Education and Health

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

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

The right hon. Gentleman might be having a bonfire of the bureaucracies, but will he acknowledge that many of them are not just bureaucracies and that they actually do an important job in education? We still need curriculum development capacity, for example, and we still need technology to be applied in our schools to advance good learning. There is a rumour sweeping through the corridors that he is about to announce the abolition of the General Teaching Council for England. Is that true? What would be the purpose of that?

[Michael Gove]

Lots of teachers are asking what the purpose of the GTCE is; they have been asking that question for years. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to reflect on where the resources should go. Should they go to quangos or to the front line? He listens to teachers, and I listen to teachers. They want resources on the front line, in the classroom, raising attainment; they do not want them spent on the bureaucratic bodies that have for too long siphoned money from where it needs to be spent.

Critically, I know that many hon. Members will want to ask why we are not honouring their commitment to spend £250 on the child trust fund. Let me take that question head on. When the Labour Government left office, they ensured that every single child was paying £23,000 of debt every year in order to deal with our deficit. Why is it progressive politics to saddle children with £23,000 of debt in order to give them a financial product worth just £250? That is not progressive politics; it is Maxwell economics. Instead of seeking to defend its financial mismanagement, the Labour party should apologise to the House and to the next generation for saddling them with a national debt so huge that it undermines our capacity to make progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

I have asked officials to calculate exactly how much we will save. [Interruption.] Well, we will bring forward legislation, but there is a sum of £36.50 for every teacher, which will save us hundreds of thousands of pounds. [Interruption.] Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the GTCE is the right organisation to keep in place? Does he believe that this money is better spent on the GTCE than in any other area? Does he believe that the hundreds of thousands of pounds that I think we should have spent on the front line should continue to be spent on that body?

[Mr Sheerman]

I rise to try to educate the right hon. Gentleman. As he is very well versed in educational matters, he must know that what he is telling the House is a fiction. The fact of the matter is that he will not be saving £36.50 for every teacher. Many teachers pay the £36.50 themselves.

[Michael Gove]

Some do, but many do not. It is precisely because the Department pays the fees for so many teachers—it pays £33 of the £36.50—that I have asked officials to work out how much we can save. If, instead of simply carrying on objecting to saving this money, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood wants to tell me how he would spend it, or whether he would keep the GTCE going, I would be delighted to hear from him.