Education and Social Mobility

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). She and I have disagreed many times in the past, but I agree with much of what she has just outlined, and I hope that her successor is listening carefully to what she had to say. We do not have long so I shall try to canter through some of the issues as best I can.

Before we get into the meat of the debate, it is important to clarify what we all mean by social mobility. Too often in this debate, we talk about plucking the lucky few from the most disadvantaged to the very top, but that is not what the policy on social mobility needs to address. It is about economic and social progress for the many, not just for the lucky few. It is about making the distance between the rungs on the ladder shorter and pulling up the bottom rung altogether.

The challenges that we face in order to achieve that are, as many have said, deep seated and manifold, but they are particularly important in the world of work of today and tomorrow. Automation and digitalisation and the hollowing out of the low-skilled and many skilled jobs will mean that, for example, by 2022 there will be 9 million low-skilled people going after 4 million jobs, with a 3 million shortfall to fill the 15 million high-skilled jobs that will be available in that economy of the future. Those are the big challenges that our country faces today. The educational landscape needs to address those challenges, not hark back to the challenges of the ’50s and ’60s and the very different economy that obtained then by comparison with today. We thus need a coherent, whole and big bold strategy for tackling social mobility and narrowing the gap in educational disadvantage. As successive Governments have sought to do that, they have found that it is about dealing with the long tail of under-achievement—not, as this Government seem hell-bent on doing, creating an even more elite education for the already elite.

I see the Secretary of State shaking her head, so let me tell her that the Government could start by adopting in full the recommendations of her own Social Mobility Commission report, published just last week. If she did, she would get widespread cross-party support. There are three key areas set out in that report. I fully agree with them, and they have already been mentioned.

The first is about quality in the early years. I am afraid that when it comes to the early years, we are yet again seeing the Government not understand the policy question that they are being asked. Yes, they are putting more money into childcare—something that I very much welcome—but there are two reasons for investing in the early years: the first is to enable parents to get back into the labour market, and the second is to narrow the educational attainment gap that already exists for many by the age of five. To narrow that gap, we must have an absolute focus on quality, which must be available for the most disadvantaged children, not just for a few. The Government could be spending their money much more wisely in this area by driving up quality across the board.

We need a clear agenda as we go forwards, but I am afraid that many things have been going backwards under this Government. We need more support for parents through the Sure Start programme. We need quality provision most of all in the most disadvantaged areas, as we see with our maintained nursery schools and many classes in primary school, which are all under threat as a result of the new funding formula. We are seeing a levelling down, not a levelling up when it comes to quality in the early years. We could use the early years pupil premium much better. I say to the Secretary of State that she should leverage the extra money she is putting in to ensure that quality is at the heart of her strategy. All we hear about are working families and childcare, but that is not what the social mobility debate is about.

We need a pool of talented teachers everywhere, as we saw in the London Challenge, which was a fantastic achievement of the last Government. We need to see it rolled out to places such as Knowsley and the 10 most disadvantaged areas across the country—but that is not what is happening. Grammar schools will exacerbate the problems of getting quality teachers in the areas that need them most.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Lady not notice the irony in mentioning Knowsley, where the Labour council’s own report said that the introduction of grammar schools would be transformative, especially for the working-class boys who were under-achieving?

[Lucy Powell]

That was not a recommendation that the council took on board. What we need is to get the quality teachers into the right areas. We know what works—we know it worked in London—and we need to see the London Challenge rolled out to the 10 worst areas where we know that most disadvantaged children are not getting the schooling they need. There is much more we can do in the post-16 area as well, as the Social Mobility Commission also said.

Let me deal finally with grammar schools. Let us quickly remind ourselves of the evidence. The OECD found that selective countries do less well than those that are non-selective. In England, the highest attainment gaps are in selective boroughs, yet the highest performing local authorities are comprehensive. In Kent, 27% of free school meal children get five A to C grades, whereas in London it is 45%. The tiny number of free school meal children who attend grammar schools is not comparable with the tens of thousands of free school meal children elsewhere. There are just 3,000 of them.

David Willetts described grammar schools as

“an arms race of private tuition for rich parents”.

The inequalities that we have described get greater and greater in this system. That is why the chief inspector of schools, the Fair Education Alliance, the Social Mobility Commission, the Education Policy Institute, the Sutton Trust, the headteachers’ unions, all the heads in Surrey, Ruth Davidson and many Conservative Members are all opposed to the reintroduction of grammar schools. If the Secretary of State wants proper cross-party agreement on driving up social mobility, she should take forward her own Government’s report every step of the way and agree with its recommendations on grammar schools. If she did, she would get a consensus in this House.

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[Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden); I agreed with nearly everything he said until his last line.

I am particularly grateful for having the opportunity to speak in this debate given the inability of the shadow Secretary of State to answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) as to whether a future Labour Government would close existing grammar schools, which is a matter of immense importance to me and my constituents, and those of the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), who is sitting next to the shadow Secretary of State on the Opposition Front Bench. I hope we will have an answer to that important question before the end of this debate.

Fundamentally this debate is about social mobility, of course, but it is also about who we believe should make choices in our society: do we believe the men in Whitehall and we in this House should be directing what is available for our constituents, or should we be listening to what they want? Wherever we have selection in our country—my constituents in the borough of Trafford are perhaps the best performing in the country—that system is immensely popular with parents. It is hard to find significant numbers of people who would like to change it because it works so well.

[Sammy Wilson]

Northern Ireland has nearly a quarter of the grammar schools in the whole of the United Kingdom, and its academic results are the best of all the areas in the United Kingdom. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that reinforces his argument?

[Mr Brady]

I am delighted the hon. Gentleman raised that, and if I have time I will return to some of the excellent results from Northern Ireland later in my remarks.

There are those in this House who think that it is all right to have a choice of school or type of school for those who can afford to pay fees for it, and there are those who think that it is all right to have a choice of school for those who can afford to buy a house in an expensive catchment area. It is instructive to look at the results of that approach. In the borough of Trafford, which has excellent state education, only 5.2% of pupils go to independent schools; for Manchester the figure is 6.7%, and for Stockport it is 10.1%. However, although we are told that in London state education has been revolutionised, in Camden 29.8% of pupils go to independent schools. We should open up opportunity to people regardless of their ability to pay, and that is exactly what we do in those areas that offer selection in the state sector.

Trafford is outstanding not just because of its seven grammar schools, but because of the outstanding quality of its high schools. The persistent myth from the 1950s and ’60s that if we have grammar schools, we have sink schools is an utter nonsense and should be rejected. Knowsley and the report produced for it have been mentioned, including by my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), the former Secretary of State. What has not been mentioned is that one of the so-called secondary modern schools in my constituency—we call them high schools—Ashton-on-Mersey, which spawned The Dean Trust, a very good, effective multi-academy trust, is so good that it has been brought into Knowsley, which was looking for excellence from outside the authority. It is to the high schools in Trafford that people turn, which gives the lie to the nonsense about low attainment in such schools.

We should also reflect on some of the damning evidence about the degree of social segregation elsewhere in the system. The record of the last Labour Government was mentioned earlier. In 2010 the Sutton Trust looked at the 100 most socially selective schools in the country, and 91 of them were comprehensives, selecting by catchment—by postcode, and therefore the ability to buy a house in the catchment area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend rightly raises his concerns about ensuring that the young people and children in his area get the best possible start in life. We have published our Green Paper and are consulting on how we can achieve this. There are still too many parts of our country where good school places are not available to children, and that is unacceptable. We should look at all the measures that we can take to change that.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Is the Secretary of State encouraged by the fact that two thirds of those canvassed on this issue support the Prime Minister’s policy of increasing social mobility among those from poorer backgrounds through the increased provision of grammar schools? Will she assure us that she will not be deterred by siren voices or the barrage of criticism of this policy from those who are ideologically opposed to it even though they had the benefit of a grammar school education themselves?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman sets out the situation very clearly. He points out that, for children on free school meals in particular, grammars are able to close the attainment gap because the progress that those children make is double that of their better-off classmates. Labour wants to close that opportunity down and we want to level it up—that is the difference.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Finally, I do not want the voice of East Antrim to remain unheard. I call Mr Sammy Wilson.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This month it was announced that manufacturing exports from Northern Ireland to non-EU countries increased by 24%, while those to EU countries fell by 4%. What steps can the Minister take to help Northern Ireland firms to exploit opportunities to grow international economic links to promote growth in Northern Ireland, increase employment and help to reduce the UK balance of payments deficit?

[Sajid Javid]

It is great to hear—the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right—that manufacturing is on the rise in Northern Ireland and throughout the UK. Volumes are up, exports are up and employment is up. There are, of course, further steps that we can take. Someone asked earlier about free trade agreements, and that is something that we can do and exploit now that we have Brexit.

Education, Skills and Training

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I am afraid I do share that worry about the very large quantitative target that the Government have set and, by all accounts, want to pass. When I talk to business, which I do regularly up and down the country, that obsession with quantity rather than quality causes some real worries. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us today that he has ways of dealing with that. I have come across some extremely dubious practice, if I may put it that way, in relation to the term “apprenticeship”. I am glad that the Enterprise Act 2016 has closed that loophole. We now need to see pretty effective enforcement or we will carry on seeing misuse and abuse in that area.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that social clauses within public sector contracts, which have worked very effectively in Northern Ireland and Scotland, could be used much more widely? They do not contradict EU rules so that excuse cannot be used, and they could be a way of ensuring that public money is used to ensure that the country’s skills base is increased.

[Ms Eagle]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman’s comments. It is right that social clauses in procurement contracts have an important role to play. I make one observation, which I have made over my time in Parliament: those involved in public procurement can be very risk-averse. All too often they do not think about the extra things that they can get out of the money that the Government are spending and committing to particular projects, and they often use the excuse of EU procurement rules as a reason for not being creative enough in the way that they pursue procurement.

No one argues with the stated aim in the Higher Education and Research Bill of widening access and participation in higher education. That is what we all want to see. However, the Opposition object strongly to the approach that the Government have taken in both the White Paper and the accompanying Bill. The Business Secretary appears to believe that the solution to widening participation is to inject market forces into the provision of higher education, allowing new untried, untested providers to start up, achieve degree-awarding powers and secure university status, and he wants to force students to pay for it all through higher tuition fees.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

I have talked to Universities UK, and it has grave concerns and reservations about the route the Government are taking—for some of the reasons I am outlining now. Of course Universities UK will work with the Government—it has a White Paper in front of it, and there will be a Bill on the Table of the House, which it will want to make the best it can be—but I would not take that kind of endorsement for blanket agreement.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the hon. Lady also agree that it will be difficult to sell the concept of higher fees for students when many universities have not got to grips with the inflation in salaries at their higher levels? Many students will simply see fees as a means to fund huge wage increases for people at the top of universities.

[Ms Eagle]

Again, the hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about it when he replies to the debate.

Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

That is another example of where something being sold as an attack on what the Secretary of State somewhat insultingly called “public sector fat cats” has a direct effect on private sector workers doing some of the most difficult and dangerous work, which we need to ensure can be carried out properly.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I may take a different view from the hon. Lady on the point that she is making, but unfortunately this provision will not apply to Northern Ireland because, despite the financial problems there, Ministers and the Assembly have decided that Northern Ireland should not be covered by the Bill. Does she share my concern that the serial payers of huge pay-offs are exempted from the provisions? For example, the BBC, which seems to hand out public money hand over fist to directors, heads of religion and so on, will not be covered by it.

[Ms Eagle]

The Bill has a particular phrase attached to it—public sector fat cats—and when we look more closely at it, we see that it applies to non-public sector workers and non-fat cats. We will be taking a close look at that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the march of the makers is working. That is why we are leading the fastest-growing economy in Europe; it is why, interestingly, unemployment in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is down by 60% and youth unemployment is down by 10%; it is why we continue to finance small businesses, which have received £2.5 billion through the British Business Bank and £35,000 in loans; and it is why we have doubled small business rate relief. From now on, 405,000 businesses will pay no rates at all. It is for those reasons that our economy is growing fastest—and that comes after 13 years during which manufacturing, under a Labour Government, fell to an historic low.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Many barriers, including energy costs and regulatory burdens, prevent manufacturing businesses from starting up. What discussions has the Minister had with the Chancellor about his policy of requiring businesses to return information about taxes to HMRC four times a year? Does he share my fear that that will increase the costs of businesses, impose extra work on them, and divert them from their job of actually manufacturing things?

[George Freeman]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Business Secretary, and this ministerial team, take the need to reduce small business regulation very seriously. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary is giving a speech to the Federation of Small Businesses today on precisely that subject.

The Government’s track record in this regard is incredibly strong. We have increased small business rate relief, we have taken £10 billion-worth of red tape from small businesses through the Enterprise Bill, and we are raising the rates of finance for small businesses. That is why we had a record 5.4 million new businesses in 2015, which means that 25% more businesses have been created since we came to power.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last, but not least, the voice of East Antrim, Mr Sammy Wilson.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Many churches, youth groups and youth organisations are concerned that they may be subject to Ofsted regulation as a result of the nationwide registration scheme. The Prime Minister has said that they will be exempt: the head of Ofsted has said that they will not. Will the Minister tell us who is right?

[Nicky Morgan]

It is right that we are asking the question about registration of out-of-school settings and therefore inspection, but the Prime Minister and I are clear that that is not to apply to organisations such as Sunday schools. Indeed, I am a Sunday school and Bible camp teacher myself. The hon. Gentleman should also look at the statement issued by the head of Ofsted after his recent appearance, in which he clarified that he was not correct and that we are right to say that Sunday schools and others will be exempt.

Preparing Young People for Work

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We want to ensure that the widest possible options and inspiration are available to all our young people, and we intend that various large public sector organisations will have a role on the advisory board—for example, the NHS, which employs 5 million people, and the armed forces, which are a huge source of career opportunities for our young people.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Given the skills shortage highlighted this year, there is clearly a need for an organisation to enhance careers education in schools. What does the Secretary of State mean when she says that in the longer term she envisages this company sustaining itself? Does that mean a charge to the schools, to the employers or to both?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the creation of this company. I intend that in the longer term employers will see the value of the company and therefore will invest in it.

Cyber-bullying

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[David Simpson]

Progress is being made on that. Our forum will meet again in the second week of January to hear an update. Hopefully we will see more movement from the Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly on this matter.

The hon. Gentleman is right that in today’s society, talking is almost a thing of the past between parents and their children. They do not interact in the way that they used to. Parents do not understand such things—I am one of them. Because of the generation that I grew up in, I still use just one finger on an iPad, let alone on a full computer. A lot of education is needed.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[David Simpson]

My hon. Friend had the same sort of education as me and, although he is an economist, I know that he has the same one-finger problem with computers.

[Sammy Wilson]

I assure my hon. Friend that I will never be cyber-bullied because I do not have access to the means by which I could be cyber-bullied, nor do I wish to have it. He has talked about the impact on pupils. Does he also accept that one in 10 teachers has been bullied online—however that is done—which can affect their teaching and make them fear for their families?

[David Simpson]

My hon. Friend is correct that this problem affects not only children, but young adults and older folk. I mentioned Dr Cassidy. Without going into too much detail, he has to deal with such bullying on the mainland at least once a year in relation to TV personalities who appear on some of the hottest programmes on a Saturday night. He has to deal with that issue with the BBC and UTV. My hon. Friend is correct that teachers are abused in this way as well, and that needs to be dealt with.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence estimates that 80,000 children in the United Kingdom suffer from severe depression. That includes 8,000 children under the age of 10. We as a society need to take responsibility for preventing harmful and antisocial behaviour such as cyber-bullying and for dealing effectively with incidents of virtual violence. We need an integrated approach in which Government, schools, parents, internet service providers and charities work together to keep the most vulnerable people safe.

PISA Results

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Some schools, including academies and free schools such as those established by the ARK chain, explicitly use the Singaporean mathematics curriculum, but our new national curriculum has also been informed by practice not only in Singapore but in other high-performing jurisdictions.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

These figures will mask a lot of differences between the performance of children from different economic backgrounds. Given that children from poor backgrounds tend to perform much less well because of economic and educational disadvantage, what steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that the performance of those children is improved and that resources are made available to them?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He is a teacher himself, so he knows how important it is to make sure that learning is targeted at children in an appropriate way to recognise the different abilities that different children have at different stages in their lives. Through the pupil premium, we are making sure that more money is spent at every stage of a child’s life if they come from a poorer background. We are also changing the way in which league tables operate so that more schools have to pay more attention to children from underprivileged backgrounds to ensure that we get the most out of them.