Educational Assessment System Reform

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) for securing this important debate and for his opening remarks. By almost any metric, the English education system is one of the best performing in the world. In the latest programme for international student assessment results, English pupils have continued to score significantly above the OECD average for mathematics, reading and science. England’s average PISA scores were significantly higher than those of SNP-run Scotland and Labour-run Wales. Assessments and exams have led to that. That is what is at stake here—that is what we are discussing, and we should be clear about that.

That success is owed to the foundations of a knowledge-rich curriculum and rigorous and thorough assessment across all stages of a student’s educational build-up. That success story means that the suggestions from Government Members of reforming the educational assessment system—or, alarmingly, scrapping it—need close scrutiny. When launching their review of the curriculum and assessment system in England last year, the Government made it clear that they were taking aim at the examination and assessment system.

[Vikki Slade]

I am just wondering whether the hon. Member was listening to all the speeches about the massive increase in mental health issues for young people. Does he acknowledge the link between that increase and the tightened restrictions and curriculum that he seems to be promoting?

[Saqib Bhatti]

I can assure the hon. Lady that I listened to every speech. As I make progress, I hope to answer her question; if I do not, I will happily take another intervention from her.

The examination and assessment system has ensured that children are learning the basic skills and knowledge needed to succeed in life, that children are improving their understanding in a knowledge-rich curriculum, and that England’s position as an educational world leader in international league tables is secured. The wealth of evidence showing the benefits of exams as a means of assessment is clear, even in the very review of the curriculum and assessment system that the Government commissioned. The interim report, published earlier this year, highlighted that national assessment and qualifications are “working well”, and that examinations such as GCSEs play an important role in driving high standards and ensuring fairness,

“reducing the risk that assessment of students’ performance is influenced by their gender, ethnicity or background.”

Even more encouragingly, polling conducted for the interim report made it clear that students themselves value the role of exams as an

“opportunity to demonstrate everything they have learned in their studies”.

That students themselves recognise the value of exams shows that they understand what this Government seemingly struggle to: that exams offer students of all backgrounds the very best chance to succeed. Our educational system is designed to be a tool of social mobility and to allow the most disadvantaged children to demonstrate their potential—something that replacing exams with coursework would fundamentally undermine. In an instant, every advantage that some children have, such as access to a laptop at home, a tutor or a subscription to an artificial intelligence service, and some children from other backgrounds do not would be baked into our assessment of educational attainment. Students would no longer be rewarded for hard graft in the classroom, which they demonstrate in answering an exam question, but rather for the perks that can access outside school and pass off as their own work.

[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

I was a teacher of chemistry and science. Under the new curriculum that was instigated by the Conservative Government, young people had to learn 19 equations for physics, including mass, units and all of that. I can go to Google and ask for that, but as a scientist, what I need is scientific inquiry and the curiosity to ask, “Is this fact real?” Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the change to a knowledge-based system has cut back on the ability for young people to learn curiosity and scientific inquiry?

[Saqib Bhatti]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady. Students need assessment and examinations so they can measure up not just within England but against the international landscape that we operate in. By the way, I am sure that she was an excellent teacher who encouraged and nurtured the curiosity in her children, just as my chemistry teacher and my physics teacher did, but we should be clear about what is at stake here and what is at risk if there are changes to the educational system that we reformed, built and created.

Let me make some progress, and I hope that I can answer the question from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade). The students who would lose out are the very ones the Government claim they want to protect—the very students in our education system we should all strive to empower. There is no denying that exams can be stressful, as we have all acknowledged. Students want to do well, and they are setting themselves up for future study and careers, so it is no surprise that they feel some pressure—a lot of pressure, even—during exam season.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said, exams are by their very nature stressful. As a father, it is true that I want to protect my children from every stress and injury, but I also know that they need to go through that process to learn the resilience that they will need to go through life.

[Josh Dean]

The hon. Gentleman has talked a lot about stress. I acknowledge the point about resilience, which is why we need that in the curriculum, but would he equate stress to panic attacks, suicidal thoughts and self-harm? I would say that those are two very different things, and that desperately needs to be addressed in the system.

[Saqib Bhatti]

I will address that question in one second. As the interim report said, students relish the chance to demonstrate their knowledge and capabilities, despite the stress of exams. I was moved by the hon. Gentleman’s speech. He talks about panic attacks, and other people have talked about mental health and wellbeing, so let me be clear: if those things are observed and not accommodated by the current system, Opposition Members will happily look at suggestions and work on a cross-party basis, if we believe that that will improve the system while also protecting our children.

If the Government really want to tackle the challenges affecting student mental health on a day-to-day basis, we have been clear: this is not just about exam season, and we think that banning phones from schools would do far more to relieve many of the social pressures that face young people, and allow them to focus on their educational needs instead. I welcome support from the Government Benches for a proven mechanism that clearly leads to addressing students’ mental health. After speaking to teachers and other stakeholders we are clear about the positive impact that banning mobile phones would have on mental health—[Interruption.] I am happy to take a positive intervention on that.

It is deeply disappointing, if unfortunately not too surprising, that this seems to be the direction that the Government are taking with our education system, given the appalling record of their colleagues in the Welsh Government on education. Even the most disadvantaged children in England achieve better educational outcomes than the average student in Wales, thanks to the Welsh Government choosing ideology over evidence, and it is the students who suffer in the long term.

[Steve Witherden]

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that if we narrow the curriculum, take out the music and drama lessons, fill the curriculum and stack it to the rafters with numeracy and literacy-heavy subjects, all the pedagogies, and teach to the test, with exams, exams, exams, that will lead to better PISA results but not necessarily to better mental health for the students in the system?

[Saqib Bhatti]

Let me address that point directly. First, I am not sure that narrowing the curriculum to that degree would lead to better PISA results. I think the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) spoke about that, and I was nodding my head. I agree that we should have those investments in music that the Government have not committed to—[Interruption.] Let me finish, because it is important to recognise for the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr (Steve Witherden)—hopefully I have got his constituency right—that Wales, which is run by Labour, has much lower standards. That means less positive outcomes for children, which means less positive outcomes in the rest of their life. It is clear that those children are being let down by Welsh Labour.

We want extracurricular activities. That is why, when I visited Coppice academy in my constituency, which also has a forest school, I was heartened to see all the work that the kids are doing in those schools. Narrowing the curriculum is not what we are talking about. We are talking about something that is wholly rounded, but we must have a standardised and anonymised test system that allows a better level playing field for people from any background to be able to challenge and to thrive in life.

Let me return to the topic at hand. It is almost a month to the day that I welcomed the Minister to her seat, and we had a fantastically packed Chamber where we addressed special educational needs. I wrote to her after that debate, but I have still not had a response. Perhaps she could provide some clarity on the schools White Paper, say what will happen with the SEND reforms and also the curriculum review—I look forward to hearing from her on that, perhaps when she winds up the debate.

The world’s best-performing educational systems test to ensure that all students have a strong grasp of reading, writing and arithmetic in their early years, setting up children for future success at the earliest opportunity in their education. The widespread adoption of phonics testing in year 1 in England has seen English pupils rise up the international league tables, while the Welsh Government’s blind adherence to the widely discredited cueing method and its rejection of phonics testing has seen thousands of Welsh pupils leaving primary school effectively unable to read. Students and parents alike have plentiful cause for concern if that is the sort of education system that the Government want to create in England. I hope that the Minister can wholeheartedly reject the Welsh educational system—one in which thorough assessment of students’ progress has been replaced with a union-influenced aversion to testing in any form.

If the Government do go ahead with banning exams in favour of coursework and formal assessments, they could undermine every major achievement of our education system over the last decade and a half. Academies have changed the lives of their students through the initiative of their leadership. They are already being deprived of the freedoms that they have been used to in leading the way to school improvement and providing a knowledge-rich curriculum that has given every student the opportunity to access quality academic education. That is already being threatened with being dumbed down. If that were to happen, our education system would be left in an even sorrier state.

I hope that the Ministers listen to the views of students and parents. The Conservatives reformed education, and by the time we left, it was one of the best systems in the world. I hope we can keep it that way.