Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

I shall deal first with new clauses 15 and 16, which relate to relationships and sex education and personal, social, health and economic education. I shall then respond to key points raised in other new clauses and amendments. I shall ensure that they are covered within the time that is available under the now agreed programme motion, as I am conscious that many other Members wish to speak.

Many Members on both sides of the House have worked hard for some years to increase awareness of the issues to which new clauses 15 and 16 refer and the case for statutory underpinning of relationships and sex education and PSHE, and I thank them for their efforts. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), along with the Chairs of the Health, Education, Home Affairs and Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committees and the hon. Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), have been particularly strong supporters of that approach.

Relationships education, RSE and PSHE can help to ensure that pupils are given the knowledge and skills that they will need to stay safe and develop healthy, supportive relationships. That is particularly important when they are navigating the new challenges of growing up in an online world. Parents, of course, are the primary educators and guides of their children, and we should not forget that: they play a central role both in helping their children to grow up into successful adults and in protecting them from harm. However, parents are telling us that they want schools to help them to deal with what are complex and fast-moving issues to ensure that their children grow up equipped with the knowledge and skills that they need to be safe and successful. Our proposals to make these subjects compulsory are supported by professionals working in the field, by parents and carers, and, importantly, by children and young people themselves.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I warmly welcome these vital and long overdue new clauses, but it would be helpful if the Minister could provide some reassurance that relationship education in primary schools will not exclude key age-appropriate information that relates to physical health, wellbeing and the safety of children, because that is an area of concern that is still outstanding. I am thinking of, for instance, the difference between safe and unsafe touch, and the naming of body parts that are private.

[Edward Timpson]

I can reassure the hon. Lady that the whole purpose of bringing relationships education into primary schools is to start creating the all-important building blocks that will make children resilient enough to deal with the pressures and risks that the modern world throws at them. The new clauses are intended to allow a period after the Bill has gone through both Houses during which we can draw on the greatest possible expertise to establish how we should go about teaching these subjects in an age-appropriate way, so that by the time the children leave school they have all the knowledge and skills that they need to make good choices in their lives as they grow up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the Minister for that point, but there was dialogue about that before we came to the House, so he knows exactly where we stand.

I thank the Minister for his comments about my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck). She cannot be here today because she is on compassionate leave, but she put in a tremendous amount of work to take the Bill through the Committee. I will try to be brief and will put a limit on the interventions that I take.

First, and most importantly, I want to make it clear that we will support new clause 14, tabled by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen). My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields and I were happy to add our names to it and will add our votes to any Division on it. It is similar to our new clause 12, so I would like the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire to clarify whether “capacity” in her amendment has the same intention as it does in ours: an assessment of the extra numbers that a council would take. New clause 13 complements those new clauses by ensuring that the Minister reflects those numbers in the national strategy. The Government have committed to provide that, but new clause 13 puts it on a statutory footing. It also provides for progress updates in the meantime, and I understand that some of those who should have received quarterly updates from the Government have yet to receive them. If the Minister is not prepared to accept the new clause, I hope that he will commit to come back with an update. However, I reserve my right to press our amendments to a vote if the Minister does not address those concerns.

Given the time available, I will not rehearse the issues at length, but I echo the points made in recent days by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). I hope that we will hear from them in today’s debate. Our care for child refugees says something about us as a country. I hope that we take a lead from the example set in the debate in the other place and can hold our heads up high at the end of today.

I turn now to our amendments about vulnerable children already in our care, who should not be overlooked in this debate. New clause 3 requires local authorities to allow children in care reasonable contact with their siblings, and I welcome the Minister’s commitment to future dialogue on that. New clause 4 has arisen because, quite simply, we have been sending our most vulnerable looked after children to Scotland due to the lack of specialist provision closer to their homes, families, schools, and local services. New clause 4 gives Ministers two years to sort out secure accommodation in England and Wales, so that any future secure placements in Scotland are made through choice, not constraint.

Section 25 of the Children Act 1989 was changed in Committee so that children looked after by English or Welsh local authorities can be detained in secure accommodation in Scotland. As the Minister said, that was a recognition that it is already happening. Vulnerable children are being sent to a different country, with different legal and education systems, because we have failed to provide for them close to their homes and communities. Changes in Committee also removed the requirement to obtain the consent of the parents and the child. Is it right not to get a child’s consent before they are moved to Scotland? They will also lose their right to independent periodic review, and I have yet to hear a convincing argument from the Minister as to why. The High Court suggested a joint review by the Law Commission, which would surely be better than a fix behind closed doors, and I hope the Minister will consider it.

We offer our support to the hon. Members on both sides who tabled new clause 7, a version of which my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields tabled in Committee. I hope the Minister will indicate that he will take up the issue through statutory guidance if he cannot accept the new clause.

New clause 8 would establish a clear statutory duty on local authorities to secure sufficient, suitable accommodation for all care leavers up to age 21. I am sure that I do not need to tell the Minister why that is important, but Government figures show that too many care leavers are in unsuitable or unknown accommodation. All of us who are parents of young adults are aware of the modern challenges they face and of the fact that they need support beyond their teenage years. In Committee, the Minister referred to the care leavers accommodation and support framework developed by Barnardo’s and St Basil’s, but funding for that ends next month. He referred to care leavers as a priority group for social housing, but that is not the same as a legal duty and does not mean that it happens in practice. If he cannot accept new clause 8, perhaps he will agree to meet to discuss how we can achieve its basic aim.

New clause 10 seeks to reduce to four weeks the maximum level of sanctioning for care leavers on universal credit. The Minister will be aware of the shockingly high rate of sanctioning experienced by care leavers and will know that care leavers are three times more likely to receive a sanction than a member of the general population. They are also less likely to challenge sanctions, but they are more likely to have them overturned. When a care leaver sits down with a work coach for the first time, will the Minster tell us what steps he is taking to ensure that their status is known and that they are treated accordingly? The Children’s Society told me that they worked with a care leaver who was sanctioned over Christmas and had to choose between feeding himself or his pregnant girlfriend. That is not the behaviour of a good corporate parent, and I hope we can hear more about what the Minister will do about that.

In line with other elements of the Bill, new clause 11 seeks to promote the financial stability of care leavers up to the age of 25. It would support care leavers into work and apprenticeships and would protect their finances when living in private rented accommodation. Young people under the age of 25 receive a lower rate of universal credit, but care leavers tend to take on more responsibility earlier. New clause 11 would extend the higher rate to care leavers under the age of 25. At about £780 a year, the difference for a low income individual would be significant. Care leavers will receive a £2,000 bursary when entering higher education, but they are not entitled to an equivalent when engaging in apprenticeships. Given the Government’s emphasis on skills, I hope they will consider such a measure.

Care leavers in private rented accommodation also experience a cut of some £50 a week to their housing benefit when they turn 22. The Minister has asked the Children’s Society for case studies, which it has provided to the Department. Perhaps the Minister could respond.

We estimate the cost of the new clause to be some £32.9 million, which is not a significant sum of money when we consider the ultimate cost to the state of failing properly to support care leavers. The Bill provides an opportunity for the Government to take responsibility for some of the financial difficulties experienced by care leavers, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

New clause 20 calls for an annual review of care leavers’ access to education and for the Government to produce a report of the impact of that access. If my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) presses her amendments to a vote, we will support her.

The Department’s own statistics show that only 6% of care leavers go to university, compared with 38% of all young people. Almost a third of children in care leave school with no GCSEs or GNVQs. That is not their failure but ours. I urge everyone in the Chamber today to reflect on that. We are failing these children and young adults, and it is our duty to turn those numbers around.

Finally, one issue on which we can congratulate all concerned is the progress we have made on sex and relationships education. A great deal of work has gone into getting to this stage, for which I thank my Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow, for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), in whose names new clause 1 stands.

I also acknowledge the work of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). I will support the amendment that they and the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) have tabled to new clause 15. I hope the Minister will be able to address the point without division, in either sense of the word.

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, on the question of the right contained in new clause 15 for parents to withdraw their children from sex education lessons, we need to ask challenging questions on whether it can ever be right to deny a child their entitlement to vital education through good, age-appropriate information, not least because we know how important that is to keeping them safe?

[Angela Rayner]

I take on board the hon. Lady’s point. There has to be balance, and there has been considerable movement in that direction. I pay tribute to the Government for moving on that issue. Hopefully we can tease that out as we go through the finer details.

However, I seek clarification from the Minister on certain points of new clause 15. First, the coalition Government withdrew funding for the personal, social and health and economic education continuing professional development programme. That policy made it much more difficult for teachers to access the necessary training, thus lowering quality. Will the Government commit to any new resources for teacher training and continuing professional development, to ensure that relationships and sex education provision is of high quality?

I reiterate the earlier contributions to this debate that, at first glance, there is no explicit mention of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in new clause 15. We have evidence from Stonewall and others that excluding LGBT children and the issues they encounter daily from existing relationships and sex education has a damaging impact on their health, wellbeing and attainment at school. Do the Government commit to ensuring that the new statutory guidance is inclusive of LGBT issues in an age-appropriate way? Will the Government consult expert organisations in doing so?

We know that the nature of relationships and sex education will change, which means changes to statutory guidance.

Sex and Relationship Education

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend, who has a great deal of expertise in this area, is absolutely right. It is important that we give children the right information at the right time—that is what I am calling for.

Many of the reputable operators in the internet and mobile communications world understand the real downsides of their products, especially for children, and they are increasingly trying to fit parental controls to sort this out. However, at the moment those controls are only as good as we parents are, and about 40% of parents use them. Parents are conscious of the problems, but children use the internet for an average of more than 20 hours a week. Parents cannot look over their children’s shoulders at every moment and many simply feel out of their depth.

There are reasons for optimism. In a recent debate on the Children and Social Work Bill, Ministers clearly indicated that thinking was under way. The Government have already acted to show that they can work with the online industry. We should all applaud the work that David Cameron did to outlaw child abuse images online. He showed that the internet industry can act when it wants to. We can also welcome the work that the Government are doing to put in place effective age restrictions for online pornography websites.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing this debate and the excellent work that her Committee has done in this area. Does she agree that it is significant that there is now such strong cross-party support for moving in this direction? Five Select Committee Chairs have now said that this is an important issue. Does she also agree that the statutory nature of her proposals is essential, because that will mean that children will get good sex and relationship education and personal, social and health education? We need the teacher training to be done well so that we can get good teaching.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady makes an incredibly important point. We need consistency but, as I pointed out earlier, we do not have that at the moment. Placing provisions on a statutory footing would provide such consistency.

The internet has changed everyone’s lives. For some, it has normalised sexualised behaviours, which children can find it difficult to respond to. I see the Barnardo’s research as a cry for help. Parents have to take overall responsibility, but schools have a pivotal role to play in helping more children to understand what a good relationship is and to make better decisions.

Sixth-form Education: International Comparisons

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the fact that certain elements of the curriculum are under threat when there is such pressure on funding. Enrichment activities, including those that address mental health issues, are one of the many activities that have been under threat over the past six years. The dramatic collapse in funding does have an inevitable impact on the education that 16 to 18-year-olds receive. As someone who has managed resources in a sixth-form college, I know that there are only a small number of variables to play with when facing significant funding cuts, as the sector has since 2010. Alongside the usual good management things relating to the back office, procurement, charges, efficiencies and so on, there are a limited number of options: shrink the curriculum offer; increase the teaching staff contact time; reduce student contact time; and increase class sizes. In reality, all those things have to be done to make things hang together.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly powerful case. On the issue of underfunding, does he agree that sixth-form colleges are uniquely cruelly treated, because unlike schools and academies they cannot cross-subsidise from the more generous funding available for younger students in schools and they do not receive a VAT reimbursement? So not only are they the most efficient, with the best track record on delivery, but they are the most underfunded section of the higher education area.

[Nic Dakin]

The hon. Lady is right to point out the performance of sixth-form colleges and the pressure on their funding. Of course the funding situation for 16 to 18 education is not just affecting sixth-form colleges—it is affecting school sixth forms and academy sixth forms, too. It is affecting all 16 to 18 experience.

Since 2010, the programmes of study followed by students have altered in those typical ways I outlined. Back then, most level 3 students followed a curriculum of four advanced courses in year 1, plus general studies, enrichment and tutorial. They progressed on to three or four courses in year 2, plus enrichment and tutorial. In most cases, as the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) pointed out, the enrichment has gone, the tutorial has shrunk significantly, general studies has largely disappeared and the number of advanced level courses taken is now normally three in both years. That leads to significantly lower student contact time. I know from experience that there is a direct correlation between contact time and achievement, particularly for students who have struggled to achieve at 16.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)]

May I start by adding to House’s adulation of the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and congratulate him on securing the debate? Ensuring high-quality post-16 education is a priority for the Government and for the country. We recognise the contribution of the dedicated staff working in all types of post-16 education and the hard work of students. In fact, a record proportion of young people are now participating in education, training or apprenticeships. I can give my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) the assurance that the Government support sixth-form colleges, including the sixth-form college mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) and Franklin College in Grimsby.

Education and training in England is widely respected around the world, but we are determined to make further improvements to ensure that 16 to 19-year-olds are ready for the demands of the workplace by moving directly into skilled employment or by continuing to higher education. We are therefore reforming academic and technical education for over-16s and we are learning from the best international systems.

All countries that we look to learn from have a stage of education that no longer exclusively takes place in school. At this stage, there are options for students to gain relevant experience to prepare them for work either through apprenticeships or technical education, as we heard in the previous debate, or to prepare for further academic study at university. The way that works and the age at which it starts varies considerably around the world. For example, in countries such as Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, there is a high level of investment by employers in vocational training in the secondary phase and an early emphasis on workplace training. That leads to lower rates of young people who are not in education, employment or training than in England, but the difference in academic standards between pupils from different socioeconomic backgrounds in those countries is larger than in England.

By contrast, only about one fifth of 15 to 19-year-olds in countries such as Japan and Korea are enrolled in vocational upper-secondary programmes. The remaining 80% of those cohorts continue a rigorous academic programme. It is useful to benchmark ourselves—if “to benchmark” is a new verb—against such countries to understand the strengths and weaknesses of our education system and to raise our expectations of what students here can achieve. That is why I am determined that we should improve our maths teaching by learning from the high-performing Asian systems such as those in Shanghai, Singapore and Japan by adopting maths mastery through the maths hubs programme, but it is not simply a case of choosing one country to learn from. Our priority should be making our whole system world class.

There is much to be proud of in comparing our education system to other countries. For example, England’s 15-year-olds continue to perform significantly above the OECD average in science and, in 2015, England’s 15-year-olds performed above average in reading for the first time. However, our performance in maths remains at the OECD average and a survey of adult skills identified our 16 to 18-year-olds as having the weakest literacy and numeracy skills out of 18 countries in 2012. We need to take action to deal with areas of poor performance. In the case of literacy and numeracy, we have now made the continued study of English and maths in post-16 education and training compulsory for students who did not achieve a good GCSE pass at age 16. More broadly, we are reforming both academic and technical education.

International examples of programme hours are widely used, but those comparisons need to be carefully interpreted. It is important that we understand what the estimates include, how programmes of longer duration or higher intensity are funded and how they sit beside other routes for young people to take from school to work. It is not always clear in the various studies where work experience is included in the figures. Certainly in the planned hours used to benchmark our own programmes for funding, we do not include self-directed study or homework, which is a key part of this phase of education. It is important that we develop a system that serves our pupils and our economy.

In England, we have an established academic route for sixth-form students through well-respected A-level qualifications. It is true that our system requires pupils to make choices and therefore, to a certain extent, to specialise in a smaller number of subjects for the sixth-form stage, but some degree of specialisation is a feature of systems in other countries as well. Through the A-level route, our academic system at post-16 is effective in preparing pupils for successful futures through in-depth study of the subjects they choose. We have some of the best universities in the world, and the proportion of English students studying in higher education is now larger than it has ever been. That includes the highest ever entry rate for the most disadvantaged 18-year-olds.

Of course, we are not standing still, and we are strengthening the design of A-levels to make sure that pupils continue to be fully equipped for the future. We have given higher education providers a leading role in redesigning a number of key A-levels, to ensure that pupils who take these qualifications are prepared for undergraduate-level study. We have also redesigned the assessment model, increasing the time available for high-quality teaching rather than taking exams.

Where we have not matched our neighbours is in technical education, where we have a major programme of reform under way. The landmark review of vocational education for 14 to 19-year-olds conducted by Professor Alison Wolf in 2011 found that at least 350,000 16 to 19-year-olds were working towards vocational qualifications that offered no clear progression routes. The review led to the introduction of new study programmes and of per-student funding instead of per-qualification funding to ensure fair funding for FE colleges in line with other 16-to-19 institutions. As a direct result of the recommendations in the Wolf report, we now include only approved qualifications in performance tables. This means that young people can have confidence that their qualifications will enable them to progress to further study or into employment.

However, we recognise that the system is still not doing enough to support students who wish to pursue technical education. We recognise that we are still not matching the most effective systems of technical education in other European economies. That is why, following publication of the Sainsbury review, we are embarking on a radical reform of England’s post-16 technical education system. Learning from the best technical education systems overseas, we are working to introduce new technical routes that will enable young people to gain the knowledge and skills required for work, according to standards designed in partnership with employers. Bringing training for young people and adults in line with the needs of business and industry will support increases in productivity, which has lagged behind, even as economic growth and employment levels have improved. It will also help to ensure that young people and adults can move into sustained and skilled careers that lead to prosperity and security.

Alongside that, we are continuing the reform of apprenticeships, as we have heard. We are increasing the quality of apprenticeships through more rigorous assessment and grading at the end of the apprenticeship. We are also giving employers control of the funding so they become more demanding customers. We are committed to reaching 3 million apprenticeship starts in England by 2020.

[Caroline Lucas]

I genuinely very much welcome the Minister’s support for the sixth-form sector and sixth-form colleges, but he has been speaking for nearly 10 minutes and has said nothing about the arbitrary funding that has been the focus of so much of the concern expressed on both sides of the House. Will he commit to look at this funding issue? Will the Government look at how much funding is required for the rounded curriculum that sixth-form colleges want to deliver? Colleges in my constituency, such as Varndean College and Brighton, Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College, are desperate to deliver it but are being undermined by the lack of funding, which the Minister still has not really addressed.

[Mr Gibb]

If only the hon. Lady had waited just two more seconds, we would have come to that pivotal part of my response to the debate.

Clearly, the right level of funding needs to be in place to match our ambitious academic and technical reforms. In 2013, investment in education in the UK as a whole—combining public and private sources—was above the OECD average across all phases, including post-16. We have made the system more coherent so that school sixth forms and colleges are all funded and have their performance reported in the same way. Funding is on a per-student basis, giving schools and colleges the freedom to design the best programmes for their students, rather than rewarding institutions for providing large numbers of small qualifications that have little value.

Trade Union Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

That is wishful thinking by the new Leader of the Opposition.

Since the industrial revolution, Britain’s trade unions have done much to help to deliver that fairer society that I was describing. They have helped to secure higher wages, safer workplaces and stronger employee rights. They have fought for social justice and campaigned for freedom and democracy, and they have supplied the House with some of its most eloquent and influential Members, including Leaders of the Opposition.

Unions helped my father when he first worked in the cotton mills. They helped him again when a whites-only policy threatened to block him from becoming a bus driver. Just as the workplace has evolved and improved since that time, so the trade unions and the laws that govern them have developed too. I hope that, in 2015, no one would argue for the return of the closed shop, the show-of-hands votes in dimly lit car parks or the wildcat walk-outs enforced by a handful of heavies. That is why the Labour Government repealed not a single piece of union legislation during their 13 years in power. Now it is time for Britain’s unions to take the next step, and the Bill will help to achieve just that.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Secretary of State is pretending that the Bill is about democracy rather than being a vindictive attack on working people. If it is really about democracy and opening things up, why is he not lifting the ban on unions balloting online and in the workplace, which would be precisely the way to make a modern democracy work?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady will see that democracy and accountability are at the heart of the Bill—[Interruption.] She will see that a lot more clearly as I make progress with my opening remarks.

Despite what people may have read in some reports, this Bill is not a declaration of war on the trade union movement. It is not an attempt to ban industrial action. It is not an attack on the rights of working people. It will not force strikers to seek police approval for their slogans or their tweets. It is not a reprise of Prime Minister Clement Attlee sending in troops to break up perfectly legal stoppages. It is simply the latest stage in the long journey of modernisation and reform. It will put power in the hands of the mass membership; bring much-needed sunlight to dark corners of the movement; and protect the rights of everyone in this country—those who are union members and those who are not, and those hard-working men and women who are hit hardest by industrial action.

Education and Adoption Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate, not least because it is the first one on education since I was elected as Chair of the Education Committee. My first task is to thank all those who voted for me, to whom I am immensely grateful. As we go along, either they will regret it or that number will swell.

It is a great honour to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), the education spokesman for her party. I have already talked to her about a range of issues. Her speech was very moving and very impressive, not least her reference to the first First Minister.

Coasting schools are not a new issue. We have known about coasting schools for quite a long time. Ofsted produced a report during the previous Parliament about the “long tail of underachievement”, which was in effect a reference to coasting schools. It focused on schools in rural and coastal areas, predominantly primary schools, but that was not its only concern. We need to get it on the record right now that we have always known about coasting schools. They have been a big problem for two reasons. The first is that they have affected our capacity as a nation to be productive. One of the key reports I intend to undertake through the Education Committee is on productivity so that we can tease out the ways in which we can improve our productivity. The second reason is social mobility, which is a key objective of any good Government. It is certainly an objective of the present Government.

A central issue is the definition of a coasting school. It revolves around the word “progression.” Are children progressing? How do we identify whether they are or not? Are they doing so at the right speed? When we discuss the detail of the definition, I hope there will be an emphasis on mechanisms to establish whether children are progressing in school. I believe it is necessary to examine, over a period of time, how children are operating within the teaching and learning framework in their school. “Progression” is a key word to keep in mind.

Failing schools are fairly obvious because they are judged to be inadequate. A red light goes on and that school has to be dealt with. My concern about saying that once a school becomes inadequate it is therefore failing is that there might be some pattern that we need to know more about. It would be as well to look at the definition of a coasting school to see how the school became inadequate. That should inform the debate.

I have spoken quite a lot about governance and governors. In the previous Parliament, I set up the all-party group on school governance because governance is one of the key elements in whether a school is going to fail and how it deals with the road towards becoming a failing school or, more importantly, becoming a better school. I welcome the clauses that look into intervention and deal with what an interim executive board looks like, how governing bodies are going to be treated, whether they will stay in place and how they will look during the process of improvement. We need more detail not just about how that will operate, but about the make-up of a school governing body and what it will look like in future. I give notice that I will re-present my original governance Bill, which I have talked about previously.

The other aspect on which we do not have enough detail is the role and capacity of our regional commissioners. We need to know more about how they will operate and what tools they will have to do the tasks that are so necessary to tackle schools that have been identified as coasting and therefore require intervention. One task that the Education Committee will want to do is examine the role and capacity of regional commissioners. It would be of great benefit to our understanding of the process if we knew exactly what regional commissioners would look like in two or three years’ time. We need to start plotting that journey now.

On the leadership of schools, the question is always what we do with the head and senior members of staff in a failing school. Again, that should be thought about carefully during the Committee stage of the Bill. I urge all members of the Committee to focus on that.

Last but not least, on adoption, the central point must surely be—

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way before he gets to the adoption section of his speech, and I congratulate him on becoming the Chair of the Education Committee. What does he think about the conclusion of the Committee’s report published earlier this year, which stated that it was still too early to say how much the academies programme had helped to raise standards? Ofsted has said the same thing: there is no evidence that the academies model is the best way of improving standards. So why are he and his party so adamant that that is the way forward, and why are they closing down parental consultation at the same time?

[Neil Carmichael]

This is actually about whether we should intervene in coasting schools. The hon. Lady is rightly talking about what happens next. We have already heard from those on the Labour Benches that they are quite proud of the academies programme, which they started, but what we have to do is perfect it. That is one of the tasks that underlies this legislation. The Education Committee also looked at whether academy chains should be examined, and we concluded that they should be. We will revisit that matter to ensure that it has been properly tested and discussed.

On adoption, I do not want the Bill to result in people ending up becoming candidates for adoption because that is the easiest route to take. We need to ensure that the adoption process after the decision that a child is to be adopted is made better. That is in line with the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth). He talked about the risks involved in going down the adoption route when the existing parents were unhappy with the process.

Given those considerations, I welcome the Bill.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

That was very kind of my hon. Friend, and I am grateful to him. I will continue to campaign, because, as I have said, I do not think that the Government’s measures are strong enough. They have been dragged here kicking and screaming; I hope that they will now listen, and will address what are still weaknesses in the Bill.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I hope I am right in thinking that I can speak about any of the amendments in the new clause 1 basket. That seems to be the case, and I am delighted, because it means that I can speak about my amendments 91 and 92.

The Bill contains important provisions to help United Kingdom firms to export, which is, of course, welcome news for many of them. However, UK export finance is, in the Government’s own words,

“not presently legally able to discriminate between classes or types of exports”.

Amendment 91 would alter the Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991 to give the Secretary of State power to create a prohibitions list, thereby allowing the Government to ensure that UK export finance was not available to projects overseas that undermined other Government policies—specifically, policies on human rights and arms exports, and the 2010 coalition pledge to

“ensure that UK Trade and Investment and ECGD become champions for British companies that develop and export innovative green technologies around the world, instead of supporting investment in dirty fossil-fuel energy production.”

The amendment would not bind a Secretary of State, now or in the future, to introduce such a prohibitions list, nor would it prescribe what should be included in the list. It would merely allow the Secretary of State to create such a list if he or she chose.

Given that the amendment is so moderate, I find the Government’s arguments against a prohibitions list very unconvincing. First, they argue that it is better to consider projects on a case-by-case basis, but the case-by-case approach is not working, even when measured against the coalition’s own pledge to support “innovative green technologies”. In 2012-13, UK Export Finance gave a £147 million guarantee to support oil and gas exploration by Petrobras in Brazil, and £15 million in guarantees for a loan for a gas power project in the Philippines. In March 2014, support worth US$215 million was announced for a major petrochemical project in Vietnam. Nor is the current approach working when it comes to military exports to repressive regimes. Many of the deals that have been underwritten by UK export credit support are controversial, including sales of military aircraft to Saudi Arabia and Oman, armoured vehicles to Turkey, and intelligence equipment to Indonesia.

Secondly, the Government argue that the UK would be less likely to be effective in achieving change through multilateral routes if we acted unilaterally in this way. If that is the case, why do other countries have prohibitions lists? The Export-Import Bank of the United States, for instance, prohibits

“loans, guarantees, and insurance as to sales of defense articles or services”.

In June 2014, the German Finance Ministry announced that Germany’s official export credit agency would be prohibited from supporting nuclear contracts.

I simply do not think it credible to argue that if the UK showed some leadership and led by example, that would somehow hinder multilateral action to the same end. Indeed, the reverse is the case, as John Ashton, the UK’s top climate diplomat in former years, has pointed out. In his view,

“our influence has always depended on the credibility of our domestic policies. How can we expect to persuade others if we are not doing ourselves what we ask of them?”

Thirdly, the Government say that there is not a problem with coal, because UKEF has not funded a coal-fired power station overseas since 2002. However, there is clearly a loophole in the UK’s policy on export finance for coal projects abroad. The hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) highlighted that loophole in a speech in April this year. He said that he would take action to close the loophole; I hope that he will follow through, and vote for my amendment today.

A change in export credits could also offer a boost to UK low-carbon industries seeking to expand overseas, as the chief executive of a British solar company operating in a number of African countries has explained. It is not just about stopping export finance in one area; it is about expanding it in others, so this is a pro-business proposition. Finally, I reiterate that this amendment does not specify what goes on the prohibitions list; it simply gives the Secretary of State the power to create one, in recognition of the fact that the current approach is failing on both human rights and environmental grounds, even measured on the Government’s own terms.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Hancock]

That is terrific. After our voting performance today, I am delighted to hear that.

Amendment 6 proposes that companies disclose details of the circumstances in which, and processes by which, payment terms are amended. I have already said that the Government believe that it is poor practice to subject suppliers to unilateral and ad hoc changes to payment terms. We talked about that in Committee. I agree that greater transparency could increase accountability for this practice, and we are launching a consultation on how that transparency could be achieved. I hope that that deals with the substance of amendment 6.

Amendment 7 seeks to ensure that contracting authorities know about the historical payment performance of potential suppliers before they enter into public contracts with them. It also seeks to ensure that the companies entering into those contracts pay their own suppliers promptly. The new procurement regulations that will be made early next year will place a duty on contracting authorities to pass 30-day payment terms all the way down the public sector supply chain, from the contracting authority to the tier 1 supplier. This has been discussed here today and in Committee. I hope that Members will therefore agree that this amendment is not required in addition to the regulations.

On amendment 1, having prompt payment in procurement is dealt with in the new procurement regulations. The requirement for training in procurement is something I agree with where it is cost-effective. We have delivered that in Crossrail and I very much hope that HS2, which has been mentioned, will also deliver it. That is exactly the sort of training, alongside contracting, that is common in the private sector, but of course we have to drive value for money in the public sector, too. The Government agree that transparency and reporting in public sector procurement is vital, and Departments are already required to report on procurement expenditure with smaller businesses. As hon. Members know, that expenditure has been rising rapidly as a proportion and we are on target to hit the goals we set.

Amendment 2, also on procurement, is designed to ensure that the Minister making regulations under clause 37 is able to specify the reasons why firms may be excluded from entering into contracts. Under the existing procurement regulations a contracting authority can already take account of certain types of past behaviour by an economic operator, such as grave professional misconduct, when deciding whether it is eligible to take part in a procurement process. So that is already allowed for.

Amendment 3 states that any regulations made under clause 37 are subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, and I reassure hon. Members that contracting authorities, as public authorities, are already required to respond to FOI requests. Amendment 4 is designed to increase the level of parliamentary scrutiny by removing the reference to the negative resolution procedure. I agreed to consider, following the debate in Committee, whether it would be appropriate to change the level of parliamentary scrutiny for these regulations. The Government think that the negative resolution procedure provides the right level, but I did go away and consider the matter. We think that an affirmative process would slow down potential changes when the Government want to remain nimble in responding to the needs of small businesses.

I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for tabling amendment 91 on UK Export Finance. In our response to the consultation on these issues, the Government rejected such a proposal and set out the rationale: a prohibited list, by its very nature, would not allow the Secretary of State to take an open-minded approach in coming to a decision on whether to support an export falling within an included class. The measures already enhance the support that UK Export Finance can offer, and creating an ability to prohibit support for certain exports which are otherwise perfectly legal goes directly against that goal.

Amendment 92, again tabled by the hon. Lady, relates to the business impact target. I am delighted to debate that with her, because I believe the need for the target proposals set out in the Bill is clear. Too many businesses, particularly smaller ones, find that complying with Government regulation is the single biggest challenge to running their business. We had strong support in Committee for the target. It is only by having a competitive business environment that we can have prosperity, growth and indeed the environmental protections that she is so passionate about. I strongly support, and urge her to support, the deregulation target.

[Caroline Lucas]

Why does the Minister present regulation as always being anti-business, given that so many businesses are saying that smart regulation is good for a competitive environment?

[Matthew Hancock]

Of course, if we can achieve the regulatory objectives with a lower burden on business, we can get the best of both worlds. Almost all the examples the hon. Lady gave were about the crash and the banks, but systemically important financial institutions are excluded from the one-in, two-out approach, precisely because we need to ensure that we have regulations so that we do not repeat the messes of the previous Administration.

Very briefly, let me speak to Government new clause 5, on the independent complaints commissioner duty, which I commend to the House, and Government amendments 27 and 28, on the business impact target. I made a commitment to look at what more parliamentary scrutiny of that target there should be. We are proposing that the report should be to the House. I look forward to building on the cross-party support for these measures and to explore whether a Select Committee can take a formal role in scrutinising the target. I therefore support those provisions.

Schools (Brighton and Hove)

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

This evening I want to pay tribute to the incredible work being done in schools in Brighton and Hove. Last year the city’s young people got their best ever GCSE results. This year the key stage 2 results were in the top quarter in the country and 54% of A-level students got A* to B grades, an improvement in results for the third year running. Brighton and Hove was also named top local authority in the country for tackling homophobia in schools. That really is a track record to be proud of, so I want to applaud the many teachers and other staff who make such achievements possible.

However, those achievements have been reached in spite of Government policy, not because of it. Research from the National Union of Teachers reveals the extent to which Ministers have been taking teachers for granted. The NUT found that 87% of teachers said that they know one or more teachers who have left the profession because of work load; that 90% of teachers have themselves considered leaving the profession because of work load; and that 96% said their work load has had negative consequences for their family or personal life.

Tonight I want to do two things: first, to share some of what I have been told by local teachers about the daily reality behind those statistics, and to ask the Department of Education and the Secretary of State to start listening to teachers and to review their current policies; and secondly, to make the case for statutory PSHE—personal, social, health and economic education—teaching in all state-funded schools. I have a private Member’s Bill before the House designed to achieve exactly that. I very much welcome the Minister’s views on that proposal.

On the experience of local teachers, I would like to quote extensively from what they have told me, because it is important that the Minister hears their words directly and that those words are put on the parliamentary record. One teacher told me:

“I am a 29 year old teacher who has taught for three years.  I have a first class degree in English and enjoy being in the classroom.  However, I am likely going to leave the profession at the end of this year as I find the workload overwhelming.”

One retired teacher said this:

“Right up to my last day I was in school at 7.00-7.15 am and did not leave till I was thrown out by the caretaker at 6.00 pm—dragging bags of planning or marking etc with me to complete at home. When I worked full time I also worked every Sunday afternoon and evening. Some of this was on tasks I felt were important for my teaching but latterly most of the work was on required tasks that I just could not fit into my 5 X 10-11 hour days!!!”

She goes on to say that one of the many downsides is that valuable clubs and after-school activities are at risk of being abandoned because teachers simply cannot fit them in, as much as they would like to.

Teaching is hard work. As one teacher put it to me:

“If we get education wrong, it impacts on all other areas of society and we cannot allow this to happen for the sake of our children and country’s future.”

The teachers I meet are not afraid of this hard work—indeed, they relish it—but they are frustrated by what they see as the unnecessary burdens imposed on them which conspire to make a tough job far tougher. A particular bugbear, which is at the heart of the issues about work load, is that, in their view, there is far too much testing and far too many targets. Here is what one teacher has to say:

“We are in real danger of turning schools into exam factories. In my five years of teaching, I have noted a marked increase in the amount of assessment required in the class to the detriment of lesson content, practicals and innovative lessons. A number of times already this academic year, I have had to cancel planned lessons in order to generate meaningless data to populate spreadsheets for senior members of staff. While assessment and feedback are a mandatory element of learning, I believe that the learning experience should be inspirational and innovative while promoting creativity and yet constant streams of testing go against this.”

The issue of constant changes and the lack of an evidence-based approach is another recurring theme. One teacher who has been in the profession for five years told me:

“My problem is that it feels like constant meddling with a system that has not had chance to properly test an idea.  It feels like being a football manager who has to get yearly results each lesson otherwise he will be sacked.”

There is also deep concern about what lies behind the constant new policy initiatives, with many teachers arguing that the Department for Education has lost sight of its primary purpose. One told me:

“Despite being an ‘outstanding’ advanced skills maths teacher incredibly passionate about making learning maths engaging and relevant I have left the classroom, which saddens me daily. I love teaching and hope to one day return to the system when learning and children, rather than profit-making and Government agenda, is at the heart of our education system.”

The spectre of competition is always there, and performance-related pay, in particular, is adding insult to injury. One teacher writes:

“Most of us don’t want payment for results. We want a fair pay for a good job and poor teachers should be managed to get better or leave. Some teachers who are benefitting from performance related pay may see things differently, my niece in her second year of teaching was given a 25% rise or £5000 to keep her but even she says she cannot keep up the pace of work/amount of hours put in for long.”

Another local teacher says:

“What makes for the best outcomes with the children is teamwork—teachers working together for the good of the children. It is certainly not achieved through teachers being locked away in their classrooms desperately trying to push children up through the levels to ensure the security of their own future.”

An OECD report from May 2012 called “Does performance-based pay improve teaching?” concluded:

“A look at the overall picture”—

of OECD nations—

“reveals no relationship between average student performance in a country and the use of performance-based pay schemes.”

That underscores what teachers are telling me, based on their experience of being in classrooms and of how best to help students fulfil their potential.

What strikes me most about the messages from teachers is that, despite all the difficulties they face, the vast majority remain convinced of the power of education to transform every young life. Indeed, it is the opportunity to help children and young people to engage, question and discover that keeps them going. Above all, the teachers I meet recognise that teaching should be about giving children a chance to succeed. As one teacher put it:

“We need to see an end to this misguided notion that children are all the same and will progress in exactly the same way. Teaching them this early on in life that they are failures because they have not made what the government deems satisfactory progress is criminal and fosters feelings of inadequacy. We already know that how children feel about learning has a huge bearing on how much progress they make in the future.”

He concluded:

“I’m not suggesting we don’t push and support children to be all that they can be, but the current system does not promote positive self esteem and positive attitudes to learning and it’s getting worse. I want to sow the seeds for lifelong learning in my classroom and not turn people off it because, as kids put it, they’re ‘no good’. Learners are not closed systems, but individuals affected by a wide range of factors; social, emotional and developmental.”

That teacher’s last point brings me on to the second issue I want to raise. PSHE may sound like a dry acronym, but behind the title lies a subject that is vital for all children. PSHE encompasses many issues—everything from teaching life-saving CPR, tackling homophobic language in schools, understanding how to be responsible with money, tackling a controversial news story that is trending on social media and sweeping around the playground, to discussing the difference between an abusive and a respectful relationship.

PSHE involves learning about relationships, respect and responsibilities. It has always been important, but children today are bombarded with information in ever evolving ways and what happens in the classroom simply is not keeping up. For example, the latest guidance on sex and relationships education—just one aspect of PSHE—was produced 14 years ago by the Department for Education, before the mass use of mobile phones, the internet and the rise of social media.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has shown that girls and boys are gleaning distorted and inaccurate information about sex and relationships via online porn. Children face issues such as sexting and the pressure to document their lives and relationships online and in chatrooms. Childline has found that 60% of 13 to 18-year-olds had been asked to share a sexual image or video of themselves. One in three girls say they experience groping or unwanted touching at school. Yet not all our children are getting a chance to learn how to negotiate this complex landscape of communication and information.

The horrors of children being raped and abused in Rotherham and elsewhere, yet ignored by those with the power to help them, have sickened all of us, as have the revelations about historical child abuse—an issue I have worked on with colleagues across the House, lobbying the Home Secretary for a robust inquiry into the cases. Good PSHE has a role to play in helping children learn how to stay safe, and that is why it has been flagged up by a number of studies on how to protect children.

Schools in Brighton and Hove, strongly backed by Brighton and Hove city council, have been working to deliver outstanding PSHE, and their work is truly inspiring. For example, Patcham high school in my constituency has adopted a whole-school approach to PSHE, backed by the full commitment of the head and staff. It is a core part of the school’s ethos. The young people at Patcham learn to debate and discuss sensitive and difficult subjects, with each other and their teachers, in an extremely thoughtful and intelligent way. Difficult issues such as mental ill-health, emotional bullying and relationship abuse are discussed, using creative and engaging teaching tools. The school facilitates pupils’ consideration of complicated issues and, crucially, helps them to think for themselves. There is no brushing of important and controversial matters under the carpet and hoping for the best. The positive impact of this approach on the students shines through.

Yet this quality of PSHE is not available to all children. Ofsted’s most recent PSHE report, “Not yet good enough”, found that PSHE teaching required improvement in no fewer than 40% of schools. A PSHE Association survey of 40 local authority leads suggests that 52% of teachers—more than half of them—are not adequately trained in PSHE, and that they are not getting the help they need to make improvements. Statutory status is therefore key. As long as PSHE remains a non-statutory and non-examined subject, with a low priority in the Ofsted framework, there will be virtually no coverage of PSHE in teacher training. In school, PSHE teachers are not given the curriculum time or training that they need.

Those are the reasons why I have presented a private Member’s Bill, which is before the House, to make teaching PSHE a statutory requirement in all state-funded schools. Since presenting the Bill, I have found widespread support for this principle. Teachers want PSHE. There is strong backing from the teaching unions, including the NAHT, which represents head teachers. Statutory PSHE is not seen as a burden, but as something that helps. Teachers need and want access to good training and support to deliver quality PSHE across a range of topics, and statutory PSHE would provide that.

Parents, too, want PSHE. To take the example of sex and relationship education again, 88% of the parents of school-aged pupils want age-appropriate SRE to be taught in schools. YouGov and the PSHE Association have found that 90% of parents believe schools should teach children about mental health and emotional well-being. Young people want PSHE. Members of the UK Youth Parliament are among those who have repeatedly made that clear.

This subject is not as controversial as it perhaps once was. The tide is changing. Members may remember that The Telegraph has run the excellent Wonder Women campaign for better sex education. One of the reasons that there is such strong backing for statutory PSHE from both heads and teachers is that it has the potential to aid academic success and employability. All children deserve a curriculum that promotes resilience, physical and mental health and life skills, and one that teaches about equality. My Bill is about an entitlement for all children and about ensuring that teachers have access to the training, resources and support they need to teach this vital subject according to their students’ particular needs. It is about listening to teachers and benefiting from their insight into what works in our schools.

I very much appreciate the fact that the Minister has listened to me, and I look forward to his response on everything I have said about how teachers are now under such enormous pressures in our schools and on whether he can indicate any support for my Bill.

Before I finish, I want to do one last and perhaps rather unorthodox thing, Mr Speaker, which is to share a few verses from a poem by a local poet, Ros Barber, who is also very involved with the teaching profession. What she writes in the three stanzas I will read sums up what is at stake in education today. Teachers up and down the country, and certainly in my constituency in Brighton and Hove, have a real concern, which I hope I have conveyed, that creativity is being squeezed out of our schools by endless testing and assessment. That is something that we need to review and act on. The poem says:

“I believe that a British state education is the best in the world.

How else can a love of reading be learned than by

never immersing a child in a whole book but rather chopping

powerful and moving stories into meaningless chunks

of text contained within the safe bounds of Literacy Hour.

I believe that a British state education is the best in the world.

That children should be taught to the test and only

what they need to make the school look good, for better

that a school is seen to perform well in the league tables

than that a child retain any natural curiosity or love of learning.

I believe that a British state education is the best in the world.

What better way to teach your citizens that life is a trial

than abandon creativity, load ten year olds with homework,

stretch the school day? Existence is too short to waste childhood

in climbing trees, in games, in unstructured play.”

I very much hope that that is not the future for our schools, but I very much fear that that will be a vision of schools in this country unless the Government change direction, start listening to teachers and, crucially, allow teachers to teach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful for the thoughtful response that the Minister is giving. Does he share my concern that performance-related pay can greatly undermine teamwork if teachers are judged simply on what they contribute individually? In fact, what someone contributes in English has a knock-on effect in many other subjects. The best teaching is therefore about teamwork.

[Mr Gibb]

Again, I agree with the hon. Lady. When judging a professional within a firm of accountants or lawyers, one looks not just at one or two metrics, but at the contribution that they make to the whole operation. A good performance-related pay system would look at the contribution that a member of staff makes to the school as a whole. That could include mentoring and training teachers, extra-curricular activities and so on. It would look at their whole contribution to the school and there would not be a simplistic direct link to test results. That is down to the professionalism of the head teacher. I am confident that we will have well-run performance-related pay systems, rather than the type of system that the hon. Lady fears.

We need to ensure that we raise academic standards in this country and close the attainment gap. That is why the introduction of phonics, which she hinted at a criticism of, was important. It has raised the standards of reading. In 2012, 58% of pupils achieved the expected standard in reading. That has risen to 74% this year. That amounts to 102,000 six-year-olds who are reading more effectively today than they would have done, had we not introduced that important part of our education plan to raise academic standards.

The hon. Lady is a tireless promoter of the importance of good PSHE. I listened carefully to the example of good PSHE teaching that she cited from a school in her constituency. I know that she will talk to the Secretary of State later this week about her Bill. We agree that PSHE is important. We believe that all schools should teach PSHE, drawing on good practice like the example that she cited. We outlined that expectation in the introduction to the framework to the new national curriculum.

The hon. Lady is correct that good-quality relationships education is an important part of preparing young people for life in modern Britain. That is why we are committed to working with schools and other experts to ensure that young people receive age-appropriate information that allows them to make informed choices and to stay safe. Preventing violence against women is a topic that schools may include in PSHE. Maintained secondary schools are legally required to teach sex and relationships education, and we also expect academies to do so. To help support teachers, we have set up a new expert subject group on PSHE, which comprises lead professionals in PSHE practice. It will clarify the key areas on which teachers most need further support and produce new resources where necessary.

The hon. Lady said that the guidance on sex and relationships education is becoming outdated. I welcome the supplementary advice for schools, “Sex and relationships education (SRE) for the 21st century”, which was published recently by the PSHE Association, the Sex Education Forum and Brook. The advice helpfully addresses the changes in technology and legislation since 2000, and equips teachers to help protect children and young people from inappropriate online content and online bullying, harassment and exploitation.

The hon. Lady also spoke about sexual content on the internet. As she will know, children’s online safety is paramount. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre has an important role. As a UK law enforcement body, it can apply the full range of policing powers in tackling the sexual abuse of children. CEOP has also developed a specific educational resource designed for use by teachers to tackle sexting.

[Caroline Lucas]

I have two very quick questions. First, I am grateful that the Minister recognises the problem of excessive work load in schools, but will he give concrete proposals on addressing it? Secondly, I am grateful that he has said that PSHE should be taught in all state schools but, if so, will the Government consider the opportunity to make it a statutory requirement?

[Mr Gibb]

We keep all curriculum issues and statutory requirements under review. On managing the work load, we are conducting deep-dive surveys into what affects teacher work load. We have asked the teacher and head teacher unions to help us to identify areas of teachers’ regular work load to see where we can make changes to ease it. We are determined to do so. The hon. Lady is right that we cannot have the teaching profession weighed down by unnecessary, bureaucratic work. By the way, we have swept away 21,000 pages of guidance and regulation that was imposed on teachers, but we need to do more to ensure that that release of bureaucratic burdens filters through to the chalk face, or the interactive white board face, of our schools.

On that note, if I have not answered any of the issues raised by the hon. Lady, I am sure we can correspond after the debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is right. The statistics bear him out. It is important, of course, to acknowledge that across the board our schools are improving—local authority schools, academies and free schools—but it is critically important to recognise at the same time that, particularly for disadvantaged children, academies are seeing fantastic results.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me and the many Brighton teachers who have been in touch with me that all sorts of things affect performance in our schools, including pupil-teacher ratios, selection and financial resources? Following his recent announcement that state schools should be more like private schools, if he will not or cannot even up the resources, will he at least summon up the academic rigour to compare like with like? There is plenty of evidence that state schools outperform private schools in many cases.

Education Funding for 18-year-olds

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the wider context of the cuts faced, both by the FE sector and by this particular age group.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. While we are focusing on the impacts on sixth-form colleges, does she agree that this is not a double but a triple whammy, because sixth-form colleges are facing the VAT problem, in that they have to pay VAT whereas other schools do not? In a sense, it is a really unlevel playing field. Colleges such as Brighton, Hove and Sussex sixth-form college and Varndean college in my constituency simply cannot understand why there are double standards, particularly when we add in the fact that academies are being set up and getting funded for sixth-form, and sixth-form colleges are not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I was going to say that next. I have debated this matter in the House, as have many other hon. Members. One big problem is that the general education sector does not have to pay VAT, but the sixth-form sector does. If equal money is given at the beginning but one sector has to pay VAT and the others do not, that is a huge problem. A sixth-form college’s VAT load is typically £300,000. If the Minister could fix the problem with the Treasury, that would be solved. Cambridge Regional college pays £1 million in VAT. That is a huge difference and there should be a much easier way to solve the problem.

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it adds insult to injury that because the Office for National Statistics classifies free schools and academies as public, they have a much more favourable VAT situation than sixth-form colleges, which have, because of an anomaly, been beset with this problem? That ought to be sorted out now.

[Dr Huppert]

I agree. It is perverse to say that a free school or academy is more public than a sixth-form college or a regional college; it simply does not make sense and must be changed.

Long Road sixth-form college has its own problems. It has one of the lowest levels of funding of any sixth-form college; it has £480 per pupil per year less than the average. If it got average funding it would have an extra £940,000 and there would not be such a problem. It does not get protection, because it was not one of the high-funded sixth-form colleges, and it gets hit by another £70,000 or so, and pupils will miss out as a result. It was also hit years ago, because the Learning and Skills Council told it to put together a bid for new buildings that it desperately needed, but the calculations were done wrong and there was no money available, and it is stuck with poor buildings. Yet despite that it is in the top 10% of value added in the entire sector.

All three institutions do well and they would be delighted if the Minister visited—it is not a long distance—to look at what they are doing and at the problems they face. They do a great job, but this is the straw that can break the camel’s back, because it is not something that they can do much about.

Long Road sixth-form college does not have a way of changing its curriculum offer to students who are already enrolled in level 2 courses at the moment; it will not have the opportunity to take on a new system. It would be completely wrong to say, at the end of somebody’s level 2 year, “Sorry, you can’t do the course you signed up for. You can only do a 12-unit applied qualification: two A-levels rather than three.” That simply cannot be done; that would not be reasonable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

There were just over 200 academies in May 2010—203, I believe—and there are now more than 3,000. As Ofsted reported in its most recent annual report, the biggest increase in the quality of good and outstanding lessons ever in the history of the inspectorate has occurred under this Government.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

2. How many applications his Department has received to establish free schools; and what proportion of such applications have been successful.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

The Government received 1,103 applications to establish free schools in the first four rounds of applications and 27% of those applications were approved.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his response. Why has his Department been using all its legal might to prevent the release of free school applications and decision letters, even after the Information Commissioner ruled that there was a strong public information argument in favour of releasing them? Surely if public money is being used, in the public interest there has to be an absolute right for that information to be put in the public domain.