Queen’s Speech

Lord Kirkham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to participate in this debate on the gracious Speech. As a working-class child growing up in the north of England, I never maximised my grammar school education and have devoted much of the last 35 years to levelling-up efforts on behalf of the younger generation. I have specifically helped the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Outward Bound in their work to fill the gaps that even supposedly good schools far too often leave in their pupils’ skillsets.

Absolutely nothing matters more for the prospects, long-term outlook and opportunities of our nation than the correct, proper, appropriate, no-compromise, world-standard education of our children. However, none of it can be achieved unless we have the appropriate and quality institutional framework in place to ensure the delivery of the highest educational standards across the whole country. That is why I fully welcome the new, full, visionary and ambitious schools White Paper, as it introduces much-needed coherence and offers a clear plan to complete the schools revolution started by Michael Gove back in 2010. The current system is neither fully academised nor fully local authority controlled; it is neither one thing nor the other. Therefore, it is sensible, appropriate and right that every school should join—or at least be in the process of becoming a part of—a family of schools by 2030. We have seen and experienced, through participation and involvement, that such families of schools can work exceptionally well. That enables them to share all the very best practices and the most effective proven experiences and ideas.

The point of it all is to elevate standards, so the Government’s intention to set a target of 90% of primary school-age children reaching the expected levels in literacy and numeracy by 2030 is welcome indeed, as is their ambitious goal to increase the national GCSE average grade in both English language and maths. However, let us not underestimate the poverty gap and the long tail of underachievement in this country. It is encouraging that 24 priority areas, many in the north, have been identified in the White Paper for extra support—I thank the Government for that—but the underattainment of children from lower-income backgrounds is widespread and persistent and exists throughout most of the country. Clearly, if all schools can perform at the level of the best, we will achieve our aims and aspirations, but it will undoubtably require major committed resourcing and priority in public expenditure to enable this to happen. We have in the White Paper the design of a world-class system but, for this to become a reality, we will need world-class resourcing too.

One of the great advantages of the academy system is the freedom that it gives trust leaders to make decisions and be accountable for them. However, I am forcefully told by those working in the field that, in recent years, a plethora of regulatory bodies have started to eat away at these freedoms. Academies are accountable to the DfE, the Education Funding Agency, Ofsted and regional schools commissioners, often reporting to them on overlapping areas. Consequently, the Government’s proposal to undertake a regulatory review to simplify the system is to be greatly welcomed, but we also need to streamline regulation and introduce a risk-based approach, targeting regulatory resource where it is needed most. The state does not need to become involved in overregulating high-performing, low-risk academies and trusts. We all know from bitter experience that bureaucracy has an ability to spread itself perhaps rivalled only by Japanese knotweed, and the greatest care is needed to keep it under firm control.

Finally, I want to comment on the proposal to allow good schools, in exceptional circumstances, to request to move between academy trusts. This has the potential, if not handled with great thought and care, to undermine all the gains that successful academy trusts have already made and could achieve in future. The best academy trusts take in failing schools and improve them rapidly by committing resources to and investing heavily in them. Such trusts then leverage these much-improved schools in their turn to develop underperforming new joiners. However, this virtuous circle risks being broken if improved schools can threaten to vote to exit their academy trust if they are asked to devote their own resources to helping newly joined underperforming schools. Any legislative change that might incentivise such an outcome must be avoided at all costs.

I believe that this is a vital caveat but, having made the point, I conclude by reiterating my strong support for the basic principles of the White Paper and urging that the proposed reforms be implemented as speedily and urgently as possible. Our nation’s children deserve no less.

United Kingdom and China

Lord Kirkham Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkham (Con)]

My Lords, most of us as consumers or indeed as retailers—a job which I have been doing for over 45 years—have benefited massively from the awesome Chinese economic miracle. The world economy is underpinned by low-cost, high-quality, great-value goods made in China, from kids’ toys to sex toys, from machine tools to motor cars, including 90% of the world’s personal computers, 50% of the world’s ships and 70% of the cell phones. We in the West comfort ourselves with the thought that it is all due to the Far East’s “low-cost” economy, but I venture to suggest that this is not entirely true. I say that not from knowledge derived from reading books, academic research, trawling the internet or taking a brief for this debate but rather from direct, on-the-ground personal experience of transacting business with Chinese companies since 2000. From that I can tell you without caveat or reservation that China is a massively innovative society with a truly phenomenal work ethic, an absolutely determined “can do and will do” attitude and culture and a real commitment to self-improvement.

China’s ascendancy in the global economy is no fluke. When upwardly mobile Chinese acquire surplus renminbi, their first thought is not to study brochures for foreign holidays or flash cars—although China is the biggest and fastest-growing new car market in the world, with almost 20 million vehicles sold last year—no, their priority is to invest in their children's education. That is a bit of good news for us here in the UK because we host around 120,000 or 130,000 fee-paying Chinese students in our colleges. If we did not play so hard to get or make it so hard to get here, there might be even more Chinese participating in that part of our knowledge economy.

The China to which I was introduced a short time ago at the turn of the millennium has entirely vanished. It did so in just 10 years—although we are talking 10 Chinese years, which seems equivalent to about 100 years of development anywhere else on the planet. New China is on track to be the world’s largest economy very soon. The country has evolved at an incredible pace, segueing seamlessly into “brand China”. In 2008, “brand China” gave us the world's biggest and best Olympic Games, arguably until 2012, with its iconic and undeniably brilliant Bird’s Nest stadium and a phenomenal, never-to-be-forgotten opening ceremony. This was a “set the bar” launch advertisement for the brand.

With construction everywhere, China has developed. Just look at the city of Shanghai with its 24 million inhabitants. It has been developed into the Paris of the East: fashionable, stylish, exotic and exciting with its fine stores, restaurants, hotels, houses and apartments. That tremendous civilised backdrop is conducive to networking and transacting business, which is the lifeblood of China. It seems odd and sad that it takes a visit to a nominally communist country to see old-fashioned enterprise in action, enterprise that, through its unstinting investment in infrastructure, has provided tens of thousands of kilometres of highways and expressways and its own high-speed rail network, to support, facilitate and power China's stellar growth. The Beijing to Guangzhou high-speed rail line is the world's longest high-speed line at 2,300 kilometres. It was built in only seven years.

On the topic of railways, when I visited China recently, I was taking the incredible maglev train—that is the magnetic levitation train, no clickety-click metal rails there—from Pudong airport to Shanghai, an eight-minute journey reaching an incredible 431 kilometres per hour. That is around 260 miles per hour. Be assured it was not just low-cost labour that built that space-age mode of transport. It was a real commitment to innovation and the guts to give it a go. It is worth comparing and contrasting that with the umpteen years it has taken us to upgrade our west coast line to achieve half that speed.

China is an unstoppable good news phenomenon: a sophisticated, global-scale investor, exporter, importer and manufacturer of nano-tech, high-tech, low-tech, no-tech, cutting edge mega-demand products. From eyewear to iPhones, China is the class act powering the world's consumerism. In the UK we need to try better to understand the re-emerging—or re-emerged—power that is China, whatever it takes us to do so. We have got to become closer to the world's fastest growing major economy. We must actively and unashamedly encourage Chinese investment, investors, consumers and tourists, welcoming them with open arms. We must make the UK a ravishingly attractive destination, dismantling without delay every conceivable, perceived or real barrier and hurdle to transacting business. We must strengthen established ties and forge the strongest possible trade links. We must act like a friend. Indeed, we must be a friend. Let us not—even remotely—be tentative and ambiguous about it.

We are a trading nation open for business, and the modern-ancient civilisation that is China can make or break us. China's future mega-growth and success will of course create frustrations, stresses and strains, hiccups and bubbles, upsets and challenges. It is already happening. However, be assured that China's global business and influence is only going one way in the long term, and that is up. That is going to present boundless trade and business opportunities impossible to overstate. We in the UK need to ensure that we are at the party and on the top table, sharing in the fun of success with this ambitious, determined and booming country that dominates global manufacturing, is on the lookout for safe investment, and has an enormous and growing domestic market for goods and services.

A spokesman on China Central Television recently suggested that the UK needs China more than China needs the UK. The colloquial term “no-brainer” comes to mind. Almost every country in the world is courting the Chinese in the hope that it will become China's new best friend, the first choice as a business partner and a place to invest. It is imperative for the future prosperity of the UK that we treat this challenge with the same seriousness that we take participation in the Olympics, and ensure that we come first to mind as the natural business, trading and investment partner for our good friends in the East. We have some catching up to do.