Infant Class Sizes

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Rob Wilson

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I hope you will bear with me for a moment, Madam Deputy Speaker, while I answer this very important question. The hon. Gentleman will know that I spoke to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) about this matter on Monday evening. It is a serious situation and not something that the Department would do lightly, but it became very clear that there were serious governance issues in relation to the proposed school. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House know—this is at the heart of schools—that we have to make sure that the right school and schooling are available for the pupils in question. We have been working very closely with local authorities to make sure that all the pupils have places. The hon. Gentleman will also know that departmental officials offered to attend the community meeting on Sunday, but that was not welcomed, and that I have set up urgent meetings between the Under-Secretary of State for Education, Lord Nash and the community. We have offered to discuss matters and I very much hope, as do other Ministers, that there will be a Sikh-ethos school in Leicester. Applications are open until October for another wave of free schools and I very much hope that there will be an application along those lines.

[Mr Rob Wilson]

I welcome the sensible and measured way in which my right hon. Friend is responding in this debate, in contrast to the shouty and rather juvenile way in which the shadow Secretary of State spoke. He refused to take an intervention from me. I would have asked him to correct the record. In response to interventions, he said that basic need funding has gone down under this Government. In fact, it has gone up. Perhaps he would like to intervene on the Secretary of State to put that right.

[Nicky Morgan]

I do not see the shadow Secretary of State leaping to his feet to correct the record, so for the benefit of the House, let me set out some of the other mistakes he made in moving the motion.

As I have said, we would now be facing a crisis in school places given everything that did not happen under the last Government, but fortunately—as with the economy, immigration and welfare—this Government had a plan to clear up the previous Government’s mess. We had a plan to reverse Labour’s cuts in school places by investing £5 billion, which is more than double the amount spent by the hon. Gentleman’s Government during their last years in office, to create 260,000 new places by the summer of 2013.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

No, I am going to make some progress.

I have set out the record of this Government. Let me compare it to that of the Labour party. It took four years for Labour to open the first 27 academies, seven years to open the first 133 academies, and five years to open just 15 city technology colleges. I am a generous person, so I can see that not everything Labour did was wrong. There were some good initiatives. Some Labour Members understood and even helped to inspire the academy and free school programme that this Government have made such a success. Let me make it clear that, unlike the shadow Secretary of State, who has spent the past 11 months distancing himself from the policies of those brave reformers in the Labour party who came before him, I will make no apologies for the work of my predecessor, who was one of the most successful, passionate and committed education reformers of the 21st century.

We could have a genuine debate about some of those things. Indeed, I am sure we would all be fascinated to know the latest views of the shadow Secretary of State, given how often they change. He has flip-flopped from free schools being a

“vanity project for yummy mummies”

which he said on 18 May 2010, to 13 October last year when he apologised for that description and said:

“I regret those comments because I think any parents, be they yummy mummies or faddy daddies, involved in the education of their children is great”

He also said that he would put “rocket boosters” under parents who wanted to set up schools, but two days later he U-turned again, describing free schools as a “dangerous ideological experiment”. Which one is it? His position is completely inexplicable.

[Mr Rob Wilson]

Is it my right hon. Friend’s understanding that the Labour party will close free schools; indeed it will try to close them on the basis of a bogus review of free school buildings? I wrote to the shadow Secretary of State and his deputy nearly a year ago, and neither have replied to me about the bogus review of school buildings. Through my right hon. Friend’s good offices, perhaps she will get the truth out of the Labour party.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point and I shall certainly try to get the truth from the Labour party. Would the shadow Secretary of State like to intervene to tell the House what he thinks about free schools today, and whether he will provide clarity? Parents and children attending schools need clarification and to know whether he would keep them open were he—heaven forbid—in government.

Birmingham Schools

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Rob Wilson

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s work on this process and the reports. She is absolutely right that we need to learn the lessons from the reports and that issues need to be addressed by all of us in the education system, locally, within the Department and by organisations such as Ofsted. I return to the question raised by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne): how do we move forward and help the schools to move forward? Getting the right teaching staff in place, appointing the commissioner to work with Birmingham city council and getting in leading head teachers, particularly to the trust where the members have resigned, will be a very good start. This will require many months, if not years, of working, but I am convinced that we can turn this around.

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

I also welcome my right hon. Friend to her new position and hope she treads a similar path to her outstanding predecessor. In that light, what approach does she favour in attempting to combat extremism—simply beating back the crocodiles that come too close to the boat, or draining the swamp?

[Nicky Morgan]

I believe in looking forward and learning lessons; appreciating the work that I and many Members across the House do with our Muslim communities; recognising that the vast majority did not want or support what was happening in their schools; and looking to my Department and Birmingham city council to sort this out in order to provide the best possible education for children, which, we must not forget, is at the heart of this.