Labour calls out Prime Minister’s “catalogue of chaos” and ramps up pressure with vote on education catch up

Labour will today [Wednesday] urge the Prime Minister to end the “catalogue of chaos” on education that has plagued his premiership, and ask Conservative MPs to vote for an ambitious plan for children’s recovery before the summer holidays.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Prime Minister has presided over a string of high-profile failures on education, peaking with the resignation of his education recovery commissioner - Sir Kevan Collins - last week, who decried the lack of ambition for children in the Conservatives’ education catch-up plan.

This latest failure follows a series of blunders under the Prime Minister’s leadership, including:

· Failing to feed children over the October half-term and having to be shamed into doing so over the 2020 Christmas and summer holidays

· An exams fiasco last summer as thousands of students received unfair grades amid the Government’s algorithm chaos, and a u-turn on holding exams this summer

· Testing chaos throughout the autumn term kept children out of school, with testing not in place for school kids until 5 months after Labour called for them to be prioritised

The Prime Minister has enabled this catalogue of errors to continue unabated after he allowed the Treasury to bulldoze Sir Kevan’s education recovery plan, despite giving it his personal support. The tutoring policy finally announced will deliver less than an hour of tutoring a fortnight to pupils across the next school year.

Today Labour is calling on the Government to finally listen to teachers, parents and young people and vote to bring back a plan for children’s recovery before the summer, which matches the ambition of Labour’s proposals put forward last week. Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, Kate Green MP, will discuss Labour’s plan with teachers and children at a breakfast club and school visit in London today.

If passed, the vote would require inclusion of policies set out in Labour’s Children’s Recovery Plan such as providing funding for schools to deliver new extracurricular clubs and activities to boost wellbeing, deliver targeted support for children who have missed out most, and an extension to free school meals this summer ensuring no child goes hungry over the holidays.

Kate Green MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, said:

“This catalogue of chaos makes a mockery of the Prime Minister’s claim that education is a priority. Throughout his premiership children, young people and families have been let down time and time again.

“Boris Johnson has not lifted a finger to secure the investment in children’s futures his own education expert said is needed, announcing a recovery plan that is totally insufficient to help every child bounce back from the pandemic.

“Labour's bold plans would invest in our children’s futures, compensating for the Conservatives’ failures over the last year, to ensure all children can play, learn and develop after the pandemic.

“Conservative MPs will have the chance to vote with Labour today and finally commit to ambitious plans to invest in our children’s futures.”

Ends

Notes to Editors

· MPs will vote on Wednesday 9 June on Labour’s Opposition Day motion:

That this House regrets the resignation of the education recovery commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins, over the Government’s inadequate proposals to support children after the coronavirus pandemic; agrees with Sir Kevan’s assessment that the current half-hearted approach risks failing hundreds of thousands of young people; and therefore calls on the Government to bring forward a more ambitious plan before the onset of the school summer holiday which includes an uplift to the pupil premium and increased investment in targeted supported, makes additional funding available to schools for extracurricular clubs and activities to boost children’s wellbeing, and provides free school meals to all eligible children throughout the summer holiday.

· Labour’s Children’s Recovery Plan sets out bold policies for children’s recovery including funding for extracurricular clubs and activities, reversing the Government’s cut and investing in pupil premium and delivering free school meals over the summer holiday: https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/15059_21-Childrens-Recovery-Plan.pdf

· School catch-up tsar resigns over lack of fundinghttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57335558

· The Prime Minister promised Sir Kevan money was no object but has rolled over in face of opposition from the Treasury https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-backed-away-promises-made-schools-tsar-kevan-collins-vnhl6f25m

· On 21^st October 2020 Conservative MPs voted against Labour’s opposition day motion to: That this House calls on the Government to continue directly funding provision of free school meals over the school holidays until Easter 2021 to prevent over a million children going hungry during this crisis.

The Government denied children free school meals over the October half-term.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-10-21/debates/79C0CA8D-CADF-4562-9317-5A51810BB5DE/FreeSchoolMeals

· Boris Johnson u-turned twice on providing free school meals over the Christmas and then summer holidays in 2020,https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/08/marcus-rashford-forces-boris-johnson-into-second-u-turn-on-child-food-poverty

· BBC: A-levels and GCSEs: U-turn as teacher estimates to be used for exam resultshttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53810655

· In January 2021, the Government cancelled exams again after promising they would go ahead this year https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/07/a-level-and-gcse-students-react-to-cancelled-exams

· The Government’s testing chaos throughout the autumn kept children out of schoolhttps://schoolsweek.co.uk/ministers-failed-promises-on-testing-undermining-school-returns-as-hundreds-face-delays/

· The Government did not get testing in place in schools until January – five months after Labour called for kids to be prioritised

https://dfemedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/12/15/mass-testing-in-schools-your-questions-answered/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54225281