Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I do not know what the Secretary of State is having for breakfast, but it is obviously achieving the desired effect.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State sat on the damning report on the Kings science academy scandal for more than five months. When was he planning to tell us that the school had been fined an additional £4,000 for refusing to implement the direction of the independent review panel? Why is there so much secrecy around these schools? Is it because, as he said earlier, he seems to think that fraud is acceptable as long as those responsible are innovators?

[Michael Gove]

There is less secrecy around these schools than there is around local authority schools. We have published the internal audit report on what happened at the Kings science academy. We informed the Home Office of our concerns about that school, and the reason the hon. Gentleman knows so much about the school is that this Government have been far more transparent about institutional failure than the Government of whom he was a member. [Interruption.] However much he may prate and cry from a sedentary position, he knows that this Government have been more transparent about failure and more determined to turn schools around and generate success than his ever was.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

I will answer that one.

[Kevin Brennan]

Cummings is your hero.

[Michael Gove]

Thank you. The hon. Gentleman is my hero.

As I have pointed out in speech after speech—I will send them to the hon. Lady—we must always seek to ensure that accidents of birth or circumstances never hold any child back. One of the great things about education is that children can constantly surprise us with their ability. To the historians on the Opposition Front Bench, I would recommend the words of my predecessor in my role as Education Secretary, Margaret Thatcher: advisers advise, but Ministers decide.

Qualified Teachers

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

How could I be running down the profession when I have just applauded this generation as the best ever? Why is the hon. Lady so ungracious that she does not acknowledge that under this coalition Government we have the best quality of teaching ever?

Let me answer the question that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central failed to answer. He has one sole criterion by which a good teacher will be judged: the possession of a single piece of paper which entitles someone to QTS. That is all he talked about in his speech. [Interruption.] He cannot have a second bite at the cherry. No resits for the hon. Gentleman. That was his case. But the truth is that under Labour the number of unqualified teachers rose and under the coalition it has fallen. When we came to power there were 17,800 unqualified teachers in our schools. The figure decreased to 15,800 and is now 14,800. Under Labour, the number of unqualified teachers rose to a high point of 18,800, so by the criterion that the hon. Gentleman applies the last Labour Government were a signal failure and this coalition Government have been a resounding success.

The Labour Front Benchers talk about Teach First—

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Gove]

In a second, eager beaver.

Interestingly, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central called Teach First “Labour’s Teach First”. That will be a surprise to Brett Wigdortz, who set it up; it is a charity. It is wholly contrary to the co-operative spirit that the hon. Gentleman lauds that he instantly nationalises every worthwhile initiative. Let us not forget that when Teach First was launched, the National Union of Teachers, which seems to be writing Labour’s policy these days, accused “Teach Firsters” of being unqualified. One teacher at the time said:

“When I first”—

heard about—

“Teach First I just thought ‘no way’…My fear was that they were totally untrained teachers.”

But Andrew Adonis, someone who does know something about state education, pressed ahead and backed, as we back, Teach First, and “Teach Firsters”, who were damned as “unqualified teachers” at the time, are now responsible for securing an improvement in every school in which they operate. They were damned as “unqualified” and introduced by a charity, and they are driving up standards. That proves that we have the best generation of teachers ever in our schools, and it is all a direct result of the initiative of individual teachers and the generous support that we have given, because Teach First has expanded as never before under this Government.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that it was the Labour Government who supported the introduction of Teach First and supported its expansion? Will he also confirm that the figures he quoted on an increase in the number of unqualified teachers, which were in a parliamentary answer to me from the Minister for Schools, include people undertaking Teach First who are on their way to qualified teacher status?

[Michael Gove]

I will happily acknowledge that there are fewer unqualified teachers now, under the coalition, and that it was we who expanded Teach First. What the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central failed to acknowledge when he was asked a direct question by two of my colleagues is that Labour’s record on teacher qualifications was weaker than ours.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is the first time I have spoken since your elevation.

I congratulate all hon. Members who have participated in this interesting debate. We would have liked to have explored the technical and legal sides of qualified teacher status more, but time was limited, as it often is on these occasions.

This is essentially a simple debate on a straightforward motion concerning a proposition supported by the majority of Members of this House, so it ought to pass. We have been spared complication by not debating the coalition Government’s position. However, for those interested in the context, that position is still worth checking, if only for its comedy value. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time in the history of the House of Commons that a Government have tabled a satirical amendment. I will not go there, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you would rule me out of order if I did. What we have is confirmation of what I said at the outset, namely that the Deputy Prime Minister and his colleagues believe that

“all schools should employ teachers with Qualified Teacher Status”.

If they believe that, the motion should pass.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

I will make a little progress first because of time, but I might take an intervention later.

There are not many Liberal Democrat colleagues here, but I welcome those who have turned up. Being asked, as I understand they have been, not to support the Opposition motion—one hon. Gentleman said he was not going to support it—is not good for their health. It must drive them to distraction to be asked to perform such feats of intellectual and political contortion of believing one thing and voting for another just to save the blushes of the Tory Secretary of State for Education. He is not in his place for the winding-up speeches, despite taking half an hour of our time earlier on.

The Secretary of State is happy to trash, on a daily basis, the Liberal Democrats’ fundamental principles and beliefs on education policy, yet they have to turn up to bail him out. There can be no more tortured example of that than the Minister for Schools himself, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws). [Interruption.] I welcome the compassion from Opposition Members. The week before last he came before this House and stoutly and enthusiastically defended the policy of allowing non-qualified teachers to teach in our taxpayer-funded schools. In fact, he spoke with such passion and conviction that I understand from press reports that some of his Conservative colleagues in the coalition actually believe he meant what he said—they took him at his word. He is shaking his head, but I read it in a newspaper.

Then, the Minister’s right hon. Friend, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, let it be known that he disagreed with his other right hon. Friend, the Deputy Prime Minister. I know they bear a striking resemblance to each other, but they must surely be two different people. When the Schools Minister heard what his leader had said, he had a slight problem. Did he, in fact, still agree with himself on whether teachers should be qualified? Last week in Westminster Hall and in the Education Committee, we got an answer of sorts: he had agreed with himself all along; when he came to the House he was not telling us what he believed, but what his Tory Secretary of State boss believed. Some months earlier, we were told, the Schools Minister had proposed a motion to the Liberal Democrat conference—[Interruption.]—I welcome the Secretary of State back to the debate, and I apologise for mentioning him in his absence—but when we checked this, it turned out he had not proposed a motion at all, although he claimed he was involved in its drafting.

I know that the Schools Minister is a very, very clever man. He has a first-class degree from the university of Cambridge.

[Tristram Hunt]

Double first.

[Kevin Brennan]

As my hon. Friend reminds me, and as the Schools Minister insisted on reminding us in Westminster Hall last week, he has a double first from the university of Cambridge. But what I had not realised until now was that having a double first meant he was so clever he could hold two completely opposite beliefs in the same brain at the same time. [Laughter.]

[Chris Skidmore]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

In a moment. I think the House is enjoying this bit, as the Secretary of State might say.

And he can do that without experiencing any of the consequent anxieties that mere mortals such as us would suffer in that turbulent and contradictory mental state.

[Chris Skidmore]

I believe that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) also holds a double first-class degree.

The motion talks about

“working towards qualified teacher status”.

Will the hon. Gentleman give a time frame? Is it one year, two years, three years, 10 years? In other words, it could mean non-qualified teachers still working in schools, just as the 18,500 did under the Labour Government.

[Kevin Brennan]

We would have to clear up the Government’s mess and think about what the time frame should be, but without giving anyone the sack, we would require all teachers to achieve QTS in a reasonable time, and unlike this Government, we would negotiate and consult.

The Schools Minister can believe that teachers should not have to be qualified and profess that view in the House of Commons with impressive conviction one week, and then believe that teachers should be qualified and say so with equal conviction the next week. It is a remarkable, but not unique pathology, at least not in science fiction, because there is a creature in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, which I am sure the House is aware of, called Odo the Shape-Shifter, who can alter his shape according to circumstances—for example, by appearing to be a human—until the end of the day, when he dissolves into a bucket in his natural gelatinous form in order to rest, ready to emerge the following day in whatever shape is deemed necessary by the circumstances. I say to the Schools Minister: that might be okay for a science fiction character, but extreme shape-shifting does not constitute statesmanship.

It need not be like this. I told the Schools Minister last week that, having performed a careful textual exegesis of the coalition agreement, I could find no reference—not one reference anywhere in the document—to the Liberal Democrats agreeing to allow unqualified teachers in our schools. I wish more Liberal Democrat MPs were here for this. It is not in the coalition agreement. I have some experience of dealing with Liberal Democrats in coalition, having helped to put together the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition in the Welsh Assembly in 2000, when I worked for Rhodri Morgan, and I can tell the House that the idea of their agreeing to something that was against their own strong beliefs and the professed beliefs and policy of their own leader and which was not in the coalition agreement would have been unthinkable. It is, therefore, simply a mystery to me—and it must be a mystery to them too—how they were dragooned into supporting this policy and into rejecting an amendment that would have put this right and put policy in line with Liberal Democrat policy. The policy was not part of the coalition agreement, but obviously the result of some backroom deal between the Schools Minister—

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

indicated dissent.

[Kevin Brennan]

Oh, the right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head, so he is not responsible. We would like to know who is. It is a bit of a mystery. Some mystery character from the Liberal Democrats and the Education Secretary did a deal to introduce a policy that was not in the coalition agreement and which was against Liberal Democrat fundamental beliefs and principles. Why, then, did they agree, and will they now support our motion, which endorses their professed policy and does not breach the coalition agreement? If they do not, no one—not least parents and teachers—will believe a word they say about education at the next general election.

--- Later in debate ---

16:00

Division 114

Ayes: 229

---

Labour: 224
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 2
Plaid Cymru: 2
Independent: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1

Noes: 263

---

Conservative: 254
Democratic Unionist Party: 5
Independent: 2
Liberal Democrat: 1

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I understand that during the Division, no Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament voted against the motion—not even the Minister for Schools, who spoke from the Dispatch Box against it. Is that in breach of the “voice and vote” provisions of “Erskine May”?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the way in which individual Members decide to use their right to vote is not a matter for the Chair.

I now have to announce the result of the deferred Division on the motion relating to the designation of the UK Green Investment Bank. The Ayes were 290 and the Noes were 22, so the Question was agreed to.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

Co-operatives in Education

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Thank you for your kind words, Mr Hollobone. It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship in this important debate. I thank the Minister for being here. I know that liberating his time has caused his Department some inconvenience, and I am extremely grateful to him for being here willingly when his Department is so busy.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is his duty.

[Steve Baker]

As the hon. Gentleman says, it is the Minister’s duty, but he has been most generous in the way he has approached the debate.

My reason for calling this debate is to support the Cressex school in my constituency, the young people it serves and the wider community from which they are drawn. It is undoubtedly the most disadvantaged community in my constituency. I want to cover the circumstances and successes of Cressex school, and the wider experience of co-operatives in education, and to ask the Government for action. I hope the Minister will forgive me if I say that although they have said some interesting and good things, they need to follow them through.

In a message of support, Dame Pauline Green, president of the International Co-operative Alliance, has set the definitive context for this debate. She said:

“Co-operatives have been involved in education from the very beginning, and there is an inextricable link between education and co-operative development. That is why we continued to place great emphasis on education when the co-operative principles were last revised in 1995, and why new guidance notes strongly reaffirm the importance of co-operative education.”

When I visited the Rochdale Pioneers museum, I was pleased to discover two things that explained a lot to me: autonomy, which I will return to, and the fact that one of the principles of co-operation has always been to educate, train and inform.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Munn]

I thank my hon. Friend. That is a very good point and will, I hope, add strength to what we would like to see. When I put forward my Bill in April, the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), who is now the Minister for Skills and Enterprise, was on the ministerial Bench and was kind enough to speak to me afterwards and to indicate that he thought this was something the Government should be looking at. Unfortunately, my letter to him either got lost in his office or disappeared somewhere when there was a transfer of responsibilities, but I should be grateful if the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), would take back with him a commitment to come back to me and to the hon. Member for Wycombe on the Government’s view on this issue.

I believe that legislation as simple as the measure that I have described—a simple amendment allowing the Education Acts to be amended to recognise these forms of school—could enable us to move forward relatively quickly and, as the hon. Gentleman said, would firmly put action behind the warm words that we have heard about co-operatives from the Prime Minister and other members of the Government.

However, I have not limited myself to just one clause in my ten-minute rule Bill, because that would mean that part of the change that is needed would be missed out. My second clause focuses on nursery schools, to which the hon. Member for Wycombe referred. Labour Members have to hold their hands up; the Education and Inspections Act 2006, passed by the previous Government, did not allow nursery schools to become school trusts, and so prevented them from becoming co-operatives. We need legislation to change that. It is important because co-operatives, by their nature, are based in a geographical area that serves a group of people, otherwise known as the local community. The idea that a co-operative trust could be a school from nursery through to secondary level, and perhaps through to further education—those are other potential areas for the development of co-operatives that I will not deal with today—is powerful. Allowing it to happen is relatively simple, and we should do it.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. About two years ago, I visited Upper Shirley high school in Southampton, which is part of a co-operative trust with an all-through arrangement that includes a local FE college. There is also a co-operative trust in Tiverton in Devon. If the Government were able to look at the issues with nursery schools, that could be a powerful force to promote such all-through co-operative development trusts.

[Meg Munn]

I entirely agree and am grateful for the example. The important aspect is that parents obviously first become involved with schools as institutions at nursery. They are often more likely to be present in the building, because they bring their children there, and possibly take part in parents’ groups, so if they were introduced to the values of co-operation at that point, they would see it as a normal way to get involved in their child’s education and schooling throughout the age groups.

One of the most powerful aspects of Sure Start, which the previous Government introduced, was that, in a non-threatening, non-stigmatising way, parents from all parts of society were made to feel welcome entering the building where their children were being supported in their education. I know from my constituency and my experience working in social services that many young parents who have had not good experiences in school do not like to cross the threshold, because doing so brings back bad memories. It is enormously powerful to involve, from that early point, the values of co-operation and support, and to say not only, “Come in, because your child is here,” but “Come in and have your say. We are all equal; all have equal membership.” From the first, it creates a different relationship between the parents and the people providing the education and support for children. The Minister should look closely at that second change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I have been called to speak earlier than I anticipated, and it is great to have this opportunity. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) on securing the debate and on his speech, which came across as genuine and sincere. He captured the values of the co-operative movement very well, and I welcomed his remarks, on which hon. Members can build in debate. He was very polite and thanked the Minister for turning up. I said that it was his duty, and I know that he would agree, but the hon. Gentleman should never apologise for making Ministers come to the House of Commons. When I was a Minister, that was a priority, and I know that the Minister who is present today thinks so too. The debate is important, and the hon. Member for Wycombe kicked it off extremely well.

I congratulate, too, someone whom I was going to call my old friend—but she might take that the wrong way, so I will call her my long-standing friend: that is my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn). We cut our teeth together, when we first came into Parliament, on the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and she has a long—not that long, but longish—history of involvement in the co-operative movement. She spoke with passion, sincerity and knowledge on that subject.

I also want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), who made the important point about the co-operative movement and co-operative schools that although structures are important it is the values underpinning the movement that make it a suitable model for the education system.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I apologise for missing part of the proceedings. Lipson community college in Plymouth is a co-operative academy. It was set up in 2009 and is outstanding. It encourages pupils to follow up and become co-operators. In fact, they are very involved in the young co-operative movement, and the Ruptors street dance co-op is an example of that. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are many offshoots from the education of young people in co-operative schools? I do not think that anyone puts a value on that, and we need a better understanding of what co-op schools can offer. I think many colleagues in this place do not really understand that.

[Kevin Brennan]

I strongly agree. I should like to talk more later about knowledge and understanding of co-operative schools. I should say at the outset that the Labour Front Bench is strongly supportive of the movement and of the rapid development and spread of co-operative schools that has happened in recent years, since legislation was amended to make it a little easier to form them. There is still work to be done, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley pointed out. There is a good quotation on the Schools Co-operative Society website:

“Essentially they are just what schools should be and what people thought they really were about already!”

That is a good way to put it. There is nothing about co-operative schools that would not be familiar to people, as far as values or ideas of what a good school should be are concerned. Yet, as we know, there is sometimes misunderstanding about co-operatives and co-operative schools.

Values in education are one reason why Labour supports the movement. It is time that we had more of a debate about those. There is much debate about structures and the idea that opening a free school or an academy will solve everyone’s problems. However, we all know that what really counts is good teaching, great leadership and the values underpinning a school and education system. It is interesting that the process that has been going on, which is a quiet revolution in the system—and people talked about a revolution in the debate—has received hardly any media coverage. Yes, the Government have a flagship policy for free schools, but there are far more co-operative schools than free schools. No one would think that from reading the papers and following the news. Certainly, a lot more Department for Education staff are devoted to free schools than to co-operatives. There are more than 100, are there not? I did not realise there were that many left in the Department. It is an awful lot of staff, but very little in the way of resources is devoted to helping co-operative schools to develop.

I welcome the remarks of the Secretary of State about the co-operative movement and co-operative schools in general, which the hon. Member for Wycombe quoted. No one would ever accuse him of not talking a good game, but in relation to actual delivery and policy, it would be good to see more resources within the Department being devoted to co-operative schools, since the Secretary of State has made it so clear that he is powerfully in favour of their development. That is important because it provides a bulwark against what some people fear—that the current upheaval in the structure of the schools system could lead to the idea that the Secretary of State has entertained from time to time: a system of taxpayer-funded, profit-making schools. That idea was tried in Sweden under its free school system, but it has not worked out too well.

The Swedish system was a model. The Secretary of State was infatuated with Swedish models, but he does not talk about them much any more. Sweden had profit-making free schools, but what happened was perhaps predictable. There are two ways to make a profit: increase revenue or cut costs. Of course, there are limited opportunities for taxpayer-funded schools to increase revenue. In Sweden, once hedge funds and the like invested in the schools, it led to the cutting of costs.

Since there is no requirement for qualified teachers, an obvious way to cut costs is to employ people who do not have to be paid qualified teacher rates. As a result, some of the schools went bust, with consequences for the education of the children, and also with the consequence ultimately that the legislation was overturned and a requirement was reintroduced for qualified teachers in the schools. There were no real educational or co-operative values underpinning the schools, which left them as the prey of hedge fund managers and the like. [Interruption.] If there are co-operative schools—would the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) like to intervene?

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

No.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman does not want to intervene. He is chuntering away from a sedentary position, but he is not prepared to share his views with us.

If there is a co-operative schools system underpinned by the values described so eloquently by the hon. Member for Wycombe at the start of the debate, we overcome such problems. The schools can have autonomy. They can be run by local people according to a set of values that do not put profit before the education of local children and the views of local people.

I have had the opportunity to visit co-operative schools around the country. I mentioned earlier the visits that I made to Upper Shirley high school in Southampton and the Tiverton co-operative learning development trust in Devon. I talked to the teachers and the leaders in those co-operative schools and I put the hard questions to them. It is not enough simply to have a structure and values in place. It has to be absolutely the case that everybody involved in the school is focused on raising standards and making sure that every child matters and that every child is given an opportunity to fulfil their potential.

I have no doubt that from time to time some co-operative schools will go off the rails, as do other schools, but it is surely right that a model based on co-operative principles, whereby everybody knows the values that they should be working to, stands a better chance of success than one that is based on ultimately making a profit. That is a road down which I understand the Secretary of State is interested in travelling.

[Steve Baker]

I do not want to break up the spirit of consensus that we have engendered, but I am not against profit. I simply want to draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention back to the third principle of co-operatives, which I am sure he knows better than I do: member economic participation. We know—we discussed it earlier—that one reason why the Rochdale pioneers succeeded is because they made a surplus, and surpluses are paid as dividends to members. I am a little cautious when talking about co-operatives. I would not want the debate to be shut down too far, because there is an honourable tradition, clearly articulated by the co-operative movement, of member economic participation. I would not want to exclude it from the future of co-operative schools.

[Kevin Brennan]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s remarks and the opportunity to make it clear that I am not against profit, either. We live in a mixed economy and the market is a wonderful thing. In the case of education, occasionally it can be a good servant, but it is a very, very poor master. Opposition Members will never support profit-making schools. Yes, there is a role for a profit-making business in education—publishers, for instance—but Opposition Members will not support profit making in taxpayer-funded schools.

[Alison Seabeck]

The Plymouth Learning Trust is made up of 16 schools that have come together in a not-for-profit company. They are doing a lot of joint working, which is very effective, so pure profit does not always have to be the driver.

[Kevin Brennan]

Indeed. My hon. Friend makes that point very well and she is absolutely right to do so.

Some people in teachers’ associations and trade unions have been suspicious of co-operative schools, but the partnership that is developing between teachers’ associations and trade unions and some co-operative schools around the country is to be welcomed. The agreement between the NASUWT and the co-operative schools movement is a welcome development. I hope other teachers’ associations and unions will also engage in a positive manner with the co-operative schools movement. As was pointed out earlier in the debate, teachers should very much welcome such a development and the opportunity to be a part of running their schools and playing their role within co-operative schools and co-operative trusts.

On the ten-minute rule Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley earlier this year, I hope the Minister will encourage the Department—it might have been another Department—to answer the letter that she sent earlier in the year. If it has been lost, perhaps she can provide a further copy. The Minister’s hon. Friends welcomed her remarks on the Bill, and I would welcome an opportunity for us to co-operate in a parliamentary way on the provisions of her Bill, albeit after they have been appropriately stress-tested by the civil service and Parliament and properly scrutinised before we do so. May I make that offer to him?

If the Government feel that that is something they would like to do to make it possible for my hon. Friend’s Bill, or the spirit of her Bill, to become law, the Minister would have our co-operation. I completely understand that he cannot commit to that today in a debate of this kind, but perhaps he will take away that offer and consider my hon. Friend’s remarks. Will he ensure that it is possible for co-operative structures to be incorporated into the legislation, as in clause 1 of her Bill, and also make it possible for nurseries to become co-operatives? Will it be possible for them to form part of a co-operative trust that, as she rightly pointed out, might form an all-through education service for an area, which is an ambition of many co-operative trusts around the country? I hope he will be able to say something positive and take that away and consider it, even if he cannot make a commitment now.

I welcome this debate and the way it was kicked off by the hon. Member for Wycombe. I welcome the Government’s professed support for co-operative schools, and I hope the Minister will talk about that. What counts is what works, and we can see that co-operative schools do work. They work because they can generate the kind of leadership and teaching that we want, where everybody understands the values under which they are working—the values of sharing and of working together in the interests of children and young people. Finally, I once again thank and congratulate the hon. Gentleman on this debate.

Teacher Training and Supply

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Caton, to serve under your chairmanship. The training of teachers is a highly complex subject, and also an extremely important one, given the impact that the quality of teaching has on children’s life chances and on the country as a whole. When I told my 12-year-old daughter what this debate was about, she told me that training teachers was a waste of time.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

That is Government policy.

[Bill Esterson]

That is an interesting early intervention from my hon. Friend on the Front Bench. I foresee an interesting discussion next Monday morning at my daughter’s high school.

The Government said in their response to a Select Committee on Education report that

“the quality of teachers is the most important factor in determining the effectiveness of a school system.”

The Secretary of State has made that point many times, and I agree with him, at least on that, if not on what he does to ensure that it happens.

I requested this debate in light of figures published by School Direct and concerns raised about the implications for teacher training and education. School Direct enrols unqualified graduates to teach in schools and trains them while they are teaching. The programme has been expanded this year, causing a significant change to teacher training as a whole and leading to concern about that training and the supply of teachers. I will explore the concerns raised by School Direct. Teacher training in this country is regarded as being of a high standard and improving, a point made to the Select Committee in evidence sessions.

I shall also look at some of the evidence on what constitutes great teacher training and what is considered to be going well. My comments will also cover the concerns raised about the impact on universities and their ability to continue to play their part in ensuring that the highest standards of professional training apply. I may also look at the inherent contradiction in a system of teacher training that is supposed to promote the highest standards but operates alongside an academy system in which unqualified teachers can be employed. On that note, there has been a 141% rise in the number of unqualified teachers since the 2010 election, and free schools have been allowed to award 10% of teaching posts to unqualified teachers. It is difficult to report those figures without questioning how the growth in the number of unqualified teachers can sit alongside the Government’s claim that improving the standard of qualified teachers is so important.

[Kevin Brennan]

I received an answer to a written question recently from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), who said of the qualifications of teachers working in free schools:

“Data on each qualification held by each teacher is not collected”.—[Official Report, 16 October 2013; Vol. 56, c. 746W.]

Is my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) as surprised as I was about that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

Sadly, my hon. Friend is correct. Confusion is the name of the game, but we are fortunate, indeed blessed, to have the Minister for Schools here today. We all look with anticipation to his illumination at the end of the debate.

[Kevin Brennan]

Does my hon. Friend welcome the clarity with which the Secretaries of State for Energy and Climate Change and for Business, Innovation and Skills declared their agreement with the Deputy Prime Minister on the need for qualified teacher status in all taxpayer-funded schools? Does he look forward to the same clarity from the Minister today?

[Nic Dakin]

I welcome the interventions by the Deputy Prime Minister and his senior colleagues, which made it clear that they are with us, and with parents, schools, universities and everybody who proffers an opinion, apart from the Secretary of State for Education. I am sure that that puts the Minister in a slightly difficult position, but I note that the Deputy Prime Minister’s representative on earth, the hon. Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames), is here, so I am sure he will come down on the right side of the debate.

The new UCAS single portal for all initial teacher education applications was due to open on 1 November. All School Direct lead schools as well as all accredited providers will be listed—hundreds of organisations. North Lincolnshire has been trying to secure its registration since July. The NCTL appears to have been the problem in that it has not passed on the new school-centred initial teacher training details to UCAS. Last Friday, it was announced that the UCAS site will not open until 21 November, due to the backlog in registering organisations, thus further delaying the recruitment cycle for 2014-15. The announcement caused understandable consternation for providers, who made plans based on the 1 November date. That illustrates the chaos in the system.

In addition, the retrospective application of the new skills test, based on “three strikes and you’re out”, has made potential applicants more wary of enrolling for teacher training. The stakes for them are much higher than before. Although the rhetoric around standards is attractive, it may well have the opposite effect, because the detailed questions that should have been thought through have not been. Kim Francis comments:

“Everybody I speak with in ITE is frustrated and dismayed about the chaos that has been created—a common reaction being ‘you couldn’t make it up!’”.

That is the world of this Government at this time. A colleague working elsewhere in teacher education noted that the NCTL

“has neither the staff levels nor I would guess expertise, given the lack of background knowledge, to get out of this mess in any kind of hurry.”

Why on earth are the Government dismantling effective teacher education? If they are looking at international comparators, as my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) pointed out, they might consider Finland, where it is universally recognised that children do well. Its teacher education has universities at its heart, is pitched at master’s level and involves longer periods of study and shorter classes. Instead, the Government chose to focus only on the idea of teaching schools, adapting it so as to be unrecognisable when compared with the Finnish model. They should go back to the start.

We could look at Canada, which is sixth for literacy in the programme for international student assessment tables—PISA. Universities are right at the heart of its teacher education. Students spend two years training and cover a wide range of educational theory, which they value. They spend much less time in the classroom, even over two years, than ours do. Teacher education is more than learning on the job. It is more than “Sitting next to Nellie”. Professor Christine Jarvis, dean of education at Huddersfield university, explains it well:

“Firstly, the obvious—teachers need to learn properly (not in the form of a few handy hints) about the psychology of learning, about the implications of social deprivation and context and not just about the specific government strategies and practices in force at any one time. They must have some in-depth knowledge. Second, they need time to reflect, critically, and with support away from the school in which they are working—the school whose practices they may wish to question. Third, teachers need to think about themselves as researchers, developing the ability to create knowledge about teaching—they need to learn research skills and methodologies. Finally, I think teachers are more than classroom practitioners. They are education professionals and should have a right to understand the job they are doing in a wider context, to take a place in wider society as people who can contribute to debate about what education should be, what schools should be.”

How profound and insightful that observation is.

The partnership between schools and higher education has been crucial to the success of teacher education. Universities are reporting requests for support from schools, but an unwillingness by schools to pay for such support. That is leading university vice-chancellors to question whether they can afford to be involved in this work. Schools are told by the NCTL that they must lead. They keep most of the income, design the curriculum and do most of the training, but because the university is the accredited provider, the university gets inspected by Ofsted. The university has little control and no power over the quality, but it will get the poor rating, while the school’s Ofsted grade will remain unaffected even if it messes up. It is not surprising, given the comparatively poor record of school-led teacher training in the past according to Ofsted judgments, that universities are worried about their reputations under the new arrangements. It is not surprising, therefore, that they are already beginning to cut their losses and pull out of teacher education.

The Government are presiding over a crisis in teacher education and supply that will get worse unless they act quickly. The limited opportunity to transfer allocations between different routes, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central has highlighted, has exacerbated the problem, impacting significantly on key subjects such as physics, mathematics and modern foreign languages. Overall, recruitment is 43% down in physics and 22% down in mathematics. Absurdly, the NCTL would not transfer unfilled School Direct places to universities, which consequently had to turn away good physics, maths and modern foreign languages candidates.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

This must remind you, Mr Caton, of your election to the House of Commons in 1997, for a Welsh constituency, because we seem to be in a Tory-free zone in the Chamber. Is that a Tory on the Bench behind the Minister? [Interruption.] No, he is a Liberal as well—so it is a Tory-free zone.

I congratulate those who have come to take part: my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), who secured this important debate; my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson); and my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who once again drew on his experience. I visited his college when he was a head teacher and I was a Minister, and a fine and well-led college it was. I congratulate him on delivering his speech to the accompaniment of the Household Cavalry outside; it was impressive how he kept going despite the drumbeat. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) also contributed, along with the occasional chipping in from the hon. Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames), which was welcome. I found very little to disagree with in his interventions.

At the root of this debate is the fact that the Secretary of State for Education does not believe that teaching is a profession at all. He has made it clear that he thinks it is a craft to be picked up on the job, which is why he does not really care whether teachers in taxpayer-funded schools are qualified. That is his policy: teachers in academies and free schools need not be qualified. Bearing in mind that more than half of secondary schools are now academies, that represents the majority of schools in the country for children over the age of 11.

As far as the Secretary of State is concerned, as long as teachers have good subject knowledge, that is sufficient. Knowledge is important, but as the great Peter Kay said, knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. Let me make it clear that Labour believes, just as we now know the Deputy Prime Minister believes, that it is wisdom to ensure that teachers in our taxpayer-funded schools have or are en route to gaining a teaching qualification, and that they enhance those qualifications throughout their career through continuing professional development. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe, I did a postgraduate certificate in education many years ago. They were not always of the highest quality. We must always be trying to improve the quality of teacher training. During my teaching career, I went on to do an MSc in education management. It was an important part of the structure of a career.

I will not dwell on the disastrous recent news about the Al-Madinah free school, or from Pimlico, but the Government should reflect on some of those lessons during the next few weeks and months. In this debate, I will talk a little about current problems.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

Of course I will give way to the former Chair of the Select Committee on Education.

[Mr Sheerman]

I apologise for not being here earlier; I had soldiers returning today, and I had to greet them downstairs. I am sorry that they made a bit of noise.

The Education Committee of which I was Chair did a thorough investigation into the quality of teacher training. It can be improved, but there is a whole culture out there. I am a visiting professor at the Institute of Education. This is the week of the professions, when 15 professions have come together to say how important the professions are in setting standards and creating the culture of a profession. Does my hon. Friend agree that is more important in teaching than in almost any other profession?

[Kevin Brennan]

I certainly do. The distinguished former Chair of the Education Committee makes a powerful point. The mood music from Government is important too in whether teaching is regarded as a profession, and it is highly important that teaching, of all professions, should be. We have worked hard in recent years, including through the efforts of my hon. Friend and his former Committee, to raise the status of teachers to the point where we could say with confidence and Ofsted’s support that we had the best ever generation of teachers in this country. That is in danger of being undermined by the current Government’s approach to the issue.

On the current problems, we support and have supported the trend for student teachers to spend more time in schools. We started the support of Teach First when we were in government—to listen to the Secretary of State, one would think that he invented it—and we supported its expansion. However, the trend should be managed properly. The problem is that in their eagerness to propagandise and oversell the School Direct policy, the Government have abdicated their role in securing enough teacher training places, they are not ensuring an even geographical subject spread and they are destabilising university teacher training. We heard about the example of Bath, an institution rated outstanding in teacher training, is considering giving up its teacher training programme next year due to the uncertainty created.

[Duncan Hames]

I know that the hon. Gentleman did not find much to disagree with in my earlier remarks, but I certainly did not suggest that they were considering abandoning initial teacher training, although it is fair to remark that in its partnerships with schools, they rely on the talent that they can bring to its institutions with the certainty that their core numbers allow.

[Kevin Brennan]

I agree that the hon. Gentleman may not have said so, but they have said it themselves, in evidence to the Education Committee. It is on the record if he wants to check it.

We say yes to a diversity of routes into teacher training and a greater role in teacher training for good schools, but no to leaving the supply of teachers to the vagueness of an imperfect market, generating greater uncertainty and possibly leading outstanding higher education providers to close down courses. Will the Minister listen to the concerns, ensure that core allocation to good universities is sufficient, bearing in mind that they also supply support to School Direct partnerships, and give enough certainty to allow them to commit to future investment in teacher training? I am sure that, as an economist, he will understand the importance for future investment of having some certainty within the market. Will the Minister also make it easier, as my hon. Friends have asked, to transfer or vire allocations between different routes, so that good candidates are not turned away from teacher training unnecessarily?

[Mr Sheerman]

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that when my former Committee investigated the training of teachers, we also considered the training of social workers? Social worker training is an interesting warning sign. When we destabilised the training of social workers, many of the finest centres, such as the London School of Economics, said, “This is too much bother,” and withdrew from training social workers. We are in danger of doing that to the teaching professions. Good institutions will leave the market, as will some of the leading research institutions that also train teachers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

Once again, Ministers would do well to heed my hon. Friend’s words.

Should properly trained and qualified teachers be required at all? The Secretary of State says no, in academies and free schools. The Deputy Prime Minister says yes, as we learned this weekend, along with the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary and Environment Secretary. We all want to know what the Schools Minister says. I know that he has a first-class degree from Cambridge—

[Mr Laws]

A double.

[Kevin Brennan]

A double first-class degree! I hope that he will not choose to engage in sophistry in his answer. Heaven forfend that he would.

I want to wipe the slate clean after the Minister’s remarks in the House last week. I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friends, but I think that the current situation is beyond satire. I have thought about it, and I cannot quite do it. They can look at Nick Robinson’s blog on the BBC website tomorrow if they want to see an attempt at satirising the position in which the Schools Minister finds himself, but I will not check it.

Will the Minister give us a clear answer today? Does he agree with the Deputy Prime Minister, his party leader, that teachers in academies—which are now the majority of secondary schools—and free schools should have a teaching qualification or be on a path to acquire one? I will give way now. Does he want to take this opportunity to say that he agrees with his leader?

[Mr Laws]

indicated dissent.

[Kevin Brennan]

There was a deafening silence in response to that invitation, as the record will show.

[Mr Laws]

I have 15 minutes.

[Kevin Brennan]

I have six. It will only take a second to say yes.

I want to help the Schools Minister out of his painful position. I have here the coalition agreement. It is a much spoken-about but rarely read document. I have performed a careful textual exegesis of the document, which says many things about teaching and schools. I accept that the Minister’s party is pledged to support what the agreement says about teaching; it signed up to the agreement, after all. I know, having been involved a little bit many years ago in helping to set up a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in the National Assembly for Wales, that they will want to try to stick to what they have agreed in the agreement. However, unless the Minister intervenes on me to tell me that I am wrong, I cannot find any mention at all of a commitment to allow free schools and academies to employ teachers without a teaching qualification or a pathway to one.

The Minister is not twitching to intervene to tell me that I am wrong. I am sure that he will refer to the coalition agreement in his speech on whether the commitment is in there, but as far as I can see, it is not.

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is, as always, very effective on the Front Bench. Does the coalition agreement not say that no education system can be better than the quality of its teachers? The evidence provided by members of the Select Committee shows that that is in peril at the moment.

[Kevin Brennan]

Indeed. The agreement says:

“We will support Teach First, create Teach Now to build on the Graduate Teacher Programme, and seek other ways to improve the quality of the teaching profession”

et al., but I cannot see the policy anywhere in there. I am sure that the Minister will tell me I am wrong, because I cannot believe that he would support the policy unless it was in the agreement, because it seems to go against all previous Lib Dem pronouncements and is something with which the Deputy Prime Minister does not agree.

The Minister and his colleagues could have joined us when we tabled an amendment against the policy. Clearly, from what the Deputy Prime Minister has said, when the Lib Dems supported the Tories on the policy in the vote, it was not because they believed in the policy; it must have been because they believed that it was in the coalition agreement, and therefore they had to support it. However, the policy is not in the agreement, so they do not have to support it.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

In a moment.

If the Minister supports his leader, he should say so now to the House. This is his opportunity. Let us pass a motion in the House to show that the will of Parliament is against allowing unqualified teachers to teach in taxpayer-funded schools. Let us get it on, shall we? Let us get it done now. There is no need to wait until the next election. It is not in breach of the coalition agreement. It is a chance to show that the Deputy Prime Minister’s words were real, that they were meant, and that they were not just a political stunt, because that would be to betray parents, pupils and the electorate, and to take the electorate for fools.

I challenge the Minister: stand up, show some spine and give us a straight answer. Does he agree with his leader—yes or no?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Before my hon. Friend sits down—

[Kevin Brennan]

I have sat down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Caton (in the Chair)]

Order. We need to hear the Minister.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Caton. Is it in order for the Minister to engage in sophistry rather than answering the question?

[Martin Caton (in the Chair)]

The Minister is not out of order.

Secondary Schools (Accountability)

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his kind words for the shadow Secretary of State and the former shadow Secretary of State, which he gave in his usual courteous way at the beginning of his statement. I also thank him for advance sight of the statement. Labour will study closely the details of the changes he proposes, and if it transpires that they will incentivise rich, broad and balanced curricula in our schools, we will welcome them. There are, however, some important tests that the changes must pass.

Anyone watching last week’s “Educating Yorkshire” will have seen the extraordinary efforts that teachers go to—sometimes including risking their health—to help pupils pass their GCSEs. It is sad that these days that is sometimes known in Government as “gaming the system”. How will the Minister ensure that the new arrangements will allow teachers to help pupils of all abilities to achieve their best, and can he be sure that they will not throw up their own new perverse incentives?

The Labour party, backed by the CBI, is committed to ensuring that all young people continue to study maths and English to 18, although so far the Government have failed to support Labour’s plan. Will the Minister think again about that? As the participation age rises to 18, and with challenges for us all in the OECD report, does he not want all young people to continue studying maths and English to 18? We also need more detail about how the changes will impact on technical and vocational education which, once again, seems to be a bit of an afterthought. He referred to progression post-16, but why are the Government watering down the important requirement on schools to ensure that young people are ready for the world of work, through the provision of work experience and independent careers advice and guidance?

The central problem with the announcement is that parents, pupils and teachers no longer trust the Government not to tinker. When it comes to accountability measures, the Government behave a little like the badgers, moving the goalposts halfway through the school year. Will the Minister guarantee that the proposal will not be subject to the mood swings of the Secretary of State and his infamous friend Dominic Cummings? Parents, pupils, teachers and head teachers are livid about the latest knee-jerk announcement via the press, when pupils are already preparing for exams and only days away from the deadline for exam entry, that only first entry into GCSE can be counted in the school accountability measure. If the badgers are moving the goalposts, Ministers are changing the rules in the middle of the match. Will the Minister promise to meet with heads to discuss their concerns about this change being implemented in such a way?

Will this change to the accountability system make any real difference to children if their schools are vulnerable to—I quote the Secretary of State’s special adviser— “disastrous teaching” and “fraudulent activity”? That is the view of Dominic Cummings, who says that it is inevitable, because of the lack of grip the Secretary of State has on his free schools policy, that some will fail for those reasons. That is what he said.

We are already seeing the fruit of that failure in the scandal at Al-Madinah school in Derby, which left 400 children without schooling for an entire week and whose approach to women staff and female students has caused such controversy. What will the right hon. Gentleman do to ensure that school accountability extends beyond today’s measure and includes ensuring that all taxpayer-funded schools have qualified teaching staff, are monitored for financial fraud, have proper child protection measures in place and are adhering to basic British values of tolerance and respect for all, regardless of gender, sexuality or religious belief?

[Mr Laws]

I think I welcome the shadow Minister’s response to our statement. By the end of it, it was difficult to know whether he was supporting the statement or not. We will come to that in a moment. I think I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s relatively cautious approach because, from him, I take that as a sign of support, whereas from other people it might qualify as anything other than that.

I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that we have taken time to get this right. Nobody can accuse us of rushing into the proposals. After all, we announced a consultation in this area in February. We have taken a great deal of time to get our proposals right. We have listened very carefully, including to the Chairman of the Select Committee, to a lot of the mathematics, to organisations that made representations, and to hon. Members on both sides of the House. As a consequence, the Secretary of State and I have changed the proposals that we first made. We have moved away from a threshold measure to a greater extent than was originally planned, precisely because of the perverse incentive effects that the hon. Gentleman talked about, and we think we have now got the balance right between having a proper accountability system and ensuring that that system embeds the right incentives. By having a number of key measures, we will ensure that it is not possible to game one of those and ignore all the other things that matter.

The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to encourage young people who have not mastered maths and English at 16 to go on studying those subjects, and we have announced a new core maths qualification beyond the age of 16 to ensure that young people have the opportunity to do that. We have also, through our 16-to-19 accountability consultation, paid a great deal of attention to the incentives that educational institutions will have to keep young people on course after the age of 16 and to create the right incentives. The destination measure that I have talked about today will give all educational institutions an interest in the qualifications that young people secure not only at age 16, but beyond that.

On the issue of early entries for GCSEs, I do understand that this has been controversial, but the hon. Gentleman will understand that we must pay attention to the serious warnings that we have received from Ofsted and others about the scale of increase of early entry. This summer almost a quarter of maths entries—170,000 entries —were from young people who were not at the end of key stage 4 study. Ofsted said that it found no evidence that such approaches on their own served the best interests of students in the long term. Indeed, Sir Michael Wilshaw has said that he thinks early entry hurts the chances of some children, who are not able to go on to get the best grades that they are capable of.

On future uncertainty about these frameworks, we hope very much indeed that we will be able to secure support from across the House for the proposals that we have made today, and I take the hon. Gentleman’s comments as a modest step in that direction. However, in terms of getting certainty about the degree of cross-party co-operation, it would be helpful if he could clarify some of divisions that there are now on his own side about some of the key issues. For example, one of the measures that we have said we would publish is the EBacc, and we believe we should continue to do so. The former education spokesman for the Labour party opposed the EBacc and said that it was at best an irrelevance and in some cases distorted young people’s choices. The new spokesman for the Labour party said that he supports the English baccalaureate. We want to hear from the Opposition some clarity about Labour’s position on these issues; otherwise, that will be a source of confusion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Yes, I completely agree with my hon. Friend that it is the responsibility of schools. It is also in a school’s interest to make sure that students are given the best possible study opportunities. We think that schools should use study leave sparingly and make sure that there are opportunities to study at school when students do not have a home environment conducive to study.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

When the Secretary of State said recently that every child should have a room of their own in which to study, was he deliberately undermining the Government’s bedroom tax policy or was he using his platform as Education Secretary to push back the frontiers of ignorance a bit further by giving us a practical demonstration of the concept of irony?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My Secretary of State was making an absolutely clear case for a better planning system in order to ensure that we have the homes we need across the country. As I have said, there should be opportunities available, both at school and in the home, for children to study.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point because the Government are not only allocating much greater capital for basic need, but have changed the funding formula for distributing this money so that where there are pockets of basic need in areas that were previously not recognised, we are reflecting that fully in the distributions.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State was reticent last week when Sir Michael Wilshaw launched Ofsted’s report on closing the attainment gap for disadvantaged children attracting the pupil premium. Was that because Sir Michael Wilshaw advocated Labour’s proven policy of greater collaboration between schools to raise standards rather than the Secretary of State’s desire for privatised schools for profit of the kind that have been such a failure in Sweden?

[Mr Laws]

I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. This Government are encouraging schools to collaborate; this Government are encouraging partnership; this Government are promoting national leaders of education; this Government are going to introduce something that their predecessors did not—tables of similar schools so that schools can learn from each other.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. They are not bound by the civil service code, but they do have to have regard to the civil service code. I believe the question was raised in a Westminster Hall debate and he secured a partial answer from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss)—

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

An incorrect answer, which she apologised for.

[Michael Gove]

I am terribly sorry, but I think that someone who makes a mistake and is happy to correct the record is in a rather better position than someone who attempts to belittle in a sexist fashion an honourable Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree. My hon. Friend will be aware of the additional capital announced by the Secretary of State at the beginning of March for all areas of the country, not only for new build, but to improve the existing school stock.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Thousands of parents are desperately anxious that their child still has no place at primary school next year, and others will be taught in larger classes further away from home. Will the Minister explain to those worried mums and dads why the Government are building two out of five of their flagship free schools in areas where there are already enough places?

[Mr Laws]

I am delighted to explain the priority school building programme. Unlike its predecessor programme, it prioritises those schools in the worst need, and I am proud that it is doing so, in contrast to the previous scheme, Building Schools for the Future, which did not do so. On the issue of primary places, I caution the hon. Gentleman not to lecture this Government when his Government ignored the warnings of the Office for National Statistics and eliminated 200,000 primary school places.

AS-levels and A-levels

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I will certainly come back to cost, which has been raised as a concern about the changes. There is a suggestion of possible increased costs for schools trying to provide A-levels alongside AS-levels in a way that is not coherent.

I was talking about education reasons. We have seen increased uptake, and anecdotal evidence suggests that a contribution to the increase in A-levels being attained has been made by AS-levels being a stepping stone. Those who choose not to go on to A-levels have an option to leave at the end of the first year with an advanced qualification. It has arguably also increased the uptake of subjects such as maths, which are perceived to be tougher, because of the option to try a subject and see how it develops.

There is a strong argument for social mobility in keeping the current system. Divorcing AS-levels from A-levels is not only a poor education policy, but a poor social policy due to the removal of that stepping stone, which often gives confidence to talented pupils from poorer backgrounds to apply to a more highly selective university, helping to widen participation.

The Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference—the organisation representing leading private schools—has described the proposals as “rushed and incoherent”. The Russell Group of leading research universities said that it was “not convinced” that the change was necessary, and that it would make it harder to identify bright pupils from working-class homes. Even the Conservative Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), has questioned the proposals, suggesting that some young people could be left behind.

Leading universities oppose the Government’s plans because they will reduce confidence among young people who get good results in year 12 but may not have the confidence to go on to apply for the top universities after year 13.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Is she aware that a decision has been made in Wales to retain AS-levels as a stepping stone to A-level? The vice-chancellor of Cambridge university wrote to the Welsh Education Minister on 19 March, saying:

“Your intention to retain AS examinations at the end of year 12 in Wales will put strong Welsh applicants in a good position. Year 12 exams have been shown to be a good predictor of Cambridge academic success and are taken very seriously by our selectors.”

[Seema Malhotra]

I welcome that. Cambridge university has perhaps been one of the most prominent universities to raise concerns vocally at every level. Dr Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge university, said:

“We are worried… that if AS-level disappears, we will lose many of the gains in terms of fair admissions and widening participation that we have made in the last decade.”

Dr Parks warns:

“We are convinced that a large part of this success derives from the confidence engendered in students from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds when they achieve high examination grades at the end of year 12”.

Those concerns are shared across the university sector. The Million+ group of universities said that

“this will create a two tier system”

and Universities UK said that it will affect their “ability to widen participation”.

Even more worrying is the research evidence provided by Cambridge university, which the Secretary of State for Education has chosen to ignore. In a research paper, its general admissions research working party said that AS-level grades were easily the best predictors for degree performance, proving to be a

“sound test verging on excellent”

in every subject except maths. I will return to that.

It is worrying that the Secretary of State has chosen to emasculate an exam that a top Russell Group university says provides it with the best way to judge how well a state school pupil is likely to do at university, at a time when he says he wants more state school pupils to be successful in applying. Therein lies a paradox that I hope we will be able to understand further today.

A further challenge has been put forward by the Government relating to criticisms of structure and quality. I would like to address that. There have been criticisms from the Government that exams do not have rigour. Rightly, concerns have been raised by some universities about particular subjects, such as maths, where first-year studies may well have been modified as a result to cater for the level of understanding that undergraduates are showing. However, I am told that that has been partly due to the selection of modules within the current framework, and nobody has said that it is due to the framework itself. There is no reason why we cannot have, and indeed do have, tougher modules and synoptic assessment at the end of A-levels—at the end of someone’s A2 year—which requires an understanding of earlier levels in order to do the examination. There is a lot of room for improvement if we choose to go down that road, and a wholesale change of the system would not be required.

There is a debate, which the sector has told me it is open to, about a change to the weighting of AS-levels as part of A-levels. The weighting is currently 50% and there is some discussion as to whether that could be, for example, 40/60. With the sector so open and willing to have such a conversation, it is indeed a shame that the Government have not shown willingness to work in partnership and with the expertise of those who teach our children, day in and day out. They are seasoned professionals who are keen to see our young people develop a passion for learning and leave our education system as smart young adults prepared for the world of work.

There is also a great challenge before us on coherence. Education planning needs coherence and some predictability so that standards do not suffer. The Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference called the proposals “rushed and incoherent”. It is concerned that the proposals are being driven by a

“timetable based on electoral politics rather than principles of sound implementation.”

Neil Carberry, the CBI’s director of employment and skills, said:

“Businesses want more rigorous exams but we’re concerned that these changes aren’t being linked up with other reforms… We need a more coherent overall system.”

I have had the question of costs raised with me, and perhaps the Government can respond to these points today. The changes will clearly have a cost on the sector and have hidden costs for schools. It would be helpful to know whether the Government have factored in costs for schools, whether they expect A-levels to get more expensive, and whether they expect the overall costs to be higher if schools are providing AS-levels delivered over one year and two years, and A-levels, and where the demand for that is. If providing 16-to-18 education becomes more expensive, will extra funding be provided?

Schools and colleges have raised concerns about the proposed speed of change. Many organisations have said that they are extremely concerned that the changes are going on in parallel to GCSE changes in such a short time and without any real evidence of the need for change presented. Will the Minister confirm which universities are in favour of the changes and of reducing opportunity and narrowing the range of post-16 study, and will he respond to the challenges raised by the Russell Group and Cambridge university in particular?

There is agreement about the need to change on some fronts. A mature dialogue is taking place on the need to reform, and on that, both the education sector and the Government always have to be in a mindset of continuous improvement. My head teachers write, for example:

“We accept the move for eliminating retakes at A-level.”

Prior to January’s oral statement, Ofqual had announced its decision to remove the January exams from September 2013.

Divorcing AS-levels from A-levels is poor education policy, as it is likely to reduce standards and achievement in education. It will narrow the options available to young people and undermine the value of creative subjects at a time when we should be strengthening them. Head teachers in Feltham and Heston have told me how a proposed return to the study of three A-level subjects in a very linear and constrained way will almost certainly diminish the provision and position of minority subjects, such as languages and music. For many pupils, the opportunity to study four or five subjects at AS-level broadens their learning and provides a challenge that they relish. I heard on Friday in my local area how Hounslow pupils benefit from the breadth of learning different AS-levels, even if they decide against pursuing certain subjects in year 13 or beyond.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) has said that evidence of what works should be what informs Government education policy. That is sound advice that the Government should listen to. It is beyond the understanding of my head teachers and many professionals why the Government are pushing through a universally unwanted change that will take our education system backwards. There is grave concern that the proposal is based on ministerial opinion and preferences, rather than solid evidence of the need to change.

At a time when we need to ensure that young people get a broad and balanced education to prepare them for the modern world of work, it is worrying that the Secretary of State is planning to narrow the education available to students. Although students currently have the option to take a subject at AS-level that contrasts with their main subjects, the Secretary of State instead wants to shackle pupils to a two-year programme, which would constrain them and their learning at an extremely formative stage of their development.

We know that we must reform our education system, but it must be the right reform. Labour supports reforms to 14-to-19 education that would deliver a curriculum and qualification system that equipped young people with the skills and knowledge to play their part in society and the economy, but these proposals will not achieve that. Labour has commissioned a review of 14-19 education to focus on raising aspirations for those who want to go to university and for the forgotten 50% who do not. Labour plans to introduce a gold-standard technical baccalaureate at age 18. As the Government’s proposed changes stand, they will take our education system backwards, not forwards. The Government’s proposals undermine the value and status of our AS-level and A-level qualifications.

I hope that the Government have the courage and wisdom to listen to the experts who oppose their proposed reforms. If the Government go that way, the changes will come into effect on the same day as their changes to exams at 16. What assessment have the Government made of the impact of that for schools? What assessment has the Minister made of the impact on widening participation? Are the Government concerned that a two-tier A-level system will limit aspiration for young people in deprived areas? How will universities assess admissions? The Government claim that AS-levels are not considered, but that is not supported by many universities. What would the Government recommend as future admissions criteria? Would that include GCSEs? However, if they are to be scrapped or reformed, what next?

I close simply by saying that I and my constituents look forward to the Government’s response and to, I hope, a change of direction.

Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on securing this important and timely debate.

Following the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), the issue in question is how we provide a framework to support schools and colleges to get the best for our young people. Everyone would sign up to that aim; the dispute is about how. I want to focus on the Government’s intention to divorce AS-levels from A-levels. Having worked in post-16 education for 30 years, I fear that that would be a very retrograde step and would do lasting damage to the education of students in key stage 5. I am not surprised that, as my hon. Friend said, the Government’s extensive consultation showed that 77% of consultees were against going down that route. The people who were consulted know what they are talking about. Their responses were driven by experience and evidence, rather than dogma and belief.

If the divorce goes ahead, we are likely to return to the worst aspects of A-levels prior to 2000: a much narrower curriculum, where a significant number of students committed to a two-year programme, but came away with nothing. That was a scandal. Since 2000, there has been much progress in the right direction. That does not mean, as my hon. Friend said, that there is no need for continued change and reform; it means that it needs to happen in a framework of stability if we are to get the best for our young people from what those who work in education can provide.

Young people are very fluid in their choices. One of the traditional features of our post-16 education compared with that of some of our most successful global competitors is its narrowness. Asking a young person to focus on just three subjects at A-level means they must specialise early and jettison areas of interest.

[Kevin Brennan]

I talked yesterday to a teacher whose son, Joseph, went to a state school. Had the current proposals been in place he would have taken English as his AS-level rather than A-level, but he is now studying English at Oxford. That never would have happened if the choices had been narrowed, as is suggested, at the age of 16.

[Nic Dakin]

It is difficult for us to understand how young people are at 16, and how much they are exploring their way in the world. That is a good thing, and one of the things that we should do is to provide a framework that helps them to make the right choices. Sometimes, allowing them a little more choice and flexibility—25% more subjects post-16—enables them to choose differently according to their experience. At 17, they are much more mature than at 16. People mature at different rates, too. I am not surprised by the story about someone taking A-level English as the fourth choice—English in that example could be replaced by any subject—and at the end of the period of post-16 study going on to study it, or a subject that it significantly underpins, at university, or indeed going into employment related to it. That is not unusual in my experience of working day in, day out, for 30-odd years, with 16 to 19-year-olds. It has been a familiar story since 2000.

Before 2000, people did not have that flexibility and choice. The curriculum was far less able to get the best out of young people. The dramatic change brought about by Curriculum 2000 allowed youngsters to continue with a broader programme and delay the final specialisation until the end of year 12. That meant that those advising students could encourage them to take more risks—to stick with physics as well as music alongside their maths and geography, keeping their options open longer, or encouraging them to do a modern foreign language for another year. What students would chose to focus on at the end of year 12 was often different from what they might have focused on at the end of year 11. People who have not worked with 16 to 18-year-olds, as I have for many years, might be surprised at how much young people mature in their first year of post-16 education, and how much their focus can change after they have been informed by another year’s study and another year’s consideration of what they intend to do next.

The current system allows students to choose four subjects at AS-level before specialising in three at A-level or taking all four through to full A-levels. There is a significant jump in difficulty from GCSE to A-level, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham has indicated, and the AS has assisted students so that they can choose a broader range of subjects before specialising in year 13. Denying students that choice risks denying them the opportunity to discover a particular aptitude or passion for subject areas in which they previously had less confidence and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston has indicated, it is liable most negatively to affect students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, who are most likely to be less confident.

My understanding of the Government’s current plans—and they are fluid, rather like a young person’s—is that although they will allow the content of the AS to be within the A-level initially, they intend, once the change is embedded, that A-levels and AS-levels will have distinct content, as they did pre-2000. If that is the case, it will be uneconomical for AS-levels to be taught and they will wither on the vine, because it will no longer be possible to co-teach them in the same class as A-levels. That is significant, because the pre-2000 history of AS-levels shows they never really got much traction.

The removal of AS as a stepping-stone qualification will almost certainly reduce the uptake of subjects that are regarded as relatively harder at A-level than at GCSE, and I suspect that there will be an impact on languages and mathematics in particular. Without validation at the stepping stone point, less confident students are likely to be discouraged from embarking on the A-level. With validation, there is less risk to the individual, who can always bank an AS at the end of one year and focus on their other three subjects at A-level.

[Nic Dakin]

For a start, when we are dealing with young people, we are dealing with a collection of individual choices. In my experience, as someone who has spent a lot of time advising young people and encouraging them to make choices, if they are focusing on three subjects, languages are often vulnerable to not being tried. What turns out to be someone’s fourth subject—the one they drop down to AS—might not have been their fourth subject when they picked it. We can play around with statistics, but what is important is the impact on the young person at the point of choice, when they decide on their post-16 programme. Being able to do four AS-levels and then either take all four through to full A-levels or to bank one, increases the flexibility of choice, minimises risk and encourages people to take subjects that would be beneficial to them—mathematics, for instance.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend knows what he is talking about, and the Association of Colleges backs what he says. In the briefing for this debate the association states that

“the removal of the AS as a stepping-stone may well reduce the take-up of subjects which are regarded as significantly harder at A-level than at GCSE,”

in particular,

“maths and modern languages.”

[Damian Hinds]

My question was about what the evidence was, not the effect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend makes the point for me. Indeed, all those students and staff related to the university of Cambridge make the point for her and for themselves. I think that the Minister is listening today, and I hope that it is active listening so that we can get a better outcome for young people.

[Kevin Brennan]

If my hon. Friend is right that the Secretary of State has claimed that, it is very odd, because Cambridge university, in a letter from Dr Geoff Parks, the director of admissions, wrote to him on 12 July 2010:

“We are worried…if AS-level disappears we will lose many of the gains in terms of fair admissions and widening participation that we have made in the last decade.”

That was in July 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin, and to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on securing the debate. You pointed out at the beginning that the clock is an hour behind, and it is probably appropriate to our debate on education policy that the clock has been turned back, because that is exactly what is happening in what we are discussing. [Interruption.] I remind the Minister for Schools that the best humour is always recycled.

As someone who sat A-levels, like most people in this room, and who has taught and marked A-levels and set an A-level examination syllabus, I could say a lot of things and make many general points about A-levels and their history. Those points include those made today about the Government’s reforms, such as the speed of change and the political timetable—that was the phrase of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference, I think, not mine—that they are being driven to.

There is the point about not reforming all A-levels at the same time, which is a ludicrous thing to do. The Government should take the time to do it properly and in all subjects, not have a two-tier approach to reform. Ofqual has leavened that a little by introducing a few more subjects, including one of the two subjects that I used to teach at A-level—economics—in which the Minister for Schools has a double first from Cambridge university. They have been added to the list, but nevertheless there is still a two-tier process in the reforms of A-levels, which is ludicrous.

There is the fixation on core subjects, and the lack of focus in the proposals on those not progressing to university. The Government seem to assume that A-levels exist only for the purpose of getting into university, which is of course a parody of the reality. That may be the experience of 100% of Ministers, but not the experience of 100% of youngsters sitting A-levels in the country, to which we might have thought that Ministers would pay some attention.

There is the elbowing out of non-Russell Group universities. It seems to me that the Government are almost trying to create a tier of polytechnics—ironically, since the Conservatives abolished them, they now seem to be absolutely determined to have a first division red-brick and sandstone university sector and a polytechnic sector. Why do they not just rename them polytechnics, if that is the Government’s real intention and what they are about?

There is the silly attitude towards methods of assessment. It is an absolutely daft attitude to think that all the different subjects, knowledge and skills—believe it or not—that are required to pass A-levels can be assessed in final examinations. There is the silly interference with question design by Ministers, which is absolutely ludicrous. Anyone who had taught in a classroom for one minute, even at A-level, would know that there is a wide range of mixed abilities among students taking A-levels. Getting them into the exam so that they can show what they know is also important: as well as supplying stretch to the most able, a way into the examination has to be supplied for many students.

There are also all the resulting timetabling issues—obviously, none of the Ministers has tried to write or put together a timetable—and the proposals are absolutely ludicrous. Everybody in the profession is telling them that, but they are not listening. I could go on and on, but I want to focus on the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), once I have congratulated my hon. Friends the Member for Feltham and Heston, for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and for North West Durham (Pat Glass) on their speeches, and congratulated the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who did not venture a speech, but has made some intelligent interjections to help us along in the debate.

I want to focus on the AS-level. It is only fair at the outset to make it clear that we regard the decision to divorce AS-levels from A-levels as one of the least evidence-based, most captious and casually damaging decisions that the Secretary of State for Education has taken so far. It is therefore only fair clearly to signal to everyone here and to the education world that we will not implement it. We will re-couple AS-levels and A-levels in September 2015, after the next general election.

Nobody outside the bunker in Sanctuary buildings thinks that divorcing AS-levels from A-levels is a good idea. I doubt whether even the part-time Minister for Schools—he does not have exams or the curriculum on his list of responsibilities but is here today because the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), is away on a foreign trip—thinks that it is a good idea, although he will tell us that it is because he has to perform his role as the Secretary of State’s flexible friend. I cannot really believe that he genuinely thinks that that is the case, but while we have him here, I ask him to listen and to look again at the decision that has been taken.

When the Under-Secretary announced the measure in the House, she tried to give the impression that she had support for the divorce. When I pointed out to her that she did not, she grandstanded, and tried to give the impression that she had the support of the Russell Group universities. Let me remind Members what the group actually said:

“The current AS-level provides a useful indicator of progress, which is invaluable for university admissions. We worry that without these results universities will have to place more emphasis on A-level predicted grades—of which more than half are wrong— school references or older GCSE grades. From our experience these are less reliable and would unduly prejudice disadvantaged students who receive less help when applying to university.”

Hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that that is exactly what the 1994 Group and Universities UK have said. As I pointed out to the Under-Secretary at the time, the most trenchant opposition to these proposals came from not the Labour party, the National Union of Teachers or even from the “The Blob”, as the Secretary of State likes to refer to those educationists who study these subjects and spend their time doing research into education matters, but the admissions tutors in the university of Cambridge.

The Minister will be aware that, as long ago as July 2010, Cambridge university’s director of admissions, Geoff Parks, wrote to the Secretary of State, warning him that he could lose many gains in terms of fair admissions and widening participation that had been made in the past decade. He went on to add that it was no coincidence that

“our utilisation of AS scores as a core component of admissions decisions has been accompanied by a noticeable reduction in the number of complaints we have received from schools and colleges about the fairness of our selection process. The same period has also seen marked improvement in Cambridge examination performance.”

So it is good for students; good for fair access and good for Cambridge university, according to the admissions tutors, but what do they know?

The Minister will also be aware of the research that was undertaken by the Cambridge university general admission research working party, which found that AS-level grades were easily the best predictions for degree performance, proving to be, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston said, “sound verging on excellent”, and that was in every subject, bar maths, where the sixth term examination paper was better.

It is not surprising that 40 Cambridge admissions tutors signed a letter to The Daily Telegraph, which was published on 30 January, a week after the announcement was made, calling for the reversal of the decision. In their letter, they said:

“Good results give students from all backgrounds the confidence to compete for a place at highly selective universities, including our own. They reduce reliance upon grade predictions and enable schools to hold the line in the face of pressure to raise predicted grades unrealistically.”

Anyone who has ever taught in a sixth form or college will be aware of the pressure from pupils and parents to raise A-level grade predictions. It is sometimes difficult for teachers to hold the line, which might be why those predictions are not always particularly accurate, as the Government’s own studies have shown. They are particularly inaccurate about those from less affluent backgrounds or ethnic minorities. Heavy pressure is often put on teachers in relation to predicted grades. With the AS-level, there is no argument. There is a public examination, which is externally assessed, marked and a grade awarded.

The admissions tutors finished that letter to The Daily Telegraph by saying:

“If AS levels disappear, university entry will become less fair.”

They were referring to the divorcing of the AS-level from the A-level.

[Nic Dakin]

Given that my hon. Friend has stated so clearly the value of this benchmark, can he see any reason for getting rid of it?

[Kevin Brennan]

Apart from the strange explanations that we get from Ministers about trying to free up some time for people to do other things in year 12, the only reason that I have heard is that it relates to the experience of the Ministers in the Department and that they want to go back to the good old days when four out of five of them were in private school doing their A-levels. Perhaps they think, “It was good enough for me; why shouldn’t it be good enough for everyone else?” If that is what they are doing, they are ignoring the evidence.

I challenge the Minister today as someone who says that he is committed to fairness, who is a Liberal Democrat Minister, who has enjoyed the privilege of a fee-paying education and a Cambridge university education and who claims to be committed to social justice. How can he defend this policy in the light of the clear and thoroughly researched evidence that it will result in university entry becoming less fair?

[Damian Hinds]

We must be a little bit careful with this widening participation and access argument. Although it is undeniably true that many more young people have gone to university in the past 10 years, the figures show that the intake of the most selective universities has changed very little by comparison. Of course it is a very good thing that more young people have gone to those universities, but we must not confuse the two things and say that AS-levels have been a force that has made Cambridge university much more open.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. Cambridge has been the university that has most used AS-levels to bring about widening access. It can show that it has widened access as a result of them in the past 10 years. If he wants to challenge the admissions tutors on the claim that they have successfully widened access through the use of AS-levels, he is free to do so. They are absolutely clear about it and say that if AS-levels disappear, university entry will become less fair. The Minister must answer that point. So far, Ministers have failed to answer it, or to explain why they are persisting with the policy.

In any case, the Government accept that Cambridge is right, and presumably that the Russell Group, the 1994 Group, Universities UK, the Association of Colleges, the Sixth Form Colleges Association, the National Union of Students, the teachers and head teachers associations and we, God forbid, are right about the usefulness of AS-levels. Nevertheless, the Government will proceed with the damaging and unnecessary divorce of AS-levels from A-levels. Like the EBacc certificates, no one supports the move. The Government quite rightly abandoned their proposals on the EBacc. The Minister might well have had an influence on that decision. Who knows? It happened to coincide with his appointment to the Department. As I said earlier, we will not proceed with the divorce of the AS-level from the A-level, and everyone should be aware of that.

[Pat Glass]

We have had people with huge expertise coming to us and saying that this is the wrong thing to do. The only other area where we have seen such an overwhelming objection has been to the proposed changes to GCSEs. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that, because the Government ultimately took the right decision in that area.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend is right. The Secretary of State has had to issue a direction to Ofqual in relation to this proposal, because everyone thinks that it is nonsense, and it was confirmed in parliamentary answers to me that he had to issue a direction. On 31 January, I tabled a parliamentary question to ask what assessment Ministers had made of the recent Cambridge university admissions research working party study of AS-level as a predictor, and the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk, said that she had “reflected on” the study. So, she had reflected on it and she agreed that AS-levels were

“a useful aid for university admissions”.—[Official Report, 31 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 887W.]

So the Government agree with everybody that AS-levels are a “useful aid” for admissions. They know what the research is, and they have reflected on it.

[Seema Malhotra]

In the spirit of reflection, I was reflecting myself on the list of organisations that my hon. Friend gave that are opposed to these changes. Does he agree that it is quite staggering and quite concerning that no real evidence has been put forward for this change?

[Kevin Brennan]

I might have found it staggering some time ago; I am afraid that I no longer find it staggering when the Department for Education proposes major changes for which there is no evidence. However, I should retain my surprise at its happening, because it is staggering when something is introduced simply because the Secretary of State believes—on a whim—that it ought to happen and when there is no evidence that it should happen, despite the fact that I am sure that he has layers and layers of submissions from his civil servants that point out the opposition to the proposals. But he does not listen to his civil servants; I am afraid that he only listens to his odious special advisers on education policy, and that is possibly the reason why the Government are proceeding with this change.

The Minister for Schools has a chance to do what is right, to go to the Secretary of State and to reflect a little himself on these proposals; he should speak to the Secretary of State and try to make him listen to the evidence and see reason. If the Secretary of State will not listen to that evidence or to the Minister, perhaps the only person that he will listen to is himself, because back in 2010 he made it clear to Ofqual that, to quote from Ofqual’s briefing, he wanted A-levels to serve their purpose as

“one of the selection tools used by HE”—

that is, by higher education—

“to identify the most suitable and best students for their courses”.

We know that the AS-level is the best exam tool to serve that purpose; at least, that is what the evidence shows. It should be used more, not less, for that purpose and yet the Secretary of State is determined to discard it. We will not discard it, and he should not discard it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Laws]

I will make more progress before giving way again to the hon. Lady.

Some critics of the linear A-level have cited a link between the introduction of modular A-levels as part of the Curriculum 2000 reforms, which the hon. Member for Cardiff West, the shadow Schools Minister, mentioned earlier, and widening participation in higher education. However, the major increase in HE participation took place in the early 1990s, before the introduction of modular A-levels in 2000. Universities continue to work hard to widen participation and ensure they are opening their doors to students from all backgrounds, and I am confident that they will keep doing so when the new linear A-levels are introduced. Indeed, in many cases they need to do much more to offer those opportunities to young people, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Government intend to work in partnership with some of the universities, particularly those that have poor rates of access, to try to target those youngsters who should be gaining access to some of our best universities, but are not doing so.

Making the A-level linear does, of course, have implications—the hon. Gentleman raised this point earlier—for the current AS qualification. My ministerial colleagues and officials have been talking to and working with school and college leaders and universities to understand precisely the concerns that he set out so clearly to ensure that we can address them.

As we move to fully linear A-levels with exams at the end of the two-year course, the AS-level will remain as a qualification in its own right. It will continue to be available as a stand-alone qualification to be taught over either one year or two years, but the marks from it will obviously no longer count towards the A-level. Longer term, our ambition is to develop a brand new AS qualification that is at the same level of challenge as a full A-level, but for the time being that is for the future.

From 2015, the AS-level will be decoupled as a stand-alone, linear qualification and will remain at the same level of challenge as existing AS qualifications. That means that schools and colleges can decide whether to teach the AS-level over one year or two years. If schools and colleges decide to teach the AS in any given subject in one year, that would give them the opportunity, which I think the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) was seeking—it is a valid concern—to co-teach the AS and the new A-level together, if that meets the needs of the students and if it is a sensible way for those institutions to ensure that they can deliver education for all young people who want to access both A-levels and the AS.

We want to preserve the AS so that students can study a fourth subject in addition to their full A-levels. We know that universities consider the AS a valuable qualification to provide that breadth, which a number of hon. Members mentioned. We also know that some universities use the AS in their admissions processes, although most place more emphasis on GCSE results and predicted A-level grades, as well as looking at a range of other information, including personal statements, academic references and, in some cases, admissions tests and interviews.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Laws]

I will make this one point before giving way.

Most universities do not use AS results as the main basis for making those decisions. Indeed, in some subjects GCSE results can provide a better prediction of degree results across all universities than AS results. Students who have very good GCSE results from schools where the general pattern is for below-average GCSE attainment also have real potential to progress at university.

[Kevin Brennan]

If the Minister continues with his proposals, AS-levels will be available for universities to use as evidence in only one subject, instead of all the subjects that the young person is studying. Although we could do with more research, he knows that there is powerful research evidence that suggests that AS-level is in fact the best predictor of how young people will do at university. [Interruption.] He can shake his head, but his own university’s research suggests that AS-levels are the best predictor—far better than GCSEs, and far better even than university admissions tests. I have the research here. I thought he had read it, but obviously he has not.

[Mr Laws]

I repeat the point I have just made: the majority of universities do not use AS-levels as the main basis for making such decisions. Indeed, we know that, in some subjects, GCSE results provide a better prediction of degree results across all universities than AS results.

[Kevin Brennan]

What’s your evidence?

[Mr Laws]

I am happy to send the hon. Gentleman the evidence.

Forced Conversion of Schools to Academies

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[John Pugh]

Yes, that is distressing. The hon. Gentleman is a witness to the fact that we have moved from a situation in which parents were allowed a vote to one in which parents do not have a voice.

I would like to draw attention to the well documented fact that some of the brokers’ behaviour is markedly aggressive. One governor of fairly robust temperament described a broker as “seriously scary”. I find the process appalling. Regardless of what one feels about the academy programme, I find it distressing that people who have the interests of children and their schools at heart feel that they have been put in that situation. It strikes me that it is bullying. The intention is to close the contract and sign it there and then, which is the worst kind of sharp salesmanship, if I can put it like that. It is obviously wide open to corruption; it is about making offers that people cannot refuse, straight out of the Vito Corleone textbook. I see absolutely no reason why we who wish to stop bullying in schools allow the bullying of schools.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Fortunately, we have the Minister with responsibility for bullying here, so she can deal with any accusations of bullying.

Surely the hon. Gentleman is being completely unfair to the Government. Did he read the article by Warwick Mansell in The Guardian yesterday? It quoted Tim Crumpton, a councillor in Dudley, who said that after he made accusations of bullying, he received a letter from the Department saying:

“We carried out a thorough investigation and found no basis in the claims.”

Does that satisfy the hon. Gentleman?

[John Pugh]

I am sure that the Department took the broker’s word for it. What I am describing has been told to me by people I have known for some time, who have no axe to grind and whom I trust.

I feel particularly aggrieved about my area. Under previous regimes, not a single school in Sefton ever opted out. We had two ballots, both of which were lost. There were good reasons. Sefton was one of the first LEAs to give schools true financial independence to pioneer; in fact, I was on the local authority at the time. It has kept its central costs low. It has always prioritised education and schools. It stands favourable comparison with other LEAs. Its schools are good and, better still, there are good relations between the LEA and the schools, which themselves cluster together harmoniously and supportively. There is a genuine communitarian spirit, accompanied by good results. To make things more acutely painful, Sefton has a good record, praised by the Schools Minister, for improving its schools; it is in the top five of LEAs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) on securing the debate. He gave us a thoughtful and philosophical discourse, as ever, on forced academisation. Interestingly, he described what he saw as bullying going on within the system. I will come back to that. He also introduced us to the interesting concept of an under-occupancy subsidy for some types of school that the Government are currently promoting. I am sure that we will hear more about that in the future.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) on his speech. He managed to turn it into a bit of a debate about pensions, which might be a separate issue from what we are discussing today, but he did show his erudition by quoting Yeats. I, too, will quote some Yeats:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”.

In some of what is going on with the forced academisation debate, there is a problem with the falconer not knowing what the falcon is getting up to out and about in the field. I will also come back to that point.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) described what she called snake-oil salesmen in relation to forced academisation. The hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) said that this policy was not so much ideological as egotistical on the part of the Secretary of State for Education and that he needed to be seen to be doing something dramatic, which explained his actions. It reminds me a bit of the goalkeeper’s dilemma during a penalty shoot-out. Statistically it is proven that, very often, to stand still is the best thing to do during a penalty shoot-out, but if the goalkeeper does that and the opposition scores, they are roundly criticised. If, however, the goalkeeper dives in completely the wrong direction and the opposition scores, they are praised for at least having a go. Perhaps that explains the phenomenon that the hon. Gentleman described.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) told us about his own experience, including helping to set up academies in his constituency, and about his fear of politicisation and of profit-making schools. I recently met colleagues from Sweden, who described to me the utter disaster of profit-making schools—free schools—in Sweden. The impact has been to lower standards because of the race to the bottom that profit-making schools entail. Also, Sweden has had to reinstate a requirement for teachers to be properly qualified in free schools, because of that race to the bottom for low-paid staff and maximising profit. That has happened in free schools in Sweden, so there is a lesson for us there as well.

This debate is about forced academisation. Let me say at the outset that I am a supporter of academies and have been throughout my 12 years in the House of Commons. Of course, the genesis for the academies programme under the previous, Labour Government was to launch a direct assault on the double disadvantage of social and economic deprivation. Our concern about the current Government’s academies programme is not about the freedoms that can be granted—that come along with academy status—but about the loss of focus on under-performing schools in areas of high social and economic deprivation and the fact that that might result in the positive impact of the academies programme being diluted. I worry that the principal foundations for the success of the early academies—collaboration and partnership—have been replaced by what other hon. Members have talked about here today, a fixation on the numbers game. That is what we are seeing at the moment. It explains why we are having this debate on forced academisation today. It is all about numbers, rather than standards.

I am not wedded to any particular model for the way in which schools should be run. As a former teacher myself, I agree with the hon. Member for Southport that the structure makes very little difference. We know what makes a good school; we know what factors are involved in that, and there is plenty of research to show it. I do not think that there are many people, either—there may be some here—who think that local authorities should directly run all state-funded schools these days. A lot of us agree that local authorities did not always do a particularly good job of running local schools in many cases in the past, but just because a job was not always done well does not mean that there is not a job that needs to be done. There is a job that needs to be done at local level in relation to our schools, and that focus is being lost by the current Government with this numbers game that they are fixated on.

I welcome the Minister who will reply to the debate. It is a shame that the Minister for Schools is not replying to it. I know that responsibility for this subject lies in the House of Lords, but it would be good to have the Schools Minister here to reply to the debate, because he could then explain why he supports the current policy when he said in his manifesto at the last election that he wanted to

“replace Academies with our own model of ‘Sponsor-Managed Schools’. These schools will be commissioned by and accountable to local authorities and not Whitehall”.

That was his policy previously, which perhaps explains why he never fronts up on this subject as Schools Minister and turns up to debate it. I would welcome his doing that in the future.

However, I am glad that we have the hon. Lady here to answer on behalf of the Government about the worrying reports that we are receiving from around the country. Despite my intervention earlier about yesterday’s article by Warwick Mansell in The Guardian, there seems to be a growing number of reports from around the country about bullying behaviour by the individuals who are being sent round by the Department for Education to bring about forced academisation of schools.

Last year I visited a group of schools that had formed an education improvement partnership. One of the primary school head teachers in it was desperate to tell me about her experience with what some people locally have described as gauleiters being sent out by the Department for Education. What she told me made my jaw drop. She told me that when the adviser from the Department turned up, she was told that she had to meet them and that no one else was to be present. When she objected to that, she was told that perhaps at a stretch she might be allowed to have the chair of governors present with her for part of the meeting. She wanted to have, and in the end she insisted on having, the head teacher of the local secondary school, which was part of the education improvement partnership, with her for the debate, but she told me several stories about how she was leaned on—that is the only way it can be described—and told that there was no alternative to her school becoming an academy, despite the fact that the governors did not want that, the parents did not want it and it was clearly an improving school. In the end, having taken legal advice, they were able to fend off the adviser who had come from the Government, using those bullying tactics, but I am told that as she left she said, “I’ll be back”, Arnold Schwarzenegger-style—no doubt after further efforts have been made to undermine the efforts being made by the school to operate as part of an education improvement partnership to raise standards in the school. That is happening around the country. I have also been told that in the same area, one head teacher has seen a gagging clause put into their contract, having been forced out of a school as part of this process.

It is all very well, under the cloak of standards, to go around to schools and offer them an opportunity to consider academisation—the sponsored academy approach. That can be entirely appropriate on many occasions, but the bullying behaviour—we are hearing, and I am receiving, more and more accounts of it—is very worrying. I therefore want the Minister to answer a few questions about that. How many schools does she know of that have successfully resisted forced academisation procedures? How are the academy advisers recruited? How are they rewarded? Is it true that they are on a payment-by-results regime? I hope that the Minister will answer this question particularly. Is there any code of conduct for those people as to how they should behave? As the Minister with responsibility for the issue of bullying, will she give us an absolute assurance that if there is one, she will publish it, and that if there is not one currently, she will ensure that one is available? I ask that because some of the behaviour that is being described—

[Guy Opperman]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

I do not have time to give way I am afraid. I would otherwise, but I want the Minister to be able to answer.

Given the behaviour that is being described, if there is a code of conduct, it is obviously not being adhered to in any acceptable way. Is it acceptable to insist on meeting heads alone, not allowing them to have other people with them? Do the advisers have targets? To whom are they accountable? What evidence is there that forced academisation raises standards? We do not have much time and I want to give the Minister the chance to answer the questions. Why has the Department backed down in the face of a legal challenge from Coventry council about forced academisation? Will she undertake to ban gagging orders on heads who are forced out of their jobs and introduce transparency into the process?