Home Office minister Jess Phillips has urged teachers to “whinge more” like Birmingham bin workers, arguing that schools have not been adequately thanked for taking on extensive responsibilities beyond education. Speaking at the Girls’ School Association conference in London, the Birmingham Yardley MP said: “I don’t feel like education has been thanked enough, actually, for the level that it has been asked to take on. And largely you didn’t whinge. You need to whinge more! Be more Birmingham bin worker. But don’t go on strike.”
Ms Phillips, who is also minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, highlighted that headteachers in her constituency go “above and beyond” for students, often addressing issues like food poverty and housing. She stated: “Teachers should be allowed to teach and enrich the lives of young people, and not have to worry so much about their homes, and whether their clothes are clean, whether they’ve got enough to eat.” The Association of School and College Leaders has previously warned the burden on schools “has never been higher”, with schools running food banks while public services have crumbled.
The minister also warned of a “huge and worrying” rate of domestic and sexual violence within teenage relationships, noting that girls’ academic efforts are “wasted” if they fall prey to such violence. She said: “Certainly you cannot have girls who will thrive in their lives – all that effort you might put into their academia – it doesn’t matter how clever, how brilliant they are. If they fall prey to this violence, all of that will have been wasted.” According to the National Crime Agency, around half of all police-reported child sexual abuse crimes in 2024 were committed by 10 to 17-year-olds, with four in five victims being girls.
Ms Phillips stressed that schools will be a “huge part” of tackling violence against women and girls over the next decade. She noted that the #MeToo movement changed the world but boys were not invited into the conversation, calling it a “systems failure”. The Government is introducing a new mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse, a key recommendation from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which described the issue as an “epidemic”.
