It is time to put children’s interests first and reopen schools

It is more important to give children their priceless education than to try to eliminate all risk of the virus spreading, writes John Rentoul

Education secretary Gavin Williamson arrives at Downing Street (PA)

The best question in the House of Commons yesterday came from Robert Halfon: “Why is it we can turn a blind eye to thousands of demonstrators, campaign for pubs and garden centres to open, and yet it is so hard to open our schools?”

Halfon, the Conservative chair of the Education Select Committee, has a disability and is shielding to try to protect himself from coronavirus. Yet he understands the balance of risks.

There is a risk that going back to school will lead to a further spread of the virus, but that has to be balanced against the certainty of an “epidemic of educational poverty”, as Halfon put it, if disadvantaged pupils are deprived of six months of schooling.

Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, came to parliament today to announce a retreat from the government’s attempt to persuade primary schools to get all their pupils back before the summer holiday. He said: “The advice from Public Health England and Sage is that all schools can open and that they should open.” But he had to accept that it wasn’t going to happen until September.

The Labour Party couldn’t decide whether to attack him for trying to force pupils back to school too early, or for depriving disadvantaged children of the priceless gift of education for a large portion of their lives, so Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow education secretary, did both.

She got it right, I thought, when she quoted Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner, with approval: “The risk I am most concerned about is that of a generation of children missing over six months of formal education. I am also concerned about a deepening education disadvantage gap.”

And yet she then went on to criticise the government for trying to reopen schools when the infection rate was too high. She cannot have it both ways and Labour ought to be putting the interests of children first.

But then, so should the government. It is no use Williamson throwing up his hands and saying, in effect, “I am trying to persuade them but what can I do?” If space is a problem for social distancing, he could be building Nightingale schools. If some teachers don’t want to come into schools, he should be telling them they don’t have to – they could continue to work from home, given that he is planning a phased return in any case, and he should be recruiting trainees and teaching assistants to help out.

If parents don’t want to send their children to school, no one is suggesting that they should be forced to. The question is whether most children should go back to school, and especially those who are getting no education at home or who are vulnerable to physical or psychological abuse. It is understandable that many teachers, parents and children are afraid of the disease. But it is up to elected leaders on behalf of us all to be afraid of some of the consequences of trying to eliminate the public health risk altogether.

The cost to children of being deprived of education is huge and lasting.

No one wants to weigh one person’s life or life chances against another, but that is what political leaders have to do. The balance of risk has shifted. The peak of the outbreak was two months ago, and the number of cases has come right down. Nowhere in the world where restrictions have been eased has there been a significant second wave of excess deaths. If it is time to reopen beer gardens and betting shops, it is time to take the risk of reopening schools.