Birmingham Schools

Debate between Liam Byrne and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. As he says, we are working with Ofsted to improve procedures for schools on whistleblowing. We are also strengthening the way anyone can contact the Department to raise concerns. I mentioned the strengthening of the due diligence and counter-extremism group—I think my hon. Friend was a Minister in the Department when the group was set up by the previous Secretary of State for Education—in order to take these issues extremely seriously and to tackle them. Concerns can be raised by parents, governors and members of the general public. We are also considering extending legal protections in the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 for school staff making whistleblowing allegations. We continue to work with local authorities and regional schools commissioners. The wider point is that, until the Clarke report was published last year, there was perhaps a general disbelief that these sorts of things could be going on in our schools. We are now very well aware of the risks to our children.

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and her offer of additional resources to Park View school to get the teachers who are needed. I know that she would want to recognise a number of parents, including Sabina Kauser, Waheed Saleem and Arshad Malik, who helped to rebuild the governance along with Adrian Packer, Bev Mabey and the extraordinary group of teachers who came in to help restore the schools and ensure that, thanks to their work over the summer, they opened on time in September.

I very much welcome the emphasis that the Secretary of State put on the teaching of British values, in particular democracy and the rule of law. She will agree, I know, that it is important that we practise what we preach. It was therefore regrettable that parent members of the trust were not able to be elected by parents at the school. Instead, the trust took a decision to go through the most mind-bending process of selection to hand-pick parents to serve at trust level. I hope she will now encourage the trust to revisit that decision and ensure that democracy prevails.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the tone and spirit of his remarks. He has worked incredibly hard with the schools in his constituency and the wider Birmingham area in the aftermath of the reports from last year. He is absolutely right. We do not want the message to go out that we do not want people from Muslim communities or any other community to stand as governors of their schools. I am happy to look at the particular issue he has raised. I join him in thanking all those who worked so hard last summer to get the schools open. At the end of the day, this is all about making sure that the young people at the heart of those schools get the best possible education to fulfil their potential.

Birmingham Schools

Debate between Liam Byrne and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There is an agreed Government definition of extremism, and that is the one Peter Clarke used in his report. However, I return to my original point: from all my conversations with the Birmingham community, it is clear that the vast majority were in no way involved with, or supportive of, anything that happened in these schools; it was a small group of people pushing a particular ideology, and it should always be remembered that the wider community deserves our greatest support.

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, but it is important that nobody shirks their responsibilities. Park View trust was an academy for almost two years, and chapter nine of the report paints a sorry picture of the Department’s oversight. I hope she thinks it appropriate to apologise for those failures today and that she asks Les Lawrence to do the same.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of an education commissioner for the city, as I suggested to her on Friday. The commissioner’s first task is to ensure that teachers and officials who should not be in their jobs either resign or are removed, but the bigger task is to come together, with the city of Birmingham and the parents and pupils of Park View school, to rebuild trust and the pride of pupils and to ensure that the school’s reputation is turned around. Its best years lie ahead.

[Nicky Morgan]

Let me begin where the right hon. Gentleman ended: absolutely, we need to look forward. Of course, the Department, Birmingham city council, Ofsted and others involved need to learn the lessons, but he is right: we are talking about children’s education, and we need to look to the future—to rebuild the schools and give parents confidence, particularly when families return to school in September, that lessons have been learned and that the teaching staff involved have been dealt with.

I am pleased that the new members of the Park View education trust are taking swift action to ensure that the behaviours reported by Peter Clarke have no place in schools. Obviously, I cannot comment on individual cases, but I am assured that the trust will be instigating disciplinary proceedings where appropriate. Also, the National College for Teaching and Leadership will take extensive evidence from Peter Clarke so that its misconduct panel can consider whether any teachers involved should be barred from the profession.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Liam Byrne and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will know that I have worked for five months to uncover problems at Park View school. The leader of Birmingham city council has apologised for the city’s role in the historic failures. Will she apologise to my constituents for what Peter Clarke has called the “benign neglect” of Park View since it became an academy two years ago, and will she respond positively to my letter of last week, which called for a new joint director of school standards in Birmingham so that this never happens again?

[Nicky Morgan]

The right hon. Gentleman will have heard my earlier answers in which I said that these matters will be discussed more fully tomorrow on publication of the Clarke report. I pay tribute to the work that the right hon. Gentleman has done. I have his letter and will respond to it.