Education and Social Mobility

Debate between Chris Elmore and David T C Davies

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

I have sat here for hours listening to one Opposition Member after another criticising Government policies and trying to offer a few policies of their own. The interesting thing is that not one of those Opposition speakers has mentioned the fact that for the past 18 years they have been implementing their policies in another corner of the United Kingdom, which I come from: Wales. On any reasonable comparison of the difference between the education systems in England and in Wales, England comes out on top, and I say that as an ex-Welsh comprehensive school pupil with three children currently going through the state system in Wales.

The comparisons are absolutely clear. Fewer teachers take time off for sickness in England than in Wales. More money is spent per head on pupils in England than in Wales. Children in England have a much better chance of getting into university, as a headline from the BBC made clear only a month or two ago: “Top grade A-level performance falls in Wales”. Pupils in England have a better chance of getting into the best universities and a better chance of getting a first-class honours degree than pupils in Wales.

Why is that? It is because in Wales Labour has followed the outdated policies that it tries to suggest that we impose in England. The Labour Government in Wales have scrapped testing. They do not like streaming or any kind of selection. They do not like classroom assessments, because they think that those assessments put teachers under pressure. They do not want to give parents the choice that my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards wants to give them in England.

No one has to take my word for that; they can look at PISA reports—the independent OECD surveys of education systems around the world, including those in the United Kingdom—which clearly show that England is doing far better than Wales. Alternatively, they can look at Estyn reports, a recent one of which showed that Wales is lagging far behind England in areas such as English language. Even if people are not convinced by those neutral reports, they can read what former Labour Education Ministers in Wales have said. Leighton Andrews said

“we took our eye off the ball”,

while Huw Lewis issued an apology to the learners of Wales for the Welsh Labour Government’s failed policies. Labour Members like to promise a nation fit from cradle to grave, but as far as education is concerned, they have delivered a failure from the nursery to the bursary.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)]

Unsurprisingly, speaking as a fellow Welsh Member, I think that the hon. Gentleman is painting a rather bleak picture of the education system in Wales. He talks about Estyn, but does he not acknowledge that the Conservative-led county council for his own constituency was put into special measures by Estyn because of weak leadership? The quotes from Leighton Andrews and Huw Lewis are a considerable number of years out of date. Over the past five years, there have been improvements to GCSE and A-level results, and the gap has closed significantly because of underperformance in England and improved performance in Wales.

[David T. C. Davies]

I notice that the hon. Gentleman says that the gap has closed, but he does not say that Wales is doing any better than England. In actual fact, one of the headlines I referred to is only a couple of months old, so there are still many problems here.

In England, we have rejected the sort of left-wing, anti-selection, anti-testing, anti-choice dogma that Labour has followed since the 1960s, which is completely out of date. That is why we are delivering higher standards for pupils in England than for those in Wales. It is why Labour Members do not want to talk about their failures in Wales. It is why former Labour Education Ministers from Wales are having to apologise to their own constituents for their failures.

Members of the public know perfectly well that this Government can be trusted on the economy, on defence, on law and order, and on immigration, but there are still some people who think that Labour can be trusted more on public services. The reality is that we have put public services at the heart of our agenda, and we will continue to do so. We should loudly and proudly shout from the rooftops about the enormous successes we have delivered in education, health and other public services for the people of England.