Saudi Penal System

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Michael Gove

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I think it important that we continue to work diplomatically to encourage countries not only to improve their penal systems, but to improve their respect for the rule of law. One of the activities in which the Foreign Office is most energetic is ensuring that the strong relationships that have been nurtured over years by our diplomats and Ministers are used to reinforce and encourage progress and reform in all the countries with which we have relationships.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s decision, but will he also have discussions with the Foreign Secretary? I listened to Karl Andree’s son on the “Today” programme this morning, and it was clear from what he said that the Foreign Office’s interpretation of “regular visits” was not what he thought his father was receiving. Can we take greater care that our prisoners abroad are looked after properly?

[Michael Gove]

I understand from my hon. Friend the Minister for the middle east, who has taken a very close personal interest in this case, that he has been and will continue to be in touch with the family, and I know that every resource that we have to help Mr Andree is being deployed.

Birmingham Schools

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Michael Gove

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Schools are, of course, already required to teach a broad and balanced curriculum. I hope that in the weeks ahead we can have an informed debate about the correct balance between the autonomy that schools and head teachers properly enjoy in order to innovate and to have their professional expertise respected and a guarantee to parents that their children are being taught in a way that conforms with the values that we both share.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

British values, which the Secretary of State wants to promote, include the rule of law. I am therefore quite troubled by the part of his statement where he said that governors

“are trying to impose and promote a narrow faith-based ideology in what are non-faith schools”,

specifically by narrowing the curriculum, manipulating staff appointments and using school funds inappropriately. Surely that is unacceptable, whether the school is secular or a faith school. It needs to be made clear that these standards must apply to schools universally.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Michael Gove

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. One thing that he has done consistently in his time in the House is to ensure that schools in garrison towns such as the one that he represents take appropriate account of the need of our armed forces and their children, particularly at times of movement and redeployment. I would be happy to talk to him more closely about how we can ensure not only that admissions arrangements but additional support are there for those families. We have introduced the service premium for the children of those in the armed forces. I hope that the introduction of that additional cash will help his constituents and those of every other hon. Member.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State share my expectation that head teachers, when they exercise greater autonomy, take account of the needs of the area in which they teach and operate, which we are trying to achieve in Birmingham? Will he encourage them to do so?

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely would encourage them to do that. Let me pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her work in bringing teachers together in Birmingham to introduce the Birmingham baccalaureate, which is a perfect preparation both for the world of work and for further and higher education. One problem in Birmingham for many years has been a culture of underperformance in far too many schools, and that has been insufficiently challenged by the local authority. It should not have to fall to her to do the job that the council should have been doing, but if I would trust anyone to do that job instead of the council, it would be her.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Michael Gove

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Heads used to turn to the local education authorities for support in dealing with underperforming teachers. Under the Secretary of State’s new regime, who would he expect academies and free schools to turn to?

[Michael Gove]

As the hon. Lady knows, the Birmingham authority does not have a particularly good record, whether under Labour or the coalition, in providing an appropriate level of challenge. In Birmingham, it is head teachers who are providing the opportunity—people like Sir Christopher Stone are doing a fantastic job in making sure other schools improve—and the best school in Birmingham, Perry Beeches, has now opened a free school, which is showing the way. If we empower teachers in the spirit in which the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) suggests, we can do a lot more to raise standards than we ever did when we empowered bureaucrats.

Exam Reform

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Michael Gove

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I take my hon. Friend’s point. When I was re-reading Mike Tomlinson’s report into what went wrong with A-levels under the last Labour Government, I noted that he made the point that it is very difficult for the public to understand how exam boards convert raw marks into particular scores and then particular grades. It is an opaque process that impedes understanding. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) made the point that greater granular detail about attainment can help us all understand how marks are awarded. The simplicity that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) wants is not always available to us, but we should aspire to it.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Employers in places such as Birmingham tell me that new industries, particularly social media and the computer programming and gaming industry, often look for aptitude in such skills as programming and coding. They say that none of the current examination systems reflects that sort of aptitude. Will the Secretary of State’s reforms to the examination system take those areas into account, accommodate new skills and provide a test for them?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady is right. In January, in response to the Livingstone-Hope review, I announced that we would disapply the current ICT curriculum, which did not provide the sorts of skills that the hon. Lady mentions, and that we would develop new computer science specifications. That announcement was widely welcomed, and I have been working since then with Ian Livingstone, Microsoft and others to ensure that we can provide people with the coding skills with which they were not provided in the curriculum that we inherited.

Secondary Education (GCSEs)

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Michael Gove

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

In a second.

It is for that reason that we introduced the English baccalaureate measure, in the teeth of opposition from the Labour party—both sides of the coalition determined to redress that decline. What has the result been? In two years, we have already seen the numbers taking languages up by 21%; taking history at GCSE up by 26%; taking geography up by 70%; and taking physics, biology and chemistry up by more than 70%. What we have seen as a result of that determined change to the way in which we set aspiration for our young people is improved social mobility—Liberals and Conservatives working together in order to achieve it.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I remember contributing to an Adjournment debate about the dropping of foreign languages, but how will the Secretary of State deal with a situation such as that in Birmingham, where in about half of our schools English is the second language? Will his proposals fit in with their first language and with English as their second, or will his crude measure of just any other foreign language actually not address the problem of learning the skill of a second language?

[Michael Gove]

I have enormous respect for the hon. Lady, who makes a very important point about Birmingham. It is the youngest city in Britain, and its multicultural traditions are part of its strength, but it is important to recognise in Birmingham that, although there are some excellent schools, such as Perry Beeches and Arthur Terry, there are some underperforming schools.

The excellence of a school is not, however, related to the number of children who have English as an additional language; all research shows that such children are just as capable of succeeding as children from any background. What matters is the quality of the school, not the nature of the home background, and what matters for all children in the 21st century is developing the language skills that will enable them to take their place in university or in the modern workplace. That is why it was a disaster when language learning was dropped under the previous Government, and why it is so welcome that the coalition Government have seen it restored.

Some people will ask why, if performance in those core GCSEs that matter so much declined, the headline figures for GCSE performance improved under Labour? What was going on? What was filling that gap? The truth is that we had a growth in so-called equivalent exams, which were called vocational although most employers did not rate them, and which were called equivalent to one or more GCSEs when most employers and colleges did not believe that they were. They have been eloquently criticised by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and by Professor Alison Wolf in her universally praised report on vocational qualifications. There was fantastic growth in low-level qualifications under Labour, most of which, she says, had

“little to no labour market value.”

In 2004, students were taking just 15,000 of those qualifications, and then the Minister for Schools changed the rules. The then Minister for Schools is now the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, and as a result of those changes a certificate in nail technology counted as two GCSEs, a diploma in horse care counted as four GCSEs and, by 2010, where previously 15,000 such qualifications had been pursued, 575,000 were being taken, crowding out real study, driving rigour to the margins and holding back social mobility.

Incentives were created by government which, as Alison Wolf points out,

“deliberately steered institutions and, therefore, their students away from qualifications that might stretch (and reward) young people and towards qualifications that can be passed easily.”

She says also that, of the current cohort of children between the ages of 16 and 19,

“at least 350,000 get little to no benefit”

from such qualifications.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

It is perfectly clear what we need to do to get more children to pass more exams: we must press ahead with the reforms that we have introduced to create more academies and free schools, to get better teachers in our schools, to have continuous professional development in which we invest in the very best people, to expand the Teach First programme, and to ensure that we have a relentless focus on raising the bar. Complacency on performance in our schools will lead us only to continue to be backmarkers. One point I would make to the Chair of the Education Committee and the House is that some schools manage to do every bit as well as schools in Singapore by getting 80% or more of their students to five good GCSEs or equivalents. We should ask ourselves why more schools are not doing as well as them. The whole point of the Government’s education reforms is to ensure that we raise standards for all.

The Chair of the Committee asked what the Government will do to change things. We have already taken some steps. We have banned modules and re-sits, and introduced the English baccalaureate to put a stress on rigorous subjects. It is not clear whether the Opposition agree with us. We have explicitly said that we believe there is a case for one exam board per subject in English, maths and science. The Opposition inched towards agreeing with us, and I hope we can reach a consensus.

One problem I have in attempting to tease out where the Opposition stand in order to build the consensus we all want is that whenever the Government put forward a case for reform, it is difficult to know where the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby stands.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

The Secretary of State mentioned Alison Wolf. He wants to be the great radical, but he must recognise that he needs to widen the skills base. He must show the House that he is attempting a dual system rather than a two-tier system if he prays in aid Alison Wolf.

[Michael Gove]

I would never accuse the hon. Lady of falling into the fatalist camp, but some do. The fatalist position—that we cannot improve—was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chair of the Education Committee, but I believe Andrew Adonis, who said: “The fatalists who say”—[Interruption.] As Front Benchers say, “If the cap on aspiration fits, wear it.”

Andrew Adonis has said:

“The fatalists who say that countries with strong academic school traditions cannot create, in a short timescale, quality vocational education institutions and pathways with real prestige should take note. It is being done abroad and must be done here.”

It is being done here through the introduction of university technical colleges, and through the development of studio schools, which were introduced by the Government of Andrew Adonis and expanded massively by this one. It is also being done with a review of vocational qualifications, which will mean that apprenticeships are at last possessed of the rigour that all hon. Members might expect, but which did not happen under the previous Government. Thanks to the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, we have extended a requirement so that all apprenticeships will be for 12 rather than just six months. We have also extended the important work-related learning in apprenticeships. I acknowledge that there are improvements to be made, but the Holt and Richard reviews will ensure that we make them.

If those improvements are to be enduring and if we are to succeed, if the university technical colleges and studio schools are to succeed and take root, and if the changes we are making in the academies programme are to succeed, such as the welcome addition of the Liverpool college—an independent fee-paying school—to the state sector, which was welcomed graciously by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, we need, as Andrew Adonis pointed out today, a consensus in the House.

In calling this debate, the hon. Gentleman has asked Parliament to approve certain propositions. Let us try to approve certain propositions on where Labour stands on critical issues.

School Funding Reform

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Michael Gove

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. It is critical that we recognise that some schools that have not received the investment that they need are special schools—or, indeed, schools with a large proportion of students with special educational needs. We will ensure that the scheme takes account of their specific needs.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I would expect Birmingham to be one of the local authorities to benefit from the Secretary of State’s announcement of extra funding in areas that require extra places. Given Birmingham’s Lib Dem/Tory-controlled administration’s ability not to do what Government want them to do, irrespective of which party is in government, will he keep a close eye on it so that it does not waste the money that it did on BSF, and spend a million on architects when it comes to bidding for money for extra places?

[Michael Gove]

As my noble Friend Lord Adonis has pointed out, education in Birmingham needs many things to change, and I suspect that the hon. Lady and I know just how much change is needed.