Damian Hinds
MP for East Hampshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“There are moments in debates like the one we have had today that are difficult to sit through and listen to, but it is the most immense privilege to be a Member of Parliament and to hear some of these testimonies.”
“Today is once again a day of heavy responsibility for all of us to decide on what we in this House call “conscience issues”. Many of the people who we represent hold strong and immutable views, and we hear from them. However, we represent many others who hold much more nuanced views and we are less likely to hear from them.”
“Members who support the Bill should not have their motives questioned, Members who oppose the Bill should not have their motives questioned, and Members who have reached a different conclusion from one they reached at an earlier stage should not have their judgment questioned either.”
“We have heard from royal colleges and other professional bodies, many of whom have a neutral stance on the principle but raise significant questions about particular aspects. We know from Ministers that there would need to be some reprioritisation of NHS resources, but we do not know the extent.”
“If there is the prospect of the Parliament Acts being used, that would increase the importance and the salience of the text as it is now. Today, it is reasonable and entirely in order for hon. Members to consider information that is available now that was not available in those previous parliamentary deliberation.”
“The Government have said, rightly, that the time taken to implement other schemes is not directly comparable, because none are as in this Bill. This is a free vote on a matter of conscience—there is no party line on either side of the Chamber. No one, I suggest, finds this issue easy.”
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“Friend outlined, this Bill will improve the consistency of support available in all parts of England, first, by requiring schools of all types to have and to publicise a school attendance policy and, secondly, by introducing a new general duty on local authorities to seek to improve attendance and reduce absence in their areas. The Bill will require schools and local authorities to have regard to statutory guidance. In practice, that will see us revising and reissuing our “Working together to improve school attendance” guidance. It is widely supported by schools, trusts and local authorities, and both the Education Committee and the Children’s Commissioner have already called for it to be made statutory. The guidance was introduced in September 2022 and has already started to make a difference.”
“They will never be 100%, for obvious reasons—every child will be off school ill at some point, and sadly some children will need to be off for extended periods—but we need to get back to that pre-pandemic level of 95% or above. I am pleased to confirm that the Government fully support this Bill from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford. We are exploring all possible avenues to make our attendance guidance statutory, including the use of existing powers. That is important because we want every child to be able to achieve their potential, and attending school regularly is obviously crucial to that. As my right hon.”
“Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for their contributions. We all recognise the importance of regular attendance not only for children’s attainment, but for their wellbeing and development. There is evidence that some attitudes to absence have changed since the pandemic, with a somewhat greater propensity among some families to keep a child with a minor illness, such as a cough or a cold, at home, whereas prior to the pandemic they would have gone to school. It is worth saying that, before covid, great progress had been made on attendance since 2010, and we are committed to getting back to those levels.”
“Let me first warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on her success in the ballot, and on using that success for this purpose. I am delighted that she has chosen school attendance as the subject of her Bill. It is a subject that I know is close to her heart, and one that she has championed with aplomb and with impact. She said towards the end of her remarks that attendance is the key to a child’s future, and I agree. We have often said that reading is the most fundamental thing in school, because if a child cannot read properly, they cannot access the curriculum and nothing else works, but attendance is even more important. Whatever our brilliant teachers are doing in schools, if the children are not there, they cannot benefit. I thank my hon. Friends and the Opposition spokes-person, the hon.”
“I recognise the challenge from falling rolls when there is demographic change. That is why we are changing how the growth and falling rolls funding is allocated to local authorities—it is now based on decreases as well as increases in pupil numbers. We are also giving greater flexibility to allocate funding to meet the revenue costs of reducing surplus places.”
“It is true that a period of change is coming as the bulge in primary school numbers starts to move into secondary schools, and it is important to plan ahead for that. We want to work with local authorities, and I know that the hon. Member’s local authority, Lambeth, is being proactive in looking at amalgamations where necessary. We also have pupil place planning advisers in each region working with local authorities and academy trusts, and school resource management advisers working directly with schools. There will also be some repurposing of some space in schools—I am not speaking specifically about her constituency—with opportunities for more early years provision in some cases, and more special educational needs provision. We will have to be agile and ensure that there is still sufficient space for parental choice.”
“As I said to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), it is true that there is change as numbers move from primary into secondary, and it is important to try to plan ahead. On the specifics of West Sussex, I will be pleased to meet my hon. Friend to discuss it further.”
“Attendance did decline through covid. It is now improving, but there is a lot more to do. We are expanding attendance hubs to support nearly 2,000 schools and we have launched the “moments matter” campaign to remind parents of the importance of every single day in school.”
“I will. Local authorities have duties towards those children to ensure that all are receiving a suitable education and act if not. The consultation we held on revised guidance to help fulfil that responsibility recently closed, and we will publish the response in due course. We remain committed to legislation, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) said, to create statutory registers of children not in school in order to help local authorities identify those eligible children.”
“Of course, there are multiple layers to mental health support. The mental health support teams programme, which we are rolling out gradually across the country, continues to expand. At the end of March 2023, 35% of pupils in school or further education were covered by that, including 47% at secondary. When the figures for this year come out, I expect them to be higher. Unlike the Opposition, we are putting mental health support not only into secondary schools but into primary schools, where it can make a big difference.”
“The hon. Member identifies important problems. There are important links between mental ill health prevalence and non-attendance. We will see benefits from the offer to all state schools and colleges of a grant to train a senior mental health lead, as well as the wider mental health support teams that I mentioned.”
“The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct. It is important to consider the role of mental health in primary as well as secondary school. We put mental health education on the curriculum through relationships, sex and health education, and we are investing in the mental health support teams that I mentioned, as well as the training grants. Of course, some schools do the transition from primary to secondary very well. It can be an unsettling time for children, but also an exciting one, and it is important that we maximise those benefits. There is a lot of good practice out there.”
“Let me be abundantly clear: off-rolling—removing a pupil from a school without using a permanent exclusion—is unacceptable and unlawful. That is in the Ofsted framework, and it is strengthened in the revised framework that came out in 2019 to look at that. That can be seen in Ofsted’s report. It is also looked at by the Teacher Regulation Agency. We must be abundantly clear that being involved in off-rolling is not consistent with the conduct we expect of a teacher. In serious cases, it could result in action.”
“I agree that, given all that the UK has in common, it is vital that we talk about policy issues frequently, including on devolved matters. The UK Education Ministers Council last met in June last year, when it was hosted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in Liverpool. I understand it is for the Scottish Government to issue the invitation for the next one—we await their missive with anticipation.”
“We await the Scottish Government’s full programme, but I will say that, in recognition of the benefits of free school meals and targeting them where they can have most effect, one in every three pupils in England are now eligible for free school meals, compared with one in six when Labour was in Government.”
“We have extended eligibility for free school meals on three occasions, mainly with universal infant free school meals, the extension of further education students and, most recently, by extending the protections for people in transition on universal credit. I say gently to the hon. Lady that we think it is important to target free school meals, but that it is just as important for children in secondary school as in primary.”
“We are committed to funding all schools fairly and equitably, wherever they are. The national funding formula replaces an unjust system whereby schools received different levels of funding for no reason.”
“My hon. Friend is right about the importance of deprivation factors and, indeed, transport costs. We are increasing the amount under the formula that relates to deprivation, and there is also the sparsity factor. Of course, all schools are benefiting from increases in funding, which will total £59.6 billion in 2024-25.”
“I would be happy to follow up the matter of the private finance initiative contract at that college, and perhaps have some discussions with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education.”
“We are investing very heavily in breakfast clubs. This is another area in which we think that targeting support matters. That includes secondary schools, not just primary schools, as the Labour party suggests.”
“My hon. Friend is right. After Holocaust Memorial Day, we are acutely conscious of the continuing need to act against antisemitism. One of the things we are doing is launching a new fund for both schools and higher education, to try to address antisemitism effectively at its root.”
“I join my hon. Friend in congratulating, commending and thanking Mrs O’Callaghan on her life’s work. I appreciate that the RAAC situation in schools has been very difficult, which is why we are trying to work with them on things like coursework assessment. They should be in touch with awarding bodies. We are also making sure that we reimburse all reasonable revenue costs.”
“I pay tribute to the headteachers in Liverpool, West Derby. We think it is important to have an independent inspectorate, and we think it is important that assessments are clear. In the wake of the tragedy of Ruth Perry, it is right that we think about all the aspects, some of which have already changed. To be clear, we think it continues to be important that there be a clear external assessment for parents.”
“We want to see schools not excluding children where that is at all possible. There is no right number for exclusions; they have to be determined in the light of the circumstances at the school, but we expect people to look at the matter as a whole. I will, of course, be happy to talk to the hon. Lady.”
“She talked about being in competition with video games, consoles, phones and tablets. In the old times, we might have said that television was top of that list. There are good arguments and practical, useful roles for all those pieces of electronica, but there is nothing quite like a book for the physical, mental and emotional experience.”
“It is a pleasure, once again, to see you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. It is nice to be in a Westminster Hall debate in which we all overwhelmingly agree. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) on securing the debate, and it is good to have others taking part. We have particularly benefited from hearing about the hon. Lady’s experience. She mentioned her early childhood experience as a user of libraries, and then her experiences throughout her life as an employee, a professional and an academic in the library service. The hon. Lady said that we should improve children’s access to books. The Government wholeheartedly agree. Reading is the cornerstone of a brilliant education, an important part of growing up and adult life, and a core focus of this Government.”
“Public libraries have a strong offer to support children’s development as readers beyond school, not just through books and resources, but through events such as Rhymetimes. The experience of visiting a public library these days is quite different from when we were children: there is so much more going on, and it is much more inclusive and welcoming.”
“I also recognise the important work undertaken by a range of organisations to promote the work of libraries to children, families and schools. For example, Schools Library Services assists schools with everything from developing whole libraries to book stocks and staff training, and the Reading Agency’s summer reading challenge, which I think many MPs also take part in directly or indirectly, motivates more than 700,000 children of all abilities to read for enjoyment over the summer holidays through their local library. It is for individual schools to decide how best to provide and maintain a library service for their pupils, including whether to employ a qualified librarian. Our reading framework provides guidance on that, including how best to engage children with the books that are available in school.”
“Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough rightly says, with evidence showing that that is more important for children’s educational development than even their parents’ level of education. Charities such as BookTrust and the National Literacy Trust work tirelessly to raise the profile of reading for pleasure, and I thank them for their work. Of course, such organisations also do important work to raise awareness of the vital role of libraries, and we recognise the particular importance of libraries in increasing children’s access to books and promoting reading for pleasure, whether in school or in the community library. I am grateful to the organisations and authors who are currently shining a light on the difference that libraries can make, such as Julia Donaldson, Michael Morpurgo, Philip Pullman, Cressida Cowell and others.”
“They are an important part of school life, and that is true for reading time in school and for children taking books home to enjoy them there. All pupils deserve to be taught a knowledge-rich curriculum that promotes extensive reading both in and out of school, and reading is a principal way to acquire knowledge. The texts that our young people read play a big part in their wider development, too, by broadening their horizons and introducing new ideas and perspectives. We have strengthened the national curriculum to focus on developing reading. To encourage the development of a lifelong love of literature, we are requiring pupils to study a range of books, poems and plays. The national curriculum also promotes reading for pleasure, as the hon.”
“Everyday experiences at a bus stop, on a train or in a supermarket are all part of that early literacy experience. Ideally there should be books at home, and I pay tribute to some of the organisations that have tried to make that more widespread, particularly in disadvantaged communities or for people on lower incomes. Of course, there should also be books at school. School should be the great leveller. I have visited a lot of schools in my time. Like the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), I am a former member of the Education Committee. I am now and have been previously an Education Minister, and, like all of us, I am a Member of Parliament. In those three roles, I have visited a lot of schools. I am always struck by the prominence that schools give to books and reading.”
“What can I say? The hon. Gentleman is ahead of me, and not for the first time. I do not think he has seen my handwritten notes, but if he had, he would know that they say, “It starts with being read to.” I remember previous debates we have had in this Chamber, particularly with our former colleague Baron Field, who was the right hon. Member for Birkenhead. For example, we used to talk about how those early experiences of being read to are so important, not only because of the reading experience, but because it is quite difficult to read to a very young child without holding them, and that early attachment is part of it. We have a focus these days on the home learning environment, and some of the ways we can make everyday experiences—little moments—matter.”
“I accept that there have been strains on public finances. The origins of those are well known: when the Government came in in 2010, there was a recurring annual public deficit of £155 billion, which is £5,500 for every household in the country. That meant that difficult decisions had to be made over time, but libraries remain an essential part of the fabric of our country. There are statutory requirements around libraries for upper-tier local authorities, and there were 2,892 static libraries in England at the last count. That does not include mobile libraries, of which there is not a similar count.”
“Well, I am pleased to hear of the good ending to that story. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all the work that he does locally and for his championing of these causes. In 2022, my noble Friend Lord Parkinson, the Minister for Arts and Heritage, appointed my noble Friend Baroness Sanderson to review the public libraries sector to help inform future work. Her review of public libraries was published last week and makes a number of recommendations, which will inform the development by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport of the new Government libraries strategy for England. For children to develop a love of books, we need to build a strong foundation in reading early on, and the Government have introduced a range of measures to support the effective teaching of reading right from the start.”
“The programme has so far supported over 1,600 schools intensively, with a particular focus on helping children making the slowest progress in reading, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds. It includes schools in Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, which are supported by two of the hubs, Learners First and Saint Wilfrid’s. The programme is having a measurable impact. Schools supported intensively as partner schools by English hubs outperform non-partner schools by around seven percentage points when comparing the change in year 1 phonics screening check results between just before the pandemic and 2022.”
“Since 2010, we have turbocharged the effective teaching of phonics by placing it at the heart of the curriculum and introducing the phonics screening check in 2012 to assess pupils at the end of year 1. We have incorporated phonics into the teachers’ standards, the baseline of expectation for teachers’ professional practice. We have placed a greater focus on phonics and the teaching of reading in Ofsted’s inspection framework and supported schools to choose good phonics programmes by publishing a list of schemes validated by the Department. In 2018, we launched the English hubs programme, which is dedicated to improving the teaching of reading.”
“Gentleman will know, we introduced landmark reforms in the early years foundation stage to improve early years outcomes for all children, particularly disadvantaged children, in those critical areas that build the foundations of later success, including, importantly, language development and reading. The reforms will ensure that children receive the best start and develop a love of reading from early on. We have invested in early language intervention and are supporting parents through the home learning environment campaign that I mentioned a moment ago, which has been backed by further investment. To drive up the standard of literacy teaching in primary schools, we have followed the evidence and focused on ensuring high-quality systematic synthetic phonics teaching for every child.”
“I am not quite sure how the hon. Gentleman would or could know that. I certainly know that when I visit schools, I see and hear poetry being read, discussed and being written by children. I agree with him entirely that poetry is a really important part of our literature, and it is a really important thing for children to be exposed to. Like the study of music and learning a musical instrument or to sing, they can find ways to express themselves in ways they did not know existed. It provides ways to understand the world in ways they had not previously appreciated. I agree with him absolutely on the importance of poetry. I was talking about the earliest years, and in particular the early years foundation stage. As the hon.”
“The strongest predictor of PIRLS performance was the year 1 phonics screening check mark, with higher marks predicting higher PIRLS scores. The Department is committed to improving literacy for all pupils because we cannot knock down barriers for children if we do not teach them to read well. We are determined to drive progress further still and ensure that all children can benefit from high-quality teaching, giving them a solid base on which to build as they progress through school. Question put and agreed to.”
“It recognises the importance of encouraging a love of reading, including the vital importance of pupil choice and access to a wide variety of books. More than 90% of schools have taken our first reading framework published in 2021 and 66%, or two thirds, have made changes to their practice as a result. Our clear focus on reading is making an impact. England came fourth out of the 43 countries that tested children of the same age in the 2021 progress in international reading literacy study, which is an assessment of the reading abilities of primary-age children across the world. I am grateful to all the primary school teachers, teaching assistants and everybody in our brilliant school system whose commitment to reading and to our children has made that possible.”
“In 2021, we rolled out the “Transforming your school’s reading culture” programme, which was developed by hub schools and sector experts to support reading for pleasure. Reaching around 600 schools last year, English hubs is now into the third year of delivering that research-based continuing professional development programme, which trains teachers in schools across the country to ensure that every pupil develops a love of books. We know that the hub programme cannot reach every single school, so to ensure that all teachers had clear guidance to support their teaching of reading, we published a reading framework. Updated last year, the framework offers non-statutory guidance on best practice in the teaching of reading from reception to year 9.”
“Look: schools have books. I do not know what schools the hon. Member may have visited that do not have books on shelves, but schools have books. Sometimes libraries these days get called “learning resource centres” and all sorts of different things. Sometimes they are laid out in different ways and not necessarily laid out as a set-aside room, but schools have books. We trust schools, headteachers, boards of governors and trustees to know what is right for their school and how to provide best for their children. We want reading and books to be at the heart of that and, in my experience of primary schools in England, that is indeed what happens. The hubs that I mentioned are about more than phonics.”
“The motion starts by saying that the Government are not tackling persistent absence. Let us set aside for a moment that that is plainly nonsense, as I will come to shortly.”
“Attendance levels improved significantly, with absence falling from 6% in 2010 to 4.8%, representing 15 million more days in school. Persistent absence, which was at 16% in 2010, came down by almost a third by 2015, and stayed around that level until the pandemic. Many education systems are dealing with increases in absence since the pandemic. That is true of jurisdictions far beyond these shores. It is also true in all of England and Scotland, and in Labour-run Wales—where, by the way, the increase is from a considerably higher starting point to a considerably higher current point than in England. As such, I welcome the hon. Lady raising this subject. The actual motion, however, suggests that it is perhaps not a subject that the Opposition are taking properly seriously.”
“I warmly welcome the Opposition’s focus on the vital subject of school attendance. It is a big issue that we want everyone to talk about. Being in school matters for children—for their education, for their development, for being with their friends and for all else that school brings. As our campaign says “moments matter, attendance counts.” Everyone will be off school at some point through illness, and sadly some have to be off for extended—sometimes very extended—periods, but we absolutely want children to be in school as much as possible and to cut out avoidable absence. I am sure that the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) joins me in celebrating the success in cutting absence since 2010 and prior to the pandemic.”
“We do think that local authority registers are important: they would help improve oversight of those children who are not on school rolls, but they would not directly address the larger group of children who are on a school roll but have been persistently absent from that school.”
“Not at the moment. There then follows the most colossal conflation—a massive non sequitur—about a register of children not in school because they are home educated. Obviously, absence and “not in school” sound pretty similar, but if the hon. Lady really thinks that the issue around absence is all about children being home educated en masse, she has failed to grasp the issue. [ Interruption. ] I simply point the hon. Lady who speaks for the Opposition to the motion as it is printed on the Order Paper, which clearly connects the two statements with nothing more than a semicolon between them.”
“Member for Houghton and Sunderland South should know that that is Government policy because, as she said, it appeared in the Schools Bill. She may or may not have spotted that in the past few days the Department has completed a consultation on elective home education to inform new guidance. I know she has spotted that a private Member’s Bill has been tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), which will come before this House on 15 March. Both the Secretary of State and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend as she seeks to progress her Bill through this House. In the meantime, the Government continue to work with local authorities to improve their existing non-statutory registers.”
“No; I ask the hon. Gentleman to forgive me for a moment. Before we go on, I would like to say a short word about children in home education. This is often done very well by parents, who make huge sacrifices for their children, often in particularly difficult circumstances, and I pay tribute to those parents. Let us be clear: parents also have a right to home school their children, and that is a right I defend. However, we do think it is important for local authorities to have a register, because we know that not all children who are not enrolled at school are in receipt of a suitable education at home. We also think it is important that parents who are home schooling should be able to source support from their local authority. The hon.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the number of young carers growing up in our country and going through our school system and the particular needs they have, issues that are directly relevant in the case of absence. We are working to improve understanding of where there are young carers, including through the school census that the hon. Gentleman mentioned and also through the guidance that we issue. As he will know, “Keeping children safe in education” is the main guidance on that subject that is issued to schools: it requires designated safeguarding leads to be aware of the needs of young carers, but trying to understand those needs is something that goes broader within school communities. Of course, dedicated professionals working in our school system seek to do exactly that.”