Building Schools for the Future

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making her case. Waltham Forest, as an effective and efficient local authority, has already been in touch with my Department, and I am delighted to say that we will be in conversation with it to ensure that the right judgment is made in due course. But, with respect to the hon. Lady and all Opposition Members, although many schools are in desperate need of rebuilding, the question that must be asked is, “Why weren’t those schools rebuilt effectively in the last 13 years, and why did the Building Schools for the Future scheme operate in such a wasteful and inefficient fashion?”

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Sixty million pounds spent on consultants; £1,625 per pupil spent on IT. Would my right hon. Friend say that Building Schools for the Future represented the very best way of spending money for the future education of our children?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend, who serves on the Education Committee, has made a study of the waste inherent in Building Schools for the Future, and he is right: it is a scandal that, while buildings, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) pointed out, were in a state of decay, unfortunately millions of pounds were spent on consultants. One individual, in one year, made more than £1 million as a result of his endeavours as a consultant working on Building Schools for the Future.

Education Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Meg Munn]

I shall make a little more progress.

Children and parents do not tell the school of young carers’ responsibilities for fear of unhelpful or unwanted interference. Those children may also struggle at school due to their caring responsibilities, and consequently may well receive detention. In such circumstances, they may face a dilemma. Do they collect a younger sibling from their school, or do they disobey the teacher? That could result in a younger brother or sister being left to wait alone, or they could decide to walk home on their own in the dark. Surely the Government should be reasonable. When the matter was last discussed—in Committee on the 2006 Act—the Liberal Democrat spokesperson said that the Liberal Democrats were

“not…in favour of removing the period of notice. It would be totally impractical.”

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Meg Munn]

I shall make some progress.

The Liberal Democrat spokesperson went on to say this:

“In rural areas, especially on dark evenings, parents would not know what had happened to their child and would be extremely concerned. It is perfectly acceptable to give 24 hours’ notice, as it will allow parents to make other arrangements for travel or to arrange for a neighbour or other family member to stay at home to provide cover. Anything else would be unacceptable.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 10 May 2006; c. 856.]

That spokesperson is now the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), and she carries the responsibility as Children’s Minister. She should hold to that position.

At the very least, if the 24-hours’ notice period is to be removed, why are the Government not inserting a requirement to notify parents and carers before a detention takes place? Many schools regularly text or e-mail parents and carers. If schools need to give more immediate detentions to bolster discipline, as the Government believe they do, that should not happen at the expense of children’s safety. Hon. Members should be able to agree that the safety of children comes first, so I ask the Minister to introduce an appropriate amendment in Committee.

Clause 2 specifically allows a teacher of the opposite gender to search a pupil in situations of urgency, and—crucially—when no other teacher is present. That raises a number of concerns, certainly in respect of the protection of children, but also because it creates risks for the teacher involved. The Children’s Rights Alliance is also alarmed by the relaxation of safeguards for children being searched.

My understanding is that such searches should happen only when a member of staff believes that there is a risk that serious harm will be caused if they do not conduct the search, and when it is not practicable for the search to be carried out by a member of staff of the same sex as the pupil, or for the search to be witnessed by another member of staff. Frankly, I am struggling to think of a scenario in which the search of a pupil by a member of staff of a different gender without witnesses would be the right thing to do. Obtaining the assistance of other staff members, or indeed contacting the police, would surely be the way to go.

Can the Minister explain how that power will make a positive difference in schools? It appears to many that introducing that power could open teachers to more allegations of inappropriate behaviour, not fewer. Organisations who work with children in care have raised concerns that children who have already been physically or sexually abused would experience such a search as yet further abuse. That could lead to further trauma for them, which is surely the last thing we want.

The Children’s Rights Alliance has other concerns. It believes that such searches constitute a significant intrusion into children’s privacy. Intrusions must be shown to be necessary and proportionate to be lawful. However, as well as giving extensive rights to search the individual child, the Bill enables staff to look through phones, laptops and other devices, and to delete information

“if the person thinks there is a good reason to do so”.

I am puzzled as to why that detail is in the Bill. Perhaps the Minister can address that. Surely such issues would more appropriately be dealt with in guidance, which can be reconsidered and amended if necessary.

We all want good discipline in schools. A school with good discipline allows children better to learn, but it is also a safer place for children. However, I ask the Government to look again at those two measures. It appears to me that they are posturing and talking tough. Schools should protect the most vulnerable children, such as young carers and children who have been abused, but the two measures risk doing the exact opposite. Please think again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

At its heart, the Bill is about social mobility and opportunity for all, and we need to address those issues urgently. No one would doubt the good intentions of the previous Government, but the statistics are there for all to see. The hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) complained about how much people talked about Oxbridge statistics, and the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) said she was fed up with hearing them. Sadly, however, there are many other, equally depressing, statistics. Among young adults, there are 1 million people who are not in employment, education or training. The lower income groups, which form 50% of the population, have only a 16% representation in the top universities represented by the Russell group. A student’s chances of getting five good GCSEs are four times as great if they have degree-educated parents than if they do not. Even at the age of three, twice as many children in the top income quintile are school-ready as in the bottom one.

Problems such as social immobility did not start under the previous Government, but we have every right to expect that these things will improve constantly. I am afraid that social mobility has stalled. It is stuck stubbornly at levels that, in some cases, we barely tolerated in the 1970s. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) said that we should look for evidence-based approaches, and I could not agree more. We know what makes a difference. Given the economic legacy that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench inherited, with the Government spending £4 for every £3 that they received in income, it would perhaps have been easiest to postpone any expansionary programme. However, I am pleased and proud that the Government whom I support are finding ways to extend free nursery care to two-year-olds. They are extending the participation age to 18—or continuing its extension, to be fair—and, perhaps most dramatically, introducing the pupil premium, which represents a significant structural change to the way in which we fund education.

Another factor that we know from international studies makes a huge difference, not only to the overall average attainment in a school but to equality of opportunity, is the person standing at the front of the room: the teacher. That dwarfs other factors, including class size. When you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I were at school, we were taught not to judge a book by its cover. In this case, however, we can do just that, because the front page of the White Paper tells us all that we need to know about this Government’s approach. It is entitled “The importance of teaching”.

This will be manifested by reinforcing the status and authority of the teacher, making a clear statement that they have an absolute right to impose reasonable measures to achieve classroom discipline, and to be protected from vexatious allegations. We need to move from a situation in which difficult children mutter, “I know my rights” to one in which all children can say, “I know where I stand.” Teachers repeatedly complain that they are burdened by too many targets, too much prescription and too many directives and missives landing on their doorstep. I therefore welcome the Government’s approach in rationalising the national curriculum to leave more room for innovation and for learning other things.

We have fantastic teachers in our school system—I think they actually work a lot harder today than they did when I was at school, and, by the way, I think the children do as well—but we need to encourage yet more talent into the profession. Teach First has been a great programme, and I celebrate the fact that it happened on the watch of the previous Government. Now, it is going to be doubled in size, and we should all welcome that. I hope that the publicity surrounding the troops to teachers programme, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) referred, will send a clear signal to men that more of them are needed and welcome, particularly in the primary sector, whether or not they have been troops.

Alongside mobility within the system, we also need to think about mobility opportunity for us collectively as a nation. I am afraid that one of the bad things about the past decade or so is that, as every single domestic record has been smashed, we have been falling further down the league tables. One of the most refreshing things about the new Government is that whenever anyone asks, “How did you come up with that idea?” or “Where did that one come from?”, the answer starts with, “We looked at where they do it best in the world.” I am pleased that that world outlook also extends to the international benchmarking of our qualifications.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) explained quite brilliantly how some of the fastest growing qualifications were not those that are sought by universities or employers but those that offered quick, short-cut ladders up the performance tables. This misleads students and flatters the system, and it does nobody any favours except in the very short term.

There will be a sharper focus on the key aspects of an academic education, but, to be absolutely clear to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), the English baccalaureate is not all that is in the curriculum: it comprises only five core academic subjects, and I do not think that for most people, English, maths, science, a humanity and a language would be a particularly controversial definition of what should constitute an academic core. Alongside it, of course, we must have proper valuing of, and political will behind, the vocational routes and qualifications.

We should not care only about headline results; we need to look at how to value every child and how to progress every child. CVA—contextual value-added—is a ridiculously complex measure, which nobody I have ever met understands. We need better ways of ensuring that schools’ efforts on behalf of every child are valued. Too often in this House we debate how we are going to tackle the bills of social failure, and I am delighted that today we are debating this Bill—a Bill for social opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

We have provided a flexible grant because that is what local authorities said they wanted. Obviously, that includes money for Sure Start, but it also includes money for other things. Local authorities are the best people to make these decisions on the ground. Localism is the right way forward regardless of the circumstances, but when finances are tight there is a particular requirement on us to ensure that decisions are taken closest to where the impact is felt, because we are much more likely to get high-quality decisions in that way.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the early years provision plays a vital part in social mobility? How many two-year-olds does she expect will benefit from the programme to extend that to disadvantaged children?

[Sarah Teather]

I absolutely agree that the early years play a vital role in social mobility, which is precisely why the Government have chosen to prioritise funding in this way. Tomorrow, we will debate the Second Reading of the Education Bill, whose first clause provides the enabling powers for us to regulate so that we can help an extra 130,000 two-year-olds to experience high-quality early education by the end of the spending period.

Post-16 Students

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin]

That is the worry. Such figures are floating around in the sector, and they are very disturbing, as the hon. Lady rightly says.

Entitlement funding currently provides the money for, among other things, tutorial and guidance systems in colleges, careers support, some targeted support for weaker learners, and health advice. It also pays for those non-examined activities such as sport, drama, music, volunteering and vocational experiences, which broaden the educational experience of young people.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I would like to raise the case of a student called Georgia, who is studying at Alton college in my constituency. As a result of the guided learning hours, she has had the opportunity to study creative writing and poetry, as well as something called “applying to competitive courses”. She has also received one-to-one coaching for her Oxbridge entrance. As a result, she now has an offer from Girton college, Cambridge. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would acknowledge that part of the whole picture involves trying to find the money to fund the young person’s premium, which is analogous to the pupil premium. I am sure that that is something that we would all applaud, but is it not also important always to find space in the curriculum, and in the funding, for these enrichment activities that can put state-educated children on an equal footing with privately educated children, and that those activities receive the priority that they deserve?

[Nic Dakin]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, drawing on a clear case study from Alton college, an excellent college in his constituency. He makes the point that it is crucial to strike the right balance and ensure that colleges can continue their excellent work in developing the whole person and allowing young people from a state education background to access the best universities. Alton, and other colleges up and down the land, have done this very well over the years. He also draws attention to what is happening to the money for disadvantaged students, which it appears is being creamed off. It is not yet clear how it will be distributed, and that is at the heart of this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but he must understand that we have had to make these difficult choices. In an ideal world and an ideal economy, we would be able to service and finance a full academic and enrichment programme and the complementary aspects that much of that brings, but we do not have the luxury of that choice at the moment. As I have said, I am not in any way trying to undermine the importance of some of the things that he has suggested. The chess clubs, the debating societies, the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme, and many of the things that went on in his own college are indeed important. But at a time when we want to maximise participation by all 16 and 17-year-olds, alongside a need to respond to extremely difficult economic circumstances, providing a funding entitlement to those activities to all full-time learners cannot be a priority.

[Damian Hinds]

In acknowledging, as I think everybody does, that in this very difficult financial situation economies have to be found, does my hon. Friend agree that the conversation could be broadened to address some other elements? We could look at some of the cost drivers and things that go on in sixth forms today that did not take place when any of us were there—for example, the number of exams that students do and the growth trend in the number of one-year-only AS-level courses. I am not saying that I have a recommendation to make, but merely suggesting that some of these things could be part of the discussion about where to find economies.

[Tim Loughton]

I am happy to pass on those comments. Obviously, more detail will come out in the proposals. As a priority, we must equip the students going through this part of the educational process with the skills, qualifications and educational know-how that they need to go out and compete in the big wide world. These will be decisions for heads and principals to make at the sharp end.

I accept that tutorial provision for all is important, and that is why we have protected that, as far as possible, but at a time when we need to ensure that our funding of 16-to-19 learners is as effective as can be, we have to focus funding on those who need additional support. That is why—the hon. Member for Scunthorpe mentioned this—we have recycled the savings into areas of a higher priority where we know that more needs to be done.

Our second priority is to increase support for the most disadvantaged and less able young people; I alluded to this earlier. Only about a quarter of young people on free school meals in year 11 get the equivalent of two A-levels by the age of 19—half the level of those who are not on free school meals. I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s excellent track record while he was principal of John Leggott sixth form college. Perhaps I could now politely turn down, while very much thanking him for it, his invitation to the spring concert at John Leggott college at Easter. If I can possibly go the following year, I will endeavour to do so, if it is still going by then. I am sure it will be all the better without me.

To be serious, I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s excellent track record while he was principal of that sixth-form college in raising the aspirations and attainment of disadvantaged learners. I am sure he will agree that that is a key priority for the available funding. If he is looking for takers for concert tickets, I am sure that the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound)—one of the old rockers in the House—will endeavour to go along and bring great gaiety of the proceedings, as he always does to proceedings in this House.

We are replacing what we see as the inefficient EMA programme with a new discretionary learner support fund to focus resources on those in real financial hardship and to ensure that no learner is prevented from staying in education as a result of their financial situation. That is also why we are increasing the amount of 16-to-19 funding for those learners from 2011-12. Funds will be increased by more than a third to £770 million. We will not dictate to schools and colleges how they should use that funding. They know best how to attract and provide for disadvantaged 16 to 19-year-old learners. However, I would expect some of the funding to be spent on the activities previously funded under enrichment, but targeted specifically at the learners. That relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds).

Disadvantaged Children

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of improving life chances for disadvantaged children.

I begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for giving parliamentary time to this important subject, and by paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), from whom we look forward to hearing. His work, of course, is the prompt for this debate. He has once again contributed hugely to the wider debate on such matters.

Following briefings with the right hon. Gentleman, which were organised by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), he and I jointly applied for this debate. I know my hon. Friend is very disappointed—as I am—that he cannot be here today because of Select Committee work.

The debate is timely given the publication yesterday of the study on early-years intervention by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). I am reminded with each passing birthday that life begins at 40—although I am increasingly coming to believe that it begins at 50—but, sadly, the prospects of many of our poorest children will be largely settled by the time they have reached the age of six. The hon. Gentleman’s thoughtful study and recommendations make another compelling case for much-enhanced early action to ensure that every child can reach its potential. I know that it will have a wide readership on both sides of the House.

We have many opportunities to make party political debating points in the House, and doubtless hon. Members will want to make some today. That is not a bad thing, even if it is avoidable. However, I hope and trust that it will not be the dominant feature of this debate, because the issue of disadvantaged children crosses a number of Government Departments. Obviously, it involves the Department for Education and children’s services, but it also involves the Department of Health, housing, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and other Departments.

Such issues go to the heart of why so many hon. Members on both sides of the Houses were motivated to go into politics in the first place. There is so much more that unites us in our objectives than divides us, but that is not to say that consensus is always possible, or even desirable, because in both political traditions, conventional wisdom and orthodoxy need to be questioned, and there is much to hypothesise, challenge and debate.

The rather depressing facts of the case, working backwards, are that among adults there is a significant wage premium for having grown up in a better-off, better educated family. That is true across much of the developed world, but it is especially true in this country. Some 1 million young adults are not in education, employment or training. The best universities are dominated by those from better-off families. Just 16% of students at Russell group universities are from the lower socio-economic groups, although they make up half of the population. In secondary schools, the odds of getting five or more good GCSEs are four times greater for children with degree-educated parents. Even at the start of primary school, twice as many children are school-ready at the age of three in the top income quintile—the top fifth of earning families—compared to those at the bottom. Those in the bottom fifth are a third more likely than those in top fifth to have conduct problems or be hyperactive.

The differences between children start very early, based on the father’s occupation, the mother’s education and housing tenure. They accentuate and widen further at every stage between the ages of 3 and 14. However, there are two important riders to that. First, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North points out, what parents do is far more important than who they are. Secondly, it is not actually the income of the parents that drives the income of their children: it is their education that drives the future success of their children, and it just so happens that educational attainment is closely correlated with parental income.

The statistical patterns of yesterday and today can be broken. If we get the early years and education right, anything is possible. In the early years—what the right hon. Member for Birkenhead calls the foundation years—most of the success factors are not rocket science. They include a healthy pregnancy, a strong and early attachment to mum, and spending time with the baby, talking, reading and singing nursery rhymes. Though it may not be rocket science, most new parents—as I know from recent experience myself—discover that they have a lot to learn. The challenge of hard-to-reach families is even bigger—much bigger. In such families, the parents’ childhoods may not have been good and they may not be very eager to learn about parenting. Reaching out to those parents is key. There is, alas, no silver bullet, but the challenge is at the very heart of this debate.

We know that quality nurseries and child care are key. Economists have long told us that the marginal £1 million or £1 billion would be far more effectively spent in early-years provision than in tertiary education, but the problem is that that is exactly what we have been doing for the last decade. The extensive analysis carried out by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring shows that, even with all the investment in Sure Start children’s centres, the key early predictors of later educational success remained basically stable. We need to think afresh about what is done, how it is done and for whom—how best to reach the hardest to reach.

At school, the importance of the ability to read and communicate cannot be stressed enough. Support for the children who struggle, alongside effective diagnosis of special educational needs, has to be given the highest priority in our education system. If a child cannot read, nothing else in school works and children can rapidly become disengaged. Working with parents does not stop at the end of the foundation years. Indeed, quite a lot of evidence suggests that it is not in school that the gap between the rich kids and the poor kids widens—it is what happens outside school, in the evenings, at the weekends and in the holidays, hence the emphasis in the Knowledge is Power Program schools in the United States on a longer school day, holiday programmes and so on.

There is an apparent correlation across countries between total spend on education and higher levels of social mobility. Education spending in this country pretty much doubled in real terms under the previous Government, which of course brought benefits—I do not deny that for a moment—but did not bring the corresponding increase in life chances for the most disadvantaged. Clearly, however, it is not just about what we spend, but about what we do. Studies consistently show that the quality of the person teaching is vital, which is true at the nursery stage right through to the secondary stage. We also know that extending participation in education at both ends of the scale—in the early years and post-16—tends to improve mobility as well as average attainments.

What is being done, and what can be done? I acknowledge the good things done by the previous Government as well as the great ambitions of the new coalition. Of course, the previous Government did many things with which I did not agree, but sometimes it is good to dwell on those things with which one does agree. I certainly did not doubt their good intentions in the field of education and improving social mobility. Under the previous Government, schools were made more accountable; academies were born; great strides were made to bring fresh talent into teaching; free nursery care provision was extended; and the process of upping the school leaving age to 18 was put in train.

What of the new Government? Ministers care passionately about all children, but it is when they discuss how to improve the life chances for the most disadvantaged that I see them at their most animated. I applaud the key strands of the new Government’s approach. The first includes the extension of free nursery care to disadvantaged two-year-olds; the refocusing of Sure Start; and the Tickell review into the foundation stages and how to narrow the gap between rich and poor. At the other end of the scale, there are the measures to increase the participation age to 18 and enable schools like the KIPP schools in the United States to be formed; the Minister’s Green Paper on special educational needs provision; the doubling of Teach First and the focus on the quality of teaching throughout the education White Paper and the Secretary of State’s programme; and perhaps most of all the pupil premium. In all the debates about funding, the full enormity of this massive structural change sometimes gets overlooked. Schools will now have an active incentive to seek out the most disadvantaged pupils and find space for them, in the knowledge that they will have the additional resources they need.

One could say that at a time of necessary deep spending cuts there are not many easy areas in which to make those cuts. However, there probably are some. In the field of education, it would have been relatively easy to reverse the recent increase in free nursery care from 12.5 hours to 15 hours, and it would have been relatively easy not to proceed with the increase in participation age from 16 to 18. However, I am delighted that those two things were not reversed, and that an additional £300 million has been found for the additional nursery provision for disadvantaged two-year-olds. That is a measure of the coalition’s commitment.

As for further ways forward, we certainly do not start from scratch. There are many great national and local programmes for early years and later on. Home-Start, for example, whose Weywater and Butser branches operate in my constituency, does sterling work. My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and I recently visited Parent Gym, which is a fantastic parenting programme getting great results in south London, as is Save the Children’s families and schools together programme. There is also much to applaud in the nursery sector, and there are brilliant schools and all kinds of fantastic small, local voluntary sector organisations.

There is no shortage of new ideas out there. We will no doubt hear some from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead. The hon. Member for Nottingham North is considering others, and the Sutton Trust’s mobility manifesto goes through rigorous cost-benefit analyses. In my view, looking at that in the round, there will be three key enablers to maximising effectiveness. First, the focal point of public debate should move far more into foundation years, questioning how what happens in those formative stages, both in the home and out of it, impacts on life chances for ever. Secondly, we need a new set of metrics for poverty of opportunity as well as in cash terms—the life-chances indicators that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead enumerates. Thirdly, we need a repository of ideas, information and data—the sort of early-intervention foundation that the hon. Member for Nottingham North writes about—that would evaluate what works best and facilitate the sharing of best practice. Those three things—focus, metrics and the sharing of best practice—need to underpin a new approach to improving the life chances of disadvantaged children. Of course, there are many more facets—which, in the interests of time, I will not touch on—including promoting healthy pregnancies; school admissions policies; improving employability and weaving life skills into the curriculum; the role of mentoring and careers advice; mental health issues; the challenges of disability; and specific issues for children in care and those who are themselves young carers. I look forward to a broad debate.

According to the Sutton Trust, the same gaps in key early-years indicators are emerging among the millennium cohort as in the cohort born in the year I was born. This issue remains one of the key unsolved challenges for our society, and therefore for this House. I know it is one that hon. Members in all parts of the House feel strongly about, and rightly so. We also feel a great sense of urgency, because this generation must be the last to suffer the chasm in life chances that comes with the lottery of birth.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

We have had a very good debate this afternoon, which has been a worthy use of Back-Bench time, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee once again for granting it.

The debate was effectively brought to life right at the outset by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who reminded us that too many children arrive at school not recognising their own name, or unable to remove their coats or hold a crayon. We have had a wide-ranging debate since then, with many hon. Members drawing on their expertise and experience, from both their personal journeys and their paid and voluntary work. The passion and commitment of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) was clear from his response from the Opposition Front Bench. My hon. Friend the Minister’s response also made clear how central the new Government’s agenda on this issue is to their programme, even in these difficult economic times.

Although this debate will stop here in less than 90 seconds, in a broader sense it will continue. One encouraging thing from this afternoon has been the number of Members here from the new intake. One thing that I hope will come out of that is the formation of an all-party group on social mobility, which I hope will be a vehicle whereby we can contribute to the debate.

I will close by mentioning two stories from this afternoon that really struck me. The first was from my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), who talked about the stopwatch, which hon. Members will remember; the second was from my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who quoted Lennon and McCartney when she said, “All you need is love”. Those two things reminded me strongly of the value of encouragement and the power of individuals to make a difference, and were a timely reminder that every programme or strategy amounts to a series of very human interventions. I remarked at the start of this debate that the issues that we have been talking about today lie at the heart of why so many hon. Members, on both sides of the House, were motivated to come into politics. That has certainly been clear this afternoon.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of improving life chances for disadvantaged children.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

No, that is not true. The early-intervention grant is a substantial, flexible grant that contains more than enough money to maintain the network of Sure Start children’s centres. It is a deliberately flexible grant because we want local authorities to think innovatively about the way in which they link services together. I want them to use the assets that are children’s centres. I want them to make sure, for example, that they are providing family support in children’s centres and perhaps providing services for older children where that is appropriate. The flexible grant, which is larger than that for Sure Start, should allow them to do that.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

How will the work of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) on the foundation years—improving life chances for disadvantaged children—help to inform my hon. Friend’s approach to the early years?

[Sarah Teather]

The report by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) is an extremely useful contribution to the debate, especially given his focus on prioritising early years, which supports the work that the Government are already doing to make sure that we are investing particularly in a free entitlement for two-year-olds, which will become statutory by 2013. We are also taking forward the work that he did on life chances indices, which will support the wider work of the Government on child poverty.

Schools White Paper

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Overall spending on schools has risen as a result of the comprehensive spending review.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I welcome the broadening of the base for the gold standard in GCSE attainment, but what can my right hon. Friend do to ensure that children who are far above that standard—and those in the most challenging circumstances who may be expected to fall quite far below it—are also fully stretched and given the encouragement that they need, and how can schools’ efforts in that regard be fully recognised?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend has made an extremely good point. Along with Ofqual and others, we will ensure that our examinations are as rigorous as the world’s best, so that children who are truly talented receive that support. Some children may not be able to access GCSEs, although I imagine that many more will be able to pass them: that is what we expect, and that is what those in other countries succeed in doing. We are working with Alison Wolf on qualifications that will ensure that every child’s achievement and hard work are recognised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

We looked in some detail at the case for a state-backed Post Office bank. The cost of a banking licence would have been in the realms of the amount of money we are putting into the post office network to modernise it and to prevent a closure programme. I am sure that the hon. Lady welcomes the £1.34 billion of investment in the post office network. That, along with the policies we set out in our policy statement to get more Government revenue through the post office network, and to tie up arrangements with banks such as RBS and the post office network, is the surest way to ensure that the post offices in the villages she talked about have a long-term viable future.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

The Government are keen to promote closer working between post offices and credit unions. Will the Minister seek ways to facilitate robust back-office arrangements between the two, which would be a good and cost-effective way of improving financial inclusion?

[Mr Davey]

I think the hon. Gentleman is quite right to point to the important role that credit unions can play and the potential for work between them and the post office network. As we said in our statement, there are already initiatives and pilots to see whether there is room for expanding the role of partnership work between the post office network and credit unions. I look forward to seeing the results of those pilots. The points made about a longer-term relationship are well made, and we are certainly looking at that.

Funding and Schools Reform

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. His experience matches exactly that of my brother, the vice-principal of a sixth-form college in St Helens. The change to EMA needs to be looked at alongside potential changes to the funding of post-16 education—the funding available to sixth-form and FE colleges—because it could have a very damaging effect. There is also a rumour—I do not know whether it is true—that people will no longer get free A-levels beyond the age of 18. Will the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning address that point today? All those proposals will combine to take away opportunities.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy Burnham]

I am now going to wind up my remarks. Some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues will be happy about that, even if he is not.

The Government’s policy is an ideological gamble. Schools will be able to use money to employ whomsoever they like, even if that person has no qualifications, in any premises, which, as we have heard, might include converted prisons, bingo halls, hairdressers and pet shops.

What guarantees do parents have that the Secretary of State’s free schools will have the highest standards? What guarantees do they have that they can hold those schools to account if they do not meet such standards? The truth is that free schools are a risky ideological experiment being pushed through at speed with a lack of reliable evidence. Is not there a real danger that one person’s decision to create a free school will undermine existing good provision in an area and a school’s ability to improve?

Should not access to safe outdoor space and sports facilities be a right for every single child?

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I appreciate that we are running on a somewhat reduced timetable, but I want to spend a little time metaphorically to reach across the Floor, if I may, and express some sympathy for the fact that Labour was the party that Opposition Members joined. [Interruption.] Most Labour Members may not have been on the Front-Bench team or even in this House during the previous Labour Government, but this is the party they joined and they looked to it to be progressive and ambitious for every child in this country. I am sure they still do, but when they look back on the 13 years of Labour Government, they will see our decline in the international league tables and a widening gap on social mobility, not to mention the 900,000 young people not in education, employment or training. They must be disappointed. The real disappointment, however, is that when faced with a bold and truly ambitious programme such as the one put forward by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, those on the Labour Front Bench have nothing positive to say.

[Ian Mearns]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

I would love to give way, but given the tight timetable, I am strongly advised not to—I apologise.

Far from being the ideological gamble suggested by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) in the Opposition motion, I believe that our programme of change is measured, responsible and genuinely based on evidence. One refreshing aspect of the new Government is that whenever discussion of education policy arises, it always starts with the international evidence and considers where in the world something is done best—whether it be in Norway, Sweden, parts of the United States, or Singapore. Further confirmation of the coalition Government’s evidence-based approach is that they have not proceeded in an ideological way, as they have continued a number of programmes put forward by the previous Government. They are even continuing with some policy elements that have not yet started or are only just beginning, such as increasing the participation age to 18 or the extension of free entitlement in early years. That, if nothing else, provides absolute evidence that our approach to education is not about salami slicing, cheese paring or any other kind of food cutting-up that could be described.

There are good and great things happening in any period, and some occurred under the last Labour Government. I am thinking of the academy programme, in particular, which was the baby of the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair. The former Chairman of the education Select Committee, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) said that he understood the approach towards the first wave of schools in the academy programme under the last Government, but it was always Tony Blair’s ambition that, eventually, to use his own words, “every school” could be an academy.

The new coalition programme is about focusing on the elements that can make the most difference, prioritising the areas, the people and the children that most need help at the most pivotal times in their lives, and then trusting professionals to get on and do the job. When it comes to spending money where it can make the most difference, I believe in people, not palaces. Of course the school environment makes a difference, but what makes an even bigger difference is the person standing at the front of the class—the person who can inspire and lead those young people, helping them to learn. That is why I welcome the extension of Teach First, the introduction of Teach Now and new initiatives such as Troops to Teachers.

It is often said that no one forgets a good teacher, but I have met many people who have forgotten a good smart board. In the Building Schools for the Future programme, the £1,625 spent per pupil on IT would have been much better spent in investing in our human resources and our people.

As to focusing on the people who need help most, there is the pupil premium, supplemented by the education endowment fund. Although it is right to debate how that formula works and how the transition to the pupil premium will work, I would love to hear any Labour Member challenge the principle of the pupil premium and say that it is the wrong way to go about funding education. There should be an amount per pupil and then a supplement—[Interruption.] I am talking about the structure. The supplement will go to those who need it most. It puts the money where it is most needed and it will incentivise schools to take on the most needy pupils rather than have the top-skimming about which people rightly complain.

I have virtually no time left so I shall conclude by saying that focus on the most formative times is important. That is why I particularly welcome the extension of the early-years free allowance and the extension to the neediest children at age two. Every piece of academic evidence that I have ever seen says that it is most important to focus on the very earliest years to help with children’s futures. That will affect their ability to read and their behaviour and discipline, which affects all those around them.

We thus have diversity and choice in respect of school types and we have progressivity in respect of the pupil premium and other measures. We also have an evidence-based, financially responsible approach that will allow more schools to prosper, more teachers to flourish and more children to become everything they possibly can be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

The right hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of the House and he is diligent in studying all these matters. He will be very familiar with the evaluation evidence, which shows that EMA is ineffective at targeting the very people he described. I am reminded of Chesterton, who said:

“It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.”

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

In replacing the EMA, which had a large degree of dead-weight cost, with something more targeted, will my hon. Friend maximise the freedom of individual schools and colleges to adapt to suit their individual locality, address real need and truly widen access?

[Mr Hayes]

Absolutely. That is just the kind of discretion that lies at the heart of our policy. I am disappointed that Opposition Members do not share our faith in governors, head teachers and teachers to do their best by learners, whose interests we hold so dear.