Funding and Schools Reform

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

The time limit on speeches by Back Benchers will be seven minutes in this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

The debate today is about schools, not about higher education. However, I would be delighted to have a debate about higher education. It would be interesting to know who would represent the Opposition in such a debate. Would it be the Leader of the Opposition, who believes in a graduate tax, or the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, who denounces such a tax? Would it be the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden)—who is no longer in his place—who backs the Browne reforms, or would it be the hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts), who opposes them? The truth is that, on higher education, there is a split in the Labour party as wide as the River Jordan between those who are genuinely progressive and back our reforms and those who are regressive and oppose them—[Interruption.] Hon. Members ask who introduced tuition fees. The Labour party did that, and in so doing, broke a manifesto promise—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I must remind hon. Members that this is a debate on schools, and not on higher education. I am sure that the Secretary of State would not want to open up another debate.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Academies Bill [Lords]

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hancock]

Yes, I was a bit thrown by that. I do not know if there was a domestic going on—

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Hoyle)]

Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could stick to the amendment.

[Mr Hancock]

The amendment is very important because it places pressure on the Minister to spell out exactly what he believes social cohesion should mean, how schools can be best used and whether any concession will be made by the Government in this area. I hope that there is, and I expect that the hon. Member for Hemsworth feels the same.

If academies come into being, the chances of local authorities—which may have “bought into” new schools in the past—to buy facilities in schools will be remote and will not happen very often. It will be important for academies to start to sell themselves to the wider communities, saying what is on offer and inviting people to use it. We do not want to start with the idea that the use of facilities will be restricted. I would hope that Ministers will give us a concession tonight that would lead people to believe that schools will have a newly awakened sense of their responsibility to make a greater effort to bring the community in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Iain Wright]

I beg to move amendment 79, page 4, line 8, at end add—

‘(8) Before making an Academy order in respect of a maintained school under this section, the Secretary of State shall consult with—

(a) the local authority,

(b) any other local authority who would in his opinion be affected by the making of an Academy order,

(c) teachers and other staff at the school and their representatives,

(d) parents and pupils of the school and the other schools in the community, and

(e) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.’.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 7—Social cohesion—

(1) Before a school makes an application for an Academy order or an Academy arrangement with an additional school the relevant local authority must be asked to assess the impact of Academy status on—

(a) admissions in the local authority area where the school is situated;

(b) funding between all publicly funded schools in the local authority area where the school is situated; and

(c) social cohesion in the local authority area where the school is situated.

(2) The impact assessment in subsection (1) should be made with regard to any existing policies the local authority or local schools forum have in relation to (a), (b) and (c).

(3) Before making an Academy order or an Academy arrangement with an additional school the Secretary of State must have regard to the impact assessment in subsection (1) made by the local authority.’.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 28, page 1, line 18, leave out from ‘(6)’ to end of line 20.

Just so that I start off on the right foot, is it Mr Hoyle or Mr Deputy Speaker?

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Mr Hoyle.

[Vernon Coaker]

Right; I just thought that I would embarrass myself, rather than have everyone else embarrassing themselves by not knowing what to say.

It is a great pleasure to be going through the various provisions of the Bill. Let me also take this opportunity to welcome the Government Front-Bench team to their roles. This is their first opportunity to take a Bill through the Commons. Normally today’s proceedings would have happened upstairs but, without making a point, I can say that theirs is still a demanding role, but one that I know they will enjoy. It is also quite nice to be on this side of the Committee, from where I can ask the questions and not have to think what the answers are. Having said that, I would much rather be in power and have that responsibility.

With that welcome, let me say that the Bill and our discussions on it are extremely important, and while it is—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Iain Wright]

I begin by thanking the Minister for his usual courtesy and kindness in wishing my daughter Hattie a very happy birthday. The whole Committee is welcome to join us for “Toy Story 3” on Sunday, if it so wishes.

The Minister has reassured me to some extent on clauses 9 and 10 and on the model funding agreement. That goes some way to addressing my concerns and I also thank him for clarifying some points about the FE sector. However, he has not gone far enough. As I said, there are fundamental weaknesses at the heart of the Bill, as seen in this group of amendments. Those weaknesses are on capacity and on consultation. With great respect to the Minister, he has not reassured me on those matters.

More to the point, some comments by the hon. Members for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and for Hexham (Guy Opperman), and the excellent comments by the Chair of the Select Committee, showed that there is concern about the gap in the appropriate level of consultation. I understand that the Minister hopes to ponder on that issue, but I would suggest that he table a Government amendment on Report, which we could consider. I would be more than happy to discuss any such amendment with him. I suspect, however, that he will not do that.

I repeat that there are fundamental weaknesses on capacity, which amendment 20 would address, and on consultation, which amendment 33 would address. I would therefore like to test the opinion of the Committee on those amendments.

[The Temporary Chairman (Martin Caton)]

Only amendment 20 can be pressed at this time.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I beg to move amendment 1, page 2, line 1, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—

(a) the school follows the National Curriculum;’.

[The Temporary Chair (Martin Caton)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 25, page 2, line 2, at end insert

‘and follows the National Curriculum in science, mathematics, information technology and English;’.

Amendment 30, page 2, line 2, at end insert

‘and where appropriate section 40 of the Childcare Act 2006’.

Amendment 26, page 2, line 2, at end insert—

‘(0) the school has a curriculum which includes personal, social and health education as a statutory entitlement for all pupils;’.

[Caroline Lucas]

As Members will know, the amendment proposes that academies should follow the national curriculum. Under the Government’s proposals, once a state-maintained school becomes an academy, it is no longer required to follow the national curriculum. [Interruption.]

[The Temporary Chair]

Order. There is an awful lot of background noise in the Chamber at present. I cannot hear the speaker, and I am sure many others cannot either.

[Caroline Lucas]

As I was saying, under the Government’s proposals once a state-maintained school becomes an academy, it is no longer required to follow the national curriculum and that is of particular concern in respect of state-maintained faith schools that convert to become faith academies. Interestingly, a recent poll found that 75% of people agree or strongly agree that all state-funded schools should teach an objective and balanced syllabus for education about a wide range of religious and non-religious beliefs.

The Government appear to be unconcerned about the public’s view on that as they allow a significant risk that some religious authorities will use this new freedom under the Bill to pursue restrictive teaching in line with their religion. There are no specific protections in the Bill to ensure that the duty to offer this so-called balanced and broadly based curriculum cannot be neglected or evaded. That is a cause for great concern.

The previous Government introduced a change so that academies had to follow the national curriculum in English, maths and science, and the teaching of evolution was, of course, covered in that. I have tabled my amendment because the coalition Government propose that academies should be entirely free from the national curriculum. If the Bill is not amended, there will be no requirement on academies to teach evolution, and the Government do not even appear to have plans to prevent the teaching of creationism in academies.

We know that some academy sponsors want creationism to be taught. Emmanuel college in Gateshead, backed by the philanthropist Sir Peter Vardy, attracted controversy by teaching pupils about creationism, and pupils at the school reported that creationism was taught alongside evolutionary theory as being an equally valid belief. How will Ministers ensure that pupils at religious academies receive objective and evidence-based teaching and that creationism is not taught in science lessons or as fact?

Academies Bill [Lords]

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, may I remind everybody that Mr Speaker has set a 10-minute limit on all speeches? I call Mr Graham Stuart.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my London colleague, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), who has some very strong schools in his constituency. I am also pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who made an excellent speech.

I hope that Members on both sides of the House agree that the street in which someone was born should not determine their educational achievement. Success is always at the heart of educational discussion in the House and, for most communities, success has five ingredients. One is of course education. The second is employment, as a result, I hope, of that education. The third is a culture of aspiration. The fourth is parenting, and, for those without parents or who have problematic parents, there will be youth workers in loco parentis and others in the voluntary sector in the community coming alongside. The fifth is community. I hope that, when we think about the role of local education authorities in the debate tonight, we will acknowledge that all those ingredients can come together to make a difference. This is not just about the schools but about the youth services provided alongside the school that the local authority is in charge of delivering. It is not just about the status or structure of a school, or whether it is an academy or not, but about how we reach into communities, lift aspiration and ensure that all young people can achieve their dreams.

Against that backdrop, the fact that just 14% of the young people in my constituency were getting five good GCSEs when we came to power in 1997 can only be described as despairing, decaying and, to some extent, the road to doom. That meant that 86% were getting fewer than that. We were sending more young people to prison than to university, and that was replicated in some of the most deprived constituencies in the country. We should reflect deeply on that when we talk about the importance of education to life outcomes.

The nature of our debates on education over the years reveals a preoccupation with structure. For my party, following the Butler Act in 1944, much of that preoccupation consisted of our deep hostility to grammar schools and our desire for a comprehensive system in which all young people would be of equal worth, and would have comprehensive access to quality education across the country. Some Conservative Members—perhaps because of their proximity to independent schools—seem to suggest that the state system should be freed and given the ability to innovate, to replicate the arrangements in the independent sector. References have been made to the changes that we have made in governing bodies, as well as to grant-maintained status and direct control. That is all about structure.

The great achievement of the Labour Government over the past 13 years was—yes, of course—to make some changes to the structure and to introduce academies, but particularly to have an eye on quality and standards, and to get into the classroom, and to be alongside teachers and head teachers in driving up quality. One Conservative Member disparaged classroom assistants, but they serve to provide two or three adults in a classroom to help to drive up those standards. Excellence in schools was about developing pedagogy, particularly to drive up standards for those who had been consistently left behind. Over the years, we have debated the challenges that exist for white, disaffected communities and, as the hon. Member for Croydon Central pointed out, for black boys, in order to drive those standards up. We were engaged in those schools, and the figure of 14% in my constituency that I mentioned earlier is today 66%. That is what we have achieved. It means that when I served as the Minister for Higher Education, I served in a constituency where we had seen not just a small rise in young people going to university, but one of almost 100% in constituents going to university, and in young people making their way to apprenticeships.

That is hugely important, as these are the very same families who, as we think back to the 1980s, had parents or older brothers and sisters streamed off to do the CSE exam—one in which they could not achieve their best in the way others doing GCE O-levels could. That left its mark—one that we have often attempted to correct with our emphasis on basic skills, numeracy, literacy, unionlearn, and the community response to education as well. It is not just about structure; it is absolutely about standards.

Standards were at the heart of our drive on academies, concentrating our efforts. There were 188 of them, many of them failing schools in the most deprived areas, and we were giving them a fresh start, renewing them with new buildings. Yes, we gave the new leadership of those schools the freedom to innovate. It was, I think, the emphasis on standards that saw the advances made. Academies were, of course, largely based in inner-city areas. A large proportion of them—27%—served black and ethnic minority communities. There was real innovation in the system.

My concern is the hostility from the Government side to local education authorities. I ask why they are so hostile to our means of pooling resources, bringing them alongside schools, giving them specialist advice, helping them organise admissions and so forth. Local education authorities were set up in 1902 by the Conservatives, and they have served us well. The Bill that we are voting on tonight will pave the way the break-up of local authorities over time.

What will we now say to the schools left behind as schools scramble to get academy status? Let us not pretend that this is not about money. The Department for Education website shows that this is about money because it helps schools model how much more of it they would make. And why primary schools? What evidence is there that primary schools, particularly single-form entry primary schools, are even equipped to take on this extra load?

On that basis, we challenge this new system, which will disperse the efforts and advances made by academies, and we question much that has been said. I am very concerned about the equality impact assessment of the new scheme. We are already seeing in the academies that girls are not making advances, that ethnic minorities are not—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a passionate speech, as did the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who spoke very personally, and the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). There are no doubts about the passion and the validity of the emotion in their speeches. It is important that I make the point that I myself went to a state school. I did allude to that. When I was in primary school, I was in a remedial class because the assumption was that I could not speak English, but the important point I want to make is—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman must ask a question. His intervention is not a chance to make a speech.

[Paul Uppal]

Thank you for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I will do so. I want to make a point about the selection issue, which the hon. Lady raised. Why do we go on about selection? Selection in this modern day, when our children are competing with graduates from India and China, is linked to the importance of the pursuit of excellence and aspiration. That is absolutely crucial if we are to succeed, and—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I call Yasmin Qureshi.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman says that I was talking about selection. If the teachers are teaching well and the pupils are responding well, children of all abilities can be taught in one school. There will obviously be some children who do very well academically, while others may not do quite so well. However, children who are perhaps academically poor initially will have a chance to catch up. Because they are in a good school with children of mixed abilities, they will have a chance to get better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The Bill does not say, however, that 50% of the children coming into such a school must consist of children of all abilities. We will still have academies and schools selecting according to ability, and my point is that we should not.

It might be a controversial idea and an unpalatable one to many people in the House, but it is not that strange: why should children from all backgrounds not go to the same school? Why can we not have mixed-ability classes? The record across the country shows that schools containing children with a mix of ability and with different social backgrounds do better, and that schools that are not performing so well start to do better in these circumstances because everyone is working for things together. Instead everybody wants to create these “excellent” schools, which have “pushy parents”—I am sure that my saying that will be held against me—who obviously want the best for their children. That is fine and I understand that they want the best for their children, but why does everybody forget about the other—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I call Robert Buckland.

Industry (Government Support)

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Given what the hon. Lady has just said, does she support the Government policy on RDAs, which is to allow local people to decide whether local economic partnerships should cover the region or a smaller area?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Hoyle)]

Order. Only one Member can be on their feet at any one time. Please allow the Member to finish before rising again.

[Rachel Reeves]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry for my enthusiasm.

I welcome the clarification from the hon. Member for West Suffolk that regions will be able to make their own decisions, but that was not my understanding of what the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said earlier. [Interruption.] If he did say that, I think that everyone on the Opposition Benches would welcome that. If our regions will be able to make the decisions about our regional development agencies and their future, I welcome that. I am grateful for that clarification, but that was not my understanding of what the Business Secretary said in his statement.

I know that Conservative Members will disagree with this, but I am sorry to say that we do not hear enough from them about growth. They cite the G20 advice about reducing deficits while consistently forgetting about or ignoring the advice in the G20 communiqué for

“credible, growth-friendly measures, to deliver fiscal sustainability”.

That omission on growth is worrying from the perspective of industry and jobs—the subject of today’s debate—because the greatest risk we face is that of a double-dip recession, with the job losses, business failures and higher budget deficits that that would bring.

On Monday, the Chancellor dismissed the possibility of a second recession, but businesses in my constituency are less certain that we are out of the woods. Key to the recovery and to bringing down the budget deficit—we hear a lot about that from Conservative Members—are growth and having a regionally strong and diverse economy. That will not happen by chance; it depends on a strategic Government policy supporting industry in all our regions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Reeves]

Sorry, as I am still on my feet—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Hon. Members can, by all means, seek to intervene, but if the Member does not give way, they just have to leave it there. We cannot have two Members on their feet at the same time.

[Rachel Reeves]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. This Government—the party of the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin)—have called for £293 million of cuts from the regional development agencies. Yorkshire Forward was asked to make £44 million of cuts. It was written to and asked to come back with those cuts within two weeks—it had two weeks to determine cuts that will affect 24,000 businesses in my region. These are not Labour cuts; they are Conservative cuts.

I ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to give my constituents some commitment and some hope and certainty that the work that Yorkshire Forward does to support innovation, manufacturing, jobs and skills will continue. I urge the Government not to destroy the support for jobs and growth that the Labour Government put in place. Without Yorkshire Forward, we would not have brought clean coal to our region and the 1,000 jobs that that means in South Yorkshire. Without Yorkshire Forward, we would not have negotiated a deal with Siemens and GE to bring offshore wind, with thousands of much-needed jobs, to Hull, Grimsby and Scunthorpe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I hope that I have made it clear that I support the private sector’s coming to our region and bringing jobs with it. However, that requires a Government on the side of our communities and of businesses. That means encouraging jobs to come to this country when they could go to any other country in the world. If we were in Germany or China, we would be urging jobs to come to those countries. If we want a level playing field, we need a Government who support industry.

In Yorkshire, we look to Government for support—to honour the commitments on high-speed rail and on Sheffield Forgemasters. They are key to Yorkshire’s future and good for the British economy, too. Yorkshire Forward and regional development agencies have fought our corner in a way that Whitehall simply cannot. The support is critical and it is good for all of Britain. The short-term hatchet job pursued by the Government risks the recovery and will put Britain in the slow lane of the global economy, making reducing the deficit harder because there will be higher unemployment and tax revenues will be weaker. Growth is the essential ingredient that is missing from the Government’s strategy.

Now is the time for some more ambition. In the wake of the recession, we can build a fairer, stronger and more diverse economy, built on skills and high-end manufacturing, if the Government put in place the policies—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To indicate the challenge that we face, the previous Government introduced 20,938 new regulations. Between 1987 and 1997, 46 pieces of primary legislation affected the workplace. In the subsequent 10 years under the Labour Government, 92 pieces of legislation affected the workplace. In the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, working with the Secretary of State, we have already identified on our forward programme 200 proposed regulations inherited from the outgoing Government that would have cost more than £5 billion to British business. Every one of those will be scrutinised, and we will roll back the burden of regulation, which is fundamental.

We believe in “rebalancing the economy”, and although those are the new words, I sometimes think that Winston Churchill, who served in the House as a member of the Liberal party and of the Conservative party, expressed it best when he said that he wanted to see finance less proud and industry more content. That is what the Government stand for. Getting a grip on the public finances is fundamental, because otherwise, as my hon. Friends the Members for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) and for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) described powerfully, interest rates will rise, which is a burden that British industry cannot be expected to bear. We need to bring down the burden of public borrowing and of the public finances.

The Government are not alone in believing in that—former Ministers who are now on the Opposition Benches signed up to such plans in government. They have failed today to give us any information about their plans to deliver the savings to which they publicly committed themselves. Let me remind them of what was in last year’s pre-Budget report with regard to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It said that £300 million would be saved by reducing funding for adult skills budgets, and £600 million would be saved from higher education and science and research budgets. I agree with Labour Members about the importance of science, although it is a pity that they fought the last election on a proposal to save £600 million from higher education and science but have never informed us of exactly how they would have made those savings. We will now deliver the savings, and they are in no position to criticise the savings that they planned for but never had the guts to share with us and explain.

The Government are committed to a strategy for growth that involves an enterprise-friendly tax system, support for science, support for free trade and competition, a belief in investment in skills and training, and rolling back the burden of regulation, setting British industry free. As every contribution to the debate has revealed, there is a simple difference between the Government and Opposition. The Government believe in freedom, enterprise, initiative and competition, and the Labour party still believes in state control, higher public expenditure, more regulation, more RDAs, and more interference in the wealth-creating sector of the British economy. That is not the way we will recover from the recession in which the Labour party left the country.

The Government will commit ourselves to bringing down the burden of borrowing and managing the public finances prudently. In the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, in which it is a privilege to work with the Secretary of State, we are determined to have a more flexible and dynamic industrial sector because of our commitment to free trade and free markets.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2), That the original words stand part of the Question.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State would like to agree that Sure Start has been a huge success. Can he guarantee not only that the funding will be there for Sure Start but, more importantly, that he will continue to expand the programme on the number of Sure Starts in constituencies?

[Michael Gove]

Yes.