Education Performance

Mel Stride Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I apologise for being late for this important debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss)on initiating it. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who I assume went to St Eddie’s in my constituency, and the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe).

The starting point of my contribution is the importance of us all taking seriously the available evidence and data about education performance. It may be legitimate self-criticism for all of us, wherever we stand in terms of our parties or on the issues discussed today, to say that we all have instincts and prejudices. We all went to school, many of us have children at school and we all have schools in our constituencies. Understandably, those things, as well as our political philosophies, inform our outlook on school policy, but we need to supplement those instincts and prejudices by looking at the data and evidence.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman rightly points to the importance of evidence when comparing countries, so is he a little concerned that we were not listed in the 2003 PISA results because schools did not provide the requisite amount of information? Does he welcome the fact that this Government will make it mandatory for schools to provide such information?

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates the next part of my speech. I absolutely share his concern. In fact, I was Schools Minister at the time—I do not know whether he intervened on me with that knowledge—and I remember the difficult conversations we had to have. The subsequent judgment was that the figures, for both 2000 and 2003 I think, were invalid because there were not sufficient schools. All we have to compare is 2006 with 2009.

The hon. Member for South West Norfolk spoke about PISA before I came into the Chamber. I apologise for missing what she said. The Secretary of State has spoken about the PISA outcomes on a number of occasions. Clearly, we must all share his concern about how low down the PISA league table we are for maths, science and reading. There are issues about its methodology and about the new entrants that were not in previous studies, but I will not dwell on them. I share the concern of the hon. Lady and others that we clearly still face a very big challenge.

The hon. Lady referred to Shanghai, which is a part of China that was not in the previous PISA table in 2009 and that went straight in to the current table at No. 1, which is what they used to say on the top 40. It is now top of the PISA league table for maths, science and reading. Clearly, there are lessons that we need to learn from that part of the world.

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[Elizabeth Truss]

I mentioned TIMSS earlier. Part of the concern about TIMSS is that it is based on the curriculum of a particular country. It is not a standardised test that people sit across countries in the way that PISA is. Moreover, France and Germany did not take part in that study. We were still trailing all the Asian tigers, such as Japan and Hong Kong.

[Mel Stride]

rose—

[Stephen Twigg]

Allow me to respond to the hon. Lady and then I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he still wishes to intervene.

From the information that I have in front of me, I can see that the hon. Lady is correct in what she said about Germany and France. As for Japan, we performed better in science and mathematics in year 3-4 and year 8. I accept her point about the validity of different forms of comparative research. None the less, on TIMSS, we were ahead of Japan and the United States. I know what she will say to that. What I am measuring is the improvement on the absolute score. After the improvement, we are still slightly behind Japan, but in that period we improved faster than Japan, although from a lower base.

[Mel Stride]

Is it not the case that our apparent improvements in the TIMSS can to some degree be attributed to the fact that the cohort of countries that we are looking at in each year has changed and that a number of non-OECD African and Asian countries have entered in more recent times, thus slightly flattering our figures?

[Stephen Twigg]

I do not believe so. I am relying on the particular table in front of me. In each case, it examines a country that was in the 1995 cohort and the 2007 cohort. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman’s criticism is valid. The hon. Lady’s implied criticism is a fairer one because I was relying on the improvement. She is right to say that, if we look at the absolute score for Japan, it is, in every case, slightly better than ours, but we have made a greater improvement in that period. Interestingly, the United States is behind us on not just improvement but the absolute score in every case.

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[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Rosindell. I am afraid that I have to inform my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) that I am another Oxford graduate and, to compound her concerns, that I went to the same college as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field)—although, of course, he was there much later than me, which is why he is looking so much more youthful and fresh.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) on securing this extremely important debate. Education is one of the most important policy areas considered by our Government. It is important to the individual because a high level of educational achievement correlates to higher earnings, a lower propensity to be unemployed, better health outcomes and, indeed, greater longevity. As she eloquently pointed out, in a world that is increasingly dominated by global competition and where knowledge-based industries are king, education is also important to the economy.

I shall illustrate that point. In 1978, 6.5 million people worked in manufacturing. That figure is now down to 2.5 million. The scope for less-skilled jobs in our economy has diminished considerably. As my hon. Friend pointed out, in a recent survey, the CBI indicated that some 40% of the UK’s population could be classified as low skilled compared with just 22% in Germany. That is a serious problem for the economy.

Many hon. Members have mentioned social mobility. My parents left school at 15 and 14 for reasons of economic hardship. For them to have dreamt of becoming a doctor or a scientist would have been about as fanciful as any Member in this Chamber dreaming of walking on the surface of the moon—it was simply never going to happen. One of the most striking and pitiful statistics I have heard since becoming a Member of Parliament is that, in the last year for which figures are available, of the 80,000 children who qualify for free school meals, only 40 achieved places at Oxford and Cambridge, which is down from the princely figure of 45 in the previous year. That is simply not good enough.

I have listened with great interest to the debate about the programme for international student assessment figures and trends in international mathematics and science study statistics and so on. Of course, the problem is that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. The Government will rightly point to what they see as a diminishing level of education performance over the past decade, and the Opposition will start to unpick those figures and say that they are unfair comparisons. As the shadow Minister may tell us in a moment, I accept that there is an issue with the 2000 PISA figures having a cohort of just 32 countries and the 2009 figures having a cohort of 65 countries. Of course, such factors make comparisons difficult. However, the Government make a good point that, of those new countries coming into the later figures, many of them are outside the OECD and are therefore lowering the average standard involved.

[Kevin Brennan]

I may or may not make the point about the figures when I speak, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that the OECD itself has said—not just me—that we cannot make the comparison between the 2000 figures, the 2003 figures and the latest figures for the reason my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) mentioned earlier: the inadequate size of the sample. Given the hon. Gentleman’s Oxbridge education, he would not want to make that mistake.

[Mel Stride]

From one Oxbridge man to another, I accept that that certainly is the case with the 2003 figures, where the lack of information provided by UK and English schools meant we were not included in the league tables. Although there was a paucity of data in 2000, we were included, as the hon. Gentleman will know. Therefore, some level of comparison is justified if we go back to that year.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

My hon. Friend is making a good point about the PISA surveys. Of course, Ministers and civil servants were not slow in coming forward in trumpeting the fact the 2000 PISA figures were so high.

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for helpfully reminding me of that. I am sure that the shadow Minister will address that comment in due course.

Whether we have gone up or down a bit in such surveys is not the main point, as a number of hon. Members have said. At the end of the day, as I shall demonstrate, being average or around average is simply not good enough—as I think the Opposition accept, including the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) who very much stressed that point. According to the 2009 league table, if we were to have achieved at the level of the best—for example, Finland—67% of students in this country would have obtained five A* to C grades, including English and mathematics. The actual figure is just 49.8%. That is a huge loss of human capital and is to the enormous detriment of students who did not achieve those grades as a consequence of us not being the best. Average performance is clearly changing through time because those countries with good education systems that consistently put them at the top of the table are good at adapting and innovating. Such countries are not standing still and they are getting better.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Interesting evidence given to the Select Committee on Education this week from the OECD demonstrates how complex the matter is. What does the hon. Gentleman have to say about the OECD’s report that, although Finland is very good in terms of attainment, it is very poor at getting young people into employment? The UK is better at that than, for example, Finland. These issues are complex.

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. Of course, these matters are complex. That is exactly what I have been arguing. However, there is no getting away from the fact that we have remained average for far too long across too many measures—PISA, TIMSS, the progress in international reading literacy study and so on.

PISA is, indeed, a complex study. It looks not just at 15-year-olds in terms of reading, mathematics and science, but at the background of those students. It looks at their aspirations and attitudes and how the schools in which those students are studying function. One of the key conclusions that is drawn by the OECD from those studies is that education in this country is not promoting social mobility to the extent that it should. One of the ways of identifying that point is to look at the different achievement levels of individual pupils. There is a high correlation between social deprivation and poorer students, and lower achievement. In fact, 13.9% of a student’s achievement can be attributed to their socio-economic background. That figure is far lower in other countries, including in Finland at 8.3% and Canada at 8.2%.

That brings me on to my next point. This is not a zero-sum game where having excellence and achieving well in these league tables means letting down poorer students. It is quite possible to achieve both—to make sure that we are at the top of the league table and that we are doing well by students from less advantaged backgrounds. That has been shown not just by Finland and Canada, but by Japan and South Korea. In this country, we have for too long tolerated a long tail of underachievement in the distribution of education performance, which is why I am pleased that a lot of the Government’s very radical education policies are specifically designed to address that.

My final point—I will be brief—is that the PISA studies also highlight the link between various underlying factors in education and performance, for example, the key effect of operational independence of schools on results. There is a clear correlation between schools being allowed to get on with it and good educational achievement. That is one of the reasons why I welcome the free schools and academies programme we have put into effect. Standards-based external examinations are also key drivers of performance in education. I also welcome the English baccalaureate and very much subscribe to the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk made about it.

The quality of teachers lies right at the heart of the issue and is absolutely key; in fact, it is referred to in the title of the White Paper that we have brought forward. It is absolutely right to raise the bar on qualifications for teachers and to be more rigorous in selecting them. That includes taking a close look at interpersonal skills as well as academic qualifications. I urge the Minister to look very carefully at the point about interpersonal skills for teachers. We can all remember from our student days—in my case, at Portsmouth Grammar school in the constituency next door to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Denny Mordaunt)—those teachers who were highly-qualified, but could not inspire. It is very important that we do what we can to identify them.

The final point that comes out of the PISA and OECD analysis is the importance of the culture in a school, specifically as regards discipline, an issue mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe). I welcome the Government’s approach: 24 hours’ notice will no longer be required for detentions; pupils may be searched if teachers are concerned; anonymity will be provided to teachers who face serious allegations from pupils; and head teachers and governing bodies will have more autonomy over exclusion. As a governor of a school, I think that all those things are absolutely spot on, and I congratulate the Government.

This is an important debate. For too long, measuring success in education has been with reference to the past. It has been done with reference to inflated examination results—results pumped up by resits, continuous assessment and diminishing examination standards—and we have simply disguised failure by doing that. Worse, we have also failed far too many of our young people. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk on securing the debate, and the Government on placing international standards right at the heart of our education policy.

Education Bill

Mel Stride Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. The diploma, which the previous Labour Government introduced, was an attempt to bridge the divide between academic qualifications and vocational qualifications, which should remain our aim. We should want all children not to choose one route or another, but to do academic subjects and learn practical skills that will serve them well through life. My worry about this Secretary of State is that he is further entrenching the divide between academic qualifications and vocational qualifications and sending a message to those who wish to pursue a vocational route that they are second best or somehow second class, which is a damaging step to take. As my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) has said, most other countries do not have such a divide, which is why I argue that this Bill takes us back to the past.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members frequently refer to Sir Richard Lambert and his comments about our growth strategy, and they have quoted him at length. Does he agree with what Sir Richard Lambert said about education in this country and preparing young people for work in an interview in The Guardian in December 2009, when he said that the Labour Government’s record in that respect was “shameful”?

[Andy Burnham]

I agree that we need to ensure that all young people have absolute rigour in the basics in English and maths.

The Secretary of State began today by discussing a string of statistics, but he did not say how the number of young people leaving school with good GCSEs in English and maths increased considerably under the previous Government, as did the number of young people leaving school with five good GCSEs. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) entered office, some 50% of schools in this country had a record whereby kids were not leaving with five good GCSEs—it was total failure. When we left office, that figure had been massively reduced, which gives the lie to the Secretary of State’s comments at the beginning that we “failed a generation”. That was an outrageous comment, and it is not backed up by the facts.

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[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I say to the Secretary of State that on reflection nothing is ever quite as good or bad as we think it is: I was not as good a Secretary of State as I thought I was, and I have a feeling that the right hon. Gentleman is not quite as bad as I think he is—at least I hope he is not.

The Bill is a mixture of incrementalism, with which I agree, contradiction, with which I do not, historical misinterpretation, downright old-fashioned conservatism and, with the exception of the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), complete humiliation for the Liberal Democrats, who have been against most of the things in the Bill, but who now have to vote for it.

On incrementalism, as the Secretary of State managed to get across several times in his 52-minute speech, there is clearly much in the Bill with which the Labour party can agree and which in fact we put in place. However, there are major contradictions, one of which is that the more academies and free schools we have, the less the Secretary of State’s prescriptions on the curriculum, which he laid down this afternoon, will actually apply. In fact, I thought at one stage this afternoon that the Secretary of State was going to lay down a menu for all school meals that would have sweet and sour from Hong Kong, a little tortilla from Mexico and rolled herrings from Sweden, and would be dictated by the Secretary of State, so that nobody missed out on the five portions of fruit and veg required every day, because that is how he is coming across.

There has been a complete misunderstanding of the historic mission of providing diversity and flexibility. We would all agree on having the highest quality world-class headship and top-class teaching in the classroom, but the Secretary of State went into great detail this afternoon, picking out a bit of the curriculum here and a bit there from across the world, indicating that schools would have to teach certain things to reach a particular configuration—an indigestible menu that will in fact not be manageable by most schools. I therefore ask the Secretary of State to think again. He should by all means build on the progress that has been made, learn from the mistakes that we made and transfer genuine power to heads and teachers, but he should not pretend that he is doing that when he is doing exactly the opposite.

Another contradiction that I have noticed over the past few days is the way in which the Prime Minister has indicated that we should have a sense of identity inculcated in our schooling system and our society. I do not disagree with that—indeed, I have put that in place on a number of occasions, both in education and at the Home Office—but we cannot have that at the same time as seeking to abolish citizenship from the curriculum. If we really want to ensure that we have a sense of belonging and mutuality together, and that we understand our history, we need more than simply the teaching of historical figures, so that we can understand how our world works and how people find their place in it.

Above all, my worry about this Bill is the sheer politicisation involved. The power placed in the hands of the Secretary of State, with the abolition of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, is a worrying factor. Let us just imagine for a moment what our media, including our beloved BBC, would have done if we had abolished the QCDA and the Training and Development Agency, and placed their powers directly in the hands of a Labour Secretary of State. It would have been on the “Today” programme every morning, with somebody, probably from Real Education—it would probably have been the former inspector, Chris Woodhead—parading themselves, saying what a dastardly thing it all was, yet here we have a Conservative Secretary of State politicising the education curriculum and the education service.

This is not just about central administration; it is about an hegemony that can be seen throughout, with the politicisation of our life more generally. In each area—it is most heavily writ large in the case of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, matched only by the current Secretary of State for Education—the parade is of freedom and localism, while the measures are about centralisation and diktat, and this goes right across the board. I fear that as the Government preach freedom, they take away the rights, as has already been described, of those who should be driving the system, namely the parents of the children concerned. Taking away rights in respect of the adjudicator and sheer fairness, as well as the right to have one’s voice heard and to get redress, will lead either to the courts or to complete disillusionment. Either way, that is a bad outcome for the education system.

As we are dealing with a Bill that includes a real rate of interest for students under the new fees system, which will create difficulties and have a dangerous impact on access, it is worth reflecting on the fact that Cambridge university has today announced that it will be charging the full £9,000 fee, because it believes that the demolition of the contribution from the Government—the taxpayer—towards teaching makes it impossible to do otherwise. The whole Bill could have been about building on progress made, learning the lessons or drawing down on world-class experience; instead, it is about—

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Gentleman refers to building on progress and mentions Cambridge. Does he feel that much progress was made when only 42 pupils who were on free school meals went to Oxford or Cambridge in the last year?

[Mr Blunkett]

I was about to say that the Bill is about those contradictions and a historical misinterpretation. What the hon. Gentleman might actually be arguing for is an increase in access and a transformation in how schools relate to Oxford and Cambridge. I was at Cambridge last week—it was the nearest thing to being at Cambridge that I have ever managed, unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), the shadow Secretary of State. I was pleased to be there and to find not pomposity or exclusion but a desire—from the students at least—to reach out to try to persuade students and staff in schools across the country that their pupils could aspire to the best we have to offer. Incidentally, it is not always Oxford and Cambridge doing that; it is often our best universities and their departments across the country.

I want to give time to those who have not had the privilege that I have had of contributing to education debates over the years, but I appeal to the Secretary of State and his supporters please to not reinvent the wheel. We do not need what the Business Secretary described as the perpetual Maoist revolution; instead, we can come together on sensible ways of improving the life chances of our children.

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[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I have changed my speech; I have rewritten it while listening to the debate. I was going to talk about the free school bid in Bristol and my hope that the local council would give parents what they wanted: an all-through school. I was also going to make a plea to the Front-Bench team to consider my idea for a trigger for a special needs assessment after a certain number of exclusions to see whether something was wrong with the original assessment. However, I am not going to talk about any of that, because I want to address something else which has been at the heart of the debate: appearance versus reality.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) talked about ideology and appearance and the importance of evidence, and I could not agree more with him. I know that Opposition Members are concerned about social mobility, as are Government Members, and I saw their bleak faces when the Secretary of State illustrated the awful situation facing children on free school meals and their lack of opportunity in comparison with their richer counterparts. I know that they are concerned, so we must ask how we deal with that.

In asking that question, we cannot shy away from things that might not be ideologically to our liking. International league tables are so important, because there is a tendency to get caught up in a self-referential bubble of success, of exam results getting ever better. Our young people always work hard, and I believe that the cohort of young people in the country today is every bit as good as that in the 1950s, but that is not the point. The point is this: what is the objective reality of the qualifications that we are offering those young people? We must look at those measures to work out what is going on and then what we can do about it.

I will re-rehearse the statistics. I understand that statistics always have wriggle room, but I do not think that Members can argue with the general thrust of the statistics from the OECD programme for international student assessment. They show that the UK has moved from fourth to 16th in science; from seventh to 25th in literacy; and from eighth to 28th in maths. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) for his brilliant breakdown of those figures and their background. The worst thing about that is that it is the poorest who suffer, and we have to look at why that is so. That is why the idea of an English baccalaureate is so interesting and crucial. The fact of the matter is that the poorest suffer in the curriculum. The evidence is overwhelming that those who go to state schools in deprived areas do not have access to the kind of academic subjects available to those who go to state schools in better-off areas or to private schools. That is because struggling schools have perverse incentives to put their pupils through qualifications that lead to equivalents so that they look good in the league tables. We cannot blame them for that, because it is obvious why they do it. The English baccalaureate is an attempt to offset that perverse incentive.

[Mel Stride]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that apparently only 4% of young people receiving free school meals would currently qualify for the English baccalaureate illustrates her point?

[Charlotte Leslie]

I agree absolutely, and my hon. Friend anticipates my point. The English baccalaureate shines a cold and difficult light of reality on what is going on. I will ask a question that Members might expect to come from the Labour Benches: why is it that, because I went to a private school, I was able to study Latin and a range of academic subjects which friends of mine who did not go to private schools were not able to study? When I applied for difficult and competitive jobs in television, I was told time and again that Latin looked interesting on my CV. Why was I given that opportunity and my friends at state schools were not? I do not think that that is fair. I make no apology for a system that will enable people from less well-off schools to study academic subjects, because it is resetting a balance. It is a case not of having either academic or vocational subjects, but of having both. It is really very simple.

If we look at the other objective measures of what is going on, we see that universities have courses that they value. I have a concern that our schools, in their bid to look good in the league tables, are pushing our children through courses that the universities do not value as much. The statistics show that only 1% of children on free school meals are going on to Russell group universities. That is not because those children are any less able than their counterparts, but because we have got something wrong.

I would like to run through a few scenarios that I have come across to add colour to what I am saying. First, there is a boy in my constituency who went to a school in one of the more deprived wards, and he was prevented from taking physics. He was an incredibly bright chap and wanted to study physics, but he was prevented from doing so, which was awful. Secondly, the head who took over that same school recently said to me how despairing he was that he had bright students who had been told that they would do only vocational courses. Vocational courses are obviously equally important—someone had to build the building we are in now—but that does not mean that academically able children should not be able to pursue their course in life as well.

Thirdly, we do not have the vocational element right. I do not even like the name “vocational”, because a vocation is what one does, so one can have a vocation as a brain surgeon, as a plumber and even as an MP, but “vocational”, which has slipped into the political language, is a euphemism for manual, practical and technical skills and crafts.

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[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

I welcome the Bill, because it will improve education in our country in the same way as the Academies Act 2010 does. That is vital not just to the pupils whom we have been discussing today, but to our standing in the world. It is important to our businesses and to our economy. We are trading in an increasingly international, globalised, competitive marketplace in which the knowledge-based industries are king, and knowledge is power in the modern world.

Over the past week or so, Opposition Members have taken great delight in bandying about the words of Sir Richard Lambert, the outgoing director general of the CBI, about our growth strategy. In December 2009, in an interview in The Guardian, Sir Richard said that the then Government should be ashamed of the results produced by the education system. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) should interpret such comments not as an attack on the pupils who are working so hard, but as an attack on a system that has consistently and utterly failed them.

Social mobility is essential, but, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), it is probably at its lowest level since the 1970s. I will not pretend that responsibility for that lies only with the previous Government, but no one can escape the simple reality that education is the great route of social mobility, and that we get it wrong at our peril. Some Opposition Members are irritated by the statistic revealing that last year just 42 pupils receiving free school meals obtained places at Oxford and Cambridge, compared to over 80 at one public school alone, Westminster. That is a disgrace, but, rather than being irritated by it, Opposition Members should feel angry and sorry for the many other children receiving free school meals who have been deprived of the opportunity to achieve the very best in their lives.

I welcome many aspects of the Bill. For instance, I welcome the way in which it encourages and promotes academies and free schools. I believe that parents should be the ultimate arbiters of what is best in education. They do not need league tables. They know—as they say in Northern Ireland—what the dogs in the street know. They know a good school from a mediocre school, and it is they who are most likely to stand up for their sons and daughters. We must promote academies at every turn.

I also welcome the Bill’s emphasis on the importance of improving qualifications, and on ensuring that Ofqual takes account of international league tables. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), there is no point in our continually looking to the past and our inflated examination results, patting ourselves on the back and telling ourselves how well we are doing domestically, when we are plummeting in the international league tables year after year. The PISA numbers have frequently been cited in the debate. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) rightly pointed a finger at them, saying, “You can’t quite compare one year with another, as there’s a different cohort.” There may be some truth in that, but even Opposition Members must on occasion have pause for thought about the fact that there has been such a slump consistently over time.

It is important that through this Bill we get a firm grip on the issue of school discipline. Some 1,000 pupils are excluded each day for abusive or possibly even assault-based behaviour, and many teachers are being put off from even going into the classroom as a consequence. It is right that teachers should now be given the authority to search pupils; we should trust them to do that. Among the items they are currently not allowed to search for are hardcore pornography and video cameras, which can be used to film disruptive incidents that can then be posted on the web. It is right that we should empower them to take the necessary action.

It is also extremely important that we afford teachers our protection in respect of unfair claims made against them by pupils. An Association of Teachers and Lecturers survey has shown that about one in four teachers have been the recipient of false claims, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to ensuring that they are given anonymity up until the point at which they are—or are not—charged.

I welcome the Bill, and I want it to be a moment of hope not just for the children who are currently at school, but for future generations yet to come. I hope they will look back and see that this was a moment when their life chances were improved immeasurably.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Performance)

Mel Stride Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I shall address several such decisions that the Business Secretary has made.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Denham]

Not at the moment.

It is not as though the Government were not warned about what was coming. When the Tory-led Government took over, recovery was strengthening and unemployment falling. Since then, every decision they have made has made things worse. They stopped the loan to Forgemasters, showing that they had no plan to ensure that British companies gained from a new nuclear programme. When the emergency Budget was introduced in June, the Office for Budget Responsibility said that growth would be slower and employment down as a direct result of the Government’s measures. When they chose to make the biggest cuts in the most vulnerable communities, it was clear that the regions would need new growth and new jobs. When the Government published the comprehensive spending review in October, the Office for Budget Responsibility told them that growth would fall and unemployment would rise. Independent organisations from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development to PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Local Government Association warned that reckless cuts would destroy jobs in the public and private sectors, yet the Business Secretary did nothing.

We were promised a White Paper on growth in October. Then the civil servants said that there was not enough content to warrant one. Two months later, the Business Secretary was bundled aside and the Chancellor took charge, so now we are promised a Budget for growth on 23 March. This Tory-led Government will have been in office for 10 months and three weeks by then. That will be 321 wasted days of complacency, drift and inactivity. By the time any Budget measures are implemented, we will have had a wasted year that this country cannot afford.

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[Mr Denham]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and given what you have said, the House will understand if I do not take too many more interventions. However, I would simply point out that I was proud to be part of a Government who created 3 million jobs. After we had been in office, there were 1.1 million more small businesses than there were when we came into power.

[Mel Stride]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

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[Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)]

The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) is absolutely right when he says that the Government must take decisive action—decisive action to address the staggering deficit and huge public debt inherited from the Labour party; decisive action as a direct result of the previous Government spending more than they raised in taxation; and decisive action because the Labour party burdened generations to come with the liabilities incurred for the current generation. That decisive action will help to put in place the right macro-economic conditions for recovery.

[Mel Stride]

Does my hon. Friend agree that only the prompt action that the Government took in the emergency Budget shortly after the election ensured that we stabilised the markets, which in turn kept interest rates low, which in turn kept sterling low and encouraged manufacturing exports?

[Simon Kirby]

My hon. Friend is, as usual, correct. We inherited a very big mess indeed.

Coalition Ministers are driving forward a programme with one purpose—creating jobs. There is talk about what is happening. A raft of measures have been introduced, and those are designed to support economic recovery, boost business and help the private sector to create jobs. Corporation tax is falling for both small and large firms. The previous Government’s planned increase in employer national insurance contributions has been stopped. National insurance contribution discounts are being offered to encourage new start-ups to take on employees. Small-business rate relief has been doubled for a year, and the Government are getting to grips with the red tape that strangles so many of our small firms.

Let me be clear on this point—

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[Simon Kirby]

No, I will not accept those facts. I am often struck, looking at those on the Opposition Benches, by how few people have been in business, how few have employed people and how few have filled in a VAT return. I have employed more people than could fit in this Chamber, and I speak from some experience.

[Mel Stride]

On the point made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), does my hon. Friend agree that it is typical of the previous Government that they left office with unemployment higher than when they came to office—the case with every single Labour Government in history?

[Simon Kirby]

I agree with my hon. Friend. One of the sad things about unemployment is the youth unemployment element, which is particularly prevalent in my constituency. It is, frankly, a disgrace.

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[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

Today has been a revelation to me. I understood that denial was a medically treatable condition, but I did not know that it was a collective condition. Today has opened my eyes in that respect. The denial is best illustrated by the shadow Chancellor’s recent statement:

“I don’t think we had a structural deficit at all”.

By golly, we have had a deficit every year since 2002. Indeed, it rose massively to the point when, in 2010, we were borrowing £1 of every £4 we spent. If that is not a structural deficit in anybody’s book, I do not know what is.

This matter is best understood by recognising the growth in public sector employment of 20%. More than 1 million new people now work in the public sector. That productivity barely rose in some areas and went down in others shows how successful that was. That is an unbelievable fact that any businessman would say is the road to bankruptcy. That is exactly what the previous Government did to this country. Thank God we had an election and a change of Government.

I will move on to other areas in which the previous Government let down British industry. First, let us consider employment tribunals. When I was in business, I stood in four tribunals and won each of them. On each occasion, I was told by colleagues, “Pay ’em.” The previous Government created an aura of commercial blackmail that is totally unacceptable. Thank God the present Government are doing something about that.

[Mel Stride]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential that we do something about claims to employment tribunals, which increased by 57% in 2010? They are feeding lawyers and depriving businesses of investment.

[Mr Binley]

My hon. Friend is right. There were 236,000 cases last year—a record figure. That suggests that something needs to be done. This Government are doing something about it and I am grateful.

The cost burden of regulation on business increased by £10 billion a year under the previous Government. That money could have been used for investment, but instead it had to be spent on complying with regulation after regulation, which the previous Government had gold-plated.

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[Alison McGovern]

That is an interesting perspective, and I obviously have great respect for the learned people that the hon. Lady has mentioned—[Interruption.] Of course I have great respect for the Royal Society.

The Government cannot say that the corporation tax cut will enable investment. Ireland had one of the lowest corporation tax rates, and look what happened there.

[Mel Stride]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison McGovern]

I have given way twice; I will not give way again.

The corporation tax cut will help only companies with profits. We want to see strategic Government-led and business-led investment in the sectors that can most help us to progress out of the recession. I see no leadership from the Government on this issue. They constantly crow about tax cuts for business, but they have effectively handed profits back to the profitable bits of the banking sector and large companies, when they should be using that money to invest in high-technology manufacturing, such as that in my constituency. That message is coming to me loud and clear from the global corporations that invest in Merseyside, as well as from the small companies. They need investment now, not an across-the-board corporation tax cut.

I now turn to the impact of all this on young people and on employment. Everyone in this House is concerned about young people, as well we should be. People will know that in the protests that have been taking place around the world, the action has been most pronounced in countries with extremely high unemployment. We have to face the facts. The Government’s offer to young people in Britain has been massively diminished. We have seen an end to the September guarantee and an end to the future jobs fund, which I know was helping young people in my constituency to build their CVs, so that when the recession ended and growth returned, they would be able to apply for jobs. We have seen an end to the education maintenance allowance, which was helping young people in my constituency to travel to the best possible courses for them, and an end to the commitment of the previous Government to the level of funding for further and higher education.

I was so concerned about what might happen to young people’s employment prospects that I asked the Minister responsible for employment some parliamentary questions about his expectations for the number of 16 to 24-year-olds on the dole. By my calculation, once we have taken into account the population projection for the current cohort of 16 to 24-year-olds, the Government expect there to be a reduction in the number of 16 to 24-year-olds on the dole across the life of this Parliament of less than one percentage point. I must ask Government Members whether they think it is good enough that the Government’s ambition throughout this Parliament is to reduce the number of young people on the dole by one percentage point. I do not think that is good enough.

The only answer that the Government seem to have to the unemployment that young people are facing because of the global crash and the Government’s inaction is their spurious figure of 75,000 new apprenticeships. We have already heard evidence that, even during the recession, the Labour Government were supporting a greater year-on-year increase in the number of apprenticeships, so the present plan seems wholly unambitious.

There is a further problem for 16 to 18-year-olds, many of whom are the very people we want to get into industry and business. They might not want to stay in full-time education, for whatever reason. As far as I can ascertain—I stand to be corrected if the Minister wants to intervene—16 to 18-year-olds will not be eligible for the new adult apprenticeships that the Minister wants to fund.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mel Stride Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Lady is correct to say that particularly now, when there is more of a focus on not being in hospital and being treated in the community, children with chronic medical conditions are less likely to be educated in hospital schools. I am sure that my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions will take note of her comments, which I will bring to their attention.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

17. What recent representations he has received on school standards in (a) Central Devon constituency and (b) England.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

No representations have been received on school standards in Central Devon. We have, of course, received many representations about standards in schools nationally. In 2010, at key stage 2, 78% of pupils in Central Devon achieved level 4 or above in English and maths combined, compared with 73% in England. In 2009, at key stage 4, 55.5% of pupils in Central Devon achieved five or more GCSEs at grade A* to C, including English and maths, compared with 50.9% in England as a whole.

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Historically, Devon has suffered from a lower dedicated schools grant than other parts of the country. Will he confirm that he is looking closely at per pupil funding, and that schools in my constituency can expect a fairer deal in the future?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend will be aware that last Monday we announced the school funding settlement for 2011-12. The overall schools budget is being maintained at a flat cash per pupil rate so that as pupil numbers rise, the overall budget rises. In addition, we are introducing a pupil premium, which will be worth £625 million next year, and will provide schools with £430 for every pupil who is known to be eligible for free school meals. In Devon, the dedicated schools grant is £4,602 per pupil and the capital amount is £24.6 million for 2011-12. We recognise that the school funding system is currently unfair, opaque and illogical. A number of local authorities, particularly those in the F40 group, believe that they are not funded correctly. We will consider that over the longer term to address that unfairness.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Mel Stride Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, and there are many deficiencies in the wider SEN system. My concern is that if the issue of low incidence SEN is not defined properly, the situation will be made much worse. In some respects this is not a party political issue, because we are all here to do the best that we can for children with SEN and their parents, whose lives are a struggle without making things worse.

We have lost good specialist services over the years, when funding was delegated to schools but they did not buy the services back. I have learned to my cost, when these things have happened, that we simply cannot get those services back quickly. Teachers of the deaf and the visually impaired and blind do not hang on the back of cupboard doors; they take years to train, and it is hugely expensive. Building those services back up once they have gone, particularly if the local authority does not have the funding to do so, will be impossible and will severely disadvantage these groups of young children.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Are there not examples of local authorities—one thinks of Suffolk—where the arrival of academies has not damaged SEN provision? So it does not need to be that way. Some academies have the ability to buy back services from the local authorities, but where that does not occur, does one not have to question the quality of the provision?

[Pat Glass]

There are two issues there. First, in the past it has depended on the number of academies. With all these arguments, there is a critical mass issue. If enough academies go and take their funding with them, it will no longer be possible for organisations, whether the local authority or some other body, to provide that service to the standard required. Have I answered the hon. Gentleman’s question?

[Mel Stride]

Yes, the hon. Lady answered the first part of my question. The second part was: is it not of concern to her that, when academies choose not to buy their services from local authorities, those services might not be of the requisite standard? That, in itself, is a concern.

[Pat Glass]

No doubt there are variations in the quality of service across the country. However, in my experience, the low incidence, high-need, high-cost services across the country are usually very good and valued by schools. The difficulty is that, at the moment, there is not a market place for it, so if we lose these services and a school finds that it needs them—for instance, if a blind child comes to the school—but has no idea about Brailling, specialist services, disability or any of these things, it will not be able to buy them from a market outside.

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[Mr Hancock]

I 100% agree. Sadly, I have seen that so many times—somebody who has devoted their whole life to their child, but to caring for them in their home environment so that they have never really tried to develop their true potential. Mencap’s slogan was about everyone having the opportunity to achieve their true potential, and all aspects of SEN education must always involve offering every child the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

I think there is a problem for existing schools that have a very good record of trying to facilitate proper care and to provide suitable and proper education for people with SEN. Some of them might find that because of the establishment of an academy or free school and the attractive way in which they are promoted as being something better, parents will take their children away from their old school and move them into the new academy or free school simply because they have been told that it is the thing to do and that that is the way the future will emerge. That will cause damage to the fabric and set-up of the existing school, and some of them will suffer greatly.

[Mel Stride]

Does not that argument suggest that parents cannot be trusted—that they do not have good judgment when it comes to looking after the future of their own children? Should we not put more trust than that in parents?

[Mr Hancock]

I am wholly in favour of trusting parents; it is the silver-tongued politicians I am worried about, who make the suggestions to people that this is like manna from heaven and that the whole world will be changed. Politicians have more than once talked with forked tongue and parents have been misled into believing that a certain direction was the way to go only to fall foul of a politician’s promise, which was usually made before or during, rather than after, an election campaign. Very seldom have such promises been made after an election campaign, and very seldom have they been fulfilled.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Mel Stride Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Is it not the case, though, that if we do not sometimes have excess places, we deny parents the choice that in turn drives the improvement in standards within schools, and end up in the situation that we are in at the moment whereby we are going down the league tables in mathematics and literacy, and of the 80,000 pupils who have free school meals, only 45 are getting into Oxford and Cambridge and our better universities?

[Mr Wright]

I would be happy to allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene on me again if he could provide a direct correlation between surplus capacity, which is what he is suggesting, and rising standards and quality in schools. I do not see a close correlation between capacity and quality, but if he would like to enlighten me on that, I am more than happy for him to intervene.

[Mel Stride]

Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that there is a correlation between increased parental choice—after all, it is parents who know what is best for their children and can spot a good school as opposed to a bad one—and an improvement in standards?

Building a High-Skilled Economy

Mel Stride Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

I offer you my congratulations on your election, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also congratulate all those who have made maiden speeches this afternoon, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), who spoke eloquently about his constituency and, like many others this afternoon, on the subject of football. As someone whose wife—who is in the Gallery today—is a fan of Liverpool football club and has, in my opinion, a rather worrying keenness on Steven Gerrard, I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), will be trying to make the early acquaintance of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram).

I am proud to address this House for the first time as the first Member of Parliament for Central Devon. My constituency was formed from parts of five others, so it could be said to have five predecessors, two of whom I am pleased are still Members of the House. First, there is my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), who has set the highest standards in looking after his constituents—standards to which I aspire. Like most lawyers, he has never been slow to offer me wise counsel, but unlike most lawyers he has very graciously never charged me a penny for it. There is also the Minister for the Armed Forces, my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey). Although he is not a member of my party, he is often held by my constituents who were previously represented by him to be a bit of a Tory at heart. I am sure that that will be a good qualification for his new role as a Minister in our coalition, and I wish him well.

There are three other predecessors who are no longer Members of the House, the first of whom being Anthony Steen, who served as the Member for Totnes. I have found him to be immensely courteous always and sometimes marvellously eccentric. He is a compassionate man who has done a great deal of good, not least through his work addressing the dreadful situation of human trafficking, and I am sure that he will be missed by the House. Secondly, Richard Younger-Ross was the previous Member for Teignbridge, and a very hard-working and assiduous local Member of Parliament.

Lastly, and for me most importantly, I pay tribute to Angela Browning, the former Member for Tiverton and Honiton, who was held in great affection on both sides of the House. She could not have been more supportive, generous and helpful to me. She was hugely respected by her constituents, regardless of their political leanings, and I am delighted that she has now been elevated to the other place. In the coming months, I shall try to live up to these illustrious forebears, to be inspired by their example and to contribute to the House as they have done.

Central Devon is one of the most beautiful constituencies in the country. It is also one of the largest, covering some 550 square miles, including a third of Dartmoor national park, numerous beautiful and scattered villages and several fine market towns such as Okehampton, Hatherleigh, Chagford and Crediton, where, some Opposition Members might be pleased to learn, Ernest Bevin was schooled. They are welcome to come and visit, but strictly out of election time if they do not mind. Other market towns include Buckfastleigh, Ashburton, Bovey Tracey and Chudleigh.

My constituency is steeped not only in beauty but in history. In my home town of Ashburton, a once important stannary town occupied with the trading of tin, there still exist two venerable and ancient offices—portreeve, the representative of the monarch, and master bailiff. Both of those offices stretch back to the early 9th century, well before even your illustrious office had been conceived, Madam Deputy Speaker, and indeed to a time when the ground on which we now stand was little more than a marshy outcrop of the River Thames. I offer my congratulations to Mrs J. Distin, Ashburton’s newly elected portreeve, who is the 1,189th holder of that office, and to Mr W. Shapley, our master bailiff.

Although Central Devon is an area of outstanding beauty and interest, it is not without its challenges and hardships. It is a constituency in which agriculture matters, so events that hurt agriculture have a major impact upon my constituents. In 2001, the foot and mouth outbreak was centred around the market town of Hatherleigh, with devastating effects. The pall of smoke that hung over that part of Devon from cattle being burned on their pyres will never be forgotten. Today, there is the challenge of bovine tuberculosis, which costs 30,000 cattle a year in this country and causes untold misery to Devon’s farmers. I am pleased that this issue is receiving the vigorous attention of our Government.

Many other serious issues affect my constituency, including the underfunding of our schools compared with other parts of the country. Devon is ranked 148th out of 151 local education authorities in terms of central Government funding. There are many reasons why that position is too low. I will continue to press on this matter for the sake of our local children, who have a right to a fair share of education funds.

In this debate I wish to focus on schools, not least because I have a strong belief that the greatest gift that any young person can receive, after a loving family, is that of a good education. For those who choose the vocational path, it is vital that education be provided with the same energy and vigour as that afforded to the more traditional academic routes. I welcome the statement of my hon. Friend the Minister of State responsible for skills and lifelong learning that there will be an extra £50 million of capital expenditure for further education and an extra 50,000 apprenticeships. He should be congratulated, as we should remember that education and skills are important not just in and of themselves but to the life chances of our young people.

Education is the great highway of social mobility—for individuals to move on and up, in many cases escaping poverty and deprivation in the process. I say that as someone whose mother and father left school at ages 15 and 14, and whose life was transformed by the winning of a free place at a grammar school. The greatest opportunity ever provided to me, that school became the foundation on which the rest of my life was built. I would like to see others have the opportunity that I was privileged to receive.

I have long admired the ideas and the reforming passion of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and my hon. Friend the Minister of State. They have fully understood the force for good that education and skills can represent, but they have done more than that. They have truly understood the disgraceful and inhumane waste that is represented by continued educational failure—the appalling destruction of life chances, especially among the least advantaged. It is they who have understood the extraordinary power of choice: that choice will drive up standards; that parents know better than bureaucrats; that giving power to those who otherwise just have to take what they are given is the key to raising up the less advantaged; that future generations must be sustained not just by hope but by taking control of their destinies; and most importantly of all, that there is an age-old truth that the quest to create a stronger and better society cannot be left to the planners, to the bureaucracies, to the well-meaning architects of the state, but must be gifted to those by whom the consequences of success or failure are most keenly felt.

The Government’s radical agenda for education and skills will represent a vital journey—a true quest for equality, of a kind not that seeks to push down to some lowest common denominator, but that seeks to raise people up by providing choice and opportunity for every young person, irrespective of wealth, colour, race, creed and social background.

I thank the House for its indulgence and wish the Government every success in their vital endeavour.