Sir Gavin Williamson
MP for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I ask the Minister to look at new clause 104, which has been tabled in my name, with the support of 16 other Members from all parts of the House. The issue of people not being able to have children is growing. Male fertility has been collapsing over the past few decades.”
“We all often have a common memory that is so incredibly important and special: holding our child for the very first time. Sadly, so many people up and down this country cannot have that memory because of their difficulty in having children.”
“That is just not right, and I urge the Minister to be proactive in looking at how it can be addressed. We face a demographic issue in this country. We have a falling birth rate, with fewer than 600,000 babies born in this country last year. That will only get worse. It is sad that the NHS is not prioritising this issue.”
“As the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will know, many of those Jaguar Land Rover employees live in my constituency, but they are across the whole midlands. In August, the Government committed to consulting on the zero emission vehicle mandate.”
“I thank the Prime Minister for articulating a desire to reach across the political divide on issues that are common among all our constituents. across all our constituencies, more and more people are struggling to have a family—to have children. This is a greater and greater issue all across the country.”
“The Leader of the House is usually a very thoughtful and considerate man, but my recollection is similar to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith); it is that once a date had been agreed through the usual channels, it was usually stuck to.”
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“I am not sure the hon. Gentleman heard my reply to the previous question, but none of the vaccines has been through full trials on children under 18. It would not be ethical to vaccinate children before the completion of the trials.”
“I can absolutely confirm that I will respond to my hon. Friend’s pressing me to press others to do that. I know how important it is and what a heroic job so many in our schools have been doing to ensure continuity of education for all our children.”
“I join the hon. Lady in thanking all those in her constituency who have done so much to ensure continuity of education for so many children. The great city of Liverpool is one of the areas that have experienced very high infection rates. The teaching staff and communities making sure that schools stayed open and that children were able to get the benefit of education are a real testament to the hard work done by so many in the teaching profession. Over 500,000 of the laptops have already been distributed to children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Many hundreds of thousands more will be distributed in the coming weeks. That will benefit the hon. Lady’s constituents, mine, and the constituents of us all.”
“That is why we took action to ensure that the generosity of grading mirrors that of 2020 and have announced the exam subjects with advance notice, so that teachers and students, in the final months in the run-up to the exams, can focus on the topics and areas that will be examined. We believe that unless there are exceptional circumstances, exams are the fairest and best form of assessment. All the evidence points out that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds and children from black and ethnic minority communities are most disadvantaged by non-exam assessment and are given the greatest advantage when they sit exams.”
“I am sure that the hon. Lady is aware of the gold command chaired by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which looks at all the decisions on tiering and other measures that need to be taken to deal with the pandemic. Those decisions will be made as part of that health structure through joint working by the Health Secretary and me, because the powers to close sit with me as Education Secretary. The hon. Lady will be familiar with gov.uk; notice and details of the areas that will be put in the contingency framework are published on that website.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for raising the wonderful work that educators, teachers and support staff have done in providing the Rolls-Royce education that we want all children to benefit from. We have already published considerable guidance and support for schools as they roll out mass testing; we have also published information about the funding that they can receive, so that they can properly budget and make provision for the type of support that they need to roll out that mass testing. With respect to the—I hope—small number of schools that have particular problems in establishing a testing regime, the armed forces have kindly stepped forward, along with Ofsted, to provide and establish support in the exceptional circumstances in which schools and colleges are having real problems.”
“We always listen to what the teaching profession says and act taking its advice and guidance into account. That is how we crafted our response, including the creation of the covid catch-up fund and the national tutoring programme, which were very much targeted at children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. My right hon Friend the Minister for School Standards said he would be absolutely delighted and looks forward to meeting the hon. Gentleman and the wonderful professionals in his constituency who are so committed and dedicated to delivering the very best education for every child in Liverpool, West Derby.”
“I certainly join my hon. Friend in thanking the teachers and support staff in Hazel Grove for all the work that they do. We all recognise that we are placing great burdens on so many public servants. Our job as a Department is to give them as much support as possible. As a former Chief Whip, I think it is always best to focus on the Department and job that one has, which is why my focus is on education and schools.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that the best place for children to learn is in school, which is why we have at every stage driven as hard as possible to ensure that schools are open and remain open. That is why we are taking the actions we are—whether that is the mass testing regime or the fact that primary schools will open up on 4 January—because we realise that the best place for children to be is in school. We looked at the needs of schools for additional laptops and digital equipment and have expanded the original provision of 200,000 laptops to more than 1 million. As I touched on earlier, that distribution of additional laptops is currently ongoing and will continue over the coming weeks.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for highlighting something that he and I care so passionately about: ensuring that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are not left behind. That is why the national tutoring programme and the covid catch-up fund are so vital, not only for his constituents but for my constituents and all our constituents from those most disadvantaged communities. We recognise that this pandemic has impacted every community up and down the country. It is vital that we do everything we can to get them back on their feet, learning and closing that gap once more.”
“I will certainly happily provide the latest information on the distribution of laptops in the hon. Member’s constituency. The reason we announced the uplift to the distribution of 1 million laptops is that we recognise that the challenges of the pandemic require more digital provision. That is why we made the move to increase it from 500,000 to 1 million.”
“This is an important step in defeating this virus and taking the battle to covid to ensure that we defeat it and are triumphant in doing so.”
“If my right hon. Friend is a new boy back in school, I think the Chief Whip is the headmaster, so he will probably be keeping a close eye on my right hon. Friend. However, it is good to see him back with the Conservative Whip, as I very much felt it was a great privilege to work so closely with him when he was Chairman of the Defence Committee and I was in a previous role. My right hon. Friend is right that, actually, many children who have coronavirus do not exhibit symptoms. This is why the move to mass testing in secondary schools is so important. It gives us the opportunity to identify many more children who have the virus and just do not know it. That means that many more households can be informed that they also need to be tested as they may also have the virus.”
“However, when we are in a position to go further on testing and home tests can be distributed, we will look at expanding the role of mass testing in schools even further.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I can absolutely assure her that the roll-out of mass testing in secondary schools is properly supported. Schools will be getting the first batch of both equipment and tests on 4 January, and this is being distributed right across the country, with additional tests very rapidly following, to ensure that all pupils and all staff within schools can be tested. As I touched on in my statement, we are also looking at rolling out the testing mechanism, the screening test and the serial testing for staff in primary schools. As I am sure the hon. Lady will appreciate, the ability to deliver testing in primary schools does present some challenges, because the age of pupils in primary school means they are not necessarily able to do it themselves.”
“We believe that when they are set up, schools will be in an excellent position to keep running and have a real impact in driving down coronavirus infection rates in my hon. Friend’s constituency and all our constituencies.”
“I join my hon. Friend in his thanks. I know that he served in the Royal Air Force for a number of years, so he has a particular fondness for our armed forces, as we all do. They have done an amazing job. Looking at the sheer number of schools across the country and the whole workforce within them, we felt that it would not be right or proper to ask the armed forces to deliver testing in every single secondary school. That is why we have provided additional financial support for schools to help them deliver the mass testing regime. We are very fortunate that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has agreed a MACA request that means that we are able to provide military support to schools that are really struggling to set up a testing regime.”
“We are providing schools with the resources to deliver the testing programme themselves. We would look at providing armed forces personnel only in the most exceptional circumstances where a school, for whatever reason, is unable to set up a testing regime. We have given schools the extra time as well as the £78 million in order for all secondary schools to establish a regime. In exceptional circumstances we have teams, supported by the armed forces and Ofsted as well as the Department for Education, to help get a regime up and running and support schools so that every secondary school can have a mass testing regime.”
“They will also provide vital information for parents and better help for pupils to make a successful step into the next stage of education—going to secondary school. Everyone in all our schools and colleges is working as hard as they can to make sure that no pupils lose out because of covid and that the future they are dreaming of is still very much within their reach. I am determined that the coronavirus will not jeopardise the life chances of this year’s pupils, and I am confident that the plan is the fairest way of doing this. I commend this statement to the House.”
“That means that for 2021 only, we will remove all tests at key stage 1, the English grammar, punctuation and spelling tests at key stage 2, and science teacher assessments at both key stages. The introduction of a multiplication tables check will be postponed for a further year, but schools may use it if they want to. It is a resource available to all schools, and we encourage them to do so if they can. We will also add more flexibility to the timetable, so if there is any disruption due to coronavirus in a school, pupils will be able to take the test when they return to the school. These measures will help us to address lost learning time and will give us a chance to support pupils in schools who need help.”
“In both the early years sector and the independent schools sector, the intention is also that standard inspections will remain suspended for the spring, with assurance inspections in the early years and non-routine inspections in independent schools taking place in the meantime. I trust that provides the House with reassurance that we are providing the right balance in our accountability and inspection arrangements. I will finish by outlining our proposal for the curriculum and testing in primary schools, recognising the particular challenges they face. Assessments in primary schools next summer will focus on phonics, mathematics and English reading and writing.”
“That will include those currently judged inadequate and some in the “requires improvement” category. Inspectors will focus on areas that are particularly relevant at this time such as curriculum delivery, remote education and, importantly, attendance. There will also be a focus on those pupils who are particularly vulnerable. However, I stress that inspectors will not make graded judgments and any inspection activity will be sensitive to the additional pressures that schools are working under at this time. As in the autumn, Ofsted will be able to inspect a school in response to any significant concerns about safeguarding but also about the delivery of remote education by that school.”
“Instead, my Department will publish data on the subjects that students have taken, how well schools and colleges support their students to their next destination, and attendance, taking account of the impact of covid-19. We will also publish national and regional data on 2021 exams, tests and assessments. Importantly, we will make the exam data available to Ofsted and to schools, but we will not publish it in performance tables. I will now let the House know how our plans for schools and colleges are affected by inspections. It is our intention that Ofsted’s routine graded inspections will remain suspended for the spring term but will resume in a carefully considered way from the summer term. In the meantime, Ofsted will carry out monitoring inspections in the schools and colleges most in need of support.”
“We will therefore commission an expert group to assess any local variations and the impact the virus is having on students’ education. I turn to the measures we are taking in respect of the school and college accountability framework for 2021. We need to ensure that the arrangements for inspection and performance measures are fair and reflect the current public health situation. They need to take into account the enormous challenges that schools and colleges have been facing, but, equally, we must continue to provide the information and reassurance that parents need about their children’s education. We will not be publishing the normal performance tables based on test, exam and assessment data next year.”
“We have reviewed and updated the guidance for remote education so that schools, parents and pupils all know exactly what to expect from it. Primary schools need to provide an absolute bare minimum of three hours a day on average of remote education, and secondary schools, an absolute minimum of at least four. Schools will be expected to check and provide feedback on pupils’ work at least weekly as well as informing parents immediately where engagement is a concern. The Department will ask schools to set out details of their remote provision on their websites so that parents can better understand their schools’ remote education offer. As levels of covid infection continue to fluctuate, we know that different areas will experience varying levels of disruption to learning.”
“In the minority of cases where students cannot sit all their papers or where a very small number of pupils miss all of them, there will be means by which they can still be awarded a grade, including additional papers available after the main exam series. The fundamental problem with this year’s exams is that we tried to award grades without actually holding exams. We will not be repeating that same mistake again. With the measures that I have outlined, we are confident that every student who is preparing to sit exams this summer will be awarded a qualification. [Official Report, 6 January 2021, Vol. 686, c. 4MC.] As the virus continues to be a fact of life for all of us, schools and colleges are making impressive efforts to ensure that education can continue for those students who must remain at home.”
“All these measures have been drawn up with the most affected in mind, and we will be sharing the advance notice about what exactly the measures will entail with schools and colleges at the end of January. Students taking vocational and technical qualifications or other general qualifications can also expect a number of concessions, including a reduced number of units to be assessed. We want as many students as possible to be able to sit their exams, and for that reason we have a contingency package to make sure that they can do so, including spacing exams more widely, as well as enabling vulnerable students to sit exams at home if they need to.”
“Ofqual is also working with the exam boards to make sure that students studying for vocational and technical qualifications and other general qualifications benefit from the same generous approach. I know that students and teachers are making enormous efforts to catch up with any lost learning. To support those most affected by the continuing disruption, at the end of January, students will be given advance notice of some of the topic areas that will be assessed in their GCSEs and A-levels. That means that they will be able to focus on these areas in more depth and target their revision accordingly. Students will also be given exam aids, such as formula sheets, in recognition of the time lost in the classroom and to give them more confidence and reduce the amount of information that they need to memorise in preparation for exams.”
“He has already won the covid hero award, and I am sure that the whole House joins me in wishing him luck with the overall prize. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] We will not let covid damage the life chances of an entire year of students by cancelling next year’s exams. Exams are the best form of assessment that we have, and we are therefore taking steps to ensure that any student preparing to sit them in 2021 has every chance possible to do their very, very best. We support Ofqual’s decision that, in awarding next year’s GCSEs, AS and A-levels, grading will be as generous and will maintain a similar profile as those grades awarded this year. This is to recognise the exceptional circumstances under which students and teachers continue to work and to make sure that students are not at a disadvantage compared with those in previous years.”
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement regarding testing and examinations in schools and colleges next year. The pandemic continues to cause disruption throughout our education communities and, once again, I pay tribute to all our teachers, school leaders and support staff for the enormous efforts that they are making to keep young people of all ages learning. I also pay tribute to the winner of the global teacher of the year award, which recognises the most outstanding teacher from around the world. Our very own Dr Jamie Frost, maths lead at Tiffin School in Kingston-upon-Thames, has been shortlisted for this after his tuition website went viral during lockdown, helping millions of pupils in the United Kingdom and around the world to continue their studies at home.”
“I am glad that the hon. Member could bring herself to welcome the measures, albeit slightly grudgingly, at the start. It is no thanks to the Labour party that schools are back and children are in schools. It is no thanks to the Labour party that we were getting over 1.6 million children back into school before—”
“We do recognise that there are significant challenges in delivering education at this time, which is why we have put together a package of truly unprecedented measures to assist schools, teachers, and, most important, pupils themselves. I am sure that the hon. Lady would grudgingly acknowledge that all academic studies have continuously highlighted that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, including children from black and ethnic minority communities, are the ones who always exceed predicted grades when they sit exams.”
“I know that you always love Secretaries of State to look adoringly at you, Mr Speaker. I have been dutifully rebuked. The Labour party has never championed pupils, because it has not fought to get students back into schools. It was actually the Mayor of Greater Manchester who wanted to send children out of school and back home. But the Conservative party stands for getting children back into school. The shadow Secretary of State highlighted a number of issues. It is disappointing that the official Opposition have not engaged in a positive debate. They could not even be bothered to respond to the Ofqual consultation about exams. They seem to have missed the opportunity. Maybe it got lost in the post—or maybe, quite simply, they just could not be bothered.”
“The shadow Secretary of State highlighted some important issues, including the potential for extra appeals and ensuring that there are proper extra resources in place for that process; we will certainly be doing that. We recognise that there are challenges from giving extra learning time and moving most exams back by three weeks. For example, this will put added pressure on the exam boards. We are working closely with the exam boards to support them to get the right resources in place, and to deliver the grades as and when we would expect them—at the end of August.”
“It is good to see that we have a common view, although—I note the chuntering from the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who is sitting in the Opposition Chief Whip’s seat, on the importance of exams. We recognise that children will have missed out elements of the curriculum, but giving advance notice will give them and their teachers the opportunity to use that time to focus on the areas of the curriculum that they know they will be tested on. We are also recognising the importance of technical and vocational qualifications, and we will be looking at ensuring that information on those is shared at a similar time as information on GCSEs and A-levels.”
“We have commissioned an Education Policy Institute study on the individual learning loss, and we are getting data into the Department on it. We will be asking the expert group to look at that and how best to address it. I take my right hon. Friend’s point: he would have preferred more of a middle ground in the grading between 2019 and 2020. I firmly believe that, for those children who have had to deal with so much in terms of the pandemic, it is really important that their exam grading is reflective of their work but also recognises the fact that they have been through a tremendous amount this year. It would be unjust for them to have grades, having sat exams, that were substantially lower than the ones received in 2020.”
“My right hon. Friend is right that there is not an easy pathway, which I think the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) also recognises. Any route taken presents quite significant challenges in delivering assessments and examinations, but I believe that this is the fairest and most robust way of doing it. We have removed SATs from performance tables. That is an important measure, but SATs do present a really important way of measuring a child’s attainment and position, and they will be vital for schools in making that assessment and supporting children to catch up on lost learning. We hope that removing them from performance tables will remove a lot of the pressure that teachers sometimes feel and help with the delivery of SATs.”
“The whole set of measures that we have put in place, whether in extra learning time, changes to assessment, advance notice or giving exam aids, is to support children who have suffered from lost learning. The expert group, which will report to me in the spring, will make a proper and thorough assessment of some of the challenges that students have faced.”
“I assure my hon. Friend that the measures we are taking are truly exceptional—they are not measures that we would ever have expected to take in any normal year. The only reason we are taking them is to support students in her constituency to ensure that they achieve the very best grades that they possibly can and unlock their future life chances.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The measures that we are taking are very much to reduce stress and pressure on students. Many pupils in Northern Ireland sit papers from English exam boards, and the measures that we are taking will obviously be replicated in Northern Ireland for them. Only yesterday, I spoke to Peter Weir, the Education Minister for Northern Ireland. At every stage, we are considering implications that may arise for Northern Irish students as a result of these changes. We are doing everything we can to accommodate any concerns that Peter Weir may have on behalf of pupils in Northern Ireland, and we hope we can balance that.”
“We will always look at different options to improve our examination system and how we work with exam boards, and I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that in greater detail. In terms of catch-up, I pay tribute to the teachers and support staff not just in Harrow, but right across the country, who have done so much. They have been assisted by the £1 billion covid catch-up fund to give extra resources, so that extra teaching can take place at weekends and in the evenings, and children have the opportunity to catch up on work that they have missed.”
“The hon. Lady raises a really important point on which there is a lot of shared concern on both sides of the House. This was one reason that we particularly weighted the covid catch-up fund to deliver extra money for schools supporting children with special educational needs. We recognise that there are some acute and difficult challenges, and certainly I know that the Minister for School Standards would be happy to sit down with the hon. Lady, along with the children’s Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), to discuss any extra support or intervention she thinks would be of use and benefit.”
“This is why we have taken the decision to make the announcement at this stage. I think the four nations in the United Kingdom believe that this is the most comprehensive and detailed plan for how we are going to proceed with assessment, examinations and the awarding of grades. I hope it gives every school leader and every teacher, but most importantly children, a clear sense of what they are going to be assessed against, so that they can achieve the very best grade that they are capable of getting.”
“I very much share the hon. Gentleman’s view on the important role that teachers, and also support staff, have been playing in the delivery of education. Obviously, right through this pandemic, there has been a national priority of putting education at the centre of the Government’s response, which is why schools have remained open, even during a national lockdown. There will be specific clinical needs that have to be met as part of a vaccination programme, but there has always been a priority put on education, and for teachers to be able to get into school and teach, and for support staff to support them. We will obviously be looking at this in the next wave and the announcement on vaccinations.”
“My hon. Friend raises an important point and identifies a great opportunity for many schools to take advantage of. I know that many schools have been putting on extra lessons after the school day has concluded, and that many schools have been looking at how they can use the holidays to deliver extra education and catch-up for those critical year 11 and year 13 pupils. That is a great idea, and certainly something we very much encourage.”
“As I touched on in an earlier answer, obviously we expect schools to deliver a full curriculum, but some will have been impacted in such a way that they cannot deliver every aspect of it. However, giving advance notice of the topic areas means that over the coming months those schools and students can focus on those areas that need to be covered for exams, in the run-up to them.”
“There is not only the general pot of the catch-up fund, but the specific national tutoring programme, targeting children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. We have always believed that schools, with their intimate knowledge of their pupils and understanding of their learning needs, are best able to target how that money is spent, so that pupils are best able to catch up.”
“We have spent a great deal of time working with stakeholders and listening to children, teachers and professional academics on how best we should do this. That is why we have pulled together the proposal that we have, putting the interests of children very much at the heart of everything we do.”
“I would be delighted to add my hon. Friend’s name to the list of that army of volunteers who will go out there and help in schools. However, we do not just need invigilators; we also need markers—people who have experience as teachers, who are maybe retired—to come forward and assist us in this significant effort to ensure that papers are marked punctually. This is a great opportunity for people to give something back to the next generation and to schools in their community by either volunteering as an invigilator or coming forward as a marker.”
“We have a very proud history, actually; we put the needs of the most vulnerable at the heart of our response, whether it was the covid catch-up funding—making sure that extra funding went to those children who most need it—or the fact that this country took a global lead in making sure that schools and colleges remained open for children with special needs and those who are most vulnerable. We led the world in that, and we are very proud that we took that lead.”