Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lucy Powell and Chris Philp

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I wholly agree with the sentiment that my hon. Friend is expressing. Let me reassure him on the question of rape defendants in the youth court. If the judge feels that the crime is sufficiently grave and merits a sentence of more than two years, they can move the case to the Crown court, where it is then eligible for the unduly lenient sentence scheme. In the past few years, the number of referrals under the ULS scheme has increased significantly. In 2018, 1,066 cases were referred to the Attorney General, who passed 140 on to the Court of Appeal; the sentence was increased in 99 of those cases. We keep the ULS scheme under continual review and will certainly consider very carefully my hon. Friend’s representations about its scope.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

19. I welcome you to your place in the Chair, Mr Speaker.As well as victims of crime, there are also miscarriages of justice. Can the Minister tell us how many appeals the Criminal Cases Review Commission has recommended should progress to appeal, and how many cases the Court of Appeal has granted in the last two years? Can he assure the House that, if those figures are as low as I fear, miscarriages of justice are not being brushed under the carpet by a legal establishment watching its own back, rather than being open to real scrutiny?

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Lady is quite right to raise that issue. I do not have the figures she asks for immediately to hand, so perhaps I could undertake to write to her. Let me assure her that this Government are certainly committed to making sure that miscarriages of justice are properly investigated, and if there is anything more that needs to be done, she can rest assured that we will do it.

Education and Social Mobility

Debate between Lucy Powell and Chris Philp

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

It is a particular pleasure for me to speak in this debate, having attended a south London grammar school myself. I can say from personal experience that I would not be here were it not for that grammar school, so I feel an obligation to other youngsters growing up in south London who are from ordinary backgrounds such as mine to speak up when the opportunity arises.

I echo many of the things said by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), in particular by highlighting the terrible unfairness in the system. The only way to be sure of an outstanding education is often to pay for it, either by going private, or by buying a much more expensive house in the catchment area of a good school. It is a disgrace that the only way to be certain of an academically elite education today is by paying for it.

I want to respond to a question that the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), my colleague on the Treasury Committee, posed to the Secretary of State. He asked for evidence that children from ordinary backgrounds do better in grammar schools. He asked for one piece of evidence, but I will give him two. First, in areas where at least 10% of pupils are selected, the GCSE grades of free school meal kids are seven notches better than those of equivalent children in non-selective schools. That is a seven-grade boost. Secondly, white male children—I think the previous Secretary of State mentioned them—who go to grammar schools have a 30% higher chance of going to university than those who do not.

[Lucy Powell]

Parents and teachers following this debate will have heard a Government Member say that the only way to guarantee an excellent education is to pay for it. The hon. Gentleman is rubbishing our excellent education system. The fact of the matter is that, yes, many parents want to select their children’s education socially, but if we flip the issue and look at the situation for free school meal children, the hon. Gentleman will find that progress in the comprehensive system massively exceeds that in the private sector.

[Chris Philp]

It is clear in my area of Croydon that parents who want a particular kind of academic education have to travel out of the borough to either Bromley or Sutton because the kind of education that they want for their children is not available. That leads me on to my next point about parental choice. If parents want a particular kind of education for their children, it is not for this House to deny them that choice on ideological grounds. We should be enabling choice.

By the way, no Government Member is suggesting a return to the system under the Education Act 1944. No one is proposing the reintroduction of secondary moderns. We propose a diverse system with a whole range of schools with different specialisms. We already have many different kinds of academies and free schools, and grammar schools have a place in that diverse system along with other types of school. Parents can then exercise choice over which school works for them. It is clear that when free school meal children go to grammar schools, they do significantly better than if they do not.