Infant Class Sizes

Debate between Fabian Hamilton and Kevin Brennan

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Of course I cannot explain that in detail, because I was not party to the decisions made at the time. What I can explain is that at that time there were falling rolls and a number of surplus places in the city of Leeds, and many of us argued with our own Government that in order to have true parental choice there must be surplus places and that inevitably the birth rate would go up.

I remember well Fir Tree primary school in my constituency. The local authority was controlled by the Conservatives and Lib Dems—it was a foretaste of the coalition that we have in government today, but in Leeds city council—and it decided to close that school. I was one of the many people who said, “Don’t close it, because it’s likely that we will have a rising birth rate”, which is exactly what has happened, and that debate is very current in that part of my constituency today.

I do not think that the issue of overcrowding in some of our schools is particularly related to the insistence on smaller class sizes; rather, it is related to the dogmatic insistence on the establishment of free schools, as many right hon. and hon. Members have already mentioned.

I hope that I will not upset my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State by saying this, but personally I am not opposed to free schools in principle. However, I am totally opposed to the funding for those schools being top-sliced from the budgets for local authority schools. That is appalling. Local authorities should plan school places; that should not be removed from local authorities. I have never understood the antipathy of those on the Government Benches to the idea of allowing local authorities the democratic accountability that they bring when they plan school places. It seems appalling that we have almost a free-for-all in the allocation of places.

Mill Field primary school is in the very deprived Chapeltown, Chapel Allerton part of Leeds North East. Its head teacher, Stephen Watkins, one of the most experienced primary heads in west Yorkshire, tells me that the rule on class size limits at key stage 1 is now “widely ignored”, mainly because local authorities cannot open new schools in response to local demand. He says that the decisions of independent review panels will often be to admit pupils in spite of the class size ceiling being a maximum of 30 pupils. The result is not only larger class sizes but a lot of primary schools that are now so large that they have many hundreds of children on their rolls.

According to the Office for National Statistics, more babies were born in 2011-12 than at any time since 1972, which means demand for primary school places is set to soar and put even more pressure on the system in 2015 and 2016. But what is the Government’s response? It is the creation of more free schools—schools that have little or no public scrutiny of their operations, at the expense of areas of high need, as highlighted by many Members. It is all very well to say that 500,000 new primary school places have been created under this Government, but what use are they if all of them, or at least very many, are in the wrong places? As always with the coalition, choice is greater for those who already have it but denied to those in greatest need.

It is interesting to look back at some of the statements made by the Prime Minister when he was Leader of the Opposition. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) has already quoted this one, but I will quote it again to remind Members of what he said to the Yorkshire Post, of all newspapers, on 18 April 2008:

“A Conservative Government will give many more children access to the kind of education that is currently only available to the well-off: safe class rooms, talented and specialist teachers, access to the best curriculum and exams, and smaller schools with smaller class sizes with teachers who know the children’s names.”

He went on to say:

“The more we can get class sizes down, the better.”

So what went wrong? We now have more than five times as many primary schools with over 800 pupils in England than we had in 2010. According to the Office for National Statistics, three times more infants—93,665—are now taught in classes of over 30 pupils than in 2010. As a Leeds MP and former chair of the city’s education committee, it troubles me, as well as every parent in the city, that the number of infants in classes of over 30 pupils increased from 568 in January 2010 to 2,346 in January 2014—an increase of 313%. That is a poor testament to this Government’s oft-boasted commitment to our children’s education and a complete contradiction of the Prime Minister’s promise made in 2008, and many times since.

Sadly, it is not the Prime Minister or his Government who will suffer as a result of these broken promises but the thousands of young children whose educational opportunities will be reduced as a result of this failure—often those in the most deprived parts of our country who never had much opportunity to start with. The Secretary of State should hang her head in shame at the way in which these children have been let down by a Government who promised so much and have delivered so little.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) mentioned the Secretary of State. Apparently, while our debate is going on, the Secretary of State is participating in a live video webchat with The Times Educational Supplement rather than attending the debate that she opened and listening to the remarks that my hon. Friend has just made. Is that within the courtesies of the House?