Infant Class Sizes

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the criterion for building a new school should be need? If there is a need for a school in an area, that is where a school should be built. It should not be built where there is no need.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. As I shall explain, it is the misallocation of funding—building more places where there are surplus places—that is producing this crisis in English schools.

The class size and pupil-adult ratio project undertaken by the Institute of Education has shown a strong relationship between small classes and greater achievement. The researchers identified a clear effect in literacy and numeracy attainment, even after adjusting for other, possibly confounding factors. Pupils entering schools with low literacy levels progressed the most in small classes.

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[Tristram Hunt]

Less than half full, while there are over-sized primary classes. The constituents of Bedford will hold their MP to account for voting for policies that increase class sizes in those schools while misallocating funds. Politics is about choices and priorities, and the Government have chosen the wrong priority.

[Mr Sheerman]

Before my hon. Friend moves on, will he put a question to Conservative Members: what is the evidence that larger classes benefit students? I have not seen any such research, but I have consistently deplored the fact that the all-party agreement that smaller classes were better for a child has been broken by this Government.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right: it is so disappointing to see this Government break the political consensus that Labour worked so hard to achieve in 1997.

Labour is committed to ending the free schools programme and refocusing spending on areas where it is needed most. Our message to parents is absolutely clear: Labour would make a choice, and schools enduring crippling infant class sizes would be our priority. We want to see great teachers, committed parents and innovative educationists opening new schools under our parent-led academy programme, pioneered by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), but those schools will have to be targeted on areas with a need for new places.

We had all hoped for a change of direction from the new Education Secretary, so I read with great interest her interview in The Sunday Telegraph, in which she explained how

“we have seen the first same-sex marriages take place, which is great.”



Indeed it is, but why did she seek to prevent it from happening by voting against the policy? If she really thought it was great, she would have supported the policy.

In the interview, the Education Secretary also revealed that her favourite work was Elizabeth Gaskell’s marvellous “North and South”—a tale of how a conciliatory, practical, confident woman steps in to save the reputation of an aggressive, right-wing, Gradgrind-like ideologue. Mr Thornton was a man

“who would enjoy battling with every adverse thing he could meet with—enemies, winds, or circumstances”,

and he quickly finds himself in an epic struggle with the trade unions. I can see the Education Secretary’s attraction to it. But alas, our modern Margaret Hale is on autopilot, determined to repeat the mistakes that got Mr Thornton his unenviable reputation. Nowhere in that interview was a commitment to ending the chaos of the free school programme, introducing new policies to improve the professional development of teachers, rebuilding the atomised school system, stopping the downgrading of apprenticeships, closing the attainment gap, or offering affordable child care.

Now, this afternoon, news has broken of the Education Secretary’s plan to introduce compulsory setting in all schools. Will she confirm that she will rule out compulsory streaming? What does she make of the Education Endowment Foundation’s research into the impact of streaming on children from deprived backgrounds? What evidence has she used to inform her plans—which specific academic findings? What assessment has she had on the impact of her plans—

Technical and Vocational Education

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, and normally I would be 100% behind him and seek to knock it out of the park, but on this occasion the Education Secretary has organised an international conference of educators here in the UK, which is not a bad place for the UK to be. However, my instincts are with my hon. Friend.

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

I urge my hon. Friend to continue making party political points, because they are rather good. Will he add that too many Government Members have no history of further education or technical colleagues, as I do? I did my A-levels at Kingston technical college.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right.

Talking of political divisions, the Government’s focus, as we have seen, has been not on the vocational demands of our education system but on tinkering with the curriculum and a free schools policy. At the Skills Minister’s favourite school, the Swedish private equity free school IES Breckland, which he has supported so much, Ofsted discovered “inadequate” teaching, poor behaviour and declining student literacy levels. The Swedish for-profit model that the Government were so keen to import has been exposed and discredited in the Skills Minister’s own backyard—responsible for one of the biggest falls in educational standards anywhere in the world.

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[Tristram Hunt]

The hon. Lady should worry no more, because in 10 months’ time we will have a Labour Government delivering a sustainable education and skills policy.

Our motion talks of

“a new settlement for those young people who do not wish to pursue the traditional route into university”.

Let me lay out the Labour party’s ambition for Government to deliver equal status for vocational qualifications from school to university and beyond, to provide clear routes for highly skilled technical or professional careers and to have a dynamic, modern education system that will ensure that Britain can compete as an innovative, productive economy. We shall start with technical baccalaureates for 16 to 19-year-olds, in order to provide a clear, high-status vocational route through education. That is a Labour policy. The tech bacc will include quality level 3 vocational qualifications and a work placement to provide a line of sight through education into employment.

Our next policy is to ensure, unlike this Government, that all young people continue to study English or maths to the age of 18. These are the most essential of all 21st-century skills, and getting them right is fundamental to future career prospects. That does not mean asking young people to redo their GCSEs over and over again. Rather, it means ensuring that applied, functional and useful English and maths will help them to succeed with their careers. We will have slimline English and maths courses designed to complement a student’s core programme of study.

Furthermore, we think that English and maths should be part of an ambitious national baccalaureate framework for all learners. Alongside core academic or vocational learning in English and maths, we want young people to undertake a collaborative project and a personal development programme, which would nurture the character, the resilience and the employability skills of all our young people. Much of the tech bacc route will be delivered through further education colleges.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend will recall that the Skills Commission inquiry into pathways at 14, chaired by Mike Tomlinson and Ian Ferguson, strongly recommended GCSE papers in practical English and practical maths. Does he think that that would be a good way forward?

[Tristram Hunt]

We want an education system in which those young people who wish to pursue technical and vocational pathways have a grounding in English and maths that will allow them to succeed in their own fields, and in which there is a much greater interrelationship between the academic and vocational pathways. That kind of qualification would provide exactly that.

This Government have hammered further education provision. They can find £45 million for a Harris free school in Westminster, but they have done that by slashing funding for further education learners and sixth-form colleges. That is a scandalous set of priorities. We will work with FE providers to improve teaching and to ensure that colleges focus on local labour markets. Our highest performing FE colleges will become institutes of technical education with a core mission to deliver Labour’s tech bacc and the on-the-job components of apprenticeships.

I have laid out the Government’s mendacious record of spin and subterfuge on apprenticeships. We will deal with the devaluing of apprenticeships by introducing a universal gold standard level 3 qualification lasting two years. We will ensure that every firm that wants a major Government contract offers apprenticeships. We will also ensure that employers are involved in the development of apprenticeships by giving them support over standards and funding.

Teaching Quality

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

I read the advert and it said, “an unqualified maths teacher.” It was there in black and white. I had at this point—[Interruption.]

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

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend on the Front Bench was accused of lying. Is it right for the Secretary of State to accuse him of lying?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I most certainly did not hear that, and I would have done. As far as I can see, there is a dispute with regard to the accuracy of each Member’s interpretation of the said advert, but the Secretary of State most definitely did not accuse the hon. Gentleman of lying. He has put very forcefully exactly why he is of the view that he is with regard to the said advert. I am afraid that that is not a point of order.

[Tristram Hunt]

I had hoped at this point in my speech to unite both sides of the House by quoting the words of Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, who said:

“I would expect all teachers in my schools to be qualified.”

However, after last Friday’s remarkable briefing war by the Department for Education against Her Majesty’s chief inspector, I realise that he is not the unifying force that he might once have been. The achievement of qualified teacher status is not on its own a guarantee of teaching excellence; it is merely a starting point. We need to look at new ways of getting the best candidates into the teaching profession and the best teachers into underperforming schools.

[Mr Sheerman]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a very good chief inspector of schools such as Sir Michael Wilshaw may find such a situation very difficult—I am not making a party political point here. Going back to the foundation of the chief inspector, he is not allowed to look at a chain of schools. If he cannot do that, he has to look at an individual free school and an individual academy. That is restrictive because he cannot see the environment in which that failing school, in some circumstances, can be supported.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend, the former Select Committee Chairman, makes a powerful policy point. It will be policy under a Labour Government that Ofsted will be allowed to inspect academy chains so that we can root out underperformance.

We need to ensure that initial teacher training is preparing teachers properly for the pressures of the classroom, especially when it comes to discipline and behaviour management. Similarly, retention rates are a cause for concern and so too is the loss of talent to the classroom. The second plank of Labour’s drive to enhance teaching quality is effective training and new career pathways for teachers.

In England, the most effective teachers are often encouraged to go for leadership promotion and are therefore out of the classroom within a relatively short space of time. The Labour party will develop pathways to allow teachers to pursue their own particular strengths and interests whether in pedagogy, leadership or in an area of specialism such as behaviour management or curriculum development. Just as the medical profession allows for the development of consultant-level expertise, that must be our ambition in education.

Child Care

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Tristram Hunt

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The provisions offered by Sure Start centres were part of a socialisation process, including parenting and getting children school-ready, that was vital to those families’ prospects. We know that children who do well at school also have parents invested in them doing well at school, and the Sure Start provision was part of that.

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

We have to be careful because many people in the press misinterpreted Baroness Morgan’s statement as meaning kids sitting in rows learning at two. It is early years stimulation we want, and we get that—it is affordable on the Danish model—if we employ people who are well trained to do it, like the social pedagogues in Denmark.

[Tristram Hunt]

As ever my hon. Friend makes the point for a broader understanding of education, for play, for creativity and, above all, a high quality of provision. That is about making sure that we have high-quality childminders, those involved in nurturing, education and play for young people.

Sadly, what we have had from the Government is a sustained assault on early years provision. The coalition’s child care crunch means that since the last election the cost of nursery places has risen by 30%. There are 578 fewer Sure Start centres, with three being lost on average every week. The cost of a nursery place is now the highest in history, at more than £100 a week to cover part-time hours, and parents working part time on average wages would need to work from Monday to Thursday before they paid off their weekly childcare costs.

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[Tristram Hunt]

We are delighted to work on a cross-party basis to make sure that we have as high-quality of child care provision as possible. All parties understand that those who look after toddlers and young people should have as much experience and training as possible, and we are always delighted to work with Ministers to see how we can go up the value chain.

[Mr Sheerman]

In the early days of being the Chair of the former Education Committee, I remember visiting settings just after the minimum wage was introduced. Many people were horrified, because up until then they had been paying £1 an hour. That was the desperate situation we were left with in 1997.

[Tristram Hunt]

What a valuable point, which reminds us that the Conservative party opposed the national minimum wage and proper payment for child care workers.

It is the Labour party that has a response to the cost of living crisis. In government, we will deal with the child care crunch by expanding free child care for three-year-olds and four-year-olds from 15 hours to 25 hours per week for working parents. The value of that child care is worth £1,500 per child per year. It would be paid for by increasing the bank levy, charged as a proportion of their liabilities, to raise an extra £800 million. In the past financial year, the banks paid a staggering £2.7 billion less in tax overall than they did in 2010. The Government have given the banks an extraordinary tax break and we would reintroduce some fairness into the system to support our child care plans. [Interruption.]

I hear laughter from the Government Benches about our plans for the financial services industry, so I will quote from this Saturday’s Financial Times:

“Good times return as City gets in Christmas spirit,”

reported the paper.

“After years of yuletide austerity following the financial crisis, party organisers and venue owners are seeing a resurgence in the market for festive frivolity.”

Well, good luck to them. We on the Labour Benches like to see the return of some animal spirits, but all we are saying is that some of that festive frivolity could be spent on securing affordable child care. That is called progressive politics, and the Government parties should try it.

To give parents of primary age children peace of mind, Labour will set down in law a guarantee that they can access child care through their local school if they want it. Parents of primary age children will benefit most from a new guarantee, as this is when families most require child care support. Of course, parents will have to pay for that, just as they do now, but this is an opportunity to deliver sport, music, healthy eating and after-school clubs alongside child care support.

The truth of the matter is this: high-quality child care and early years services are the foundation stone of a successful approach to tackling child poverty and improving social mobility. The Labour party has a costed and effective plan to deliver both. The coalition has broken promises, has poor priorities and has arrogantly refused to deal with the cost of living crisis. I commend this motion to the House.

Qualified Teachers

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

I should be delighted to give way to my hon. Friend the. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman).

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

Before my hon. Friend gives way to a Government Member, may I remind him that in the past a Labour Government went out of their way to secure talented teachers from a much broader background? They introduced all sorts of ways of getting into teaching that were innovative and good, and I saw real changes in our teaching force as a result. We did some very good things, and they did not lead to the employment of unqualified teachers..

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend has made the crucial point that Teach First was a Labour innovation. We believe in innovation, but we also believe in some basic standards in our schools.

The Secretary of State used to praise teaching standards in Finland, South Korea and Singapore, saying:

“In all those countries teaching is a high prestige profession.”

How would the Government ensure that it remained so?

“By making it difficult to become a teacher.”

But what has the Secretary of State done in office? He has done everything possible to make it as easy as possible to assume control of a classroom. He has undermined the profession, sought to remove teacher training from universities, and adopted a policy of wholesale deregulation. That has led to a 141% increase in the number of unqualified teachers in free schools and academies. The surprising truth is that under this Government, people need more qualifications to get a job in a burger bar than to teach in an English school. While I salute the efforts of restaurant chains to improve the skills of their work forces, I should like history teachers, as well as hamburger restaurant managers, to have some basic qualifications.

Higher Education Policy

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The Government’s attack on humanities has been grotesque from the beginning. Their intervention to try to make the Arts and Humanities Research Council fund big society research could not have been more laughable. There will be an effect on history, French and humanities courses.

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

Design, as well.

[Tristram Hunt]

And on design courses.

I will wrap up so that some of my colleagues can deliver the coup de grâce to these terrible proposals. I end with a point that Government Members clearly have not got their heads around. The figure that people will only pay when they earn more than £21,000 is based on 2016 values. At today’s values, the figure is £15,900. In future, let us have a debate about people beginning to pay back their fees when they are earning that much.

Universities always suffer under Tory Governments. They did in the 1980s and they are again now. The Minister for Universities and Science is like a recherché Keith Joseph, and we need to finish off these terrible proposals.