Education Bill

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

As I am sure that the hon. Lady knows, one does not need any training or qualification to be a Member of Parliament—or, indeed, a Labour Government Minister. Mind you, looking at the record of those who have occupied that position, I am prompted to ask a variety of questions. I should point out, of course, that many of the highest performing schools in this country—in fact, some of the highest performing schools in the world—are the fee-paying independent schools, which have earned this country so much foreign currency and have ensured that we continue to have beacons of educational excellence in the fee-paying and state sectors alike. Such schools draw in and welcome a wide variety of highly trained individuals, some of whom do not have qualified teacher status. It is important that we continue to innovate and to learn from the fee-paying independent sector. We must also continue, as we are doing, to invest in high-quality training for all teachers. That is why we are reforming initial teacher training, investing in Teach First, and setting up a new generation of training schools for teachers to develop the best practice from higher education institutions and elsewhere.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I had to come in after the last interesting intervention. Is it not the case that more young people than ever are now taught by unqualified staff, precisely because of the changes rightly brought about by the previous Government, including giving higher-level teaching assistants far more ability in the classroom and bringing instructors into schools to fill gaps caused by staffing problems? The issue of unqualified staff coming into our schools is not new.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend, as a former teacher, always adds to our debates with his experience and authority. He is right that some of the work force changes made by the previous Government mean that a number of children are taught by cover supervisors or teaching assistants. We all want to ensure that everyone who is teaching and who is in the classroom is trained to the highest possible level.

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[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning Hereford sixth-form college, which I have had the opportunity to visit; indeed, I enjoyed dining there with him and others. We are committed to ensuring that we increase funding for 16 to 19-year-olds who are studying in sixth-form colleges such as Hereford sixth-form college. We will also specifically increase the proportion of funding going to the most disadvantaged, who I know are a particular care for my hon. Friend.

[Andrew Percy]

Let me take the Secretary of State back to the curriculum. I welcome the changes that he has announced. Important as it is for our young people to understand how to do quadratic equations and all the rest, it is also incredibly important that they should learn functional skills through the curriculum. I would therefore like to make a plea for financial education for young people, which could play a particularly important role in the mathematics curriculum, in functional maths. Although we obviously want our young people to learn all the important skills in the various subject areas, they must also learn something functional that they can put to use later in life.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an impeccable point. One of the problems with the mathematics curriculum is that it lacks many of the skills—and much of the knowledge—that are being taught in other countries, equipping the young people there with the ability to take advantage of the opportunities of the 21st century. The point that he makes could not be better made.

It is also the case that, as well as our curriculum not being fit for the 21st century, many of our schools are not fit for the 21st century either. It is a sad reflection of the last Government that there are still so many schools that are below acceptable standards. The Bill will therefore give the Department for Education the power to intervene where there is failure. I hope that all hon. Members will agree that where children are trapped in an underperforming school, there should be the opportunity to ensure that the leadership and the investment are in place so that those children have the same opportunities in life as those who were fortunate enough to be born in areas where the schools are stronger.

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[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I was struck yesterday by the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who feels that his report, which was commissioned by the Prime Minister, will be undermined if cuts on such a scale proceed, because the delivery system for early intervention will simply no longer be in place in constituencies throughout the country. Let us remember that this Prime Minister accused the former Prime Minister of trying to scare people about Sure Start. This Prime Minister said that he would build on Sure Start, but that is yet another broken promise.

Let me turn to how the Bill takes power from the profession. The Education Secretary says that he wants to put teachers in the driving seat, but again we see a widening gap between rhetoric and reality. There has been a 10% drop in applications for teacher training this year, which does not say much for his powers of recruitment. The drop has been blamed on his decision not to allow the Training and Development Agency for Schools to run its usual advertising and marketing campaigns to attract people to the profession. With the Bill’s abolition of the TDA, teacher training places cut by 14% and most bursaries scrapped, surely we can expect to see teacher shortages in a few years’ time.

The Bill restricts teachers’ freedoms, undermines the status of their profession, reduces their entitlement to ongoing professional development and fails to protect the rights of support staff. Ongoing development is a hugely important issue for many teachers. The TDA provided a vehicle for identifying the training needs of the profession, and its abolition raises concerns about the future of teacher training and professional development.

The think-tank million+ says that

“the TDA avoided teacher training being the subject of political interference”,

and that

“given the current ministerial view”,

there is a

“real danger that teaching as a profession is being downgraded.”

Those are its words; that is what million+ says.

[Andrew Percy]

Will the shadow Secretary of State give way?

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[Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for inviting me to speak in this important debate. I shall speak as briefly as possible so that others can contribute, but, if time allows, I shall touch on the subjects of early-years provision, academies and apprenticeships.

Why is early-years provision so important at this time? In my view it is a critical element in the Bill, because evidence increasingly suggests that it will become more crucial than ever in determining outcomes. A couple of weeks ago, in a debate initiated by Government Members—in the context of reports presented by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen)—the House benefited from speeches that demonstrated a wealth of experience in relation to early-years provision and early intervention in particular.

I believe that in providing 15 hours a week for disadvantaged children, the Government are taking a stand and making an active contribution. As a child protection lawyer, I encountered many cases whose outcomes jeopardised children and put them at risk. The situation was very delicate in such cases, and a central issue was what would happen to the children during those early years. Problems arose in relation to young children’s attachments to carers and other adults, which, in my view, were likely to determine their long-term educational and socio-economic prospects. I applaud that aspect of the Bill, and was reassured to hear from the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) that the Opposition supported it.

The provisions for academies, which amend provisions in the Academies Act 2010, offer some schools an exciting and positive future. They may not be appropriate for every school in Erewash, but we are fortunate in that three of our schools are seeking academy status and in each I see strong leadership, committed governors, and members of a school unit working to achieve better outcomes for children not just in their own schools, but in all the schools in their community.

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend has made an important point in saying that such provision is not appropriate in all circumstances. Does she agree that when a school has made a decision either to become an academy or not to do so, we should support that decision and support the school’s governors? On the front page of a local paper in my constituency, a Labour councillor in Goole was quoted as saying that a school that had decided to become an academy would not take children from council estates.

[Jessica Lee]

I agree with my hon. Friend—of course we should support a school that makes that important decision, if it is right for the school. As I have said, I have seen great leadership from head teachers throughout my constituency who, having made their decision, have worked to gain the support of the whole school unit: parents, governors and the local community.

At Long Eaton school, which has perhaps travelled furthest towards achieving academy status, I have seen leadership and encouragement on the part of the head teacher and staff. I have been concerned by the distribution by trade unions of leaflets containing scare stories and negative comments about what the school has been trying to achieve, but I believe that their efforts have been unsuccessful. Now the scare stories have started again in regard to Bennerley school in Ilkeston, and I support the actions of the head teacher, the staff, the pupils and the school community in standing firm. If their decision is right for them, they should not be bullied by unions or anyone else.

I want to mention a third school, Kirk Hallam community technology and sports college. It is also in Ilkeston, in a more socially and economically deprived part of my constituency. For decades, it did not receive the investment and attention it deserved—and it has to be said that Derbyshire county council was Labour-controlled for 28 years. I am now asking, very clearly and vocally, for a level of support and investment in Erewash from the county council and the local council that it did not have in the past.

My constituency has a proud history of manufacturing, furniture making, engineering and high-tech companies, many of which have taken on apprenticeships over the years. Apprenticeships is a topic that comes up at every meeting of the Erewash Partnership, the local business partnership in which I play a role. There is a real thirst for apprenticeships, and enthusiasm for what the Government are doing to back them. I was interested to learn that 190 different types of apprenticeship can be taken, which is more than I thought. Giving young people this opportunity and variety for their future is extremely important.

The Bill emphasises prioritising funding for young people who have already secured an apprenticeship. That is important, as it will allow us to move forward both with the commitment to have more apprenticeships—which is, of course, the right thing to do—and with making sure the practical steps are in place so that that can be achieved.

I will vote with enthusiasm for the Bill. This is a positive day for young people in this country. I think that taking this step will enable us to go forward, and I hope we get as much cross-party support as possible in order to bring all these positive ideas to fruition.

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[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

This has been an interesting debate, with the Bill having been described variously as minor tinkering building on Blairite successes and as creating a wasteland in education across England and Wales—and that is just from Labour Members. We have heard some very diverse opinions from them. Although there was some good in what the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) said, she fails to understand the reality of what classroom teachers face in our schools today.

An awful lot of myth has been put about in respect of many of the Bill’s proposals. I am broadly supportive of the Bill, although it contains bits that I do not particularly agree with and so I will get those out of the way first. Since I have been in this place, I have learned that legislation is like a box of chocolates: you do not like everything in it. I am not a particular fan of the forced raising of the participation age to 18, but I am probably out of sync with many people, on both sides of the debate, about that. I also have some concerns about the changes to student loan interest and I have some issues to raise about the English baccalaureate, which I shall discuss in a moment. Those are my minor concerns with the Bill, but in general I am a huge supporter of it and of the ministerial team in this Department, who have the best interests of this country’s young people at heart.

I wish to deal with some of the points made by Opposition Members about bringing unqualified people into the classroom, as if that were something new. I intervened on the Secretary of State on this matter. The practice is not new, although there are more unqualified staff teaching young people in our country today than at any time since the war and possibly ever. Studies have been done by the unions to prove that. Some of that teaching has been very good and in some circumstances schools have had to go down that route, because standards have slipped in some of our schools and they have been unable to recruit qualified staff. There is nothing wrong with bringing in people from different backgrounds. My personal view is that once they are teaching in the classroom, they should at least follow a route to a formal qualification. We should make that process as easy as possible, because it is desirable. When I did my postgraduate certificate of education, I learned important things in the classroom that people cannot necessarily obtain outside the classroom. We should not be worried about bringing in people from different backgrounds.

The hon. Members for Wigan and for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) have mentioned discipline. In specific circumstances, the power to search pupils there and then is important. One may have concerns about the wording of the provision, but sometimes situations arise in schools where classroom teachers need to act immediately—I can think of a number of situations in which it would be important to conduct a search there and then for the safety of other people in school. The power is important, but it is a permissive power, because Ministers would prefer teachers not to have to search young people.

On notice for detentions, there are times in teachers’ careers when they need to act there and then, because it is important to deal with an issue at the end of the school day. I taught at an incredibly difficult school, and I remember a huge problem on the local estate when a large number of our young people got involved in physical fights with another school—the situation also involved some parents, which was not helpful. We needed to deal with that situation there and then, and writing to say that we wanted to see a child in 24 hours’ time was not helpful. We had to deal with the situation there and then, but we were hamstrung by the rules.

The hon. Member for Wigan has raised the issue of discipline. I did not want to write home to some pupils’ parents to tell them that their child had a detention; I wanted to deal with the situation myself, because I knew that if I made contact with some of those young people’s homes, their lives would be made much more difficult. I would prefer to deal with such issues in the way in which I see fit rather than necessarily by engaging with parents. There is a protection issue for young people.

I do not have a great deal of time left, so I will not discuss exclusions, but I will comment on the curriculum and standards. I welcome the review of Ofsted, but the issue always comes down to interpretation. It is virtually impossible for a school to put itself through an Ofsted inspection in an honest way. The school has to step up to a mark that is not necessarily sustainable throughout the whole school year and jump through hoops that are impossible in any other circumstances. Classroom teachers are asked to do things that it is not possible to do all the time. I welcome the changes, but I hope that Ofsted’s interpretation will change.

The English baccalaureate is not simply a case of requiring schools to do certain subjects. However, it is probably drawn a little too narrowly, particularly where schools are required to do modern foreign languages. It might be very good to get young people to do modern foreign languages—I make these remarks as a history teacher, who will benefit from the change—but in a selfless act I appeal for the baccalaureate to be drawn a little more widely, because we will end up with its being used as a measure. In schools such as the one where I used to teach, engaging children and young people in modern foreign languages who may not receive support at home is incredibly difficult, and those schools will be judged against that standard, no matter how much we try to make it a secondary standard.

I am sorry that I do not have time to continue in further detail. I say to Ministers that the Bill is good and that I will support it, but please will they think again about the English baccalaureate?