Education and Health

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on an excellent maiden speech. We look forward to his future contributions. I should also like to echo his tribute to his predecessor, Bill Rammell, who was popular on both sides of the House.

Today I am making my second maiden speech—the first was 13 years ago—and I am doing so in the hope that I shall not have to deliver a third at any point in the future. My predecessor, Bob Wareing, entered the House in 1983. Bob was one of the first MPs to propose private Members’ legislation to tackle discrimination against disabled people. I know he was respected on both sides of the House as a decent, courteous parliamentarian who believed passionately in the causes for which he spoke up. In his maiden speech in 1983, he spoke out against the threatened closure of Croxteth comprehensive school. The school was saved in the 1980s but, sadly, it is due to close next month, despite massive local opposition. I will work with local parents, with Liverpool city council and with the Government to explore options to restore a mixed, non-faith school for 11-year-olds in Croxteth and Norris Green.

Almost 1,000 years ago, West Derby featured in the Domesday Book. Today’s parliamentary constituency includes Dovecot, Tuebrook, Croxteth, Norris Green, Knotty Ash and West Derby itself. Perhaps my most famous constituent resides in Knotty Ash. He is the comedian Ken Dodd who is now 82 years old and still going strong—[Interruption.] I shall make no comment on his politics. West Derby village has the only free-standing post-mediaeval courthouse in the country. It was built in 1586 and restored in 2005.

Crime and policing are key challenges in the communities that I represent. The appalling murder of young Rhys Jones in 2007 shocked the entire country and united the people of Liverpool not only in revulsion but in a determination that no more young lives should be lost. Rhys’s parents have shown great dignity and courage throughout their terrible ordeal.

West Derby has a vibrant community and voluntary sector, in which the “big society” is already a reality. The sector involves groups such as Kinship Carers, which supports grandparents with caring responsibilities; Chrysalis, which provides a voice for families living with the horror of domestic violence; and the Communiversity, which provides jobs, training and apprenticeships for hundreds of local people. Then there are active citizens, such as Lee and Stephen Dunne, whose son Gary was murdered in Spain—they had to fight to have his body returned home and are now setting up a charity in his name to tackle the scourge of knife crime.

Perhaps the best known facility in the constituency is the truly wonderful Alder Hey hospital, which was founded in 1914. It was originally conceived as a workhouse for infirm paupers. Today it is an excellent hospital, caring for 250,000 children every year. Its plans for redevelopment will create the first ever children’s health park in the UK—replacing buildings, most of which are 100 years old, with some having been built to the design of Florence Nightingale. The plan is for a hospital set in a park that will be the most environmentally sustainable hospital in the country. I know that the new Secretary of State for Health visited Alder Hey earlier this year and was very impressed by what he saw. I hope he will be able to take the opportunity when he closes today’s debate to reaffirm the Government’s support for Alder Hey, so that the children’s health park can open in time for the Alder Hey centenary in October 2014. I also urge the Secretary of State to give the go-ahead for the Royal Liverpool hospital scheme, which is so vital for the future health of the people of Liverpool.

I want to focus on education in the time remaining. Last week, at the beginning of the debate on the Loyal Address, the Prime Minister characterised Labour’s approach to public services as simply a combination of extra spending and Whitehall diktat. Well, yes, we did increase spending, and we make no apology for having done so. The fruits of our investment can be seen in all our constituencies—in the children’s centres, in the new and refurbished schools, in better paid teachers and in a new work force of teaching assistants in our schools—but it was never just about money. It was about innovation and improvement in our schools, and the sharing of best practice across the system. It was about the literacy strategy, Teach First, the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services, school federations, academies and trust schools. All these reforms were designed to improve the quality of education, and most notable of all was Sure Start—perhaps the most significant innovation in social policy in this country in the past half century.

Those are real achievements of which Labour Members can be proud, but we also need an honest debate about where we made mistakes during our period in government. We did allow the target culture in public services to go too far. Many professionals felt that their voices were not being heard by the Government, and we sometimes focused too much on structures and not enough on content. On that point, I fear that the new Government might well be in danger of making exactly the same mistake. At the heart of good public services are good relationships. The best schools combine effective leadership at all levels with an absolute focus on the quality of learning and teaching.

As we consider the Government’s school reforms in more detail, I suggest three tests against which we should judge them: will they support improved teaching and learning; will they encourage better leadership at all levels; and will they promote fairness both in admissions and in school funding? I welcome increased flexibility and freedoms for schools, but we should support co-operation between schools and a continued role for local authorities to guarantee fairness at the local level.

I want to finish by talking about Building Schools for the Future because BSF is about promoting both fairness and excellence in education; it is not just about new buildings. A deliberate choice was made by the Labour Government to focus first on the poorest parts of the country. I am proud that Cardinal Heenan, Broughton Hall and West Derby schools in my constituency are currently being rebuilt—£67 million being well spent, but there are five more schools waiting to find out whether the Government will decide to go ahead. I urge the Government to go ahead with these important programmes. I want an 11-year-old in my Liverpool constituency to have the same opportunities that a child going to a top private school can take for granted. That was the vision behind Building Schools for the Future. If we are serious in this House about social justice, it is a vision that we should reaffirm today.