Covid-19: Impact on Attendance in Education Settings

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on the impact of coronavirus on children and young people’s attendance in education settings.

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. This Government are absolutely focused on returning society back to normal as soon as possible, and that includes in our schools, colleges and right across the education sector. As I have made clear throughout the pandemic, my top priority has been to keep children in school. Indeed, as I speak today, millions of children have been back in the classroom since 8 March, learning with their friends and teachers. As I am sure the House will agree, that is exactly where they belong. The vast majority of schools are open—99.8% of state-funded schools were open on 24 June—benefiting children who have given up so much during the pandemic.

Back in February, the Prime Minister set out an extensive road map. We need to continue to be careful to complete this cautious but irreversible road map to freedom. We understand the frustration of parents and pupils who may feel that they are being asked to isolate unnecessarily. As I have said throughout the pandemic, children are best off in school. As we continue with our educational recovery, it is vital that absence is minimised as far as possible, and that children and young people attend school. I am looking carefully every day at how we manage the balance between safeguarding children’s education and reducing transmission of the virus, because I know that too many children are still having their education disrupted, no matter how good the remote education they receive.

T he new Health Secretary and I have already discussed these matters, and I am working with him across my Department, as well as with scientists and public health experts, to take the next steps. However, as the House is aware, some restrictions remain in place in schools. I want to see those restrictions, including bubbles, removed as quickly as possible, along with wider restrictions in society. I do not think that it is acceptable for children to face restrictions over and above those on wider society, especially as they have given up so much to keep older generations safe over the past 18 months. Further steps will be taken to reduce the number of children who have to self-isolate, including looking at the outcomes of the daily contact testing trial, as we consider a new model for keeping children in schools and colleges. We constantly assess all available data, and we expect to be able to confirm plans to lift restrictions and bubbles as part of step 4. Once that decision has been made, we will issue guidance immediately to schools.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question.

Data published yesterday showed that 375,000 children were out of school last week because of coronavirus. It is nine weeks until the new academic year begins, but we have no idea what the Secretary of State plans to keep them in class. School leaders dread another last-minute announcement. They need time to put plans in place, and their staff desperately need a break over the summer.

The Secretary of State has briefed that the bubbles policy will be replaced with daily testing from September. Will testing take place in schools? If so, what support will they receive to do it? Can he tell the House the results of the pilots in schools using regular testing instead of bubbles? What impact has that had on the number of coronavirus cases in the school community and the number of hours that children and staff remain in class? Will he tell us why, if he believes he has a solution that will keep children safely in the classroom, he is waiting until September? What is he doing now to keep children in school before the summer holidays?

Time and again, Labour has called for mitigations to keep children learning, including ventilation and Nightingale classrooms. Why has that not happened? Will the Secretary of State clarify why he abandoned the policy of masks in schools when cases were rising and masks were still required in shops and indoor spaces? Will he share the scientific evidence that led to that decision?

Can the Secretary of State confirm that children who have to isolate over the summer and cannot attend the holiday activities and food programme will still receive free meals? Finally, will he tell us when he expects to receive Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advice on vaccinating older children? Does he believe that they will begin receiving the vaccine before September?

Ministers’ negligence on letting the delta variant into our country is keeping hundreds of thousands of children out of the classroom. The Secretary of State must act now or make way for someone who will.

On daily contact testing, that is something that Public Health England has been running trials on. We expect it to report back to the Department of Health and Social Care and to us in the coming weeks. We are very clear that we want action to be taken, and that is why we very much want to see the lifting of more restrictions and of the bubbles in schools as part of the next step. As the hon. Lady will appreciate, that decision has to be made across Government as part of the next stage of our road map, but we will of course be informing schools and keeping them up to date as to progress in plenty of time before the start of the next term.

The Labour party deigns to give advice. Let us not forget that its advice was to join the European Union vaccine programme. Well, where would that have got us? It was the Labour party that said that it would not be possible for schools to deliver testing right across all our schools and colleges, yet that was what we were able to do. And it was the Labour party that opposed children going back into the classroom and did not support this Government’s efforts to ensure that children were able to get their education at the earliest possible stage. At every point, the Labour party has done everything it can to frustrate and stop the opportunities for children to be in school.

I thank my right hon. Friend for what he is doing to try to keep schools open, but we have 300,000 children being sent home. In addition, 93,500 children are missing 50% of school or more, as identified by the Centre for Social Justice this week in a hard-hitting report.

We are in danger of creating a generation of ghost children, denied a proper chance to climb the education ladder of opportunity. Will my right hon. Friend update the guidance and look to establish mobile testing units in schools as soon as possible, even before September, to stop the need for children to be sent home? Will he also set out a plan, galvanising the forces of the Department, local authorities and schools, for how these 100,000 ghost children are going to be returned to school properly so that we can bring their education back to life and do not damage their life chances for decades to come?

My right hon. Friend raises the important issue of children who are not attending school. That is why we have pulled together the REACT teams, which are a combination of DFE teams, regional schools commissioners, local authorities, the police and, crucially, schools themselves, to target those children, working alongside the supporting families initiative led by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is already extensive testing in schools. In fact, some 57 million tests have already been conducted in schools and colleges across the country, so we already have a well-established testing mechanism. The next stage, as we move to step 4 of the road map, is that we want schools to be able to operate more freely. We want all children to be able to be part of the summer activities, whether that is the holiday activity and food programmes or the additional summer schools that schools are laying on. That is why, as part of step 4, we are looking at lifting the restrictions and bubbles that schools currently have to operate, and we are looking at doing that at the very earliest opportunity, so children will be able to benefit through the summer.

Will the Secretary of State stop this dither and delay? On education matters, everyone in this House should be united, but there is a generation of young children who have missed education and will continue to miss education. Families, and parents particularly, want certainty. They want to know what the rules are and what they can expect, so that they can plan their everyday lives. Most of all, all of us who care about education know that the upcoming summer holiday could be an opportunity for a vast number of national volunteers to work with children, to give them the vital support they are missing because they have missed so much school education. Come on, Secretary of State, take the lead and do something positive, imaginative and bold.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his thoughts. We have already outlined, if he had listened to my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), that we are looking towards lifting the restrictions, especially bubbles, as part of the next step of the road map. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the Government will, in the very near future, announce the next step of the road map, and lifting the restrictions will very much be part of that. It is important that all our actions, right across Government, are properly co-ordinated as part of a process of easing restrictions right across the country.

I am delighted that the Government prioritised the reopening of schools as we eased lockdown; I congratulate my right hon. Friend on all his efforts to make sure that children return to schools and get in-person education as much as possible. Does he agree that rolling out regular testing as we do so will ensure that we not only stop the spread of the virus, but prevent children from being unnecessarily sent home and missing out on their education? At the same time, we must make sure that the tests are carried out properly and appropriately.

I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend will probably have seen the figures: more than 50 million tests have already been conducted across schools and colleges. We are very much aware that testing has been an important part of getting schools reopened, and we continue to work with colleagues in the Department for Health and Social Care and in track and trace to ensure that testing is available to all pupils and their families.

The number of children missing school is rising every single day and families are at their wits’ end, while the Government are once again far too slow to react. Will the Government act now and establish a rapid taskforce with public health directors and school leaders, with a mandate to keep schools open safely?

It is fair to say that Liberal Democrats have never been very good at numbers. Actually, schools are open right across the country—they are welcoming children. Millions of children are in school, benefiting from being with their teachers, and we continue to take action to ensure we do everything we can to maximise the number of children there. As part of step 4, as I touched on earlier, we will be looking at lifting more restrictions; that will be announced in the near future.

I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s work to keep schools open and his ambition to see the end of the bubble system, but may I ask him to look at a cohort of children who risk being caught up negatively by covid guidance and restrictions: those who are due to start primary school this September? I declare an interest in that my own son is due to start school this September. Under the current guidance, schools are unable to run the settling-in sessions that are essential for children to familiarise themselves with their new environment and have the best start in school life. Will my right hon. Friend take action to ensure that those settling-in sessions can happen?

I will share some of the guidance that we have. There is flexibility for schools, for those key transition years, to have some level of familiarisation with those children. I will organise it that my office shares that information with my hon. Friend.

The number of children self-isolating has quadrupled during this month because of increases in cases of covid. Following this sharp rise, more children are now able to learn online from home with the IT equipment and internet access provided to schools by the Government. Hundreds of families in my constituency of Birmingham, Hall Green have benefited from the scheme, but I am now hearing that many of the devices have been either disabled or taken back by the schools. That has a significant impact on learning, especially for those who are living in poverty. It is important that access to IT equipment should not be disrupted. Will the Secretary of State therefore ensure that children keep the laptops and return them only when they leave school at year 6 or 11?

The investment that we made in IT equipment is there to help pupils. Although those laptops are the property of the schools, we very much want the schools to prioritise using them to help children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. I will certainly take up the hon. Gentleman’s point and look in more detail at whether we can give more guidance and a stronger steer to schools to really emphasise that point.