Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
MP for North Cotswolds · Conservative · United Kingdom
“If we had to have change, I thank the Secretary of State for listening to the vast majority of people Gloucestershire and coming up with the best proposal that was on the table.”
“I thank the Prime Minister very much for making this appointment. As Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and the appointments panel, I warmly welcome the motion to appoint Michael Jary CBE as the next chair of the National Audit Office.”
“Michael has the skills and the leadership needed to ensure the NAO remains a high-performing, innovative and digitally-enabled organisation, supporting Parliament’s detailed scrutiny of public spending and helping to secure value for money for taxpayers. For these reasons, I am delighted to support this appointment.”
“It would appear that this defence investment plan is unaffordable, but the Public Accounts Committee will be examining that. Deep in the plan is an old accountant’s trick: a vast efficiency savings figure of £10.7 billion. Does the plan rely on that figure?”
“It is clear that the criminal justice system has considerable weaknesses. A central issue is the lack of usable integrated data. The police, courts and prisons operate on separate systems that do not effectively communicate with one another.”
“This has been a constructive debate, and everybody has aired the themes that I raised throughout the debate. The Minister has outlined one or two areas where things are going a little better, namely perhaps a reduction in some of the Crown court backlogs, but that is countervailed by increases in the backlog in magistrates courts.”
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“It will directly impact nearly 500,000 families, providing an average boost of £1,300 per household, empowering families and ensuring that every child has the support they need to flourish. I welcome the British ISA, which allows for a £5,000 investment. It should have been more. I also welcome the incentivisation of nuclear investment assets. Rather than hitting savers, we bolster economic resilience and pave the way for a brighter future for generations to come. I welcome the disclosure moves for local government pensions that will encourage investment in UK infrastructure projects. Our commitment to families and businesses remains unwavering, from child benefit to increasing VAT registration from £85,000 to £90,000. That should have been more, but it will help a number of businesses.”
“They will see that our measures have considerably benefited the amount that they receive in their pocket. Moving on to our commitment to families, we recognise the importance of easing the financial strain, especially for parents. I have listened closely to those constituents in the Cotswolds who have contacted me about how they have had to tighten their purses since the covid pandemic, when so many found their work interrupted, as well as about the cost of food and energy price rises in the years following. People in rural areas will be particularly pleased to see another freeze on fuel duty, because they rely very much on having to use their cars. I am pleased that the threshold for the high-income child benefit charge has risen from £50,000 to £60,000.”
“Again, I hope we will not have my right hon. Friend’s welcome ambition to reduce national insurance traduced in the way that it has been. I do not think we will get very far by continuing that argument. Indeed, you will probably reprimand me, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I go too far down that rabbit hole. I was going on to say that it is not just workers, through the reduction in national insurance, who will benefit from this Budget, because of course pensioners will too. Pensioners will see a significant increase in their pension through the triple lock of a huge 8.5% this year. Together with the enormous rise in the personal income allowance that we have introduced over the years, from £8,500 to £12,500, that will affect not only those on the basic state pension but also those who earn a little bit of income on top.”
“I am pleased now to see the cost of living easing. The people of The Cotswolds want to see their hard work pay, the innovation of small and medium-sized businesses encouraged, and public services such as schools and the NHS well funded but operating efficiently. However, those services can improve only if our economy is strong and thriving and the UK is seen as the best place to do business. That is why I am so pleased that yesterday my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s Budget covered so many world-leading sectors, including the creative economy, unicorns, artificial intelligence, and the financial and pharmaceutical sectors. We have much to be proud of in so many sectors, and the Chancellor did a lot yesterday to encourage every single one of those businesses, with their innovation and energy. I commend his Budget.”
“I gently suggest that the Chancellor and the industry—industry would fund it, if necessary—jointly commission a proper independent study into the full impact of tax- free shopping on British businesses, the economy and the Exchequer, so that we can have a real evidence-based decision on this huge and important area. Will the Chancellor meet me and industry representatives to discuss it further? I am delighted that we have seen inflation fall from 11.1% to 4%. Wages are rising, mortgage rates are starting to fall and interest rates will hopefully fall towards the latter end of this year. It has been a tough few years. Pandemics and wars cause economic strains that few countries have managed to avoid. I was vocal last year on rising energy and food prices, which are a regressive cost hitting low earners the most.”
“The figures on how we compare with our competitors are stark. In 2022, spending by American visitors to Britain was at 101% of the pre-covid level of 2019, but guess what? In France, it was 226%. In Spain, it was 206%. In Italy, it was 190% of pre-covid levels, as compared with our level pegging with the situation pre-covid. This is big stuff, and I cannot understand why the Treasury will not study it properly. In 2022, spending by visitors from the Gulf Co-operation Council states in Britain was only at 65% of 2019 levels, but it was 198% in France, 158% in Spain and 166% in Italy. Those are not my figures, but figures from real traders that have given the Association of International Retail their actual figures audited from their books. They are not made up.”
“One is the well-respected and well-renowned forecasting by Oxford Economics, which predicted that restoring VAT RES—the VAT retail export scheme or, colloquially, the tourist tax—could increase GDP by £6 billion. Another report predicted £7 billion. We are dealing with huge stuff here, and a potential huge benefit, so I cannot see why the Government will not at least do a proper study. We know from our figures that British businesses lost out by £1.5 billion in 2022 and by even more in 2023. The measure would benefit many of our big retailers, hospitality venues, airports and cultural destinations, particularly tourist destinations, such as the Cotswolds. The report also shows that Britain is losing out on a £10 billion EU market, and that the measure would give the Exchequer a net benefit of £500 million in VAT alone.”
“For the first time in history, both the Treasury and the OBR have discovered their inner Laffer curve.” —[ Official Report , 6 March 2024; Vol. 746, c. 849.] If they can do it for the cut in capital gains tax, why can they not do it for the reintroduction of the tourist tax? I will acquaint the House with one or two figures, because I have some figures for what is going on in the real-world economy. If the Minister will bear with me, I am not sure the Treasury is truly taking them into account. When he and the House hear the figures, they will begin to think we should be investing in this. First, let me refer to two independent reports.”
“349.] Yesterday’s OBR review was not a full review. All it did was review its very limited 2020 forecast and its own figures, with no reference to how badly the UK is performing relative to our continental competitors. The OBR made no mention of the costs and benefits to the Exchequer of extending the scheme to EU visitors, and the OBR has never been asked to look at that. I give the Government credit where credit is due. We have a new doctrine in the OBR, and it starts to address some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) was making. The Chancellor said that “if we reduced the higher 28% rate that exists for residential property, we would in fact increase revenues because there would be more transactions.”
“As I promised the Minister, I will now turn to tax-free shopping—he would be disappointed if I did not mention this subject as there was disappointment that there was very little mention of it in the Budget. There is a small mention in the Red Book and the OBR has produced a separate report, which I will come to shortly. In the debate on the autumn statement, in response to an intervention I made, the Chancellor said: “We changed policy on this issue a year ago because it cost around £2.5 billion a year and we did not think we could afford to continue it, but we are looking again at the numbers in the light of the most recent data and we can see what has happened to comparative shops in Paris and Milan. We will review this to see if it is still that expensive, and I hope that it is not.” —[ Official Report , 22 November 2023; Vol. 741, c.”
“Such investment in productivity can yield huge dividends in future outputs. It is not just in the health service where digitalisation can have an impact. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is currently consulting on a relatively small investment in the digitalisation of the planning system. Every business, everywhere, wanting to do anything, complains about the slowness of the planning system and that local authorities do not have enough planning officers. Digitalisation will cut some of the bureaucracy for planning officers, allowing them to take better and quicker decisions. It will help productivity enormously and have a huge knock-on effect for businesses.”
“When average growth is 1.7% and health spending in modern, civilised countries like ours is growing at 4%, that too is unsustainable. So we have to do something to address public sector productivity. From my role as Deputy Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, I know that one of the quickest and easiest ways to deal with that is to increase the use of digital methods, as the Committee found when we visited Denmark. The Danes have their health service properly digitalised and they are a long way ahead of the NHS. Everything from booking patient appointments, patient experience in hospitals, procurement of equipment and medicine, and everything to do with the health service is digitalised. It works incredibly efficiently. That is why I welcome the £3.4 billion for NHS digitalisation.”
“My hon. Friend is entirely right. The Chancellor’s announcement in the autumn statement of £10 billion for full business expensing was one of the most important economic announcements of this entire Conservative Government. He is trying to address the problem of leasing that my hon. Friend just asked about. That is contained in the Red Book and the Chancellor is now looking at that important piece, so I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. Before I turn to public sector productivity, let me put it in context. Paragraph 2.14 is one of the most important paragraphs in the Red Book. It says that over the next 25 years, growth will be at 1.7% but spending will be at 2.5%. That is unsustainable and every Government in the next 25 years will have to address that.”
“Farmers in my constituency in Gloucestershire have been involved in the cull probably longer than anyone else, except perhaps those on the Somerset levels. Could my hon. Friend give them an assurance today that we will not introduce measures that restrict culls and their after-effects until we have a realistic vaccine programme in place that is actually seen to work?”
“My hon. Friend is making an extremely knowledgeable speech about agriculture, as I would expect. One of my constituents was prepared to invest a considerable amount of money in portable abattoirs. As far as I know, the initiative has been stalled because of excessive regulation.”
“I gently say to my hon. Friend that it was not only the veterinary inspections; it was the planning, the hygiene, the safety—every sort of regulation under the sun has made the initiative stall so far.”
“I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but does she agree that it is vital that when we negotiate future trade deals, we include in them the fact that Britain has some of the highest welfare standards in the world, and that we should not sacrifice those for the sake of doing a trade deal?”
“I am particularly delighted to have obtained a grant from Thames Water for Ampney St Peter’s sewage works in my constituency, which is one of the most egregious outlets of sewage; it will be worth several million pounds and has been budgeted for. I have had similar confirmation for sewage works in Moreton and Bourton. The production of cost-effective, wholesome food is vital for every single person in this country. However, it must be grown in an environmentally sustainable way; we must take steps to ensure cleaner rivers and reduce carbon through improved methods of production. It is also incumbent on the Government to ensure that farmers, who are the ultimate guardians of the countryside, are properly rewarded for their onerous work. They are often trying to combat adverse weather conditions.”
“Eventually, we must come up with a plan that allows farmers to apply these nutrients to grow their crops but does not lead to unnecessary run-off in our rivers. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal mentioned, action to help reduce pollution includes the “Plan for Water”, which would provide £200 million of funding through slurry infrastructure grants. Water companies play a crucial part in the pollution of our rivers. I am delighted that it was a Conservative Government who introduced the Environment Act 2021, which obliged water companies to install meters on all their outlets, so that we can see whether they are adhering to their environmental discharge conditions.”
“Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), but we must not allow our trade deals with other countries to result in our farmers being undercut by low-quality, cheap products. Equally, we must look to the long-term health of our nation. We need to ensure that we continue to produce food to high standards, because that benefits consumers, and we must do what we can to maintain that. Modern agricultural practices, including intensive farming and monoculture, have raised concerns about environmental sustainability, including soil degradation, water pollution, and biodiversity loss. The pollution of our rivers in the UK is a huge challenge. There are problems resulting from agriculture, such as run-offs of nitrates and phosphates.”
“Last week, that also happened in Wales. I am not surprised that farmers in Wales are outraged at their Labour Government’s emphasis on the environment over agriculture; there are plans for farmers there to commit to having trees on 10% of their land, and to using another 10% as wildlife habitat. Good as those things may be, it would be hard for a small farmer already struggling on the breadline to have 20% of their land taken out. It shows that the Welsh Government have no consideration for the loss of jobs and livelihoods that the policy will produce. British farmers are held to incredibly high environmental, animal welfare, and food quality standards, as I indicated to my right hon.”
“As the temperature rises with global warming, the temperate areas of northern Europe will be able to produce more of the food that is needed in the world. Payments to farmers, aimed at keeping food prices down, have been a cornerstone of UK agriculture since the war. In countries that are our major competitors, such as France and the US, from which I have just returned—I was on a visit with the Public Accounts Committee—some prices in supermarkets are double what they are in our supermarkets. That highlights the impact of our subsidies in keeping food affordable domestically. However, it is unsustainable to reduce payments to farmers, even for well-needed public goods, and rely solely on importing cheap food from around the world. In recent weeks, we have seen farmers protesting in Brussels and in other European capitals.”
“We pressed hard for an annual report to Parliament on the goal to produce the statutory food index, which will help this House to keep track of how our production to obtain self-sufficiency is going. We must be careful about how much grade 1 and grade 2 land we take out of food production for environmental use, especially as the areas of greatest ecological worth tend not to be in those high land grades. We have thousands of acres of very high grade land being taken out in Lincolnshire for solar farms and windmills. That is surely unsustainable in the long run. As I said in a debate way back in 2020, there will come a time when we need to produce as much food in this country as we possibly can.”
“Reforms that prioritise sustainable agriculture, support small-scale farmers, and provide investment in research and development can improve self-sufficiency in food production. This might include payments for sustainable farming practices, incentives for local food production, and regulations that promote food sovereignty. At the NFU 2024 conference held on 27 February, the Prime Minister announced: a new annual UK-wide food security index to capture and present the data needed to monitor levels of food security; a Farm to Fork summit to be held annually, which began in Downing Street last year; and a £15 million fund to help tackle food waste from the farm gate. Work that I have done through my role as deputy Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has examined the environmental land management schemes in some detail.”
“This can be encouraged through various means: long-term certainty on accessing seasonal labour—the seasonal agriculture workers scheme—which was mentioned by several Members tonight; greater productivity investment, which was mentioned by the Minister in her opening remarks; a more enabling planning policy; and measures to deliver growth and bolster food security. Advances in agricultural technology, such as precision farming, vertical farming, hydroponics and genetic engineering offer opportunities to increase productivity and efficiency in food production. Embracing these food technologies can help boost domestic production and reduce reliance on imports. Farming is one of the sectors that best embraces new technology, and I pay tribute to it for that.”
“At that time, the House was regularly discussing issues relating to energy markets, with costs trickling down to consumers. Similar conversations were not happening on the cost of food and the impact of rising costs on people’s budgets, although I did warn that rising food prices would increasingly become an important issue to the public. Food and energy prices are highly regressive, causing those on low incomes to pay much more as a percentage of their budgets than those higher up the income scale. Recent studies have suggested that up to one in seven people in the UK had reported going hungry due to the cost of living. Therefore, securing our domestic food supply should not only support British farmers, but help bring costs down. Greater certainty from the food supply chain and the Government are needed.”
“We need to produce policies that start to increase our self-sufficiency rates in those commodities. Declining self-sufficiency coupled with supply-chain problems abroad have resulted in occasional gaps on our supermarket shelves. Due to cost of living pressures, consumers have shown signs of trading down to cheaper proteins. The trend for 2022, for example, has shown volumes of beef down 6% and lamb down 16%. In November 2022, growers’ costs of production have increased by as much as 27% in the preceding 12 months. UK egg production fell to its lowest in nine years, and is down 12% in one year alone. The cost of feed for those producers has increased by 28%, and the price of a pullet by 22%. Back in 2022, I contributed to a debate on national food strategy and food security.”
“These disruptive events have exposed several vulnerabilities relating to the UK’s food supply chain and self-sufficiency. The UK has seen changes over the years, influenced by various factors, such as agricultural policies, technological advancements, globalisation and environmental concerns. We have become increasingly interconnected with global food markets, relying on imports for a significant proportion of our food supply. While this provides access to a wide variety of foods year-round, it also exposes the UK to supply chain vulnerabilities, as seen during the events of covid, Brexit and the war in Ukraine. In 1984, the UK’s overall food sufficiency was 78%. In 2021, it was 60%. Today, the nation is only 18% self-sufficient in fruit, 55% in vegetables and 71% in potatoes.”
“Thank you for allowing me to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, in this important debate on farming, during which we have heard words of wisdom from no less than two former Secretaries of State and a number of other colleagues, so important points have already been covered. I start by declaring my interest as a lifelong farmer, so I may have a few points I can add. We have had an uncertain few years, with covid-19 lockdowns and the war in Ukraine contributing to a fluctuating global economy and a huge spike in energy prices since 2021. That, together with the inflation we have experienced domestically, has meant unsustainable pressure on many farmers’ businesses. Farm input cost inflation in 2023 stood at 42%, with wholesale energy prices 1.5 times higher compared with 2019.”
“The Government could do more through the Groceries Code Adjudicator to ensure that that is the case. DEFRA has committed to ensuring contractual fairness between supermarkets and farmers—to ensuring that supermarkets meet certain expectations, including the expectation that they will pay on time, pay what they agreed and, vitally, pay at least the cost of production. That is important if we are to ensure a healthy and sustainable food supply, and to ensure that the hard work that produces it continues in the long run.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has only just come into the debate. We on the Public Accounts Committee given a lot of attention to the work of the Environment Agency. It could do much more not only to promote new flooding schemes, but to maintain its existing flooding schemes, which would help protect a number of farms and houses. I strongly support the Government’s policy of buying local. There are only two ways that farmers can continue in business: either they get payments for public goods and benefits, or they get a price that reflects the cost of production. It is slightly disappointing that the Government have not done more to encourage all supermarkets—there are some good ones and some bad ones, to be fair—to pay prices to the farming community that reflect the cost of production.”
“Is the hon. Lady aware that the Wilson doctrine is still in operation? This came about in the ’60s and ’70s when Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of the day, gave an undertaking to this House that the mail of Members of Parliament would not be routinely tapped; it would happen only in exceptional circumstances. All this triple lock is doing is putting that doctrine on to a statutory footing.”
“My hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for Wylfa is absolutely infectious, although there may be a little bit of competition for a gigawatt power station from Oldbury or Berkeley. That aside, through my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to get on with the nuclear road map, because come 2030, with the demise of the advanced gas-cooled reactors, we will have a dip in nuclear power. Will he particularly consider that we might be able to get small modular reactors and advanced modular reactors online quicker than a new gigawatt power station?”
“My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech in support of nuclear but, as he knows, the Public Accounts Committee visited Sellafield the other day. Sellafield’s whole operation is predicated on the eventual building of this geological disposal site, but the consultation has been very slow. Can my hon. Friend do anything to speed up that consultation?”
“I have just listened to the Minister for Schools outline a compendium of measures to help pupils to return to school. On a county level—”
“I think that the Minister for Schools said in the main Chamber where it is being expanded to, and I am pretty sure that I heard that it is expanding to the area of the hon. Member for City of Durham, but she will no doubt correct me if that is wrong. The Government have also produced a toolkit for schools, providing tips and evidence-based, adaptable templates for communicating with parents and carers, as well as the plan announced last year to expand attendance hubs, delivering 18 new hubs. This is a knowledge and practice-exchange initiative, taking the lead from those schools with excellent attendance records to introduce engagement initiatives such as breakfast clubs and extracurricular activities or to improve an individual school’s attendance data.”
“Another report, published in September, made a number of recommendations, including a review and possible abolition of fines, which it found made little or no impact on long-term absenteeism, the urgent need to improve school-level attendance monitoring, and the need for investment in SEND and child and adolescent mental health services—CAMHS—which it concluded are significant factors in the attendance crisis. The Government are increasing the direct support offered to children and their families with the expansion of the attendance mentor pilot programme. With an investment of up to £15 million over three years, that programme will provide direct, intensive support to more than 10,000 persistent and severely absent pupils and their families.”
“Friend and others and, indeed, the Minister for Schools, who said in the main Chamber that we should have a compulsory register for home education, so that we can see whether children are being educated at home or whether they are absent from school, and then we can take the necessary measures to do something about it. Growing demand for mental health services and SEND support centres creates additional pressure, compounding a problem that became far worse during the lockdown period. The Education Committee examined this problem, launching its inquiry into persistent absence and support for disadvantaged pupils in January 2023.”
“Teachers were being overextended on what they could achieve. Understandably, with the pressures of trying to teach during lockdowns, they simply did not have the capacity to provide the extensive support needed by some pupils, while parents felt overwhelmed in dealing with their children’s educational needs without support. Ultimately, as my right hon. Friend said, the legal responsibility for pupils attending school falls on the parents. Unfortunately, because of often complicated socioeconomic factors and individual family challenges, a considerable number of families are simply unable or unwilling to engage fully with their children’s educational needs. We should not allow those children to fall out of the education system. I agree with my right hon.”
“For social development, for making friendships, and for overall physical development, it is much better that children are in school, rather than being absent. During covid, I saw a considerable increase in casework on this issue, which sadly has continued in the years since. I am talking about parents getting in touch with me about children who are long-term absent from school, and asking me to help them to engage with schools on how to move forward with their children’s education. Those cases were usually exacerbated by complex mental health issues and educational needs that made regular attendance more challenging. In liaising with parents and schools, it became clear that the relationship had completely broken down in many cases, with the students being the ones to ultimately suffer.”
“Of course, pupils being persistently absent from school has a huge impact on their academic success, with just 11.3% of severely absent pupils achieving grades 9 to 4-4 being the pass grade—in English and maths, compared with 67.6% of all pupils. Although we cannot look totally at statistics in this debate, we can look at the social and mental impact of absenteeism on these pupils. As other Members, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford, have already said, I believe that being persistently absent from school will have similarly negative impacts on other aspects of a young person’s life. I totally agree not only with what my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools said in the main Chamber, but with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford. School is the best place to be to learn.”
“Before the pandemic, the rate was consistently below 5%. This pattern of increased absence since the pandemic can be seen in national, statistical neighbour, and south-west groupings. According to the Government website, across England in both the autumn and spring terms of 2022-23, the overall absence rate was 7.3%, with 21.2% of pupils being persistently absent across those terms, meaning that they missed 10% of sessions or more—an exceptionally high percentage of students missing classes. I, too, listened to the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), addressing the Chamber. He made the point that the data for persistent absenteeism will be published this Thursday. We do not know what that data will show; hopefully, it will show an improved situation.”
“There was huge concern about some students dropping out of the system, not engaging with online learning through the lockdown period and not returning to schools when they fully reopened. The hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) referred to a school in her constituency being closed through RAAC, which I sympathise with. Of course that situation—of school closure—applied to pupils across the entire United Kingdom when their schools were closed during covid, so I think we are all very familiar with the effects of schools being closed. Nevertheless, as I say, I sympathise with what happened in that school. The overall absence rate for primary and secondary schools in Gloucestershire during the autumn term of 2022-23 was 7.3%. That compares with a 6.6% absence rate for the autumn term of 2021.”
“Mr Twigg, I am grateful to serve under your chairmanship, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) not only on securing this debate but on her excellent speech. I attended the SEND Reform England event last week, which was a great opportunity to speak to specialists in the area. Its manifesto, which was circulated at the event, says that 24% of identified SEND pupils have an education, health and care plan, or EHCP, which meant 390,000 pupils in 2023. Additionally, it reports that 97% of school leaders think that funding for all SEND pupils is insufficient and 95% think that funding is insufficient for pupils with an EHCP. During the covid period, I had weekly online meetings with county leaders and my fellow Gloucestershire MPs in which the challenges facing schools were often discussed.”
“I look forward to what the Minister has to say. In addressing the whole problem of absenteeism, we have to work closely with the local education authorities and the Department of Health and Social Care to deal not only with pupils who do not have a statement, but with others who have severe mental health problems. That way, we can see—with increasingly better knowledge, thank goodness—how we can help children and pupils with those complex problems.”
“The headteacher also made the point that concerns revolved around the number of pupils attending the school overall—there are lots of small schools in the area—and how small village schools often do not bring in enough pupil funding to cover running costs and ensure they have administrators, caretakers and cleaners. Particularly relevant to this debate, however, the headteacher also mentioned an increase in pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, and she said how extremely difficult it is to get an EHCP statement in Gloucestershire. In fact, in the school I visited, there were no pupils with a statement at all. Although the pressure on SEND overall is there, as a country, I think there is a bit of postcode lottery in pupils being able to get statements, and we need to address that.”
“While the Government have announced record funding for schools, with The Cotswolds in particular set to benefit from an increase of £1.5 million in 2024-25 compared with 2023-24, it is important to see what is happening on the ground in schools. The headteacher I met had enough money for her basic teaching. Yet she made the point that in a small rural school, there was very little money left for the other things, such as cleaning, maintenance, the caretaker and the administrator—all the different functions any school has to fulfil—and that a small school with very limited money for overheads is particularly disadvantaged in that respect.”
“From my constituency cases, it is clear that many parents need the additional support of schools and others to assist with their children staying in education. By investing in early intervention, mental health support, addressing socioeconomic disparities and embracing technological advancements, we can all work towards creating an education system that is inclusive, supportive and ensures that every child has the opportunity to realise their full potential. On Friday, I visited Andoversford Primary School in my constituency to speak to the headteacher about the challenges facing the school. It was an excellent visit and a good chance to speak to teachers, pupils and parents.”
“This includes a specialist attendance officer who can support more targeted intervention work where needed. Leveraging technology to improve engagement and accessibility is also essential. Online learning platforms, digital resources and interactive teaching methods can cater to diverse learning styles and help to ensure that students remain connected to their studies, even in challenging circumstances that prevent them from attending in person. As I and so many others have said, it is vital we do not allow students to be left behind. Regardless of how complex the reasons for long-term absence on an individual level, all children deserve a chance to have the educational, social and physical opportunities that schools have to offer.”
“I am grateful for your forbearance, Mr Twigg, given the debate in the main Chamber, and I am delighted to be able to resume my speech. Just to quickly recap the last bit of my speech, before we had to suspend the sitting I was praising the Government for their attendance monitoring pilot programmes and particularly for delivering 18 new attendance hubs, which are doing much of what the private Member’s Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) aims to do, disseminating best practice among all the agencies, and teachers and parents—everybody involved—to try and deal with the problem of absenteeism. I therefore wholly support her Bill. At county level, Gloucestershire County Council provides support, advice and guidance for schools through the team of inclusion officers.”