoy learning as their time in the workplace goes on; learning should be core throughout their lives. They must feel that they have the skills to be able to deal with uncertainty, to shape the world and to feel confident. So many young people tell me that that is not how they feel at the moment. That is why the curriculum and assessment review and this debate are so important. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East asked whether we have to choose between knowledge and skills and standards and inclusion. For me, they are two sides of the same coin. It is absolutely critical that we support our children to attain academically. We all know that too many young people are being left behind, and we have stark gaps for disadvantaged young people that we need to address. A big part of that is how they are engaged in education. School has to be unmissable, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell said, the joy of learning is critical. It is important that children are engaged and want to come to school to develop their knowledge, whether that is through enrichment or through teaching the core things that they really want to know about, such as financial education. In this Chamber and the main Chamber, we often talk about inclusion and the importance of supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities to feel a sense of wellbeing and belonging. Too often, they have not felt that, and that has left them feeling disengaged from education. We will pursue both knowledge and skills and inclusion and high standards for our young people. We have heard throughout the debate about the curriculum and assessment review and the work that we commissioned Professor Becky Francis to do with an incredibly expert panel. It did a really careful and thoughtful piece of work for the Government, setting out the things that it felt needed to change to support children to be able to go out confidently into the modern world. Lots of the themes that came up in this debate—media literacy, digital literacy, the importance of citizenship, oracy—came out in the review, and we have committed to embedding them. In terms of next steps, a huge amount of work is going on to draft programmes of study and to test them with a range of different partners. We have committed to giving schools four terms to prepare for implementing the new curriculum. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East asked about space in the curriculum. What was really powerful about the work that Dr Becky Francis led was that it gave careful thought to the sequencing of the curriculum, how things fit together and how duplication can be prevented. We are developing a digital curriculum for the first time, so it will be much easier for teachers to make links between different subjects. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell also raised enrichment and its importance in making school unmissable and making young people excited about coming to school. I travel around the country talking to young people, and they often say that it is the thing they really look forward to and that it helps them to feel part of the wider school community. We will publish an enrichment framework with a focus on developing wider life skills relating to arts and culture, civic engagement, nature, outdoor adventure, and sport and physical activities. Many Members made really important points about making sure that the enrichment offer is open to students who feel further away from those opportunities, and we are working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to build up the enrichment offer in 400 schools in the most disadvantaged areas. We are investing £22.5 million from the dormant assets fund to make that a reality, as well as working with a whole range of partners to ensure that the enrichment framework for all schools is a really powerful tool. Another point raised by a number of Members was about citizenship and political education. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) made a really powerful speech about how important that is for votes at 16, but also for our democratic institutions and our ability to disagree agreeably and have these political debates. When we have so much misinformation and division, embedding that in our education system is incredibly important. We have committed to citizenship being statutory in key stages 1 and 2, and to strengthening and modernising citizenship across the curriculum, looking at many of the themes that we have talked about, including media literacy. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) talked about digital literacy and AI and about making sure that those are core skills. We are looking to embed key areas such as digital and media literacy across the curriculum, because every single subject will have an element of these AI and digital skills, but we are also refreshing the computing GCSE so that particular content is focused on that. On media literacy, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) mentioned misinformation. That is another really important theme that will sit in citizenship but also in other subjects. In history, for instance, people will really think about sources and how to decipher information, and in English people will look at emotive language. Those are areas where we can look at these core themes embedded into the wider curriculum. My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Claire Hazelgrove) and others mentioned financial literacy, which comes up more than anything else from young people as being a skill that they really want to have and learn about. We are working across the maths curriculum and the wider piece to look at how we really embed financial literacy, and we will be doing a number of test and learns around implementation and working with teachers. Turning to the different contributions on early years childcare, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle). She made an incredibly powerful speech about what a lifeline childcare is for families, and I completely agree. I see that all the time as a constituency MP, and particularly how essential it is for mums, who often end up doing so much of that childcare. My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of the 30 hours of free childcare; that has made a difference for people taking up the full entitlement, which we think has saved them an average of £8,000. She also mentioned how fees and different practices can pull away at some of that really important cost of living support. The Secretary of State for Education has written to the Competition and Markets Authority to request a review of the early years childcare market, which is to look precisely at many of the issues that my hon. Friend mentioned. It is worth having a look at that letter, and it is a really important issue to pursue. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the importance of early years, and my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) spoke powerfully about the long-term impact of delayed language development for children. Sadly, since the pandemic we have seen many more children coming into school with delayed language. We know the long-term impact on children, so that has been a key focus for the Government in developing Best Start hubs, which will give that wraparound support to children, but also introducing new programmes such as the early language support programme, which brings NHS services to schools to identify needs earlier, and the Nuffield early learning intervention programme, which puts support in for reception children. I would be interested to hear more about what is going on in Cornwall and some of the challenges that my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth mentioned, and to discuss that further. This is also a key part of our thinking around the SEND reforms, putting more investment, earlier, into speech and language support and the new Experts at Hand service, which will include speech and language therapists.
First, may I welcome the Minister’s comments on all the issues that have been raised, particularly mine on screen time? Sometimes we must engage with parents in a way that shows that we understand that children should be given a bit of time on their iPads but that that time should be restricted, too. Does the Minister have any thoughts on that?
I thank the hon. Member for raising that issue. We have developed guidance for parents to support them with screen time in early years. As a parent of a two-and-a-half-year-old, I know how confusing it can be. It is not something that I was spoken to about when I had my son. It is important we have guidance that is not judgmental but gives parents the best advice. We have put that out now. A lot of expertise has gone into developing it and I have had really positive feedback. Certainly, I have found it very helpful personally in shaping those important decisions. It is also important that through our Best Start hubs we are able to have that conversation and support for children, not just about not being on screens, but about what engagement looks like: what are the activities, how does one encourage a child to speak, and as they get older what are the enrichment activities that they can engage in after the school day? The hon. Member for Yeovil is always a passionate advocate of support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and I welcome him mentioning that as part of these wider issues. On the questions on identifying needs, he will know that we are developing national inclusion standards which include research into identification around the needs we have set out in our SEND consultation document. That work is ongoing and it will form part of national inclusion standards. We are working on appointing the panel of independent experts at the moment. It is critical that we get that right, and have that early identification of needs, whether on speech and language or others. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the importance of support for young people who are constantly having to re-sit English and maths. He will know we have been consulting on a new level 1 English and maths qualification, which is precisely designed to support children and young people to consolidate their knowledge and be a gateway qualification to deal with exactly that problem, which is one I have heard time and time again.
I thank the Minister for giving way and for answering all my questions, as always. Concerned parents in Yeovil also tell me that kids who have autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, sensory issues or attention deficit disorder cannot find apprenticeships or work, nor have they had help developing the skills they need to get into the creative or agricultural sector. Can the Minister set out what more the Government are doing to support rural schools and employers to get neurodiverse people into those industries?
I really appreciate that question. Again, talking to families and young people around the country, that comes up all the time. I welcomed the Milburn review’s focus on the experience of young people with SEND and disabilities, and on some of those barriers. There is action we are already taking, through supported internships and our work with further education, but it is an area in which we need to go further. It is something we are continuing to work on with the Department for Work and Pensions. I am happy to have further conversations about those issues. I want to conclude by thanking everyone for this really important debate. These are areas we are actively looking at as we develop the new curriculum and think about developing the oracy framework we have committed to. Employers have said to us that it is essential young people have the skills they need for later life. Many of us will have seen how powerful some of these interventions are. I was recently with the Duke of Edinburgh, talking to young people in a school in my constituency. They talked about the confidence and problem-solving skills that the programme gave them, changing their sense of what was possible for them. That sits alongside the core knowledge that young people must learn, supporting young adults to be well rounded and able to shape their futures confidently. I hope that we can continue these conversations, as a lot of important ideas were mentioned today. We will consult fully on the new curriculum, which I am sure that all Members will look at with interest.
I thank Members for taking part in today’s debate. It has been fantastic to hear support from across the House for improving access to skills for our young people. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) for reminding us that skills can be delivered across the curriculum. Classics is an excellent example, as it can teach young people not just about declensions, but democracy; not just Augustus, but oracy. Other subjects are available. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) is a doughty champion for young people, particularly those with SEND. He made many excellent points about some of the barriers faced by young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) was right to highlight early years. I am grateful for the work being done in Bracknell Forest to roll out new services through our Government-backed Best Start family hub. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) brought, as always, a thoughtful insight from the Northern Irish perspective. He was right to highlight the need for screen time guidance, which I know the Government are committed to delivering. I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) raise the issue of reading. As a member of the Education Committee, I have been working on its inquiry into reading for pleasure. The evidence we have heard was echoed in my hon. Friend’s contribution. I respectfully disagree with the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) on the EBacc. As the Minister has heard me say many times before, it did not support all humanities subjects equally. Citizenship GCSE, for example, was not included. I do, however, welcome his comments about early years and careers guidance. I thank the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) for his contribution, but I will quote to him from Alan Milburn’s interim report, which says “the school system is built on young people gaining qualifications which is not the same as ensuring they are ready for work.” I encourage the hon. Member to read Milburn’s interim report thoroughly. Finally, I thank the Minister for all the work she is doing in this space. I am excited to see the enrichment framework when it comes forward. I will scrutinise it closely, as she would expect, but I welcome her commitment to delivering it inclusively. As we have all agreed today, getting this right is crucial to supporting our young people’s futures. We all want to see opportunities for young people in our constituencies, and that is what has inspired each of us to speak today. I thank you, Dr Allin-Khan, and all Members for their contributions. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered Government support for children developing essential skills.
Sitting suspended.