Five key things Gavin Williamson told the education select committee
Isabella McRae and Fiona Simpson
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson faced questions from the education select committee about the impact of the third national lockdown on children and young people.
It comes amid an ongoing row over the standard of free school meals and the government faces questions about the impact of school closures on children and its decision to keep early years settings open.
Free school meals
From next week, the national food voucher scheme will be available for all schools, the secretary of education Gavin Williamson confirmed. Schools will also have the option of local voucher schemes.
The announcement comes after “inadequate” and “meagre” food packages, believed to be supplied by government-backed caterer Chartwells, faced widespread criticism after images were shared online.
Williamson said of the pictures: “It will not be tolerated. We will not live with that. There are clear standards as a sector that they need to deliver against. If they do not deliver against standards, action will have to be taken.”
Greenwich school closures row
Williamson defended the Department for Education’s decision to threaten Greenwich Council with legal action over plans to close schools early for Christmas.
The Education Secretary told the committee that it “would have been wrong” not to take action after Greenwich told schools to close in the week before the Christmas break as schools were still open in areas where “case rates were much higher”.
Williamson also claimed DfE had “no knowledge” of the new strain of Covid-19, hailed as responsible for the current lockdown, when the notice of direction was issued to Greenwich despite Health Secretary Matt Hancock making a statement on the variant hours earlier in the House of Commons.
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Read more: DfE had 'no knowledge' of new Covid strain when it ordered Greenwich to keep schools open
Nurseries ‘will stay open’
The Education Secretary confirmed that nurseries “will remain open” to all pupils despite fears over safety expressed by early years leaders.
“As you’ll be aware transmissibility is incredibly low among those that are most youngest,” Williamson said, adding: “I believe it was the right decision to make because so many families really rely on those provisions”.
“The advice that we have from scientists is that we can keep early years settings open and there is currently no advice against that.”
He also insisted he was “fighting tooth and nail” to have early years workers and school staff prioritised for vaccines.
However, staff at early years settings not on school sites will only be offered mass testing once the government’s community testing programme is rolled-out and not when mass testing is rolled-out in schools and on-site nurseries.
Questions over February school return
Williamson said that DfE “hopes to get children back to school after the February half-term”.
“I’m keen to ensure schools are closed for the shortest time possible,” he said. “It doesn’t just help children with their educational development, it also helps with their physical and mental wellbeing.”
Williamson claimed that 14 per cent of children were currently attending school, a figure that was disputed by the committee. It was later confirmed that this was the percentage of children in attendance across all schools on Monday 11 January.
Testing for coronavirus will remain an important part of ensuring children can get back to school, Williamson said, adding: “We’ve already had hundreds of thousands of tests completed for children and teaching staff.”
Mental health support for children, young people and professionals
The pandemic has put an “extraordinary strain” on young people’s mental health and families, the Education Secretary said.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists recently reported a record number of children’s mental health disorders. This includes a 400 per cent increase in eating disorders among young people, chair of the committee, Robert Halfon said.
Responding to questions regarding provisions for children’s mental health, Williamson said that he has asked the minister for universities Michelle Donlan and children’s minister Vicky Ford to “convene a taskforce to look at some of the real issues that children are having to deal with”.
The taskforce will look at “how the government can best respond to some of these real challenges that we’re dealing with in mental health”.
Williamson also said that the Wellbeing for Education Return Programme, launched in August, will continue to give teaching staff the training to support young people facing additional pressures as a result of the pandemic.
