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Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. At least I have a claim to fame that not only did I teach for a living for some part of my dim and distant past, but I taught you at university.

I am participating in this debate because I was absolutely furious when I saw that Sir Kevan’s recommendations had been so watered down. He had every reason to resign. I was also very angry because Yorkshire did so badly out of even the measly amount of money that the Government are putting in. We face a national education emergency following a national health emergency, but the Government are not bringing resources forward for this emergency; they are not doing the job properly. Those resources, and the sense of this being an emergency and fixing it for kids who will never get another chance at education, seem to be utterly lacking from the Government’s determinations.

Secondly, there is a lack of leadership. Where is the Secretary of State when we want him? Why isn’t he, in the Cabinet, really doing the job for education? Dare I say it, we need a big beast in education. I would have been happier with Ed Balls; I would even have been happier with his successor on the Conservative side, because they were both big beasts. We have not got a big beast in education. We have a run down, truncated, demoralised Department for Education, and we have education departments in local authorities that have also been run down and sidelined. The fact of the matter is that we have not got the leadership; we have not got the imagination. I am sorry, but even though the Minister was a member of the Education Committee when I chaired it, he is part of the problem: he has been there too long. He is a time-server and has lost the imagination to understand what it was like.

There is real opportunity here with the right leadership. We could co-operate across the Benches. What about having a national volunteer scheme that volunteers retired teachers and retired sportspeople? The people who care about our education would come out of the woodwork like never before and do something for kids who need that help, support and backing at this very moment.

We are lacking the essentials because this Prime Minister and this Government do not care about the education of our children in the state sector.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you, Barry, and yes, you did teach me at Swansea University—and what an incredible job you did.

I call Christian Wakeford.