Education Policy

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State to set out the Government’s policy on the fairness premium to disadvantaged young children, pupils and students.

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

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I have been asked to reply to this urgent question as it falls within my departmental responsibility.

I am delighted to have this additional opportunity to confirm the very good news that this coalition Government will be spending more on schools. The House will know that the full details of the comprehensive spending review will be announced on Wednesday, but I can confirm today that we will fund a new fairness premium of £7 billion over the whole CSR period, which will be invested in accelerating social mobility.

This coalition Government will give all disadvantaged two-year-olds 15 hours a week of pre-school education. We will give all disadvantaged children a pupil premium in schools to improve their attainment—that will amount to £2.5 billion a year by the end of the CSR—and we will introduce a student premium to help more disadvantaged children to make it to university.

We have had to undertake a fundamental review of expenditure to deal with the massive deficit bequeathed to us by the previous Government, whom the right hon. Gentleman served as Chief Secretary. As we have protected NHS spending—against his advice—all Departments have had to look for efficiencies. I have already taken steps to halt inefficient programmes, cut out waste, prune bureaucracy, close quangos and drive forward school reforms. The decisions that we took in the first months of this Government to reduce inefficiencies were tough. The outlook overall is tight, but thanks to the steps that we took early in the life of this Government, we can now prioritise spending on the front line, so I can confirm today that school spending will rise in real terms.

In addition, we can spend more on those who need more. We inherited a two-tier school system, with the biggest educational divide between rich and poor of any developed nation. The opportunity gulf begins in the early years and grows over time. By the time they are 16, the poorest children—those eligible for free school meals—are only half as likely as other children to get five decent GCSEs, and of 80,000 children in any year eligible for free school meals just 45 get to Oxbridge. As many children from one top public school—St Paul’s school for girls—get to Oxbridge as the entire population of poor boys and girls on benefit. That lack of opportunity is a scandal—an affront to the nation’s conscience—and thanks to the decisions taken by this coalition Government, the policies are now at last in place to give every child a fairer chance.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

First, let me thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement, and may I also welcome him to his new role clearing up after the Deputy Prime Minister?

On Thursday evening, the BBC was briefed about a new policy—the so-called fairness premium—with huge implications for early years, schools and higher education funding. No notification was given to this House. We know that the Deputy Prime Minister had a bad week, and this had all the hallmarks of a hasty move to get him out of a political hole. The country could hear policy being made on the hoof.

On process first, therefore, when did the Secretary of State for Education hear that the Deputy Prime Minister was making that speech? We know that the Cabinet was kept in the dark on child benefit, but can the Secretary of State confirm that the Cabinet discussed all aspects of the fairness premium policy before it was briefed to the media?

As this announcement came in advance of the CSR, and given the overall reduction proposed by the Chancellor, people are anxious about where the funding is coming from. Can the right hon. Gentleman today give the House an assurance that he is not robbing Peter to pay Paul and that no other part of the education budget is facing disproportionate cuts to pay for the policy? Is he aware that his announcement has fuelled rumour over the future of the education maintenance allowance and universal Sure Start? Can he today reassure the House on those fronts as well?

Finally, the heart of the matter is this: we need to know whether the Government will honour repeated promises that the pupil premium will truly be additional to the schools budget. A BBC report suggested that funding will be recycled from within the schools budget. The Liberal Democrats have broken one education pledge; we need to hear from the right hon. Gentleman today whether another has been broken, or whether the Deputy Prime Minister has secured the reddest of his red lines.

[Michael Gove]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his series of questions, and may I also thank him for his generous words about the Deputy Prime Minister, who had a very good week last week? I think that being able during the course of our CSR to secure a better deal for schools than the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) was able to negotiate when he was Education Secretary counts as a significant triumph. I think that advancing social mobility and social justice by delivering on Liberal Democrat manifesto promises is something in which Members on both sides of the House can take pride.

The right hon. Gentleman asks when I knew about the fairness premium. I knew when I read through, and nodded with approval at, the education section of the Liberal Democrat manifesto. The Liberal Democrats committed then—months ago—to spending more on early years, to funding a pupil premium and to ensuring that more disadvantaged people can go to university. The Liberal Democrats, in this coalition Government, have delivered on all those goals.

The right hon. Gentleman asks whether there will be any disproportionate cuts in any other part of the education budget. I can assure him in respect of Sure Start and 16-to-19 funding that he will find out on Wednesday that we have ensured that the funding is in place in order to guarantee that more people will participate after the age of 16 and that a network of Sure Start children centres is there for every child who needs them.

All of this has been done because our coalition Government working together has dealt with the inefficiencies, the waste and the bureaucracy that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government bequeathed to us. A coalition Government working together has prioritised social mobility after years in which it was frozen. A coalition Government working together has ensured that money goes to the front line rather than being spent on bureaucracy and waste. As a result, we are taking the tough decisions that he and he and he—his right hon. Friends on the Opposition Benches—ducked. They will not support reducing child benefit in order to ensure that the poorest get more. They will not support our VAT increase in order to plug the deficit. They will not support any of our steps to improve efficiency on the front line in schools. They are a party of naysayers and deficit deniers, and that is why this coalition Government are putting right the mess we inherited from them.