Funding and Schools Reform

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, I have a consistent record of opposing Islamic extremism. One thing we have done is to set up a new due diligence unit within the Department in order to ensure that the threat of extremism—not just from anyone who might wish to promote a free school, but from anyone who wishes to infiltrate our state school system—is dealt with. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that in both Surrey and Birmingham there were genuine dangers due to extremist influence in state schools. I take the issue very seriously and I am delighted to work with others such as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) in helping to counter it.

That brings me to another key point on which I agree with Tony Blair—no slouch when it came to opposing Islamist extremism. If we automatically assume that any parent who believes it is right to set up new schools is an extremist, we are saying to the overwhelming majority of people in this country who want better state education, “I am sorry; you are outside the mainstream.”

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State refers to deprivation and how to tackle it. He will know that the inheritance of teenage pregnancy is an issue that affects deprivation and the poverty of ambition of many families. If we look at the map of teenage pregnancy in this country, we see that it is also the map of deprivation. I acknowledge that we did not have complete success on this issue, although we had partial success. We cut the numbers. They had risen dramatically under Mrs Thatcher’s era. They fell in ours, but not as much as we would have liked. I think that was partly because we did not learn the lessons from countries such as Holland—where the figure is five times lower than it is in this country—and introduce statutory sex and relationship education. Will the Secretary of State think again about his opposition to that?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman has been a consistent proponent of better sex and relationship education, but I have to tell him that it is a statutory part of the present curriculum. The critical question is how we can improve the quality of guidance and the quality of teaching. The hon. Gentleman is passionate, and in this respect his passion is in a good cause, but I fear that he has got his facts wrong. Sex and relationship education is already compulsory; personal, social and health education, which is a broader issue, is not yet compulsory in the national curriculum. Now that I have cleared up that confusion on the hon. Gentleman’s part, I hope that we can work together to ensure that our sex and relationship education reflects 21st-century values. I have been delighted to work with Liberal Democrat colleagues to achieve just that.

I have quoted politicians who back our reforms, but it is important for us to hear from teachers as well. I mentioned head teachers earlier, but let me run through what some are saying about coalition policies. These are head teachers who have taken advantage of the changes that we have made: changes that the right hon. Member for Leigh said had been introduced in a rush, and were ill-conceived and ideological.

Headmistress Lesley Grace, of Seaton primary school in Cumbria, says that as a result of our changes

“we can be totally focused on our age group and our community… we can target resources to employ specialist staff, such as speech and language therapists or reading intervention specialists.”

The school could not do that before.

At Durand primary school in Stockwell, London, 52% of pupils are eligible for free school meals. What does the head teacher say when he thinks about how to improve outcomes for those poor children? He says:

“Academy status does give us greater freedom to deliver an even more bespoke education, tailoring it to the needs of our specific intake.”

He says that the school is giving more

“time and space in the curriculum back to subjects like sport and music, the importance of which have been lost over recent years.”

What about Patricia Sowter, headmistress of Cuckoo Hall school in Enfield, whom I mentioned earlier? She says that academy status enables her to invest more in

“training, development and non-contact time for senior teachers.”

Jonathan Bishop, headmaster of Broadclyst primary school in Devon, says that academy freedoms give him the opportunity

“to deliver an outstanding environment”

for his students, adding

“I don't understand why anyone would not want to do it.”

As a result of academy status, the headmaster of the Premier academy in Milton Keynes can

“employ two or three more teachers to cut class sizes.”

While we are talking about smaller class sizes, let me cite Paul Gazzard, head teacher of St Buryan school in Penzance, who has been able to bring the average class size in his school down to 18 by introducing academy reforms.

The question for the right hon. Member for Leigh is this: will he reverse these changes? He opposed them, which is fair enough. It is understandable. A new, keen, young Opposition spokesman is entirely entitled to fly an opportunist flag, but now that real schools and real pupils are benefiting, the question for him is this: will he turn the clock back?

I have more confidence in the right hon. Gentleman than in his predecessor. I think he will see that our changes are bringing real improvements, and I do not think he wants to turn the clock back. However, that is the test for Labour Members. Are they ready to embrace reform and to acknowledge that it is now the coalition Government who are delivering improvements in state education, or do they want to go back to where they were in the 1980s? Do they want to go back to being the voice of the conservative teaching establishment? Do they want to be the voice of those individuals in trade unions who are opposed to reform and opposed to change?

We should bear in mind the words of Tony Blair. When he was introducing his reforms, there were Labour Members—although not many—who opposed them. He said:

“Parts of the left will say we are privatising public services and giving too much to the middle class.”

That is broadly the case made by the right hon. Member for Leigh; but Blair continued:

“both criticisms are wrong and simply a version of the old ‘levelling down’ mentality that kept us in Opposition for so long.”

If we are to extend opportunity more widely, we need to ensure that the head teachers whom I have cited, and the others who are anxious to take advantage of these reforms—to invest in improving teacher quality, to invest in better discipline and behaviour, and to invest in higher academic standards—are given the freedom to do so.