Funding and Schools Reform

Debate between Lord Sharma and Rob Wilson

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

The Opposition’s motion today accuses the Government of

“pursuing a reform agenda in education that represents an ideological gamble with successful services”,

but Labour needs to acknowledge all its past, if it is to be taken seriously on education in future.

In my constituency, after 13 years of a Labour Government and a Labour council, and with two Labour MPs between 1997 and 2005, the latest local figures available show that nearly 40% of pupils fail to achieve the basic standard of five good GCSEs, including maths and English. The national figures show that nearly half of all pupils failed to meet that basic standard last year. I am therefore not sure how those on the Labour Front Bench can claim any success, especially when so many thousands of young people are leaving compulsory education without achieving even the most basic of standards. Nor can they claim that the issue is expenditure. In real terms, public expenditure on education increased by £35 billion over Labour’s 13-year period in office, which is an increase of some 72%, although the increase in my constituency was only 50%. Essentially, 50% of children are failing to reach the basic standard, and that is as good as it got in 13 years of a Labour Government. The minor improvements that took place in later years—the introduction of academies, and things like that—were unfortunately far too little and far too late, leaving many children failing in our schools.

Although there are still too many bad teachers in our schools, a large majority are committed and doing a wonderful job in very difficult circumstances. As with so many other parts of the public sector, teachers have been tied up with bureaucracy, and constrained by an over-supply of rules and an under-supply of common sense. I see that week in, week out in schools in my constituency, and I therefore welcome the fact that my Government are introducing truly radical reforms to increase innovation and diversity of approach in our schools. After years of failure by a Labour-run council, I welcome the fact that the Government’s academy policy is handing powers to the people who are best placed to understand the needs of education in their local areas: teachers, head teachers and governors.

In my constituency, there has been a stampede to academy status. Highdown school has already announced its intention to gain such status, and Reading boys school and Kendrick girls school, both grammar schools, will follow shortly. I am sure that others, such as Reading girls school, will take advantage of today’s announcement by my right hon. Friend that any school may now apply for academy status if it teams up with a stronger school that will help to drive improvement.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

In addition to welcoming the success of the academies in my hon. Friend’s constituency, does he also welcome, as I do, the Secretary of State’s recent decision to allow the National Education Trust, the Centre for British Teachers and the Friends of All Saints school to move forward to the next stage of setting up a free school in my constituency with the aim of opening a 120-pupil school in September next year? That local school is backed by local people and the whole of the local community.

[Mr Wilson]

Of course I welcome that. My hon. Friend has done a great deal to help that process.

I want to make one further remark about my two excellent grammar schools, and I say this gently. I have had conversations with head teachers to the same end. Their catchment areas need to be looked at carefully. Kendrick school in particular is recruiting pupils from far and wide, and is becoming too remote from the local community that it serves. I would like my local grammar schools to re-engage with the task of aiding social mobility for clever, poorer local Reading children rather than being regional schools. I hope that my right hon. Friend will ensure that those schools can expand their numbers to recruit more local Reading children as that may help the situation.

My right hon. Friend will be aware that under the last Government, grammar schools were, unfairly, not allowed to expand their numbers. It is clear that people in my constituency are voting with their feet, and schools are taking advantage of academy status and all the freedom that that brings, instead of staying with the failed system of central planning of the shadow Secretary of State’s Government.

I hope that very soon there will be another massive step forward for education in my constituency with the announcement of a brand new school. I have been particularly taken with the success of city technology colleges and university technical colleges to support education for 14 to 19-year-olds. They would add real diversity and choice for parents in my constituency.

Before it was popular and before it was Conservative party policy, I often wrote about and campaigned for a pupil premium. It is gratifying that the Government are implementing such an important and radical policy, which could see some schools with a particularly high concentration of poor pupils receive as much as £1 million in additional funding to deal with the particular disadvantages associated with poorer pupils. That could make an enormous difference, and help to close the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils, although I accept that on its own it will not be enough.

The Opposition should recognise that the coalition Government are taking on the most successful policies of the last Government, such as the Teach First scheme to bring outstanding graduates into teaching. But they must also face up to the reality that 13 years of a Labour Government and local authority-run education services have left a legacy where, despite massive investment, almost half of pupils fail to make the best or even the most basic grade at school. We owe it to our children to try radical new approaches that have had great success both here and in other countries. It is time to break the cycle of under-achievement.