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Tag: Kate Green

  • Kate Green – 2020 Comments on a German-Style Education System

    Kate Green – 2020 Comments on a German-Style Education System

    Below is the text of the comments made by Kate Green, the Shadow Secretary of State for Education, on 9 July 2020.

    Any new support for further education is welcome, but it’s a bit rich for the government to complain about a crisis in FE that they themselves have created. Funding has been slashed by billions of pounds and support for learners scrapped.

    Repeated speeches from the Secretary of State calling for a German-style system are no replacement for the investment the sector needs. Attempts to set up further and higher education against each other are damaging and counterproductive. Everyone in post-16 education will tell you what’s needed is collaboration across both sectors to maximise opportunities for lifelong learning so people can develop new skills and have fulfilling lives.

    It is time for the government to move beyond the empty rhetoric and give post-16 education the investment it needs.

  • Kate Green – 2020 Speech on Re-opening Schools

    Kate Green – 2020 Speech on Re-opening Schools

    Below is the text of the speech made by Kate Green, the Shadow Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 2 July 2020. This was her first intervention in her role, following the dismissal of Rebecca Long-Bailey in the previous week.

    Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for an advance copy of it. I also thank him for his call last night. I very much look forward to working with him.

    Mr Speaker, every child must be safely back in school in September. By then, many children will have experienced nearly six months’ gap in their education. Some have been able to maintain their learning during that period, but there has been a huge gap in learning for others, especially the most disadvantaged. A senior official in the Secretary of State’s own Department has warned that the attainment gap could widen by as much as 75% as a result of the crisis. Today’s announcement finally recognises the desperate pleas of heads, staff and governors for information and certainty about plans for the next academic year. For too long, the Government have been asleep at the wheel. The announcement today comes just three weeks before the end of term, and an immense amount needs to be done to prepare.

    Staff have been working flat out since February half term and I, too, want to thank teachers, school leaders and everyone who works in our education settings for their exceptional efforts during these unprecedented times. Over the summer they will need a break, and as they prepare plans for return, they will also need the active support of the Department. It cannot be left to heads to struggle through on their own. So I have a number of questions for the right hon. Gentleman. What consultation has been undertaken in preparing this guidance with heads, teachers and school staff, governors and unions, who have made many sensible and practical suggestions for students’ return? The Government need to learn from their previous mistakes. That is why Labour suggested a taskforce of school leaders, which would have meant we could bring children back to school sooner.

    Can the Secretary of State guarantee that every school will have full access to testing and tracing, and all the personal protective equipment and other resources that they need to open safely? The Government’s track record has not been impressive so far, and we cannot allow any further failure to supply the safety essentials to prevent children’s return. I support the Secretary of State in reintroducing compulsory attendance, but fining poor parents will not serve the best interests of their children. Parents need reassurance that their children will be safe, especially in communities, including ethnic minority communities, where the prevalence of covid is higher. Many children will have found the past few months unsettling, even traumatic. What is needed is a trauma-informed approach to school and to families.

    Staggered starts may present difficult challenges for parents. Can the Secretary of State say more about wraparound care for families and about transport arrangements for children to travel to school? Can he confirm that all children are expected to be safe in school in September? Will there be a delay in incoming reception children starting school?

    In relation to early years, what financial support will be available for parents or childcare providers to protect their viability if children cannot attend, or if settings are forced to close?​
    I welcome the recognition of the needs of children with special educational needs and disabilities, and the assurances on education, health and care plans. Will the Secretary of State guarantee to the House that the needs of those children will be met in full?

    Does the Secretary of State agree that a broad curriculum, including arts and humanities, supports children’s attainment in the core subjects, too? What discussions have taken place with further education providers about how they will provide the “full education” envisaged?

    Will the Secretary of State say a little more about plans for students who are due to sit exams? What about home-schooled children whom schools refuse to assess? A huge divide is opening up between children who have had a good study experience at home and those who have lacked the resources to learn. Ofqual must address that in its recommendations for arrangements for exams next year.

    The announcement of the £1 billion of catch-up funding is welcome, but can the Secretary of State confirm that it is all new money and will not be funded by cuts elsewhere? What guarantee can he give of the availability of sufficient high-quality tutoring capacity with tutors expert in the subjects they will teach? Does he share my concern that requiring schools to contribute 25% of the cost of the national tutoring programme advantages the better-off schools? Why have post-16 students been excluded from catch-up funding support?

    On Tuesday, it was reported that the 230,000 laptops that had been promised for children who lacked full digital access had not been delivered in full, as promised, by the end of June; when will they arrive?

    Finally, the six-week-long summer holiday always widens the attainment gap, and this year that will be exacerbated by the time already spent out of school. What activities and support are being put in place for the summer break? The funding for pupils on free school meals is welcome, but what about children who become eligible for free school meals during the summer holiday? Will the Secretary of State guarantee that no eligible child will miss out?

  • Kate Green – 2020 Speech on the Immigration Bill

    Kate Green – 2020 Speech on the Immigration Bill

    Below is the text of the speech made by Kate Green, the Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, in the House of Commons on 18 May 2020.

    I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

    Rebuilding our economy will be vital to the post-covid recovery. Immigrants to this country have long had an important role in our economic success, and we will need their efforts and talents again. I recognise, of course, that we will be in a very different situation in the coming months from the tight labour market of recent years. None the less, we can expect that some sectors will continue to struggle to recruit from the domestic labour pool.

    That includes key sectors in my constituency, such as social care, hospitality, and retail and food processing, for which the £25,600 threshold will likely lead to significant and ongoing labour shortfalls, yet those sectors are essential to our recovery and our return to normal life. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the Government’s proposed approach is causing concern to businesses in my constituency.

    I particularly want to speak about the impact the Bill could have on children, starting with EEA national children who could be eligible for the EU settlement scheme. Home Office figures reveal that, at the end of March, 493,800 applications to the scheme for children had been received, 84% of which had been concluded. That is worryingly lower than the 90% of cases that have concluded overall and, very concerningly, includes only a small number of looked-after children who could ​be eligible, only 11% of whom, according to the Children’s Society, have secured status. I accept that those cases can be complex, but it seems that, despite guidance from the Government and the Children’s Society, local authorities do not give sufficient priority to progressing applications for looked-after children in their care.

    The Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit points to long delays for those children, even before an application has been submitted. Obtaining documents and securing advice is harder; contact with family members who confer the right to status may have been lost; during the covid crisis applications cannot be submitted by post; and the Government have warned that the crisis will create delays in processing them. Ministers have indicated that late applications will be accepted for children in such circumstances, but we need a guarantee that no child will be left without the legal status to which they are entitled.

    I am concerned that more children will be subject to the “no recourse to public funds” condition as a result of a new immigration system, including some children born in the UK. Of course I recognise the support that exists under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, but that is insufficient. On 7 May, an eight-year-old British boy, supported by his migrant mother, won a ruling in the High Court that the policy denying families like his access to the welfare safety net breached article 3 of the European convention on human rights. The covid crisis has brought the vulnerability of families with no recourse to public funds into stark relief, and we need urgently to hear how the Government intend to respond to that ruling.

    Finally, and harmfully to children’s wellbeing, too often the immigration system separates children from their parents. We know about the issue of family reunion and the way in which the income threshold keeps children apart from parents. Meanwhile refugee children cannot sponsor family members to join them in this country, and we are still waiting for certainty for separated children currently covered by the Dublin III arrangements, which enable children with family members in the UK to have their asylum claims transferred here to be considered. The Dublin arrangements will expire at the end of the year, and the Government have been indicating for some time that they want to replicate them post transition. We are none the wiser as to how they will do that, so I hope that tonight the Minister can update us.

    I should like to make a point about clause 5. I simply do not see the justification for the sweeping powers that it gives to Ministers. If it is to rectify deficiencies and retain EU law, the Government already have the ability to do that under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. If it is to make new policy for the post-transition period, that will affect individuals’ expectations and rights, and have a potentially significant impact on labour mobility that should be debated and provided for in primary legislation. I therefore hope that Ministers will be prepared to reconsider clause 5 as the Bill continues its parliamentary passage.

  • Kate Green – 2019 Speech on Immigration

    Below is the text of the speech made by Kate Green, the Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, in the House of Commons on 28 January 2019.

    First, may I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in relation to research support I have received in my office for work on immigration matters? May I also say upfront that I strongly endorse the remarks of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the support she has from a number of other right hon. and hon. Members around the House for taking action on indefinite immigration detention, which I think we can all agree is an obscene reflection on our current system?

    It has been a pleasure to hear so many Members from around the House speaking so positively of the contribution and value immigrants have brought to our country over so many years, and it is true in my constituency, too: we are proud to be home to so many diverse communities, and I hope that the message that has gone forth from the House tonight to those who are here now or who might be considering making their home here in future is, “You will be welcome; you will be valued members of our community; and we will make sure that during your time spent in this country, you will be looked after well and can be happy.”

    This Bill is very light in detail, yet it offers very wide powers to Ministers to implement all sorts of potential changes via immigration rules. While I appreciate that that is the way that many immigration changes are brought in already under our present system, the Bill’s ending of free movement represents a seismic change in our system that I believe—and I think this belief is widespread—ought to be subject to careful parliamentary scrutiny.

    We also know that our existing immigration system, which is presumably to be transplanted across in some degree to EEA nationals in future, is already flawed, and we have rightly heard tonight about Windrush. I would also highlight the recent DNA debacle, which we do not want to be replicated for future immigrants coming to this country, as we fear.

    We are pleased that the Government have asked the Law Commission to look at how immigration rules might be simplified, but it seems premature or, indeed, ​inconsistent to ask it to do so while asking us to give powers to Ministers to make ongoing changes that the commission will not be able to take account of. The Henry VIII powers in this Bill are very inappropriate in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, especially in the light of the direction of travel laid out in the White Paper and in particular, as we have heard again and again tonight, the very significant concerns about the £30,000 income threshold to assess whether a migrant has the skills to mean that we would want them to make their home here. As we have heard tonight, income is not commensurate with skills, and qualifications are not commensurate with the skills we may need across a whole range of sectors. I hope that the Minister has heard the widespread concerns around the House and will look again at that threshold after tonight’s debate.

    I want to echo comments made, including by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) the shadow Home Secretary, about the Government’s proposal for short-term work visas. These have some place in an immigration system, but on a large scale they will be inefficient for employers, create insecurity for individuals, damage family solidarity since family members will not be eligible to come in with those on short-term visas and damage community cohesion and integration. I particularly say to the Minister that there is a serious risk of the exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers on these short-term visas, as well as the risk that they will undercut UK workers if unscrupulous employers choose to take advantage of this system.

    We will need strong protections at the very least to support a short-term workers visa scheme, yet today our labour market inspectorate is not well resourced. Indeed, Focus on Labour Exploitation tells me that we are at about half the global benchmark of inspectors to workers—it should be one inspector for every 10,000 workers. FLEX calculates that, given that benchmark, businesses face inspection on average once every 500 years. There is great concern about Ministers’ ability to make immigration rules that might increase the vulnerability of those workers without full parliamentary scrutiny.

    The Bill will allow Ministers to change rules on social security co-ordination, which is important in facilitating employment mobility. That is good for the economy and for individuals, but it is also a matter of fairness to individuals who have contributed and who have expectations about their entitlements going forward. I hope that the Minister will categorically rule out any possibility that the Government would in future unilaterally withdraw the ability to aggregate and passport pension and social security rights in the event of no deal or after the transition period.

    I also want to express concerns for those who do not or cannot regularise their status, including some of those applying for settled status, or those who might become irregular in future, such as overstayers. The current rules on income thresholds are particularly damaging for families, creating a risk of poverty and homelessness. In a number of debates about our Brexit plans over the past years, I have highlighted particular concerns about the wellbeing of children. Again, I underline that issue for the Minister tonight. The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium has particular concerns about children, because both EEA and non-EEA children ​might become subject to rules under which they have no recourse to public funds, creating huge hardship and, as we have heard, shunting costs to local authorities, which will have to pick up the pieces as a result. I hope that tonight the Minister might commit to relaxing or at least looking at relaxing the exceptional circumstances criteria set out in the 2012 immigration rules changes, so that families with dependants under the age of 18 have access to the public funds they need.

    There are also concerns about the cost of regularising one’s status and the complexity of the process. There was a welcome U-turn on fees for applying for settled status earlier this month, but the system is still complex. We have to be worried when the Home Secretary has spoken about the 90% success rate for those going to the beta testing phase—even in a relatively limited control group, 10% of cases cannot easily or readily acquire settled status. There is great worry that that ratio might increase in future as more vulnerable individuals make their applications.

    I am concerned about exceptionally high fees and repeat fees for those who will not be applying for settled status, such as those who might arrive in future and will then go on to the 10-year path to citizenship. Will Ministers reconsider the impact of that, particularly on children and young people?

    What advice are the Government are offering to families to ensure that applicants can achieve the highest form of status to which they are entitled? For example, a child with a claim to British citizenship should be able to make that claim in their own right and not be expected simply to be reliant on the lower settled status that might be available to their parent. That leads me to ask the Minister about information and advice, and to ask her to consider the importance of ensuring legal aid and appeal rights.

    I do not welcome the Bill tonight. In many ways, it will be bad, especially for the most vulnerable in our country. It will have worrying equality impacts, as we have heard from a number of colleagues, and it leaves the future very uncertain for EEA and UK nationals alike. In those circumstances, I look forward to voting against the Bill because it does not give our country and the individuals living in it now and in the future the rights and good will that they deserve.