Education, Skills and Training
Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and David Anderson(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Nicky Morgan
We have created 600,000 new school places since 2010. The hon. Lady will know—everyone does—that the most important thing is to have the best quality teachers in the classroom in front of pupils, inspiring that next generation.
I will turn to the remarks made by Members on all sides of the House. The Chairman of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), welcomed the care leavers covenant. He discussed illegal and unregistered schools. Sadly, that situation has been going on for far too long. We now have a new Ofsted team leading investigations and preparing cases for prosecution, but more needs to be done, which is why we have talked about regulating out-of-school settings. We will come back to Members with proposals on that after the consultation. I will return to his comments about the consultation on the education for all Bill later in my remarks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) set out his track record on referendum votes. That has not been too successful, but we can all agree that, whatever we think about the current referendum debate, this Government have delivered on giving the British people an in/out vote on our EU membership on 23 June. He was the first person to talk about support for the new national funding formula. I am grateful to him and other hon. Members who mentioned that.
In a very personal speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) spoke about her experiences, saying that what matters is not where you come from but where you are going to. That is absolutely right, and a view we would all subscribe to. She supports the national funding formula. The Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), talked about the Chancellor’s recognising the importance of funding science even in a time of austerity.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse)—I cannot see whether he is in his place—called the Queen’s Speech a Milk Tray of hard and soft centres, and a smorgasbord of delights. He certainly has a way with words. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), who talked about her support for the national funding formula, kindly invited me to make a visit on 5 July. I will have to look at my diary, but I very much enjoyed my last visit to Chippenham schools with her last year. She also talked about the links between schools and businesses, and we are of course backing the Careers and Enterprise Company, which offers exactly those sorts of opportunity.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) talked about her support for the National Citizen Service. I am sure that, like many others, she will welcome the Bill in the Queen’s Speech to put the NCS on a statutory footing. We are also going to make sure that it can be promoted in schools, to make sure young people get the opportunities she talked about. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) talked about the Wales Bill. I have to say that I have not been involved in its drafting or the debates about it, but I am sure that his remarks will have been heeded.
My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) talked about the Higher Education and Research Bill, welcoming the establishment of new universities, which she hopes will particularly benefit her part of the country. She offered her support for the national funding formula. She also admitted that we have invented some new words in the past few weeks. For the benefit of the Minister for Schools, we have invented the verb “to academise”, along with the noun “academisation”. I look forward to those words being added to the next edition of the dictionary.
My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) talked about early years provision. I encourage her and interested people in her constituency to take part in the early years national funding formula consultation when it is published shortly.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) talked about the better markets Bill and the problems in her own constituency. She may be interested to know that the Government today published a call for evidence seeking to establish whether there are any problems with the provision of advice, advocacy and dispute resolution in the regulated sectors, including water, to help us develop that better markets Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) also welcomed the national funding formula. She mentioned, as did other hon. Members, her concerns about young people’s mental health. She is absolutely right to identify that issue. The Department has done a lot of work on that. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), who has responsibility for childcare, has worked on peer support schemes, on counselling in schools and on school pilot projects on child and adolescent mental health services, but we know we can go further.
Nicky Morgan
I will get to the hon. Gentleman’s speech in a moment [Interruption.] I am glad that he wants to listen to my remarks.
The hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) rightly said that we should learn from each other, and perhaps through him I can welcome the new Unionist Minister, Peter Weir, to his place in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) asked where the evidence was, and I encourage him to read the discussions of the Education Committee about international evidence. Several SNP Members spoke about the new Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills in the Scottish Government. I spoke to John Swinney on Monday, and hope that we can work together, particularly on the 2017 international teaching summit that Scotland is hosting. I hope that all Administrations will take part in that.
Nicky Morgan
We are considering that, and we want to take soundings and consult on exactly how it would work. We would not want to destabilise trusts, but the views of parents are critical on that issue.
The hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) spoke about part-time students, and will no doubt have welcomed the announcement last year that for the first time ever we will provide financial support to part-time students that is equivalent to the support we give full-time students. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) spoke about English devolution, and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) spoke about north-south funding. I am sure she will welcome the national funding formula, and take part in the next stage of the consultation.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) spoke about the changing world and robots. I wondered if she was suggesting that that might be the next leader of her party, but she was actually talking about new enterprise. The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) spoke about the pothole fund, and I point her to the £250 million that has been announced. A number of hon. Members rightly mentioned the importance of the further education sector, but they overlooked the continuing investment in the pupil premium fund.
Nicky Morgan
No, I want to make this point. We are committed to the further education sector, and the education for all Bill will include measures to reform technical education and improve qualifications so that that is employer-led, and prepares students in further education for skilled and valued employment. The hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) mentioned the university technical college, and she will meet the Minister tomorrow. She said that that was not proved financially viable due to poor pupil recruitment. I think I have dealt with all the points raised by hon. Members. The hon. Members for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) and for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) also spoke about their commitment to education.
My hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science opened the debate by outlining measures to secure the future success of our world-leading higher education system. The Higher Education and Research Bill will inject dynamism and innovation into the system, making it easier for new, high-quality providers to enter the market, giving students more choice and unprecedented transparency on data and information, so that they can make informed decisions about where and what to study. The Bill will raise teaching standards through the teaching excellence framework. In the face of doom-mongering by Labour Members, I remind the House about their record on predictions about higher education: they were wrong about the impact of fees on participation rates and wrong about the impact on disadvantaged pupils.
Let me turn to the children and social work Bill. We must expect the same for children in care as we do for our own children: the same aspirations, the same opportunities and the same hope. The Bill will continue the Government’s determination to transform the life chances of the most vulnerable children, giving them the stability to succeed. It includes measures to strengthen adoption and to ensure that those charged with making decisions in the interests of children always take into account a child’s need for stability. It will introduce new ways to drive innovation in local authorities, enable us to continue our drive to raise the status and standards of social workers, and include a set of corporate parenting principles and a requirement for local authorities to publish a local offer for care leavers, setting out what support they can expect and giving them the right to a personal adviser until the age of 25.
The education for all Bill continues our drive for excellence to exist everywhere in our education system, moving further towards a school-led system, with heads, teachers and parents in the driving seat. Schools are embracing the opportunities already available, with record numbers applying to convert to academy status in March and hundreds of underperforming schools set to be turned around by strong sponsors. The Bill shifts responsibility for school improvement away from local authorities towards great school leaders who will be able to spread their reach, ensuring more pupils benefit from their proven records of success.
Following careful consultation, which I hope will include the Education Committee, we will have robust criteria for identifying local authorities that are chronically underperforming or which no longer have the resources to maintain their remaining schools. The education for all Bill will allow us to convert all their remaining schools, including those that are good or outstanding.
The Bill will make sure excellence exists, too, for excluded pupils. Exclusion will no longer be a mechanism by which schools can deem them out of sight and out of mind. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase said, schools will be responsible for the continued education of excluded pupils; charged with finding them the right providers; able to give them the education they deserve; and incentivised to do their best for them by being accountable for their educational achievement.
It cannot be fair that a child in one part of the country can attract, in some cases, thousands of pounds more in funding to their school than a child with the same characteristics and costs who happens to live elsewhere. The education for all Bill will consign the antiquated school funding system to the history books, replacing it with a national funding formula that will give schools their fair share of funding to give every child the education they deserve.
The Minister for Skills will shortly launch the Government’s skills plan, our strategy to revolutionise the skills system that has hitherto been a minefield of training and qualifications. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase said, we will introduce legislation to strengthen careers advice, requiring schools to give education and training providers the opportunity to reach young people on school premises.
It is telling that the Labour party would rather leave schools in the hands of underperforming and unviable local authorities based on opposition to school freedom. It is no wonder the leader of the NUT’s first act after stepping down was to join the Labour party. I cannot understand why the Labour party continues to draw a false distinction between structures and standards. Of course standards are paramount. The quality of teaching is the most important thing we can do to make sure education is life-transforming. But the Government believe that if we want high standards, teachers have to lead the structures. If we want educational excellence everywhere, we have to identify those parts of the country where the educational underperformance is entrenched and focus on it. We will look at all those things. As the Minister for Universities and Science said, the White Paper has one chapter on structures and seven chapters on teaching, leadership, funding, standards and qualifications.
Unlike the Labour party, the Government believe in opportunity and aspiration. More importantly, we will take the steps and seek the measures to support excellence in our schools, to support and enhance our world class universities, and to make sure we procure the best life chances for children in the care system. For Conservative Members, children, students and parents—