Education and Social Mobility

Baroness Morgan of Cotes Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

All Members can agree that a first-class education is the greatest investment we as a country can make in our next generation. I have no doubt about the Secretary of State’s commitment to increasing social mobility, having heard her speak around the Cabinet table over the past few years. I think we can also all agree that post-Brexit it is more important than ever that all our young people leave education well skilled and well educated, particularly if we are to have a new immigration policy in the next few years.

We want excellent education everywhere. As I said at our party conference a couple of years ago, that “everywhere” is fundamental. What is missing from the Green Paper is that sense of a strong and consistent whole system. That might be because it only talks about schools, rather than some of the other issues facing our education system, such as the quality of teaching and the need for more great teachers and for announcements on fairer funding. That said, I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State talking about her commitment to the EBacc.

I should also recognise the Secretary of State’s announcements on opportunity areas. In the White Paper published earlier this year, we identified areas—the achieving excellence areas—that really needed attention, and last week the Social Mobility Commission picked that up. We have heard already about the ResPublica report on Knowsley commissioned by the Knowsley education commission, to which we should pay tribute for recognising the entrenched educational under-performance in its own area and the need to ensure that children and families have choice when it comes to schools.

For me, there are two tests for new schools policies. First, do they specifically tackle areas of underperformance? Secondly—this is at the heart of the debate on selection—is every child being offered an academic, knowledge-rich curriculum? I know that that knowledge-rich curriculum is also of fundamental importance to the Minister for School Standards.

We have to acknowledge that the Government’s Green Paper sets out the dangers of change in selective schools. Paragraph 4 on page 21states:

“while those children that attend selective schools enjoy a far greater chance of academic success, there is some evidence that children who attend non-selective schools in selective areas may not fare as well academically – both compared to local selective schools and comprehensives in non-selective areas.”

The Education Policy Institute published a report in September. It wrote:

“Analysis of educational performance across OECD countries has concluded that a higher proportion of academically selective schools is not associated with better performance of a school system overall, according to results in the international PISA tests taken by pupils at age 15 in 2012.”

I would like to hear more from the Minister about the evidence the Government are relying on in making the proposals in the Green Paper.

We talk about being a one nation Government, so our focus has to be on tackling those areas of the country where school underperformance is still entrenched, where families do not have a choice, where there are no good or outstanding schools and where the opportunity to travel outside the borough boundaries just does not exist. If the Government seriously believe that having more selective schools will raise standards across the board, they would have proposed introducing those schools only in pilot areas where there was underperformance, but the Green Paper talks about local demand being a driver. What if those areas most in need of higher standards opt out of having new schools? Given the inherent problems in the proposals, the Green Paper has to talk about mitigating measures.

My other concern is that the proposals will distract the Department and the Government from the issues really facing our education system. Let me again mention fair funding, which I know colleagues of all parties, and particularly on the Conservative side, take incredibly seriously as an issue that has to be sorted out.

The second test is whether we think all children can benefit from an excellent, academic, knowledge-rich curriculum, which I think is what our future workforce of the 21st-century needs. True social mobility requires that every child be given the same opportunity.

[Andy Burnham]

I am listening carefully to what the right hon. Lady is saying. Does she agree with me that this policy is a distraction, and that if we wanted to make the biggest difference to education in our country, we would do that by focusing on the 0 to 4 age group and ensuring that more children arrive in reception classes ready to learn, with the language and social skills that they need?

[Nicky Morgan]

The right hon. Gentleman is right in the sense that early education is, of course, critically important. One of the issues surrounding more selection is that the attainment gap is already wide by the time children get to the age of 11, and often even before they have reached primary school. The right hon. Gentleman has been a Secretary of State, and he knows that Departments can do more than one thing, so we can focus on early years at the same time as focusing on making sure that every child has an excellent academic education.

As I was saying, true social mobility requires every child to be given the same opportunity, and it is not for other people to make judgments about what children are entitled to. I will always remember my visit to a primary school in Lancashire, whose headteacher informed me that the children in her previous school, a city centre school, were only ever going to be assessed as “requires improvement”. If children are being written off by some even before they have reached the age of 11, that tells me that there is a problem and that it needs to be tackled first.

I will be honest: when it comes to knowing how to vote, I have struggled with both the motion and the amendment before us today. What is being proposed in the Green Paper was not in our manifesto. I really hope that Ministers will listen to the responses to the consultation and to what Members of all parties say today. Let me suggest that if the Government are determined to take forward these proposals, they must set out how the proposals will lift standards in the underperforming areas, and they must start with those underperforming areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brady]

I am delighted the hon. Gentleman raised that, and if I have time I will return to some of the excellent results from Northern Ireland later in my remarks.

There are those in this House who think that it is all right to have a choice of school or type of school for those who can afford to pay fees for it, and there are those who think that it is all right to have a choice of school for those who can afford to buy a house in an expensive catchment area. It is instructive to look at the results of that approach. In the borough of Trafford, which has excellent state education, only 5.2% of pupils go to independent schools; for Manchester the figure is 6.7%, and for Stockport it is 10.1%. However, although we are told that in London state education has been revolutionised, in Camden 29.8% of pupils go to independent schools. We should open up opportunity to people regardless of their ability to pay, and that is exactly what we do in those areas that offer selection in the state sector.

Trafford is outstanding not just because of its seven grammar schools, but because of the outstanding quality of its high schools. The persistent myth from the 1950s and ’60s that if we have grammar schools, we have sink schools is an utter nonsense and should be rejected. Knowsley and the report produced for it have been mentioned, including by my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), the former Secretary of State. What has not been mentioned is that one of the so-called secondary modern schools in my constituency—we call them high schools—Ashton-on-Mersey, which spawned The Dean Trust, a very good, effective multi-academy trust, is so good that it has been brought into Knowsley, which was looking for excellence from outside the authority. It is to the high schools in Trafford that people turn, which gives the lie to the nonsense about low attainment in such schools.

We should also reflect on some of the damning evidence about the degree of social segregation elsewhere in the system. The record of the last Labour Government was mentioned earlier. In 2010 the Sutton Trust looked at the 100 most socially selective schools in the country, and 91 of them were comprehensives, selecting by catchment—by postcode, and therefore the ability to buy a house in the catchment area.

[Nicky Morgan]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who I know is a passionate advocate of grammar schools based on the experience of his constituency. One issue that has not been raised in the debate so far is that of ethnic segregation. Will he acknowledge that white British pupils make up 70.9% of all secondary-age pupils but only 65.9% of secondary-age pupils in selective schools? One of the arguments being made is that white working-class boys would benefit from more selection. Does he agree that that is not necessarily the case?

[Mr Brady]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her intervention. Actually, those numbers are rising fast. An answer to a written parliamentary question that I tabled recently provided evidence that every single ethnic minority group, including white British, performs better in partially selective areas than in comprehensive areas and better still in wholly selective areas than in partially selective areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I refer my Treasury Committee colleague to the Education Policy Institute report that was published in September—it is quite recent, so perhaps he has not had a chance to read it—that found that the seven-grade advantage adjusts for prior academic attainment. Therefore, with the same level of attainment, a child on free school meals does better in a grammar school than they would if they went to a non-grammar school.

I have heard two objections to grammar schools from Opposition Members. There are two reasonable objections that one might make, so it is only fair to acknowledge them and try to respond. The first objection is that only 3% of grammar school pupils are on free school meals, whereas the figure for the population as a whole is 13%. It is reasonable for Members on both sides of the House to draw attention to that deficiency and to question it, but my answer to that challenge is that, by being inventive and creative, it is possible to increase that percentage radically. There is a fantastic example from the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham, which has increased its free school meal intake from 3% or 4% up to more than 20%, which is above the national average. That has been achieved through a series of innovative measures, including active outreach to primary schools in deprived areas, free help with tests for children from deprived families—one problem is that middle-class parents pay for coaching for their children—and bursaries for parents who are worried about the costs of uniforms, musical instruments or extra travel. By doing those things, the group has transformed its free school meal intake.

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend will be aware of the evidence given by Rebecca Allen of Datalab to the Education Committee that shows the negative impact on other grammar schools in that local area: they have lost more of their free school meal children. I think he needs to argue for an increase in the overall number of free school meal children if he wants his policies to work.

[Chris Philp]

I am arguing that grammar schools should do outreach, like those in the King Edward VI group, and ensure that the figure increases from 3% so that children from deprived backgrounds can get in and genuinely do well, which is not happening as much as it should. Wallington County Grammar School in my next-door borough of Sutton uses a slightly lower test threshold for free school meal children and has dramatically increased its intake from that group. I was happy to read on page 25 of the Green Paper that a number of the things that have worked in schools such as Wallington and those in the King Edward VI group will be conditions when existing grammar schools expand or new grammar schools open. By attaching those conditions, the Government will address the reasonable concerns that have been raised by Members on both sides of the House.

The second objection, to which the former Secretary of State just alluded, is that non-selective schools do worse in selective areas because the selective schools have in some way creamed off the best pupils. There is no clear evidence for that. There are reports from both sides giving both points of view. In 2008, the Sutton Trust found no such effect; another study found an extremely marginal effect. We have already heard—[Interruption.]