Funding and Schools Reform

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Graham Stuart

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stuart]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. Many of those initiatives, such as Sure Start, are being supported by this Government. The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) has been an ardent champion of early intervention and has helped Members in all parts of the House to recognise the need to intervene early in order to make sure that children arrive ready for school, and that they have a decent vocabulary so that they can engage with learning. There is merit in what the hon. Lady says, but even the most ardent supporter of the Labour Government would hardly suggest that the improvements that were wished for have genuinely been delivered.

I am pleased to follow my predecessor, the highly distinguished former Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who said that he could not see an ideological base. I hope it is a practical evidence-based approach by the Government. It is clear that they believe that giving greater trust, responsibility and control to front-line professionals is more likely to lead to an improvement in standards than central prescription, however well-meaning. It is as obvious to me as the River Jordan that that is the key insight of this Government.

We must ensure that that process is well thought through, that we support front-line professionals, that capability is developed where it does not currently exist, and that it is put in place in time to match any withdrawal of support from local authorities or others who may previously have delivered it.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is speaking about the Government’s wish to push more resources towards the front line, but in his opening remarks the Secretary of State talked about some of the most intractable areas of poverty and deprivation in the UK. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that directing resources to the front line and reconfiguring budgets alone will solve those problems, or that bigger, bolder schemes such as education maintenance allowances are required to tackle the deep-rooted poverty that causes that deprivation?

[Mr Stuart]

That, too, is a fair intervention. This is not the Government’s sole policy area. They are also considering doubling the size of Teach First over the next three years, and have been in negotiation with Teach First about that. The essence of improving education standards is higher-calibre, better supported, better motivated, better led teachers in the classroom. That is what it is all about. That is the prism through which we should look at every decision that we make—which is why I welcome the Teach First approach.

It is not necessarily contradictory, though I can see that it may look hypocritical, to talk about reducing central prescription on what teachers may have, on the one hand, and on the other, raising the bar to those whom the state supports to go into teacher training so that the people coming in are better qualified.

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) is right to ask those questions. Tools alone will not deliver. What is needed, and what we have heard from head teachers and from the profession over the years, is that too much prescription, too much teaching to the test, too much narrowing of the curriculum—in other words, too much of what want on under the previous Government—took away the joie de vivre and the empowerment of front-line professionals. If we can bring that back, plus Teach First, put the tools in place, encourage ever better school leadership and school governance, which I hope the Select Committee will examine over time, we can move our education system on to a higher plane, and deliver what Members in all parts of the House want.

Knockabout—trying to suggest that Tories eat babies, or whatever those on the Opposition Front Bench seem to suggest—is not helpful. I believe that everyone in this House, regardless of party, came into politics because they would like to create a more just and fair society. This is not only about social justice. The forces of globalisation, which we cannot stop, and the suggestion in the Leitch report that there will be fewer and fewer jobs for people who do not have skills, make it an absolute economic necessity that we improve the skills of our young people. In response to the hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman), the truth is that we failed to make the progress that we should have done, and this Government feel that autonomy, plus their other measures, represent a better way to achieve that.

I want to make some brief remarks about Building Schools for the Future. My predecessor, the hon. Member for Huddersfield, who is chatting at the moment, knows full well that there is not the evidence to show that capital investment in schools leads to educational transformation. There is a link, but it is pretty small. Obviously, we all regret the fact that we cannot have brand-new schools where schools are not in an ideal state, but under BSF the allocation of money was out of proportion to the benefit given. Under this Government, more money will be spent on capital in schools in this Parliament than in the first two Parliaments of the Labour Government. Let us keep this in perspective. We need to recognise that nobody wants children to be in a school that is not in a good condition, but equally there is no evidence to show that the building itself, however inspiring the children may initially say it is when it opens, leads to the educational transformation that is at the real heart of improving outcomes, particularly for the poorest.

I should like to touch on the education maintenance allowance, which many other Members have mentioned. In the case of the EMA, unlike BSF, there is material evidence to show that it has helped young people from certain backgrounds to stay in education. I hope that Ministers will take that evidence very seriously and ensure that whatever they put in place does not artificially stifle that opportunity for people.

On the move from the current position to autonomy, we need to consider issues such as school sports trusts. I hope that Ministers, while generally believing in giving autonomy to schools and passing it down, will be careful to ensure that transitional arrangements, and sometimes funding, are in place so that things of value are not unnecessarily lost before they grow again from the grass roots.

Most of all, what we must have for this country is aspiration—aspiration to raise standards overall, and aspiration in believing that we can do so much better. So far, the shadow Secretary of State has been far more of an expert on health than on education, but I hope that he can start to express that Blairite aspiration of looking upwards, improving and challenging all the time, rather than simply defending the status quo, which is indefensible as it stands.