16:14 - The House divided: - Ayes: 263 / Noes: 310 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from ‘potential;’ to end and add
‘shares the strong commitment of this Government to promoting and improving social mobility and building a country that works for everyone; notes that there are now more than 1.4 million pupils in England attending good or outstanding schools than in 2010; and welcomes the opportunity afforded by the Schools that Work for Everyone consultation to seek the widest possible range of views on how the Government can build upon these successes and awaits the outcome of the current consultation.’.
Social mobility matters hugely to this Government and, of course, to Members across this House. It is easy for us to say that where someone starts should not dictate where they finish, but the greatest challenge we all face is that, in reality, that still makes a difference, as it has done for generations. As last week’s Social Mobility Commission’s report tells us, just 5% of children on free school meals gain five good GCSEs; they are 29% less likely to take two or more of the facilitating A-levels that will help to keep their options open; and they are 34% more likely to drop out of post-16 education altogether. It is therefore no surprise that they are 19% less likely to go to university, and 47% less likely to attend a top Russell Group institution.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
Given the excellent case the Secretary of State is laying out, how can those statistics be changed by grammar schools when currently only 3% of kids on free school meals go to grammar schools?
Justine Greening
I will come on to that point, but as we already have grammar schools, it is quite right for us as a Government to set out the case for how we make sure that they play their full role in driving social mobility.
I have set out a number of facts about the prospects of too many young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in our country. None of these facts should be acceptable to us. They certainly are not acceptable to me or this Government. I believe that social mobility matters for several key reasons. First, it matters for individuals. I believe that the innate desire of people to do well is one of the most powerful forces for change in our country, and social mobility is about our country working with the grain of human nature. Secondly, social mobility matters for communities. Fundamentally, feeling that we all have an equal shot at success—having equal opportunity—is the glue that binds us together. Lastly, social mobility matters for our economy. Investing in people is a core part of how we raise productivity. Yes, we need to build roads and railways, but we are determined to build up people, too.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
How can the Government claim to be the party of social mobility when 800 children’s centres have closed and 29 nursery schools have closed in the past year alone? That is letting down a whole generation of two, three and four-year-old kids, because if they fall behind at that age, they will never catch up.
Justine Greening
Of course early years education matters. We are investing in not only improved but more childcare for parents around the country—for working parents, in particular—because we think that having a strong start is absolutely vital. As I was saying, this is about improving not just the prospects of individuals and communities, but the prospects of our country and its economy, and we have to build our country’s economy by building our people.
Justine Greening
Of course, this is not about additional secondary modern schools or a return to a binary system. The reforms over the last six years have given children and parents a more diverse offer and set of choices in education than ever before. It is now time to see how grammar schools can play a stronger role in our education system in the 21st century.
Lucy Powell
The Secretary of State is citing much of the evidence from last week’s Social Mobility Commission report about the challenge our country faces. Why will she not adopt in full the recommendations of that report on how to tackle those inequalities, rather than cherry-picking the little bits that she wants to bring to the House?
Justine Greening
The report, quite rightly, set out that we need a much longer-term programme of social reform. Alan Milburn talked about a 10-year programme. It also pointed to our focus on improving attainment in schools. The bottom line is that we will not make significant progress on social mobility until we focus on the areas of common ground, rather than the Opposition spending their entire time focusing on areas where they do not agree.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
Let me make some progress.
I was setting out why the Government believe that driving social mobility matters so much. In reality, as challenging as it is for our country, no country in the world has managed to crack the issue of social mobility. That is because it is highly complex, many factors feed into it and improving social mobility is, as the Social Mobility Commission says, a long-term issue that needs a long-term approach, not to be treated like a political football for short-term political gain. If we are to make a difference, we must see social mobility as a generational challenge that we must tackle together on behalf of the next generation.
The difference may be that for us, fundamentally, social mobility is an agenda of levelling up opportunity for those who do not have it—something that, I hope, we can all agree is the right thing to do. Education is, of course, at the heart of how we do that.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
On that point, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the support that is provided by the pupil premium. That £2.5 billion really has helped to narrow the gap in attainment.
Justine Greening
I am grateful for that intervention. Not only is that spending protected for the course of this Parliament, but we are working through the education endowment fund to ensure that we understand how that investment can have the biggest impact for disadvantaged children. I went to see a grammar school last week that has a high proportion of children who are eligible for free school meals and the pupil premium. We looked at what it is doing to improve the attainment of those young people.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
To help build a consensus around our education policy, perhaps the Secretary of State could give us one piece of evidence that suggests that grammar schools would improve educational outcomes and social mobility for the most disadvantaged.
Justine Greening
We know that the education gap between children on free school meals who go to grammars and their better-off counterparts is closed during the course of their education. We know that disadvantaged children who go to grammars have a better chance of getting into university, including Russell Group universities, and that is because their attainment improves.
Education is at the heart of how we drive social mobility in our country, which is why the Government have had a programme of such radical reform over the past six years. The academies and free schools programme, which I noticed the shadow Secretary of State was not willing to support, has given schools the freedom to run themselves in the best interests of their children and local communities. The introduction of the EBacc has given more children access to a core curriculum to make sure that they keep their options open, not closed, as they make decisions about their future. Thanks to the hard work of teachers all over the country, 1.4 million more children are being taught in schools that are good or outstanding than in 2010. That means that 1.4 million more children are getting access to an education that will allow them to make the most of their talents.
Of course, this starts with early years education. Children must arrive at school ready and able to learn if they are to take full advantage of the education on offer, which is why we are introducing 30 hours of free childcare for the working parents of three and four-year-olds. It is also why we are looking at how we can improve the quality of the early years workforce even further. Teachers are crucial in improving attainment outcomes for our young people, which is why we are reforming initial teacher training.
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
What does my right hon. Friend think about the independent study by ResPublica, commissioned by Knowsley Council, which concluded that in the second most deprived borough in the country, a grammar school would provide a much-needed incentive and raise the standards of education?
Justine Greening
I have seen that report. It shows that when people look at the evidence and are prepared to step away from political ideology, they see the reality that grammars can have a transformational impact in some of the most deprived communities in which we want to see the biggest changes.
Justine Greening
No, I will make some progress because I have given way to a lot of Members.
As I was saying, we want to improve teacher training. We have therefore started the teaching and leadership innovation fund so that the most challenged schools can build more capacity to have excellent teachers and leaders.
It is vital that the standards and quality of our technical education in this country mirror the excellence that we have been embedding in the academic routes. We have focused on academic routes, so it is time for us to focus similarly on improving technical education for young people. We will work hard to put technical and further education on a level footing with the academic route that other young people already take. Through the Technical and Further Education Bill, we are slimming down the system of qualifications and putting employers in the driving seat regarding how they are designed and delivered so that there are a smaller number of routes that are much easier to understand and lead directly to career pathways for young people.
We have also focused on apprenticeships so that young people get direct work experience as they learn. We plan to create 3 million new apprenticeships by 2020 and, for the first time, British business is investing through the apprenticeship levy to make sure that those apprenticeships are of a high quality. Yesterday, we had the Third Reading of the Higher Education and Research Bill, which will put in place a new teaching framework to drive up teaching quality, to make university outcomes more transparent than ever and, through the planned Office for Students, to promote equality of opportunity throughout our universities.
We have to recognise that one of the biggest challenges faced by the education system is the growing need for more good school places. Despite the progress that we have made, too many children still do not have a place at a good school. There are 1.2 million children in schools that Ofsted says are not good enough. That was why we published the “Schools that work for everyone” consultation, which asks important open questions about how we can use the educational expertise that exists in our country’s independent schools, faith schools, universities and selective schools. We cannot afford to leave a single stone unturned as we drive up opportunity.
Andy Burnham
The Secretary of State rightly spoke about building a consensus across the House on education policy, but I put it to her that that will be more likely to happen if the Government stick to their mandate on education. Will she read out the precise section of the Conservative party manifesto from the last election that gives her a mandate to lift the bar on the creation of new grammar schools?
Justine Greening
We talked about excellent school places and expanding the very best schools in our country, including grammar schools. I just do not think it is viable for the Labour party to say that it does not like the grammars that we have, but to be equivocal about whether it is still its policy to shut those grammars. I will give way to the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) if she wants to confirm the position. There is a gaping hole in the official Opposition’s policy on grammars. I do not think that it is tenable in a country that has grammars and selection for the Opposition to say they do not like that situation, but that they do not want us to take any steps whatever to see how we can deliver more strongly on social mobility through the schools already in place.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will surely be aware that we have had 18 years of Labour policies in Wales and, as a result, have lower education standards according to PISA, the OECD and Labour’s former education Minister in Wales. Does my right hon. Friend think we should take any notice whatever of what Labour has to say about education?
Justine Greening
No, I do not. The legacy of 13 years of Labour was disastrous for our youngest people, not just because of grade inflation, which gave millions of young people the sense that they had achieved grades although they were not at the level they needed to be, but—dare I say it—because under the previous Labour Government, youth unemployment went up by nearly 50%. If opportunity is about anything, it surely starts with the dignity of being able to have a job and a career.
Last week I was at Handsworth Grammar School, where around 25% of pupils are eligible for the deprivation element of the pupil premium. Those young people talked to me about how much they value the education they are getting. One student, who is planning to go to Oxford—[Interruption.] I am not sure precisely what that young man would say about the chattering from Opposition Members, but I think he would be extremely dismayed to hear the school that is giving him a transformational opportunity being talked down. His family had arrived in this country just two generations before. His grandparents arrived with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Within two generations of that, he is hoping to be able to go to Oxford. He talked to me about what the chance to go to a grammar school has meant for him, his family and his future prospects. It is levelling up, and that is what we want to do.
I hope that we all agree that the social mobility agenda is about more young people having opportunities and aiming higher, like that gentleman, not fewer. Asking in our consultation how we can make grammars more open to disadvantaged children is exactly what we should be doing.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is speaking powerfully about the opportunities that grammar schools provide to children from very ordinary backgrounds. Does she agree that it is a real tragedy that we have not invested more in grammar schools? The existing ones in my constituency are under massive pressure from the children of parents living around my constituency, which restricts the number of places available for children in Rugby.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right. It is simply untenable to say to parents who want more choice, and to children who otherwise would have a place in such schools, that they cannot have it. That is simply wrong. We should at least allow local communities to decide. It is not tenable to take the approach of simply saying to parents, “No, you can’t have them; we know better,” or of saying to a child, “You got the grades to be able to go, but you are not allowed to because we have decided.”
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
Let me make some more progress, as lots of Members on both sides of the House want to contribute to this important debate.
In the consultation we are asking how we can make grammars more open to disadvantaged children and ensure that the excellence that exists in grammar schools can play a stronger role in school improvement throughout the system, as that is also part of what we should be doing. We are also asking how, as has been seen elsewhere, grammars can play a role in lifting the schools around them and doing a stronger job. Many already work extremely hard to do that, and we want it to become the norm.
As we have just heard, selective and grammar schools are often hugely over-subscribed, so consulting on how we respond to that demand from parents and pupils is exactly what we should be doing. We cannot simply say that those parents and students are wrong. It is time to look at how we can use grammar schools to open up more opportunities to more people.
Grammars close the attainment gap between pupils from deprived backgrounds and their more advantaged peers. For the top-performing 25% of primary pupils, the gap in results for pupils on free school meals in grammar schools is significantly smaller than that in non-selective schools. Children in grammars on free school meals are twice as likely to get five good GCSE grades, and so twice as likely to secure a place at and to attend one of the top Russell Group universities, as their wealthier peers who attend comprehensives.
We will not fix the challenges of social mobility and opportunity by complaining; we have to take practical action. That is why at the very least we need to give local communities the choice. That is exactly what our consultation proposes and asks about. We have improved and are improving our school system and standards. Those communities that want to keep the status quo of their existing good and outstanding schools will be able to do so. There is much more to do, alongside the consultation, to ensure that every child has the education that they need and deserve.
We must recognise that some challenges that we face inside schools also require solutions outside schools. That is why I have announced the first six opportunity areas for parts of the country where social mobility is really stalling, but young people have huge potential that we want to unlock. We need to make sure that that happens.
Tom Pursglove
As a comprehensive-educated lad from Wellingborough, it is music to my ears to hear that the Government are committed not just to the academic but to the technical side of things, as that is so important. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is also important to recognise in our education policy that different things work in different areas?
Justine Greening
That is quite right. The first six opportunity areas we picked are very different places— some coastal, some more rural and some more urban. That is because we recognise that those communities each face different challenges—sometimes slightly different; sometimes significantly so—in raising attainment. We know that we need to work not only inside schools with teachers and the headteachers leading those schools, but outside schools. We will have better careers advice and mentoring. We will work with the CBI, for example, and the Federation of Small Businesses on opportunities for work experience, traineeships and apprenticeships.
Wes Streeting
I am delighted that the Secretary of State has given way on that specific point because under the previous Labour Government the London Challenge achieved something very similar by doing exactly what she has described, alongside initiatives such as the education maintenance allowance, grants for the poorest students, a huge transformation of funding for teaching and school buildings, and freedoms for schools and teachers. Is she sure she has nothing to learn from that Government?
Justine Greening
I certainly do not think so in relation to the outcomes achieved for young people who left the education system having all too often taken exams that suffered from grade inflation and—critically, as we see from the report by Alison Wolf—having taken qualifications that employers simply did not value, but that those people had often been told to do because that was an easier route for the institution that they were in. There is lots to learn from that Labour Government, but clearly it is what not to do, rather than what to do.
Justine Greening
I will try to make some progress and finally conclude.
Opportunity areas are not simply about addressing the need for more good school places in all parts of the country. We want them to be in the vanguard of helping us to ensure that we learn how best to drive social mobility in very different places, to spread what works throughout England. Under this Government, further and higher education, schools and apprenticeships have been put back into one Department—the Department for Education. That means that we have never had a better chance to make sure that education, and opportunity as a whole, work to drive social mobility throughout our country.
Improving social mobility is our country’s greatest generational challenge. Its complexity means that change will not happen overnight—as I have said, no country has cracked how to drive great social mobility—but making the best possible success of Brexit, as this Government and this party are committed to doing, is why social mobility matters, and why education is at the heart of that agenda. In the end, it will be people who lift this great country of ours, which is why we have to make ours a country that works for everyone. The Prime Minister set out her intention and the intention of the Government. Now it is time for the House to do the same so that we can get on with ensuring that the education system becomes the driver of social mobility that it really can be. Young people get only one shot at their education, so we urgently need to get this right. That requires all of us to be prepared to work together so that, if at all possible, we can build a cross-party consensus on how we get it right.
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
Improving social mobility has been the driving force behind our reforms of the education system over the past six years. Thanks to those reforms, and the tireless work of hundreds of thousands of teachers, there are now 1.4 million more good or outstanding school places than there were in 2010.
The Government have given greater powers to teachers and heads to deal with disruptive behaviour. We have learnt from the successful Mathematics Mastery teaching methods of the far east. We created the Education Endowment Foundation to promote the use of evidence-based teaching practice. We have rewritten the curriculum at both primary and secondary levels to raise expectations of what children can achieve, and the focus on the Ebacc has halted the drift from the important core academic subjects—a drift that was particularly marked in areas of disadvantage. We have removed more than 3,000 so-called equivalent qualifications that too many children from disadvantaged backgrounds were being misled into taking instead of GCSEs.
We have improved the quality of technical qualifications, and have promoted and increased the importance and status of apprenticeships. There have been 624,000 apprenticeship starts since May 2015. We have revolutionised the teaching of reading in primary schools. Longitudinal studies have shown that systematic synthetic phonics give children a flying start with their reading, writing and spelling, and as a result 147,000 more year 1 pupils are on track to become fluent readers this year than in 2012.
However, despite improved teaching practice and a growing number of good school places, there are still too many parents who do not have the choice of a good school place for their child. In 65 local authority districts, fewer than 50% of pupils have a good or outstanding school within 5 km of their homes. As the Prime Minister reminded us on the steps of Downing Street,
“If you’re a white working-class boy, you’re less likely than anybody else in Britain to go to university.”
According to a recent Sutton Trust report, white British boys on free school meals
“have now been either the lowest or second lowest performing ethnic group every year for a decade.”
It is because of that continued injustice that we are consulting on a range of measures to increase the number of good school places and serve communities that have yet to benefit fully from our education reforms. We want the education system to help build an even more meritocratic Britain, and we want to use the knowledge and expertise of this country’s world-leading universities and independent schools to benefit our school system. We want to remove the restrictive regulations that are preventing more children from going to high-quality faith schools, and we want to end the ban on the opening of new grammar schools.
As Philip Blond said when he introduced the recent ResPublica report on Knowsley,
“Reintroducing grammar schools is potentially a transformative idea for working-class areas”.
We know that grammar schools are vehicles of social mobility for the pupils who attend them, almost eliminating the attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers. Pupils in grammar schools make significantly more progress than similarly able pupils. Progress 8 shows an aggregate score of 0.33 for grammar schools, compared to a national average of 0. Ofsted has rated 99% of grammar school places good or better, and 82% outstanding. In a school system in which more than a million pupils are not being given the education that they need and deserve, it cannot be right to prevent the creation of more good and outstanding selective school places. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), the key is to make the alternative schools just as good, and that is what we are doing.
Nevertheless, we recognise that grammar schools can do more to promote social mobility. The Social Mobility Commission has said that young people are six times less likely to go to Oxbridge if they grow up in a poor household. In the north-east, not one child on free-school meals went to Oxbridge after leaving school in 2010. Yet of the state school pupils securing a place at Cambridge in 2015, 682 came from sixth-forms in comprehensive schools and 589 from grammar schools; in other words, almost as many come from the 163 grammar schools as come from all the 11-18 comprehensive schools put together. And we know that disadvantaged pupils from grammar schools are almost twice as likely to go to a top Russell Group university as those from more affluent comprehensive schools.
The Government are committed to ensuring this country works for everyone, not just a privileged few. With strict conditions applying to grammar schools, including ensuring more bright pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are admitted, we will boost social mobility in Britain. That objective was at the centre of excellent speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon South (Chris Philp), for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker), for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) and for Salisbury (John Glen)—and my condolences on the recent death of my hon. Friend’s father.
We also heard great speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng). But the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) let the cat out of the bag when she said the SNP’s view is not just against grammar schools, but against setting and streaming by ability within a school, not a view that lies within mainstream opinion, and which explains why attainment gaps have widened in Scotland.
I listened carefully to my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), just as I learned to do in the two years when she was my boss at the Department for Education, and she is right that we have to tackle underperformance wherever it exists and ensure every child is being offered an academic, knowledge-rich curriculum. I can assure my right hon. Friend that we will take on board and take seriously representations made about the policies in the consultation documents, including those relating to selective education.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) made the point in an intervention that it is about making the alternative schools just as good as the selective ones, a point also made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), who pointed out that grammar and comprehensive schools can coexist with both delivering a very high academic standard, as we see in his constituency.
Since 2010 more pupils have benefited from a core academic curriculum, increased numbers of pupils have a good or outstanding school place, and parents have a wider choice of the type of school for their children, but these opportunities have not yet been spread widely enough. We want to create a meritocracy where every child has access to the education that will take them as far as their talents allow. That is why our consultation document “Schools that work for everyone” is looking at every possible way to provide new good schools, particularly in areas serving the 1.25 million pupils in schools that need to improve.
I worry about those 1.25 million pupils; for them the time is now, which is why we need to do even more than we have been doing over the past six years to improve educational standards for them. I worry about the Social Mobility Commission finding that not one pupil eligible for free school meals in the north-east went to Oxbridge in 2010. I worry about the so-called missing talent—highly able pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds who leave primary school with standard assessment tests results way above the average but who achieve significantly less well than similarly able but more advantaged pupils. Nationally, 78% of level 5 pupils go on to achieve the EBacc, but for level 5 pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds that figure is just 52%.
So I say to the Labour party, “You should worry too. You should be as concerned as we are. You should be looking at every option. You should be asking how we spread the excellence we see in outstanding schools to every part of the country. You should be more concerned about the education these children are receiving than the virtue-signalling that lies at the root of what the Opposition do and say.”
If Opposition Members really care, they will look at the proposals in the consultation document and take seriously the suggestions on how to eradicate inadequate school provision wherever it exists. We will take seriously the responses to that consultation. We will listen to people’s views and understand their concerns, but we will do so on the clear understanding that our joint endeavour is to promote social mobility and ensure that a child’s one chance of an education is not sacrificed on the altar of political posturing.
Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.