Grammar School Funding
Debate between Damian Green and Neil Carmichael(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Damian Green
The hon. Gentleman may have a discussion offline with my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough about the title of the debate, but my hon. Friend and I have made it clear that we are not talking only about grammar schools. There are comprehensive schools in my constituency, including one extremely good one, and there are others around the country—the hon. Gentleman mentioned sixth-form colleges. This is a wider debate but, clearly, among the schools most appallingly affected by the unfairnesses in the funding system are grammar schools.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
Is this debate about grammar schools in fact about the fundamental unfairness of the whole funding formula? That is what we are actually talking about, that is what the F40 campaign is all about and that is why we need to see fair funding for pupils wherever they are.
Damian Green
We all agree that we want fair funding. It is not an easy issue and Ministers in this and previous Governments have grappled with it. The principle that we all start from is that allowing all children to reach the full extent of their potential must be the aim of every school.
When the rhetoric and emotion that have begun to enter this debate, and which have gone on for decades, are stripped away, all grammar schools are is specialist academic schools. Under successive Governments, we have thought it a good thing to allow schools to specialise in music, sport, science, maths or languages, but the one thing that the education establishment has never allowed schools to specialise in is academic excellence. That has always seemed completely perverse: we allow schools to specialise, but not at being good in schoolwork.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Damian Green and Neil Carmichael(12 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
T3. To continue with the theme of police and crime commissioners and the elections, does the Home Secretary agree that the introduction of democracy and transparency will help to achieve the right balance between rural and urban policing, as exemplified by our excellent candidate in Gloucestershire, Victoria Atkins?
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)
My hon. Friend is precisely right. In areas such as Gloucestershire, striking the right balance between urban and rural pressures on the police will be an important task for the police and crime commissioner. One significant difference is that only 7% of the public are aware that they can go to a police authority if they are unhappy with their policing. By the end of this campaign, I am sure that a far higher proportion of people will be aware of their police and crime commissioner candidates.