Infant Class Sizes

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right about the academic evidence, and I will come to that shortly. To those of her constituents facing ballooning infant class sizes, I say that we know the reason. It is a misallocation of funding away from basic need funding towards a range of priorities that do not support keeping class sizes low.

Some 14,000 kids are cramped into cattle classes of more than 40, nearly 6,000 are stuffed into classes that are plus 50 and, although it is barely believable, last year this country educated 446 children in classrooms containing more than 70 pupils. Is it any wonder that a Netmums survey published last week showed that nearly one in five parents think that schools are squeezing too many children into classes?

Unlike the parties in the Government, the Labour party believes in smaller class sizes because of the academic evidence referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones). In small classes, research shows, there is more individual interaction between teachers and pupils, more teacher support for learning per pupil, more attentiveness to the teacher and therefore less disruptive behaviour from pupils, and teachers spend more time teaching rather than managing pupils.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and his team on securing this debate. It is incredibly important that parents across the country know that their child’s experience is not an isolated one and how serious the situation has become. When I read the list of schools with extra-large classes, I was surprised to find my own daughter’s school on it. This is happening in schools across the country, and parents are not aware of how terrible the situation has become.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is the case in Chesterfield, in Warrington, in Peterborough and right across England. Constituents will want to know what decisions were made and what spending priorities were determined to allow the situation to get out of control.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. Let me begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), because it shows a huge amount of courage for a Labour politician to call a debate on this of all issues. Perhaps I should address the historian in him by comparing him to Lord Cardigan at the battle of Balaclava: brave but leaderless, charging ahead on a kamikaze mission when everything around him was lost. We all remember the record of the previous Government—the hon. Gentleman’s party—and that makes it very brave indeed to raise this issue now.

As we have heard from Government Members, we remember how Labour cut 200,000 primary school places at the very time that this country was facing a dramatic baby boom. We remember how it cut the funding for basic need places by £150 million at the very time it was needed most, and how they penalised those councils with the foresight to refuse to meet their demands. And we remember how Labour made this all so much worse by allowing immigration to spiral out of control, adding further pressure to the system and leading to so many of the concerns we are talking about today.

[Toby Perkins]

The right hon. Lady is comparing the situation now with that under the previous Government. She will be aware that in Leicestershire, the county she represents, there were 2,376 children in infant classes in January 2014, compared with just 1,000 before. The figure has gone up by 121%. Does not that show that, under this Government, things have got significantly worse since 2010?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much indeed for his intervention, but in terms of basic need funding, which is what we are debating today, Leicestershire’s has gone up from £13 million to £51 million, while between 2007 and 2011 Chesterfield got £9.3 million, but now it will be getting £30 million up to 2017.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Much of the debate has focused on numbers, and will continue to do so. Those include the number of classes with more than 30 or 35 pupils. Shockingly, in my constituency, there are even classes with more than 40. I want to start by looking behind the numbers and discussing why large classes matter to pupils, parents and schools. It has not been clear to me, listening to the contributions from Government Members, whether they consider the increase in class sizes to be a problem. We have heard a lot of denials and the blaming of immigrants, and we have heard a variety of reasons why it is not the Government’s fault, but we have not heard whether this result was the design of Tory party policy or whether it is something they regret. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister whether there is a strategy for class sizes or whether the problem that we are bringing to the attention of the Government is recognised by them.

The evidence on the importance of reducing class sizes has been available since 1982, when a study by an American laboratory for educational research concluded that reductions in class size

“promise learning benefits of a magnitude commonly believed not within the power of educators to achieve.”

Thirty years later and much closer to home, studies have shown that class sizes of more than 30 are particularly damaging for children of low ability or for those with special needs. Small class sizes are central to Labour’s vision of what a world-class and inclusive early-years environment should include. The Government seem to be determined to take education back to some mythical golden age when children learned everything they needed to by rote.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain what has changed in Labour policy on class sizes since 2008? The then Schools Minister in another place told the teaching union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, that it was perfectly acceptable to teach maths to pupils in class sizes of 70.

[Toby Perkins]

That is interesting, as not long ago we heard the Secretary of State talking about class sizes of 70 happening now. I do not recognise that as something that the Labour party wants to see, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) has secured this debate because he wants to make it absolutely clear that the Labour party’s commitment back in 1997 to rescue our schools from the catastrophic and mediaeval state they were in after 18 years of Tory government burns in his heart. He wants a reduction in class sizes and to get away from the huge increases we have seen under this Government.

On the subject of the vision for education held by the previous Education Secretary before his dismissal—I am sure that my two colleagues on the Front Bench are not the only people sitting on a Front Bench at the moment who were pleased to see him disappear—this Government’s approach has led, in my experience, to a demoralised teaching work force, a betrayal of the Government’s rhetoric when they came to office of a commitment to the early years, and a fragmented landscape that has seen enfeebled local authority provision, schools driven unwillingly into becoming academies and the appalling realisation that although money has flowed towards free schools, often in areas that had sufficient demand, there has been a 200% increase in the number of infant pupils taught in classes sized over 30.

Any MP who has taken the time to visit their local schools cannot fail to be moved by the pressure put on our schools by this out-of-touch Government, but the seeds of that educational approach should have been revealed to anyone who took the time to read the Conservative party manifesto, which was referred to a few minutes ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central. It stated:

“A Conservative government will give many more children access to the kind of education that is currently only available to the well-off: safe classrooms, talented…teachers, access to the best curriculum…and smaller schools with smaller class sizes with teachers who know the children’s names.”

I do not know about other MPs, but as someone who has been a councillor, a school governor and a parent in Chesterfield over the 13 years of Labour government I find that description, as though that was what schools were like back in 2010, downright offensive. It seems to be a view of our education system based on the views of someone whose only experience of schools was what they had read in the Daily Mail. But that was how the Tory party represented what education looked like back in 2010. Sadly, it is consistent with how out of touch the Government have been on education and a raft of other issues throughout their time in government.

It is not the fault of Ministers in this Government that the education team was entirely privately educated and that does not prevent them individually from being perfectly good Ministers, but when the basis of their education policy is founded on such a narrow and misguided view of what schoolchildren in my constituency experience, I cannot help but think that a wider perspective across the team would help their approach to be slightly more grounded in reality.

Let me return specifically to class sizes. The old “hug a hoodie” David Cameron used to get it. Back in 2008, when he was still a modern Conservative, he told the Yorkshire Post that

“the more we can get class sizes down the better”.

In the 2010 manifesto, he promised

“small schools with smaller class sizes”

That incarnation of David Cameron—oh, how long ago it seems—understood that every extra pupil adds to a teacher’s work load, with extra marking and planning, and means less time to be spent on pupils. If we want primary education to be about more than just presenting something to pupils, class size is important. Smaller classes mean more attention per pupil and more opportunity for children to develop their analytical thinking skills.

That is why the last Labour Government made class sizes such a priority and made such great strides on this issue. In 1997, as one of our five key pledges ahead of the election, Labour promised to cut class sizes to 30 or under for five, six and seven-year-olds by September 2002. Remarkably, the Labour Government actually achieved that a year early; by 2001 it was clear that it would be met. I cannot imagine that many of the promises made by the current Government will be achieved a year early—they will certainly not be achieving what they promised on the deficit. Unfortunately, those achievements have been thrown away by this Tory-led Government, particularly by two specific policy mistakes they have made.

Whereas Labour outlawed class sizes going beyond 30 for children aged four to seven, so that if a class did go above 30 in one year it had to be brought back down the following year, this Tory-led Government relaxed those rules so that class sizes can be above 30 for several years—we heard the Secretary of State proudly boasting about that today. Worse, the Government’s unfettered and ideological free school programme has diverted funding away from areas that need school places most. Instead, we have heard of the disgraceful situation where free schools have been set up in areas with an oversupply of infants schools and are sat there half empty.

Some people who were planning to set up a free school in Chesterfield came to see me at one of my surgeries. I said to these two parents, “So why do you want to set up a free school?” They said, “We don’t think we can get our kids into Brookfield. We want our kids to go there.” So this entire school was being set up because they could not get their children into one school, even though there were other schools they could get into. When I suggested that they could join the governing body of the school in their catchment area and see whether they could improve that, I was told, “Well, it is a bit of a risk.” So I said, “You are setting up a school that doesn’t exist, that has no teachers, that has no building, that has no other pupils and that has no facilities. That is not ‘not a risk’, is it?” [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) is shouting “yes” and he has a free school in his constituency that is half empty. We heard the Education Secretary saying today that a new free school that was due to be set up has, in the middle of September, when most pupils—

[Richard Fuller]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Toby Perkins]

Let me just finish the point. The Education Secretary was talking about a school in Leicester that, at a time when most children all around the country are going back to school, has been told that it cannot open, and 69 children are left without a school. She says, “Well, we have to get these things right.” The Government should have looked at that when they were going through all these proposals and giving the money to set up the free school. That is the basis of this education policy.

[Richard Fuller]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because the Labour party is trying, yet again, to divide people on the issue of free schools and is pointing to Bedford as an example. Local people and local teachers have worked very hard to make sure that the free school could be part of the family of schools and, contrary to what he is saying, the Bedford free school is one of the largest free schools that have been set up from scratch, with more than 400 pupils. Their parents have decided that that school is right for their children, and I am very proud that this Government have enabled them to make that choice.

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman talks about a divisive education system, but I have never seen a more divided education system than the one that has been set up by this Government. We have seen an incredibly divided, fragmented system. We have seen schools that do not want to be academies forced into it because they cannot afford to be anything else but academies. The Opposition made it absolutely clear that we support parents getting involved in their schools, but the ideological approach of setting up free schools in a place that already has adequate supply and at the same time seeing infant class sizes at the disgraceful level that has been discussed in this debate is an utterly divisive way to approach education policy.

National Audit Office reports demonstrate that fully two thirds of all of new places created by the free schools programme have been created outside the areas with the most need. Extraordinarily, that has left some local authorities in a position where they want to build a new school to manage a primary places crisis, only to be told that the Department for Education will allow a new school to be built only if it is a free school and only to find out that nobody wants to build a free school in that area. That approach is utterly against the best interests of our children.

Free schools were supposed to fill gaps in the market, but they are in fact doing the opposite and are stacked up in places where there is already sufficient demand. We have seen the consequence of that approach in my constituency. Across Derbyshire, the number of infant school pupils who are in classes with more than 30 children has increased by 117% since this Government came to office. A freedom of information request to the Department for Education exposed the full scale of the class-size growth scandal. How pitiful the Prime Minister’s promise to cut class sizes now looks.

In Chesterfield, schools are grappling with class sizes that were absolutely unimaginable under a Labour Government. Hollingwood primary school has one class of 36; Hasland Hall infant school a class of 39; Abercrombie primary school a class of 44; and Walton Holymoorside, just over the border in North East Derbyshire—it is the school to which my own children went—a class of 36. For anyone who remembers the huge class sizes that we had under the last Tory Government—the one that actually won a general election—those figures will come as no surprise.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The hon. Gentleman is a very nice bloke. I am sure he is an excellent MP for his area and a great parent, but does he think that his children’s education was bad because they were in slightly larger classes? If so, what did he do about it?

[Toby Perkins]

That is a very interesting way of putting it. The education provided by my children’s school was very good. The hon. Gentleman seems to be making the case that class sizes do not have a lot to do with the quality of education. If that is the case, then he will obviously be saying to the voters in Daventry, “Vote Conservative to get higher class sizes.” Evidence suggests that class sizes are an important factor. Anecdotal evidence from teachers points to the fact that they find it a lot more difficult to perform their role in huge classes. Obviously, he is making an alternative case, and he will have to take that to his electorate and see what they think about it.

As I was saying a moment ago, anyone who remembers the huge class sizes under the last Tory Government will not be surprised by these facts. The speech by the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) complaining about the private finance initiative took my breath away. The reality is that in 1997, the Labour Government inherited a state education system that had been chronically underfunded. The quality of the school estate was disgraceful. Over 10 years, the Labour Government had to pay off the deficit that had been left behind by the previous Conservative Government. At the same time that we were radically trying to improve our health service and education system, we were also reducing the deficit that had been left. It is absolutely outrageous for the Tories then to say, “It’s a shame you didn’t pay for it all out of Government funds. You tried to bring in the private sector to support some of the building of the schools and you shouldn’t have done that.”

Tory Governments always end the same way—divisions over Europe leading to paralysis, waiting times in the NHS reaching critical levels, hollowed out local government unable to serve the needs of their local communities, and six-year-old children being educated in classes of 44. We can change the faces but they are all still Tories.

The choice for the British public at the next general election is clear. They can back the ConDems, get an ideological commitment to expensive free schools, a refusal to retain laws that keep class sizes down, weakened local authorities, demoralised teachers, a fragmented system that betrays our children and the threat of ever more children crammed into large class sizes. Alternatively, they can choose a Labour future where we transform standards with a qualified teacher in every classroom, a commitment to every child, new schools where they are needed most and real action on class sizes. Why wait until next May to give parents that choice? No one wanted this Government, not even most of those who are in it. Our children deserve better, so let us have a general election.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I welcome your advice. The topics are linked because they relate to what a local authority can do for the children under its care, and I am coming to the subject of Norfolk county council. Labour Members laugh. They should be ashamed to the depths of their souls to be heard laughing at the children of Norfolk. The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) should come to Norfolk. No doubt he would campaign against me if he did, but he would have to justify laughing at the point that I am trying to make, which is that over half of Norwich 16-year-olds recently left school without five GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and Maths. Perhaps he laughs at the future that awaits them; perhaps he laughs at the idea that those are not only figures but real people; perhaps he laughs at the idea that those people may now struggle to gain a job and that some of them may not be able to read, write, add or function very well. That is all extremely serious.

This is about the ambition that we have for our children. It is about how we manage the school system to allow for that ambition. All those children are being let down if we say that low ambition is acceptable.

[Toby Perkins]

rose—

[Chloe Smith]

Does the hon. Gentleman have ambition for Norfolk’s children?

[Toby Perkins]

I am very interested in the topic that the hon. Lady is talking about. She is obviously very concerned about the education of children in Norfolk. What would she say to the parents of the 283 extra children now being taught in classes of more than 30 in Norfolk under this Government? What would she say to them about their educational chances, because they are being failed by this Government, are they not?

[Chloe Smith]

I would say that they are looking for respect in this debate. They are looking for honesty and for figures to be used responsibly. They are looking for a Government who are putting right the messes of the previous Government. The hon. Gentleman stood up to make the preceding speech, for which I thank him—of course, I should have observed that courtesy at the beginning of my comments—and I thank him for reminding us what schools were like in the years following 1997. I sat in a classroom of more than 30 pupils when I was at school, in a Norfolk comprehensive, so I have personal experience, should the hon. Gentleman wish to hear it, of having been at school under Tony Blair. You are about to remind me, Mr Deputy Speaker, to return to the subject of infant class sizes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith). We are both graduates of the university of York, of which I am very proud, and I am sure she is too. I want to echo the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who spent 10 years on his local authority before being elected to this place; I did likewise.

I should declare an interest. First, I am the father of three children, all of whom attended local infant and junior schools in Pudsey, Leeds. Secondly, I was a city councillor in Leeds for 10 years and I was on the education committee, ending up as chair of that committee, before being elected here. Thirdly, I have seen at first hand, as I am sure have many hon. Members, the effect of smaller class sizes on the quality of a child’s education—both the children of my constituents and, of course, my own children, who attended what was then a separate infant school in Pudsey.

If the current trend in the growth of class sizes continues, it will be tragic for the educational prospects of our children, because within six years from now up to 450,000 young children could be in classes of over 30. Time and again we have heard evidence that has pointed to the educational benefits of small class sizes. Many right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned that. That is especially the case for children between the ages of four and seven. It is no coincidence that one of the strongest selling points for fee-paying private schools is small class sizes. Surely that is what we would all like for every child. I am sure that no hon. Member would disagree with that.

Like every hon. Member, since 2010 I have dealt with a growing number of parents who cannot get their child into the school of their choice. They face either an appeal, which if won leads to larger class sizes, or their child attending a school miles away, often in a very different community. Imagine the anxiety of so many parents whose child cannot attend the same school as an older sibling; other Members have mentioned that. It is even worse when three children in a family are forced to attend three separate schools, as has happened to some of my constituents. The hon. Member for North Swindon talked about choice, but what choice does that situation leave parents in my Leeds North East constituency? There is no choice.

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend talks about choice. Is there not a difference between the experience of some of his constituents who have three children all going to different schools and that of the entire Government, who all seem to have been to the same school?

[Fabian Hamilton]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.

We talk about choice, but we should recognise that surplus places are needed for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

I am sure he is working hard—in his other job, in the Cabinet Office, dreaming up more fantasy Lib Dem manifesto pledges at the taxpayer’s expense. Indeed, it appears—just to be topical for a moment—that the coalition Government have now introduced compulsory setting, in that the two Schools Ministers are not allowed to be in the same room at the same time. That perhaps explains why the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) is not here with us this afternoon.

However, it would be useful if the Minister in this debate would clarify in his winding-up speech—[Interruption] —after he has finished reading the Parliamentary Private Secretary’s telephone—the whole shambolic issue around setting, which we have heard about today. We have not really had clarity today; we have just had chaos, in what is, after all, the first major policy announcement by the Secretary of State. It would be good if this House were told exactly what is going on, rather than our having to try to find out from Twitter. Despite the Secretary of State’s earlier remarks about not relying on Twitter for such information, we have to, unless we get it in the Chamber, which is where we should first hear of such things.

The first duty of any Education Minister is to ensure a sufficiency of good school places where they are needed. The figures that have been unearthed in recent weeks and which have been highlighted in today’s debate show that the Government have failed in that basic duty. We all remember the pledge, which has been mentioned in the debate, in the 2010 Conservative manifesto, when the Prime Minister promised

“small schools with smaller class sizes”

and said,

“the more we can get class sizes down, the better”.

That pledge has turned out to be as worthless as a Lib Dem pledge on tuition fees, because we have seen a 200% increase in the number of infants in larger class sizes over 30 since 2010, and the pressure on places is growing.

[Toby Perkins]

I am prompted to rise to my feet by my hon. Friend’s mention of the Liberal Democrats. I wonder whether he would like to reflect on the fact that we have had a debate on schools with not a single contribution from a Liberal Democrat Member. Is it not remarkable, when we think of what the Liberal Democrats once were, that we can get through an entire debate on education without a single Liberal Democrat thinking it worth actually turning up and speaking?

[Kevin Brennan]

I apologise for provoking my hon. Friend, but as I think I explained earlier, this is all part of the Secretary of State’s new policy on setting, in that the Lib Dems are set in a different group for this subject and are not allowed to participate in our discussions.

That pledge by the Prime Minister turned out to be worthless, so one would think, under the circumstances, that every sinew of ministerial effort at the Department for Education would be straining at the task of tackling this issue—that no distraction from the cause of meeting the challenge would be allowed and that scarce resources would be prioritised for the issue, with money spent on creating school places where there is a real need. But no, because according to the National Audit Office, two thirds of the places created in the Government’s pet free schools project have been created outside areas classed as having high or severe primary school need. The Government try to claim that the programme is tackling the shortage of places, but the very essence of the programme—a built-in design feature of the policy—is that the distribution of free schools is essentially random. The Department has received no applications to open primary free schools in half of all districts with high or severe forecast need for school places—not one. In fact, overall, only 38% of approved free schools are primary schools, while over 40% of them are secondary. Given that secondary schools are typically double the size of primary schools, despite the growth of “titan” ones under this Government, far more secondary school places are being created than primary school ones, which is where the greater need exists. As we have seen from the debate, there is an acute need. In other words, this Government’s insistence on ideology over pragmatism in opening new schools is producing the wrong kind of schools—secondary—in the wrong places. That is the very definition of policy failure.

Indeed, the National Audit Office found that 42 schools had opened in districts with no forecast need, with estimated capital costs of at least £241 million out of a projected total of £951 million for mainstream schools. That is not an accident. The Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton used to care passionately about class sizes. He told “Daily Politics” back in 2009 that it was important to get class sizes down,

“particularly at primary school level. This is really dramatic, how big our class sizes are compared with other countries.”

That is what he said in 2009, when there were 31,000 infant children in class sizes over 30; by January this year, that had risen to 93,000, which really is dramatic. Before the general election, the Minister told BBC London:

“A child can wander around corridors of a school anonymously because the teacher will not know the name and face of every child in the school. Smaller schools are much more intimate and it’s difficult for a child to be anonymous.”

Those are fine words, but the number of titan primary schools is soaring, with nearly five times the number of primary schools with over 800 pupils than in 2010. So much for intimate smaller schools as promised by the Minister.

What about this Minister’s views on trying to alleviate growing numbers by targeting the resources to areas where there is a shortage rather than a surplus of places? Here is what he said to “Attain Magazine” in spring 2010 about areas with surplus places:

“If it has surplus places beyond a certain figure, 10%, they will at the moment resist any new school coming in because they’ve got to fill these places first. But we’re saying that’s irrelevant”.

That was his attitude. “Irrelevant”—there we have it; it is not an accident. Instead of directing resources to where there is a shortage of places, more places are created where there is surplus of more than 10%. Why? Because right-wing ideology demands a market solution—creating an over-supply to drive out existing schools, rather than operate supportive and collaborative systems such as the highly successful London Challenge approach under Labour, which raised standards for all, and allow investment in new places to happen where those places are needed.

That is the ideology that lies at the root of the places crisis that we are seeing today, and the attempts to blame the last Labour Government are a smokescreen. The number of pupils in primary schools was falling between 2005 and 2010—it fell by 107,000—and the projections of increased numbers from the Office for National Statistics did not come until 2008-10. The last Government recognised that while overall numbers were falling at the time, in some areas, particularly in larger local authorities, more places would be needed. They provided core capital funding of £400 million a year from 2007-08 to 2010-11 to cover local growth in demand for places. Of course, the current Government never acknowledge that in their attempt to create a smokescreen about their role in the places crisis.

In addition, there was an annual “safety-valve” whereby local authorities, if they felt they needed it, could apply for additional funding to address exceptional growth. Until 2009, very few did, but in 2010-11, an extra £266 million was allocated to 36 authorities to provide primary places for September 2010 and 2011.