Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I was disappointed by that recent news, because it is important that we continue to invest in infrastructure—not least for increased productivity and, therefore, jobs growth. I have not yet had a discussion with the Transport Secretary, but I am looking forward to doing so.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

T5. Does my right hon. Friend think that the CBI’s poverty of ambition for a radical new relationship with the EU is attributable to the fact that the CBI receives funding from the EU?

[Sajid Javid]

The point I made yesterday to the CBI was not just about the CBI, but was a call to all business groups. The best way to get the EU reforms that many of them seek is for them to help the Government with their negotiations, speak to their partners in other European countries and then make up their minds at the end of the process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman clearly does not know the meaning of pithiness. I have explained when the definition of “coasting schools” will be published. He has admitted that he failed to convince his former leader of the merits of campaigning on education policy, and I am beginning to understand why he is so failing in his persuasiveness.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

T2. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a local education authority should not be allowed to give itself planning permission to build a school on green-belt land, in breach of the local core strategy? That is exactly what Dorset County Council is proposing to do in Marsh Lane, Christchurch. If the Secretary of State cannot answer today, will she have a meeting with me to discuss this important matter?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The national planning policy framework contains clear guidelines on building on green-belt land, and of course he, like others, has the opportunity to call in any planning application for determination by the Secretary of State. If he wants to give us further details, I am sure we will follow them up.

St Ives First School

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered plans by St Ives First School to become a primary school.

My constituents are fortunate in being able to choose from some of the best schools in the country—primary and secondary in the southern part of the constituency and first, middle and secondary in the northern part. They also benefited from the previous Government’s emphasis on driving up standards while promoting parental choice—policies for which the Minister deserves much credit, and which I am delighted he is taking forward in his new post in the new real Conservative Government.

Today’s debate centres on St Ives First School, a one-form entry first school, with a reception class, situated on the Dorset side of the Dorset-Hampshire border. It is rated outstanding by Ofsted, and has been for seven years. As a recognised national teaching school, it provides school-to-school support to other schools that seek improvement. Its head teacher, Mrs Laura Crossley, who has come to Westminster for today’s debate, is also an accredited national leader of education.

On 24 September last year, the Secretary of State agreed in principle to St Ives becoming an academy, and it has now been confirmed that the school will be a leading member of a multi-academy trust with five other schools, with effect from 2 November this year. For some time St Ives has suffered from turbulence and instability, because although it is geographically in Dorset, the nearest secondary school is about 1 mile away in Ringwood, Hampshire. Because Hampshire has a two-tier system, parents with pupils at St Ives have often opted to move into the Hampshire system early, to secure a Hampshire primary school place from which a transfer could be made to the Ringwood academy at the age of 11. Indeed, there are currently 141 children from the St Ives catchment area in years 7 to 11 at Ringwood academy. That shows how parents have been voting with their feet in recent years.

Prior to the new flexibilities introduced by the previous Government, the school could do nothing about that problem, but last year the governors decided to increase the age range, so that St Ives would become a primary school whose pupils could transfer directly into secondary education at age 11. After initial consultation going back to the autumn, a full proposal document was put forward to all relevant stakeholders on 24 February. I submitted a letter of support referring to the fact that 98% of the parents supported the proposed changes, which would also increase parental choice. A public meeting was held at the school during the four-week consultation period. Dorset County Council attended in the person of the cabinet member responsible for those issues, who did not say anything specific at the time. However, on the last day for written responses the county council put in its objection.

The governing body looked carefully at the results of the consultation and decided unanimously on 16 April, as it had the power to do, to increase the age range by one year in September 2015 and by a further year in September 2016. That reflected the finding that the parents of 19 out of the 23 pupils currently in year 4 would prefer their children to stay on at St Ives in September than to transfer to a Dorset middle school or a Hampshire primary. The St Ives governors recognised that that would mean that some children—perhaps as many as seven—who would normally have transferred to West Moors Middle School would no longer do so.

The local authority had suggested, wrongly, that 18 children were due to transfer from St Ives to West Moors Middle this September. The school’s records show that there are only 11 in that category. Two are going to West Moors Middle in any event and four have accepted places in Hampshire should St Ives not become a primary school. That means that if St Ives were to have its extra form from September, five children would no longer go to West Moors Middle School.

From the local education authority’s objection, one would think that the sky will fall in as a result. It talks about a middle school in Dorset having to close and about tens of millions of pounds of extra expenditure, and so on. That is complete hyperbole and an indication of how out of touch the education authority is with things on the ground. Indeed, we are now told that West Moors Middle School will be oversubscribed this coming September; parents of pupils who still show allegiance to St Ives are being warned that if they do not do something now, it will be too late for them to get into West Moors Middle in any event.

What was the response of the county council to the decision of 16 April? To begin with, the education authority tried to find fault with the proposed accommodation, site security, financial planning and the impact on the pre-school. It even threatened to issue a notice to improve. That led to a meeting at the school on 12 May when most of the grounds of objection were shown to be without foundation. Most fundamentally, the local education authority had to accept that St Ives was constructed as a primary school and operated as one until the county boundaries changed in 1974. It is also a strong school financially.

On 18 May, Mr Minns, head of learning and inclusion at Dorset, wrote to the chairman of the governors concluding that, following the discussion of the local authority’s concerns about the school’s management of the process to convert from a first to a primary school, those concerns had been satisfactorily addressed. That was subject to three caveats, one of which was to ask a local authority officer to

“undertake a new assessment of the space in potential readiness for September 2016”.

That was an implicit acceptance that the year 5 accommodation for September 2015 was readily available, as indeed it is. Understandably, the school believed that the education authority was, albeit reluctantly, accepting the decision, particularly when the 28-day period for objection laid down in the school organisation guidance for maintained schools expired. At page 10, the statutory process guidelines say that

“Any appeal to the adjudicator”—

in this case, the Secretary of State—

“must be made within 4 weeks of the decision.”

The Dorset County Council cabinet considered that issue on 8 April and concluded:

“The local authority will retain its right to refer to the Secretary of State should the decision by the Governing Body of St Ives First School, after consultation, not address the concerns raised by the local authority”.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate. I, of course, accept the principle and benefits of parental choice, but does he agree that the St Ives proposal should be properly co-ordinated and consulted on, as he was outlining, so that neighbouring schools that are affected, such as St Michael’s in Colehill, can make the necessary consequential arrangements in a timely fashion?

[Mr Chope]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on being elected. He is absolutely right: we obviously need to have proper consultation, and that is exactly what happened. I have a letter dated 20 March from the head of Allenbourn Middle School, on behalf of the Dorset Association of Middle Schools, thanking the governing body of St Ives for ensuring that an effective consultation process took place within an appropriate time span and providing all stakeholders with the opportunity to express their views. Therefore, there was a full consultation, despite the county council’s reluctance to provide the pupil number data, for which the school had been asking for many months. The school was eventually able to obtain them only through a freedom of information request. There has been good co-operation with other schools, but I fear that the breakdown has been with the local education authority itself.

After the four weeks expired, people thought the local authority would have to go along, however reluctantly, with the proposal. On 5 May, I wrote to the leader of the council, Robert Gould, attaching a letter from a parent of a pupil at St Ives that was typical of many others I received. I drew attention to the Conservative principle of promoting choice in education, and I reminded him of our Conservative manifesto, which states:

“We believe that parents and teachers should be empowered to run their schools independently.”

It also states:

“We will continue to allow all good schools to expand, whether they are maintained schools, academies, free schools or grammar schools.”

Indeed, St Ives wishes to expand by increasing its age range.

After referring to the enthusiasm of the parents, governors and staff at St Ives about the introduction of a new year group from September, I sought the assurance of the leader of the council that the education authority would not seek to restrict the ambition of the school to extend educational opportunity further. In his response, the leader of the council referred to the lack of physical space for extra classes and raised questions about future finances. However, he said:

“Officers at the Council are keen to keep open discussions with the School”.

The meeting at the school on 12 May, to which I have referred, flowed from that, and I followed up the matter with the council leader with a further email on that date. Having heard nothing further, on 26 May I asked what was happening, repeating my earlier suggestion that it would be better to have a meeting to discuss things than to engage in an adversarial situation.

On 27 May, the council leader wrote to me expressing his continuing concerns. He relied on a note from somebody called Jackie Groves. The content of that note was in stark contrast with the letter from Mr Minns. I was going to refer to its inflammatory remarks about the quality of education at Ringwood School, the criticism of St Ives school governors and the school authorities for being

“extremely difficult to work with and reticent to provide information”.

Fortunately, Mr Minns confirmed this morning in an email to Mrs Crossley, the head, that the document was merely an internal memo and did not represent the official view of the authority. However, that is the document on which the leader of the council was relying when he objected to the proposal.

On 27 May, a letter was sent to the Secretary of State objecting to the proposal, but it did not arrive with the Secretary of State until 3 June. A second letter of objection was issued a couple of days later. Those letters of objection raise fundamental issues relating to the ability of a school such as St Ives to increase its age range. They ask for the Secretary of State effectively to go back on the “School organisation (maintained schools)” guidance.

I hope the Secretary of State will make a quick decision on this matter. The quickest decision would be to say that the objection is out of time, which would enable the school to get on with planning for the future. It would also enable other middle schools that might be implicated to make decisions as well. We are now in the second half of the summer term, and a new school year is starting in September. The education authority has said it is concerned about the implications for everybody else, but it has been dragging its feet over the whole issue.

If the Secretary of State is not prepared to reject the objection on the grounds that it is out of time, I hope she will make a decision quickly on its merits and conclude that the county council’s case is unfounded in fact, is contradictory within itself and would run counter to all the new Government’s principles relating to expanding choice in education and ensuring that good schools—in this case, an outstanding school—are able to expand, where that is the will of the parents and governors.

The proposal enjoys the support of 98% of the parents of pupils at St Ives school. I hope the Minister will help them to have a happy weekend by giving them some warm words of encouragement.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this new Parliament, Mr Streeter. This is the first Westminster Hall debate I have had the pleasure of responding to. It is an important debate. I should begin by explaining, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) mentioned, that the Secretary of State received a formal request from the director of children’s services at Dorset County Council to use her intervention powers in this case, under section 496 of the Education Act 1996. I will therefore have to be a little circumspect in my response to ensure I do not cut across her decision.

I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend for his supportive opening remarks. He is right to point out the last Government’s success in raising academic standards in our schools. Some 100,000 six-year-olds are reading better today than they would have done but for our reforms, and there has been a 70% increase in the number of students taking the core academic GCSEs that are so important for widening opportunities in later life. I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) to his place. He is clearly keenly interested in issues of education, which are vital to our country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has taken a keen interest in this proposal. In the previous Parliament, the Department for Education brought into force a package of new legislation and guidance for maintained schools and academies that want to make changes to their size and characteristics. A national consultation broadly welcomed the Department’s proposals, which introduced a simpler, less bureaucratic process for schools seeking to make certain organisational changes—for example, expanding their premises or altering their age range by up to two years—without following the full statutory process.

The changes delivered two important objectives. First, they gave more autonomy to maintained schools by enabling them to propose their own changes, without having to look to local authorities to make changes on their behalf. Secondly, they allowed new school places to be created quickly in response to local demand.

St Ives First School published a proposal to become a full primary school for pupils aged four to 11 in February 2015, and on 16 April 2015, following a period of consultation, it announced its decision to become a primary school from September 2015. As my hon. Friend said, that change will involve the school extending its upper age range by two years, which will mean that its year 4 pupils will remain in the school, if they wish to do so, for years 5 and 6.

The governing body of St Ives First School stated that its main reason for proposing the change was to increase parental choice and respond to the wishes of the vast majority of the parents and carers whose children currently attend the school. As an outstanding school, St Ives is clearly popular. The school, which sits on the border between Dorset and Hampshire, also claims that many parents would not wish their nine-year-old children to travel to a middle school in Dorset if they could remain at St Ives First School until they were old enough to attend a secondary school in Hampshire. The school serves broad communities with diverse needs, and proposals for organisational changes to schools’ characteristics are often met with different responses from different parts of the community.

On one hand, St Ives First School is exercising its autonomy to make a change that it believes will benefit pupils and parents, and parents seem to agree. On the other hand, there may be wider concerns about ensuring an appropriate supply of school places throughout the local authority area. Value for money is clearly an important consideration, as is the need to plan change in a way that avoids impacting negatively on children’s education—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole.

We are aware that Dorset County Council has voiced concerns about the impact that St Ives’ proposed change might have on the wider system. The local authority believes that the changes proposed by the school will place it under significant organisational and financial pressure. It also believes that there is a need to operate a co-ordinated system in which children progress through its family of schools at the same time, and does not want to run a mixed economy. West Moors Middle School, the closer of two middle schools in the area, has expressed its fears for its future viability. The school believes that the change at St Ives may result in fewer children taking up places at the school, leading to financial pressures for the school.

It may be helpful if I describe the process that maintained schools must go through to effect a change of age range. Under the regulations that came into force in January 2014, this particular category of change is not subject to a statutory process. The governing body of a school is responsible for making a decision on its proposals and implementing them. The Department for Education has no role in the decision-making process, although it does ensure that certain requirements are met through its statutory guidance.

Before making any changes, governing bodies have to ensure that they have engaged in effective consultation, secured the capital funding, identified suitable accommodation and sites, and secured planning permission. They must have the consent of the site trustees—or the landowners when the land is not owned by the governing body—and of the relevant religious authorities in the case of faith schools. The admissions authority has to be content for the published admissions number to be changed, when that forms part of expansion plans.

Although governing bodies are no longer required to follow a statutory process for such changes, they are nevertheless required to adhere to the usual principles of public law: they must act rationally, take into account all relevant considerations and follow a fair procedure. The Department expects that, in making organisational changes, governing bodies will liaise with the local authority and the trustees to ensure that, where possible, a proposal is aligned with wider place planning arrangements, and that any necessary consent has been gained.

The Government are champions of school autonomy and will continue to support good and outstanding schools that seek to grow and expand to offer more choice to parents, which is why 1 million more children are in good or outstanding schools today than in 2010. However, we also expect that where change is proposed, it is planned carefully and ensures the minimum disruption to pupils’ education.

As I explained, the decision taken by St Ives First School is not subject to a statutory process. The Department has no direct role in the process. The decision was made as the result of a local process that officials and Ministers have no power to influence or prejudice. Additionally, the Department does not prescribe the process by which a school carries out its decision-making function, but decision makers must have regard to the principles of public law.

[Mr Chope]

Would the Minister extend some of his words of wisdom and advice to education authorities? He has put the emphasis on schools that are coming forward with these proposals, but would he emphasise that there is a need for the education authorities to engage constructively and in a timely fashion so that, as far as possible, such issues can be resolved by consensus, rather than in the adversarial way in which this application has been dealt with?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Local authorities have to take into account the wider impact of such proposals on schools, but they should not refuse the local discretion of a school’s governing body to expand if that school has conducted a proper consultation and believes that the expansion will have a beneficial effect on educational standards. I do not want to make any further comments on this proposal, because the Secretary of State has to conduct a section 496 determination.

[Mr Chope]

May I come back on one other aspect of what the Minister said? He referred to West Moors Middle School having raised an objection, but as I pointed out, that school is over-subscribed for the coming year, which reflects the fact that it is improving. Its latest Ofsted inspection resulted in a change of status from being in need of improvement to being a good school, which has added confidence. The consequence of St Ives First School’s decision is that people who have children there would still be able to opt into the middle school system in Dorset if they wanted to. The decision is not closing down choices and options, but expanding them.

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a compelling case on behalf of his constituents and St Ives First School. I will ensure that the Secretary of State and officials see the transcript of this debate before they reach a decision on the section 496 determination. One issue that will be taken into account is any delay by the local authority in deciding whether it is appropriate to intervene in these circumstances. All those matters will be taken into account.

[Mr Chope]

May I press the Minister a bit further on the timescale? We are now in the second week of June and people need to know the decision of the Secretary of State sooner rather than later.

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The letter from Dorset County Council was dated 4 June. I think that we received it on 9 June, and we will ensure that the Secretary of State responds as soon as possible. It is unfortunate that these matters have dragged on for so long, creating an element of uncertainty for pupils and parents at that school and surrounding ones.

Question put and agreed to.

Consumer Rights Bill

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman kindly said that he had a great deal of respect for what I had to say, which is certainly more than can be said for most people on the Government Benches, so I am very grateful to him for that kind comment. It probably will not do much for his reputation within his party, but I am grateful for it, because I have a great deal of respect for him, too.

I believe in the free market and am not ashamed of doing so. I believe it acts in the best interests of the consumer. The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) said he was surprised that I was not standing up for my constituents as consumers, but I am. I believe in the free market; I believe that people should have the right to sell on their ticket if they buy one and then find that they cannot go to the event or that somebody else is prepared to pay a higher price for it. I will happily take my chances with my electorate at the general election, to see whether they are happy that I look after their interests, just as he will put his record before his electorate at the general election—we shall see how we both get on.

The Minister glossed over the fact that the Government have done a complete U-turn on this issue. I do not know whether she is embarrassed about that or not, but I would be if I were in her shoes.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I am surprised to hear about the extent of the U-turn. Can my hon. Friend explain why there has been such a U-turn? Surely the Government are normally consistent—or try to be consistent—from one week to the next.

[Philip Davies]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on keeping a straight face when he said that, but it is not for me to explain it. I have certainly kept my position consistent, and I have to congratulate the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on maintaining a consistent position on these issues. I can only presume that the interference of our Liberal Democrat coalition friends in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has led to this about-turn.

We have an issue here, because the Minister seems to be arguing that nobody in the secondary market has anything to worry about and that their industry is going to thrive, prosper and flourish, yet all the sporting bodies and events organisers, and some of our hon. Friends, are cock-a-hoop about this. They are not cock-a-hoop because they think the secondary ticketing market is going to thrive and prosper as a result of this Lords amendment being accepted; they are cock-a-hoop because they think the exact opposite will happen. I have to congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who has been very persistent on this issue, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley). They obviously knew what they were dealing with in Liberal Democrat Ministers; they knew that they were always in the game for a U-turn whenever the Lib Dems were involved, and I congratulate them on their industry and initiative in that regard.

The question nobody has asked is why are the sporting bodies and events organisers so keen for the full details of the ticket—the row number, the section number, the ticket number, the seat number and the whole lot—to be published online? Let me give hon. Members the answer. They are so desperate to have that information so that they can see who bought the ticket, cancel the ticket if it gets sold on to somebody else, blacklist the person involved and prevent them from ever buying a ticket in the future. The only reason they want this information is so that they can use that information to stop this market.

The Government have said that these bodies will not be able to do that—the law will say they cannot do that—but I would like to know from the Minister who is going to police that? When somebody turns up to an event with a ticket bought from a secondary ticketing site and the event organiser says, “Sorry, I’m not going to let you in. We don’t like the look of that ticket. We saw it in the secondary ticketing industry”, who is going to be there from the Government to say, “No, this chap should be allowed into this event”? Nobody will be there. That person will be sent away and never get to see the event they wanted to see—the Government will have let them down. Even if the person went to court and won the case, they would still have not got to the event they particularly wanted to see. It is an absolute con if consumers think this will protect their interests when they buy a ticket from the secondary market. The sporting bodies know it and the hon. Members here who have been agitating for this measure know it, and that is why the sporting bodies and the events organisers are so keen to have this information. The Minister says that people cannot be blacklisted, but who is going to police that? Who is going to stop it? What resources are the Government putting in to make sure that does not happen? The answer is none. Basically, there are just warm words. The Government are repeating what they did on immigration, which is making a promise that they know they are in no position to keep. It is that kind of thing that brings politics into disrepute.

The Minister said that consumers could now have confidence in the market, but where is the evidence that consumers do not have confidence in the secondary ticketing market? Consumers have confidence in the secondary ticketing market, but the sporting bodies and the big event organisers do not. If people did not have confidence in it, they would not be buying tickets there in the first place. The problem for these big bodies and these multi-millionaire music organisers is that too many people do have confidence in the secondary ticketing market, which is why they want to damage it. That is why we should reject these Lords amendments this evening.

Electoral Registration

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As I said, the register that will be used for the general election in 92 days’ time will have missing from it those who have just reached the age of 18 and should be taking part in general elections. It is estimated that there will be 3.3 million first-time voters on 7 May, and we are concerned that too many of them will be missing from the register.

Almost three quarters of those who vote are in socio-economic class AB—the wealthiest—yet fewer than two thirds of C2s and Ds do so. Our elections are being fought on the basis of a seriously skewed register, with key groups and communities under-represented.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

In a moment.

Our election results are being decided by voters who are older and more affluent. This is an appropriate time for me to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Chope]

There are 47 countries in the Council of Europe, and individual voter registration is a basic minimum safeguard against fraud in every single one of them. Does the right hon. Gentleman not support that as a basic principle?

[Sadiq Khan]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be aware that we introduced the measure in 2009, and he supported it. Under our motion, we would not get rid of individual voter registration but ensure that there were safeguards before the next general election.

Overseas Voters Bill

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This is another Bill relating to the forthcoming general election. It would ensure higher participation among those who would be entitled to vote if they registered, notwithstanding the fact that they are overseas. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, on which I have the privilege of serving, has been considering voter participation. Although the focus at the beginning was mainly on the situation within the United Kingdom, during the course of our inquiry a lot more emphasis has been given to the situation of British citizens who are resident overseas and would otherwise be entitled to vote.

It is estimated that there may be as many as 5 million such people. How many of them are currently registered? The latest figure is about 16,000 of a potential 5 million or more. That is scandalous, and I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), whom I am pleased to see on the Front Bench, agrees that there needs to be much greater participation among electors who are resident overseas.

Clause 1 should, therefore, commend itself to the Government. It would impose a

“duty on the Electoral Commission so far as is reasonably practicable to…identify the names and addresses of British citizens resident overseas who would be able to participate in United Kingdom Parliamentary elections if they were registered to vote, and…facilitate the registration of those identified”.

Clause 2 of this simple Bill states:

“There shall be no restriction placed on the eligibility of a British citizen resident overseas to register to vote or vote in UK Parliamentary elections based solely upon the length of time that such voter has been resident overseas.”

That would remove the current 15-year restriction, a subject on which my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) has a ten-minute rule Bill. The proposal has the support of the Conservative party and I understand that it will be a definite part of its manifesto—a pledge to remove the 15-year restriction on an overseas voter’s eligibility to vote if they are a British citizen who would otherwise be eligible to do so.

Clause 3 deals with internet voting. I am always keen to embrace new technology, as my wife and family will testify, so why should we not embrace new technology in the voting system? Anyone who is resident in the United Kingdom in the run-up to an election can obtain a proxy or a postal vote, or can vote in person at the polling station. That is much more difficult for those who are resident overseas. Obviously, they cannot physically vote at a polling station because we, unlike a lot of other countries, do not set up polling stations in our embassies or in other buildings in foreign countries. People who are resident overseas therefore have to rely on a proxy or a postal vote.

It is possible to organise a proxy vote if it is planned in advance and if the person who is overseas knows somebody in this country who can exercise it. However, with postal voting, it is difficult to ensure that the ballot paper is sent to the person who is resident overseas in sufficient time to enable them to put the ballot paper back in the post and return it to the United Kingdom so that it can be included in the count. That situation has been eased to an extent, because the Government have said that there will be a longer period between the close of nominations and printing of ballot papers and the date of the election. However, we know that a relatively small proportion of those overseas who are registered to vote actually do vote. One reason for that is the difficulty of registering their vote.

If we are to go down the road of internet voting—I know that some colleagues are sceptical about it—surely we should allow it for those who are overseas. Just as people can now Skype their friends and relatives who are overseas at practically zero cost, I see no reason why we should not facilitate, through the internet, increased participation among United Kingdom citizens who are resident overseas and who rightly take a close interest in what we do in this legislature.

I have said to a number of people who have written to me on this subject that if more British citizens who are resident overseas participated in our elections, it would strengthen the case for reforming things such as the rights of British pensioners overseas to pension increases and there would be a lot more pressure on Parliament to give those overseas pensioners justice. People would realise that we are not talking about just a handful of potential voters in a constituency, but about hundreds or thousands of people who could influence the outcome of an election.

This is a Bill with three straightforward clauses. It provides Ministers with the opportunity, under clause 3, to bring forward regulations to deal with internet voting. I have to admit that my drafting skills did not enable me to produce a detailed regime for overseas internet voting, so I am relying on somebody else to do the donkey work on that. However, it is important that the Bill states, as it does in clause 3(2), that any regulations must

“include provisions to prevent identity fraud and to ensure that only those eligible to vote can vote.”

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

It strikes me that if we start looking at internet voting for people who are resident abroad, that will prepare us for new provisions that may eventually be introduced in this country for the whole electorate. Those provisions will necessarily be complicated, so this proposal would be a good exercise to ensure that we were up to speed. We could register a discrete group of people for internet voting, in preparation for what I think will ultimately be introduced across the country.

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend because there are two schools of thought. The first, which she articulated, is that this proposal would be a good test bed for internet voting. Others say that it would set a dangerous precedent, and that before we realise it we will have internet voting without control for the whole United Kingdom electorate, which will facilitate a lot of fraud. I think that internet voting for those who are resident overseas is a discrete matter, and we could develop a regime for that, and see how it works and whether we are able to introduce systems that prevent identity fraud and ensure that only those who are eligible vote. Based on that knowledge and experience, the House could consider rationally whether we wish to extend the system more widely.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I suspect there is an inevitability about voting online and that one day it will come, although we do not know what will happen. My hon. Friend mentions someone voting online when they are abroad, and if they are resident abroad that is easy to determine. What about if someone was on holiday or having a gap year or whatever—I do not mean a week in the sun, but a longer period of time? Would they qualify for online voting abroad as opposed to a proxy or postal vote? I can foresee difficulties in quantifying who would qualify.

[Mr Chope]

Clause 3 would apply only to British citizens who were ordinarily resident overseas, not those who happened to be on holiday. The latter group would be brought in only in the event of our extending internet or online voting to the United Kingdom electorate, and it is important to distinguish between those two groups. It is much more complicated to deal with people voting while on holiday than with those who are resident overseas.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend’s Bill because, as he would say himself, this is about the rights of British residents to vote in a general election. Has he made any comparison with other countries—perhaps, although not exclusively, in other parts of the European Union—that have similar arrangements? Should the Bill apply not only to parliamentary elections but, for example, to a referendum on the EU?

[Mr Chope]

I understand that the franchise for an EU referendum includes all those who are eligible to participate in a parliamentary election, and I would stick to that. If we encouraged more people from overseas to register, they would be able to participate in a national referendum that had been extended to all registered voters.

I sometimes monitor elections on behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and almost all its 47 countries have more extensive systems for facilitating voting by their diaspora, as it is described, than we do. Many countries extend voting arrangements to providing facilities in embassies, consulates and other places, in addition to postal or proxy votes. Those countries believe—quite rightly—that their diaspora is an important part of that country, and that people should be encouraged to participate in its affairs. That can best be done by participating in elections. We are probably well behind the curve by comparison with the 47 member countries of the Council of Europe. That is another reason why the Bill needs immediate attention rather than putting on the back burner.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to the Minister for that response and for his repetition of the position that the Conservatives would support removing the 15-year restriction on the eligibility of British citizens resident overseas to vote. The only question he did not really answer was why the coalition minority partners are against such a change. Obviously, had they not been, my Bill would have been able to make progress today.

It is also interesting to note some of the points made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) on issues associated with individual voter registration. It is essential that we do not compromise on that principle. It is well established within the Council of Europe that every person who goes to vote should be individually registered, but our country has been a bit late in getting on that bandwagon. Some of the body language from Opposition Members suggests that they think that there should be flexibility on that, but I think that we should be resolute in saying that only those people who are duly registered and present themselves to vote should be able to vote. Having that said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and Bill, by leave, withdrawn.

European Parliament Elections Bill

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Friday 9th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This is the first of three Bills that I hope we shall have the chance to discuss today. In a sense, this is my contribution to manifesto development for the Conservative party in the run-up to the next general election, and I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) is here in the House today, as he has a great deal of knowledge of this matter: he is a former MEP and, indeed, leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament. He understands what our policy used to be. The Conservative policy used to be in favour of open lists for European Parliament elections, rather than the closed lists we have at the moment. I hope the Minister will say that he agrees wholeheartedly that open lists are more democratic than closed lists, and that open lists are likely to encourage more people to participate in European elections, because they will have a real choice, rather than having choice limited by the closed list system. This would be a good thing for democracy. As you know well, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you have a good point, there is no need to labour it, so with that, I have the pleasure of moving the Second Reading motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

With the leave of the House, may I respond to the very encouraging words from my hon. Friend the Minister? It looks as though this is the revelation of a new part of the Conservative party manifesto. I certainly hope so. It is also good that we have so much support from the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), because if such a measure is going to make progress it is best that it does so on a cross-party basis. There is cross-party support for the idea of increasing voter engagement in elections, whether one is a Eurosceptic or a Europhile, as it is in the interests of democracy and of the European Union that there should be maximum participation in the elections to the European Parliament. I should have tabled the Bill much earlier in this Parliament, but I will take it away and hope that I see it reflected in the Conservative party manifesto.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and Bill, by leave, withdrawn.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. It has been brought to my attention that due to a misunderstanding the motion in the name of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) on the calendar of business for Friday 27 March for Second Reading of the Pavement Parking Bill did not appear on today’s Order Paper. I will therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to move his motion at the appropriate time, as I am reinstating it in the Order Paper after motion 5.

Ofsted

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to introduce a debate on the accountability of Ofsted, not least because Her Majesty’s chief inspector’s annual report was published today. Few issues can be more important for our country than standards and attainment in education. Ofsted plays, and has played, a pivotal role in trying to ensure that all our schools are stretched to demonstrate excellence in what they do, and that they are held to account publicly for their failures and shortcomings.

At the start of such a debate, one can do little better than to refer to the chief inspector’s conclusion in today’s report, in which he states:

“We are at a watershed moment in the history of our education system. As we near the next general election, no major political party is talking about reversing the trend towards the greater autonomy that our schools now enjoy.

I believe the time has now come to move away from the debate that has raged for the past five years about school structures and towards a sharper focus on what works in all schools, regardless of their model of governance or status.

The essential ingredients for success are no secret and have been well documented from time immemorial—strong leadership, a positive and orderly culture, good teaching and robust assessment systems.”

I want to concentrate on that last phrase. Without robust assessment systems, it is difficult for Ofsted to demonstrate that it is objective and consistent. Ofsted must be accountable publicly for its actions and judgments, and particularly for ensuring the factual accuracy of the data on which such judgments are made. Only then can we be sure that the assessments it makes are robust.

On 30 October this year, the National Audit Office published a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General on oversight and intervention in academies and maintained schools. The NAO states:

“Our public audit perspective helps Parliament hold government to account and improve public services.”

As the report makes clear, it has been the policy of the Department for Education since 2010 that a maintained school with sustained or serious underperformance should normally expect to become a sponsored academy. A sponsored academy is directly accountable to the Secretary of State rather than to the local authority. The latest figures from the NAO show that there are some 4,200 academies in England, and that 17,300 maintained schools are still overseen by local authorities. Academies have been an important vehicle for improving standards. They have helped to ensure that the majority of schools that Ofsted rates inadequate improve by their next inspection.

As the NAO reminds us, however, 1.6 million of the 7 million children aged four to 16 are still educated at schools that are not rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. Against that background, we must be concerned by the NAO’s conclusion that the Department for Education has not demonstrated that the £382 million of taxpayers’ money that was spent on oversight and intervention in 2013-14 is delivering value for money. The NAO states that

“the clear messages about acceptable standards of performance must be paired with more ways to spot problems early on and a demonstrably consistent approach to tackling underperformance when it occurs.”

Ofsted responded, in a sense, to those comments on page 25 of its annual report:

“We are also taking action to improve the quality of inspection.”

That is an implicit acceptance of the fact that, hitherto, the quality of inspection has not been sufficiently good. The report states that

“from next year, Ofsted will contract directly with inspectors, rather than through third party providers. This will enable Ofsted to take direct control of the selection, quality assurance and development of its inspection workforce.”

Having provided some background, I want to draw attention to what has happened to a secondary school in my constituency. In today’s annual report, the chief inspector states:

“Over 170,000 pupils are now in secondary schools rated inadequate, around 70,000 more than in 2012.”

On that basis, more secondary schools are becoming inadequate at a time when everybody is saying that we have to improve standards. My concern is that some of the judgments about whether schools are inadequate or good are extremely subjective.

Pupils at Ferndown upper school in my constituency are among that cohort of 70,000. When the school was inspected on 24 and 25 November 2010, it was rated good, which is the second highest of the four categories. In its report on that inspection, Ofsted stated:

“Ferndown Upper is a good school that has improved appreciably since the last inspection and has the capacity to improve further.”

The report also states:

“There is a rising trend in students’ attainment and the majority of students make good progress regardless of their background, starting points or special educational needs. Teaching is good and there is a strategic policy to ensure that regular and systematic assessment takes place in all subject areas.”

According to the report,

“examination results for 2010 show a continuing trend of improvement…there has been a significant increase in the number of students attaining five A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and mathematics. This figure has risen by 12 per cent since last year and is now above the national average.”

The report goes on to say:

“The school has worked hard to improve attendance and has put in place monitoring and support systems”.

It also states:

“The headteacher and his leadership team have a clear vision for the school. They are committed to driving through a range of improvements to raise standards and develop students as ‘confident, independent learners and responsible citizens’.”

Just over three years later, another Ofsted report was published. The school has the same head teacher and chair of governors, and, speaking as the Member of Parliament, there is no dispute among local people about the fact that the school, although by no means perfect, has not deteriorated but has improved during those three years. In the inspection of 9 and 10 January 2014, Ofsted rated the school as inadequate, which is the lowest of the four grades. Ofsted said that the school had “serious weaknesses” and stated:

“Achievement is inadequate because both past and current students have not made sufficient progress, especially in English.”

It stated that teaching was inadequate and that leaders

“have not taken the actions needed to improve teaching and achievement, particularly in English”.

The school was, understandably, incensed that it had been marked down in such an arbitrary fashion.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

What has happened to the school’s GCSE results since 2010? What happened to the number of pupils receiving five A* to C grades in the period between the two inspections?

[Mr Chope]

I do not have those figures in my head, but I have figures showing that, in the period since the inspection, there has been a significant increase in GCSE performance at A* to C. Those figures compare very favourably with many other schools in Dorset that are rated not inadequate but good. If in due course I look at the detailed material I have here, I might be able to answer the hon. Gentleman’s specific question.

The school and its governors decided to appeal against what they regarded as an inadequate conclusion to the inspection. The report was published on 19 March 2014, and when the head distributed it to parents, as he is obliged to do, he said that the inspectors had ignored various issues. He said that, although

“there remain areas for improvement, the Governors and Senior Leadership Team of the school share with the whole staff the belief that this inspection was unfair and deeply unjust…We knew and accepted that English had under-performed”.

He stated that the school was taking action about that, which is why the school was

“predicting…good results in English this summer”.

Indeed, the school did get good results in English in the summer of 2014, and the head expressed concern about predictions for the future:

“a point the inspectors seem to have ignored. Instead they focused on data from the last 3 years, including 2012, the year in which grade boundaries were suddenly changed leading to a national outcry. This directly contradicts their own guidance which urges inspectors not to focus just on the last 3 years but to take into account current progress.

Inspectors also appear to have ignored the wealth of opportunity that the school continues to offer through the wide variety of trips, activities, clubs and achievements that cannot be measured as easily as English results.”

He drew a contrast with the inspector’s report from 2010, saying that

“everyone who knows the school well would say that it is actually a better school today than in 2010!”

One of the concerns the head and the governors have is that Ofsted compared the school’s attendance and exclusions—the inspection was carried out not by Ofsted inspectors but by Tribal, a subcontractor to Ofsted—with secondary schools that were not comparable. Ferndown upper school has only years 9, 10, 11 and a sixth form, whereas the schools with which Ofsted compared it also have years 7 and 8. Obviously, in years 7 and 8, as national figures make clear, attendance is better and exclusions are fewer. Ofsted was not comparing like with like, which is a fundamental error.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Using the evidence of one school, he seems to be saying that there are concerns about standards within Ofsted. He just mentioned that the inspection was carried out by a subcontractor. Does he agree that the answer to improving the consistency and quality of Ofsted is to ensure that all inspectors are directly engaged, as Sir Michael Wilshaw has recommended in recent months?

[Mr Chope]

Indeed, Sir Michael Wilshaw has recommended that, and I assume that the only reason he has done so is because in his experience there has not been such consistency and quality assurance under the old regime. I support his judgment on that, but it is no consolation for a school that has fallen foul of the old and inconsistent regime. Future improvements may lead to more consistency; indeed, the purpose of this debate is to try to find out what can be done to ensure consistency. So much turns on Ofsted’s judgment of a particular school.

What happens if a school is dissatisfied with an inspection? All it can do is appeal. Under Ofsted’s internal appeals process, Ofsted inspectors judge the work of other Ofsted inspectors. In the case of Ferndown upper school, a more junior Ofsted inspector judged the work of a more senior inspector, which I would submit is quite an invidious position to be put in—it certainly lacks the transparency and objectivity that we should demand of such organisations.

The school then appealed to the Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted, which deals with appeals against Ofsted. Unfortunately, the ICASO is effectively toothless because it cannot adjudicate on the important issues. The school made what is called a stage 4 complaint, which said, for example, that the inspectors who went to the school made notes and said orally to the school that they found that the pupils’ behaviour was good and that there were no examples of bad behaviour, but that they changed their judgment at a later stage in the process and said that they were concerned that there had been examples of bad behaviour.

Not surprisingly, the school said, “Well, let’s see where those examples of bad behaviour were noted by the inspectors at the time.” The school was told, “That’s all confidential information and it’s not available under freedom of information.” The school raised that issue with ICASO. The response from ICASO, which came through in the summer, stated that the complainant’s concerns relating to the Freedom of Information Act lie entirely outside ICASO’s remit, so it was not able to look at that. ICASO also said that it is not within its remit to overturn Ofsted judgments or to scrutinise its inspection criteria. Indeed, the only thing ICASO can do is look at the process, which is not really what we want in an appeals system.

Once a school has gone through that stage and had its ICASO adjudication, what can it do next? All it can do is send the matter to the parliamentary ombudsman. If ever there was the long grass, it is the parliamentary ombudsman—I am not insulting him, but the parliamentary ombudsman, again, can only consider administrative processes. Because of his work load, a complaint referred to the parliamentary ombudsman is unlikely to be determined for a significant period of time, by when the school will have a completely different cohort of pupils. That does not seem to be an adequate process of accountability. I would be interested to know whether the Minister—whom I am delighted to see in his place—agrees and whether he has any proposals for change, because the more emphasis we put on the regulatory and inspection process, the more important it is that it should be seen to be objective and above reproach. The trouble is that the consequences of such judgments feed into the school’s morale and the esteem in which it is held by potential pupils. That in itself can result in it suffering to a greater extent.

The school has now shown, through its results in the July exams, a significant improvement in the quality of its education. That is surely good news, but when one looks at the inspector’s follow-up letter, one does not get the impression that he is as pleased as the school is with the progress made and the way in which it is now outperforming many other schools in Dorset in the exam league tables. That raises another issue: because the school has a grade 4 assessment from Ofsted, while comparable schools in Dorset have grade 2 assessments—that is, good—people immediately reach the conclusion that it is less good than the others. However, because of when those other schools had their inspections, we may well not be comparing like with like.

That is one of the problems, which we know is not unique to Dorset or to Ferndown upper school. Evidence from throughout the country shows that Ofsted will quite often fail to see things in a school that are going badly wrong. Just to show that the debate is not purely about the Christchurch constituency, I will refer briefly to what happened at Saltley school and specialist science college. The International New York Times had an exclusive interview with the former principal of that school who talked about “harassment” from the local board over courses. He referred to the “relentless criticism” that he faced from a “Muslim-dominated school board”—he being a Sikh—and spoke about how he was eventually forced to step down as principal.

We now know that that school was the subject of an emergency report, “Report into allegations concerning Birmingham schools arising from the ‘Trojan Horse’ letter”, which was published in July 2014 and made severe criticisms. In a statement issued to Parliament yesterday, the Government drew attention to the gross inadequacies of Birmingham city council in dealing with those and other issues and they have proceeded, as near as they can, to put Birmingham city council under special measures. At a time when the Government are talking about the importance of devolving even more power to local authorities, that finding shows that one of the largest local authorities—I think Birmingham has more children under its control than any other local education authority—is severely lacking.

One might ask, “What do Ofsted think about Saltley school and specialist science college?” It was inspected on 9 and 10 May 2013 and under every category—achievement of pupils, quality of teaching, behaviour and safety of pupils, and leadership and management—it was marked as good. The report said that the school was “good” and that:

“Students made good progress from their low starting points,”

and so on. It also said:

“The new head teacher and senior leaders have accurately identified strengths and weaknesses in the school and have continued to improve teaching and raise achievement.”

We now know that that was substantially wide of the mark, yet does anything in Ofsted’s annual report explain how it was able to produce that inspection for Saltley school on 9 and 10 May 2013, when just over a year later, in July 2014, it became clear that what was alleged to be a really good school was far from that?

I give that as another example of Ofsted’s inconsistency and lack of accountability. When parents who were thinking about sending their children to Saltley school and specialist science college looked at the Ofsted report, they must have thought, “This is brilliant; this is fantastic.” Yet just over a year later, they would have been ashamed about having made that judgment.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Does he agree that the increasing numbers of educational practitioners who it is hoped will be on Ofsted teams from now on will decrease the likelihood of his experience being repeated in the future?

[Mr Chope]

I certainly hope so, but whatever system is in place—this is the essence of the debate—there needs to be some means of appeal, if needs be, into the substance. In such situations, conciliation and discussion is much better than formal, adversarial appeals processes. Ultimately, there must be a way for a school head to engage with an inspector or a group of inspectors and say, “Sorry, you’ve got this wrong.”

One of the difficulties in the case of Ferndown upper was that the moderation process was not allowed to be developed early on. It was said that because the school had been assessed as grade 4, it needed to be dealt with first by the inspectorate before the concerns expressed could be moderated. We need a system that ensures that where schools feel they have been judged incorrectly, they can have that put right in a timely fashion, because there are implications for their viability. In this debate we are talking about publicly funded schools, but if we look at how inspection processes can affect commercial organisations, we can see that the consequences of an unjustly bad report may be disastrous for their viability.

I am delighted that other people have come along to participate in the debate. When we get to the conclusion, I hope that the Minister will set out exactly how we can improve Ofsted’s accountability to teachers, parents and pupils—everyone involved.

Nothing I have said is designed to detract from the importance of ensuring that we have the highest standards in our schools. Standards have been improving, and a lot of credit is due to the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), who will respond to the debate, as well as the previous Secretary of State for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), and the current Secretary of State for being vigorous in saying that we must try to move away from a culture in which producer interests prevail to the disadvantage of the consumer. I am all in favour of these reforms, but they would be even better if we could get more objectivity into the way Ofsted is held accountable to the public, to the Secretary of State for Education and ultimately, through the Secretary of State, to this House.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on securing this important debate. He has made a compelling case for ensuring the accountability of Ofsted. He has given a number of examples where it has fallen short and made arbitrary and subjective decisions.

Of course, Ofsted inspects not only schools but whole children’s departments and the protection and care of children. I will talk about a report that Ofsted produced on Manchester city council’s children’s department on 1 September, but first I want to reiterate what the hon. Gentleman said: inspection and monitoring are vital parts of public services. They are necessary parts of the accountability process, and it is important that we get them right and understand what is happening.

It is also important that the metrics are right. I will give just one example of how difficult metrics can be. When the Conservative Government in the early ’90s brought in metrics to measure the performance of planning departments and introduce a level of accountability, they said that planning applications should be determined within 40 days, and if they were not, the department concerned was seen to be failing. I was leader of Manchester city council then, and our average time for turning applications round was about 43 days. We were very pleased with that, because there were very few appeals against our decisions. As a lot of work was put in beforehand, the decisions were often better and all parties were happy. However, an arbitrary metric misguided the public as to the competence of the department.

One also has to look at who the inspectors are. My guess is that people do not start out life deciding to be an inspector of planning or an Ofsted inspector. Ofsted inspectors probably start off in child protection of some sort, as a social worker, or as a teacher. Sometimes they become inspectors because they have not done so well, or have failed, in those professions, and sometimes it is because they want more money, but my experience is that as a result they often have a jaundiced view of the inspection process. One has to be wary, and aware that that is a possibility, when looking at how effective these inspections are and what the accountability should be.

I will talk about Manchester’s children’s services department, but I want to place on the record that this is not a defence of that department. I have been concerned about a number of areas; I have written to the council; and I have published statistics that did not show the council in the best light with regard to what happened to referred children, because often they were not dealt with quickly enough, and in some cases they were not dealt with at all.

I have expressed public concern about referred children. I knew of a number of cases where the culture of the department had inhibited the fostering and adoption of children: the process was too lengthy; people had not turned up on time, or at all, to interview potential foster parents and adoptive parents; and interviewers often asked questions that were intrusive and—to my mind, and the minds of the potential foster and adoptive parents—irrelevant. So this is not a mindless defence of Manchester city council’s children’s department from an ex-leader of that department. It is really a case of asking whether we understand more about what is going on in the children’s department after Ofsted’s inspection.

On 1 September, Ofsted said in its report that for

“Children who need help and protection”

the service is “inadequate”. Similarly, it said that for

“Children looked after and achieving permanence”

the service “requires improvement”. Adoption performance was judged “inadequate”, and

“Experiences and progress of care leavers”

also “requires improvement”. Finally, it said that “Leadership, management and governance” were “inadequate”. That is not a glowing report. It was produced by eight inspectors over a period of about five or six weeks, and it must have been quite expensive.

Having complained about the department previously, I went to the report with some interest, but I have to say—this is the core of my contribution—that I was extremely disappointed. The department had had inspections in 2010, 2011 and 2013. The 2013 inspection was on fostering, the 2011 inspection was on adoption, and the 2010 inspection was on safeguarding looked-after children. Those inspections produced two “good” ratings and one “adequate” rating, so they were not cause for concern. However, as there had now been a report giving an “inadequate” rating, I wanted to look at numbers, to see exactly how the service had deteriorated during the period in question.

Although there were some numbers in the report, they were absolute numbers, telling us how many single assessments had not progressed, for example—there was a number in the report for that. However, that was not compared with any of the previous reports, and the comments were generally things such as “slow”, “quality of care record keeping: not good”, “could do better”, “too long to get help” or “too many children waiting for help”. Not only were there not absolute numbers but it was not possible to compare the numbers in the report with those in previous reports.

There was one particularly odd thing. It was not really a metric, but a comment that too many of the looked-after children did not go to good schools. The report did not say how many of the schools in Manchester were good and whether it was possible for all the looked-after children to go to them.

I wrote to Ofsted and asked if it could produce the comparative tables that would enable me to see if the department had gone backwards or forwards, and to see what the situation was that had justified the change to “inadequate”. Ofsted replied to me within about a fortnight; I have no complaint about its speed of response. The response was from Jo Morgan, Ofsted’s regional director, north-west. She said that it was not possible to produce those tables and she gave the reasons why. I will quote from her letter:

“The recent inspection differs from previous inspections as it has a different methodology. It is therefore not possible to make any direct comparisons between judgements. The current single inspection framework is an unannounced universal inspection. It is conducted in a three year cycle and judges local authority services for looked after children, alongside the arrangements to protect children. Ofsted acknowledges that the ‘bar’ has been raised in two ways. Firstly, ‘good’ is now the minimum acceptable standard. The new framework sets out the criteria for ‘good’ in respect of the protection of children, the care they receive, and the arrangements in place to lead and manage services. Any local authority that is unable to provide evidence that the characteristics of good are in place will be will be deemed to ‘require improvement’. The second aspect of our raising the ‘bar’ relates to our explicit and unrelenting focus on both the experiences of children, young people and families and the difference that the help they receive makes to their lives and life chances. Whilst it is recognised that this methodology presents a challenge to local authorities, our priority remains the contribution inspection can make to the help, protection and care of vulnerable children and young people.”

The philosophy behind that is sound, but if the local authority and anybody interested in what is happening are to know whether those serious criteria are being met, they have to be able to measure things and put numbers on them, but the letter and the report make no attempt to do that. Therefore, when Ofsted says that the methodology presents a challenge to local authorities, I would say it makes it impossible for them to know, other than in terms of a generalised report, why they are succeeding or failing. Unless a percentage or a rate of improvement is given for the speed at which children are assessed when they are referred to the local authority, or for the number of children placed in foster care or accepted for adoption, it is difficult for the authority to know what is happening.

Ofsted is failing in terms of inspectors’ basic task of enabling those who want to hold it to account to do so. One does not have to be too cynical to say that in Rotherham, Rochdale and, previously, Haringey, and a number of the other terrible situations we have seen in many of our towns and cities where children were not properly protected by the local authority, the police and others who should have been looking after them, Ofsted had given virtually all the local authorities involved a clean bill of health. After Rotherham was given a clean bill of health, we found that 1,400 children had been abused. From memory—I did not look it up—Haringey had been given an excellent rating before the baby P case.

[Mr Chope]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. Does he share my hope that the Minister will be able to explain how Ofsted was held to account for its manifest failures of judgment in those cases?

[Graham Stringer]

I am looking forward to the Minister’s reply to the hon. Gentleman’s contribution and mine. After those awful events, I am led to the conclusion that, when Ofsted raises the bar, as it puts it, without giving quantified criteria, it is engaged in an exercise that is about not inspection and the accountability of child protection services, but the protection of Ofsted. If Ofsted says that Manchester city council or some other local authority is inadequate or requires improvement, and something terrible happens—I sincerely hope it does not—Ofsted is not to blame, whereas it clearly could be blamed for the reports it gave on the authorities I mentioned earlier. What we are seeing is not an inspection regime that helps us to understand whether our children are being protected, but one that puts out a lot of propaganda for its own protection. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on securing the debate and on his thoughtful and important contribution, in which he sought to outline the experience of a school in his constituency of going through the Ofsted inspection process.

I intervened on the hon. Gentleman earlier about the school’s exam history, and it would have been helpful had he been able to tell us a little more about it. Perhaps the Minister knows the details and can tell us whether it was a factor in Ofsted’s judgment. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman raised some important issues.

The hon. Gentleman made the important point that, in making serious judgments about the quality of schools, we should not forget the wider aspects of schools or the wider curriculum. I certainly agree that no school should be able to be rated as outstanding unless it has a broad and balanced offer for its pupils, including an excellent cultural offer. Perhaps we need to think more about that, and I might say more about it later.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Trojan horse affair in Birmingham. I do not intend to go through it in any great detail again today, but it would be useful if the Minister told us his view of what has happened since the Trojan horse affair, and of how Ofsted is inspecting schools in the light of the newly introduced need to teach British values in the aftermath of that affair. If he could update us on the Department’s view of how that is going, that might benefit the House and would certainly relate very much to Ofsted’s accountability, which is the subject of the debate.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) on his contribution. He expressed concerns about the quality of inspections of children’s services in Manchester. He made some important points about safeguarding and the failure of inspections sometimes to pick up problems with safeguarding children. Those are serious issues, and the Minister will have taken those remarks on board and will want to say something about them.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wells (Tessa Munt), who was born on the same day as me, although she looks a lot younger. She raised a serious constituency issue, which should be the subject of a formal complaint. I am sure that she, as a constituency MP, will take that up directly, but it would be useful to hear the Minister’s response.

As many Members here know, I used to be a teacher, so I have been through the process of being inspected, albeit not under the current dispensation. I can tell Members, and any teacher will agree, that it is not necessarily a pleasant experience, but it is a necessary experience. I absolutely accept that inspection forms an important part of the process. Before the Minister starts looking up how I did in that inspection, let me say that I was perfectly happy with how it turned out.

We should acknowledge that inspection is a stressful process and that head teachers, teachers and even pupils and parents can find it stressful. Although inspection is an extremely necessary process and must focus forensically on ensuring that children are not being failed in our system—a principle that the Opposition absolutely support—we should bear in mind the human side of things when schools are inspected.

One of the sad things about discussions of Ofsted is that they are very much based on the headlines we tend to see in the newspapers when things such as the Ofsted annual report are published. Very few people read beyond the headlines and into the detail of what the chief inspector says in his report. People tend to take up political positions on what has been said, but Sir Michael Wilshaw made some extremely sensible remarks in his commentary on the annual report, some of which are things we have known for a long time, such as that for a school to be outstanding it needs great leadership. It is also necessary for it to have great middle-level leaders; and that depends on the great senior leadership. We could do a lot more to strengthen the role of middle leaders, particularly in secondary schools. Sir Michael said in his report today that he is concerned that they are not making progress and that more children are being taught in schools rated inadequate. The necessary things include good leadership and good teachers, effective and accurate assessment, and dealing with such things as low-level disruption.

As a former teacher I do not think it is really possible to teach without first creating a quiet, orderly environment. Beyond that, many things are possible and teachers can move on to all sorts of innovative and interesting activities; but it is and always has been the starting point—the basis and foundation of the craft of the classroom. I would not go as far as saying, as we used to when I was teaching, “Never smile until Easter,” but it is necessary to establish the proper quiet and orderly environment in a classroom if a teacher is to teach effectively and make sure that learning happens. I understand why Sir Michael is concerned about low-level disruption; about the stretching of able pupils; about many schools’ failure to do enough to narrow the gap between disadvantaged pupils and those from better-off backgrounds; and—topically, after the Government’s announcement today—about the current poor careers advice in schools, which is almost universally accepted, except by the Department for Education, to have worsened significantly since 2010.

Perhaps the Minister will expand a little further on today’s announcement about the new careers company—particularly why it was not put out to tender and how the choice was made to give a particular sum of money to a particular individual and group to run it. I should be interested to know what thinking was behind that. Was it to do with the time it would take to get that done before purdah, or was there a genuine operational, strategic reason for doing things in that way instead of by the normal governmental tendering process? The Public Accounts Committee might be interested to know about that.

Sir Michael Wilshaw also talked about governance not being strong enough. We all need to listen to that, and to address the issue. He also flagged up a severe concern about teacher supply. I know the Minister is interested in that, and he noted the 17% fall since 2010 in the numbers entering initial teacher training. I should be interested in his view of Sir Michael’s remarks. Does he agree that teacher supply is an emerging issue, and if so what will he do about it?

Under the present Government there have been problems relating to the proper relationship between the Department for Education and Ofsted. Indeed, there have been accusations of an attempt by the Department to politicise Ofsted in the current Parliament, not least because of the sacking of its chair, Sally Morgan, and the memo from senior advisers to the former Secretary of State suggesting that it might be right to sack Sir Michael Wilshaw. Those revelations have led to accusations by people speaking on behalf of the Schools Minister—he is here this afternoon—of a Government attempt to politicise Ofsted. The report of 9 October in The Guardian said:

“A Liberal Democrat source close to schools minister David Laws said: ‘The fact is that, Gove, Cummings and others around them have been deeply disappointed by Michael Wilshaw’s refusal to play ball. This is almost certainly what lay behind their previous attempt to politicise the inspectorate.’”

So that is confirmation from the Schools Minister, or rather his spokesperson, whom he might perhaps want to identify—it might have been him; I do not know, but whoever the source close to him was, I am sure he would like to tell us—that the previous Secretary of State and his advisers have been involved in an attempt to politicise Ofsted. Of course, that is a dangerous path to take, so when the Minister talks about the accountability of Ofsted, perhaps he will tell us how he valiantly fought off the attempts in his Department to politicise it, who was involved in them, and what he is doing to rein in that tendency in the Department.

That is not to say that Ofsted is a perfect organisation, as anyone would admit. Concerns are frequently expressed to Ministers, shadow Ministers and others. We have heard in the debate some of the concerns about the way Ofsted inspections are carried out. We need to think about how to move on and reform it. It might help if I say something about Labour policy on Ofsted. The Opposition recognise that school inspections play a crucial role in upholding standards in schools, but we oppose the Government’s attempts to politicise Ofsted, which the Schools Minister has complained about, because they would ultimately undermine the integrity and independence of the schools inspectorate. National systems of inspection and accountability should be collaborative rather than confrontational—an issue that perhaps contributes to some of the concerns expressed in the debate. Otherwise, the effect of inspection could too often be to narrow children’s educational experience.

We need to prevent that from happening. We want schools to be innovative; we do not want them to operate in an accountability framework that makes them fear innovating, developing new pedagogies and using new technologies. Of course they must meet the requirements on standards, but we do not want an atmosphere in which schools always play a conservative part. We want innovation and we need pedagogies to be developed. We need to use and unleash the talents of teachers in what Ofsted called in 2010 the finest generation of teachers we have ever had in this country—albeit one dreadfully undermined by the Government’s disastrous policy, with which I understand the Schools Minister also disagrees, of allowing unqualified teachers in schools.

Labour believes that the role of the schools inspectorate needs to be examined. In government we will ensure that the inspection process is more collaborative and that school improvement involves schools reviewing one another, and monitoring by the middle tier. We have talked about creating directors of school standards to clear up the muddle that has occurred since the present Government’s piecemeal, rapid and politically motivated timetable of academisation. What Sir Michael Wilshaw said today about the obsession with structures, rather than the things that really matter for school improvement, was extremely helpful. The name over the door does not matter. What matters is the quality of leadership and teaching in a school, not the name and title. An end to a Government-favoured brand of school will be a positive step forward, and I am glad that Sir Michael said what he did.

[Mr Chope]

On that point, does the hon. Gentleman accept, on behalf of the Labour party, that there should not be an obsession with being for or against academies, free schools or maintained schools, but that we should look at each school on its merits?

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, I accept the hon. Gentleman’s proposition that each school should be considered on its merits, but we should be creating a framework of fairness within which schools of all types and denominations can operate, with a fair and proper admissions procedure, an effective admissions code and a stronger adjudicator on admissions, to ensure that schools are operating together in a collaborative framework. We do not believe in using naked market forces to drive schools out of business. We believe in weaker schools being helped by stronger schools in the system and insisting that such collaboration must happen, because ultimately that is how an increase is standards is achieved. That is what happened under the framework of London Challenge, for example, through a collaborative approach, rather than relying on creating an over-supply to drive schools out of business and, ultimately, putting pupils in ever-failing and declining schools over time and ruining their lives with an obsession with market forces. Unfortunately, that certainly was the philosophy of the previous Secretary of State and some of his closest advisers.

We will ensure that there is more collaborative work on school improvement, involving schools reviewing one another and monitoring by the middle tier; we have talked about creating directors of school standards, as well as the national inspectorate. We will ensure that early years settings and primary schools are judged against how well they develop children’s knowledge, skills and qualities through a broad and balanced curriculum, alongside tests in English and maths. We have already called for Ofsted to have the power to inspect academy chains and we are committed to monitoring its role. That confirms what I said to the hon. Member for Christchurch: we want the same treatment for all schools, so that, as well as inspecting local authorities, which may have responsibility for groups of schools, Ofsted can inspect not just individual schools in an academy chain but the operation of the chain itself.

I hear concerns that schools in some academy chains have less autonomy and are given directions from head office about exactly what they have to do. That head office is sometimes in a remote part of the country, far away from where the school is operating. Those schools’ policies are being determined from far away and there is little accountability in the system, so inspecting academy chains is important. I hope the Schools Minister agrees. We were not able to persuade the previous Secretary of State or the current one to permit that, but Sir Michael Wilshaw has asked for it and we support it. I hope the Schools Minister confirms that he supports that, too, because he seems to support an awful lot of what we say nowadays about schools and education policy, in contrast with his colleagues in the Department for Education.

Does the Minister agree with Sir Michael Wilshaw, who said today that in the last couple of years 70,000 more pupils are being taught in inadequate secondary schools? If so, what is his policy response and how should we deal with it? Obviously, if that is so—I have no reason to believe that the chief inspector of schools is wrong—there needs to be some policy response. It is not adequate simply to say, “Our academisation programme and our free schools policy will solve all problems”, because we know that is not true. What are we actually trying to do to put that right? It is a challenge to all of us, if such a process is occurring.

I recognise the improvements made by many schools in recent years, under this Government and the previous one, and their raising of standards. That is to be celebrated and commended but it is down, principally, to the hard work of school teachers, school leaders, governors and others, probably far more than to politicians and education policy makers, who often have little experience of the front line—the classroom—and more experience of policy think-tanks. However, if over the past couple of years 70,000 more pupils are being taught in inadequate schools, the Government should be concerned about that and should have something to say about it. I hope that the Minister has.

Will the Minister update us on what is happening about accusations that the Inspiration Trust in Norfolk was given prior notification of inspection? As has been said, this system has to be fair across the country and everybody must have the same notification—or no notification—of inspection. I am sure that Members would be grateful for any information the Minister could provide to update the House.

Will the Minister comment on the following, from an article in The Guardian on Tuesday 9 December?

“In September 2013, an Ofsted stipulation that inspectors should ‘consider the food on offer at the school and atmosphere of the school canteen’ was introduced, following pressure from organisations including the Jamie Oliver Foundation. But this August, it I was quietly removed, in a streamlining of inspection guidance. Ofsted’s latest consultation on a new inspection framework, which closed last Friday, has also omitted to mention school food.”

I know the Minister has a genuine interest in this subject. Can he shed any light on whether there is to be a dilution of the inspection of the quality of school food?

What does the Minister think of the following remark by Sir Michael Wilshaw in the annual report?

“The proportion of secondary schools in which leadership and management are judged inadequate has…doubled over the past two years.”

Again, that should be of direct concern to the Department. Does the Minister agree with and recognise Sir Michael Wilshaw’s observation? If so, what is his response and what does he intend to do about it?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea, and I will certainly follow your wise advice, in spite of the temptations of the shadow Schools Minister to draw me off into all sorts of other areas.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on raising this issue, giving us an opportunity not only to address the issue of his local school, but to reflect on the accountability of Ofsted and the appeals processes that our schools inspectorate operates under. He has also, as he said, given us an opportunity to touch on issues arising out of Ofsted’s annual report published today, within the constraints of the debate.

I think that, by and large, Ofsted does a difficult job well, and most hon. Members would recognise that. It is a job that is necessary. Few of us would want to go back to 30 or 40 years ago, when the oversight and accountability of the school system was much weaker and, as a consequence, there was a risk that underperforming schools could continue, failing their local communities and young people for long periods. We certainly do not want to go back to that. Ofsted is a good organisation and the current chief inspector is one of the best we have had. Of course, the Government will reflect carefully on the annual report and the comments the chief inspector made today on its launch.

I should also say, as I believe the chief inspector said on the “Today” programme this morning, that Ofsted carries out some 30,000 inspections every year, not only of schools but in other settings. The chief inspector will be the first to acknowledge that when carrying out inspections in such a number of settings, there are bound to be imperfections in a small minority of cases. It is important that we ensure that, where there are issues, those are taken seriously and dealt with. Of course, we need to make sure that the overall quality of the inspection process is as high as it can possibly be.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and others who have participated in this debate have pointed out that the judgments made by Ofsted are important and have big consequences for people’s livelihoods, schools’ reputations and the decisions parents take. In fairness to parents and schools, it is therefore important that we get those judgments right. If we err on the side of generosity in any judgment, that has serious consequences. We could end up with schools not doing well enough and failing their local communities for long periods and, as the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) mentioned, what is important in the schools system is even more crucial in safeguarding. We should be fair to all those involved in that important work, but we should be rigorous in our inspection to ensure that vulnerable young people are not at risk.

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, because I did not know he was going to raise issues on children’s services and safeguarding. I am not the lead Minister on that issue in the Department; the Minister with responsibility for children, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), will have been particularly involved in the oversight of some of the services in Manchester and elsewhere, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman following the debate to follow up on some of the points he raised.

Before coming back to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, I will respond briefly to my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Tessa Munt), who raised concerns about information that her constituent gave Ofsted anonymously to inform the inspection of a school. I am sure that the chief inspector would take the same view as me and her—that information given anonymously should be treated in that way; the source of that information should not be revealed to the institution being inspected. I am concerned to hear that there may have been an instance where privacy was not respected. I will look into that. I will see the chief inspector shortly, and I will raise the issue with him and ask whether he can look into it, if my hon. Friend can give me the details—in confidence, of course—of her constituent and the circumstances.

I will pick up on a number of the points that the shadow Schools Minister raised, but specifically on accountability and the situation in Norfolk, I can update him and the House by saying that the fresh independent review ordered by Sir Michael after questions were raised about the earlier inspection is under way. We expect that review to be completed by the end of the year.

I will touch on the annual report, and then I will comment on Ofsted’s inspection and appeals process. I will then touch on Ferndown school, which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch mentioned. Today’s annual Ofsted report on schools provides a timely reminder of the importance of Ofsted’s inspection work. Earlier today, the chief inspector announced that good and outstanding schools now account for 81% of all schools inspected, up from 68% in 2010. We should all acknowledge that that is a significant increase. In spite of some of the concerns about secondary schools, that is the highest proportion of good and outstanding schools at any time since Ofsted was set up. Primary schools, as the chief inspector mentioned this morning, have done particularly well, with 82% now good or outstanding, which means that 190,000 more pupils are in good and outstanding primary schools than last year. That is 700,000 more than in 2012, and we should celebrate that.

The report also shows that schools are responding positively to inspection. Two thirds of schools that were previously judged as requiring improvement secured good or outstanding on re-inspection this year. There is also positive news on the performance of pupils from lower-income backgrounds. The disadvantage gap, particularly in primary schools, is closing rapidly. All that means that more than 1 million more pupils are in good or outstanding schools than in 2010. While much of the credit for that must go to hard-working individuals in schools, we believe that inspection is also contributing to the improvement in the system.

The shadow Schools Minister mentioned the less encouraging recent statistics for secondary schools. Significantly more work needs to be done to ensure that improvement is maintained in the future, rather than schools remaining at existing levels. The percentage of secondary schools graded good or outstanding is up from 68% in 2010 to 71%. The number of pupils of secondary age being educated in schools in the secondary sector classed as requiring improvement or inadequate dropped from 1,073,000 to 793,000 last year, which is encouraging.

The inspection and regulatory functions of Ofsted are vested in Her Majesty’s chief inspector, who is primarily accountable directly to Parliament. He appears before the Education Committee at least twice a year, giving evidence on the work of Ofsted and on his annual report. He is also subject to other parliamentary scrutiny. As recently as last month he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee, so there are many parliamentary opportunities for the work of Ofsted to be examined. The Education Committee can also conduct inquiries specifically into Ofsted and its work. In April 2011, the Committee conducted an inquiry into the role and performance of Ofsted. The report from that inquiry concluded:

“Ofsted’s independent status is broadly valued by inspectors, by professionals, and by the public, and we strongly support the retention of that status.”

As the Department for Education is the lead policy and ministerial Department covering Ofsted’s work, the Secretary of State for Education meets the chief inspector regularly, as do I, to discuss the work of Ofsted.

Every year Ofsted conducts approximately 6,500 school inspections and 30,000 inspections of all settings. It has a massive job of work to do. As part of its procedures, Ofsted sends out a feedback questionnaire after every inspection. The latest figures for the second quarter of 2014-15 show that 93% of respondents said that they were satisfied with the way an inspection was carried out. That is against an overall response rate of 71%, which indicates that in the majority of settings, there is contentment on the effectiveness and fairness of the Ofsted process. As good as those figures are, there is no room for complacency.

I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that Sir Michael takes particular interest in the quality of inspectors’ work. He recognises—I believe he has said this publicly—that more needs to be done to ensure that all inspections are delivered to a consistently high standard the first time around. That is why he appointed Sir Robin Bosher, one of Ofsted’s directors, to take direct responsibility for inspection quality and the training of inspectors. As a result, Ofsted has put in place more stringent quality checks and monitoring of inspections and reports. It has also invested more in the training of inspectors, in place of having detailed written guidance documents. I know that Sir Michael is working hard to ensure quality and consistency, and I am confident that he will tackle any underperformance in the inspection work force. He is prepared to take tough action where necessary to remove inspectors, or to require additional training where inspectors fail to meet his high expectations.

Looking ahead—my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch mentioned this—Sir Michael has announced that he will bring the management of inspections, including all inspector training, in-house from September 2015. As part of the programme, Ofsted will change how it sources and selects additional inspectors, and how it trains, contracts with and performance-manages them. Much of that is currently arranged through contracts with three inspection service providers: Tribal, Serco and CfBT. Under the planned changes, however, all complaints will be handled directly by Ofsted.

Another important step in trying to improve the quality of inspections is making more use of serving practitioners—something to which Sir Michael Wilshaw is committed. The latest figures from Ofsted show that 56% of school inspections include at least one serving practitioner, which could be a head teacher or a senior leader from a high-performing school. That is up from just 15% in 2011, so there has been a massive increase in the involvement of serving practitioners. Many of them are also national leaders of education and play a wider part in the overall leadership of the school system.

I will briefly turn to how the Ofsted complaints procedure works. I appreciate that this might seem unnecessarily detailed, but as it is at the centre of my hon. Friend’s concerns, it is important for me to set out just what the process looks like and to consider whether it needs any change.

Ofsted has a clear, published complaints procedure. During an inspection, those with concerns are strongly encouraged to raise issues with the lead inspector as soon as they arise. If a complainant feels unable to raise concerns directly with the lead inspector during the inspection, they can contact the Ofsted helpline directly. If concerns have not been resolved, a formal complaint can be raised with Ofsted within 10 working days of the incident of concern. If the concern is about an inspection, the complaint should be made no more than 10 working days following the publication of the report. When Ofsted receives the complaint, it will investigate and send a written response to answer the agreed main points of concern within 30 working days. It does not normally withhold publication of an inspection report or withdraw a published inspection report while it investigates complaints unless there are exceptional circumstances.

There is a second, appeal stage to the complaints process. If a complainant remains dissatisfied, they may appeal to the Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted, which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch mentioned. The Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution has been appointed by the Secretary of State to undertake that important role. If complainants are not satisfied with the outcome of the adjudication service review, they can contact the parliamentary ombudsman. That is quite a prolonged process, and I appreciate my hon. Friend’s comments about the ombudsman’s potential role and the time that such things can take, but it is relevant that in 2013 only 12 cases concerning schools were referred to the independent complaints adjudication service, which is a small proportion given that Ofsted inspects approximately 6,500 schools a year. That suggests to me that the number of schools that are seriously concerned about the quality of their inspections is relatively small.

[Mr Chope]

Might not another explanation be that schools realise that ICASO cannot really do anything? All that it can do is look at the process rather than the substance.

[Mr Laws]

It might be that my hon. Friend would seek to put that construction on it, but that is unduly pessimistic, not only because the appeals process has previous stages, but because a body that seeks to escalate a complaint to the independent complaints adjudication service can seek to raise concerns about the substance—although they may appear to be addressed to the process—if it feels that aspects of the inspection process have not been respected. I will return to that with regard to the school mentioned by my hon. Friend in a moment.

The independent complaints adjudication service also reported that it saw an improvement in the quality of Ofsted’s complaint handling from previous years. All but four of the general recommendations made to Ofsted were accepted fully, with the others being accepted partially.

I know that my hon. Friend has exchanged correspondence with the chief inspector and Ofsted’s south-west regional director, Bradley Simmons, about the inspection of Ferndown upper school in January 2014. My hon. Friend is concerned that the school was graded inadequate, with serious weaknesses. I note that the inspection reported several areas of concern, including that students were not making enough progress, especially in English, that work set was not suitable for the least or most able students, that progress was too slow for students eligible for the pupil premium, for boys and for students with special educational needs or disabilities, that fixed-term exclusions and persistent absence figures were too high and impacting on the progress being made by those pupils, that sixth-form students were not making enough progress and that leaders, including governors, were not tackling weaknesses quickly enough.

As Schools Minister, I cannot comment personally on all those judgments, as my hon. Friend will understand. However, I can reflect on the data and what they indicate for the school. At the time of the inspection, the proportion of students gaining five good GCSE passes, including English and mathematics at grade C or above, had been significantly below the national average for three years. It was 47% against 58% in 2011, 49% against 59% in 2012 and 50% against 60.6% in 2013. As I understand it, the school has a lower than average number of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in receipt of, for example, the pupil premium. GCSE English language passes at grade A* to C were 69% against the national average of 82%. Attainment was significantly below the national average in nine curriculum areas, and above in just two. Just 59% of students made expected progress in English against 69% nationally. I will not comment on the precise judgments in the Ofsted report, but we should reflect on the fact that data do suggest that the school has performance issues and challenges.

On accountability, I know that the school followed Ofsted’s published complaints procedure. The head teacher complained about the outcome of the inspection. His complaint was investigated by the inspection service provider, Tribal, but was not upheld. He requested that his complaint be elevated, and a further investigation was undertaken by Her Majesty’s inspectors to ascertain whether the original had been fair and thorough. The outcome of the original investigation was validated. The head teacher then took his complaint to the Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted. The adjudicator reported that Ofsted had

“addressed the complainant’s concerns in significant detail and in a fair and reasonable manner”

and went on to say:

“I do not find that I can provide any advice or make any recommendations to further improve Ofsted’s practices for dealing with complaints in this instance.”

Picking up on some of the concerns that the school raised about being marked down for attendance, I understand that the investigation into the complaint found that inspectors had considered the school’s own attendance data alongside those available nationally. That is correct procedure. Inspectors should use RAISEonline as a benchmark and should ask questions as necessary. The response to the school’s complaint mentioned there being no national comparison data on attendance rates for sixth forms only.

[Mr Chope]

On that point about no data being available, that is not correct. Does my right hon. Friend accept that?

[Mr Laws]

The response to the school’s complaint mentioned there being no national comparison data on attendance rates for sixth forms only, but attendance data are available and show that, although improving slightly recently, persistent absence has risen for girls and for some students with special educational needs. It has fallen for students eligible for free school meals, but remains seven points above the national average as in 2013.

Attendance is not a separate judgment and does not alone determine the behaviour and safety judgment. A school cannot be marked down for its attendance statistics alone, and this particular school was not. Behaviour and safety were judged not to be inadequate, but to require improvement. My hon. Friend is concerned that performance data should be correctly assessed in a local context, but while local comparisons are important, Ofsted makes comparisons on attainment and progress against national data, taking account of pupils’ prior attainment. That is clearly set out in the inspection handbook, so it should not come as a surprise to any school. If one looks at the attainment data, it is clear that the school has some questions to answer about its performance against comparable national figures.

I understand that Ofsted has undertaken two monitoring inspections of the school, in May and September, since the original inspection. The first visit found that the school was planning appropriate action for improvement, supported by the local authority. The second visit judged senior leaders to be making reasonable progress towards the removal of serious weaknesses. However, it also found that school leaders lacked rigour and urgency in their approach to improving the school. While recognising improvements, Her Majesty’s inspectorate found that

“the school lacks a consistently rigorous and relentless focus on improving the achievement of those students who could, and should, do better, regardless of their background, ability or starting point”.

We should expect all schools to serve the interests of all pupils.

It is important to remember that, for the vast majority of schools, the current inspection system works well. I would, however, encourage any school that feels that its inspection has fallen short of normal expectations to raise its concerns with Ofsted at the earliest possible opportunity, as many have done. However, the chief inspector’s decision must be final if inspection is to remain credible. Without that, every school that disagreed with the judgment would seek to challenge the outcome of its inspection, delaying critical action to start to bring about improvement for the children at the school who, after all, will not get a second chance.

I hope that I have demonstrated that there are many stages in the process of scrutinising an Ofsted decision. In fact, the only way that we could really meet my hon. Friend’s requirement for an additional degree of scrutiny would be to have another school inspection service. There is no evidence at present that that would be value for money given the overall level of complaints. We will, however, keep a close eye on the issue and seek to improve the quality of inspections in future.

Repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am coming to an end. I have put it several times to our beloved Prime Minister that we should end this coalition, which is haemorrhaging our support, and the support of the Liberal Democrats. He says that he cannot do it because, under this ridiculous Act of Parliament, he could not call a general election, and the Leader of the Opposition might be in power by teatime. I do not know whether or not that is right, but there is a certain rigidity in the system. We should end this coalition and go to the people at an appropriate moment.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act is a constitutional aberration. It was cobbled together without pre-legislative review or proper national debate. It could and does result in zombie-government in the latter part of the term. Indeed it could conceivably lead to a Belgian situation of weak Government and weak Parliament. As is found around the world, it could and does lead to rigidity and angry calls by a disaffected public to extra-parliamentary activity. It actually leads to the growth of extremist fringe parties, as we are finding in our own country.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I was about to end, but I will give way one last time.

[Mr Chope]

Will my hon. Friend pray in aid the example of Ukraine, which has parliamentary elections this weekend? It had a fixed-term Parliament, but the President has called what he has described as early parliamentary elections.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Indeed, and dangerous situations can often be the result of fixed-terms.

We could see, as a result of this Act, an unprecedented long period without any Government at all. This is a bad Act. It was not thought through and it is not in our traditions. It should be reviewed and repealed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

I will give way first to my distinguished colleague from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee.

[Mr Chope]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the argument is essentially between those who believe in rigidity, as he does, and those of us on the Government Benches who believe in flexibility? In a sense, is not that illustrated by what happened in Scotland? Had the Scots voted to leave the Union, the Prime Minister would surely have been required to call a general election, but the Fixed-term Parliaments Act would have prevented him from having that discretion.

[Mr Allen]

The hon. Gentleman is known for being a rather floppy and flexible individual, and perhaps I am renowned for being inflexible in the multitude of compromises I have attempted to make over my political career to secure at least some small reforms in our democracy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely. Traineeships are provided by good and outstanding institutions, because we want them to be a high-quality product to make sure that everybody gets the skills they need and the capability and character they need to hold down a job. They are filling a gap that was left before.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

14. When he last discussed education policy with leaders of independent schools.

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

I regularly enjoy meeting the heads of our leading independent schools.

[Mr Chope]

Does my right hon. Friend appreciate the important role that independent schools play in raising education standards in this country, and does he applaud the enormous contribution that fee-paying parents make in investing in our education system?

[Michael Gove]

I take a close interest in the success of England’s independent schools. In particular, I reinforce the point that my hon. Friend makes. Those parents who support independent schools are supporting not just a great education for their own children. In many cases—for example, with schools such as Wellington and Eton college—they are also supporting improved state education by sponsoring free schools, which would not exist if Labour came to power. I stress that the head teachers of independent schools appreciate the changes being made to the state sector. Only this weekend the headmaster of King’s College school in Wimbledon pointed out that the state sector “has really improved” under this Government—so much so that it is totally different from the situation that prevailed 10 years ago under Labour.