Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I start by reciprocating on behalf of the Opposition Front-Bench team the good wishes of Government Front Benchers, including the Secretary of State. We are grateful for the gift that he has delivered to us today, although I cannot promise that the good will is going to last for this entire Question Time.

I would like to treat the House to the full quotation referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) a moment ago:

“Ed Balls keeps saying that we are committed to scrapping the EMA. I have never said this. We won’t.”

Will the Secretary of State today apologise to the 600,000 young people who receive EMA and who took him at his word?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful for the generous seasonal words offered by the right hon. Gentleman, but when it comes to apologies, it is those of us on the Government Benches who are waiting for an apology from him and from all his colleagues who were in government. When he says that we should spend money on this, that or the next thing, one thing is never acknowledged: his and his colleagues’ responsibility for the dire economic mess in which we were left. As a result of forming the coalition Government, two parties are working together to get us out of the mess that his party left us in. May I suggest that he gives us all a Christmas present: a single act of contrition? He should give us a single word for the economic mess that he created: sorry.

[Andy Burnham]

When we hear bluster like that, we see a pattern repeating itself. It is school sport all over again: a bad decision with dodgy statistics to justify it. Let us take the Secretary of State’s only argument against EMA head on: the 90% deadweight. On the Government’s own figures, because of EMA 76,000 young people stay on who might otherwise have become NEETs—those not in education, employment or training. Research for the Audit Commission puts the annual cost of a young person not in education, employment or training at £55,000, and 76,000 times £55,000 is more than £4 billion. Do these figures not demolish the Government’s last remaining argument against EMA and show that the IFS is right to say that EMA more than pays for itself?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful for that display of mental arithmetic, which means that Carol Vorderman’s place on Countdown can easily be succeeded by the right hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] It is time to bring it back, if only to provide him with a platform equal to his talents. The truth is that only 12% of young people who are eligible for EMA say that they would not participate without it. We need to ensure that money is better targeted on those who need it most. His Government commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research to conduct a survey on who was receiving support and who should receive support to stay in learning. That report, commissioned by his Government, pointed out that it would be beneficial better to target financial support at the most vulnerable groups—that was the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). The right hon. Gentleman’s own Government’s research points out that this money is spent inefficiently. Of course it was spent inefficiently under his rule, but this coalition Government will ensure that the money available for 16 to 18-year-olds is targeted at those who need it most, so that those in the poorest circumstances get more.

[Andy Burnham]

I have seen enough of the right hon. Gentleman in action to know that weak jokes clearly mean he is in trouble. I think we can now safely give him his end-of-year report card. On Building Schools for the Future, school sports and now the education maintenance allowance he has shown poor attention to detail and a failure to do his homework. On the big decisions, things that people care about, he is cavalier—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. This is Question Time. We must have short questions and short answers, so may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to conclude his question?

[Andy Burnham]

Let me quote briefly from the Secretary of State’s White Paper. It states:

“No-one is helped when poor performance remains unaddressed.”

Will he make a new year’s resolution today to live by the same exacting standards as he expects schools to apply to their teachers?

[Michael Gove]

I am afraid that that performance fell below even the right hon. Gentleman’s flawed standards. The truth is that the shadow Education Secretary needs to learn that, instead of simply providing a draft of an op-ed piece as a question, he needs to come up with policies that will convince people that he has learned the lesson of his Government’s defeat. He cannot simply say that the answer to every problem is more money. He cannot simply say, as he said during the leadership election, that he wants

“closer ties to the trade union movement”

at the same time as that trade union movement is calling for an all-out assault against this Government. He cannot consistently move to the left, opportunistically—