Speeches by Dixon.

“One of the positives we saw during the covid pandemic was an outpouring of neighbourliness. Churches and faith communities played a key role in mobilising support for those most in need, delivering meals, shopping and prescription medications to those who were advised to stay at home. Will the Minister join me in payin…”

“I encourage Opposition Members to heed the appeal from the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) to stop scoring party political points on such an important and sensitive subject. I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement, in particular the Government’s commitment to take action to protect victims and secure ju…”

“12. What steps he is taking to help improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

“I thank the Minister for her response, and I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s efforts to secure a sustainable ceasefire and the release of hostages. Many of my constituents have expressed concern about the recent raid of Kamal Adwan hospital, which was one of the last healthcare facilities still operating in Gaza. The h…”

“I appreciate what you are saying about empowering local school leaders to make those decisions, but it is very clear from the evidence, with the cuts to school budgets, that the pupil premium is going just to fill gaps. Given that the evidence base is there for tutoring, and that the amount that went in was never as mu…”

“It was just a point that colleagues were making about auto-enrolment, and about the problems of some areas having higher and others having lower FSM data. Whoever raised it might want to raise it, Chair.”

“In terms of all this extra money that is going in, you mentioned it being on two metrics, one of those being disadvantage and the other being attainment. Is that using free school meals again for the education investment areas getting money? Is that the measure of disadvantage, or is it something else?”

“That sits with you.”

“But you are funding the education investment areas, so are you capturing and spreading good practice from the education investment areas, which is specifically where deprived funding is going in?”

“But it does not just happen. Again, if you are a school that is struggling, you do not just happen to notice, “Oh, that school has performed well. I will go off and go on a visit.” Whose responsibility is it to spread good practice, capture and share?”

“For clarification, whose responsibility is it to capture that learning and spread good practice? Is it Ofsted’s?”

“There is one other question from me, which is about the education investment areas. I was wondering about the way you work with them, and you also mentioned earlier the expanded RISE teams. The EEF obviously produces evidence, but what some areas and schools need is support. It is all very well reading a nice report te…”

“Do you have a sense of how much of the research is focused specifically on what works for disadvantaged children?”

“Given the importance of absence, as we heard earlier, any evidence base about what works to prevent persistent absence and to re‑engage particularly young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in education, particularly in secondary schools, certainly seems like a gap.”

“What about shared evaluation? Again, we have spoken already at some length and the Education Endowment Foundation has been mentioned a number of times. It was set up as a What Works centre. I probably should have declared an interest: I led another What Works centre, the Centre for Ageing Better. I see that you have re…”

“From my work on health inequalities I know there is a win-win there, in a sense. Obviously, from the Marmot work on health inequalities, we know those early years are drivers of lifelong health inequalities, as well as the inequalities that we are concerned with today in education. I can see that for the DHSC it would …”

“I want to come to cross-Government working, recognising that when the NAO Report was being prepared we did not have the opportunity mission, and you have already talked a little about that. Obviously it is vital for disadvantaged children that schools, and indeed the DFE, work very closely with other Government Departm…”

“I am just trying to understand this. You have increased the funding in the national funding formula at the same time but, as you say, they are quite different, in that the pupil premium is at least intended to more directly address disadvantage, where we have seen the gap get worse and attainment levels deteriorate for…”

“If I can jump ahead, because this builds off that, it sounds good that you are investing in an evidence-based approach in terms of the breakfast clubs. Looking at the EEF data, there is hugely positive evidence for a national tutoring programme, yet that is an area where you have stopped or withdrawn funding, or at lea…”

“I wanted to come on to that, in terms of how you therefore balance decisions about where to invest, given some of the emphasis here on academic attainment, and the point that you were making particularly in relation to the opportunity mission, which is on wider outcomes. Again, some of the local schools that are in mor…”