Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Christopher Chope and Nick Gibb

Monday 17th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

11. What recent assessment she has made of the quality and value of education provided by independent schools in England.

[The Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb)]

Independent schools, including those in my hon. Friend’s constituency, are an important part of our school system, giving parents choice. Independent schools drive innovation, support social mobility through bursaries and attract significant international investment. The diverse independent sector includes schools that serve small faith communities and that create special school capacity.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. Can he ensure that other members of the Government show similar enthusiasm for the work and achievements of the independent schooling sector? Will he take this opportunity to thank all the families who make significant financial sacrifices to pay the fees of those schools for acting in the public interest and saving taxpayers quite a lot of money?

[Nick Gibb]

I am very happy to do that. My hon. Friend will be interested to know that approximately 8% of pupils attending Independent Schools Council schools receive around £480 million of bursaries and means-tested assistance.

Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Nick Gibb

Report stage & 3rd reading
Friday 12th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on successfully stewarding the Bill to Report and, I hope, shortly on to Third Reading. School uniforms are an important part of establishing an ethos and common identity in a school. They are a shared endeavour and a sense of belonging. School uniforms help to remove the inequalities caused by differences in the prosperity or disadvantage of a pupil’s family, and they help to ensure that schools are disciplined and safe places for students, where it is good to be ambitious, and admirable to be conscientious and hardworking.

For some families, the cost of purchasing school uniforms for growing children can be a financial worry. In 2015, the Government commissioned a cost of school uniforms survey, which found that, after adjusting for inflation and excluding the PE kit, the average cost of a school uniform had decreased since 2007 to £213. While two thirds of parents were happy with the cost of a school uniform and PE kit, nearly one fifth reported that they had suffered financial hardship because of having to buy school uniforms for their children. The Bill, which the Government wholeheartedly support, is designed to ensure that the costs of schools uniforms are reasonable, and that schools secure the best value for parents.

Amendments 1, 3, 4, 5 and 8 relate to the content of the statutory guidance to be issued under the Bill. It is important that such issues are considered in the statutory guidance rather than in primary legislation, as suggested by the amendments. That approach maintains a level of flexibility and responsiveness, so that over time, statutory guidance on uniform costs can be amended and improved. I welcome the way that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale has constructed the Bill.

On amendment 1, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) that every school should ensure that second-hand school uniform is available for parents to acquire. It is, however, important for this to be a matter for statutory guidance, rather than primary legislation, so we can get the details right and schools have some flexibility about how to do this.

On amendment 5, as we know, families already benefit from a zero rate of VAT on clothing designed for children under 14 years old. This is already a significant cost to the Exchequer, costing £2 billion each year in lost revenue. Expanding this to include a wider size of school uniforms would not specifically target low-income families. HMRC already provides guidance on this matter in VAT notice 714. However, my hon. Friend is right to point out that, having left the European Union, we are now free to make these changes if we wish, and I am sure the Chancellor of Exchequer will have heard his comments.

On amendment 8, we want to see schools providing clear information to parents about their uniform policies, but we consider that this is a matter for the statutory guidance to enable us to ensure that these requirements are flexible and responsive, rather than placing a requirement to publish in the Bill. My hon. Friend raised the issue of schools that do not have a school uniform policy. The current non-statutory guidance says:

“The Department strongly encourages schools to have a uniform as it can play a valuable role in contributing to the ethos of a school and setting an appropriate tone.”

That is in the current non-statutory guidance, so I will take my hon. Friend’s point in his speech as an exhortation to include that sentence or something similar in the statutory guidance, which we continue to work on.

On amendment 6, the crux of the phrasing in the Bill—“must have regard to”—is that schools must comply with the guidance unless they have a good reason for departing from it. Put simply, it means that schools cannot ignore this guidance. This amendment would in effect mean that schools would be able to disregard the guidance whenever they wished, which is the opposite of the intention behind the principal tenet of the Bill.

On amendment 7, it is important that the principles that will be set out in the statutory guidance on the costs aspects of uniform are considered by schools when they are developing or changing their uniform policies so that they are embedded right from the start. This amendment would mean that schools would not have to have regard to key factors that Members have raised as being crucial to the cost of a uniform when developing such a policy. This would severely undermine the reasons for introducing statutory guidance, as it would in effect mean that the application of the guidance would be limited and unlikely to be effective in keeping costs down.

On amendment 9, the Government will want to update the guidance as and when necessary, and as circumstances require it. The Government want the new statutory guidance to have time to bed in once issued and would not want to be looking to make arbitrary or unnecessary changes, but placing arbitrary restrictions on the Government’s ability to make changes to the guidance, even if schools were to make it clear that revisions would be welcome, would prevent us from being responsive to the needs of parents and schools, and risk schools being required to have regard to guidance that was out of date.

Amendments 10 to 14 seek to disapply certain types of school from the Bill. There is no good reason to treat these schools differently. For example, not all special schools and alternative provision schools have a school uniform, and that is appropriate. However, for those that do, it is important that this Bill applies to them, as well as to mainstream schools, to ensure that they also consider value for money for parents when setting their policy.

On amendment 15, I do not consider it appropriate to list selected external bodies to be consulted in primary legislation, but as I said in Committee, I am committed to engaging with representatives of schools, parents and other interested parties as we draft the statutory guidance.

On amendment 2, we are progressing well with the changes to the draft statutory guidance. We will reflect on the comments made during this debate and the debates in Committee as the Bill progresses through this House as we draft the statutory guidance. That includes the comments made by all hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), as well as, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and other hon. Friends and hon. Members who have spoken in this debate.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

What my right hon. Friend has said is delightfully vague. Why can he not be more specific? Who is controlling him? Surely he is in charge of his Department and can tell us when this statutory guidance will be issued—or perhaps even issued in draft. I am sure that Members in the other place would like to have a draft of the statutory guidance before them so that they can consider these issues. He has said that many of my amendments should be incorporated in the statutory guidance, so let us see the statutory guidance.

[Nick Gibb]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I said that I would reflect on the comments he has made in this debate. Of course, all comments made during the passage of this Bill will be taken into account as we consider the drafting of this statutory guidance. I will be consulting, as I have been, interested parties to this debate. What I do not want to do is delay the passage of the Bill through the other place while we wait for the statutory guidance to be finalised. It is important that we get the Bill on to the statute book before the Session ends. Given all that I have said in response to the amendments, I hope that my hon. Friend will not wish to press his amendments to a Division.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I thank all those people who have participated in this debate, where we have had a good discussion about the Bill. I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), on the Opposition Front Bench, is agreeing with that, although he did not make any reference in his short speech to any of the points I have made in support of the amendments.

My right hon. Friend the Minister is basically saying, “We are entering upon a period of reflection.” Or at least he is. May I suggest, with the greatest of respect, that there has been a very long period in which to reflect already? The Government first signposted the intention to deal with this issue in a statutory way in 2015. It was then the subject of various commitments given in the run-up to the last general election. Then we had the Second Reading and Committee stage—that was in September. My right hon. Friend said that he did not think we should wait for the statutory guidance before making further progress. I do not know whether he misunderstood or misheard what I was saying. I was making a suggestion about the draft statutory guidance. Obviously, if he is consulting about statutory guidance, he must be consulting on a draft of it. If that is the case, why are Members of this House not able to see that draft? In particular, why is he going to deprive Members of the other place of being able to see it? The normal conduct of proceedings in this House is that when statutory guidance is under consideration, the Government will, if at all possible, present the House with a draft of it. My right hon. Friend seems, in his own charming way—I am not charmed by this or misled, because I can see what he is trying to do—to be avoiding a situation in which there can be any debate about the draft statutory guidance. The very reasonable questions put during this debate, including by my new friend the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), show that there is an importance of timing here; people need to have some certainty about the timing and intentions. Is the Minister planning for the statutory guidance to take effect in this coming academic year—yes or no? I may not like the answer he gives, but surely he can tell us what his intentions are, or is he still further reflecting upon it? How much more information does he need before he can reach a conclusion to his reflections?

The Minister grouped a whole lot of my amendments together. It is all very well for him to say that they relate to content and will be considered with the statutory guidance, but he is not prepared to stop teasing us about the timing and content of that statutory guidance. I am afraid that that makes me extremely disappointed, if not nervous, about what is being cooked up and will be sprung upon unsuspecting governors, parents and suppliers of school uniforms before we know what has happened. Perhaps we can come back to this on Third Reading, but the fact that the Minister is unwilling to expand at all upon those points is disappointing.

I also hoped the Minister would give an undertaking that, because of his commitment and the Government’s commitment to minimising the avoidable costs of school uniform, the Government would bring forward legislation to remove value added tax on school uniforms. That would be a really good move, and strong support for that proposition has emerged in this debate and on Second Reading. I hope that, as a result of that, when we get to the new Session of Parliament, someone who is successful in the private Members’ Bills ballot—perhaps with encouragement from the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), if he is unsuccessful on the second occasion in the ballot—will take up the cudgels of a short Bill to remove VAT from school uniforms. I think that that would be an extremely popular Bill. I have been in the House for some time, and I have never had the opportunity of taking forward a Bill that was successful in the ballot, but if I were to be successful in the ballot, that might well be at the top of my priority list, because I think it would make a difference. Frankly, it would make a much bigger difference than what will be contained in this statutory guidance.

I am going to be blunt: I am disappointed with the Minister’s response, and I will leave it at that. In terms of the other contributions made in the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) is somewhat of a national expert on this. He had a big feature in the Daily Express and perhaps other great organs, setting out his support for the Bill but also his concerns that we should not have unintended consequences flowing from it. His point about the need for availability, as well as durability, sustainability and ethical sourcing, was very well made. He also pointed out—again, the Minister did not respond to this—that, as a result of the covid nightmare, many suppliers of school uniforms have built up stocks that they will want to be able to use rather than have to put on the scrapheap. I am grateful for his contribution, and I am disappointed that the Minister did not specifically address it.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Putney for supporting my views on the VAT issue. As she rightly said, there would be no need for amendment 2 if the Minister made a commitment at the Dispatch Box.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

May I once again congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on progressing his private Member’s Bill to this stage? I look forward to continuing to work with him on this important issue. I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate, including my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), for Shipley (Philip Davies), for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) and for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer).

[Sir Christopher Chope]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I did not rise in my place to speak on Third Reading because I understood that, as I was on the call list, I would be called, but the Minister is after me on the call list.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Well, that is an interesting point of order. I must say to the hon. Gentleman that the order of the call list is a matter for me. Yes, things are written down and these are unusual proceedings, but the order in which Members are called to speak is still a matter for the Chair. He will of course have his turn in due course.

[Nick Gibb]

I also thank the hon. Members for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy).

Uniform helps to promote the ethos of a school and set an appropriate tone. Moreover, by creating a common identity among pupils, a school uniform can act as a social leveller. The Bill will protect and reinforce that role.

I know that many Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, will want to know the intended contents of the statutory guidance, so I will take this opportunity to set out briefly our proposed approach to the key issues raised in the debate. In developing and implementing their school uniform policy, schools should consider the total cost of all items of uniform or clothing that parents will need to provide while the pupil is at the school.

On the question of branded items, the current non-statutory guidance states that compulsory branded items should be kept to a minimum. We plan to keep that approach in the statutory guidance and, additionally, specify that their use should be limited to low-cost or long-lasting items. We will provide guidance about ways to reap the benefits of a branded item while also keeping costs low. The Government believe that this approach will set a clear expectation on schools not to overuse branded items, while allowing schools to take sensible decisions in their own contexts.

On sole-supplier arrangements, schools should be able to demonstrate that they have obtained best value for money in their supply arrangements, but we do not intend to ban sole-supplier contracts. To ensure that there is competition and transparency, we want schools to tender their school uniform contracts regularly—at least every five years. To support schools to carry out good tenders, we will provide information on the key areas to consider when tendering their uniform contracts. The Bill will not punish good suppliers; far from it. Their emphasis on quality and value for money will be rewarded as standards across the industry increase due to competition.

I believe that second-hand uniform can play a valuable role in keeping costs reasonable for all parents, and I know that many Members share that view. I would like every school to ensure that arrangements are in place to make second-hand school uniform available for parents to acquire. I myself had a second-hand rugby shirt at school, and I can confirm that when I grew out of it, after a few years, it remained in the same pristine condition it had been in when my parents purchased it.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I will resist the temptation to comment on the Minister’s last point, but he has made an important statement about second-hand uniform. Will there be a requirement in the statutory guidance for schools to provide facilities for the sale and exchange of second-hand uniform?

[Nick Gibb]

The statutory guidance will of course refer to the importance of there being facilities for parents to be able to acquire second-hand uniform.



It is my intention to engage with representatives of schools, parents and other interested parties in drafting and finalising the statutory guidance. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and the hon. Member for Putney asked about the timing of the implementation of the guidance. We want schools to implement changes in a timely and considered manner to ensure that they work effectively, but we would want to make sure that in doing so parents do not incur additional costs from sudden uniform changes. We will therefore set out clearly in the statutory guidance when we expect schools to implement the requirements. I can commit that schools will not be required to make sudden changes to their uniform policy for September 2021.

The Bill will help many families throughout the country who may struggle to afford a school uniform, so the Government support it, and I urge all Members of the House to support its Third Reading.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Christopher Chope and Nick Gibb

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Our recruitment and retention strategy sets out our plans to attract high-quality recruits to the profession. The “Get into teaching” marketing campaign provides information to trainees, including on the availability of tax-free bursaries and scholarships worth up to £28,000 in certain subjects. We have also set out plans to increase the minimum starting salary for teachers to £30,000 by September 2022.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Sadly, many people are losing their jobs or are threatened with redundancy, and we know there is a mass shortage of teachers of physics and maths in particular. Will my right hon. Friend enable schools to second people from industry to fill the vacancies, so that people with talent can fill the vacuum?

[Nick Gibb]

The organisation Now Teach, which was set up by Lucy Kellaway and which we support, has seen a huge surge of interest from people like the ones my hon. Friend suggests. It helps career changers to come into teaching. We have also seen a 12% increase in applications to teacher training in the last quarter, to the end of May.

School Funding

Debate between Christopher Chope and Nick Gibb

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Nick Gibb]

I will not for the moment, if my hon. Friend will forgive me. I want to respond to the very serious points made by hon. Members during the debate. If there is time at the end of that, I will of course give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), who always has important issues to raise. I am always very cognisant of his expertise as a former teacher and as a member of the Select Committee on Education.

The hon. Member for Edmonton should be aware that funding for schools in her constituency has risen from £89.2 million in 2017-18 to £91.3 million. That is an increase of £2.2 million. It is an increase of 2.5% overall and of 3% on a per-pupil basis.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove asked about funding for the increase in the employer contribution to teachers’ pensions. That will rise to 23.6%, so 23.6% of the salary will be paid by the employer into the teacher pension scheme.[Official Report, 21 March 2019, Vol. 656, c. 10MC.] We propose to provide funding to meet the additional teachers’ pension scheme pressures in 2019-20 for maintained schools, academies and FE colleges whose staff are part of the teachers’ pension scheme. That proposal includes centrally employed teachers and teachers at music education hubs. We have recently closed a public consultation on the proposal. We will now assess the replies and publish a formal response alongside announcing funding in due course.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) made similar points about taking a serious approach to the debate. He would acknowledge that in Southampton, Itchen funding has increased from £60 million in 2017-18 to £62 million in 2019-20. That is an increase of 3.3%, and 2.3% on a per-pupil basis.

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) should be aware that funding in her constituency has risen from £44.2 million in 2017-18 to £47.68 million in 2019-20. That is an increase of 7.6% and of 6.3% on a per-pupil basis. The hon. Member for Bury North (James Frith) should be aware that funding in his constituency has risen from £61 million in 2017-18 to £64.8 million in 2019-20. That is an increase of £3.8 million or 6.2%, and of 4.7% on a per-pupil basis.

My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) will be aware of course—he always is on these issues—that, in his constituency, schools are being funded to the tune of £72.7 million in 2017-18 and that that is rising to £76.4 million. That is an increase of 5.1% and of 3.1% on a per-pupil basis. He raised the issue of FE —[Interruption.]

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. It is disgraceful that there are Members sitting in this Chamber who are not listening to the Minister. They have taken advantage of participating in a debate and they are setting a very bad example to people up and down the country who believe that this should be a democracy in which people are able to listen to the arguments. The Minister is on his feet, and I order people not to interrupt any more.

[Nick Gibb]

Thank you very much, Sir Christopher.

My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester raised the issue of FE funding. We have protected the base rate of funding for 16 to 19-year-olds until 2020 at £4,000 per pupil and we continue to provide extra funding to add to that base rate; an example is the £500 million of funding for T-levels.[Official Report, 21 March 2019, Vol. 656, c. 10MC.] We plan to invest nearly £7 billion during the current academic year. However, we are aware of the financial pressures on school sixth forms and other providers of education for 16 to 19-year-olds and will continue to look carefully at funding for that age group in preparation for the spending review.

I point out to the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) that in her constituency we are spending £82.3 million in 2017-18 and that is rising to £85.4 million in 2019-20. That is an increase of 3.8% and of 2.5% on a per-pupil basis. I could not miss out the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) of course. Funding in her constituency is rising from £42.9 million in 2017-18 to £46.2 million in 2019-20. That is an increase of 7.9% and of 4% on a per-pupil basis.

My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley raised the important issue of special needs education. When we state our commitment to supporting every child to succeed, it is important to be clear that that applies, without reservation, to children with special educational needs and disabilities. That is why we have reformed the funding system to take particular account of children and young people with additional needs, and introduced a new formula. We recognise the concerns that have been raised about the costs of making provision for children and young people with complex special educational needs. We have increased overall funding allocations to local authorities for high needs year on year. We have also recently announced that we will provide £250 million of additional funding for high needs across England over this financial year and the next. High-needs funding is now over £6 billion, having risen by £1 billion since 2013.

We have also announced other measures to do with capital: a £100 million top-up to the special provision capital fund for local authorities in 2019-20 for new places and improved facilities.

Of course, we recognise that schools have faced cost pressures in recent years. That is why we have announced a strategy setting out the support, current and planned, that we will provide to help schools to make savings on the £10 billion of non-staffing spend across England. It provides schools with practical advice about identifying potential savings that they can put back into teaching. That includes deals to help schools to save money on the products and services that they buy. Schools spend £75 million on advertising their vacancies, so we are also launching a free teacher vacancy listing website to help schools to recruit excellent teachers and drive down recruitment costs. We have created a benchmarking website for schools that allows them to compare their own spending with that of similar schools elsewhere in the country. That will help them to identify whether and where changes can be made to direct more resources into high-quality teaching.

To give the hon. Member for Blaydon time to wind up the debate, I will finally just thank hon. Members for their contributions to this important debate. We are determined to have a world-class education system that allows every child to achieve their potential, regardless of who they are or where they live.

Primary Schools: Nurture and Alternative Provision

Debate between Christopher Chope and Nick Gibb

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle has made many interventions. The Minister is trying to respond to her points, and all she is doing is chuntering.

[Nick Gibb]

I understand the hon. Lady’s passion about these issues, but she should not underestimate the passion that also exists on the Government Benches, or the action that we have taken since being in office to address those difficult issues and provide the funding to deal with them.

We understand that at the moment, local authorities feel under pressure in their high needs budget; the extra payment of £250 million aims to address that pressure, but we accept that it will not deal with the issue fully. We are trying to provide more capital for local authorities, to enable them to restructure their special educational needs provision. For example, as well as the age extension, which has been a pressure on local authorities’ budgets, there is the issue of the costs for some children with very severe educational needs. Independent school provision can be very expensive, and it is sometimes more cost-effective for local authorities to provide special educational needs schools or units of maintained schools in their own borough. We have allocated significant capital to enable that to happen.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield said, much of the support work for pupils will take place within the school setting. For instance, when a school identifies a pupil who has special educational needs, they should take action to remove the barriers that stand in the way of that child’s education, and put effective special educational provision in place. That SEN support will often take the form of a cycle through which decisions and actions are revisited, refined and revised with a growing understanding of the pupil’s needs and of what supports the pupil in making good progress. That is known as a graduated approach.

One of the types of intervention that some schools choose in order to support pupils with social, emotional or behavioural needs, which my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield has talked about in detail—I said to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle that I would come to this issue—is the use of nurture groups. As my hon. Friend has said, nurture groups offer an in-school, short-term, focused intervention strategy that is aimed at addressing barriers to education arising from behavioural, social or emotional difficulties, and doing so in a supportive manner. It is for individual schools to decide which interventions to offer, and the best and most cost-effective potential for providing support for an individual pupil’s needs.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield mentioned, the Forest Town Primary School in his constituency is rated “good” by Ofsted. It is an example of a school that uses nurture groups to support its pupils. In its March 2017 inspection report, Ofsted praised that school’s positive culture and its determination that all its pupils succeed. Ofsted also highlighted Forest Town’s work to promote high levels of attendance, its timely adoption of interventions for different pupils, and its support for vulnerable pupils with complex needs. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the teachers at Forest Town and elsewhere for the important work that they do for those children.

All children have the right to a school environment that is safe, and conducive to effective teaching. Sometimes that will mean headteachers taking the difficult decision to exclude a pupil, and I fully support headteachers using exclusion where that is warranted. However, exclusion from school must not mean exclusion from education: when a child is excluded, suitable full-time education must be arranged from the sixth school day of exclusion. The Timpson review is considering how schools use exclusion and how that impacts on all pupils, but in particular why some groups of children, such as those with special needs, are more likely to be excluded from school.

Alternative provision is the system that is in place to educate those pupils who are unable to attend mainstream school. It is vital that those pupils who enter alternative provision following exclusion have access to a high-quality education, to help every child to achieve their potential. Local authorities or schools as commissioners must have regard to our statutory guidance, which states:

“Good alternative provision is that which appropriately meets the needs of pupils”

who require its use,

“and enables them to achieve good educational attainment on par with their mainstream peers.”

That guidance also sets out that the personal and social needs of pupils should be properly identified and met in order to help them overcome any barriers to attainment, and that AP should aim to improve pupil motivation, self-confidence, attendance, and engagement with education.

There are some excellent examples of AP settings that not only have high standards for behaviour, progress and attainment, but have strong therapeutic interventions in place to support pupils of primary school age. Ofsted’s report on the Hawkswood Primary pupil referral unit noted:

“Pupils understand the need to manage their own behaviour, and they are able to reflect on the choices they make. This is because boundaries are consistently applied and expectations are very high.”

One parent was moved to tell inspectors that the school had “made my son respectable.”

Another example is the Family School, an AP free school that opened in September 2014. Its ethos is built around supporting pupils to cultivate a productive lifestyle, personal resilience, and the values required to become responsible members of society. An innovative aspect of that programme is that it requires a parent or significant adult family member to participate in the classroom with their child. The focus is on families helping themselves and each other to create the conditions and changes necessary, so that children can resolve their problems and be better equipped to return to school, which I know is something that my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield is concerned about.

In both the schools that I have cited, a high proportion of pupils are successfully reintegrated into mainstream schools. We are determined to ensure that every AP setting is as good as the good examples that I have cited, and that their best practice is shared. As I set out in the AP vision document that we published last March, we want to make sure that the right children are placed in the right AP, and that they receive a high-quality education and achieve meaningful outcomes after leaving alternative provision. That is supported by a £4 million innovation fund, which includes projects that have a focus on reintegration.

In closing, I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield and other hon. Members who have participated in today’s debate that this Government are determined to do all that we can to support young people in achieving their potential, whether by providing continued support for early years services, supporting mental health services, reforming the special educational needs system or providing highly effective alternative provision where necessary.

EBacc: Expressive Arts Subjects

Debate between Christopher Chope and Nick Gibb

Monday 4th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Mr Gibb]

The entries for art and design were 162,000 in 2010-11 and 176,000 in 2014-15—the latest figures that I have. In drama, in 2010-11, there were 74,000 entries; they dropped in 2011 to 70,000 and then 69,000, but they went up to 70,000 and are now 70,800. In media, film and TV, there were 51,000 entries in 2010; they went down to 49,000 and then 48,700, but they went up to 51,000 and are now 51,570. So there is no evidence that the subjects are declining at GCSE.

St Ives First School

Debate between Christopher Chope and Nick Gibb

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Christopher Chope and Nick Gibb

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to reduce regulatory burdens on schools.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

The Government are committed to reducing regulatory burdens on schools. We have already removed a range of unnecessary duties via the Education Act 2011 and, subject to parliamentary process, we will remove further burdens in September. In addition to reducing regulations, we have cut the volume of guidance issued to schools by more than half, removed the lengthy self-evaluation form and the financial management standard in schools, and introduced a streamlined inspection framework. We have also made it clear that neither the Department nor Ofsted expects teachers to produce written lesson plans for every lesson.

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that response, but does he think it fair to describe his Department’s performance as meriting a capital alpha for effort while it is still getting only a gamma minus for achievement? In particular, will he look again at the deregulation of admissions criteria, at the pupil numbers that schools can have, and at the whole issue of grammar schools and free schools that are still calling for more freedoms?

[Mr Gibb]

That sounds like Greek to me! The Department deserves an A* for what it has achieved. We have already removed statutory burdens. Performance targets have gone. Changes have been made to consultation on the school day, and it is no longer necessary to appoint a school improvement partner or to prepare and publish a school profile. We have also abolished the absurd rule requiring parents to be given 24 hours’ notice of a detention. We have abolished the requirement to join behaviour and attendance partnerships, and we have removed 20,000 pages of guidance from schools. We have more than halved the guidance going to schools—