Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Lucy Powell

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend has been a formidable campaigner on this issue, and I pay tribute to him for his work in this area. He will be aware that since my letter to local authorities the evidence shows that school admission authorities are becoming more flexible when receiving requests for children to start reception at age five.

But of course this will not be right for all children; the majority will do well in reception at age four, and the Government are therefore giving careful consideration to how we will make these changes in a way that avoids unintended consequences.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister not agree with me that the best way to get all students, even those who are summer-born, ready for school is proper investment in the early years, and will he therefore pledge today that the Government will do what they said they would do a few weeks ago and ensure our maintained nursery schools get the full funding they need to continue?

Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy

Debate between Nick Gibb and Lucy Powell

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The purpose of the phased bursaries that we have piloted with maths in particular is to stagger the payments of those bursaries after three years. For those training to teach maths, there is a £20,000 bursary, followed by a £5,000 payment after three years and a further £5,000 after five years. In areas where there is a record of recruitment challenges, or areas of deprivation, the £5,000 figure becomes £7,500. There is a range of other measures intended to incentivise people to train in the areas to which my right hon. Friend has referred.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, welcome the new strategy, but it is long overdue. We have been raising these issues in the House for a number of years, and the Minister, and other Ministers, seems to have been in denial about what is causing them. That has been echoed in some of the Minister’s comments today. Tackling teacher recruitment and retention is not about a growing economy; it is about pay, workload and job satisfaction, so will the Minister now address those three key issues in a more strategic and substantive way than we have seen them addressed thus far?

[Nick Gibb]

We have been addressing those issues. For instance, we started to deal with workload in 2014. The workload challenge produced 44,000 responses identifying the top three issues: excessive marking work, data collection and lesson preparation. We addressed those with some workload review groups, and accepted their recommendations. This strategy, however, includes more measures to deal with workload. For example, the new Ofsted framework will include tackling teacher workload as an element of the leadership and management judgment that schools will face.

We are also doing more to ensure that the culture of schools is right. We are changing the accountability regime. There will not be a “football manager” approach. We are consulting today on replacing floor and coasting as triggers for support for schools with the simple “requires improvement” judgment of Ofsted. We have been engaged in a range of measures since 2010, and we are taking a strategic approach to these issues as well. I think that if the hon. Lady reads the strategy, she will find that it addresses all her concerns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Lucy Powell

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

Ofsted assesses the triggers that will cause an inspection to happen even where a school is judged as outstanding and exempt from inspection—for example, if a school’s results fall, complaints are received from parents or there are safeguarding concerns. All those are triggers that will cause an inspection to happen even in an outstanding school. The hon. Gentleman can be confident, therefore, that a school that is judged good or outstanding is good or outstanding.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Department for Education

Debate between Nick Gibb and Lucy Powell

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has said that that is the approach we are taking to assist Catholic schools in particular. We are spending £23 billion on capital funding because of our balanced approach to managing the public finances.

We have made historic reforms to the way we fund our schools, supported by an additional £1.3 billion investment, and we have announced ambitious plans for a new world-class technical education system, backed by £500 million a year of additional funding.

As is clear from this debate, our work as a Department, and our investment in young people, extend far beyond schools and colleges. Members have raised issues relating to priorities across the Department’s remit—from early years to further and higher education—and I aim to address some of those important questions.

[Lucy Powell]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he did intervene on a number of colleagues during the debate. He champions numeracy, but does he accept that spending power is reduced when costs go up and income remains the same? The number of teachers who can be employed, the amount of training that can be put on and the support that schools can provide has reduced, and budgets have therefore fallen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Lucy Powell

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

We have to ensure that the assessment system is robust, so that students can be sure that their hard work is properly recognised and employers understand that the qualifications presented to them reflect the quality of their studying and the skills that they have acquired.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wonder what the Minister’s reflection is on the fact that in the maths higher paper for this year’s GCSE, the pass mark was just 18 out of 100. Does he think that pupils sitting that exam would have been given the confidence to go on to do maths A-level? I can tell him that as a 16-year-old, I was the only girl in my sixth-form college to do further maths and maths A-level. Had I sat a GCSE paper that was impossible—not rigorous—I would not have chosen those subjects.

[Nick Gibb]

The new GCSE is significantly more demanding academically. That is to ensure that there is a better fit with maths A-level and more preparation for students to go on to study it. The comparable outcomes system ensures that roughly the same proportion of students achieve grades 1 to 9 as achieved A* to G last year. That is why students might get a lower mark for a C grade or grade 4 this year, but as the students and schools become used to the new curriculum, I expect that figure to rise in future years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Lucy Powell

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I wrote an open letter to all local authorities about the issue, urging them to take the wishes of parents very seriously, to act in the best interests of children when considering which age group they should start with, and to enable them to start school outside their own age group if their parents have elected not to allow them to start in the year in which they turn five. I believe that local and admission authorities are taking notice of that letter.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

As my summer-born son starts his first day in reception today, I am all too well aware that the big gaps in attainment among his classmates are related not to the time of year when they were born, but to whether they come from advantaged or disadvantaged backgrounds. That is still the biggest problem facing our education system. Does the Minister agree that it needs to be tackled? If so, how does he square that with findings that I published last week with the Social Market Foundation, showing that 75% of the extra money that the Government are pumping into the early years will go to better-off families and less than 3% will go to those who are disadvantaged?

[Nick Gibb]

We take the issue of social mobility very seriously. The attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children has narrowed by 7% in key stage 4 and by 9.3% in key stage 2, in primary schools. However, we continue to work hard to ensure, and believe passionately in ensuring, that all children, regardless of background and regardless of where they live, are able to fulfil their potential in our education system, which is why the pupil premium provides an extra £2.5 billion a year for children with disadvantaged backgrounds.

Education: Public Funding

Debate between Nick Gibb and Lucy Powell

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments. I hope the same response will come from Opposition Members. [Interruption.] Perhaps in due course. He is right that we have to deal with growth in pupil numbers, and there are provisions in the new funding formula for growth, but we will take his views into account when we respond to the national funding formula.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) on tabling this urgent question. Once again, we are seeing delusion from Ministers and Conservative Members. This discussion, and the warnings from headteachers this morning, are not about the way in which the cake is being cut, but about the size of the cake per pupil. The size of the cake is being reduced year on year because of increased costs. When will Ministers actually meet the shortfall from the real-terms cuts in schools so that headteachers do not have to cut back on teachers and teacher support staff?