Education (Merseyside)

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Conor McGinn

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I am delighted to speak on this important issue, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing this important debate. Often in Britain, and all too often on Merseyside, the place where people are born seems to determine where they end up in life, but education is a tool that offers young people the hope of going on to achieve their full potential. It can provide the ladder of opportunity for the next generation and education policy should primarily be designed to do that. It should not be a political football for any Minister or Secretary of State, attempting to impose a narrow sense of ideological entitlement on others. Schools in my constituency, and indeed across our city region, are proud of what they have achieved. The tireless work of our teachers, governors and staff has been mentioned by many hon. Members today. They devote their lives to getting the best out of children, but it has to be said that educational attainment is stronger in some areas of the city region than others.

I note the criticism of the mayor of Liverpool, Mayor Anderson, by the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), but the city mayor has been asked to achieve something with one hand tied behind his back, partly because of some savage cuts inflicted by the coalition Government of which the hon. Gentleman was a member.

[Conor McGinn]

Surely not!

[Steve Rotheram]

Surely yes.

The excellent work of many in our schools is often hamstrung by factors outside their control. Research by the House of Commons Library suggests that in my constituency just 38% of students get five A* to C GCSEs, including English and maths. With a national average of 53.8% that puts us well behind, but that in no way reflects the effort of the schools and teachers. Although it is only 10 miles away, Wirral’s figure is seven percentage points above the national average, at 61%. It is easy to imply that schools need to do more and be better, as the Prime Minister said today. There has not been a Secretary of State in the past 50 years who has not trotted out the tired old mantra that we need more good schools, but improvement cannot be achieved without the collaborative efforts of parents, teachers and governors and, most importantly, it cannot be achieved without the Government’s political will to invest fully in children’s future.

For far too many pupils there is poverty of aspiration. In many cases we have failed to convince young people from working-class backgrounds that they can be the doctors, nurses and lawyers and even, God forbid, the political leaders of tomorrow. I bet that that is not the case in many of the schools that many on the Government Front Bench went to. The Government’s idea of harking back to the 1950s and an elitist education system by returning to the dreaded 11-plus will do nothing to increase the life chances of the majority of young people.

The grammar school system is designed to achieve the best not for all but for the selected few. How can the Prime Minister advocate grammar schools when she stood on the steps of Downing Street a few weeks ago and promised the British people that she would lead a Government that works for everyone? Grammar schools will segregate, not educate. They will polarise communities, not promote social cohesion. Grammar schools would once again stifle the prospects of many of the children who would inevitably see themselves as failures if they did not pass the entrance exam. As Ofsted’s chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw put it, grammar schools will “put the clock back”. The desire for selection at 11 years old tells us all we need to know about the Government and how they see our precious education system. It is a microcosm of their entire political ideology. It will deliver for the few, not the many.

As my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby highlighted, teachers have voiced their concerns about upcoming Government proposals such as the prospect of a national funding formula and the added pressure to offer a more restricted curriculum because of the baccalaureate and progress 8. However, the new devolution deals provide an opportunity to transfer decision making and accountability to a local level. We currently face a situation in which the Government seek to devolve powers over industrial strategy and economic growth to metro mayors while fragmenting delivery and centralising accountability in the education system. That does not make sense. We have a ludicrous situation in which local education authorities continue to have statutory responsibilities under legislation such as the Education Act 1996 while having been deprived of any levers to pull to fulfil those duties and influence outcomes. For example, every secondary school in Knowsley is now an academy and is therefore much more accountable to the Secretary of State, through the schools commissioner, than to locally elected politicians, but—guess what?—local politicians get the blame when they are threatened with the withdrawal of A-level provision in the borough.

The problem in Merseyside is not the level of attainment of the top 20%; it is the level of attainment of the rest. We need an education system that lifts the attainment of all, not just those who are gifted and talented. That is why I am calling for the return of an element of local accountability. Education provides the building blocks for achieving the economic success we so desperately need, so the Minister should make the regional schools commissioner accountable to the metro mayor. I would appreciate it if he would address that issue specifically. That would afford the incoming metro mayor—and here I must declare an interest, Sir Roger—the opportunity to create a city region education strategy that could work collaboratively as the catalyst for sharing best practice. If elected metro mayor, I will introduce a pathways to excellence programme in our city region and help to raise educational attainment in each of the six districts, lifting the level of aspiration across all our communities, with no borough and no child left behind.

As metro mayor I want to harness the pool of talent that we have. I want to attract global businesses to locate into our area, offering the high-skilled, high-paid, high-aspiration jobs we need, as well as developing the new businesses that will lift our economy. However, developing a world-class workforce has to start at an early stage, and that has to be in our schools. The metro mayor does not have the responsibility, through the devolved powers they can use, to affect that, which is why we need a joined-up, consistent devolutionary approach between the Government’s industrial and education policies. I hope the Minister specifically addresses that point when he gets to his feet.

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Conor McGinn

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) for enabling us to have this important debate. She spoke passionately and outlined in some detail the severe difficulties facing Merseyside fire and rescue service and the fears that its staff, public representatives and the people of Merseyside have for its future. I agree with everything that she said, so I will restrict most of my brief remarks to the impact on my constituency.

Let me say at the outset that I deeply regret the situation that Merseyside fire and rescue service finds itself in as a result of the huge cuts to its budget, which have meant that it has had to reduce significantly the number of firefighters, appliances and stations across the region. I pay tribute to the fire authority and senior management in the service for how they have tried to mitigate the worst effects. I also commend the regional and national leadership of the Fire Brigades Union for how they have worked constructively to protect and defend their members, but also for how they have laid the blame where it truly lies, which is at the feet of this Conservative Government.

Following a consultation last year, it seems likely that St Helens fire station in my constituency will close. Eccleston station, in the constituency of St Helens South and Whiston, will suffer the same fate, with a new station being built to serve an area previously covered by two. This merger, as it has been called, is a bitter blow to those who work at the stations, and there are expected to be 22 job losses. It will also have a hugely negative impact on the local community, who value the station, their firefighters and the prevention and safety work done out of what is colloquially known as Parr station. More fundamentally, it raises questions about the impact on public safety, given the statistics that have already been quoted in this debate—notably the rise in response times and the increase in the number of fatalities across Merseyside, which is above the national average. It is currently proposed that the second fire engine at the new station will be crewed by whole-time retained firefighters, and there are concerns about the potential impact that will have on the already bad response times, especially at periods of high demand.

I am very fond of the Minister, but there is a pattern here. Over the past five years, £20 million has been taken from Merseyside fire and rescue authority, with a further £6.3 million to be found this financial year. My local council in St Helens will have had its budget halved by 2020. A planned new police station in Newton-le-Willows is now unlikely to be built, and St Helens courthouse is under threat of closure. The Tory Government call that savings. I call it theft. They are taking from the people of St Helens, Merseyside and the north-west of England what is rightfully theirs: their public services.

[Steve Rotheram]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point on the cumulative impact not just of the cuts to the Merseyside fire and rescue service, but of the cuts to local authorities in our area. Does he agree that it is a targeted ideology of the Government to hit the poorest areas hardest? Unfortunately, Liverpool City Council has had a 52% cut, which is disproportionate to the cuts in other areas, such as Witney in Oxfordshire, which is the Prime Minister’s seat.