School Building Closures

Debate between Clive Efford and Gillian Keegan

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I am delighted that St Leonard’s now has a mix of face-to-face and remote learning—it has done a fantastic job to enable that, working with local partners. On school rebuilding, we are making those decisions with the project directors we have on site at St Leonard’s. We will consider first the short-term and medium-term mitigations, and then when we should do the rebuilding. We have an MPs surgery later for anybody in the House to raise specific cases that they are interested in; I shall be there with my Ministers and officials, and we are happy to go into detail on any case and give Members the latest. It is still an evolving situation, but we will be there and will support St Leonard’s as much as possible to ensure that children are safely educated there.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I am sure that all the people the Secretary of State told to get off their backsides will be very sympathetic to the fact that she needed to go on holiday while this crisis was in progress.

On revenue and costs, the Secretary of State has itemised a number of things that the Government will cover, but schools face a vast range of potential revenue costs, including surveyors and other costs. Is she saying that all costs relating to RAAC will be covered?

[Gillian Keegan]

Yes, all the costs that the hon. Gentleman mentions are reasonable costs. Also, I am sure that he is delighted that all the pupils at St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School are in face-to-face education.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about my working, I am always happy to work, no matter where I am, and I always have been throughout my very long career.

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Debate between Clive Efford and Gillian Keegan

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. To put the scale into context, there are 22,500 schools in the country and 156 have been confirmed with RAAC. Of those that are suspected, which will go through the survey process, probably a third or less will be confirmed with RAAC. So it is important that we put that into context. We have taken tough decisions and the right action. The vast majority of parents, teachers and children will not be impacted by RAAC in our schools.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

What has been exposed is how close the Government were prepared to go to catastrophe in one of our schools before they took last-minute action this summer, just before schools went back. A school in my constituency has had to close substantial parts of its buildings. A letter from the DFE, following their discussions, says:

“As officials discussed with”

the trust

“the immediate actions should be treated as a short-term measure and you should already be developing a long-term plan for remediation of RAAC panels in your building.”

The next paragraph goes on:

“Please note the building survey in June 2023 was carried out as part of the DFE’s central RAAC Assessment Programme. As such, it should be considered in addition to, rather than in place of, any professional advice that you seek.”

Just exactly how will the Government determine what they will pay for? What work will they accept? Will it be the professional judgment of the people the schools engage, or will it be the surveyors from the eight companies that the Secretary of State has just spoken about? How will these matters be resolved going forward, because the devil in these things is always in the detail?

Fair Taxation of Schools and Education Standards Committee

Debate between Clive Efford and Gillian Keegan

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, showing her economic literacy in full. I will get on to explaining some of the figures.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Gillian Keegan]

I am very happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Clive Efford]

This issue surely boils down to a moral argument. It is charitable status that gives independent schools their tax benefits, but what kind of charity requires a person to pay an average of £37,000 in order for it to benefit from tax breaks? Is that really a charity?

[Gillian Keegan]

There is the huge education benefit, but I think the hon. Member may have his maths a little wrong—I do not think the average is £37,000.

We are improving state-funded education, not undermining the aspirations or choices that parents have for their children. That is important. We are delivering a world-class curriculum for all schools, not attacking world-class institutions that secure international investment and drive innovation. We are driving school improvement, not driving small schools serving dedicated religious and philosophical communities out of business. We are providing the funding to schools that they need.

I am delighted that Labour decided to include school standards as part of this debate, as our record speaks for itself. In 2010, just 68% of schools were rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding, but we have taken that to 88%—hopefully the Members opposite are still following the maths—which is a vast improvement driven by the Minister of State, Department for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb).

Moreover, the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) should join me in praising the work of this Government. Since we took office, schools in her local authority of Sunderland have gone from 67% rated good or outstanding to 91%. Meanwhile, 97% of schools in the Leader of the Opposition’s local authority now enjoy a rating of good or outstanding—I am sure he has thanked my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for his role in making that happen. The shadow Schools Minister, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), should also be grateful; when Labour was last in power, fewer than half of his local schools met that standard, but I am happy to share with the House that we have taken that dismal record and made it good—literally. Today, Portsmouth now boasts 92% of schools rated as good or outstanding. I want to take this opportunity to thank teachers, headteachers and support staff up and down the country for their incredible work over these years, as they have been the key drivers of this success. I can guarantee that we will not stop there.

Underpinning that record are improvements in phonics, where a further 24% of pupils met our expected standard in the year 1 screening. In just eight years from 2010, we brought the UK up the PISA rankings—the programme for international student assessment—from 25th to 14th in reading and from 28th to 18th in maths.

We will continue that trajectory as we build on the ambitions of the schools White Paper, which will help every child fulfil their potential by ensuring they receive the right support in the right place at the right time. This will be achieved by delivering excellent teaching for every child, high standards of curriculum, good attendance and better behaviour. [Interruption.] Somebody opposite mumbles “13 years”—I am sure that schools are delighted with the improvement I have just outlined over the past 13 years. We will also deliver targeted support for every child who needs it, making it a stronger and fairer school system.

Let us focus on the independent school sector. We are very fortunate in this country to be blessed with a variety of different schools. We have faith schools, comprehensive schools and grammar schools, to name but a few, all of which help to support an education that is right for children. The independent school sector itself is incredibly diverse. It includes large, prestigious, household names—in this House, we will all have heard of famous alumni from Eton—but there are 2,350 independent schools, and not many of them are like Eton. Reigate Grammar School, a fee-paying independent school that now charges £20,000 a year, once educated the Leader of the Opposition; like many in this category, it started as a local grammar and became independent. In fact, 14% of Labour MPs elected in 2019 attended private schools—double the UK average. I will be interested to see which of those hon. Members votes to destabilise the sector that provided the opportunities afforded to them.

As someone who did not benefit from such a prestigious educational background, I stand here focused not on the fewer than 7% of children who attend independent schools, but much more on the 93% who attend state-funded schools, as I did. As the Opposition wish to use parliamentary time on this issue, I would point out that the sector provides many benefits to the state and individuals alike. Independent schools attract a huge amount of international investment, with more than 25,000 pupils whose parents live overseas attending independent schools in the UK. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) pointed out, many could be working in our armed forces.

Randox Covid Contracts

Debate between Clive Efford and Gillian Keegan

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Gillian Keegan]

Can I please just get some of these points out?

Of course, there are a phenomenal set of safeguards in place. The National Audit Office has reviewed the testing contract, and it has confirmed that all the proper contracting procedures were followed.