Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Gove and Baroness Keeley

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is typically acute in getting to the heart of the matter. The change to judging schools on how well each student progresses from the moment they arrive until the moment they take their GCSEs, across a broad range of eight GCSEs, will mean that not just academic excellence but creativity and technical accomplishment will be counted in determining how well each school has improved—and of course we will move away from the distorting impact that a focus on the C-D borderline has had in the past.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to tackle the rising costs of child care.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Gove and Baroness Keeley

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am absolutely delighted that the number of sponsored academies is increasing in areas where educational performance has been too low for too long. I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend for being such a doughty champion of the children of Hastings, who were let down under the last Government and are being rescued under this one.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Further to the Secretary of State’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) earlier, I put it to him that the reason for the spiralling costs of school uniforms is that new free schools and academies are requiring branded items available only from special shops. That is the problem.

At one Manchester academy, the back-to-school costs were £302. I should say to the Secretary of State that, following last week’s question to the Prime Minister, I received feedback from all across the country that the issue was a problem. It could become a barrier to parents’ choice of schools. What action is the Secretary of State going to take?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for directing me towards the Family Action report, which I found interesting and sometimes sobering reading. The report identified 13 schools; they are not a representative sample. Those with the most significant additional costs for uniform tended to be voluntary aided schools rather than academies or free schools. There is no evidence that academies or free schools impose any additional uniform costs over maintained schools and there is no evidence that the overall increase in uniform costs has run out of kilter with other costs that families face. However, the Department is renewing its guidance to make sure that schools make the right choice for parents.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Debate between Lord Gove and Baroness Keeley

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. In fact, the survey was wide-ranging; more than 2,000 people were approached. It was scientifically conducted, and the organisation was commissioned by the previous Secretary of State. I had my differences with him, but I think the research is impeccable. However, the hon. Lady makes a good point about parents. As I am sure all Members are aware, any child who stays in education beyond the age of 16 makes their family, and of course the mother, eligible for child benefit. One of the things that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) explicitly stated when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer was that he envisaged, in the first instance, that child benefit would go in order to pay for EMA. He said subsequently that actually they could pay for both child benefit and EMA because of the success of the Labour Government in removing our debt. Now that we have a massive debt, there is a tough decision to be made, and this Government have decided to keep child benefit for those over the age of 16. The question for Opposition Members who want to maintain EMA at its full level is whether they would cut child benefit to pay for it.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

Would the hon. Lady do that?

[Barbara Keeley]

I want to take the Secretary of State back to the subject of vulnerable young people, particularly young carers. I have raised the point in debate on a number of occasions, for example in the Christmas pre-recess Adjournment debate. Removing a national scheme, from which a group of young carers in Salford benefit, particularly because almost all of them are in receipt of EMA, and replacing it with a scheme one tenth of the size and at the discretion of college principals, will not be the answer. College principals do not know who their young carers are. The right hon. Gentleman needs to be clearer, and more work needs to be done, because those young people deserve the support offered by EMA and they will not manage without it. They will struggle and their caring work load will swamp them.

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. We want to ensure that learners with caring responsibilities are looked after. They are a small but growing number, who face enormous challenges and are living heroically, attempting to balance their responsibilities. In any replacement scheme, we need to ensure better targeting. The truth is that the current scheme does not effectively target those people.