David Ward MP

David Ward secures debate on links between deprivation and educational attainment

Bradford East's MP secured a debate in Parliament to raise the links between deprivation and low educational attainment, an issue he highlighted in his first speech in the House of Commons. Many educational measures, he argued, start far too late in life.

He told MPs of his experiences as a school governor, where in one instance he saw children being directed away from books by their mother: "They are only books, you do not want them". He also told MPs of research conducted by Kansas University into the number of words spoken by parents to their children.

"It showed that parents from what they called the professional class had interactions-words that were spoken-with their children at a rate of, on average, 2,150 per hour. Among those from what they called working class backgrounds the rate was 1,250 per hour, and for those from what they called welfare families it was 620 words per hour. That is happening hour after hour, day in, day out. The cumulative effect of that in the first three years, if extrapolated, was a difference of 20 million words between the professional class and the welfare class, and that is before we consider the quality of the language, or the social interactions happening alongside language development."

"We clearly need to focus more on the pre-school and pre-early years settings. As we know, many children are already at a disadvantage in the womb."

David called for other organisations and politicians to work with him to address the problem.