Labour's plan to tackle educational inequalities holding back Yorkshire: Catherine McKinnell

The sad fact is that students in Yorkshire and the Humber have achieved lower scores on average than their counterparts in London and since 2019 this gap has been getting bigger.

This year we have seen 42 per cent of students from London go on to their first-choice, compared with just 28 per cent in Yorkshire and the Humber. This is a massive worry. There shouldn’t be any regional difference in grades and every young person should have exactly the same opportunities to progress with the next stage of their lives, whether they live in Salford, Sheffield or Surbiton.

Compared to the South East, Yorkshire and the Humber has a lower average attainment score and pupils are more likely to be disadvantaged and eligible for free school meals. That means that young people there are two steps behind other parts of the country, just because of where they are from. This is just not fair.

Geographical inequality has a whole host of causes - we know for instance that across England, including Yorkshire, 700,000 more children are living in poverty now than in 2010, and this is just not good enough.

I know that even beginning to bridge these gaps is an enormous task – but it’s not one we will be shying away from, and this government has made breaking down barriers to opportunity one of its central missions. That means action both inside and outside the school and college gates.

That work includes creating a cross-government Child Poverty Taskforce which I will be part of.

Jointly chaired by the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, and Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, the taskforce will be supported by a new Child Poverty Unit, drawing together experts from within and outside government.

This will help co-ordinate the development of a strategy to reduce child poverty, using all available levers to drive action including through helping households to bring down essential costs and supporting them to increase their income including by considering social security reforms.

High and rising school standards are also at the heart of our mission to give every child the best start in life. We know that doing this is no mean feat and will involve work right through the sector, from early years intervention right up to KS4. That is why we are committed to rolling out breakfast clubs in all schools, increasing mental health support for young people and ensuring there is better early speech and language support.

We also know that schools up and down the country are finding it far harder to recruit the high calibre teachers they need for certain subjects like maths and physics. If pupils aren’t being taught by subject specialists then they are unlikely to get the same grades as someone who is.

We’ve pledged to recruit more teachers and we’ve already set out how we’re going to pay for them. We should see around 6,500 extra teachers in our classrooms gradually filling some of these damaging vacancies.

We have launched a wide-ranging Curriculum and Assessment Review which spans Key Stages 1 to 5. One of its main purposes is to look at the barriers which hold children back from the opportunities and life chances they deserve – in particular those who are economically disadvantaged, or who have special educational needs or disabilities.

I want to congratulate all students, as well as their amazing teachers, for this year’s exams results. I will be working hard to make sure that wherever anyone lives, they have an equal chance to follow their dreams as they make their way in the world.

Catherine McKinnell is Schools Minister