Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress the importance of construction and other sectors in helping to encourage more young people to consider apprenticeships. The Under-Secretary of State for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock)—who sadly cannot be with us, Mr Speaker, because he is enjoying paternity leave—has I think done more than any other Minister, apart possibly from his immediate predecessor, to put apprenticeships on the map and to work with industry to raise the esteem in which vocational training is held.

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

Does the Secretary of State realise that many of us who believe passionately in apprenticeships are concerned that the people instructing apprentices should be of the highest order? What is this love affair between him and people who are unqualified working with apprenticeships and in schools?

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

The Harris academy in Beckenham, like all Harris academies, is performing significantly better than its predecessor school. May I place on the record my gratitude for the visionary leadership shown by Lord Harris of Peckham, Sir Dan Moynihan and those Members of Parliament from Mitcham and Morden to Beckenham who have championed Harris academies, often in the teeth of opposition from the National Union of Teachers, the NASUWT and other unions that have acted as the enemies of promise?

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

Does the Secretary of State agree with his own chief inspector of schools that over the past 15 years standards across the urban population of this country have risen remarkably? Will he give the House the opportunity to hear him say, “Well done, teachers. You’ve done a good job. You could do more but you’ve done pretty well over these past 15 years”?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as he is increasingly becoming, for giving me this opportunity to underline that point. Let me first of all praise those politicians from the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) to Lord Adonis who, in the teeth of resistance from trade unions and others, pressed forward the case for reform. Let me praise the former Prime Minister Tony Blair for his courage in doing so. Let me regret that the momentum for reform was lost under the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), but let me above all praise teachers for the fantastic job that we are doing. We have the best generation of young teachers and the best generation of head teachers ever in our schools, and I had the opportunity of seeing some of them when I visited the constituency of Buckingham just over a week ago. In both schools that I visited, Buckingham school and the Royal Latin, I was privileged to see brilliant teachers doing a wonderful job for an MP who believes in the very best of state education.