Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

After the sad news that he has announced— that he is stepping down at the next election—I call Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Is the Secretary of State aware that in the 10 years that I chaired the Select Committee on Education, one point came through really strongly—that every bit of money that we put into early years is the best investment that we can possibly make? When are we going to take that seriously and have good, accessible and cheap pre-school care, and the best Sure Start and children’s centres, like those we created under Tony Blair?

School Building Conditions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered school building conditions.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I asked for this debate due to a profoundly concerning situation in my constituency. Russell Scott is a large primary school in Denton, Tameside. It is a good school, and the excellent headteacher, Steve Marsland, is a national leader in education. The school is very popular in the local area with both parents and pupils, and currently has 466 pupils on its roll.

I impress on the Minister that this is not the usual case of an MP calling for money to be spent on his or her schools. I could make the case that a number of schools in my constituency would, due to their age or unsuitability for modern teaching and learning, benefit from a new school building, but with Russell Scott the problem is not the aesthetics, the age or the unsuitability of the learning space; it is a potentially unsafe and failing building.

I should perhaps declare a bit of an interest: I am a former Russell Scott pupil. I attended the school between 1978 and 1982, first at the original Victorian school building and then, from 1981, at the then new school building, which is the current building.

Russell Scott was refurbished in 2015 at a cost of £2.7 million. That is not an insubstantial sum of money. The work was done by the collapsed construction giant Carillion on behalf of Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council. The purpose of the refurbishment was to remodel the internal space of the school and increase places for its yearly cohort, but in fact Carillion’s refurbishment has caused irreparable damage to the fabric of the school and left it in dire straits. Since the refurbishment was completed, the headteacher and the chair of governors have shared their concerns over the poor quality of the building, as well as the potential health and safety risks to staff and children. Following those concerns, an independent defect report was commissioned by Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and completed in August 2017. The report found that there were severe issues with the building.

The obligation to carry out the extensive remedial works fell to Carillion; however, as this House will no doubt be aware, the company went bust, leaving the council responsible. Since then, the council has spent £670,000, not on the structural defects, but attempting to maintain the condition of the school and bring it to a safe enough standard for it to remain open to staff and pupils. The investment represents almost one fifth of the total school condition funding that the council received in the same period for all of its schools in the metropolitan borough of Tameside. Despite the size of the investment, it has not even begun to address the scale of the problem at Russell Scott. There are substantial defects and structural issues, the sheer scale of which I do not have time to cover in a half-hour debate. I will, however, give a brief overview of the key areas of concern.

There is significant damage to the external and internal drainage, and the drainage system does not have the capacity to accommodate the additional toilets incorporated within the building. As a result, on several occasions sewage has leaked into the school building and classrooms. Flooding is a regular occurrence. The floors are uneven, leaving some of the fire doors unable to open and close correctly. The roof is leaking and defective and, worse, the structure of the roof is failing. External access ramps are damaged and not compliant with building regulations. The pressure of the flood water has caused the floors and unsupported slabs to crack. The foundations are shot to pieces. The fire doors were not installed correctly and do not meet fire or building regulations.

We have heard about the playing fields of Eton. The playing fields of Russell Scott resemble the Somme in 1916. Carillion illegally tipped, without licence, waste from its other construction sites on to the school playing fields and reseeded them, leaving rubble, glass, metal and wood exposed to children playing on them. They have been closed since the school returned six years ago. The list could go on and on and on, and it makes for totally unsuitable teaching and learning environments. I fear it is only a matter of time before the school becomes unfit for occupation, and when that happens there are no surplus places in local schools to accommodate its nearly 500 pupils. It is simply a crisis waiting to happen.

The question is, how do we address the defects? Repairing the school will cost an estimated £5 million, on top of the £2.7 million refit it had just six years ago. The defects are so severe and so structurally embedded that the surveyors cannot guarantee that the £5 million further refurbishment would resolve all the issues. The best option, then, is for Russell Scott to be totally rebuilt, and the potential cost of a new build is in the region of £10 million. That option has been endorsed by seven different professional disciplines, including independent architects, building surveyors, health and safety consultants, and civil engineers.

The simple fact is that Tameside council cannot afford to rebuild the school. That is a whole different subject for another debate, but it highlights the perfect storm that we are now in and the need for the Government to work collaboratively with the council. School condition funding allocations for Tameside this year are just over £1.3 million for all its schools. That would not even come close to covering the cost of the rebuild. Additionally, Tameside council is attempting to close a £25-million budget gap, which has been exacerbated by a decade of reductions to its revenue support grant.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Others of us have suffered from Carillion’s inability to deliver on contracts, so my heart goes out to my hon. Friend and his school. Is there any way for the local authority or anyone else to draw back money for Carillion’s failures?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The advice that I have is that that will be very difficult and probably a futile task by the local authority. One of the real issues that rankles, not just with me but with the headteacher, the chair of governors, the whole governing body and the local authority, is that there is no comeback on these shysters. It is not just Carillion but its subcontractors that did a botched job and took a hefty sum of public money, destroying a perfectly good, structurally sound public building in the process.

I have talked about the funding problems that Tameside council is experiencing, but the issue is even more serious because its budget gap and other financial pressures basically mean that it is unable to borrow to fund the project. Bluntly, it will be served with a section 114 notice if it even tries, so precarious are its finances. I recognise that there are many pressures on capital budgets, but I believe that Russell Scott is an extraordinary case that requires national intervention and help. I am pleading with the Minister for that. The school was poorly refurbished by a contractor that we are now essentially unable to hold to account in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) suggested. The issue is now financially beyond the scope of the local education authority, Tameside council, to address on its own.

The situation at Russell Scott is causing significant distress to staff, who are having to teach in completely unsuitable conditions, and will no doubt be affecting the learning experiences of pupils at a pivotal age.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Robin Walker)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) on securing this debate and speaking up for the school that he himself attended. He has made a passionate and clear case.

I also take this opportunity to say how pleased I am to be addressing the Chamber today as the Minister for school standards. I am looking forward to working alongside the new Minister for the school system, Baroness Barran, to ensure that our schools are working effectively and to provide every child with the best start in life.

As a constituency MP who has written over the years to the Department about a number of condition issues, I have great sympathy with where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. I recognise also that he says that this is an exceptional case.

I recognise that well maintained buildings are essential to support high-quality education so that pupils gain the knowledge, skills and qualifications they need. All pupils deserve an effective and safe environment to learn in, which is why maintaining and improving the condition of our school estate is a Government priority. The Department does not directly own or manage the school estate, but it has an important stewardship role and we are focused on supporting those responsible for school buildings to improve schools throughout the country. We do that through annual capital funding, delivering rebuilding programmes and offering guidance and support for the sector.

[Mr Sheerman]

What is the Department going to do about the quality? Who gets on the list of people who are reputable enough and have enough of a track record to be good contractors? Is it not time we have the good list and the not-so-good list and that those come from the Department because it has so much knowledge about who is in the contracting industry?

Covid-19: Impact on Attendance in Education Settings

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend raises the important issue of children who are not attending school. That is why we have pulled together the REACT teams, which are a combination of DFE teams, regional schools commissioners, local authorities, the police and, crucially, schools themselves, to target those children, working alongside the supporting families initiative led by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is already extensive testing in schools. In fact, some 57 million tests have already been conducted in schools and colleges across the country, so we already have a well-established testing mechanism. The next stage, as we move to step 4 of the road map, is that we want schools to be able to operate more freely. We want all children to be able to be part of the summer activities, whether that is the holiday activity and food programmes or the additional summer schools that schools are laying on. That is why, as part of step 4, we are looking at lifting the restrictions and bubbles that schools currently have to operate, and we are looking at doing that at the very earliest opportunity, so children will be able to benefit through the summer.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Will the Secretary of State stop this dither and delay? On education matters, everyone in this House should be united, but there is a generation of young children who have missed education and will continue to miss education. Families, and parents particularly, want certainty. They want to know what the rules are and what they can expect, so that they can plan their everyday lives. Most of all, all of us who care about education know that the upcoming summer holiday could be an opportunity for a vast number of national volunteers to work with children, to give them the vital support they are missing because they have missed so much school education. Come on, Secretary of State, take the lead and do something positive, imaginative and bold.

[Gavin Williamson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his thoughts. We have already outlined, if he had listened to my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), that we are looking towards lifting the restrictions, especially bubbles, as part of the next step of the road map. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the Government will, in the very near future, announce the next step of the road map, and lifting the restrictions will very much be part of that. It is important that all our actions, right across Government, are properly co-ordinated as part of a process of easing restrictions right across the country.

Catch-up Premium

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. At least I have a claim to fame that not only did I teach for a living for some part of my dim and distant past, but I taught you at university.

I am participating in this debate because I was absolutely furious when I saw that Sir Kevan’s recommendations had been so watered down. He had every reason to resign. I was also very angry because Yorkshire did so badly out of even the measly amount of money that the Government are putting in. We face a national education emergency following a national health emergency, but the Government are not bringing resources forward for this emergency; they are not doing the job properly. Those resources, and the sense of this being an emergency and fixing it for kids who will never get another chance at education, seem to be utterly lacking from the Government’s determinations.

Secondly, there is a lack of leadership. Where is the Secretary of State when we want him? Why isn’t he, in the Cabinet, really doing the job for education? Dare I say it, we need a big beast in education. I would have been happier with Ed Balls; I would even have been happier with his successor on the Conservative side, because they were both big beasts. We have not got a big beast in education. We have a run down, truncated, demoralised Department for Education, and we have education departments in local authorities that have also been run down and sidelined. The fact of the matter is that we have not got the leadership; we have not got the imagination. I am sorry, but even though the Minister was a member of the Education Committee when I chaired it, he is part of the problem: he has been there too long. He is a time-server and has lost the imagination to understand what it was like.

There is real opportunity here with the right leadership. We could co-operate across the Benches. What about having a national volunteer scheme that volunteers retired teachers and retired sportspeople? The people who care about our education would come out of the woodwork like never before and do something for kids who need that help, support and backing at this very moment.

We are lacking the essentials because this Prime Minister and this Government do not care about the education of our children in the state sector.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you, Barry, and yes, you did teach me at Swansea University—and what an incredible job you did.

I call Christian Wakeford.

Remote Education and Free School Meals

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

May I just say that I do not want to turn this into a typical debate where we blame the Government for everything? We have a covid crisis that has shaken everyone’s lives. We have much higher unemployment than usual and many families are struggling, but the fact is that we know that the Government have shown less than the surest touch in many of the educational challenges that we have had over this last year.

However, to put that to one side, may I make a plea tonight to trust parents? I listen to a lot of parents. I happen to have three daughters, a son and 12 grandchildren, so it is easy to do that, but I also do it rigorously in my constituency all the time. The fact is that parents would prefer to have cash rather than any other kind of package of food. We all know that that leads to a divided society, with some kids thinking that they are lesser than their equals.

Trust parents on home schooling. Home schooling can be very good and it can be very patchy indeed. My experience and knowledge is that using technology is difficult if someone is a teacher. I am a pioneer tutor in the Open University. We thought we could do it all with computers, television screens and all that, but we could not. Teachers have to be trained to use the technology. University teachers have to be trained for something they never anticipated—teaching online. It is a highly difficult skill to learn.

I am sorry that the Government took so long to get in touch with the Open University and enable it to use all its resources, knowledge and experience to help teachers and lecturers up and down the country. That being said, let us also trust teachers themselves. I have seen the best example of teachers who phone every five-year-old in the class every week. That is wonderful—their experience, showing every way of reaching out to children. I believe that that is what we must encourage—every school learning to learn again—because we will have this situation for much longer. So well done, parents; you have gone through a hell of a lot. Well done, teachers. And well done, colleges of further education, which are so often neglected. It is not just about computers—it is about people.

Lifetime Skills Guarantee and Post-16 Education

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

Absolutely so. That is what the Prime Minister was doing when he was down at Exeter College the other Tuesday—making sure that people understand that there is a whole range of different options at different stages of their lives. It is brilliant that so many youngsters in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Stockton South benefit from going to great universities, not just locally but nationally, but many youngsters will not make that choice, and this is about recognising that and ensuring that they have really exciting options ahead of them in terms of high-quality technical qualifications. That is what we are delivering on; that is what we are working towards. It is a problem that this nation has had for many, many generations. This Government—this party—will address that and put it right.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I welcome much of what the Secretary of State has said today. We do not have a proud record, in any party, on the more practical side of education in our country—in schools or colleges. It is a neglected area, by comparison with Germany, France and many other countries, so we must do better. I welcome the fact that we are to have a really serious look at post-16 education. I remind him, though, that a lot of training in our country is delivered by independent training providers, such as in engineering and textiles—in my constituency we have the Textile Centre of Excellence. We have some really good trainers in this country and we will need the industry trainers to be with us, but we need well paid, highly motivated staff in our FE colleges, such as Kirklees College in my constituency. Does the Secretary of State agree that pay and conditions for staff in the training sector must be improved?

[Gavin Williamson]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has long been an advocate of high-quality technical training. We see in his constituency the important role that those who provide such training play in the vibrancy and success of business, enabling it to continue to provide employment. He is right to highlight the importance, not just of colleges, but of independent learning providers and the many businesses that work hand-in-glove with industry. We want to work with them to ensure the highest-quality delivery. A key element of high-quality delivery is to have high-quality individuals with experience and expertise, and pay is of course an important part of that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Just so we are clear, we have provided grant funding to the FE sector, with more than £3 billion for a full year, and it gratefully received that. We have also announced an increase of funding of £400 million for 2020-21, an increase of 7% in overall funding. As he rightly said—and I said in answer to the earlier question—we are working with 40 colleges to structure their finances and helping them to get the advice and support they need. If they need emergency funding, as has been available, it will be available to them as well. We have a team of people working on this all the time, and the colleges accept that we are putting our arms around them to ensure that they get through this period.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

If he will make an assessment of the adequacy of testing, marking and examination systems.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Exams are the best and fairest way of judging students’ performance. Following the difficulties experienced with awarding grades this summer, we are determined that exams should go ahead next year. We are working with Ofqual, the exams boards and other stakeholders to consider our approach to ensure that they are fair.

[Mr Sheerman [V]]

The Minister is the one permanent feature in the Department for Education—he has been there for 10 years—but surely he must admit that many families and students were hurt by the chaos and instability in his Department. It is no good trying to blame Ofqual and Ofsted; the responsibility lies in the instability and lack of firm leadership in his Department. What is he going to do about it?

[Nick Gibb]

When we were aware of the problems with the A-level results, we took swift action. Ofqual decided to move to centre-assessment grades and within 48 hours of that decision being taken the recalculated A-level grades were sent to all schools. The GCSE results on the new basis were also given to schools to enable them to give them to their students on the scheduled day, 20 August. The model used to ensure we were able to give students qualifications, notwithstanding the fact that we had to cancel exams because of the pandemic, was supported in a wide-ranging consultation by the regulator. It was supported by 89% of respondents, and a similar model was used in all four nations of the United Kingdom.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I am always happy to make representations to Chancellors. I have in the past, and I am certain that I will in the future. I almost thought that the hon. Lady was going to welcome the extra £66 million that we secured last year, and perhaps if she had had the opportunity to go on for a little longer she would have reached that moment.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has the Secretary of State seen the report by Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner, in which she points out that between 19% and 20% of kids leaving our schools have no qualifications at all? That is an absolute stain on the conscience of this country. What is he going to do about it?

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman raises an incredibly important point. I would like to pay tribute to the Children’s Commissioner for her incredibly important work in highlighting some of these issues. It is incumbent on all of us in this House to look at what we can do to make a difference to every child. If we look back to 2010 and even before that, we have seen many young people leaving school without the kind of qualifications that we would want to see for our children. It is incredibly important to note that, although so many more children are now leaving school with the basic English and maths that we would want to see as an absolute minimum, the figure is not high enough. The key element to making that difference is ensuring that we continue to drive standards in schools. That is what we are looking at doing in terms of school improvement and working with organisations such as Ofsted to make a difference.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I know that my hon. Friend is already distinguishing himself as a strong voice for his constituents and that he wants the very best for them. He recognises that what we are investing in T-levels across the border could bring real benefits to many of his constituents. We know that some of the major employers in his area, including Airbus, will be looking for the very best type of qualifications. It is incredibly important that Governments—not just the UK Government but the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Governments—work closely together to ensure that we get the right skillset across the whole United Kingdom. Co-operation and collaboration are the absolute essence of achieving that, and I hope to do that with the Welsh Government as well.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that, in the dark old days when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, we believed in evidence-based policy, from early years right through to FE and HE? What research has he done into the efficacy of T-levels? Are they working? Does he still have a research facility in his Department?

[Gavin Williamson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I would also like to thank those on the Opposition Front Bench who worked closely with us on the development of T-levels. This is one of the only reforms this Government have embarked upon that they supported. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have not started T-levels yet, but we will understandably be looking at them closely to ensure that they are delivering what we expect them to deliver. He will no doubt also welcome the fact that we set up the Education Endowment Foundation because we were conscious that the previous Labour Government often engaged in policy without any evidence whatsoever, and we did not want to make the same mistakes.

Education and Local Government

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful case, and I look forward to working with him and other Conservative Members who represent the great city of Stoke-on-Trent to look at how we can ensure that we have the right type of education provision there and that we continue to raise educational standards, which, sadly, under Labour representation on the council and often at parliamentary level, were not as high as our aspirations for that great city.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that, although it is not always the best rule, good guidance is evidence-based policy, and is not the evidence still that early-years intervention and pre-school stimulation for children from poorer backgrounds is the best value investment our country can make?

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the importance of evidence-based investment in education. I know that he has had an interest in education over many years, so I am sure he will be keen to look at some of the opportunity areas we have been investing in, one of which is in Bradford, which is very close to his own constituency, and there is also one on the north Yorkshire coast. They are delivering real results in terms of children’s attainment, especially in the early-years environment. I would be more than happy to share information with the hon. Gentleman on the work being done in those opportunity areas.

Let me go back to the subject of free schools. A disproportionate number of the free schools we have created have been built in London and the south-east. I want to see this revolution in education delivery rolled out, spread much more widely through the midlands, the north and the south-west of England, driving up standards and attainment in all our schools and all our communities.

It is obvious that to deliver these world-class standards we need more of the very best teachers to join those we already have. That is why we have pledged to raise starting salaries to £30,000 by 2022, which will put teaching on a par with other top graduate professions. We are also offering early career payments worth up to £9,000 to new physics, mathematics, languages and chemistry teachers, in addition to generous bursaries of up to £26,000. Simply, we always want to attract the very best into the profession, and that is what we are determined to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davis]

Productivity had been at that level for 60 years. It is not difficult to keep things the same as they were before; the really hard thing is to smash productivity down from 2.3% to 0.5%, which is what the hon. Gentleman’s Government did.

If we are to reset the economy, let us look at what we got wrong, as well as at what Labour got wrong. Take research. The past 30 years, under Governments of all persuasions, have seen the UK decline from one the most research-intensive economies to one of the least. In the past decade, China has overtaken us, and South Korea now spends three times as much as we do. The Queen’s Speech committed to establishing the UK as a world leader in science with greater investment—so far so good. In my view, we need to do even more than that in quantitative terms. In the short term, we need to double the amount of research spend not just by the Government, but by the private sector. In the longer run, we need to treble that joint expenditure, and I stress that it should be joint expenditure. We should also address the things that we have not been so good at. It is easy to put money into genetics, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars or IT—the things we are historically world leaders in—but we should also try to ensure that that money goes where it will make a big difference by improving the things that we have not been so good at.

Historically, we have not been so good at what is called translational research. That means taking a good idea from the laboratory and making a great product, which leads to a great company, which leads to more and more jobs, more wealth creation, more tax and the rest of it. We would do well to build on some of the great institutions that we currently have. The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, which is essentially an aviation-based operation, is doing fantastic, world-class, world-beating work. We should do similar things with the Warwick Manufacturing Group. There is a great deal of work to do to encourage those operations and build on them. Maybe we should even look to build a Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the north, because that is the sort of thing that we should be considering if we are to fix our economy.

I have some sympathy with one area of Opposition Members’ comments, which is the university underpinning of the research and the response to the Augar report. I know Philip Augar very well, and I spoke to him about his review before the report. If anything, it pulled its punches. The truth is that the university tuition fees and loans scheme invented and implemented by the Blair Government and carried on by us has failed. It has done a bad job. It has delivered poor-quality education, high levels of expectations and low levels of outcome. It has landed young people—some are now middle-aged—with liabilities for almost their entire lives, putting a cap on their aspirations. It has not delivered what it was intended to deliver, which was people paying for their component, not the public advantage component. It does not work that way. It has encouraged all sorts of perverse consequences and behaviours in our universities, so we must deal with it. I would argue to the Secretary of State for Education—I know that this is wider and much bigger than just the Department for Education—that he and his colleagues should be radical and brave.

[Mr Sheerman]

When we do things on a cross-party basis, we sometimes get it right. When we had that agreement on higher education funding—the Dearing report—we said that there should be a balance between who pays: the student who benefits, the employer that benefits, and the country as a whole that benefits. What went wrong was not that there was a student contribution, but it was raised too far and too fast.

[Mr Davis]

That was not the only thing that went wrong. I recommend that the hon. Gentleman reads the Augar report carefully, because a lot of things went wrong, including the lack of restrictions on what universities could do. However, if he wants to approach the Secretary of State or have his Front-Bench team approach the Secretary of State to offer a joint approach, I am sure that the Secretary State will be very polite and talk it over with them over a cup of tea.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The maiden speech from the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) was inspirational. I liked what he said—it even made me want to come to Wantage and have a look round, rather than just changing trains there. Given what he said about social mobility, there are all kinds of cross-party groups that I immediately want him to join so that we can work on those issues together. I am sure that he will make a great contribution to the House in the years to come.

I made my maiden speech quite some time ago. I am the longest continuously serving Member on the Opposition Benches. I hate the term Father of the House; I am a senior Member. I dimly remember my maiden speech, and I want to return to the theme of that speech. We had had a bitterly divided general election. We do all the usual ritual things in the two parties—the Government and the Opposition—and we say pretty cruel things about each other, but we have a responsibility. The Government have a majority and a mandate for five years, so we must all get on with representing our constituents and working in the best way possible, which they would admire.

I notice when I knock on people’s doors that many of my constituents are fed up with the knockabout nature of this place. It is always them against us; “We are totally right, and you are totally wrong.” I have spent a lot of my career in Parliament—I served for 10 years as Chair of the Select Committee on Education—proving that by working cross-party we can make a difference. Working together we can come up with all sorts of good ideas, innovations and good policies that any party can adapt and adopt, and make a difference to our constituents.

We all want the very best education system in this country. We all want the best policy making possible. Many of the things that we have to do over the next five years will need cross-party participation, and I hope that we can secure that. There is a lot of ground for partnership in education in particular. I have been involved in a number of cross-party initiatives. I was asked to be involved in the new look at apprenticeships. There was a commission of inquiry, and we took evidence—I gave evidence too—and for the first time we secured an employers’ levy for training and apprenticeship. It was a big step forward, with cross-party support. Who would have thought that a Conservative Government would introduce that? I admire that initiative. There are some problems that have to be sorted out, because the levy is not working in quite the way we had intended, but it is right in purpose and we just have to get it right in the detail. Certain training providers are being squeezed out, and some of the levy is going to places we did not quite expect it to go to. We have to refine and improve all policies, and I will certainly work to improve that one, because the work that has been done on apprenticeships is inspirational and making a great difference to so many people.

I want to push one particular point today, and that is the fact that all of us, of whatever party, know that we do not have a bad education system. It goes back to 1880, when we first introduced compulsory education for children aged under 10. All those years later—140 years—a lot of children in our country are getting a pretty good education. I have three daughters, a son and 12 grandchildren, so I have a pretty good view of what is going on, from my seven-month-old granddaughter to my 18-year-old granddaughter and lots in between; I am pretty well connected with the market. A lot of people are getting a good education and standards are going up, which I applaud. The right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who is just leaving the Chamber, is an old friend of mine, and he and I agree absolutely that our standards have started to improve steadily, even with respect to the international comparisons.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his contribution so far. He mentioned the international dimension. One of the great advantages of our education system in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the offer to overseas students. Does he recognise the contribution that overseas students make to the education system across all regions of the United Kingdom, with partnerships, and the exchange of cultures and our educational standards? Does he also recognise that many countries across the world wish to send their students to the United Kingdom to get our education, because it is so good?

[Mr Sheerman]

I absolutely take that point. When I chaired the Education Committee, we did an inquiry on the importance of overseas students, who provide roughly 10% of the income of universities. That is a massive contribution. Universities are so important in our communities. The University of Huddersfield makes a remarkable contribution and is the largest employer in my constituency, and those of us who have universities in our towns and cities know just how lucky we are. Thank goodness we have universities; long may they thrive and survive. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), a former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, mentioned the importance of research, and that point was absolutely right.

Let me return to the broader education system. We usually judge the success of our education through evidence-based policy. How do we drive it? How do we assess it? Is it evidence-based policy? Is it going in the right direction? Are we using public money in the right way? On the other hand, we obsessively look at other countries all the time to see if we are as good as them. The programme for international student assessment, and all that, is very important. There are deficiencies in the PISA methodology, but the fact is that those are the methods we use.

Generally, yes, our education system is improving, but a substantial proportion of children in this country are not getting the education or the opportunities. They are in particular constituencies, and we know which ones; we have all the bruises, cuts and everything else. [Interruption.] I am coming to the end of my speech. We know where those underperforming areas are and we have the methods—with passion and leadership—to sort them out. Our country is divided, and the Children’s Commissioner said only three months ago that 20% of children leave school with no qualifications at all. If that is the divide in our country, we have to understand that underperformance on a cross-party basis. We know the way to tackle it—and together, let’s do it.

[Several hon. Members rose—]