Digital Economy Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Kevin Brennan

Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Skidmore]

There are a number of technical issues in these amendments, and we are determined to consult thoroughly with the devolved Administrations and the relevant offices. We will do so in due course. We will return to that later in the Bill.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is unusual for the Government to introduce amendments and then find technical problems with them. That is obviously what has happened and it is very unfortunate. Given that we were expecting to debate the amendments at this point, can the Minister give us an indication of when he will bring back non-defective amendments—or whether, indeed, he intends to bring any further amendments in this area?

[Chris Skidmore]

When it comes to the point of process that the hon. Gentleman mentions, we intend to return to this further into the Bill. The particular issue that arose with the amendments as currently drafted is that the need for consent needs to apply correctly only to devolved matters. We found that the amendments do not reflect that, which is why we wish to withdraw them today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

It would be helpful if that were to happen during the Commons stage of the Bill, rather than in the Lords, so that this House has an opportunity, at least on Report, to consider this aspect.

[Chris Skidmore]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s concerns and will reflect on them. I cannot give any further information at this moment. We hope to ensure that the amendments, when later drafted, will reflect the Government’s desire to listen carefully to all devolved nations and ensure that this applies across the UK.

Digital Economy Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Kevin Brennan

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on this in 2003, so it is depressing that it is still a problem.

[Chris Skidmore]

I am sure you are delighted at the progress.

[Kevin Brennan]

It is according to the Government that there has been much progress.

Qualified Teachers

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Kevin Brennan

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

I will make a little progress first because of time, but I might take an intervention later.

There are not many Liberal Democrat colleagues here, but I welcome those who have turned up. Being asked, as I understand they have been, not to support the Opposition motion—one hon. Gentleman said he was not going to support it—is not good for their health. It must drive them to distraction to be asked to perform such feats of intellectual and political contortion of believing one thing and voting for another just to save the blushes of the Tory Secretary of State for Education. He is not in his place for the winding-up speeches, despite taking half an hour of our time earlier on.

The Secretary of State is happy to trash, on a daily basis, the Liberal Democrats’ fundamental principles and beliefs on education policy, yet they have to turn up to bail him out. There can be no more tortured example of that than the Minister for Schools himself, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws). [Interruption.] I welcome the compassion from Opposition Members. The week before last he came before this House and stoutly and enthusiastically defended the policy of allowing non-qualified teachers to teach in our taxpayer-funded schools. In fact, he spoke with such passion and conviction that I understand from press reports that some of his Conservative colleagues in the coalition actually believe he meant what he said—they took him at his word. He is shaking his head, but I read it in a newspaper.

Then, the Minister’s right hon. Friend, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, let it be known that he disagreed with his other right hon. Friend, the Deputy Prime Minister. I know they bear a striking resemblance to each other, but they must surely be two different people. When the Schools Minister heard what his leader had said, he had a slight problem. Did he, in fact, still agree with himself on whether teachers should be qualified? Last week in Westminster Hall and in the Education Committee, we got an answer of sorts: he had agreed with himself all along; when he came to the House he was not telling us what he believed, but what his Tory Secretary of State boss believed. Some months earlier, we were told, the Schools Minister had proposed a motion to the Liberal Democrat conference—[Interruption.]—I welcome the Secretary of State back to the debate, and I apologise for mentioning him in his absence—but when we checked this, it turned out he had not proposed a motion at all, although he claimed he was involved in its drafting.

I know that the Schools Minister is a very, very clever man. He has a first-class degree from the university of Cambridge.

[Kevin Brennan]

As my hon. Friend reminds me, and as the Schools Minister insisted on reminding us in Westminster Hall last week, he has a double first from the university of Cambridge. But what I had not realised until now was that having a double first meant he was so clever he could hold two completely opposite beliefs in the same brain at the same time. [Laughter.]

[Chris Skidmore]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

In a moment. I think the House is enjoying this bit, as the Secretary of State might say.

And he can do that without experiencing any of the consequent anxieties that mere mortals such as us would suffer in that turbulent and contradictory mental state.

[Chris Skidmore]

I believe that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) also holds a double first-class degree.

The motion talks about

“working towards qualified teacher status”.

Will the hon. Gentleman give a time frame? Is it one year, two years, three years, 10 years? In other words, it could mean non-qualified teachers still working in schools, just as the 18,500 did under the Labour Government.

[Kevin Brennan]

We would have to clear up the Government’s mess and think about what the time frame should be, but without giving anyone the sack, we would require all teachers to achieve QTS in a reasonable time, and unlike this Government, we would negotiate and consult.

The Schools Minister can believe that teachers should not have to be qualified and profess that view in the House of Commons with impressive conviction one week, and then believe that teachers should be qualified and say so with equal conviction the next week. It is a remarkable, but not unique pathology, at least not in science fiction, because there is a creature in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, which I am sure the House is aware of, called Odo the Shape-Shifter, who can alter his shape according to circumstances—for example, by appearing to be a human—until the end of the day, when he dissolves into a bucket in his natural gelatinous form in order to rest, ready to emerge the following day in whatever shape is deemed necessary by the circumstances. I say to the Schools Minister: that might be okay for a science fiction character, but extreme shape-shifting does not constitute statesmanship.

It need not be like this. I told the Schools Minister last week that, having performed a careful textual exegesis of the coalition agreement, I could find no reference—not one reference anywhere in the document—to the Liberal Democrats agreeing to allow unqualified teachers in our schools. I wish more Liberal Democrat MPs were here for this. It is not in the coalition agreement. I have some experience of dealing with Liberal Democrats in coalition, having helped to put together the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition in the Welsh Assembly in 2000, when I worked for Rhodri Morgan, and I can tell the House that the idea of their agreeing to something that was against their own strong beliefs and the professed beliefs and policy of their own leader and which was not in the coalition agreement would have been unthinkable. It is, therefore, simply a mystery to me—and it must be a mystery to them too—how they were dragooned into supporting this policy and into rejecting an amendment that would have put this right and put policy in line with Liberal Democrat policy. The policy was not part of the coalition agreement, but obviously the result of some backroom deal between the Schools Minister—

History Teaching

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Kevin Brennan

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Chris Skidmore]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I will come on to that topic later. First, as a good historian, I want to set out a narrative of what has gone on in the country so far and then to debate what we should do about it. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that local history should feature more prominently in the curriculum, but more on that anon.

In 77 local authorities, fewer than one in five pupils are passing history GCSE. In one local authority, Knowsley, the figure has gone down to 8%, with just four pupils out of 2,000 passing history A-level.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Let me understand what the hon. Gentleman is proposing. Does he think that the teaching of history post-14 should be compulsory in academies?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Skidmore]

I want history to be compulsory in some form to 16. I will come on to the important issue of the qualification later. Just as maths, English and science are compulsory in all schools, so too should history. Education is about not simply providing skills, knowledge and requirements for jobs, professions and universities—or whatever route or career a pupil may decide to take—but creating a canon of knowledge. I want every pupil to leave school not only with the basics but with an understanding of the basic principles of our constitution and history. They should have a rounded education and history plays a vital role in that.

[Kevin Brennan]

By what mechanism would the hon. Gentleman like to make history compulsory in academies, given that academies are exempt from the national curriculum?

[Chris Skidmore]

I am startled by the hon. Gentleman’s response. He was a Minister once.

[Kevin Brennan]

And a teacher.

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Gentleman knows very well that although academies are exempt from other subjects in the national curriculum, pupils still have to study maths, English and science. Those subjects are compulsory, and academies are bound by law in academy frameworks and agreements to provide them. Under my proposals, history would be included in the same way.

[Kevin Brennan]

In the agreement?

[Chris Skidmore]

Yes. Let me take a few more interventions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman said, and with what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who is no longer here, said: local history is a way of engaging the interest of pupils and students and enables them to spread out beyond that into a much wider historical context. Like the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell), I come from a town—in south Wales—where there are powerful remnants of the Roman empire, including an amphitheatre and a barracks of the second Augustan legion based at the Roman town of Isca, which is now Caerleon. Some 5,000 Roman troops were stationed there in a town that probably does not have a population as large today. It was fascinating for me, as a young person, to think about what it must have been like 2,000 years earlier in the area in which I grew up.

Although the title of the debate is not, “Should we make history compulsory to 16”, I think that is what the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) wanted to focus on in his speech. I congratulate him on securing the debate and on raising that important subject.

One problem with, and paradox of, the Government’s approach to this matter is revealed, in a sense, by what the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Dartford said. The Government say that they are seeking to decentralise education and to have schools that are effectively autonomous and exempted, with choice about what they teach, and if the Government get their way, by the end of this Parliament most schools will be exempt from a national curriculum. Yet they are undertaking a review of the national curriculum and will, presumably, at some point, advance detailed proposals about the national curriculum. Some interim information on that has been provided by the Government. However, by the end of this Parliament, if the Government proceed in the way that they are going at the moment, most schools will not be compelled to teach the national curriculum. If the hon. Gentleman is advocating, on top of that, that more subjects should be made compulsory up to 16—in this case, history—I do not understand the transmission mechanism by which his ambition might be achieved. Exultation is fine, as are nudge-theory approaches, such as the English baccalaureate, but ultimately the hon. Gentleman will not achieve his aim of making history compulsory if it is not possible to implement a transmission mechanism to compel schools to teach that subject.

[Chris Skidmore]

On transmission—I agree in part with the hon. Gentleman on the curriculum—the point of the curriculum is secondary to assessment, which is increasingly becoming the driver of standards in schools. Parents and their children will look at schools offering high-quality examinations and at the standard that is achieved in those examinations. This relates to my point about creating a narrative of British history GCSE, because I believe that that would be the lever by which parents would be able to look at all schools offering history GCSE—just as they can in respect of GCSE maths, English and science, which all schools have to offer. If history joined that cadre and we were able to ensure that all pupils studied the equivalent of a western canon, instead of a GSCE that focuses only on the Third Reich or Stalin’s Russia, we would have one that allowed pupils to study the narrative of British history.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Many parents will do what he described, but not all of them will. That is why education itself is compulsory: it will not happen just through exhortation or because the Government say that they would like it to happen, or even by the Government employing little nudge mechanisms, such as the English baccalaureate.

I am reserving judgment on whether history should be taught compulsorily up to 16, because I, too, have a fairly open mind about that. History has never been compulsory. When I was 14 years of age, we had to do either history or geography, and we could not opt for both because of the tightness of the options in the school that I attended.