Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am aware that this is a widespread issue; a number of colleagues have raised it with me. We will talk to the schools concerned to see what we can do, but it is difficult, when the STA gave appropriate notice, to necessarily make exceptions.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Following the Secretary of State’s visit to Stockton last week, does he expect any schools in the area, attended by children from my constituency, to close as a result of the creation of surplus places if a new free school is opened in the south of the borough?

[Michael Gove]

It was great to visit Stockton South. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) is an outstanding MP and people were saying to me, “If only there were more Conservatives in the north-east.” People were also saying to me that they need a new school because, apart from the free school that is being built, provision in the north of the constituency is not good enough. I am only sorry that Labour-led Stockton council has stood in the way of parents who are working with us, and with the Conservative MP, to improve education. [Interruption.] Once again, if the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) would only haud his whisht and listen to the parents, he would be of far better service to the children of Teesside.

AS-levels and A-levels

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Dobbin. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship and to take part in this important debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on securing it.

As a member of the Education Committee, I have seen the Government’s ill-thought-through and dogmatic reforms hit the brick wall of reality too many times to count, so I am not surprised that we are here again debating a set of proposed reforms that have managed to unite Cambridge university, the CBI and the teaching unions in opposition to them. I do not know whether that is a first, but it is certainly important.

Just a few weeks ago, the Secretary of State for Education had the good sense to ditch his ill-thought-out proposals to replace GCSEs, after realising that, apart from himself and a few Conservatives who were loyal to him, no one in the world of teaching supported what he was trying to impose on our beleaguered education system. I was pleased that the Education Committee, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), a Conservative, could collate the evidence and demonstrate to the Secretary of State that he needed to back off.

As an aside, let me say that it would be remiss of me not to place on record my hope that the Committee’s Chairman makes a quick recovery from his skiing injuries and can soon continue his work of scrutinising the Department for Education. I am sure he is watching our proceedings on the internet as I speak, and he will know that our good wishes go to him.

There are several problems with the Government’s proposals. First, the changes will undermine the value and status of the A-level as a qualification, and it is not just me and other Opposition Members saying that. According to Cambridge university, the changes will

“jeopardise over a decade of progress towards fairer access”

to higher education—quite an indictment for any Secretary of State. Brian Lightman of the Association of School and College Leaders has been quoted as saying that his organisation is

“not convinced by the case for wholesale reform of this exam, which is a very successful qualification”.

It gets worse for the Secretary of State, with the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference calling the proposals “rushed and incoherent”.

It is worth re-emphasising some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston. My single biggest concern about the reforms relates to the loss of a system in which students can take four or even five subjects, decide which they wish to take to the higher level and ditch the others, while banking the learning they have already done. If that opportunity is taken away, we will deprive the student of choice and bind young people to decisions that they may feel were wrong. That will leave them with the option of completing work that is no longer of any use to them or, in some cases, dropping out and walking away from further education. Surely, no one wants young people to waste their precious time and the resources the state has invested in them.

I do not see how creating a two-tier system for those aged 16 to 19 helps to bring about rigour, which is supposedly the Education Secretary’s guiding mission. The director of admissions at Cambridge university is on record as saying:

“We are worried...if AS-level disappears, we will lose many of the gains in terms of fair admissions and widening participation that we have made in the last decade… We are convinced that a large part of this success derives from the confidence engendered in students from non-traditional backgrounds when they achieve high examination grades at the end of year 12”.

Those who benefit from the existing system—particularly those from non-traditional backgrounds—tend to be from the lower end of the income scale. It is those students who will be disadvantaged by these reforms—students from deprived areas such as my constituency. I would be interested to hear what assessment has been made of the potential impact of the reforms on widening participation in higher education and whether the Minister is concerned that a two-tier A-level system will limit aspiration for young people in deprived areas.

There is also concern about which organisations will have a role in developing A-levels, with the 1994 Group of universities already feeling excluded. In a briefing note, its director of research says his group wants clarity about the role of the Russell Group in overseeing A-levels in key subjects. He says:

“Many of the leading Universities in these subjects—including some of our members—are not members of the Russell Group, and we believe that in linking excellence with one self-selecting group of Universities, DfE Ministers are perpetuating a false and damaging misperception of the sector.”

I hope the Minister will provide that clarity and confirm that development will be inclusive, rather than exclusive.

Even if these latest ideas were the right ones, there are also concerns about timing. Will the Minister tell us what assessment has been made of the impact of bringing in these reforms side by side with the many other so-called radical reforms that the Secretary of State is imposing on our schools? Glenys Stacey, the head of Ofqual has criticised the plans on the grounds that the Government’s proposed timetable is “challenging”—I think she was trying to be kind in her use of word, and I suspect she may have considered more robust language. However, she did say that introducing changes to A-levels at the same time as changes to GCSEs will

“place a considerable burden on schools”,

and my hon. Friend talked about the need for resources to help schools deal with some of that burden.

Glenys Stacey said the timetable proposed

“means that qualifications need to be in schools and colleges by autumn next year.”

I am not sure whether schools, with all the other reforms being foisted on them by the Government, are in a position to implement a second set of difficult changes in that short time scale.

We have seen before the dangers of the Education Secretary going too far and too fast with his reforms, and I would again urge caution about trying to reinvent the educational wheel. Do the Government intend to turn their back on fair admissions and widening participation? Do they want people from communities such as mine to get the same opportunities for higher education, or do they really want to revert to higher education for those from public schools and the most affluent communities, where young people get a much better start in life than they do in inner city wards such as those in my constituency? I am sure that that is not true, but the Secretary of State must realise that just as he got things badly wrong with his planned reform of GCSEs. He has gone down the wrong road with A-levels. He has failed to listen to what the professional world is saying to him, and it is time for another of his spectacular U-turns before he is caused even more embarrassment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Many schools across the country could be receiving far greater amounts of pupil premium if they ensured that all their pupils were registered. The Department recently put out information showing the great range in the take-up of free school meals and advice on how schools should seek to raise that figure.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), the Secretary of State has failed to answer the series of questions from The Northern Echo after his disparaging remarks about some east Durham schools. Will he say how many of the schools he referred to he has actually visited or will he have the decency to apologise for his remarks?

[Michael Gove]

I was first alerted to the problems in east Durham schools when I visited schools in north and north-west Durham and those who were responsible for raising attainment in those schools shared with me their concerns about the underperformance in east Durham. I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman to deal with the problems at Dene community school of technology, Seaham school of technology, Easington community science college, Wellfield community school and St Bede’s Catholic comprehensive school, all of which have underperformed dramatically compared with the national average in English baccalaureate scores and all of which do not yet provide the quality of education that children deserve.

Children and Families Bill

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I am very much aware of my hon. Friend’s views and have conversed with him on a number of occasions. I always listen to and am mindful of the words that he speaks on this subject, but I have a strong view that for those children who, for whatever reason, are unable to find any other permanent placement, we ought seriously to consider adoption as a way of giving them that stability, that routine, that loving, stable family home which far too often they miss out on because we have not managed to move them through the adoption system in enough time, commensurate with their best interests.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Nobody would disagree that it is important that we reduce the time scale for children to be adopted, but what safeguards does the Minister plan to put in place to ensure that we do not see an increase in the number of adoption failures?

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point. We know that the level of adoption breakdown, which ranges from 3% to 30%, is probably the worst outcome of all for those children, let alone for the families who have been brave enough to put themselves forward as prospective adopters. We know that what is key to ensuring successful adoption is good planning, a good matching process that is more adopter-led than it has been in the past, and the support that is provided during and after the adoption is put in place, to prevent any possible breakdown happening in the future. That support, in light-touch form, may be necessary for many years into the future.

I know from my own family’s experience that even 20 or 30 years on, there may be moments when some experience prior to going into care and being adopted comes back to haunt an individual, so we should be mindful of the fact that for adoption support to be successful, it needs to continue to be available. I will come on to the aspects of the Bill which deal with that issue. It is a step forward to make sure that that adoption support is available where it will make a difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

I welcome the Minister indicating that that is the case. Parents were told that this Bill would represent an end of the struggle for support and to the adversarial nature of the system, but there are many unanswered questions, which potentially undermine that goal.

I shall now discuss adoption and children in care. Clearly, one of the state’s most important duties is to care for children who, for whatever reason, are without a safe, loving family to care for them. In recent decades, the system has seen step changes in the fulfilment of that duty, but we know only too well that failings have let down some of the most vulnerable members in our society and, in the most extreme cases, have cost children and young people their lives. I welcome the emphasis that has been placed on reducing the time for completing an adoption and increasing the number of adoptions, where that is in the child’s best interests.

Let me put on the record my thanks to Martin Narey, who has done so much to champion the rights of children in the care system, and to The Times for its persistent campaign to address the crisis faced by too many young people in the care system. We should recognise the incredible commitments made by so many who work in the care system. Social workers up and down the country do a fantastic job, often in very trying circumstances, and it is right that we put on the record our thanks for their duty and service.

We should acknowledge important developments in social care, and I welcome the Government’s contribution of funding to the Frontline initiative for social work. Frontline has the potential to play an important role in raising performance in the care system, both for those currently working in the system and for the new recruits that it will bring in. Measures of the educational attainment by children in care show the scale of the challenge; the Minister pointed out the figures for 2012, when fewer than 15% of looked-after children secured at least five good GCSEs including English and maths.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend will be aware that young carers can also have lower educational attainment. Does he agree that the work of organisations such as the Eastern Ravens Trust, in my constituency, is crucial in supporting these young people and that such organisations also need to be financially viable?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is vital for our children and young people that the Bill delivers the change that they want and need, with the necessary resources, safeguards, directions and clear lines of accountability. Failure to deliver on those factors will mean that the Bill will not be worth the paper it is written on. Worse, it could lead to deterioration in service provision and huge variations in the quality of service offered to children and young people in different parts of the country.

I do not doubt that Ministers have every good intention with the Bill, but good intentions are not enough to satisfy the needs of our community. Government cuts have caused a lack of specialist services and professionals since 2010. It is for Ministers to explain how the reforms will work in that context. The Education Committee carried out pre-legislative scrutiny on the Bill’s SEN provisions, but the sector still has concerns that funding cuts in different areas will undermine the positive impact that elements of the Bill could provide to those who need support.

The SEN clauses have created deep-seated cause for concern in the sector, possibly because of the lack of detail in the Bill. They include measures that will shift us from statements to health and social care plans. The key difference between the outgoing system and the new one is that the new plans will extend beyond the mandatory school age, which I welcome. However, the system of education health and care plans does not include a greater degree of legal entitlements than the system it replaces.

Parents with children who have SEN are rightly concerned that current problems will not be solved without a single point of accountability for parents seeking redress. That must be put right. For example, Ambitious about Autism proposes changing the Bill to include a duty that requires local authorities to conduct a review of support available to young people aged 19 to 25 when they fall out of education. That would give them the best possible chance of re-engaging in learning and accessing future employment.

I am pleased that the Government have responded to the Education Committee’s suggestion for an extension of such entitlements to apprentices and, in specific circumstances, to young people who are not in education, employment or training. However, the Government have not taken that promising first step to its logical and desirable conclusion. We should support each and every young person with an EHC plan up to the age of 25, including those in supported employment. Under the current provisions, young people at university will cease to be eligible for EHC plans as soon as they begin their courses. Surely the Government do not want to abandon such young people when they are facing the biggest change in their lives. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say on that. Is that a simple oversight that will be corrected? Campaign groups such as Every Disabled Child Matters and the Special Educational Consortium have observed that disabled children without learning difficulties will not have access to the new plan.

Scope says that the Bill represents an important opportunity to alleviate some of the strain on families with disabled children. I agree with Scope’s objective of amending the Bill to include a guarantee of better support for disabled children and their families in their local area. The Bill requires local authorities to publish information on the services they expect to be available in their areas to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities—both with and without education, health and care plans. However, the Bill does not say what they must provide. Why are the Government reluctant to provide a national framework of minimum standards for local offers? A greater degree of guidance from the Government would improve accountability and set higher standards for local councils to fulfil their obligations under the new system.

We need assurances from the Government that the new SEN system does not evolve from an informal postcode lottery to a formal one. The National Union of Teachers has concerns that, although local authorities retain a welcome role in SEN provision, the gradual shift away from local oversight of schools will undermine the ability of local authorities to carry out their SEN functions. What is the role of academies in that context?

I am pleased that the Government—I seem to be very pleased with them tonight—accepted the Education Committee’s suggestion during pre-legislative scrutiny that the new code of practice should be laid before Parliament, but the Bill requires that it is laid under the negative resolution procedure. It is not clear why the code will not be subject to the positive resolution given the importance of its contents. I am also concerned that the Secretary of State will meddle with the service by changing regulations.

People in the sector have shared concerns about the scrapping of school action and school action plus— the current graduated response approach to meeting the educational needs of children at school. As other hon. Members have said, around 17% of school-age pupils are on one of those programmes, and concern remains on whether their replacement with a single SEN stage will deliver what young people need.

The Minister should consider the case for expanding the definition of “vulnerable children” to include children living in custody and separated children who are seeking asylum or who have been trafficked, as recommended by the Children’s Society. It is right that action is taken to find more and better adoptive homes for children, but I hope that speeding the process up can be done without compromising the quality of child placement. Speed should never come at the expense of getting that right. No hon. Member wants an increase in the number of failed adoptions. I would be interested to hear more on the safeguards, to which the Minister has referred, for ensuring that speed does not come at the expense of getting it right.

I do not agree with the Minister and the Government that the bedroom tax is not a problem in the context of the Bill. It most certainly is a problem, particularly for foster parents, who rely on having that room available. How many places will be lost for foster children if the bedroom tax is implemented?

[Bill Esterson]

I am glad my hon. Friend mentions the impact of the bedroom tax on foster carers. Has he considered the impact on prospective adopters? A prospective adoptive family must have bedrooms available for children moving in with them. Any prospective adoptive parent who lives in social housing will be in the same position as adoptive foster carers in social housing.

[Alex Cunningham]

My fellow member of the Education Committee makes a strong point. The Minister must address the impact on the rooms of potential adoptive and foster families.

The changes to how child care works are proposed against the backdrop of the rising cost of living, depleted public services such as Sure Start, and benefit changes that penalise hard-working families. The Government have announced grand plans, but Ministers must know that they cannot deliver with less money—although perhaps they will tell us that the Chancellor will reverse the cuts and invest to help rather than hinder our families.

The Bill is a mixed bag. Some measures are welcome, such as some of the changes on flexible leave and on the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. Sadly, it does not live up to its initial promise to end the battle for support for children with special educational needs. I look forward to the Government working in Committee to fulfil that promise.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Lady raises two specific issues in her question. Although there is concern about high interest rates, just as when someone hires a car for three days they do not look at the annual cost of doing so, with short-term credit the APR is not necessarily the most relevant statistic. The hon. Lady’s second point was on affordability assessments and the detrimental effect of people being lent money they should not be lent when debt advice would be much more appropriate. That is a significant concern. The Government are considering the OFT’s review and the OFT is already taking action—it has opened formal investigations into several payday lenders. We expect the final report early in the new year and the Government are committed to ensuring that we take action on this issue.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

2. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on investment in green manufacturing jobs.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

I regularly meet the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to discuss energy and climate change policies, including investment in green manufacturing jobs in the north-east and elsewhere. We are committed to supporting green technologies including offshore wind, for which a sector strategy is to be published in the spring.

[Alex Cunningham]

On Teesside and elsewhere in north-east England we have seen tremendous investment in green industries, but we have also seen billions of pounds-worth of contracts for British offshore wind farms placed abroad in Germany and Holland. I had hoped there would be provisions in the Energy Bill, which had its Second Reading yesterday, to ensure that British firms got British jobs. There are no such provisions. Has the Secretary of State suggested any amendments to the Energy Bill to ensure that we get British jobs?

[Vince Cable]

We are pursuing this not through legislation but through practical action and we are working with the developers’ forum to try to ensure that at least 50% of supply chain work comes back to the UK. We cannot do that unless we have the capacity, which is why we have established the catapult centres in the north-east and Glasgow to develop basic technology as well as the six renewable engineering centres, which will develop our engineering capacity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

That is an excellent and imaginative idea. I think some of that happens already, but we are actively promoting such initiatives in a series of round tables that the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), will be leading. Universities are now obliged to put on their websites key information about graduate employment outcomes from their courses, which will encourage initiatives such as that described by my hon. Friend.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

10. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on investment in green manufacturing jobs.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

I regularly meet the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to discuss energy and climate change policies, including investment in green manufacturing jobs. We are seeking to exploit opportunities for growth through green technologies, and I have recently announced that the UK Green Investment Bank is operational, which will support investment in green manufacturing.

[Alex Cunningham]

Companies such as Tag Engineering Services on Teesside, and many others, have invested millions of pounds to create capacity to build monopiles and other components for the offshore wind industry. They have some of the best facilities in the world, yet they see multi-million pound contracts go out to Europe. What is the Secretary of State doing to get British wind farm contracts placed with British firms?

[Vince Cable]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s frustration that supply chains in that sector are not as well developed as they should be, not just in respect of the components, but also of the steel that contributes to the masts. That is why the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and I are bringing together the renewables supply chain to develop the capacity that the hon. Gentleman wishes to see.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Fallon]

That is encouraging news and shows the strength of the small business sector in the north-west in particular. The key to encouraging small businesses is to continue to cut back the burden of red tape imposed by the last Government, to reduce the level of business taxation imposed by the last Government and to ensure that they have full access to finance through the banking system.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T4. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for meeting my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) and me to discuss the rejection of the bid for a regional growth fund grant by Durham Tees Valley airport and for his offer to meet representatives from the airport and the local enterprise partnership. Will he reaffirm his support for regional airports as drivers of economic development, and tell the House what he can do to help our Durham Tees Valley airport to deliver on its development plan and ensure that the airport is sustained well into the future?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, I did indeed meet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. It was a good meeting, and they have followed it up with a very good submission explaining the link between the regional airport and the growth fund bid. We are now analysing that. I hope that he would acknowledge that there has also been some good news, however, in the sense that the Tees Valley LEP has just won a substantial programme bid through the regional growth fund, which will contribute to development in his area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

Proust said:

“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey”,

and a journey from the age of 16 to higher learning can be a journey down a practical pathway—no longer a cul-de-sac but a highway to higher learning. To that end, I am working to create 25,000 higher apprenticeships during this Parliament; when I became a Minister, there were 180.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T7. The Department’s consultation on the future of child care ran for all of 44 days over the school summer holidays, greatly limiting the potential for parents to make their views heard. Given the importance of this issue, will the Minister reopen the consultation for at least another six weeks? If not, is that because she and her colleagues have already decided what they are going to announce during conference?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

We have had a lot of responses, but I am afraid that I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the precise number. If he has constituents who wish to make their views known, I would be happy if they were to write to him and he were to write to me. If he does that quickly, I will make sure that I take them into account.

Secondary Education (GCSEs)

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Young people are our future, yet the value some people place on them and their achievements is extremely low. I feel that many members of the current Government must be trying to secure some kind of medal, in this Olympic year, for driving the value of our young people and their achievements to a record low. Time and again they send young people negative messages, undervalue their hard work in sitting their examinations and then, when they do well, put the boot in again by suggesting that their certificates are hardly worth the paper they are printed on.

The Secretary of State wants to drive up standards—we all do—but the actions he now proposes will effectively write off a large number of young people who need the greatest support and lower their expectations for a happy and productive life. Does he really believe that that is the way forward, or are his latest pronouncements about something else? Is he using our children and their education to create a debate in the Tory section of the Government, where attitudes are very different from those of their coalition partners? Is he just playing controversial games with our children’s future, as the newspapers suggest, as he aims to take over from a weak Prime Minister who is struggling to harness his partners and achieve the right-wing agenda he thought he would be pursuing after the general election?

The former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, axed the two-tier O-level/CSE system. She, like the president of the Liberal Democrats, recognised that it was divisive and dumped millions of young people into a second division from which they could not escape. I never thought that I could agree with such people on anything, but on this I cannot help agreeing with them both. I never thought that a son of Thatcher—perhaps a grandson—could be the one to turn against her in such a way.

The Secretary of State has said:

“The coalition Government’s education reforms are designed to raise standards in all our schools and give every child the opportunity to acquire the rigorous qualifications that will enable them to succeed in further and higher education and the world of work.”—[Official Report, 21 June 2012; Vol. 546, c. 1025.]

However, I, along with the vast majority of educational professionals, can see the opposite happening. Rather than reducing educational inequality, the reforms that those in the Tory part of the coalition propose will do the opposite. Under the new proposals, around three quarters of pupils could sit tough tests modelled on the old O-level while the remaining pupils take more straightforward qualifications modelled on traditional CSEs in subjects such as maths, English and science. But separating 75% of pupils from the other 25% will do nothing but divide children into winners and losers at the incredibly young age of 14, capping aspiration and putting up a barrier to social mobility.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), I am a member of the Education Committee and visited Singapore earlier this year. Some children there go into the elite education programme at age 12 while the others are shoved down the technical route. We visited both types of schools and found that the facilities were very good. However, I was extremely saddened to hear young people talk of themselves as the elite. They are encouraged to talk themselves up, which is good, but what about the young people who are not the elite? If the Education Secretary wants to replicate Singapore’s system here, what would that contribute to equality of opportunity?

This is not just a moral argument against segregating pupils; it is also an argument based on strong evidence. Relegating 14-year-olds to a lesser qualification brands them as underachievers and could drain both students and schools of any incentive to push for higher performance. If we move on to the CSE track a child who would otherwise be aiming for a C at GCSE, we may find that they are very likely to stop trying and not to value the qualification that they finally achieve. One third of children who score in the bottom 25% at 11 years old break out of that group by 16, but if they are placed in a second-class category at an early age they risk being written off. Quite simply, schools cannot predict with 100% accuracy the future of their pupils, and many will struggle to place children correctly.

Once again, the north-east of England will bear the brunt of the Government’s changes, as research shows that the CSE will be most prevalent in northern towns. That the Secretary of State is intent on limiting the ambitions and opportunities for people in my constituency and many others throughout our region is shameful.

While in office, Labour managed to narrow the educational gap between the rich and the poor, not through dumbing down, as Government Members like to believe, but through more investment in schools and teachers and through giving schools more freedom to innovate. Even the Secretary of State recognises that we have the best cohort of teachers ever, but that did not happen by accident. It was investment in their training, and excellent support in the classroom, that helped them to raise their game and to support our children as never before. That is what makes a real difference to our children’s education, not imposing outdated ideas that have already been shown to fail.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have changed the capability procedures—basically the rules that govern whether underperforming teachers can be dealt with quickly—to ensure that a process that used to take a year now takes only a term. At the same time, we are liberating head teachers to pay good teachers more, because we want to send a clear and consistent signal that teachers, like lawyers and doctors, are professionals who deserve appropriate salaries for doing a great job.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

7. If he will review the guidance to academies and free schools to ensure they serve healthy food to their pupils.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

Governing bodies will decide what food and drink are available at academies and free schools; we trust them to make the right choices for their pupils. Many academies use the school food standards as a benchmark and some are going beyond them, but, as in all schools, further improvement is still needed.

[Alex Cunningham]

At the Education Select Committee on 24 April, I told the Secretary of State that many children at academies were being let down by the poor quality of school meals. He said:

“I fear that they may be, but I do not have any evidence that they have been. I am not denying that it is a possibility, but…until I know, I cannot see.”

The School Food Trust has now provided evidence showing that some academies do not provide the healthy food our children deserve, with vast numbers selling food and drink banned from other state schools. Now that there is evidence, will he apply the same rules to all state schools?

[Michael Gove]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding me what an open mind I showed in the face of his rigorous questioning. It is an open mind that is influenced by the facts, and, yes, the School Food Trust showed that some academies were not performing as well as they should, but many maintained schools are also not performing as well as they should, and there is no evidence that academies are performing worse at lunch time than other maintained schools.

Safeguarding Children

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s current and previous work in this area, including her chairing of the all-party parliamentary group on child protection. She has raised a number of proper concerns about the changes that have been made, and I will return later in my speech to some of them—including the involvement of Ofsted and the well-being of children.

As I was saying, there is a balance to be struck between professional flexibility and clear rules and principles. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has warned that

“the Government should not move too quickly to rapid deregulation. It needs to invest heavily in building the skills, confidence and experience of all professionals working with children.”

In its response, published today, to yesterday’s announcement, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health says that it supports the slimlining of guidance, but it is worried that the downsizing might have gone too far so that vital information is no longer included. It provided the examples of training, lessons from research and, in particular, the safeguarding needs of particularly vulnerable groups, mentioning forced marriages, female genital mutilation and victims of trafficking.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that children in care, including those trafficked for purposes he has mentioned, including sexual exploitation, who find themselves up against the law should be treated first as children and victims, not as criminals? Something needs to be done to ensure that all agencies, including the police, regard that as a first principle.

[Stephen Twigg]

I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s concern in that regard. I hope the Minister will have something to say about that when he responds. The consultation on the draft guidance issued yesterday may provide an opportunity to clarify some of these matters. I hope that the Minister will have something to say about that when he speaks after me.

Professor Munro makes it clear in her report that the Government should not cherry-pick her recommendations. She says, for instance, that

“reducing prescription without creating a learning system will not secure the desired improvements in the system.”

We should remember that only one of her 15 recommendations is about reducing bureaucracy. The bulk of her report is about improving training and leadership in the system. As the Government make the move away from prescription, it is important that they are clear about how they intend to ensure robust checks and balances in the system and rigorous training and supervision and staff.

In her recent evidence to the Select Committee on Education, Professor Munro said that because

“there is so much change related directly both to child protection but also to the health and police reforms…we cannot be quite sure how they pan out in reality and whether we end up with some unintended clashes so there are gaps in the way services are being provided.”

If the Government’s own appointed adviser is warning that the changes could have these unintended consequences, it is clearly critical that Ministers heed that advice.

Taking the example of today’s Government announcement on shared parenting, while the principle of parental balance is of course important, it is vital that the change does not create more confusion and delays in the courts, which would not be in the interests of children, families or, indeed, of the taxpayer. David Norgrove in the family justice review cautioned against such a move, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) has said:

“Children’s best interests should be the paramount consideration in decisions affecting them. That principle has been clear in law for over two decades. Ministers should think very carefully before they decide to weaken it.”