Richard Foord

It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. Nowhere is it plainer that there are barriers to educational opportunity in semi-rural areas than in the part of Devon that I represent. Young people are held back not by any lack of talent or ambition—far from it—but by structural challenges in the recruitment of their teachers, in transport and in broadband access. Let me start with what matters in every school: the teachers. According to the latest data from the Department for Education, Devon has 5,620 teachers across 372 state-funded schools, which is a drop of nearly 50 teachers in the last year. Last week, I met National Association of Head Teachers representatives in Devon, who talked about a recruitment and retention crisis. However, there are positives. The University of Exeter is pioneering a new postgraduate certificate in education approach across the south-west. It has set up primary training hubs—rural local hubs—in Exeter, north Devon and Somerset. That model recognises that teachers often stay where they train and where they go to university, so this new approach is really quite positive. I will turn now to digital connectivity, which is another barrier that disproportionately affects semi-rural areas. The online newspaper DevonLive reported in 2021 that poor internet connection was impacting children’s learning. Four years later, that has not changed. I have had correspondence from constituents in Furley, Kentisbeare and Colyton who have all reported unreliable broadband, slow speeds and frequent outages. Problems with travel distances are particularly acute in counties such as Devon, which is said to be the third largest county by area. People live scattered many miles from colleges and education hubs, but over the past decade bus routes have been cut, costs have risen and the options for safely cycling and walking to school have become fewer. In its 2024 report “The Grass Ceiling”, the University of Exeter notes that rural underachievement is being hidden. On the face of it, there is high performance in rural areas, but that is because of some high-performing pupils. Advantaged households are skewing the data, and that masks the reality that many pupils are struggling—indeed, rural pupils are up to 8 percentage points behind urban pupils in GCSE results on average. To summarise, talent is spread across the whole country, including the whole of Devon, but right now opportunity is not.