Department for Education

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. This is a very well subscribed debate. Everybody can get in if people stick to six minutes; if they do not, I will have to impose a time limit, although I would rather not.

School Funding

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder if you can help me with something. Earlier today, the Prime Minister said that the Leader of the Opposition had said that he would ameliorate student debt and suggested that he was no longer looking at that. That is not something that the Leader of the Opposition is not doing. Is there anything you can do, Madam Deputy Speaker, to help me correct the record to ensure that the Leader of the Opposition is represented fairly?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

That is not technically a point of order, as the hon. Lady may know. It is up to any Member of the House to correct the record if they feel that they may inadvertently have misled the House.

Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am sure that colleagues can see that many Members wish to speak, so I shall start by imposing a time limit of six minutes.

Higher Education (England) Regulations

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The Speaker, unfortunately, had to leave, but he did ask me to pass on his congratulations and, I am sure, those of all of us, for that excellent and thoughtful speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The vote we just had reflects that it is the will of this House that the increase in tuition fees be reversed. As was mentioned in the debate, it has taken far too long for the House to have the opportunity to vote on this issue. Now that it has, more than eight months since a motion to annul the regulations when they were first tabled, it has voted unanimously to revoke them. I seek your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, as to how I may secure an undertaking from the Secretary of State that she will immediately give effect to the will of the House and reverse the rise in tuition fees. We have a constitutional crisis because the Government are running scared and not allowing votes in this House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Obviously, the House has expressed a view in support of the motion. However, it is an issue for the Secretary of State, who is present now and has been for much of the debate. I am sure that she will wish to reflect on the view of the House and decide how to proceed. It is not a matter for the Chair; it is a matter for the Secretary of State.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Unless I was totally mistaken, we just had a vote. I heard the vote and you decided it on acclamation. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) is wrong to say that there has not been a vote.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

As I said, the House has expressed a view. The Secretary of State has been in the Chamber and heard the expression of the view of the House. It is now up to the Secretary of State to decide how to take forward the view of the House.

[Wes Streeting]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier this week, I raised a point of order, because I believed that in Education questions the shadow Minister of State, Department for Education, the right hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), who is present in the Chamber, made an inaccurate statement—

[Wes Streeting]

Excuse me; it was wishful thinking. In response to my question in Education questions, the Minister of State made what I believe to be a factually inaccurate, possibly inadvertently misleading statement, when she said that Learndirect would no longer be providing apprenticeships. The following day, I rather forensically set out that that was not the case. As she is present, perhaps she might take this opportunity to correct the record and give us some reassurance that Ministers have an idea about what they are doing.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

As the hon. Gentleman said, the Minister is here and has heard his point of order. I am sure she will consider how to respond to it.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It could be argued that the first motion that was agreed to this afternoon was a general statement of the House’s opinion, but the second motion, which has just been agreed to, revokes legislation. It states that the regulations should be revoked. If the House agrees to a motion that revokes legislation, how can the Government just carry on as though nothing has happened?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

As I have said, the situation this evening is that the House has expressed a view about the regulations, and, as I have said, it is up to the Secretary of State to decide how to proceed. The hon. Gentleman might wish to pursue the matter in business questions tomorrow.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Some reports on social media say that it is the Government’s intention not to participate in any Divisions on Opposition day motions for the rest of this Parliament. Would it be possible under the normal voice and vote provisions of “Erskine May” for hon. Members of this House to vote no in an acclamation, but to vote in the opposite Division Lobby should there then be a Division, thereby enabling the House to see the opinions of everybody present? My understanding is that that would be possible if the Government continued with that line.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

It is not a matter for the Chair how Members individually or collectively choose to vote. At the moment, this is rather a hypothetical question. However, this is something that hon. and right hon. Members might like to raise at business questions tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

As part of the consultation, we propose a number of conditions that would make new selective schools more accessible to children from low-income backgrounds. We are analysing all the responses we have had to the consultation, which I am sure include responses from my hon. Friend’s constituency, and we plan to publish a formal response in the spring.

[Dame Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

May I, through the Minister, thank the Secretary of State for her reply to me regarding the application for a university technical college in Doncaster, which will increase educational opportunities for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds? However, will he make sure that other Ministers keep me and other MPs informed about the progress of further discussions? I know we have to get on with this quickly, but will he undertake to do that and perhaps to meet us to discuss the best way forward?

[Edward Timpson]

I am happy to give that undertaking. We have a new UTC in Crewe that is performing extremely well for pupils wanting to get into engineering. I am sure that pupils in the right hon. Lady’s constituency want to have similar opportunities available to them. Of course we remain open to any further conversations as this progresses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of this information. We are currently finalising the details of the technical and applied qualifications that will count in 2019 performance tables, and we will publish the list as soon as possible.

[Dame Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that the university technical college bid in Doncaster is vital to improving skills and increasing apprenticeships? Will she, without delay, give the college the go-ahead, or meet the local chamber of commerce and local authority to explain the delay?

[Justine Greening]

I have had a chance to look around a number of UTCs during my time in this role, and many of them are producing an outstanding education that is very different from the education the young people who go to them might otherwise have had. I am well aware that Doncaster wants a response in relation to its UTC application—I very much welcome the backing that the right hon. Lady has given it—and we will confirm the decision shortly.

Infant Class Sizes

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

There are teething and transition issues as new schools are established and as they establish their reputations. That school was established in the face of fierce opposition from members of the hon. Lady’s party, against the wishes of the parents who send their children to the school. They are very happy with that school and its reputation will grow in the years ahead.

The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) raised again the myth of larger class sizes, and I again point out that the average infant class size is 27.4 and in primary schools as a whole the proportion of classes of over 35 has fallen since Labour left office. He seems also to have a very dogmatic view about the infant class size rule, so he would rather refuse to give priority to looked-after children or twins and send one twin off to another school, because otherwise the 30 class size rule would be breached. That is a harsh and uncaring approach and most parents would share our approach and not his.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) has been working hard in her constituency to help schools to tackle the increasing demand for primary places. I pay tribute to her for that important work and I am grateful for her welcome for the announcement of £2.35 billion for basic need over the next three years, giving local authorities the time and certainty to plan. Some £70 million of that money will go to Norfolk, bringing the total basic need capital in Norfolk to £83 million compared with just £22 million under the previous Labour Government.

The hon. Member for Leeds North East made a candid speech about the surplus places rule and about the fact it is short-termist to close schools when rolls are falling. If there is clear evidence that in a few years the rolls will rise again, it is better just to close a classroom, turn off the heating in that room and wait. He also talked about siblings not being able to attend the same school, but he should know that schools can give preference to siblings to avoid that problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) spoke interestingly about the Public Accounts Committee away day to Barking and Dagenham. I seem to recall that during my days on the Public Accounts Committee we had more interesting away days than those which the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) has selected for her Committee. My hon. Friend pointed out that pressures in that local authority area are very different from those in his constituency of Daventry, but that is why the Government have provided £148 million of capital for that very small part of east London. That is a staggering sum of money to tackle the real problems with places in that constituency.

I welcome the speech made by the hon. Member for Darlington and her pragmatic support for the free school in her constituency, in contrast to the views of her Front-Bench team. She said that she queried the Labour Whips’ briefing for this debate when she saw the reference to class sizes of 70 and she was right to do so, because it is absolutely wrong. As I said, it is a misinterpretation of the census figures taken on one particular day when in some schools circumstances have led them to amalgamate classes for that one day only. That does not mean that there are routinely classes of 70 in our schools in this country.

Action has been taken by this Government to create more good school places and local authorities are delivering. We have already seen an increase of 260,000 school places between 2010 and 2013, including 212,000 primary places, with more than 300,000 primary places in the pipeline for delivery by September 2015. We are working closely with the local authorities across the country facing the greatest pressures to support them in ensuring that every child is offered a local school place.

That is this Government’s record, taking urgent action to correct the school place deficit left by the Labour party in government, putting in money at a time when across Whitehall savings have had to be made to tackle the crisis of the budget deficit left by the Labour party in government. This is a Government who are raising academic standards in our schools, improving the quality of the curriculum and trust in the exam system, improving the way children are taught to read, improving their arithmetic and mathematics and improving standards of behaviour in our schools. This is a Government who are ambitious to make every parent’s local school a good school and who are preparing young people for life in modern Britain. That is our education plan; a clear plan and a plan that is delivering. The Opposition have no plan, no leadership, no clear sense of direction in their education policy. They are floundering in an area of policy that could not be more important to the long-term future of our economy—

[Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question accordingly put.

Careers Service (Young People)

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

First, I agree with the shadow Minister that we have had a lively, good-humoured and balanced debate this evening, even if it has lacked the sagacity and flair of my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning. I am sure that we all wish him well in his recovery.

I must repeat that the Secretary of State is not here this evening because, heeding the shadow Secretary of State’s advice, he is not hiding his head in an ivory tower; he is out meeting 100 excellent head teachers who have gone to see him to talk about weighty matters—five times the number of Labour Members who bothered to come to the Chamber to listen to the shadow Secretary of State when he opened the Labour party’s debate in this Opposition day earlier this evening, so let us get things into perspective.

We heard the same old script. Whether it is “Groundhog Day”, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), a wind-up gramophone—a phrase used by my hon. Friend the Minister—or an over-heated iPod, the shadow Secretary of State and the hon. Members for Halton (Derek Twigg), who is not here, and for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) came out with the same old stuff: where is the money? They should tell us where the money went. Where did the money go? Why did we have such an inheritance, which meant that difficult decisions had to be made? Why has face-to-face advice become such a totemic issue? If it was such a be-all and end-all that it had to be guaranteed, why did the previous Labour Government, in 13 years of running the careers service, never offer that guarantee? Why has it become so totemic now?

It was an understatement par excellence by the shadow Secretary of State when he said that the previous system was not perfect. He is dead right that it was not perfect. Labour Members left a system where youth unemployment had risen from 664,000 to 924,000 on their watch and where the number of NEETs aged between 15 and 19 rose from 8% to 8.8% when it was falling in other OECD countries. They left far too many of our young people without the basic literacy and numeracy skills that they need to get any career going at all.

Labour Members trotted out the same old platitudes and clichés. The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) said that we are interested only in the elites. If pioneering a pupil premium for the most disadvantaged young people from the most disadvantaged estates in this country is an elite, call me elitist. If giving special treatment to those children in care who suffer appalling outcomes after 13 years of Labour Government is elite, call me elitist. If it is elitist to offer 250,000 additional apprenticeships and 80,000 more work experience places and to ensure that we will raise the participation age, despite the financial pressures at the moment, call me an elitist. Our view of elitism is to ensure that every child in this country gets a fair crack of the whip and a fair opportunity to get a decent career—something that got worse under the previous Government.

The hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman)—the successor to Alan Milburn, who came up in just about every speech that we heard—gave us the most unparalleled outpouring of stereotypes that I have ever heard in 14 years in the House: the feminine qualifications of cake decorating and the colour of cars. She talked about social mobility and said, “If Labour is about anything, it is about social mobility.” Why, then, after 13 years of Labour, at key stage 4 did 68.5% of non-free-school-meal pupils achieve five or more A to C grade GCSEs or the equivalent, compared with only 30.9% of free-school-meal pupils? Why did only 8% of free-school-meal pupils take the E-bac, with 4% achieving it, as against 24% of non-FSM pupils? Why, at age 18, are 29% of young people who have claimed free school meals not in employment, education or training? That is more than double the rate for those who had not claimed free school meals, for whom the figure is 13%. If that is social mobility under Labour, I do not want any of it. It is up to this Government to do something about social mobility, which Labour talked and talked about but delivered in reverse.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), whom I respect greatly as a former Chair of the Select Committee, said that in his day technology alone would certainly not have solved the problem. Of course it would not; technology has moved on enormously in the past 10 or 20 years. Who, 20 years ago, would have envisaged ringing up NHS Direct to get medical advice, or using computer programs to get mental health advice? It is horses for courses. He talks about localism; what localism means for us is leaving it up to the expertise in the schools—the professionals, teachers and heads—to decide whether careers advice should be given face to face, over the internet, over the phone, or even by retaining Connexions. [Interruption.] If Labour Members listen, they will learn something, I hope. I have four minutes to try to get them to learn something, but they are in denial about where the money went, about where the £200 million exclusively to guarantee face-to-face interviews will come from, and about social mobility, when they know that it went the wrong way under Labour.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) for the work he has done on the subject, and for his report. He is interested not in numbers, but in quality. He says that there has been a proliferation of courses and qualifications, and he is absolutely right. That is why we are ensuring a concentration on good-quality, core subjects that people can understand—subjects in which employers want the people whom they take on to have qualifications.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), in another excellent and typically thoughtful speech, said that we need pupils to have a core general education. We need real subjects for real jobs. Teachers, who did not feature much in the contributions of Opposition Members, have a crucial role in inspiring young people in the classroom. In the same way, people from industry—engineers, business men and women, scientists, doctors—who were mentioned by several hon. Members, have a crucial role to play in coming into classrooms and giving their face-to-face advice, and experience of what it is like to go into their career.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) gave some very good examples of good practice in his constituency. He talked about an industry day, when real people come in and share their real-life experiences to inspire others. We are talking about people who have lived those experiences, trained for those experiences, and are making a living from them. All that can happen under the new system; it is up to the schools to decide, because we trust the schools. We trust the teachers and head teachers to make the right decisions on the ground, locally, for the children whom they teach, and to have an interest in what those children go on to do.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) talked about “Groundhog Day”; he got it absolutely right. You would not believe it from the opening speech, or from other contributions from Labour Members, but there was never a golden age of careers advice. It was as if things had suddenly gone down the plug-hole after the election. The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) talked about the youth service, as she often does; she has expertise in the subject.

[Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question accordingly put.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) made a thoughtful and constructive speech, reflecting her expertise and passion. Her comments about the most vulnerable and disadvantaged students were right. She said that some groups have to be protected come what may, and they will be. It is precisely those groups that we intend to target with our support fund.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) was right when he called for support for poorer students and said that we need to work with local authorities on their transport duties. He asked a number of questions, and I can tell him that we are working with other Departments, particularly the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Transport. I take on board his point about the lack of timely scheduled transport in rural areas. He is also right to ask about young carers, looked-after children and young people, because they are some of the very vulnerable groups that we are particularly concerned about. Many other hon. Members also raised the issue of student transport costs, and we are going to build those into the discretionary part of the support fund.

The Government have a duty to tackle this country’s record budget deficit, which is the largest in the G20.

[Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

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