Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

Yes. We are determined to play a strong part in the cross-government action plan on ending violence, particularly against women and girls, that is led by the Home Office. We are providing support to families with multiple problems, funded by the early intervention grant, and we are taking forward the recommendations of the Reg Bailey review. The PSHE review will consider sexual consent, which is an important issue to cover, and we are raising standards of behaviour in our schools, with a particular focus on anti-bullying.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Following the publication of the internal review, will the Minister ensure that the consultation that is undertaken will restate the very important part that governors and parents play in the development of such policies?

[Mr Gibb]

Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. All the reviews we are carrying out will be open and we will want a wide consultation with as many representations from interested parties as possible, including governors and parents.

Post-16 Education Funding

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

An opinion poll.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I welcome the statement and so will students at Peterborough regional college. I would resist the churlish response from those on the Opposition Front Bench, marked out by intellectual incoherence and opportunism. Is my right hon. Friend as surprised as I am that nowhere in the comments made by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) was there an apology for their record? Social mobility ossified in 13 years of Labour Government to the extent that more—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. May we have a question that falls within the responsibility of the Secretary of State and this statement?

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

More people went to Oxford university in those 13 years from one noted public school than from the entire care system. Is that not a legacy of shame?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point succinctly and well.

Private Schools (Access)

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Dr McCrea.

Let me begin by welcoming the coalition Government’s work to date on education. I am sure that more freedom for schools, more meaningful accountability, a commitment to driving up teacher quality and new powers for schools to get tough on the blight of poor behaviour will, over time, help to deliver the improvements in pupil attainment across the sector that we all desperately want to see.

The coalition Government are right to be concerned about the educational attainment of the least affluent children in our society and, in that respect, I very much welcome the additional early years provision and the introduction of the pupil premium. Members may not know this, but I was one of the early advocates of the pupil premium and, for some time, convincing my colleagues of its usefulness felt like an uphill task. I was delighted when the pupil premium was adopted, perhaps with a little help from our coalition partners. I strongly suspect that the Minister’s response to my proposals today will be similar to how it felt all those years ago when I started this journey.

This discussion is well worth having; we never know what will happen a couple of years down the line. I propose, as I have in the past, that in order to make the pupil premium successful, we need to do two things. First, we need to direct it at the very poorest children in the education system. Secondly, we need to make it flexible so that it gives those children real choices within the education system.

I fear that our reforms, particularly in relation to the pupil premium and its current structure, will not do enough to bridge this country’s great and growing educational divide between the very rich and the poor. By focusing our attention solely on the state sector, we risk ignoring the fact that some of the very best educational opportunities that this country has to offer in terms of the schools that dominate the top A-level and GCSE results are in schools that are largely reserved for the children of the wealthy and well-connected, and are closed off to a vast majority of the children who live on their doorstep. That is not to say that many middle-class parents do not stretch their household budgets to breaking point to ensure that they get the best educational opportunities for their children.

Although only about half of pupils achieve five good grades at GCSE, and fewer than one in 100 children eligible for free school meals makes it to university, some of the leading private schools routinely send half their pupils to Oxford and Cambridge; Westminster school and St Paul’s girls’ school are good examples. On the rate of low-income attendance at top universities, a recent report by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) states:

“The rate of low income attendance at top universities has stagnated at 2 per cent.”

It will therefore come as little surprise that former private school pupils have a disproportionate hold on the leading professions. Social mobility has declined and it has become even harder for the least affluent to make it to the top of the tree.

Despite evidence in a recent report showing that the situation has improved slightly over the past few decades, former private school pupils still account for two thirds of judges, more than 60% of barristers, and more than half of solicitors, chief executive officers and doctors. I also note with a wry smile that the proportion of journalists who attended independent schools has risen in recent years.

If we contrast that with the performance of pupils eligible for free school meals, we see that the difference is very striking. Just 27% of free school meal children get A* to C, including English and maths, at GCSE. That is half the national average, which is already too low. The situation is even worse when evaluated against the English baccalaureate subjects, something the Secretary of State likes to do. The report produced by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk is again relevant, because in many respects, low-income students are being mis-sold the new GCSEs and A-levels on the basis that they are equal according to league tables and UCAS points. The evidence shows, however, that universities and employers value core academic subjects, such as mathematics, English, the sciences and English baccalaureate subjects. The result is poor performance, with only 4% of free school meal pupils achieving five A* to C grades in core academic subjects, compared with the 15% national average.

Research shows that a wealthy child attending an independent school is 55 times more likely to win a place at Oxbridge than a child eligible for free school meals, whose chance of winning a place at one of our ancient universities is less than one in 100.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely and important debate. Is he as concerned as I am about figures showing that in 2009 just 4% of children on free school meals took chemistry or physics, while fewer than one in five took history and less than 15% studied geography or French?

[Mr Wilson]

Yes, that concerns me enormously, and that is why the report by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk is so timely. I hope the Minister will take the issue on board and address it directly later.

I do not say what I have said in order to criticise universities, but I hope that it demonstrates to Members the epic scale of the challenge that we face as a nation. If we are serious about fairness and about unleashing aspiration and opportunity for all, we should take action to make first-rate teaching and the ethos of excellence available to everyone, rich or poor.

Before I give details of what I think should be done to remedy the situation, let me be clear about what I am not calling for and not claiming today. First, I am not making sweeping claims that independent schools are better than state-maintained schools. There are huge variations within the independent sector in terms of standards and pupil attainment. The bottom half of private schools accounted for just 7% of A* A-level grades in the independent sector last year. Moreover, the OECD has argued that on average the difference in attainment between state schools and private schools is largely accounted for by the socio-economic background of the students.

Secondly, as I will explain later, I am not calling for a system-wide educational passport or public subsidy for private schools. Thirdly, I do not wish to re-enter the argument about selection or reintroducing grammar schools. None of the main parties has plans to expand selection in the education system in England, and neither do I. Fourthly and finally, what I shall propose in the next few minutes is not a panacea for improving educational attainment across the whole population of school children, but I stress that it will make an important contribution to social mobility and aspiration in England.

That is not an excuse for ignoring the fact that selective private schools exist and that many of them offer first-rate educational opportunities, with an ethos of excellence. Last summer’s A-level results show that of the top 40 schools in terms of academic A* grades per pupil, three quarters were private schools. Independent school pupils make up 33% of all pupils who get three As at A-level. Despite the fact that the independent sector as a whole educates just 7% of school pupils, students who attended private school still account for more than 45% of places at Oxford and 40% at Cambridge.

Who has the opportunity to attend these schools? The answer is that since the demise of direct grant schools and the assisted places scheme, apart from bursaries and scholarships, admissions are largely restricted to pupils whose families have the ability to pay. Some of the best performing schools in the nation are closed off to a vast majority of the poor children who live on their doorstep.

If we are serious about boosting the life chances of more children from poor homes, and increasing social mobility so that children from disadvantaged backgrounds have a better chance of making it to the top, something must be done to break down the social apartheid in our schools. I would like the Minister to consider a proposal that could broaden the social base of some of our leading private schools and boost the life chances of many less affluent pupils now, rather than in however many years it takes to dramatically raise teaching quality and tackle issues of poor behaviour across the entire school system.

Specifically, I would like a number of the leading private day schools to consider offering a number of free places to pupils in their surrounding area who are eligible for free school meals. The Government could support them by meeting some of the cost, but by no means all of it. It would be entirely up to the children and their families whether they applied for a place at participating schools. The pupils would have to demonstrate their aptitude and potential through a competitive admissions process. As the Sutton Trust has noted, tests these days are far more sophisticated than the old 11-plus. For example, many independent schools have developed tests around verbal reasoning, which test the child’s aptitude rather than how well they have been tutored or taught at school. My proposal is not an exercise in social engineering, so all those who take the test—rich or poor—should have the same chance of success.

My proposal is completely cost-neutral to the Government and therefore to the taxpayer. All that changes is that the per pupil funding and the pupil premium shift to another school. The remainder of the cost of the fees is met by the independent school itself or its supporters. Many such schools have alumni who are willing to step in. It is interesting to note that the Government will provide £150 million for a national scholarship scheme for disadvantaged young people attending our universities. Those resources are devoted to creating a more balanced intake for our elite universities, which, after all, are independent, selective, fee-charging educational institutions. Will the Minister explain where the difference lies in relation to independent schools?

It is important that the proposal is evidence based, and the evidence suggests that opening up access works. Between 2000 and 2006, the Sutton Trust joined forces with the Girls’ Day School Trust to sponsor an open access scheme at the then fee-paying Belvedere school in Toxteth, a very deprived part of Liverpool. With the support of both organisations, every place at the school was allocated on the basis of merit alone, not ability to pay; the way the scheme operated was almost needs-blind. A five-year evaluation of the Belvedere school scheme was conducted by the Centre for Education and Employment Research. It found that open access could lead to a broader social mix of pupils at some of our very best schools and that it could raise aspiration among pupils to go on to university and improve the exam results achieved by the participating school.

In the first three years of the Belvedere scheme, the school attracted an average of 366 applications for just 65 places, with applications from three quarters of primary schools across the Liverpool area. During the five years of the scheme, entries from middle and lower income postcodes increased considerably. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals over the five years was 32.8%, which is more than double the national average for girls aged 11 to 15 in the maintained secondary sector. Far from the scheme’s threatening academic standards at the school, Belvedere went on to achieve its best ever results in 2005. Some 99% of pupils achieved five good GCSEs, compared with an average of 49% across the rest of the local education authority. Survey evidence showed that the school was a happy place, and that 95% of the pupils were hoping to go to university.

Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the pioneering charity the Sutton Trust, told me that he regards the open access scheme as the most important project that the trust has undertaken. He sought to persuade the previous Government to take up open access and expand it, initially to 12 schools, but ultimately to 100 or more top independent schools. Unfortunately, despite a broad base of support and great willingness from schools in the independent sector, the previous Government failed to take forward the programme.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Charity Commission and its esteemed head, Dame Suzi Leather, would be better off supporting similar initiatives to that pursued by the Sutton Trust in Liverpool, rather than hounding small private schools on the spurious basis that they are not opening their rolls to children across the community?

[Mr Wilson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. My experience of dealing with the independent sector is that, perhaps more than any other sector, it is focused on trying to do all it can to help children from poorer backgrounds. A number of schools have contacted me about the subject during the past few days and they are very keen to get involved, and to do more of this type of work and give more opportunities to poor children. I find it hard to know where the Charity Commission is coming from, when those independent schools are doing such a wonderful job trying to help the life chances of children from poorer families.

Since I wrote an article on the issue that appeared The Daily Telegraph last Friday, I have received an e-mail from John Claughton who is chief master of King Edward’s school, Birmingham. He told me that

“our central purpose at the moment is to extend accessibility: we would love to become needs blind. We certainly have the demand for places from low-income families. We would respond positively to any government initiative to encourage attendance of such pupils in our schools.”

King Edward’s, the former school of the Minister for Universities and Science , already has a hugely impressive record in making places available to less affluent pupils. More than 30% of its pupils get some kind of financial support and more than 15% attend for free. For the coming academic year, the school is offering a quarter of its places for free—30 free places in an intake of 120. Mr Claughton believes that if the Government could meet half the cost of providing more places to free school meals pupils, the school’s alumni would be in there like a shot to support that initiative.

Mr Kevin Fear, the headmaster of Nottingham high school—attended by the Secretary of State for Justice and none other than the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls)—wrote to me over the weekend fully endorsing the proposals to expand open access:

“I welcome these proposals to support the most needy in our society to access the great independent day schools. As a school, we already support as many pupils on bursaries as we are able to, but with support of this kind, we would be able to support many more and greatly assist social mobility, particularly in our inner cities.”

Independent schools are already making a strong contribution to the educational success of pupils from poorer homes. Nearly a third of the students admitted to Oxford in 2010 from households with an income below £16,000 had been in the independent sector. The head teachers and organisations I have spoken to believe that the kind of Government support I am advocating would allow them to double the number of bursaries they can offer. The message from the independent sector is clear: schools are keen to do what they can to offer real chances to some of the poorest children in their areas. Only yesterday, private schools belonging to the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference created 60 extra bursaries to sponsor sixth-form school pupils from the state sector to study physics, chemistry and languages.

David Levin, chairman of the HMC, has made it clear that he wants private schools to offer even more bursaries, but the difficulty is obviously raising the funds. However, as the schools have indicated to me, Government support would have the added advantage of leveraging and unleashing philanthropic contributions from alumni, business and charitable communities.

As I have already said, what I ask from the Minister is unlikely to be forthcoming today, but we can but try. I am aware that the resources of the Department for Education are extremely tight. We have been left with a very difficult economic inheritance and we have to deal with the situation as it is. I am also aware that any move by the Government to get involved with, let alone support, independent selective schools is fraught with political difficulty. I realise that the Government may be reluctant to reallocate money from the state sector to the independent sector on the basis of a single study, but does the Minister agree that the open access scheme sponsored by the Sutton Trust shows exceptional promise? Does he agree that the idea should be explored further? If he does, how will that initiative be taken forward, and will he ask the Secretary of State to meet a delegation of those interested in pursuing it?

In time, I hope that the Government will take another look at opening access in a number of leading private schools, perhaps beginning with a pilot of up to 12 schools, as envisaged by Sir Peter Lampl. That would give a broader and stronger evidence base from which to evaluate open access policies. At the very least, I hope that the Government will look at what leading independent schools are doing to broaden access, and will do what it can to support them and encourage best practice. Opening up access would send a powerful message that none of the nation’s best educational opportunities is out of reach of children solely on the basis of their family’s resources. What I ask for today is a very small change, but it could have huge implications for social mobility in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Dr McCrea. May I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) for securing this excellent debate on a very important subject? His great knowledge, expertise—from his time on the Front Bench, and from his own research—and commitment, especially to social mobility, shines through in his passionate remarks. He is a little more shy than I am at ascribing fault in the existing system. We inherit not only a significant debt—to the extent that we are paying £120 million a year in debt interest as a result of the financial mismanagement and incompetence of the previous Government—but, to be charitable, a mixed picture in terms of educational attainment.

I believe that this is an existential debate—a philosophical debate—about the future of our children’s education. We are debating that age-old struggle between whether we commit ourselves to equality of outcome, which I think is difficult if not impossible, or whether we commit ourselves to strive for equality of opportunity. If we move towards the initiatives that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East has spoken about, we will be paying due regard to a progressive, Conservative tradition that goes back many years. Disraeli would have called it the enervation of the condition of the working classes. I would not be so pompous as to compare myself with Disraeli, but it is about a one nation tradition of saying that whatever the household income or background, whatever one’s parents have done and whatever their attainment, a child has as much right as any other to be educated to the best of their ability, and to achieve the maximum attainment possible.

Where are we now? We have a ghettoised situation in which 7% of children go to independent schools, but, for the other 93% of children, there are mixed results. It so often comes down to where one lives and their household income, because if a parent cannot afford to provide for their children by buying a house and sending them to a good school in a good neighbourhood—this particularly applies in London but also in many other parts of the country, whether Bristol, Manchester or Cambridge—their children will often be confined to schools where attainment is poor, and that is not acceptable.

We are also in a position where, according to the latest Programme for International Student Assessment survey, the United Kingdom has slipped since 2000 from 7th to 25th in reading, 8th to 28th in mathematics, and 4th to 16th in science. Only 15.6% of pupils in England achieve A* to C GCSE grades in English, maths, sciences, a modern or ancient language, history and geography—one in six children.

The previous Labour Government offered some powerful symbols to people. It seems beyond belief that their first priority on being elected in 1997 was the completely unnecessary, gratuitous and spiteful decision to scrap the assisted places scheme for purely ideological reasons. One of the leading lights of that party dedicated himself to destroying grammar schools. I shall not add the epithet that he used. That was what he believed in. To quote Abraham Lincoln:

“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.”

The decision to destroy the grammar schools was, in fact, a calamity in terms of social mobility, education and political policies.

That set the tone, as did the idea, which has been tested to destruction, that throwing money at a problem is a solution, and that it will of necessity deliver better educational attainment. I do not believe that that is the case. Whether we like it or not, parents choose to send their children to independent schools for a number of reasons, but it is as much as anything else about discipline, ethos, culture and philosophy. Why should children from poorer backgrounds be excluded from the opportunity to partake of that culture, and to achieve what they are capable of achieving?

My constituency is a proud, blue-collar, engineering centre. The city has gone through great change over the past 50 years. Its population was less than 50,000 after the war; it is now 170,000. We have significant pockets of deprivation, but we also have in the immediate travel-to-work area some of the finest independent schools in the country: Stamford, Uppingham, Oundle and, of course, the excellent Peterborough school, headed by Adrian Meadows. We have significant levels of poor attainment and underachievement in the state sector in Peterborough, yet we also have excellent schools with enormously good results of more than 85%—often 90%—attainment of GCSE A* to E.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East is right in saying that, at present, children from families with more modest incomes are precluded from being able to attend such schools. There must be a way for the most gifted children—not necessarily on the basis of academic results or setting, but intelligence and other criteria—to go forward to achieve their potential.

I pay tribute to the Sutton Trust and Sir Peter Lampl, who is passionate about social mobility, which, if I may be partisan again, ossified under the Labour Government over 13 years. The gap between the richest 10% and the poorest 10% grew. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) might not like to hear it, but his party is represented by the noble Lord Mandelson, who said that he was

“intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”.

Fair enough, but he did not at the same time endeavour to drag up the educational attainment of the people in the bottom 10%.

We really need to think about supporting, with the limited resources that we have, initiatives such as those at the Belvedere school in Liverpool. It is a superb example—in fact, it is the opposite of what normally happens. With the best will in the world, Toxteth, where the school is based, may have been a salubrious neighbourhood many years ago, but it is not now. Middle-class parents would not necessarily have moved to Toxteth so that their children could go to that school. In fact, I imagine that parents from all over Merseyside, Lancashire and even Greater Manchester are sending their children to that school, while children in the poorer neighbourhoods around Scotland Road, Toxteth, West Derby and Walton are excluded from it. With the proposed initiative, those local children in Liverpool could go to their local school and receive an exemplary and superb education into the bargain.

It would be remiss of me to ignore the excellent initiatives being pursued by this Government, and I have no doubt that the Minister would remind me of them if I did that. I agree that the English baccalaureate is an enormously important qualification to be pushing forward into secondary schools. It speaks to a mature debate about a division in society and, in particular, in education, which we have shied away from for too long. I give as an example the well known book written by Melanie Phillips, “All Must Have Prizes”. All must be academic, all must go to university. We have ignored, to our economic disadvantage, the fact that technical and vocational education can be and is just as important.

The economic success of countries such as Sweden, Germany, Italy and France is the result of their taking a mature, long-term approach and disregarding the apartheid between academic, and technical and vocational. This Government understand that and are moving forward by replacing Train to Gain with an apprenticeships programme and saying that engineering and manual trades are as important for growing our economy as the knowledge economy, the environment, tourism, leisure, finance and banking. That is important.

The pupil premium is the right way forward. I had a debate in this place a month or so ago with the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), who brings to his role enormous commitment and diligence, and a passion for driving up educational standards in primary and secondary schools. He is the epitome of a square peg in a square hole, and is doing a fantastic job.

However, the pupil premium could be construed as a blunt instrument. There are issues other than free school meals that should inform the review of the dedicated schools grant. In my own constituency—I shall not rehearse the arguments—31% of primary school children do not speak English as their first language. If we ignore such factors, we blind ourselves to their importance in informing the results in primary and secondary schools.

I am delighted with the agreement that £430 per pupil for the pupil premium is a good start, and with the broad consensus across the House, but other factors need to be taken into account. One of them is social deprivation in particular wards and super-output areas. That may need to be looked at in consultation with the Treasury, but I know that dealing with it could be very resource-intensive and that the Department has only limited means.

This debate is about obtaining from the Minister at least an indication that he is receptive to the eloquent arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East. The independent sector would then begin to feel that it can use the mechanism of Government support to develop a much more thorough and comprehensive scheme of bursaries and scholarships, and take a much more altruistic and charitable approach. If the Government are supportive, it will introduce outreach programmes and recruit children from poorer families because that will deliver the goods for the school and attract kudos and support. It is a circular argument. To say that we must have nothing to do with the independent sector, and that it is an iron curtain through which we cannot tread is short-sighted and foolhardy. We need more open access policies, such as those at the Bluecoat school.

The best independent schools can impart lessons to the state sector—that works both ways—on tackling ill discipline. They can impart lessons on special educational needs. Some independent schools have a number of children with special educational needs, and provide special help for children on the autism spectrum, with dyspraxia or dyslexia, and so on. They have expertise that they can share with the state sector, and there should be more dialogue.

Freedom and autonomy are the templates for the free schools, and I am delighted that there will be an announcement this week in my constituency that the former Hereward community college will become a free school. I do not often say this, but Peterborough city council has done a fantastic job in pushing the proposals forward, and inviting bids from five extremely good providers in a competitive bid process in an area where attainment at primary and secondary schools has not been good. We look forward to the revolutionary zeal of the free school movement in driving up standards, involving the community, valuing professionals at senior management, teaching and teaching assistant levels, and providing autonomy. We should have more free schools in my constituency.

I conclude by inviting the Minister to respond positively. The issue is not about assisted places two, or about the debate on grammar schools. In some respects, I was on the wrong side of that debate in my party in 2007, because I said that it was better to take a holistic approach to academies, instead of fixating on a relatively small number of grammar schools—there were then 164. I speak as an alumnus of a grammar school—Chatham House grammar school, Ramsgate—the other alumnus of note being our former right hon. Friend and Prime Minister Ted Heath, although he and I did not have closely shared political views.

The issue is about how to enable children from families with modest incomes to achieve their full potential. Today is the beginning of the debate. I know that the Secretary of State is absolutely committed to using education as a catalyst to tackle lack of social mobility, so that we deal with the underlying endemic social problems of welfare dependency, worklessness, and lack of competitiveness in our economy. Education is the most powerful tool for doing that, and I fully commend and welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to starting that debate. I hope that we have a positive response, not only from the Opposition Front Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Chesterfield, but from the Minister. I am sure that we will.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your stewardship, Dr McCrea. You seem to have controlled the debate very well, despite all the heckling. We have had a good debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) on securing it, and on his thoughtful contribution. I thank him for taking the time yesterday to notify me in more detail about the subjects that he wanted to cover. That was helpful to my contribution, and I hope that it will add to its quality, at least at some small level. His valuable experience before coming to this place brings to the debate knowledge, passion and well intentioned motives, in his case, towards the Government.

Before commenting on the hon. Gentleman’s points, I want to touch briefly on the other contributions that we have heard today. The hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) spoke about his experience with two local schools in his constituency, and the extent to which access has been opened up. One independent school was set up with, perhaps, similar intentions to the free school model, and it was interesting to hear about that. He referred to the freeing up of spaces in other schools, and to creating the best for every child. The test of any education policy should be whether it delivers for every child and enables every child and every school to improve, or whether it increases educational disparity. That is one of my tests for the proposal of the hon. Member for Reading East.

The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) gave what may have been a less measured contribution. At least, he warned us that he did not intend to be shy, and he stuck to his word. When describing his contribution as partisan, he was, if anything, understating it. I started to write down the areas I disagreed with, but I filled a full side of A4, so I shall touch on a couple of areas where there was agreement, which may save time.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the importance of discipline. He is of course right that the independent sector takes discipline very seriously, but he does a great disservice to the state school sector if he is suggesting that that is not also the case there. We welcome some of the measures in the Education Bill to clarify the role of teachers and the possibilities for discipline. The Bill contains some welcome moves.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the importance of technical and vocational education, and said that it is as important as academic education. I entirely welcome that sentiment, which I fear is missing from the Government’s move towards the EBacc, but very much drove some of the previous Labour Government’s policies.

I do not intend to cover every area in the hon. Gentleman’s contribution with which I disagreed, but I will touch on a couple. He started by rehashing the financial mismanagement line, completely overlooking, of course, the fact that his party supported the previous Government’s spending plans right up to 2008. He should not rehash that line if he was not speaking out against the policies pursued by his party at that time.

The hon. Gentleman claimed, perhaps rightly, that the policies suggested by the hon. Member for Reading East fit into a progressive Conservative tradition; I think he described it as a one-nation approach. That brought to mind the drama “Cranford”, which the hon. Member for Peterborough may have had the opportunity to watch. In one scene, the lady in charge of the grand manor house was shown as a firm disciple of the idea that the working classes should work in the fields, and that there should be different jobs for different types of people in different environments. She also had a clear idea that she wanted to help the poor by employing them in her fields, but that they should never move beyond that. The idea that on one level we help the poor as a way of assuaging our conscience, while fundamentally nothing is changed, lay behind a lot of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

I have never before been compared to a mid-Victorian matriarch in her mansion. The hon. Gentleman is a passionate and articulate spokesman for his party, but he should not believe its class war rhetoric and propaganda. My party is proud to have been responsible for an enormous amount of progressive social change through Housing Acts and through civic renewal, education and health over many years. He suggests that my point was “You stay in your place while I stay in mine”, but perhaps he is referring to some of his esteemed parliamentary colleagues who had a good grammar school or independent sector education, but chose to kick the ladder away for those who followed.

[Toby Perkins]

I do not know whether that was an intervention or a second speech, but I thank the hon. Gentleman either way. Without delving deep into history, he should do his research before he refers to the gap between rich and poor. If he listens to people such as Wilkinson and Pickett, who influence the policies of the Prime Minister, they will tell him that the huge gap between rich and poor occurred under the previous Conservative Government. Policies introduced by the previous Labour Government such as tax credits, attempts to improve the education of people from the lowest demographics, and the reform of the welfare system were designed to close the gap between rich and poor, and they made positive steps towards that.

[Mr Jackson]

indicated dissent.

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but that is what he will be told. He said that the previous Government were supremely relaxed about people getting rich and did not care as much about the bottom 10%, but that disgraceful comment bears no relationship to what actually happened over the past 13 years. The hon. Gentleman’s contribution said much about his values, and the values that have always informed sections of his party. I recognise, however, that there are good motives behind contributions from Conservative Members.

I turn to the more thoughtful contribution made by the hon. Member for Reading East. He spoke first about the academic disparity that still exists in our system, and which has challenged politicians from both parties for a long time. The original academies programme was introduced precisely to combat that disparity, and the previous Government set out specific attainment levels that they expected every school to achieve, with 30% of all pupils achieving five A* to C grades at GCSE as an absolute minimum. That academic disparity lay behind the massive investment in Sure Start, which has been welcomed across the House, and it is why we welcome some of the sentiments behind the early intervention policies pursued by this Government. It is also why the education maintenance allowance was introduced, to assist pupils from more deprived backgrounds to continue their education past age 16.

When Labour came to power, half of all schools failed the basic minimum standard. The figure is now fewer than one in 12, which is one of the ways that the attainment of pupils right across the financial spectrum improved under the previous Government. Of course, that is not the same as saying that we have arrived at some promised land and things are now good enough. Clearly, they are not and I recognise that the contribution made by the hon. Member for Reading East is an attempt to make things better.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that the most elite private schools are currently only for the wealthy and the well connected. He hit on a key point in terms of those connections and the idea that, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” which I hope hon. Members across the House would be against. The hon. Gentleman made another key point about Oxbridge entrance, and I would like to hear more about that from the Minister and the Government. As the hon. Gentleman explained, although 50% of children from elite public schools go to Oxbridge, only 2% of those from the most deprived backgrounds do so.

Last Friday a young lady, Charlotte Crossley, came to see me. She qualified for free school meals and came from a home in a deprived part of Chesterfield. Her first secondary school fell well below the national challenge level of 30% of pupils achieving five GCSEs. However, she studied fantastically and got excellent GCSE results. She subsequently went to another state school to do her A-levels, and finally achieved three A*s and one A—a fantastic achievement. At that time, children in her cohort were the first group to achieve a 30% pass rate at GCSE. Charlotte Crossley was an exceptional student, but when she applied to Oxford she was not even given an interview.

Alongside removing the academic disparity between children in secondary schools, pressure must be put on elite institutions. The hon. Member for Reading East explained that the ratio of passing core subjects is 1:4 for children on free school meals against those from elite public schools. The ratio between those two groups in terms of Oxbridge entrance is 1:25. There are two sides to the equation and more pressure needs to be applied.

Selection was mentioned, and the hon. Gentleman claimed that he did not see how a return to the grammar school system would be helpful. Fundamentally, however, his proposal would continue to weaken schools that are left behind. If we cream off the best pupils from the more deprived communities, we perpetuate the idea that to get the best pupils, we must look at the schools they come from. The best schools will already have the highest levels of attainment because of their pupils’ privileged and advantageous backgrounds, but such a proposal would mean that those schools can also cream off the best of the pupils who have not had an advantage due to the financial well-being of their parents. As the hon. Gentleman says, it is not a panacea. He is right; potentially, it is positively unhelpful in terms of social mobility.

The hon. Gentleman also claimed that private schools do more to help poorer pupils. In response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Peterborough, he questioned the effectiveness of what the Charity Commission wanted. It was interesting that in the initial move towards that, two independent schools had to open up the availability of bursaries. It could be argued that if they were already doing everything that the Charity Commission wanted, that would not make any difference to them.

For the reasons that I have given, we do not agree with the proposals that the hon. Member for Reading East has put forward, although we recognise that they are well intentioned. From the Labour party’s point of view, the first thing to say is that we do not wish to interfere with the freedom of independent schools to develop a distinctive curriculum and to manage the day-to-day operation of their schools. However, the standards that all independent schools must meet ensure that pupils are able to learn in a safe and secure environment and to have suitable learning opportunities, which match their age, aptitudes and needs. We will continue to insist on those basic safeguards, which protect pupils’ interests, while recognising the freedoms of independent schools.

We abolished the assisted places scheme. Looking back, I would say that we put unprecedented amounts of investment into education in the state sector. We dramatically improved the standard of the state school estate, by which I mean the quality of buildings. As I have outlined, we also made a dramatic difference to attainment in those schools. The percentage of people going to university from more deprived communities has dramatically increased, far outpacing the increase in access among people from more privileged areas.

Labour has always argued that approaches such as those that we are discussing today represent a narrow ladder of opportunity for a few bright but disadvantaged children, with the side-effect of creaming off the most able pupils from state schools.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Toby Perkins]

I will give way once again, with due trepidation.

[Mr Jackson]

The hon. Gentleman has nothing to fear. I thank him for his generosity in giving way again. I am struggling to follow his argument because he uses the traditional Labour argument that if we elevate a small group of children, we “cream off” those children and the rest are subject to very poor educational attainment, yet his party spent an enormous amount of money over 13 years. He seems to be saying that it did not do any good, because those schools, if the best pupils are taken out of them, are still not very good schools, with not very good educational attainment and perhaps not very good staff. Where did the money go? Why are all schools not at an internationally recognised, demonstrably good standard?

[Toby Perkins]

Just before the hon. Gentleman intervened, I had said almost entirely the opposite to what he has said about the improvement in school performance under the Labour Government, so it is hard to understand why he thinks that I was saying the opposite of that—perhaps it is my accent.

In relation to the improvement in our schools, I have already referred to the massive improvement in the number of schools in which 30% of pupils get five GCSEs at grades A* to C. The figure has gone from 49% to 88%, so that is one massive step forward. I have also referred to the massive improvement in the number of people from more deprived schools going to university. Therefore, I do not accept at all that people are set up to fail if they go to the wrong school.

However, I do say that the proposals that we are debating today are sticking-plaster. They do not address the fundamental issue of improving the education of every child and every school, but are about creaming off a small number of the most talented pupils. Yes, that will inevitably leave a weaker school behind, albeit at a small level. More important, it will perpetuate the idea that if an organisation wants a talented employee, or a university wants a talented student, it needs to look at the school the person went to. That is what I am saying. It is not to say that the education system that we left behind was not giving our schools value for the massive investment in them.

Just last week I visited Milton Keynes academy, which was one of Labour’s newest academies. The pride that people in that school have in the new school building and the investment that has been made in them was heart-warming. To a school such as that, where I believe more than 70 languages are spoken as a first language and which is working so hard to improve its standards, it is a savage blow when the English baccalaureate is introduced retrospectively and the school is judged and told that it is failing because no one is achieving a standard that the school was not even aware that it was working to.

Today’s debate cannot be taken out of the entire context of education spending. That context includes a dramatic 60% cut in capital funding and the fact that schools that already educate the most deprived pupils are convinced that after the advent of the pupil premium, alongside all the other changes that will be made to their financial systems and budgets, they will end up worse off. That is the context into which this debate has been plunged. To say that we need to give extra money to independent schools to take away the best pupils seems absolutely the wrong priority.

I will conclude by adding a few questions for the Minister. At a time when hundreds of schools have seen their desperately needed capital rebuilding projects scrapped, will he really support a scheme that perpetuates and increases the educational dominance of the elite public schools? What steps are the Government taking to get Oxbridge to be more open-minded about their intake to ensure that the Charlotte Crossleys of tomorrow are not denied those opportunities? Why are so many schools that take a high number of children from poorer backgrounds convinced that they will be worse off in real terms when they receive this year’s budget? Does he think that increasing privilege and the disparity between different educational establishments will assist, in the Prime Minister’s words, every child to have the chances he had?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I am not entirely sure about the relevance of that question. What I do know is that we argued for 13 years in opposition that the Labour Government were spending money like it was going out of fashion. The efficiency of that spending was enormously compromised, as we have seen. Anybody who comes to the Department for Education will throw their hands up in horror at the amount that was wasted. I am afraid that deficit denial will not butter any parsnips in this debate.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Tim Loughton]

Well, I will. I might start my speech in a minute, as well.

[Mr Jackson]

Does the Minister not think that the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) and the Labour party have a cheek lecturing us about social mobility when, after 14 years of economic growth, they have bequeathed us a situation in which 5.2 million people are on out-of-work benefits and we have the highest number of young unemployed ever, as well as the highest number of young people not in education, employment or training? Is that not the tragic legacy of the previous Labour Government?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and all Government Members know that.

I want to get on to my substantive comments. Before I do, however, I should say that it was slightly worrying that the hon. Member for Chesterfield started by saying that his party did not want to interfere with independent schools, but then listed a whole area where they had better watch out—I think that that is what he was telling them. The Labour party still cannot stop meddling. It was also rather patronising of him to say so many times that Government Members have well-intentioned motives, even if he did not agree with any of us.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East referred to the excellent work of the Sutton Trust, to which I pay tribute, and that is particularly true of its head, Sir Peter Lampl. For more than a decade, the trust’s work to promote social mobility has played an important role in all debates covering the early years, schools and higher education.

It is important to recognise at the outset of any debate about the quality of education that we have many great schools in the state and independent sectors, where the hard work and commitment of superb head teachers and inspirational teachers enable pupils to achieve good qualifications. The Government have a responsibility to ensure that all children have access to the best possible education. The challenge facing us is to ensure that there are more of these great schools so that all children can get the best possible education.

Over the past decade, we have slipped down the international league tables for school performance, as my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough said. What makes that so much worse is that we also have one of the most stratified and segregated school systems in the developed world. Studies such as those undertaken by UNICEF and the OECD underline the fact that we have one of the most unequal educational systems in the world, coming near bottom out of 57 countries for educational equity.

The gap in attainment between rich and poor remains persistently stubborn, as my hon. Friend recognised. It opens even before children get to school. We know from Leon Feinstein’s research that the highest early achievers from disadvantaged backgrounds are overtaken by lower achieving children from advantaged backgrounds by the age of five. The achievement gap between rich and poor then widens at the beginning of primary school. By the end of key stage 1, a child eligible for free school meals is a third as likely as other pupils to reach the expected level in reading, writing and maths.

The gap then widens further still. A child eligible for free school meals is less than a third as likely to achieve five or more GCSEs at grade A* to C, including in English and maths, than a child from a less deprived background. By 18, the gap is vast. In the most recent year for which we have data, of 80,000 young people eligible for free school meals, just 40 made it to Oxbridge— less than some independent schools manage in a single year. Our schools should be engines of social mobility, offering a route to liberation from the constraints imposed by accidents of birth and background. At the moment, however, that just is not the case.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East, I am a big fan of independent schools; like him, I want the advantages of the independent sector to be available to a great many more of our children. Independent schools have a proven track record of success. Children who attend private schools are three times more likely to achieve three A-grade A-levels than those who attend state-funded schools. The coalition Government believe independent schools have a vital role to play in our education system in ensuring that more children achieve such excellence.

In the past, access to independent schools was provided to disadvantaged pupils. During the 1980s and 1990s, as we have heard, the previous Conservative Government’s assisted places scheme provided means-tested Government-supported places at leading independent schools. In fact, I made my maiden speech on the very Bill that did away with the scheme—the first piece of legislation from the previous Labour Government to do away with something.

The scheme followed the principle that the lower a family’s income, the more support the state should provide. I am pleased to say that the coalition Government are following the same principle today with our pupil premium. As I said, the previous Government phased the assisted place scheme out. That is not to say that no disadvantaged pupils are educated in the independent sector, because they are. Independent schools cater for about 7% of pupils. Of those pupils, more than 160,000—about a third—receive support to help cover the cost of their fees. That support is worth more than £660 million every year.

Around 80% of that support comes as bursaries or scholarships provided by the schools themselves. I welcome that and hope that it continues. Access to an independent education can also be supported by local authorities; for instance, where a vulnerable child is at risk of being taken into care and where it may be in the interests of the child to attend a boarding school, or where support needs to be provided to a child with a special educational need that cannot be met in the state sector. Again, that support is welcome and it is right that it continues. Indeed, independent schools can approach local authorities that can come up with arrangements of their own. In Cheshire, I gather the local authority already buys in places at the boys’ independent grammar, Sandbach school, for example. Many local authorities also place pupils with special educational needs in independent mainstream and special schools. I have already mentioned children in the care system.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East specifically mentioned the open access project run by the Sutton Trust to support access to the Belvedere school. It is an impressive project, and I would naturally be fascinated by any proposal that my hon. Friend might put forward that would enable more pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to access independent education. However, I regret to say that it is neither practicable nor affordable for the state to fund a similar project today. Instead, our priority must be to improve the state school system and to close the gap between rich and poor for all.

Those were the twin goals of our recent White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, which set out a comprehensive programme of reform, based on evidence of what has worked for nations with the best-performing education systems in the world. While they have taken their own unique approach to education reform, all successful systems share certain common features. They have prioritised plans to improve teacher quality, for example, granted greater autonomy to the front line, made schools more accountable to their communities, modernised curricula and qualifications, and encouraged more professional collaboration.

We are enacting the same kind of whole-system reform here in this country, with both profound structural change and rigorous attention to standards. We have also taken steps to support the education of the most disadvantaged pupils. Our pupil premium, as I mentioned earlier, will see schools receive additional money—starting at £430 per pupil but rising in total from £625 million this year to £2.5 billion per year by 2015—that will provide an incentive for them to take pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and, I hope, give them a better education than they are able to access at the moment.

On top of that, we have created a new education endowment fund worth £110 million, which provides a further incentive for schools and local authorities to work together to bring forward innovative projects that will raise attainment of disadvantaged children in under-performing schools. Because nothing matters more than giving more of the poorest children access to the best teaching, we are more than doubling the size of Teach First, so more of the best young graduates are able to teach in more of our most challenging schools, including primary schools. We have appointed Dr Liz Sidwell, herself an inspirational head, to use her experience and knowledge to work with local authorities to identify those schools most in need of support and help them develop plans for their improvement.

Once again, the independent sector has an important role to play. At the heart of our approach to school improvement is a belief that the best way to help schools improve is to encourage other schools with great head teachers and impressive track records to collaborate with them. There are already many examples of successful partnerships between schools in the independent and state sectors. The Independent Schools Council survey showed that more than four in five independent schools are now working with local state schools, to mutual benefit. I am very keen that that continues. Indeed, an independent school has sponsored an academy in my constituency. Beyond the financial and direct assistance given to the academy, there is shared teaching, use of resources and a greater integration between those two sets of pupils, to the benefit of both schools.

One way to build on that is for independent schools to become academy sponsors, as I have said. As outstanding schools in their own right, they can share their expertise and set a clear ethos that together help to transform state schools that are under-performing. More than 30 independent schools are already sponsoring academies, and I hope many more will do so in future, again, as I say, for the mutual benefit of both the independent and maintained sectors.

Another way that independent schools can play a wider role in the school system is by proposing a new free school, and we have already heard examples of that. We have already received applications from independent schools and I hope that others will join them in the months and years ahead.

Let me end by thanking my right hon. Friend—my hon. Friend, rather—once again.

Pupil Premium

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Hollobone. I welcome the Minister to his place. I know from experience that he is absolutely committed to driving up educational standards and to rigour in all that we do in our schools.

This is an excellent opportunity to raise a hugely important issue that not only affects my constituency, but has national purchase. I am indebted to the officers of Peterborough city council—particularly Gary Perkins, head of school improvement, and Jonathan Lewis, assistant director of children’s services—for the assistance they have given me in preparing for the debate. I am also indebted to the officers of Westminster city council for their assistance, research and comprehensive briefings.

For the avoidance of doubt, I would like to make it absolutely clear that my remarks are not a criticism of the pupil premium policy. I strongly welcome and endorse the policy and the fact that the coalition Government will be spending £625 million on free school meals for children in the next financial year. That is particularly aimed at children from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and such a policy is absolutely right. There will be £430 spent per pupil. The amount concerned will rise to £2.5 billion by 2014-15. Naturally, that will benefit my constituents who are in receipt of free school meals, as it will people across the country. That will be new funding on top of existing funding contained within the dedicated schools grant. This debate is not about criticising the pupil premium; it is about suggesting how it can be improved and enhanced to meet the challenges of particular circumstances in my constituency.

The free school meals indicator is a blunt instrument. I welcome the commitment given in the White Paper “The Importance of Teaching”, which was published in November, to ensure that schools funding is transparent, logical and equitable. I also welcome the commitment to ensuring that a new national funding formula is “fair and managed properly”. I am pleased that the Minister is undertaking to revisit the school funding formula and the fact a consultation will begin later this year, not least because the funding formula currently used is not based on current data. The formula is historical and misses some very acute issues in a relatively small number of local education authorities, including my own at Peterborough city council. I concede that the ethnic minority achievement grant, which is worth more than £200 million this year, has helped some local education authorities to cope with children who have English as an additional language and with minority ethnic new arrivals. However, as I will discuss later, I am concerned about the decision to incorporate that and other discrete funding streams into the dedicated schools grant.

I have read carefully the Department for Education consultation document published last year entitled “School funding settlement for 2011-12: the pupil premium and Dedicated Schools Grant”, and I have to tell the Minister that I am not entirely convinced that

“Known eligibility for free school meals is the only pupil-level indicator…that we currently have.”

Ministers should be rightly wary of including things such as tax credit receipts or social deprivation indices into the premium. However, the small number of LEAs with significant numbers of English as an additional language pupils, particularly at primary level, should be taken into consideration in designing the post-2011-12 architecture of the pupil premium for reasons that I will now move on to.

It would be inappropriate to rehearse all the historical issues around large-scale migration from eastern Europe that my constituency has experienced during the past seven years since 2004. Suffice it to say that we have had to tailor our public services—housing, policing, health and education—to fit 20,000 new EU migrants who have come to Peterborough as a result of the 2004 European Union directive on free movement. That has obviously put some strain on the delivery of public services. In addition, there is a significant cohort of Pakistani heritage children in our schools who, for cultural reasons, come to primary school speaking largely Urdu, after being brought up by mothers, sisters and aunts. That is the cultural reality. If we combine that situation with the fact there are also low-skill, low-wage, indigenous white British families, there is a perfect storm of very difficult circumstances for primary schools to deal with.

In Peterborough, 30.5% of primary school pupils do not have English as their first language, which is 4,767 pupils. Almost 3,000 pupils in the secondary phase do not have English as their first language, which is around 22%. Overall, 26.5% of pupils on the school roll in the local education authority do not have English as their first language. Let us consider some significant examples. I pay tribute to Tim Smith, who is the head teacher at Beeches primary school in Craig street—the central ward of Peterborough—where six out of 528 pupils speak English as their first language. That is an enormous challenge—I will come on to this later—in terms of tailoring lessons and delivering a national curriculum, particularly key stage 2 of the standard assessment tests. Indeed, what alerted me to the seriousness of the matter in a concrete form was the fact that underachievement and poor education attainment were occurring not because our governors or teachers are below par or our children are particularly dense, which they are not, or our parents do not care, but simply because of the demographics—the social and economic profile—of my constituency and local education authority.

In December 2010, Peterborough was placed sixth from bottom in the key stage 2 results for SATs. That is not acceptable, because we are not a city that is particularly socially deprived when compared with many other parts of the country, for example, the north-west, Yorkshire and Humberside, and the north-east. Some 15% of our children have special educational needs compared with the national average of 1.4%, and Peterborough has an extremely high turnover rate of pupils—almost double the national average. Of the 2,103 pupils with key stage 2 results in 2010, 21% were not in the city at the start of their school life. A further 22%, or 455 pupils, who had foundation stage were no longer in the city to take their key stage 2 tests. Therefore, we have a massive problem with churn and children coming in and out of school. Often those are the same children who have English as an additional language. Hon. Members might be surprised to learn that almost 900,000 children in England have English as an additional language. That lays bare the significant challenge we all have in dealing with the issue.

The problems are high levels of pupils with English as an additional language, minority ethnic new arrivals, non-standard entry and churn among those pupils and, of course, significant pockets of social deprivation in my constituency across all racial, religious and cultural groups. It would be unfair to place the blame on Peterborough city council. I have had my differences with the council from time to time and it has not always taken the issue on board with the alacrity and seriousness of purpose that it could have, for example, many years ago when I was raising the matter. However, the council is now trying to do its best to ameliorate a very difficult situation that is having an impact on my constituents and their children.

The council is doing its best to cope with the circumstances. An exemplar school in that respect is one of the largest in Peterborough: Fulbridge primary school. That school has a superb head teacher, Iain Erskine, who is coping with a school in which dozens of languages are spoken. Indeed, in the whole of the city of Peterborough, 94 separate languages are spoken across our schools. An Ofsted inspector recently stated:

“the local authority has been relentless in its pursuit of improvement.”

We have a stark issue with attainment, as has been proven by the specific figures on English and maths. At the end of key stage 2, the proportion of English as an additional language pupils attaining national average levels in English is 19.3% lower than for those who speak English and, for maths, the figure is 11.9% lower. If anything, that situation got worse between 2009-10.

I will not go into minute detail about how resource-intensive those children are in terms of lesson planning, teacher training, and interfacing with pupils’ parents, many of whom do not speak English. Culturally, those parents do not need to speak English—many are in low-wage, low-skill occupations where the need to speak English is not apparent. For example, even if Polish children, who are extremely good at science and mathematics and are generally very gifted, are up to speed in English and mathematics, when they go home there is no cultural pre-disposition to speak English. It is very difficult for them. Other children, whose parents are less skilled, from, say, Lithuania or the Czech Republic, are in a situation where their parents’ contract for packaging fruit or picking vegetables in the fields of south Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire or Northamptonshire finishes after six months. They then leave their rented accommodation and withdraw the children from school, or they may go to another part of the UK. It is debilitating and resource-intensive to train teachers and to have the capacity to deliver real improvements and added value for those particular families.

I will return specifically to the pupil premium and to work by Westminster city council, in a very helpful briefing paper it prepared recently for the Minister for Immigration, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green). The briefing paper makes it clear that the focus on the pupil premium is

“too narrow and that multiple pressures caused by the needs of migrants (including deprivation, EAL and mobility factors) ought to be included for the Pupil Premium basis in the future.”

Furthermore, the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum, in response to the recent White Paper, argues:

“the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant, should not be merged with the Direct Schools Grant (DSG) and that any changes should be postponed at least until the government has completed its review of the system of funding beyond 2011-12.”

What are the solutions? As a loyal Conservative, I might be expected to say that money is not necessarily the only issue that solves every problem, but it will really help a local education authority such as Peterborough. Ministers need to think about the impact of the ethnic minority achievement grant, what it achieved, and how rolling it up with the dedicated schools grant could be a retrograde step in making sure that the people who need the most help—governors, teachers, parents and children, and a specific number of schools in a specific number of authorities—continue to receive that fiscal incentive to try to improve results and educational attainment. To give a few examples, a local education authority, such as Peterborough, that is facing such problems could recruit more qualified and experienced bilingual staff; run more English as a second language classes after school; engage with parents to encourage them to speak English and improve their own English to help their children; employ more teachers, as opposed to teaching assistants, with those skills; and develop specific language programmes, such as holiday boosters and catch-up programmes.

I support Westminster city council’s advocacy—or at least I support the idea that it should be debated and discussed by Ministers—of a specific fund held in the Department for Education for new arrivals to the UK. It calls it a “cash passport” and makes the case that it is recognised that non-standard admissions and English as an additional language will not be reflected in the existing pupil premium funding. We need to look carefully at that.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister to look carefully and specifically at how the pupil premium regime can be ameliorated to assist children with English as an additional language when he looks at all the representations he receives from different organisations in the course of the consultation. It was important to have this debate to raise this issue. With all due respect to the Minister, he and colleagues have a lot on their plate with free schools and academy schools, and with taking on, to an extent, the vested interest of the producer and the teachers’ unions. I am not entirely convinced that the issue that I have raised was necessarily on the political and administrative radar, so it was important to do so. I hope that either the Minister or our noble Friend Lord Hill will be able to meet a delegation from Peterborough local education authority in the near future to understand the key challenges facing our children in the city.

The Minister has made an excellent start in his post at the Department for Education. This is an issue of great significance and importance, and of pressing need. I hope that the Ministers will listen and will take forward policy that reflects the very difficult and acute circumstances in Peterborough and in other places. I look forward very much to the Minister’s reply.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve, I think for the second time, under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) on securing today’s important debate and on the way in which he presented his case. I know that my hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for his constituency and constituents, and also believes, as I do, in very high standards in our schools.

I understand his concern at the level of migration and the strain that it puts on his constituency, particularly in relation to the number of pupils who have English as an additional language. Between 2005 and 2010 there was a 59.6% rise in the number of pupils with English as an additional language in Peterborough. I can say immediately that I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend and a delegation from Peterborough city council to discuss the issues in more detail. Peterborough is, in fact, not one of the lowest-funded authorities in England. At £4,422 a pupil in 2010-11, the level of funding is slightly above the average figure in England of £4,398. That demonstrates, however, that even authorities with above-average funding can still have problems with the unfairness caused by the current system of school funding.

I certainly share my hon. Friend’s concern with the previous Government’s policy on migration. As a Government, we want to build a more integrated society, with greater equality of opportunity. That applies to adults as well as to children, and we are reviewing English language requirements across the immigration system to ensure that all those who come to the UK have the skills and language ability that they need to participate fully in society. We want to continue attracting and retaining the brightest and the best people who can make a real difference to economic growth. I agree, however, that unlimited migration places enormous pressures on public services, particularly schools, as my hon. Friend has outlined. The Government aim to reduce levels of net migration back to the levels of the 1990s and to achieve that we have already announced that we will introduce a limit on economic migration from April 2011.

My hon. Friend has set out the effect of migration on schools in Peterborough, the difficulties of coping with large number of pupils who do not have English as their first language, and the pressure on school places. It is important that children with English as an additional language should be given the support they need to improve their educational attainment and our policy is to encourage rapid English language acquisition to facilitate their integration. I know that the increase in pupil numbers, particularly in primary schools, is a major pressure in many areas of the country, and that the ethnic minority achievement grant has played an important part in recent years in helping to meet the additional needs of children with English as an additional language. Peterborough local authority received an EMAG allocation of £847,886 in 2009-10. The Department for Education is still finalising the figures for 2010-2011, but I can confirm that the final figures will be at least as much again. I understand the point that my hon. Friend made in his opening remarks, and the views of Peterborough city council, but it remains a key priority for the coalition Government that children with English as an additional language are supported.

As part of our school funding settlement for 2011-12, which we announced on 13 December 2010, we confirmed that to simplify the funding system we would be mainstreaming relevant grants, including EMAG, into the dedicated schools grant from April 2011. Under the new arrangements, schools will be able to continue targeting pupils with English as an additional language for additional support, but they will also have the freedom to target other underperforming groups if they wish to do so. Local authorities will be free to retain a portion of the funding to run centralised EAL services and, where allocations are small enough not to warrant devolving the sums to schools, they can choose to retain the whole amount centrally. It is important to stress that the mainstreaming of EMAG funding is not about cutting costs. For 2011-12, funding per pupil, including mainstreamed grants, is being maintained at 2010-11 cash levels. The grant will be included in the money that goes to Peterborough city council, albeit not separately identified. The quantum of the grant will still be there and will still go to the council.

I know that Peterborough has seen significant increases in recent years in the proportion of children with English as an additional language. That is why the authority was awarded an exceptional circumstances grant of £979,000 in 2009-10. I can confirm that the figure will rise to £1.5 million for 2010-11. We will be mainstreaming the grant in the 2011-12 financial year based on the 2009-10 figure rather than the 2010-11 figure. Funding for 2011-12 will also be based on schools’ actual pupil numbers in January 2011, which means that year-on-year increases in pupil numbers will be reflected in Peterborough’s final funding allocation.

My hon. Friend suggested that we might use the pupil premium to address the issue of English as an additional language. We introduced the pupil premium to support the most disadvantaged pupils in schools, targeting extra funding specifically at those from the most deprived backgrounds to enable them to receive the support that they need to reach their potential, and to help schools reduce educational inequalities. For this year, as my hon. Friend said, the premium will be set at £625 million, which amounts to £430 of additional funding for every pupil from a deprived background. We have decided that the indicator used to reflect deprivation for 2011-12 will be known eligibility for free school meals. Poverty is the single biggest predictor of poor attainment at school, regardless of ethnicity or country of origin. I know that he believes free school meals to be a rather blunt tool for deciding eligibility, but the link between free school meal eligibility and underachievement is strong.

[Mr Jackson]

Does my hon. Friend concede, notwithstanding the laudable aim of using free school meals as an indicator for accessing money for children in the most need, that, in the case of east European migrants particularly and other migrant groups, there is a cultural predisposition against claiming free school meals? Therefore, some of the children who would most benefit from extra funding are not able to do so, and that obviously has an impact on the overall educational attainment in their school.

Funding and Schools Reform

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend puts it well. Let us get to the facts. Those schools were told in the summer that they were unaffected. We can work out what “unaffected” means to most people, but the effect of what the Secretary of State has done by coming back for another bite is that he is asking schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency to abandon their ambitions for their children so that the right hon. Gentleman can fulfil his ideological ambitions to give funding to whichever schools come asking for it because it ticks the box—it comes forward with the structural form of which he approves.

That is very wrong. Today, if nothing else, I want the Secretary of State to come to the Dispatch Box and honour a moral obligation, as he has just heard, to the 600 schools that he approved as unaffected. That must mean what it says. Let them get on without the requirement to make unwelcome savings. Instead, the phone calls from his officials have made them scrabble round for cuts. I heard that one school was thinking of stopping the purchase of all new furniture. Is that what the Secretary of State really wants schools to do? It is mean-spirited. I hope he will honour the commitments that he has made and let them get on and build a better future.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House of any academic or empirical study which directly links the capital expenditure under Building Schools for the Future with enhanced educational attainment? If not, why does he think that that is the case?

[Andy Burnham]

It is depressing to hear such nonsense from the Government Benches after all these years. Is the hon. Gentleman saying to me that it is acceptable for a school to have leaking roofs or to have no playing field? Is he saying that office blocks are fine for schools? I disagree. I believe that we can do better for our children. If that is a call to cut off the funding to deprived authorities, he should be utterly ashamed of himself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson).

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

I hesitate to derail my right hon. Friend’s peroration, but related to his point about the badge of shame and ignominy attached to the record of the last Labour Government is the number of children in care and the fact that the educational attainment of the most vulnerable in society actually went backwards under their time in office. Should not those on the Labour Front Bench hang their heads in shame about that?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. His commitment to looked-after children and children in care has been consistent, both before he entered the House and now that he serves with such distinction here. One of the reasons that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is taking such pains to change the rules on, for example, adoption and to work with looked-after children is that the vulnerable and the voiceless need our support. I hope that the efforts that we are all making to ensure that they enjoy a better future will be backed across the House.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

In the previous debate, we expressed concern about the role that local authorities will not have under the Bill. Most local authorities will say that the schools most dependent on their advice and support are primary schools. The vast majority of primary schools are community schools, and they have not even had the experience that foundation schools will have had in managing the enormous range of responsibilities that come with academy status. How much will that cost? Where will that expertise come from? How will primary schools deal with that? How will a small primary school, with perhaps only a few pupils, be able to cope with some of the demands being made on them? Capacity is a very real issue. Most secondary schools already employ a range of staff who will be able to deal with the increased administrative requirements, but many primary schools have only a school secretary, who will doubtless be expected to deal with many of the issues and problems that come with academy status.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

These are exactly the same arguments that were advanced by Labour during the discussion of grant-maintained schools, which were often supported by the local community and perfectly able to exercise the powers and responsibilities involved. Indeed, many of them did so very successfully. Unfortunately, Labour is still in an ideological time warp and hostile to the idea that parents, governors and other professionals can have effective local control over their own schools.

[Vernon Coaker]

Who will have local control over whether a primary school in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency becomes an academy? It will be the head teacher and the governing body, and it will then go to the Secretary of State for approval. There is nothing in the Bill to say that parents, the community, local people or even the local authority must be consulted. If the hon. Gentleman’s point is that before a school changes its status or applies to become an academy it should have the support of all those people, I would agree with him in many respects. Certainly the academy model that we pursued—although it obviously related to secondary schools rather than to primary schools—was about trying to ensure that there was proper local support for the conversion.

One of the problems with the Bill is that it does not require the support of everyone in the local community for a school to convert to academy status. Indeed, an amendment tabled by one of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues tries to address that problem. When we talked about special schools, some hon. Members mentioned the need to ensure, and demonstrate, that local parents, the local authority and local people supported them, but that is not what the Bill would do.

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I am not ideologically opposed to academies—I approved a significant number of them, including all-through academies. In the last debate, we talked about the difference between the academy model presented in the Bill and the academy model that the previous Government pursued. As I said, I do not believe that people are motivated by anything other than a genuine desire to improve educational standards for children, but there is a difference of view about how to achieve that.

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point, but how can local support be proved when all the Bill requires is the support of the head teacher and governing body, and others as appropriate?

[Mr Jackson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but it would be perverse for any head teacher with the support of the governing body not to take into account the settled view of the local community, whether that was as a result of consultation directly with the governing body or others, or of the local authority, local charities or others. The idea that this is some kind of top-down approach to be forced on schools is untrue.

[Vernon Coaker]

In the spirit in which debate has been conducted in Committee today, I thank the hon. Gentleman for recognising that I was trying to be constructive in my response. He will have read the Bill and he will know that clause 5(1) does not specify who should be consulted by a school wishing to convert. It just says that it

“must consult such persons as they think appropriate.”

Similarly, clause 5(3) states:

“The consultation may take place before or after an Academy order, or an application for an Academy order”.

If the hon. Gentleman follows his point through to a logical conclusion, one might expect the Bill to list the parents, the local community and so on as parties which should be consulted and shown to be supportive of the academy bid, because that would strengthen the application and increase its potential for success. Similarly, one would have thought the Bill would require consultation to take place before the academy order was applied for. I agree that such consultation is necessary, and the hon. Gentleman’s point was not unimportant, but the Bill does not do what he would wish it to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Rogerson]

May I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Evans, at this stage in the proceedings? Earlier, Mr Chope reminded us that it is out of order to refer to the decision about which amendments have been selected and which have not, so I will not reflect further on that and thereby risk being called out of order, except merely to say that I am delighted that amendment 48 in my name was selected.

The hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) has set out the dangers he foresees in primary schools being allowed to follow the academy route, but he adds that he is none the less an advocate of the academy system and that he thinks it is a success. I come at this from a different angle: I think the jury is still out because the evidence is balanced as to whether the academy structure has made a substantial difference to results. We Liberal Democrats have not been entirely convinced, although some party members have advocated academies throughout the process. Other arguments can be put as to why schools that have been established as academies have been successful and we talked about some of them on Second Reading, so I will not rehearse them at length. If I were to do so, I am sure you would rule me out of order, Mr Evans, but there are arguments to do with leadership and the resources put into academies, for instance.

This is a permissive Bill. We will either allow schools to examine, and consider following, this route or we will not. From visiting schools in my constituency, it seems fairly clear that not many of them are interested in doing so. They do not see it as right for them. They are largely happy with their relationship with Cornwall council, their local authority. I welcome that, and I am sure it is also the case in many other parts of the country. I believe that local authorities have a role to play and they have often played a good role in the past. However, that has not always been the case, because there are undoubtedly places where the relationship has broken down and there have been failings. The fact that not many schools in my area wish to follow the academy route does not, however, strike me as necessarily an argument for saying that it should not be open to them.

I tabled amendment 48 in order to have a debate about primary schools. I am therefore pleased that we are having that debate, and I would like to add a number of questions to those already asked by the hon. Gentleman. He raised the important issue of federation. It is being explored in many rural areas—and, I imagine, increasingly in urban areas too. Federation is often controversial because people sometimes feel they are giving up some measure of control over their local school, but my experience of those federations that have been formed—there are three or four in my part of the world now—is that the governing bodies and communities can come together. They still have their own school in their community and it performs a vital function not only in terms of education but in many other ways as well, especially for rural village communities. Therefore, if these schools become part of something a bit bigger, it means they are able to support a full-time head—and to recruit one as well, which is increasingly an issue. Federation can be a crucial step, therefore.

There are questions, however, about what approach the Government should take to applications for federation and how they would be explored. There are also, perhaps, issues to do with capacity. I hope, therefore, that no primary school approaches this option lightly. If they are considering it, they should reflect on their own situation and what resources they will have to take advantage of any freedoms that arise. That is an important consideration.

There are questions to do with the monitoring of schools as well. I have discussed that briefly with the Minister outside the Chamber. There is a role for the Young People’s Learning Agency in monitoring academies to ensure that they meet the criteria set out in the Bill. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that if primary schools, in particular, are going to go down the academy route, they will have the capacity to be able to do that and to manage a relationship with a much larger number of schools. If primary schools are to take up that option, the number of schools involved will be much greater than has been the case up to now.

The idea of all-though schools, to which the hon. Member for Gedling referred, presents an exciting opportunity. One of these schools is coming to my constituency and, again, the trust and confidence of the local people has to be won; they have to feel that the change will protect what they may see as younger, vulnerable pupils in that bigger set-up. That argument has been won in one community and this may be a route that some take towards academy status.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks on the clause, I am not convinced that this is necessarily the best route for everybody. My hon. Friends, some of whom spoke on Second Reading, have made it clear that they have concerns about the model too.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

The hon. Gentleman will doubtless concede that this is permissive legislation and, therefore, schools will not be the subject of draconian diktat. He will also know that the experience of grant-maintained schools was that the legislation allowed them to work closely with their local education authority on things such as procurement and purchasing, and that consortiums were often very successful in that respect. This Bill specifically does not preclude the involvement on a practical, day-to-day basis of the local education authority. In that respect, I am sure that he will be reassured.

[Dan Rogerson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We have served together on a number of Public Bill Committees, not always agreeing when we have debated issues. However, we can perhaps agree that the permissive nature of this Bill allows both of us to explore what is available to schools and communities in our constituencies. As I say, I remain to be convinced that this is necessarily the best route and that it offers as many benefits as some hon. Members, including him, are convinced it does. However, I believe that if the route is to be available to some schools in particular circumstances, we ought to explore the option, as this Bill does, of making it available to others. So I accept his point about this being a permissive Bill.

The hon. Gentleman also makes the point about schools continuing to work with the local authority. The Minister may wish to talk about the fact that schools that take up the option that the Bill extends to them could continue to explore buying back some services from the local authority, even though they may well have not wanted to have such a rigid relationship with it. Clearly, they could still have an engagement with it and may indeed wish to buy back some services from it. This debate has begun and we may be at risk of going back over issues that we covered when discussing the previous group.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

First, I thank the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) for being so generous in his speeches on this amendment and the previous amendment in allowing people to intervene and ask him questions. I appreciate that.

The amendment is further evidence of the dichotomy of the Labour party’s approach to education policy for primary and secondary schools. With capital, as has been discussed, the previous Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme was concentrated purely on the secondary sector, whereas their policy on academies was to have them in deprived areas at secondary level but not at primary level, even though many issues of educational under-attainment stem from performance at primary level. The list on the Department for Education website of schools in my constituency that have expressed an interest in the academy process includes Wolsey infant school in New Addington, which is an outstanding school, and St Mary’s junior school, which is not. Both of them serve highly deprived parts of my constituency. If Labour Members have the passion that they say they have about driving up educational standards in deprived areas, that ought to apply equally at primary and secondary level.

I do not wish to detain hon. Members for long, but I want to address the four main objections that have been raised regarding primary schools. The first objection was about size and whether primary schools would be able to cope with the responsibilities that come with academy status. Having looked at the schools in my constituency that have expressed an interest, I would expect a far lower proportion of primary schools than secondary schools to be interested in going down this route because of their size. However, there are large discrepancies regarding primary schools. In my local authority area there are a number of single-form entry schools, some two-form entry schools and a significant number of three-form entry schools. The picture is very different for a three-form entry school, such as the state school that my children go to, than for a single-form entry school.

It would be helpful if the Minister clarified the position on federations. The Secretary of State’s response to the shadow Secretary of State on Second Reading implied that applications from federations would be accepted. Clearly, that would be one way of addressing issues of size and scope. One concern that the Labour party has raised about academies is the fear that schools will stop working together, so it seems particularly perverse for the amendment to rule out the prospect of federations of schools applying for academy status and preserving those relationships that Members on both sides want to persist.

My main point about the issue of school size is that the legislation is, as several hon. Members have pointed out, permissive. Surely, we should trust head teachers, leadership teams and governors to judge whether their schools have the capacity to cope with academy status.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. It is better to have looser language in the Bill because, as the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) knows, any issues of consultation in relation to the schools that seek to proceed along this path will be the subject of regulation and secondary legislation. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is better to have looser language in the Bill than to be too prescriptive, because that might, as the shadow Minister has said, lay individual schools, local education authorities and other bodies open to legal action further down the line?

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend makes the point far more eloquently than I can. At some point in the future, the shadow Education Minister might have the honour of being the Minister again, or even the Secretary of State, who will sign off the applications for academy status. However, the amendment would tell primary schools or federations of primary schools that they were not even allowed to make the case for academy status, and that is completely the wrong approach.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In Sefton, we could have the same problem. Money that would have been available to the authority for capital projects for other schools and for educational purposes will now not be available. One of the major weaknesses of the Bill is that a bribe is being offered to the schools that go first. A bribe to outstanding schools that need that opportunity least will mean less money left behind, both capital and revenue funding, for schools that do not have the opportunity because they are not outstanding.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bill Esterson]

I have already given way twice.

Over £1 million has been committed in Sefton in progressing its Building Schools for the Future projects and £161 million nationally—money that cannot now be recovered, so that is hardly the way to cut the deficit. Free schools will be funded in other ways. With cuts in the area-based grant, the Nurture Base in Sefton will close, although it provides 10 places for children aged between four and seven, so that they can receive the support that children with behavioural difficulties need to return to mainstream school. That is part of a £2.5 million cut in Sefton that will allow outstanding schools to become academies. There is no provision in the legislation for behavioural support of the kind available in Sefton, so that is now being cut.

Another way in which the academies and free schools are being funded is from the primary capital programme, which is under review and clearly headed for a cut.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bill Esterson]

No, I am not giving way.

Aintree Davenhill primary school has had its first phase built, but the second phase has been halted. Many of the children at that school face the prospect of continuing their education in second world war sheds, freezing in the winter and baking hot in the summer. The school faces uncertainty at best and continued appalling conditions at worst. Why? To pay for the political dogma of the governing parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

That might be a good idea.

I wanted to speak tonight because the Bill is such an important piece of legislation. It is one of the real key, signature pieces of legislation from this rather less progressive coalition Government at Westminster, and I feel that all Members, wherever they hail from, should address these issues.

It has been interesting to watch Government Members throughout today’s debate, because on the faces of some there has been surprise at the volume of opposition from Labour Members and at the passion that we have brought to the debate. That is because we feel that there are fundamental issues at hand, including not just the way in which the Bill is being railroaded through with unseemly haste, but its content, and I shall address two levels of that concern.

First, we are concerned about the legislation’s immediate and practical impact. Our abiding concern is about the type of autonomy, the free-for-all, for academy schools, which will be cut free—“liberated”, I gather, is the phrase du jour from Government Members.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Having been the chairman of the board of governors at a grant-maintained primary school in the 1990s, I feel all the same arguments coming back from the Labour party. Is it not the case that the boot is on the other foot—that Labour Members’ opposition to the Bill is deeply ideological, as it was to grant-maintained schools and to the autonomy and power of parents? Essentially, the Labour party has never trusted, and does not today trust, people with the education of their own children.

[Owen Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and completely agree. This is a very familiar and, indeed, old debate, because from Government Members we have heard the warmed-up arguments of Thatcherism: effectively, the privatisation by stealth of our schools and education, and, coming up later in the year no doubt, a wholesale attack on welfare. The debate is familiar and ideological, and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: my opposition is ideological, too, because I sincerely believe that we need local authorities—the state, in its benign form—to offer some control over our schools, so that we have equitable provision as opposed to the free-for-all that Government Members clearly think would be of benefit.

Industry (Government Support)

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Manufacturing has fallen at a faster rate over the past 13 years than in the 1980s. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) spoke about the need for a balanced economy, but the previous Government had 13 years to achieve that. I welcome the fact that the Conservative-Lib Dem Government’s coalition agreement says that there is a need for a balanced economy.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case. Was not the entire strategy of the former Labour Government predicated on three things: the housing market, the growth in financial services and public sector expenditure increases? All were found wanting, and manufacturing and other sectors were neglected.

[Nicky Morgan]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I noticed a certain amount of eye rolling when an earlier speaker mentioned that she had worked in the financial services industry. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, however, the financial services industry’s growth over the past 13 years was huge. We will not take lessons from Labour Members in that regard.

In referring to industry, I think that Labour Members have been talking about larger companies—perhaps I will be corrected—but most people in this country work for smaller businesses, and in some cases very small businesses. They are the backbone of our economy, and their growth will drive the economy out of the current situation.

I want to talk about three aspects of support for business, some of which have been referred to already. First, more bank lending to businesses is necessary. As chamber of commerce research shows, small businesses are being penalised with higher rates of interest. In my constituency, two gentlemen running a small industrial company who rightly took out a mortgage to buy premises in 2007—when lenders were falling over themselves to lend their company money, as it was a very sound bet and had never failed to make repayments—have suddenly been told by the building society in question that the property has fallen in value and that the ratios are therefore wrong, so they will have to renegotiate the mortgage and pay higher interest rates that are clearly beyond them. That is exactly what banks should not be doing at this critical time in the economic cycle when businesses need support.