Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

That is yet another clear example of why the school funding system needs to be reformed. Torbay receives £1,530 extra for each pupil on free school meals, while schools in other parts of the country can receive £5,000. However, as a result of last week’s announcement, Torbay will receive an additional £1.52 million and will continue to receive that funding because of the £390 million being baked into the school formula.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

So why exactly have 800 children’s centres closed since the Conservatives—and, previously, the coalition—came to power?

[Mr Gyimah]

Yet again, the Labour party decides to confuse mergers with closures. As was said earlier—before the hon. Gentleman came into the Chamber—what we should care about is the outcomes for parents, rather than simply counting buildings.

[John Cryer]

I was here!

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman signals from a sedentary position that he has been present throughout the proceedings, so that is on the record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

As I have said, we have taken action on zero-hours contracts, and the next Parliament will have to consider whether anything further needs to be done on that issue. We must keep the matter under review. This Government have been absolutely determined to build a stronger economy and a fairer society, and I wholeheartedly agree with that.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Zero-hours shifts are often cancelled at 20 or 30 minutes’ notice. Does the Minister think that that is fair? If she thinks it is unfair, what would she do about it?

[Jo Swinson]

There are issues around such contracts that employers should address. We are working with different sectors in industry to encourage them to bring forward guidance on the responsible use of zero-hours contracts. Many people who are on zero-hours contracts are perfectly happy with them. The problem is not with the contracts themselves but with the behaviour of some employers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I would be very happy to talk to my hon. Friend about this matter. In 2014-15, Bradford local authority allocated almost £1 million to schools that experienced high in-year fluctuations in pupil numbers. In addition, it allocated £1.7 million to help schools provide new places to cope with population growth. In January, we will allocate further basic need funding across the country.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

18. What recent representations she has received on the National Audit Office’s report, “Academies and maintained schools: oversight and intervention”, published on 30th October 2014, HC 721; and if she will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I have received no representations on the National Audit Office’s report. The Department will reply to any recommendations the Public Accounts Committee makes in due course.

[John Cryer]

Is the Minister aware that the NAO report points out that the Department for Education finds it difficult to judge the value of various school interventions? Does he agree with that assessment? If he does not agree with it, why not?

[Mr Gibb]

We do not agree with that assessment. The report is factually accurate, but we do not believe that the interpretation the NAO has put on the facts is correct. The oversight of our schools is very clear: the oversight of academies is very clear, the oversight of maintained schools by local authorities is very clear, and the oversight by Ofsted is very clear. We are seeing a rise in academic standards across maintained schools and across academies and free schools in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Of course, apprenticeships increasingly cover the whole economy, including farming and agriculture. The number of apprenticeships in agriculture has increased by a quarter and I am pleased to say that we are working with farmers in our trailblazer reforms of apprenticeships to get them and the agriculture sector to write the rules on what training is needed to ensure that apprenticeships work better for them in future.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Bogus self-employment continues to spread through the construction industry, in part because the number of HMRC employer compliance inspections has halved in four years. Does the Secretary of State regret that?

[Vince Cable]

Of course we want to see maximum compliance. We realise that there are abuses in the construction industry and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are committing to stepping up enforcement action.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

The Minister confirmed just a few minutes ago that women who become pregnant can and do face discrimination at work. Why, then, are the Government going to charge those women £1,200 to go to an industrial tribunal?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jenny Willott)]

I am disappointed that this figure is being bandied around yet again. It does not cost women more than £1,000 to go to a tribunal. It costs only £250 to start a claim, and most cases are finalised well before a hearing. For those who end up going to a hearing, fee remission applies in many cases, and if the women win their case, costs are often awarded against their former employers. It does not cost what the hon. Gentleman suggests, it is scaremongering by Labour Members, and I am concerned that this will put women off taking cases against their employers when they have been unfairly discriminated against.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

12. If his Department will make an assessment of the main causes of insecurity in the workplace.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

The 2011 workplace employment relations study found that employees’ feelings of job insecurity were related to three factors: whether their workplace had been subject to any recent redundancies; the perception among managers of the effect of the recent recession; and the number of changes at work experienced by employees.

[John Cryer]

An increasing proportion of the work force is subject to zero-hours contracts. Does the Minister think that they have anything to do with job insecurity? Do they contribute to insecurity or do they contribute to security?

[Jo Swinson]

We have of course been looking at these issues and there is a range of evidence out there. The hon. Gentleman might be interested in the survey published last week by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which found there was no difference in the level of job security experienced by zero-hours workers compared with the average employee. We have looked at a range of problems that have been identified, such as exclusivity, the information available and the uncertainty over earnings. We will be publishing a consultation shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

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

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

14. What his policy is on oversight of free schools.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

Free schools and academies are held more rigorously to account than any other schools.

[John Cryer]

Well, that is a bit of a shock, because it is widely accepted that the democratic scrutiny and oversight of state schools is pretty intense but hardly exists at all for free schools. Does the Secretary of State not worry that that has led to the scandals of the past few months, which could well be the tip of the iceberg? We could see more scandals over the next few years because of that lack of democratic scrutiny.

[Michael Gove]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was surprised by either the content or the brevity of my response, but let me spell things out in slightly greater detail. Academies and free schools have an accounting officer in the way that local authority schools do not; and academies and free schools have to file accounts every year in a way that local authority schools do not. The National Audit Office has pointed out that the scrutiny of schools by local authorities is not what we should expect. The hon. Gentleman is right that there are problems in individual academies and free schools, but there are also problems in individual local authority schools. We know what has gone wrong in academies and free schools because this Government have put in place an improved system of scrutiny for them.

Academy Status

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I applied for an Adjournment debate on academy schools because Snaresbrook primary school in my constituency was told some time ago that it was likely to become an academy. It is clear that the parents, governors, teachers, staff and surrounding community are opposed to that. The ward councillors, all three of whom are Conservatives, are also against it. The campaign is supported, impressively, by the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott) and by Redbridge council, which again is a Conservative local authority. By the way, Redbridge has invested a considerable amount in the school and has improved its fabric under very difficult circumstances over the past few months.

Snaresbrook has a very good history by any objective judgment and was always well regarded. Suddenly, in June, it received a bad Ofsted report and was put into special measures. That took everybody by surprise. Under a new head, Carel Buxton, the school has shown clear signs of improvement and it is clear to everybody in the community that, in the long term, it will re-establish its reputation as a good primary school.

I was therefore surprised to receive a letter a couple of weeks ago from Lord Nash, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, saying that, regardless of anything else, the school was to become an academy. Only this week, the hon. Member for Ilford North received an e-mail from the Department for Education saying that the school would not become an academy, but would remain as a maintained school. That was extremely welcome news.

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we must congratulate the parents and, as he rightly said, London borough of Redbridge council? We must also congratulate the hon. Gentleman himself, and everyone else involved—that probably includes me. We should thank the Department for Education, the Minister of State, and the Secretary of State for ensuring that Snaresbrook primary school is given the opportunity to continue the good work it has done in recent months.

[John Cryer]

I have no hesitation in agreeing with the hon. Gentleman about that, and I was about to praise him for his work in supporting the campaign for the school to remain a maintained school. A number of children from his constituency are at the school and we have worked together successfully on a number of issues in our area, of which this is the latest. I have no hesitation in praising Redbridge council for doing an excellent job. As I said, it has managed to invest £110,000 in the fabric of the school. That is pretty unusual given the scarcity of resources at the moment, yet the council managed it, and the local councillors deserve praise as well. I also thank the Department for Education.

There are, however, issues relating to the processes that lead to academisation—to use a fairly modern sort of phrase. Before I raise those with the Minister, let me make it clear that I am not making a party political argument. I was not a fan of academies when the Labour Government were in power—in fact, I was not a fan of quite a few things they did. I have not checked this, but a while ago I was reliably informed that I voted against my own side 84 times when we were in government. That must be some sort of record and it goes to show that I am not above having a crack at my own side if I think it necessary.

It is widely agreed that two things contribute to improvements in schools—good leadership and good teaching—but neither necessarily arises out of academy status. I am sure there are academies with good leadership and good teaching, but there are also state maintained schools that have both those things. Serious concerns have been highlighted in various media reports about the governance and accountability in academy schools and free schools, although we are focusing on academies.

We have seen stories in the press about chains of academies that are starting to form and which have been accused of moving investment from the schools to other things. Their chief executives are earning very high, perhaps inflated, salaries, and large sums are spent on hospitality and junkets. The Select Committee on Education is yet to look at the record of academies. I am sure it will find that there are good ones, but also that there are question marks over accountability and democratic processes, which are not in place.

The process by which schools become academies raises questions for the Department for Education. There are, for instance, conflicts of interest. On 20 December last year, the BBC revealed that at least four advisers contracted to work on the sponsored academies programme by the Department for Education are also Ofsted inspectors, which I would say was a conflict of interest. There are also a number who, according to the same report, have financial interests with academies and free schools but also work for the Department—again, there are questions to be answered.

On 13 February The Independent reported that the Department was busy offering money—in other words, inducements—to schools, which seems to have happened mainly in the north-west. It was reported that 32 schools in Lancashire were offered sums of £40,000, or slightly less, for that purpose. They were told, “If you become an academy, you will receive a cash injection of £40,000.”

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I am glad my hon. Friend has mentioned what is going on in the north-west, because there has been a lot of concern in schools in Lancashire, Merseyside and elsewhere about the approaches made by brokers—not just financial inducements, but a lot of pressure put on to a school to convert to academy status. Does my hon. Friend agree that one reason there is so much opposition to these conversions is the concern among parents, and others, about the use of unqualified teachers? That has been allowed in academies since July last year.

[John Cryer]

We had a debate earlier this week about the use of unqualified teachers. My view is that teachers should be appropriately qualified, and there is a question about that. Parents also have serious concerns about admissions. Once the local education authority is taken out of admissions, who co-ordinates that? Will there be an element of anarchy because no central body is controlling admissions? In other words, will it be a free-for-all?

On 11 February, The Guardian reported a claim by the National Association of Head Teachers that academy brokers—that phrase is new to me—are given targets by the Department for Education on the number of the schools they must convert. One question I wanted to ask the Minister is whether those targets exists. Are academy brokers told, “You have to convert so many schools by such a point in future”? The same story recorded one head who claimed she had gone to a meeting and been told she was not allowed to leave until she had made a decision on the future of her school. Clearly, that is an unacceptable way to treat anybody, including a head teacher.

There are also examples of head teachers and governors having to concentrate on demands placed on them by the Department rather than concentrating on improving the school. I am thinking of schools that have problems—failing schools in special measures or schools that are given an Ofsted verdict of requiring improvement. They might find that their time is taken up engaging with the Department in discussions on the future status of the school rather than engaging in improving the school.

I have seen a number of Ofsted reports that make it clear that that is happening. For example, one report—I cannot mention the local authority or the school because it is in another constituency, and mentioning it would be a contravention of parliamentary convention—states:

“Another significant barrier to improvement has been the amount of time the headteacher has been involved in the discussions about transferring to an academy…Lengthy and time-consuming meetings with parents, unions, staff and external agencies have taken leaders’ and governors’ focus away from school improvement”.

I have a feeling that, over the next few years, we will see in the media stories of financial mismanagement arising from a lack of accountability, checks and balances, and democracy in the governance of academies and free schools. A parallel can be drawn with the situation when the Government introduced co-operation for further education colleges in 1992. Some of the colleges were fine and worked perfectly well but, because of the lack of accountability, a series of scandals followed—they were documented pretty closely by a number of publications—in which some principals, because they were given a free hand, abused their position. They got up to all sorts of things, financial and otherwise, that were deeply questionable.

To conclude, I have a number of questions for the Minister. I should like him to answer them, but if he does not have answers to hand, I should like him to write to me with the information. Are any contractors who are paid by the Department also Ofsted inspectors? Is anybody working in any way for the Department who has a financial interest in academies and/or free schools? Are academy brokers required by law to abide by the civil service code of conduct? The answer to that last question was given some time ago in another Adjournment debate, and it seemed to be that they are required to abide by the code of conduct. However, in a later Question Time, the Secretary of State equivocated and did not say whether they must abide by the code of conduct or not.

I asked whether brokers are given targets for converting schools to academy status. Is it legitimate for schools to ask academy brokers to declare any conflicts of interest at the outset of their engagement? In other words, would it be legitimate, at the first meeting, for the schools to say, “Is there any conflict of interest you would like to bring to our attention or of which we should be aware?”

As I understand it, when the Academies Commission reported in January 2013, it found that there was no evidence that academies performed significantly better than maintained schools. Is that so? Will the Minister confirm that TUPE rights apply to all staff who are transferred from maintained schools to academies?

I thank the Minister for replying to the debate. He has drawn a bit of a short straw by getting the Adjournment debate on a Thursday afternoon. By the way, it appears that the massed ranks of Parliament have turned out for it, compared with previous Adjournment debates I have introduced. That shows what an important issue this is. I have been to Adjournment debates on Thursdays with the Minister and one Whip, and no one else. Today, there is a magnificent turnout on both sides of the House. I pay tribute to the hon. Members who are here and the Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of local authorities to ensure that parents get the support they need and that children get the right outcomes. We are refocusing the system on outcomes and quality, and that is what Kent county council should be looking at.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

How many civil servants at the Department for Education are working on the free schools programme?

[Michael Gove]

More than 100 civil servants are working on the free schools programme—a testimony to its popularity. Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to talk to them and share a drink—in my case, apple juice—to congratulate them on their work. I was overjoyed to discover that this has been one of the most successful and inspiring things they have done in their distinguished careers in public service.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his keen interest in schools in his constituency that provide important and excellent special educational needs provision. It is important that we have an accountability system that recognises the achievements of all pupils, which very much chimes with Sir Michael Wilshaw’s comments last week, as well as the strengthening of the SEN element of inspection from September 2012. We will launch an accountability consultation shortly, and doubtless my hon. Friend will want to contribute to it on the very point that he has just made.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State assure the House that the heads of academies cannot create small sub-committees of governors that can then take crucial decisions about the general future of the schools in question?

[Michael Gove]

It is absolutely the case that the principals of academies are tightly bound by a set of rules about how governing bodies or boards of trustees should operate. If there are specific cases about which the hon. Gentleman is concerned but which, for understandable reasons, he does not wish to raise on the Floor of the House, perhaps we can meet to discuss what is giving him concern.