“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The PISA figures actually show that we are going down the international league tables as standards among our competitors rise much more quickly than here in the UK, so it is an absolute tragedy that the Secretary of State spends so much of her time on partisan bickering and a dogmatic obsession with structures. The best way—the quickest way—to improve standards in our schools is to focus on leadership, and that is what she should be giving all her attention to. Will she take the £1 billion that she was going to spend on forcing every school to become an academy and use it to recruit and train a new generation of brilliant headteachers?

[Nicky Morgan]

May I suggest that the hon. Gentleman read, or re-read if he has already done so, chapter 3 of the White Paper, entitled “Great leaders running our schools and at the heart of our system”? We do not need to divert money because we have already set aside money for training headteachers and supporting their great leadership. If he wants to talk about our rankings in the international league tables, he might like to consider that between 2000 and 2009 England’s 15-year-olds fell from seventh to 25th in reading, eighth to 27th in maths, and fourth to 16th in science. If he thinks that performance when his party was in power was good enough, he should have another think.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I am pleased that we have got to questions from other Members of the House, and the hon. Gentleman rightly says that the principle is of course right. We will be looking in detail at the needs of the disadvantaged pupils. I should point out that we have also introduced the pupil premium—we did so after the funding formula was first introduced—at a cost of more than £2.5 billion a year. We want to make sure that there will be full consultation, and all Members and others will have an opportunity to have their say.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

White working-class boys are three times less likely to go on to university than their counterparts from wealthier families, so should this review not be about closing that gap and addressing the social mobility crisis that exists in our country, instead of being about some sort of crude, one-size-fits-all, national standard, which is what the Members behind the Secretary of State are clearly urging her to introduce?

[Nicky Morgan]

As I have said, there will be a full consultation, but I think that the hon. Gentleman has got the wrong end of the stick. The funding formula to be consulted on will absolutely take into account the needs of disadvantaged pupils. If he wants to talk about working-class boys, let me say that it cannot be right that there are schools in Knowsley that are receiving hundreds of pounds less than schools in Wandsworth, and that is just one such example. We must end that inequity, and this Government have taken the difficult decision to do that.

School Expansion

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend very much indeed. He will know our party gave a clear commitment in our manifesto to fairer funding, and he will also know that we are working on it. I cannot comment on anything ahead of the spending review, but we are all aware of the need to look at this and make the funding fairer, which is why we invested £390 million in this financial year and the last financial year to try to get towards a fairer funding system, but there is further work to do.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I do not share the Secretary of State’s complacency about the quality of education being provided for most children in Britain today. What we are seeing is actually a picture of decades of entrenched mediocrity. The result of that is that we are falling down the international league table; we are now behind not only South Korea and Shanghai but Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The top jobs in too many professions are now the preserve of the tiny number of people who have been to the best private schools and Oxbridge. We are the only country in the world in which educational outcome is determined largely by parental occupation, and the people entering the workforce are now less well qualified than those who are retiring from it. The Secretary of State should be much more ambitious for Britain’s pupils and for our country. If she really wants to tackle the social mobility crisis in this country, she should look at the excellent work of the Sutton Trust and consider introducing the open access scheme to enable children from poor backgrounds in constituencies such as mine to get into 120 private schools in this country.

[Nicky Morgan]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to explore some of those themes in the Select Committee. I would just point out to him that his party was in power for 13 years, during which time there was rampant grade inflation and the assisted places scheme was abolished. In addition, his party failed to introduce the pupil premium. I am delighted to hear that, from the sound of it, he is supporting our education reforms, which will raise standards. We have had five years in government so far, and we are—

[Ian Austin]

indicated dissent.

[Nicky Morgan]

We are seeing standards rising, with 82% of schools now being rated good or outstanding and 1 million more children in places that are good or outstanding, but of course there is further to go. I look forward to having his support on this.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

No. I am going to make the case for the Bill, and the House will then have the opportunity to listen to the hon. Gentleman. I understand from today’s press that he would take a different approach: instead of trusting experts and heads, he would recreate local education authorities on a grand scale. I am sorry to say that he has shown once again that he is unable to resist the constant itch of the Labour party throughout the ages to seize back power from professionals on the ground and give it instead to politicians and bureaucrats.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State knows that it is complete nonsense to pretend that Opposition Members are totally opposed to academies. She is trying to invent a ridiculous political dividing line when none exists on that issue. The truth is that some schools that are academies perform well and some schools that are academies perform poorly. In my constituency, the schools that have consistently performed worst are both academies and her Department has done nothing at all about it. There are good schools and poor schools in the maintained sector; the real crisis in education is in teacher recruitment and the quality of headteachers, and her proposals and speech have absolutely nothing to say about that.

[Nicky Morgan]

I am delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members are in favour of academies, in which case they should go into the Lobby tonight to support the Bill, which makes it clear that we will not tolerate failure in schools across this country and will take swift action, regardless of whether they are academies or maintained schools. The Opposition’s amendment is muddle-headed because they have tried to find a reason to oppose the Bill, but they cannot. The hon. Gentleman and Opposition Members do not understand what is needed to tackle failure and have found a spurious reason to table an amendment. If they support academies, they should join us in the Lobby tonight.

Skills and Growth

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I will certainly look at the report. [Interruption.] I thank the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) for helpfully prompting me, but I am able to tell when I have heard female Members of Parliament from both sides of the House make excellent contributions. As I was saying, I will certainly look at the report.

The overall point that the hon. Lady makes about a skills shortage is absolutely right. Those seeking employment or looking for engineers would have started their education under the previous Labour Government, but she has made her point and she is right to identify that we need more highly skilled young people, particularly in engineering.

[Ian Austin]

The Secretary of State and I get on well, and she knows I have a high regard for a lot of what she does, but we have to get away from this sterile debate in which she claims that everything was terrible under the last Labour Government and that everything is brilliant now. The truth is that we did not do nearly well enough and the current Government are not doing nearly well enough either. We face a long-term crisis in the quality of education and skills, so we need to drop this ridiculous habit of dressing up relatively minor differences as huge ideological chasms. We need a royal commission so that we can agree as a country that education and skills are the No. 1 priority and to set cross-party, long-term goals enabling every child to fulfil their potential.

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we get on well. We have had some interesting conversations—I am not sure that is good for his career in the Labour party, but I do not think he is standing for anything in the upcoming Labour party elections, so perhaps it will not be too damaging. He and I agree on the importance of academies and the success they bring, so it is a great shame that, as we will probably hear on Monday, other Labour Members are rowing back from the reform introduced by a Minister in the last Labour Government. A royal commission would mean more hot air and time. We have made enormous progress in the past five years in giving young people the right skills, providing more apprenticeships and getting people into university, and I am grateful for his support for that.

I want to make some progress, because I know that other hon. Members want to contribute. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central talks about being pithy, but he did not typify that today when he spoke.

We have stripped out 3,000 poor-quality qualifications so that the only vocational qualifications are those backed by employers that lead to a job. In addition, we have put in place rigorous 16-to-19 tech levels endorsed by employers and leading to a technical baccalaureate for the most talented. Every qualification for which young people now study, be it academic or vocational, will be demanding and rigorous and provide a clear route to employment. English and maths are critical to successful progression to employment, which is why all students now have to continue studying them if they do not get a good GCSE.

The quality of apprenticeships is rising too. Every apprenticeship now needs to be a paid job in the workplace, to last 12 months and to include meaningful training on and off the job. Employers can design the standard an apprentice must reach, and the reformed funding provisions mean that the training apprentices receive follows the needs of their employers. New traineeships are helping young people who need extra work experience, as well as English and maths education, to move on to a lifetime of sustained employment. Let us not forget that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central went into the election promising to scrap level 2 apprenticeships.

It is not often I agree with the TUC, but on this occasion I wholeheartedly agree with Unionlearn that scrapping apprenticeships in key areas, such as construction and plastering, would be a disaster for the young people for whom this provides their opportunity. Young people need resilience and character to get back up in the face of adversity. If we are to have high expectations for every child, we have to create the right conditions for those high expectations—conditions in which a love for learning can flourish—so that, when young people leave school, they can bounce back from the knocks life throws at them. That is why I announced at the end of the last Parliament £3.5 million in character grants to support work to develop civic awareness, resilience and grit in schools, and it is why we will offer any young person who wants it the opportunity to participate in the National Citizen Service.

There is more to do, however. The rising participation age gives us the chance to ensure all young people are on the right path to the world of work. We will ensure that the routes are clear and that all young people have options leading to outcomes with real labour market currency. There will be no dead ends. We are developing a comprehensive plan to increase to 3 million the number of apprenticeships in this Parliament. That will include more work with large employers, more support for small businesses and a greater role for the public sector. We will put in place the right incentives and support to ensure that everyone is earning or learning, including support for young people who are not in education, employment or training or at risk of not being—I am pleased to say that the number of NEETs is already at a record low. Catch-up support will also be in place to provide a stepping stone to employment.

We want to ensure that in every area of the country there are strong institutions making available a full range of specialisms to every child, based on collaboration between different providers and institutions. University technical colleges and studio schools are unique in how they develop their education around the needs of local employers, and I would like to send my congratulations to UTC Reading on being the first to be judged “outstanding” by Ofsted.

I am proud to defend the work of the last Government on improving the knowledge, skills and life prospects of the next generation. Now, as part of our commitment to securing real social justice, we are determined to ensure that the reforms of the last Parliament—the innovation and progress we unleashed—reach every young person in every part of our country. If governing for one nation means anything, it is ensuring that the education we provide—be it academic, professional or technical—gives every student the chance to realise their full potential and to be all they can be. We will be asking the House to reject the motion this afternoon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and I am grateful to him for his support. I was delighted to visit his constituency and hear more about the Berkeley Green University Technical College. Free schools are accountable to me, through their funding agreement, for operation, governance and finances. They are responsible through the Ofsted inspection framework for the quality of their education and they work closely with their relevant regional schools commissioner.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

T6. I am absolutely delighted that the brilliant headteacher at Ellowes Hall school in Dudley, Andy Griffiths, was honoured with an OBE at the weekend. Popular and successful schools such as his have to turn away countless children every year because they do not have enough space. Will the Secretary of State update the House on the discussions that he and I had with her predecessor and Lord Nash about putting parents in charge, thereby enabling well run over-subscribed and financially sound schools to provide the places that are needed and to pay off the loans with the revenue that the extra pupils will bring?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I too welcome the honour awarded to the former headteacher of Ellowes Hall sports college. He and I have discussed that matter already; we want to look at it again. Academies can apply for loans for capital works as part of the condition improvement fund. I understand that the college did not apply for such a loan in the last CIF round, and it is something that we will consider further.