1. What steps she is taking to provide additional educational support to young Syrian refugees resettled in the UK. (903895)

It is part of our moral responsibility to ensure that Syrian refugees who are resettled in the United Kingdom receive appropriate support, especially those young children who take refuge here. The International Organisation for Migration assesses the needs of each Syrian refugee to be resettled in the UK, including any educational support required by children. Those assessments help to ensure that the necessary arrangements are in place, and that the needs of these young Syrians are met.

The Scottish Government currently fund a guardianship service that is unique to Scotland that offers specific support with welfare, education and the immigration process to local authorities and unaccompanied children. Will the UK Government follow in the Scottish Government’s footsteps and increase support for young refugees in the UK?

I think we all agree that those who are seeking refuge from war-torn areas and conflict zones where they have been in situations of immense stress and disruption need all the support they can get. We have a system of appointing caseworkers who work with each family or individual who comes here to seek refuge, to identify their needs. In particular, they ensure that children with special educational needs or mental health needs get support, as well as those who have additional educational issues such as needing extra language support.

Following the Government’s welcome decision on 28 January to provide additional refuge for unaccompanied minors coming from conflict zones such as Syria, but also from Europe, what discussions have been held in the Department about providing additional support for those who reach these shores, and to provide them with the effective support they need?

My hon. Friend recently visited the camp in Calais, and he will know that a cross-Government taskforce has been set up to ensure that all those who claim asylum or come to live in the United Kingdom under the resettlement programme get that support. In my previous answer I outlined the particular areas that my Department takes an interest in, and we must ensure that support is delivered for those with special educational needs, mental health needs, and those who require additional educational support such as language support.

I welcome the steps taken so far. What we have learned from previous arrivals of refugees—for example the Ugandan Asians who came to Leicester many years ago—is that the involvement of the diaspora community is extremely important to make people feel at home. What steps have been taken to ensure that the Syrian diaspora is involved in this process?

The Government are extremely sensitive to working right the way across the United Kingdom, particularly with local authorities, and to consider the backgrounds of those coming here and their particular needs. Some will, of course, want to be near to those from their communities and the diaspora; for others there may be reasons why perhaps that is not right, given their particular needs. Great care is taken. People’s needs are assessed and then they are given a guarantee that housing, education and other provision will be ready and waiting when they arrive here.

Given that so far the resettlement and asylum dispersal programmes have been pretty unevenly matched across the country, what extra support can be given to local authorities that are taking in a large number of people? That is often matched with challenging situations in schools, in terms of both school places and school standards, and those areas need extra support.

We work right across the Government, and we have included powers in the Immigration Act 2014 to ensure that help is available to local authorities, particularly those that take in unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Kent has taken many of those children, but they have also gone right across the country. Financial help is available through the budget of the Department for International Development, and we have committed £129 million to assist with local authority costs over years two to five of the resettlement scheme. There is additional help for children with special educational needs, and additional funding—including through the pupil premium—for those who have English as an additional language. It is, of course, right to highlight the problems, but the question from the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), and my knowledge of the local area, show that those who come to this country can have huge success and make an enormous contribution to it. We must never forget that.

2. What progress the Government have made on implementing provision of 30 hours of free childcare for working parents. (903896)

4. What progress the Government have made on implementing provision of 30 hours of free childcare for working parents. (903898)

16. What progress the Government have made on implementing provision of 30 hours of free childcare for working parents. (903911)

We are delivering on our commitment to provide working parents of three and four-year-olds with 30 hours of free childcare. To ensure providers can deliver high quality childcare, we will increase funding for childcare by more than £1 billion by 2019. The Childcare Bill has cleared its parliamentary stages. Twenty five local authorities will be piloting the programme in the summer, ahead of full delivery in the summer of 2017.

Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating St George’s in Redditch for the fantastic work it already does? Does he agree that the 30 hours of free nursery education will make such a difference to one of the most deprived parts of my town?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Families in deprived parts of Redditch will see £5,000 a year as a result of the 30 hours of free childcare. If they need further support, they can get it through the child tax credit system. The 30 hours of free childcare will help families with the cost of living, enable them to work more hours and give children the best start in life.

I very much welcome the fact that one of the pilot schemes is in York. I congratulate the Minister on all his work on that. As the Minister knows, there is some concern among nursery providers over the future funding levels, driven by the disparity between the amount local authorities pay. Will the Minister consider future ring-fencing to avoid top-slicing by local authorities? Will he also consider visiting nurseries in my constituency to see how the pilot is working?

I should like to reassure my hon. Friend that later this year we will be consulting on an early years national funding formula. As part of that, we will set a firm expectation on local authority top-slicing to ensure that the record investment being made in childcare is allocated fairly and reaches providers on the frontline. I am particularly impressed by the innovation in childcare brought about by the local authority in York, which is why we chose it as one of our early implementers. I would be delighted to visit again.

Has my hon. Friend made an assessment of the number of nursery places in Plymouth, and of whether there is enough provision and capacity?

My hon. Friend asks a very important question. The key point is that doubling the entitlement of free childcare is not the same as doubling the demand for childcare. Many parents already buy more than 15 hours and there is spare capacity in the system. The £6 billion funding going into childcare each year should incentivise more providers to enter the market. Where there are specific local difficulties, £50 million has been made available through the spending review to tackle capacity constraints.

I have heard nothing today to assure me that when parents seek the 30 hours free childcare they will be able to find them. I do not know if the Minister is aware that in Enfield since 2010 482 early-years childcare places have been lost and 114 providers have disappeared. When parents are looking for those places, I would be very surprised if they are there on the ground. What will the Minister do to ensure that he can meet the promises his Government have made?

I am afraid I have to disagree with the right hon. Lady. In the previous Parliament, the childcare sector created 230,000 new places. I am confident that with record investment the sector will rise to the challenge of delivering the 30 hours. It is about time that we stopped talking down the childcare sector and recognise the continued growth of the industry.

At recent constituency surgeries, I have had representations from both private providers and state maintained nurseries telling me that the funding simply will not be there. It is no good blaming the sector or blaming local authorities for the fact that the Government have a model that is half-baked, underfunded and running behind time. What is the Minister going to do to make sure that the pledge the Conservatives made to parents at the general election is made real through the availability of places and, crucially, the funding to go with it?

Let me puncture the hon. Gentleman’s question with a dose of reality. The Government are investing more in childcare than any previous Government. At a time when other Departments are facing financial constraint, the Government have made childcare a strategic priority. That is why we undertook the first ever cost of childcare review to ensure that funding is fair to providers and sustainable for the taxpayer.

The National Audit Office report published last week raised concerns about how the 30 hours of childcare for some three and four-year-olds could impact on current provision for disadvantaged two-year-olds. What steps will be taken to ensure that increased provision for one group will not impact on the good work being done with disadvantaged two-year-olds?

The hon. Lady asks a good question, and the answer is that there will be no adverse impact on the offer for two-year-olds. We were the first Government to introduce 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds, and that will carry on. We have increased the hourly rate for the funding for two-year-olds and ensured that the early-years pupil premium continues, so that two, three and four-year-olds who are particularly disadvantaged do not fall even further behind.

The Minister is right to talk about incentivising providers to come forward, and this is a big opportunity, but may I urge him to take into account the needs of different types of provider—childminders, as well as nurseries and all the other types of setting—all of which should be able to take part in this larger and exciting opportunity?

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. One of the great things about the UK childcare market is the diversity of provision—childminders, nurseries, school nurseries—available to parents, as it means we can meet all parents’ needs, especially when it comes to work. We will make sure that flexibility for parents is at the heart of how the 30 hours is delivered.

It really is all about delivery. The Minister talks about meeting all parents’ needs, but already 59 local authorities say they do not have the places to meet current obligations to three-year-olds, never mind the additional hours. What is he going to do?

Once again, I shall give a dose of reality: 99% of four-year-olds and 96% of three-year-olds are accessing the existing 15 hours of childcare. I am happy to compare our record with that of the previous Labour Government. After 13 years in office, it had provided 12.5 hours of free childcare. In half that time, the Conservative party has provided 30 hours of free childcare. Labour never offered anything for disadvantaged two-year-olds; we have a programme for disadvantaged two-year-olds. We are investing more than any previous Government. It might not like it, but it must accept it: the Conservatives are the party of childcare.

My party introduced Sure Start. There was no Sure Start and there were no children’s centres—no universal offer for any kind of childcare—prior to the Labour Government in 1997. The test of this will be how many families actually use the additional hours and who those families are. How has the Minister managed to concoct a system where a household with an income of £200,000 a year benefits from the additional hours, whereas 20,000 single parents on the minimum wage will not be eligible? How has he managed to come up with something so deeply unfair?

Let me explain the policy to the hon. Lady. She should be familiar with it by now. Our eligibility criteria make absolute sense. To get 30 hours of free childcare, someone needs to be in work and earning more than £107 a week and not more than £100,000 a year—it does not matter if they are a lone parent. That means that if anybody in the family earns more than £100,000 a year, they will not be eligible. I know that Labour Members do not want to hear it, but Labour’s childcare voucher scheme meant that parents earning more than £1 million could get childcare subsidies but the self-employed could not. We are not allowing that to happen in our childcare scheme.

3. What steps her Department is taking to support provision of STEM subjects in schools. (903897)

The Government are determined to make Britain the best place in the world to study science, technology, engineering and maths. Our reforms to the curriculum and qualifications are designed to raise standards to match the best internationally. Our networks of maths hubs and science learning partnerships are supporting schools with the aim of improving the quality of maths and science teaching, and a £67 million package will train up to 17,500 maths and physics teachers by 2020.

In my constituency, there are a number of new skilled and well-paid jobs in engineering, space, renewable energy and other highly skilled, high-tech sectors, including the Navy. What further message can I take back to employers to assure them that schools have the resources and expertise to inspire and prepare our young people for these jobs in west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and what more can the Department do to ensure that we have the engineers we need as a nation for the future?

My hon. Friend, as a member of the Science and Technology Committee, is a keen advocate of the high-tech sector and particularly of the Goonhilly satellite earth station in Cornwall. He is right to share the Government’s determination to improve STEM skills in this country. That is why the Government fund the Cornwall and West Devon maths hub and the Cornwall science learning partnership, which provide support to schools in west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to improve maths and scientific education. We are also reforming technical and professional education and taking steps to improve the quality of careers advice to young people.

8. Families for schools does an excellent job arranging for business people to visit schools to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs, including science and technology entrepreneurs. Will the Secretary of State outline plans to engage more business people with more schools to encourage more young people to help build our enterprise economy, particularly in science and technology? (903903)

That is precisely what is happening. The local enterprise partnerships are working closely with the careers and enterprise companies because we want to ensure that there is a connection between employers and schools so that a generation of young people inspired by technology can get to know what jobs are available in the technology sector, where, incidentally, earnings are on average 19% higher than for those not working in that sector.

Does the Minister agree that no Prime Minister was more passionate about science, technology and mathematics and their power to liberate individuals’ potential than Harold Wilson? Does he further agree that Harold Wilson set up the Open University and all those polytechnics that became our new universities in order to help in that process of changing our culture? Can we not now liberate the universities to do more in partnership with schools to get this culture change that Harold Wilson worked so hard to achieve?

The hon. Gentleman seemed to get a bigger cheer for mentioning Harold Wilson than he would have done if he had mentioned the current leader of the Labour party. I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, however, about the importance of inspiring young people. University technical colleges have been established to do precisely that, and we have seen a huge increase in the number of young people taking STEM A-levels, with the number taking maths A-level going up by 18% so that some 82,000 young people are now taking it. It has become the single most popular A-level choice, while both physics and chemistry A-level entries have increased by 15%.

We currently have a situation in which the income threshold for non-EU workers could be raised to £35,000, which will cause issues for many STEM teachers currently working in UK schools, as well as for teachers that could be recruited from abroad. Will the Minister explain to schools that have gaping holes in STEM teaching positions how he is working with the Home Office to ensure that we can continue to recruit from abroad?

As the hon. Lady will know, there is a consultation taking place with the Home Office on these very issues, and it will report in due course.

One of the traditional problems with getting more students to study STEM subjects has been the difficulty of persuading girls to take such subjects up to A-level and beyond. Does the Minister have any evidence to show that policies to encourage more girls to take up these very important subjects are working?

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government recently set out an ambition to see a 20% increase in the number of girls’ entries to science and maths A-levels by 2020. We established, with industry, the Your Life campaign, which is designed to encourage young people, and especially girls, to choose maths and physics. We have seen a huge increase in the number of girls taking A-levels in physics, from 5,800 in 2010 to 6,800 this year, and in maths, from 28,000 in 2010 to 31,000 this year. However, there is still more to do.

In Stoke-on-Trent, we have decided to do something about the crisis in maths teaching. Will the Minister congratulate inspiring head teachers Roisin Maguire and Mark Stanyer, along with the city council and the Denise Coates Foundation, on establishing the £1 million maths excellence partnership, which was opened by Sir Michael Wilshaw last week to attract maths graduates to Stoke and to support the continuing professional development of current classroom teachers?

I am delighted to join the hon. Gentleman in passing on my congratulations. It is good to see inspirational, imaginative and innovative programmes that are designed to encourage more young people with science backgrounds to come into teaching.

5. What progress the Careers & Enterprise Company has made on improving careers education and inspiring young people about the world of work. (903900)

10. What progress the Careers & Enterprise Company has made on improving careers education and inspiring young people about the world of work. (903905)

The Careers & Enterprise Company has made excellent progress in its start-up year. It is opening up schools to the world of work and opening up the world of work to schools, which, as all experts agree, is a key ingredient of high-quality careers education and guidance.

I was delighted to meet representatives of the Careers & Enterprise Company recently in my role as chairman of the all-party women and enterprise group. What steps will be taken to ensure that great models and mentors are provided to supplement the company’s work, and that students from all backgrounds are aware of the wealth of opportunities that are available to them once they have left education?

That is an excellent question. In the past, too much emphasis has been placed on one-to-one careers advice, which is often provided too late and not delivered effectively. That is why £70 million has been made available over the current Parliament to fund careers services, including a new national mentoring scheme that will focus on the most disadvantaged. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about mentors, especially for young girls, and especially in relation to STEM subjects and professions.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the old careers service is all too often regarded as a source of mild and gentle humour by people when they remember their schooldays, perhaps because they were approached too late? Is it not enormously important for businesses and, indeed, employers throughout all sectors to offer work experience—and not just to young people, to whom I know many Members offer that here in the House?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Careers advice has long been the punchline for a joke, and many people found that the advice that they were given did not make sense to them at all. In our careers strategy, we are focusing on real, practical employer interactions so that the world of work can go into schools, and so that children can see what is out there, have their passions roused, and work out what is best for them.

The Minister will be delighted, because he has lost the punchline for his joke. He should go easy on the self-congratulation, given that the Government have presided over the disintegration of careers services for young people. Cuts have decimated council-led youth support and Connexions, and the Department has failed to include work experience in the curriculum. No wonder the CBI told it that the careers service was broken. Young people will need that help from the Careers & Enterprise Company to start repairing five years of damage. Will the Minister tell us what resources will be given to volunteer enterprise advisers—after all, only £17 million a year is going to the company—and just how many of them there will be for the thousands of schools and further education colleges that need them?

The hon. Gentleman talks as though there had once been a golden age of careers advice and service, but anyone could tell him that there has never been such a golden age. The missing piece in careers advice and guidance was employer interaction, and that is what the excellent Careers & Enterprise Company is setting up. As part of its strategy, it is rolling out enterprise advisers, and 30 local enterprise partnerships have signed up to be part of that. Every school will have an enterprise co-ordinator to link it to the world of work.

7. What progress the Government are making on supporting the establishment of university technical colleges. (903902)

With 59 university technical colleges open or in development, we are well on the way to meeting our manifesto commitment of opening a UTC within reach of every city.

Will the Minister join me in welcoming the excellent work being carried out by the Leigh UTC in my constituency? UTCs play an increasingly vital role in ensuring that we have the engineering and scientific skills that are needed in the workplace. Will he do all that he can to ensure that the Leigh UTC is allowed to flourish?

Yes, and I thank my hon. Friend for all the work that he is doing with the Leigh UTC. It is a particularly good example, not least because it is part of a very successful multi-academy trust, and that is a situation that we want replicated across the university technical college movement, because UTCs are stronger inside multi-academy trusts.

9. What plans she has to expand the Priority School Building programme. (903904)

The Priority School Building programme was established to rebuild and refurbish those schools in the very worst condition across the country. The £4.4 billion programme is targeting funding to address urgent condition need at 357 schools. The Department has made no decision in relation to a third phase to the programme.

The Priority School Building programme, which was downgraded in the last Major Projects Authority report, has resulted in just one school in York being earmarked for repairs, rather than addressing the urgent needs of 10 schools, including three overdue rebuilds. It is costing the local authority £1.23 million just to keep those schools open. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the urgent need for funding for school buildings in York? Will he also review the Education Funding Agency’s condition survey, given that the data collected do not provide the comprehensive evidence base necessary to match local authority priorities?

I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the issues in York. Just to give her an update, two schools are being rebuilt or refurbished in York Central under the Priority School Building programme. Carr Infants School is under construction as part of PSBP phase 1, and Badger Hill Primary School will have its condition need met under PSBP phase 2. A total of seven schools have applied for both phases and are being considered, but I would be happy to meet her to discuss these matters.

I recently visited Paignton Academy, which serves my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). Some of its buildings are in quite poor condition, with many of them dating from the 1930s. Will the Minister agree to meet me, my hon. Friend and a delegation from the school to assess what can be done to get a rebuild on track?

I did not realise that this was going to be a diary session, but I am of course happy to meet the Minister and other members of his local authority to discuss their funding needs. As I have said, the Priority School Building programme is for schools in urgent condition, and schools in his area could also apply to the condition improvement fund.

The hon. Gentleman himself is the Minister. “Know thyself” is quite a useful principle in politics, as it is more widely in life.

What steps is the Department taking to promote the installation of fire suppression systems while repair work is being done to schools as part of this programme?

The hon. Lady has bowled me a googly. I shall have to look into this and write to her.

Will the Minister join me in welcoming the news that the Comenius Trust has just been selected to build a brand new primary school at Endsleigh in Bath? This will help to plug a growing hole in the primary school numbers in our city, which is ever popular with young families.

I join my hon. Friend in welcoming that news. It is good to hear positive news about school places, because there is too often a lot of scaremongering about places and place need.

11. What steps the Government are taking to support the educational attainment of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. (903906)

We are determined to deliver educational excellence everywhere so that every child reaches their full potential regardless of their background. That is why we are protecting the pupil premium at current rates for the duration of this Parliament, giving schools billions of pounds in additional funding to improve disadvantaged pupils’ attainment.

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, and I very much welcome today’s announcement on fairer funding in schools, which many of us have campaigned for since our election. Does he agree that the best way to support pupils from a disadvantaged background in rural areas is precisely by having a national funding formula that is based on need, irrespective of where that need arises?

My hon. Friend has, in many ways, highlighted the basic principle behind our consultation on a new national funding formula—it is simply about fairness. The old system has for decades been too complex, convoluted and unfair, with even disadvantaged children being disadvantaged by it. This change is long overdue, and it cannot be right to have anything other than a needs-based system. That is what we want to implement, and we want to work with everyone to make sure that we make it happen.

But the Minister will be aware that children in schools in which a high proportion of pupils are on free school meals are much less likely than they were five years ago to be able to be taught by a qualified teacher in art, dance, music or drama. Two thirds of professional parents pay for additional lessons in those subjects, but parents on lower wages are much less likely to be able to afford them. Are working-class kids going to be excluded from the creative subjects in our education system?

The right hon. Lady has an admirable track record of pursing the more creative side of school life—I admire her persistence in doing so—but right across the country many schools with strong heads are recruiting heads of music, dance and drama, and providing many other extra-curricular activities. We have a basic strong curriculum, which all children need to be taught, and we are supporting disadvantaged children through the pupil premium, the pupil premium plus and special educational needs reforms to ensure that they get the support that they need, and the rounded and grounded education we want for all children. We need to make sure that schools are making such decisions and strong heads know exactly how to achieve that.

Coming from a disadvantaged background is just one reason for poor educational attainment, and in coastal communities such as my constituency, that is a particular issue. In addition to the national teaching service, what support is given to areas such as mine?

The national teaching service has been an important innovation in trying to ensure that we have a strong teaching workforce in all parts of the country, including my hon. Friend’s constituency. That is why we have made significant investment in those areas where recruitment has been more difficult in the past, such as in STEM subjects, among others. It is also why we continue to ensure that we pay the pupil premium to those schools so that, through the virtual school heads and other support, they are getting the standard of teaching they deserve.

Will the Minister explain further how the new proposed national curriculum will cater for the needs of disadvantaged pupils? In particular, can he explain the following sentence in today’s written statement:

“For pupils with high needs, the local authority remains the right level at which to distribute funding”?

That is correct.

On Friday, I had the opportunity to meet representatives of Blue Smile, a local charity in Cambridgeshire that makes provision for those suffering from mental health issues. I was told that many schools use their pupil premium for the services of Blue Smile to help to deal with mental health issues in their schools. Does the Minister agree that the provision of mental health services in schools to solve issues at a very early stage is crucial?

My hon. and learned Friend is right to highlight the importance of establishing as early as possible the underlying causes of a child’s ability or inability to learn in school, which can be a result of emotional and mental health issues. That is why some schools are being extremely innovative about how they access pupil premium money to offer individual support to those children so that they are able to be in the best space possible to learn to the best of their ability.

We know that summer schools address educational inequalities among some of our most disadvantaged pupils, as well as helping to tackle holiday hunger, yet recent surveys show that 64% of schools are worried they will not be able to offer this vital intervention because of a Government cut sneaked out just before Christmas—that was perhaps not the kind of Christmas present that vulnerable pupils were hoping to receive from the Minister. With the attainment gap now wider than it was when the Prime Minister came to office, summer schools have proven very effective in helping to give disadvantaged children a good start at secondary school. Why are Ministers ignoring this evidence and scrapping funding for summer schools?

The hon. Lady raises an area of education of which I have seen some excellent examples. However, she must remember the backdrop against which we are taking the education system forward. We have protected funding, with more money going into primary and secondary education than ever before, as well as a protected pupil premium of £2.5 billion over the next year. We have a strong curriculum for primary school children so that they learn the basics and have the building blocks to ensure that they have a brighter future. It is for schools to decide how they can achieve that, but they have the money to make it happen.

12. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the schools admissions appeals process. (903907)

When parents are refused a place for their child at a school of their choice, it is important that they have the opportunity to appeal that decision. A robust system is in place for handling admissions appeals, including complaints about appeal maladministration. We are currently reviewing the admissions systems, including whether changes to the school admission appeals code are necessary. We will conduct a full public consultation on any changes in due course.

The Secretary of State recently stated her ambition for the Government potentially to ban civil society organisations from raising concerns about the admissions processes of schools. Those organisations perform an important public duty. Constituents have been in touch with me to say that they find the admissions process too complex and too lengthy to deal with by themselves. Does the Minister agree that banning civil society organisations from raising concerns will not only exacerbate the difficulties that parents already face, but further enable breaches of the admissions code?

The purpose of that announcement was to enable the chief schools adjudicator to focus on the concerns of parents and not to have the system absorbed by the need to handle multiple objections by campaigning organisations. That was a recommendation of the adjudicator as a consequence of her experiencing those issues in her term of office.

I think that the Minister is referring to secular organisations that have been trying to clog up faith school application and appeals processes. Will he confirm to the House that the code of practice brought in at the beginning of this year will specifically prevent that sort of thing from occurring?

Yes. The announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was to ensure that the school admissions process is fair, that parents—and only parents—can object to admission arrangements in their area if they regard them as unfair, and that it is not used as a campaigning tool.

13. What steps the Government are taking to improve maths and numeracy standards in primary schools. (903908)

The Government are committed to raising standards in primary maths. We have introduced an ambitious new national curriculum that places greater focus on written and mental arithmetic. Long multiplication, long division and fractions are now compulsory for all pupils. We have strengthened primary mathematics assessment, removed the use of calculators from key stage 2 tests, and pledged to introduce a multiplication tables check for all pupils at the end of year 6.

I thank the Minister for his reply. Improving the standards of maths and numeracy in primary schools is crucial for children in later life, as they provide the foundation for more advanced learning. What are the Government doing to ensure that more children leave primary school with the expected levels of maths and numeracy?

We have launched a network of 35 maths hubs. These school-led centres of excellence are driving the transformation of teaching based on best practice internationally. Hubs have delivered a successful teacher exchange with Shanghai and have introduced high-quality Singapore textbooks to schools. Increasing numbers of primary school teachers are working with hubs to adopt effective south-east-Asian mastery approaches to teaching to ensure that every child leaves primary school with the expected levels of maths and numeracy.

May I press the Minister a little further? I have experience of teaching statistics to A-level students, and I have observed that some of those students could not do simple arithmetic because they never learned multiplication tables in early primary education. I suspect that that is still a problem today. What are the Government doing to ensure that all our children are required specifically to learn multiplication tables in their early years at primary school?

We have introduced into the new primary curriculum a requirement that by the end of year 4 all children will know their multiplication tables to 12 times 12. We will introduce a multiplication check next year to ensure that every child knows their multiplication tables by heart. That is a wonderful achievement. If we can ensure that every child leaves primary school knowing their multiplication tables by heart, it will transform mathematics teaching in this country at secondary school and beyond.

15. If she will make an assessment of the contribution of faith schools to society. (903910)

Church and faith schools have made a significant contribution in helping to shape our education system over many years. They are among our best performing schools in the country and parents of all faiths and of none value them for the quality of their education and their strong ethos. We continue to work closely with faith organisations to ensure that the religious character of their schools is maintained and developed.

All that is undeniable: faith schools are extraordinarily popular, so why do the Government insist on the cap of 50% on people of a faith attending a new free school? We all know that the Government’s hidden agenda is that they do not want 100% Muslim schools, but the fact is that few Muslim schools are oversubscribed anyway, so all this is doing is preventing the Catholic and Anglican new free schools from coming on stream. Why not abolish the cap and let freedom prevail?

The 50% limit on faith admissions to free schools ensures that the new high-quality school places that they provide are available to local children, not just those of a particular faith, and it helps to ensure that those pupils receive an inclusive and broad-based education. We are always happy to hear representations on how best to achieve those goals and I would certainly welcome applications to establish, for example, more Catholic free schools, but I understand why the Catholic Church in particular is reluctant to do so.

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities. (903920)

I hope that hon. Members will be glad to hear that today we have published proposals for consultation to start the process of introducing a national funding formula for schools from 2017-18. These plans will ensure that every school and local area, no matter where it is in the country, is funded fairly. It will ensure that pupils with similar needs attract the same level of funding and give headteachers far more certainty over future budgets. Areas with the highest need will attract the most funding, so pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds will continue to receive significant additional support. That is a key part of our core mission to have educational excellence everywhere.

Luton Girls’ Academy was given £100,000 by the Secretary of State’s Department but never opened. I have repeatedly asked the Department for Education to tell me whether that money has been paid back, yet neither written parliamentary questions nor freedom of information requests have garnered an answer. When will she tell me how much money was wasted on this free school project?

The hon. Gentleman received a letter from the Under-Secretary of State, Lord Nash, on 29 January 2015 telling him why the project could not go ahead and that it had fallen short of the rigorous criteria we have set. Total pre-opening revenue costs for Luton Girls’ Academy will be published by the end of March. In line with our transparency agenda, our policy is to publish expenditure data clearly, and that means that we publish the full pre-opening revenue cost of cancelled or withdrawn free school projects, once the amount of expenditure has been finalised and taking into account any repayments.

T2. When I was sitting over there on the Opposition Benches I asked Prime Minister Tony Blair what he was going to do about Staffordshire, which was always in the bottom 20 for funding compared with other local education authorities. He agreed with me and said it was very unfair, and then he did nothing. May I commend the Secretary of State for getting on with this wonderful consultation? What recommendation would she give to my constituents, teachers and parents, to ensure that we get fairer funding for schools in Staffordshire? (903921)

I thank my hon. Friend very much, and I am delighted that we are making progress on this important issue. Is it not typical that it takes a majority Conservative Government to do that? I urge my hon. Friend to encourage his constituents and schools in his constituency, such as John Taylor High School, which I recently had the pleasure of visiting, to ensure that they take part in this important consultation.

As the MP for the home of British cycling, may I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the amazing success of the British cycling team in the track world championships last week? On the day before International Women’s Day, the incredible Laura Trott should be singled out for her medal haul. Let us hope she is paid as much as her male colleagues, if not more—something that the Secretary of State does not seem very good at achieving for women in her own Department.

There will be 156 new GCSE and A-level specifications taught from September. With just 17 teaching weeks left of this school year, how many of those are ready?

I thank the hon. Lady. Is it not typical that she identifies an issue—the gender pay gap—which her party did nothing to address when it was in power? It is this party that is publishing the regulations to make sure that public sector and private sector organisations will disclose that. The gap is not widening; it is narrowing. I join her in congratulating the cycling team, including Laura Trott, on their tremendous achievements. Ofqual is working with the exam boards to make sure that all the specifications are ready. I understand that more than 65 are now ready, but there is further information on that to be made public by Ofqual.

That is right: just 65 or 66 of the 156 specifications are ready—less than half. Core EBacc subjects, such as sciences and modern foreign languages, are still to be approved. The Government’s own workload challenge promised teachers a lead-in time of one year for significant changes to qualifications, but as matters stand teachers will have just weeks or no time at all to prepare for these huge changes. Is not the truth that the Government’s fixation with micromanaging every part of the curriculum—including, we hear this week, the use of exclamation marks—is causing the delay, and that they are way behind with these new exams? It is no wonder we have a teacher shortage.

The exam boards have already published the specifications and assessment materials in draft. They are working their way through to make sure that the specifications are ready to be published. We want to give teachers as much notice as possible—[Interruption.] Is it not typical that the Opposition need to learn the lesson that the Vote Leave campaign needs to learn as well—that if they talk about the negatives all the time, they will find that those are self-fulfilling? If they want to set out an alternative, they need to do that with some policies. What we on the Government Benches are doing is raising the standards of our qualifications. I met Ofqual last week to talk about specifications. It is making progress. [Interruption.] Either the hon. Lady wants to raise standards in our education system or she does not. By the nature of her question, she clearly does not.

T4. Archie Hayward, a 15-year-old student from Warblington school in Havant, is the first British teenager to secure work experience at the CERN science laboratory in Switzerland. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Archie and confirm that the Government will continue to support careers in science and technology? (903923)

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Archie Hayward on his significant achievement, which I am sure will provide him with the insight and inspiration to continue studying science and mathematics. We want to see more young people studying those subjects, which can lead to so many rewarding and interesting careers in science and engineering, which the Government are supporting through a more challenging curriculum and qualifications, better teaching and improved career advice in schools.

T3. A headteacher in my constituency showed me the sample paper for this year’s key stage 2 SATs. The paper included questions about the subjunctive form, past progressive, subordinating, conjunction and many other such gems. I am tempted to ask how many Members here could answer questions on those topics, but the more important question is how many children could do so. Does the Minister understand the concerns put to me by head teachers that they want the very highest standards for the children they are looking after, but, far from helping to raise standards, such an approach runs the risk of setting 10 and 11-year-olds up for failure? (903922)

It is important to understand the scale of the reforms to the primary curriculum. In four or five years every child could be leaving primary school knowing their multiplication tables by heart and being a fluent reader because of our focus on phonics, eliminating illiteracy in this country, and for the first time in several generations primary schools are explicitly teaching English grammar. The hon. Gentleman should welcome these reforms.

T6. Virtual school heads are taking great steps in promoting the educational achievements of all children looked after by their local authority. Will the Minister join me in encouraging the progress of virtual school heads such as mine in North Warwickshire and ensure that they help to facilitate the entitlement to a good education for all children and young people in care? (903925)

I am more than happy to do so. The reason we put the role of virtual school heads on a statutory footing in the last Parliament is that they make a significant contribution, acting as the pushy parent promoting the educational progress and achievement of children in care by championing their needs and working closely with schools. Since March last year they have had responsibility for managing the pupil premium plus, which provides an extra £1,900 for every child in care to enable them to access the extra support that makes sure they can really fulfil their potential.

T5. This morning I spoke to the headteacher of one of Sheffield’s best-performing secondary schools, which is in my constituency. The Secretary of State talks about the need for certainty in the funding formula, but that headteacher is deeply concerned by the uncertainty created by the lack of detail in this morning’s statement. Like all good heads, he plans in advance, and he is now recruiting for 2017, but he is unsure what his funding will be in that year. When can I tell him that he will know whether he is a winner or a loser as a result of the consultation? (903924)

It is important that we understand the basic principles behind why we are having a consultation on the funding formula—that the same pupils, with the same characteristics, across the country need to attract the same amounts of money. There will obviously be another consultation on the details, but it is important that we know about the weightings behind the factors and that there is certainty and transparency for all schools going forward. We have said there will be a phased transition, and that we will be very mindful of those schools where there is potential for there to be less funding, to make sure they are not destabilised. However, it is absolutely right that it is this Government who have grasped this nettle after many years of previous Governments absolutely flunking that test.

T9. Will my hon. Friend please join me in recognising the vastly improved design and technology GCSE, which comes into play next year and which will help to inspire the next generation of technical and engineering professionals? (903928)

Yes, we have made some significant reforms to the D and T GCSE and A-level, working closely with the Design and Technology Association and the James Dyson Foundation to ensure we have high-quality D and T qualifications that lead on to higher education, apprenticeships and high-quality employment in the sector. I hope the qualification itself will lead to more young people taking it.

T7. Last week I attended an event organised by Positively UK and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in my constituency to celebrate the lives of women living with HIV. Does the Minister agree that not enough is being done to educate children in schools about HIV and the support available to women living with it? (903926)

The hon. Lady raises a very important issue. It is one of the very few explicitly statutory requirements that young people in secondary school have to be taught about the dangers of HIV. I share her concern. We need to improve the quality of PSHE education throughout our system.

The Minister will be aware of the huge pressure on school places in the London borough of Havering and in all outer London boroughs at the moment, particularly with the new bulge classes being imposed on primary schools, such as Gidea Park primary school in my constituency. What extra funding and support will the Government give to schools that face such pressures at this time?

Havering local authority received £23 million of basic need funding for places between 2011 and 2015, which helped to create nearly 3,000 new places. It has also been allocated a further £47 million to create the places needed by 2018. I should also say that we are pleased that a new free school is scheduled to open in Romford this September. Concordia Academy will provide 630 additional primary places in the area, and I hope my hon. Friend will work with other providers to encourage more free schools to be built in the local area.

T8. The recent, and latest, children’s home data-pack shows that there has been little change in the numbers of children placed at some distance from their home areas since 2012, despite the introduction of welcome new regulations. The underlying problem continues to be the unequal distribution of children’s homes across the country. What more can be done to support local authorities to work together and use their commissioning powers to ensure more local provision of children’s homes? (903927)

I share the hon. Lady’s concern that a large number of children are still being placed out of area in residential care—although of course there are always exceptions to the rule where it is better for them to be so. That is why we have commissioned the independent review from Sir Martin Narey to look at residential care in the round of all care options for children. The review will include how we can have a better spread of residential care in terms of geography and types of care on offer so that children who do see this as their best possible route through the care system have a better prospect than they do currently.

I welcome the consultation on a fairer funding formula, especially since it includes high-needs funding, which is underfunded in Kingston. What is my hon. Friend’s Department doing to support families navigating the new system in place for special educational needs provision?

One of parents’ biggest frustrations with the old SEN system was not knowing about, or finding it hard to access, the right support for their children. That is why I recently announced a further £80 million of support for the SEN reforms in 2016-17, including an additional £15 million for the independent supporters who act as catalysts for change in enabling families and young people better to navigate the system. Some 45,000 families have already benefited from that extra support.

T10. Free school meals are a lifeline for many vulnerable families in my constituency, yet there are still too few families getting the benefit. Does the Minister agree that local authorities that have the data required to identify these kids should have an automatic, perhaps a statutory, obligation to do so? (903929)

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I know that his colleague, the hon. Member for, I think—[Interruption.] His colleague, Frank Field, is proposing a private Member’s Bill on this issue. I agree that all families who are entitled to free school meals should be able to obtain them. There are issues to do with the collection of data and the sharing of information between different benefits, but I am keen, as I say, to make progress on this very important matter.

I think Birkenhead was the place the Secretary of State had in mind.

Given the strong link, in some cases, between early-age cannabis use and future mental health issues, what is the Minister’s assessment of efforts by schools to tackle and deter illegal drug use?

The Government have taken steps to tackle behaviour and discipline in schools, and teachers’ powers to search pupils for prohibited items, including illegal drugs, have been strengthened. They have the power to discipline pupils for misbehaviour and to confiscate, retain or dispose of a pupil’s property as a disciplinary penalty where reasonable to do so. A school’s behaviour policy should set out its approach to confiscating prohibited items.

Last week, Sir Michael Wilshaw warned of a brain drain due to the recruitment and retention crisis in teaching that the Minister is well aware of. I appreciate the Minister’s earlier answer about the use of qualified teachers in classes being up to schools, but does he share my concern that teaching assistants are increasingly being used to teach SEN and low-attaining pupils?

I do not accept the comments of Her Majesty’s chief inspector of schools. We are doing everything we can to recruit. Despite increasing pupil numbers, and the challenge of a strong economy and the strengthening graduate jobs market, we are ensuring that there are now record numbers of teachers in our classrooms. There are 13,000 more teachers in our classrooms today than in 2010. Recruitment in teaching is a challenge. I use every platform I have to extol the virtues and rewards of teaching to help raise the status of the teaching profession. What does the hon. Lady do?

Will the Minister join me in welcoming the development of high-quality curriculum materials under the banner of Education Destination, which uses the Isle of Wight’s natural environment and attractions to teach outside the classroom?

Yes, of course. Field trips, and trips to the theatre and to museums and so on, are a very important part of education, and we would encourage more schools to organise as many such trips for young people as possible.