The chancellor has “questions to answer” over the “shameful decision to block a proper plan” for children’s catch-up learning amid the pandemic, a shadow minister has said.
Addressing the Commons today, Labour MP Bridget Phillipson said the Treasury must “explain to parents and families why they believe our country doesn’t need its own commissioner’s plan” for education recovery, following the resignation of catch-up tsar Sir Kevan Collins earlier this month.
The shadow Treasury minister made the comments during Labour’s opposition day debate on the allocation of funding for the catch-up premium.
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She said: “It’s the Cabinet’s answer to Macavity, the chancellor of the exchequer who has questions to answer here. It is the Treasury which took the shameful decision to block a proper plan for our children’s future - the minister knows it, we all know it.
“Comprehensive plans for the recovery of our children’s education were developed and circulated within government and then of course they were stopped in their tracks by the Treasury.
“Of course perhaps that’s not right, perhaps the government will feel able to disclose the correspondence we seek today to have published, but the sheer gravity of this issue, the lives of a generation and the strength of our future economy means that it is crucial that we understand the Treasury’s position.”
Ms Phillipson warned of the social, emotional and academic damage to children caused by the disruption of Covid, adding: “A generation who missed out on their education and who are not given the support they need to catch up would be a generation betrayed.”
She called on the Treasury to “explain to parents and families why they believe our country doesn’t need its own commissioner’s plan”, adding: “It is not too late for the government to change course.”
Also speaking during this afternoon’s debate, schools minister Nick Gibb said the government’s education policies were undoing the “soft bigotry of low expectations”.
He told the Commons: “Since this government came into office in 2010, we have been focused on our mission of raising school standards for all pupils.
“Successive prime ministers and education secretaries have put ambitious plans in place to make sure that no matter where you were born or where in the country you live, you will receive a world-class education.”
He went on: “Our reforms are turning the tide, rebuffing the fatalistic assumptions of too many who seem to accept that the gap between rich and poor is inevitable, the soft bigotry of low expectations which for years was writing off pupils’ lives rather than striving to give them the education needed to influence their own destinies.”
Mr Gibb later said: “We know that this pandemic has disproportionately impacted on children, with most missing at least 115 days of school, and that’s precisely why we took immediate action to provide education remotely, delivering over 1.3 million laptops and tablets alongside wireless routers and access to free mobile data.”
