New Grammar Schools

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

For me, it is about two things. It is about being prepared to leave no stone unturned in asking what it is going to take to improve our education system for children and it is about having a practical debate on that which goes beyond the ideological debate and puts pupils first.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

In Trafford, where we have selection, our schools perform very well not because of selection but because of great teaching and good leadership, but I must tell the Secretary of State that the majority of parents in Trafford, especially parents of children with special educational needs, do not feel that they get their child into the school of their choice. In particular they feel that the grammar schools are reluctant to take children with special needs because they will depress the school’s results. Can she assure the House that the needs of those particularly vulnerable children will be given appropriate attention in the strategy she proposes?

[Justine Greening]

I am grateful for that question. I would be happy to sit down with the hon. Lady to discuss that matter further. It is incredibly important that we not only raise attainment across the board but leave no child out of the progress that we are seeing in our schools.

Teachers Strike

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Schools in my constituency are affected by industrial action today, and governors have been clear with me and with parents that it is funding pressures, particularly in relation to children with special educational needs, that are forcing them to make redundancies to balance their budgets. Will the Minister guarantee that the needs of children with special needs are adequately funded?

[Mr Gibb]

We want to make sure that the education of those children in particular, and that of all vulnerable children, is protected. One of the reasons we introduced the pupil premium, which provides £2.5 billion a year, was to make sure that funding goes to the most vulnerable children in our school system. We are consulting on the national funding formula and on the high needs funding formula. That consultation has closed and we will respond to it shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her very heartfelt question. [Laughter.] Well, I do not think that the appointment of the new chief inspector is funny, but a recent shadow Education Secretary, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), apparently does. Amanda Spielman has a passion for improving children’s lives through education. Her work at ARK has transformed the life chances of children in some of our most disadvantaged areas.

I know parents and teachers want Ofsted to inspect in a fair, consistent and reliable way that supports improvement. The chief inspector’s role is not to tell teachers how to teach or to second-guess them; it is to run Ofsted, to provide an inspectorate, to build on evidence and tell the Secretary of State what sometimes she does not want to hear. I know that Amanda Spielman will do that on behalf of teachers across the country.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of the recent report by the Traveller movement showing that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children are four times more likely to be excluded from school than other groups, yet 100% of appeals against exclusions from Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children are successful. What action is the Secretary of State taking to address this state of affairs?

[Mr Gibb]

We had a group in the last Parliament to address this very issue, and we are considering how to take that work forward. It is very important that all children, regardless of their background, attend school and we do not have any lesser expectations for children from different ethnic groups. This is a particular group that is underperforming in our system and we need to do more to ensure that they attend school and achieve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his fantastic initiative, which is particularly powerful given his history as an apprentice—he can preach the reality of it. I have to confess to him that I have never been to Oldham, so I would love to come for the first time to join him.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Traineeships ought to be a route to good-quality apprenticeships, but we know that there remains a substantial gender pay gap for apprentices of more than £1 an hour. Will the Minister suggest how traineeships can be developed to encourage girls and young women into career routes that pay good salaries and have good prospects?

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Lady identifies an important challenge that has been long in existence, and we have a long way to go to correct it. The key thing is to try to persuade young women to go for the kinds of jobs that are open to them and would pay them much better rates: STEM-related careers and engineering-related jobs. Traineeships are often a good way for people to get a taste for a profession but, equally, we need to attack the problem much earlier—at primary school—to shape the attitudes of young girls and make them understand that, like the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), they have a career in technology open to them.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

We heard in the Budget yesterday the story of a record of failure, which was highlighted by my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor this afternoon. Growth has been revised down. Investment has been revised down. Debt—both public debt and household borrowing—is rising. Productivity has been revised down. The welfare cap has been breached, and it will be in every year in this Parliament.

The Opposition welcome increases in the employment rate, although we should acknowledge that such rises have not been seen everywhere—particularly not for young people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sue Hayman) pointed out—but the scandal of in-work poverty is one that Conservative Members really should attend to. I say to the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) that it is not enough just to create the jobs; they need to be secure, sustainable and adequately remunerated to ensure that work really lifts families out of poverty. The Government’s strategy does not do that. Indeed, secure jobs and a secure economy are made all the more vulnerable by the Tory chaos over Europe.

We heard from the Chancellor yesterday that this was

“a Budget for the next generation”—[Official Report, 16 March 2015; Vol. 607, c. 995.]

and we heard from the Secretary of State for Education earlier today about the detail of the policies that would give effect to the Chancellor’s intentions. Concerns have been expressed by many of my hon. and right hon. Friends, including my hon. Friends the Members for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), for Enfield North (Joan Ryan), for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and for Croydon North (Mr Reed). It is fair to say that there is real concern among Members on both sides of the House about the policy of forced academisation in the teeth of a report by the head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, that is at best ambivalent about the performance of academy institutions.

The proposals are against the wishes of teachers—the Secretary of State herself said that we ought to treat them as professionals—and they ignore the fact that some, indeed many, local authority schools, especially primary schools, around the country perform extremely well. That was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) and, indeed, by the Tory chair of the Local Government Association children and young people board.

There is no guarantee that failing academy chains will not expand their failure by absorbing more schools into their academy structures. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham specifically asked about that, but he received no reply from the Secretary of State. There is a lack of clarity, although the Secretary of State made a welcome commitment to look at the particular situation of co-operative schools, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas). There are real worries that the proposals ignore the wishes of parents, who will no longer have the right to be on school governing bodies.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I understand what the hon. Lady is saying about academies, and she will have heard the points I made. Will she say whether Labour Members are now in favour of fairer funding for our schools, as they were when they were last in power?

[Kate Green]

Of course we are in favour of fairer funding, but as we have always said, the devil is in the detail. It is particularly important to ensure that it does not create a situation in which schools serving a large number of disadvantaged students lose out. That will be a challenge for the Government to address if they are not prepared to put in funding where it is most needed and make sure that that funding is sufficient.

We have heard several right hon. and hon. Members express the concern that the Secretary of State’s proposal for academisation will in fact replicate the massive top-down reorganisation we saw in the NHS. In particular, the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) made that point. The proposal was not in the Conservative party manifesto, and we have not had the opportunity to put it to the electorate, but now it is being forced on us. [Interruption.] It is not Labour policy to force academisation on any successful school. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), really ought to get the detail correct before he intervenes from a sedentary position.

We have heard real concerns about the crisis in teacher retention and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) said, in recruitment. The target for teacher recruitment has been missed in each of the past four years. In particular, there are recruitment issues in mathematics, an area that the Secretary of State wishes to expand. We heard no mention of how rising class sizes and the crisis in school places is to be addressed. There was no mention of the cuts to further education and sixth forms, and no acknowledgment of the need not just to increase the number of apprenticeships, but to improve their quality.

The proposals do not form a coherent and complete strategy for education for young people, and we must also remember that the Government’s failure of young people goes further than failing them in their education. I was particularly struck by the passionate speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) and for Croydon North, who highlighted the slew of policies that have been or have the potential to be extremely threatening to the wellbeing of young people—from cuts to Sure Start and child protection to cuts to youth services.

My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) highlighted the IFS’s projections about the very worrying rise in child poverty during the course of this Parliament, and many colleagues have also raised concerns about young people’s lack of access to housing. We of course agree that many young people aspire to own their own homes, and we wish to see measures to support them to do so. It is very disappointing that, alongside that, the Government are not prepared to support young people who are renting, whether from choice or necessity. Indeed, the situation of those young people has been made significantly worse by cuts to housing benefit. Members from right around the House acknowledge that the fundamental problem in housing is the lack of supply. The central part of this Budget should have been about building more houses.

Inequality in the Budget stretches beyond young people. We heard again and again about the disproportionate burden of the cuts to tax credits and benefits and the tax changes that have fallen on women, and there does not seem to have been much progress in negotiating away the tampon tax. My hon. Friends the Members for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), and the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), spoke about how the needs of women pensioners born in the early 1950s have been overlooked.

The Labour party is appalled at the further cuts to benefits for disabled people, which will shred the dignity of those who need help with dressing or using the toilet. We are also concerned about the geographic unfairness inherent in many of the measures announced by the Chancellor, which have been highlighted by my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), for Croydon North, and for Stockton North. In particular, given that the business rate cuts that will help small businesses are not being funded by central Government, they will place a significant burden on local authorities—[Interruption.] Well, I am glad to hear that, but we did not hear that from Ministers earlier. [Interruption.] I am pleased to acknowledge it if I am in error, but the issue was raised earlier and not challenged by Ministers. I would expect them to be more on the ball in defending their policies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) highlighted the need to ensure that the extra support for communities devastated by flooding reaches those communities, and my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) highlighted the need to ensure industrial investment in his constituency. Overall, this Budget will benefit the better off at the expense of the poorest. The Resolution Foundation stated that 80% of changes to income tax will benefit the 20% richest people in the country, and capital gains tax changes will certainly benefit the better off. The TUC says that workers are on average £40 a week worse off than they were before the recession. This Budget does not deliver fairness, prosperity or a secure future for the next generation. It is a hotch-potch of excuses, revisions, disguises and failures driven by ideology. That is not fair to today’s young people, or to the next generation.

Skills and Growth

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I know how passionately the hon. Gentleman feels about work experience. He raised it with me in the last Parliament as a member of the Education Committee. The issue is that even if something is compulsory, that does not mean it is of high quality. Young people were going on work experience weeks, but were gaining no skills at all. That is why we are focusing on high-quality, meaningful work experience post-16, the age at which students can acquire those skills. There are other ways of gaining meaningful interactions with the workplace that inspire young people before they hit the age of 16. Many employers were also reluctant to offer work experience because of the red tape surrounding it. We have taken that away.

Education gives every child the chance to reach their full potential, so it is the key to delivering true social justice. It is through good education that we can ensure that all young people are prepared for adult life and sustained employment in an increasingly global world. Good education also lies at the heart of a strong economy. Our analysis, which is backed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, shows that the increased number of pupils getting good GCSE grades since 2010 will add more than £1.3 billion to the country’s economy. Achieving five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including in the vital subjects of English and maths, adds £80,000 to a student’s earnings over their lifetime.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

In that context, I ask the Secretary of State to consider the position of disabled young people. The Government have introduced education, health and care plans, which have been widely welcomed, but there is no obvious link with the employment prospects of those young people. What will she do to ensure that the ambitions that our schools and colleges have for disabled young people relate not only to their education, but to their employment prospects?

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I am glad to hear that there is cross-party agreement that education, health and care plans are welcome. They offer an opportunity for various services, including schools, to support young people with disabilities. At its heart, the issue is about inspiring young people about all the options, making sure that no barriers are put in place, and ensuring that nobody else makes choices for young people about what they can and cannot do. I would welcome any thoughts or suggestions that the hon. Lady has in that area, as would the Minister for Children and Families. I want all young people to fulfil their potential—and that, of course, includes anybody with disabilities.

We need to ensure that young people master the basics at primary school and go on to develop deep understanding in secondary school. Under the party of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, one in three children left primary school unable to read, write or add up properly—a figure that we have reduced to just one in five, with further still to go. Until age 16, there is a fundamental core of knowledge and skill that all young people need to access.

As I said, it is the most disadvantaged who always lose out when anyone says that a core education is not for everyone. A rigorous academic curriculum until age 16 is the best way to ensure that every child succeeds regardless of their background and allows us to be ambitious for everyone, to keep options open and horizons broad. We have revised the national curriculum to make it more rigorous and it now provides pupils with an introduction to the essential knowledge that they need to be educated citizens. It introduces pupils to the best that has been thought and said, and helps to develop an appreciation of culture, creativity and achievement.

The new curriculum sets expectations that match those in the highest-performing education jurisdictions in the world, challenging pupils to realise their potential in an increasingly competitive global market. We have reformed GCSEs, so they are more rigorous and provide a better preparation for employment and further study. GCSE students taking modern languages will now have to translate into the target language accurately, applying grammatical knowledge of language and structures in context. GCSE students in maths will have to know how to develop clear mathematical arguments and solve realistic mathematical problems. The new English literature GCSE requires students to study whole texts in detail, covering a range of literature including Shakespeare, 19th-century novels and romantic poetry. Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman’s books are not on that list.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

The Progress 8 measure will come into force beforehand. What we are saying with the EBacc is that students starting year 7 in September will be taking the EBacc subjects when they reach GCSE. They will sit alongside each other. I think they are both extremely valuable.

Above all, we need great teachers. Evidence from around the world is clear that the single most important factor in determining how well pupils achieve is the quality of the teaching they receive. We are hugely fortunate to have many thousands of dedicated and hard-working professionals in classrooms throughout our country. Teaching continues to be a hugely popular career. Almost three quarters of new teachers now have an upper second or first class degree, which is 10% higher than was the case in 2010. We have a record proportion of teacher trainees and 17% with first class degrees. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I trust headteachers to hire the best teachers for their schools, rather than proposing to sack more than 17,000 of them from our classrooms.

Having mastered the basic core at 16, we then want to give young people the chance to choose the future path for them. High quality post-16 education is vital for ensuring that every young person will leave education capable of getting a good job, a place at university or an apprenticeship.

For some young people an academic path will be right. We have reformed A-levels. Giving universities a greater role in how A-levels are developed has been an important part of the Government’s plans to reform the qualifications. Their involvement will ensure that A-levels provide the appropriate foundation for degree-level study.

[Kate Green]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Nicky Morgan]

I will make some progress. If I have some time towards the end I will certainly give way, but I want to allow time for Back Benchers. I do not want the Front-Bench speeches to go on and on.

We have introduced linear A-levels, of the sort the hon. Gentleman is on the record as having once supported, to make sure that young people spend less time in exams and more time learning and studying.

For other young people, professional and technical education will be the route they take. Until 2010, this critical provision was neglected for far too long. Thanks to our reforms, we are no longer selling students or employers short.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and welcome her to the House. Before the last Parliament was dissolved, the Government published a report on asbestos. There are other programmes available to schools in relation to school building improvement funds, but, if the hon. Lady wants to write to make the case for that particular school, we will, of course, look at it.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Trafford is a relatively wealthy local authority, but there are areas of serious deprivation, and schools in my local authority are funded to a much lower level per head than those in neighbouring authorities. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that schools with high levels of deprivation among their intake are covered by a fair funding formula?

[Nicky Morgan]

As I have said, we will consult extensively among not only Members but members of the public and schools in relation to a fair funding formula. The hon. Lady is right to say that there are inequities of funding right across the country. The last Government introduced the pupil premium, spending billions of pounds on the most disadvantaged pupils, and this Government have made a commitment to continue that funding at the same level.

Vocational Qualifications Day

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Of course we need resources, but a good FE college is adaptable enough—flexible enough—to find those resources where appropriate. I shall go on to describe the experiences of my local college, Stroud College, which has now merged with Filton College to create an exciting range of opportunities for young people. That has lifted the reputation of FE in my community and provided fabulous opportunities for young people. The issue is not just ring-fencing, but freeing up colleges to benefit from the opportunities that they can find.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am sorry that I cannot stay for the whole debate, but I am very pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised this issue for discussion this afternoon. He is right to say that colleges, such as the excellent Trafford College in my constituency, can do imaginative things to draw in new resources and form new partnerships, but does not he agree that we should take this opportunity to press the Minister on the impact of the 24% funding cut suffered by further education?

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. My hon. Friend the Minister will have heard it—indeed, he is writing a note about it. Obviously, all areas of education have an interest in fair funding and more funding, but there is a cake and we have to slice it up in a sensible way. We will be having that debate throughout this Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is right that further education has been a Cinderella area of education and training. One reason why I applaud Vocational Qualifications Day is that it represents a real effort to rebalance what we are saying out there, and what is being said back to us. It is important that we seize that with both hands.

Careers advice is an area in which the Government need to up their game. We have a new careers and enterprise company in place, but it is not clear—the Minister might tell us that it is crystal clear—exactly what that company is doing, or how it will address the current deficit that means that whereas 63% of young people can name A-levels as a post-GCSE qualification, only 7% can name apprenticeships and only 26% are able to name national vocational qualifications as post-GCSE qualifications. Despite the plug that the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) gave for BTECs, only 19% of pupils were able to name them. When I was a college principal, I expanded the BTEC curriculum within my college because it acts as a very good bridge between the academic and the vocational. That applied learning is the sort of bridge we need in order for people to develop and move on to both vocational and academic pathways, as he described.

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of careers advice in raising young people’s awareness of alternative education and qualification routes, but will he say something about what can be done better to inform parents? Parents influence their children’s choices, and many parents assume that a university education is the best and only suitable option for their children.

[Nic Dakin]

Absolutely. That is where there is a real danger in the fragmentation of schools, academies, UTCs and other provision. Sadly, the evidence is that in schools with their own sixth form, the quality of careers education, as regards raising awareness of the various pathways available, is lower than in schools that do not have their own sixth form. We must ensure that impartial advice is available to all young people, wherever they undertake their secondary education. That includes connecting better with parents and ensuring that they get information about the range of available pathways from the secondary school, which is the main vehicle through which they receive such information. Research commissioned by the Association of Colleges shows that only 14% of 11 to 16-year-olds have heard of apprenticeships, which is just not good enough. That is evidence that, collectively, we all need to up our game.

The hon. Member for Stroud mentioned LEPs, which are well placed to maximise the value of careers education locally. They seem to be the other player in the mix, with a good connection with the worlds of work and education. LEPs are in an opportune place to bring those things together. Given that LEPs are becoming more mature as organisations, any opportunity to allow them to show more leadership with regards to careers information, advice and guidance would probably benefit young people in their area. I commend Humber local enterprise partnership for its work in promoting gold standard awards for quality in careers information, advice and guidance in the Humber area. It is an example of good practice.

The adult skills budget is disappointing. Vocational qualifications are not just for younger people; they are for older people, particularly because many people will lose one job and have to retrain for another. Given that people are living longer, that is likely to be a challenge for older as well as younger people. It is disappointing that the adult skills budget was cut by 24% in February 2015, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said earlier. It is equally disappointing that just last week, further cuts were announced of £450 million to the non-schools budget and £450 million to the further and higher education part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills budget.

Those cuts will cause challenges and pressures, particularly if there are retrospective funding cuts. As a former principal of a college, I know what it is like to set out my stall and put my plans in place. If schools are told halfway through the year that they need to save more money, it is difficult to do so, even for the best-run organisations. I have concerns about the impact on providing the better vocational education and better pathways that we all want for young people, as well as better understanding and support for older people retraining. We might accidentally achieve the opposite. I know that the Minister is passionately committed to ensuring that this works, and I am sure that he did not decide to decrease funding in certain areas to benefit the bit of the world that he champions. I am sure that he will take away from this debate the desire to bat even harder in private for the people whom we want to deliver well for us in public: that is, young people coming into the workplace, as well as older people needing retraining. For both those groups, vocational qualifications are a key underpinning of bridges and platforms into the future.