School reopening plan demanded by Tory MPs

As reported by BBC news, Conservative MPs are asking the government to set out a ‘route map’ for the reopening of schools in England, amid growing concern about the impact of closures on children’s education

The chairman of the education select committee, Robert Halfon, has asked for a plan to be laid out in the Commons. The government has said it is “too soon” to say when schools will reopen to all pupils. But it will not be until after the February half-term at the earliest.

Halfon, Conservative MP for for Harlow, tweeted that he had asked to table an urgent question in on the matter. If the request is granted, an education minister will need to respond to his queries.

Halfon told BBC Breakfast there was “enormous uncertainty”, with newspaper reports that schools would not reopen before Easter. He called for the government to set out “what the conditions need to be” for pupils to return to schools.

He said: “There are enormous pressures on parents at the moment, some of them are giving up their jobs or working part time, they are losing income because they have to stay at home to look after their children, they need to know what is going on.”

Halfon suggested the government could consider tighter restrictions in other parts of society and the economy, in order to enable schools to open.

Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey told BBC Breakfast the prime minister was “very keen” for pupils to return as soon as possible and she hoped the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) would be in a position to decide whether teachers and support workers should be moved up the vaccination priority list by mid-to-late February.

Children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield joined the call for clarity and told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Children are more withdrawn, they are really suffering in terms of isolation, their confidence levels are falling, and for some there are serious issues.”

Mark Harper, chairman of the Covid Recovery Group of Conservative MPs, told Today lockdown measures should be eased two or three weeks after the first four priority groups had been vaccinated.

“At that point you need to start bringing the economy back to life, and the first thing that needs to be reopened are our schools so our children can get back,” he said.

Schools in England have been closed to all but vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers since the national lockdown began on 5 January. Pupils have been told they will be learning at home until at least half-term in mid-February.

BBC chief political correspondent Adam Fleming said there was frustration in government that the debate had become about dates, rather than medical data, and ministers feared that any potential timetable would be overtaken by the virus.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson has said schools will be given two weeks’ notice before reopening – which he would “certainly hope” would happen before Easter. Health secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC’s Andrew Marr he also hoped pupils would return after Easter but that the government needed to get coronavirus case numbers down and protect the country from new variants.

Wales’ first minister said on Friday that the “wholesale” return of pupils to school after February half-term was “unlikely”.