Higher and Further Education

David Lammy Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“congratulates all those who have recently achieved their educational qualifications; notes the number of full-time higher education students in 2012 is expected to be higher than in any year under the previous administration; believes that the pupil premium, which is designed to raise the attainment of pupils from low-income households, represents a powerful mechanism for widening participation in higher education; welcomes the increased spending on widening participation in higher education, including the higher maintenance grants, the National Scholarship Programme and the extension of tuition loans to part-time students; further notes the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ recent finding that the new student finance system ‘is actually more progressive than its predecessor: the poorest 29 per cent of graduates will be better off under the new system’; supports the extra information provided to prospective students through the student finance tour and the Key Information Set; further supports the efforts being made to ensure the best possible match between students and institutions, with one-quarter of all undergraduate places removed from centralised number controls; and congratulates the Government for working with employers to deliver an unprecedented increase in apprenticeships, with 800,000 new starts since September 2010.”

I welcome this opportunity to debate our reforms to higher and further education. It is the right time to have this debate, as hundreds of thousands of students are starting at university. We congratulate them on their achievement and wish them well at university. We also welcome this opportunity to set out our policies. I will describe our approach to higher education and my excellent new colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), will set out our approach to training and further education.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Willetts]

In a moment.

Of course, it is also right to scrutinise the Opposition’s policies, as set out in the motion. I will turn to the previous Minister for universities, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), in a moment. I hope he will accept that under the inevitable partisanship of these exchanges, we should remind ourselves that all three political parties, faced with the dilemma of how to finance higher education in the future, have concluded that the right way forward is to have no up-front payments by students, but instead to have a graduate repayment scheme, paid for through pay-as-you-earn and incorporating the best features of a graduate income tax. All three parties, when faced with the responsibilities of Government, have reached the same decision.

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Gentleman said that he welcomed the debate and thought that it had come at an opportune moment. When does he intend to publish the White Paper and bring forward legislation in this area?

[Mr Willetts]

We have published our White Paper and have set out our proposals in several consultation documents. We are implementing those proposals step by step.

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[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss these important issues. Indeed, it is some time since the House had the opportunity to consider them.

Given that I preceded the Minister for Universities and Science, it is probably right to begin by welcoming some of the moves he has made, particularly on student contact hours, which were a growing concern during our period in office, on employment outcomes, the relevance of which has become even more heightened, given the nature of the economy, and, importantly, in ring-fencing the science budget. However, this debate is important also because of where this country stands economically. We are in a second recession in as many years. Unemployment is at an all-time high among graduates and is seriously worrying among non-graduates. Under the circumstances, one would expect university to be a place where young people go to shelter and stay. Indeed, many of the debates that we are having in this House—and that we shall rightly continue to have—go to the heart of whether we can begin to see serious growth in our economies. We will not see that growth unless we have university students coming out and getting jobs, and unless we can be convinced and reassured that our universities will remain world class.

However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) outlined in opening for the Opposition, the backdrop for higher education is one of serious concerns and confusion about core and margin and AAB, as well as confusion in the lead-up to reaching the fee agreement. When I pressed the Minister on when we would see the legislation that he promised almost two years ago, he was unable to give us a date. Against that backdrop, universities are, quite rightly, hugely worried about their future. This is a serious issue, and the Minister ought to have demonstrated more concern about the fact that students are turning away from higher education in the way that they are.

The Minister will know that, before the Labour Government came to power, there were parts of Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff and London in which more young people were going to prison than were going to university. My constituency was one such area. I am proud that, during our period in office, constituencies such as mine saw the numbers of people going to university quadruple, and that the number of young people from right across the country going to the Russell group universities trebled in that period. Participation rates were between 10% and 12% when I was going to university in the late 1980s, but the Labour Government achieved a rise in the rate to 43%, which represents a 44% increase in the number of entrants. That is now being put in jeopardy, and that should be a matter of concern if we want to compete properly, to have a growth economy and to see the kind of prospects for our country over the next few years that we clearly need to see.

Higher education contributes £59 billion a year to the UK economy, making it a hugely important sector. Many hon. Members who have raised the issue of London Metropolitan university have voiced their serious concerns about Britain’s reputation. There might be an assumption that Britain is open for business, and that we want to be world class and to be at the centre of higher education in the world, but the message that the Government are repeatedly sending out is that none of those is the case.

The Minister’s description of higher fees and of what he suspected took place under the Labour Government does not accord with my understanding of the situation. We certainly had absolutely no plans to strip out 80% of the teaching budget. That this Government are doing so is a scandal. There is no country in the civilised world that does not acknowledge the importance of the state’s contribution to higher education. It is only this Government who have decided to withdraw entirely from that area. It is no wonder that we have seen a drop in applications for humanities and languages this year.

That disastrous Government policy sits alongside the huge escalation in fees to £9,000—a trebling of the figure. For an average family, with combined earnings of £42,000—in effect, the earnings of a postman and a nurse—and unable to get a grant, £9,000 is just too much. How are they to find that amount? That is the question on the table, but the Minister has not answered it. Numbers are falling and we are losing our world-class status. I am sorry to say that, on his watch, a world-class educational sector in this country is losing its way.

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[Gordon Birtwistle]

A number of members of the Labour party in Burnley were saying to the young people of Burnley, and convincing them, that they would have to find the money up front. That was obviously not the case, so I told them that they would not have to pay the money up front, that the money would be given to them up front and that no repayments would have to be made until they were earning £21,000. They then asked how much they would have to pay when they were earning £22,000, which is a gross salary of £1,850 a month. When they are on that income, their repayment to the taxpayer for funding their education at university will be £8 a month. When I asked them whether they would mind paying back £8 a month if they had a salary of £1,850 they said, “Of course not. We understood that it would be lots more than that.” I then asked them to assume that they were on a salary of £25,000, which is a substantial salary in Burnley, and so would be collecting more than £2,000 a month. When I asked whether they would then object to paying back £30 a month to the taxpayer who had funded their education at university I was again told, “Well of course not, but that is not what we have been told. That is not the understanding that we have. So we are happy to do it.” I even got the student union rep at the university of central Lancashire to say, “That is far better than what we have now.” The young people of Burnley are getting a better deal now than they had before, and that convinced me to support the proposals in the Bill.

I also compared the number of students who go to university with the total number of students who leave school. About 40% go to university, which means that 60% do not. So I looked at the prospects for those young people who do not go to university—I am thinking of the apprenticeship scheme. I was an apprentice engineer in 1958. Over the past 25 years, various Governments, particularly the last one, took the decision to destroy apprenticeships. They said that they did not need apprenticeships, that they would pray and bow to the City and the finance sector, so never mind the manufacturing sector—let it go. The Indians and Chinese could do the manufacturing and we would just make money out of the finance sector. We all saw what happened to the finance sector: it caught a cold and we all got pneumonia.

We have to support manufacturing, so the Government have invested in 800,000 young people who are now apprentices. Many of them are going to university but are being funded by the companies that they work for, which means that they are getting degrees and have a job, but do not have any debt. That is the kind of forward thinking that the Government should demonstrate and that is what we have had.

[Mr Lammy]

I welcome what the hon. Gentleman has said about apprenticeships, but does he share my concern that we have too many apprenticeships that are for less than six months and many apprenticeships in parts of retail that are not like the apprenticeships he described, such as the one he went on?

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I have some sympathy with that comment, because I believe that apprenticeships should be for a real job and I agree that young people should not be taken on on short-term contracts and called apprentices. I have met many young people in Burnley who are on real apprenticeships in engineering, distribution, motor mechanics and so on and they are doing very well out of it.

I also want to comment on the £350 million that the Government are putting in to university technical colleges. Technical colleges are another thing of the past—people who did not go to grammar school but to the secondary modern school could manage to get to a technical college halfway through. Technical colleges trained people to go and do a job in industry, but we gave up on them in the 1960s. They are now coming back and we will have 32 university technical colleges.

Young people will be able to leave secondary school at 14 and be trained at the colleges for a real job, doing subjects into which the businesses in the area will have input. Those companies are now involved with the university technical colleges, which are delivering young people into the jobs that this country needs. We are desperate for engineers and scientists, whereas there are more people with law degrees stacking shelves in supermarkets than doing anything else. We need to start making things and training people to do the jobs of the future and that is what the university technical colleges will do with young people. If we take the colleges, together with the apprenticeships and the young people who go to university, we have a good deal.

I do not see the arguments against our approach and what I have heard from the Minister tonight suggests that the funding system proposed by the Opposition is equal to the previous funding system, which has bankrupted the country. I do not want to go back to those days. I want real jobs, for real young people studying at university, and the delivery of everything else that goes with that.

Secondary Education (GCSEs)

David Lammy Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

I have never believed that cake decoration is equivalent to GCSE maths, and I certainly think the hon. Gentleman should come up with better interventions than that.

These plans are nothing less than a cap on aspiration. When he introduced the GCSE in 1984, the then Conservative Secretary of State, the late Lord Joseph, said the new system would be

“a powerful instrument for raising standards of performance at every level of ability.”—[Official Report, 20 June 1984; Vol. 62, c. 304.]

Last week, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the distinguished Conservative Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, said that the Secretary of State is

“setting out a policy that appears to be more focused on the brighter kids…and not focusing on the central problem we have which is doing a better job for the children at the bottom.”

The Government amendment this afternoon claims that they want “high standards for all” to boost social mobility, but the proposals leaked to the Daily Mail admit that 25% of “less-able pupils”—about 150,000 a year, every year—would take

“simpler qualifications similar to old-style CSEs”.

Last week, Lord Baker, another Conservative former Education Secretary, said that the certificate of secondary education was

“a valueless bit of paper. It was not worth anything to the students or the employers.”

How will writing off a quarter of young people boost social mobility and standards for all?

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise the scenario in, I think, the first year in which the GCSE was introduced, where many working-class children in inner-city contexts were streamed off to the CSE and then went on to the failed youth training scheme? We do not want that scenario back in our inner cities. We need to ensure parity for all at 16.

[Stephen Twigg]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and anticipates my next point. We know from analysis of the CSE that it was, in practice, a school-leaving certificate for the poor. In the decade after its abolition, the number of the poorest pupils staying on at school after 16 increased by a very significant 28%. The CSE and O-level system was designed more than half a century ago, when our society was completely different—there were far more unskilled jobs and typically children were split off into grammar schools and secondary moderns. A pupil at a comprehensive in 1971 was 25 times more likely to take CSEs than a grammar school pupil—perhaps not surprising. A pupil in a secondary modern school was 50 times more likely to take CSEs than a grammar school pupil.

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[Mr Lammy]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Gove]

In a second.

It is for that reason that we introduced the English baccalaureate measure, in the teeth of opposition from the Labour party—both sides of the coalition determined to redress that decline. What has the result been? In two years, we have already seen the numbers taking languages up by 21%; taking history at GCSE up by 26%; taking geography up by 70%; and taking physics, biology and chemistry up by more than 70%. What we have seen as a result of that determined change to the way in which we set aspiration for our young people is improved social mobility—Liberals and Conservatives working together in order to achieve it.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Lammy Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising a concern that many Members have, which is that the funding reforms will call into question the position of smaller primary schools. It is not our intention to do that. We hope to ensure that there is a floor to provide a guaranteed sum for every school, which will ensure that good, local, small primary schools can continue to flourish.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

What about funding in the secondary schools sector? The Secretary of State has said a lot about free schools and competition in places where there are failing schools. What will happen to schools with good Ofsted reports in areas where there is no demand for a new school if a free school emerges that goes right through to secondary level?

[Michael Gove]

Under the funding reforms that we will introduce, more money will go directly to schools, including fantastic schools such as Woodside high school in the London borough of Haringey, which the right hon. Gentleman knows well and which is doing a fantastic job under its brilliant governors.

Safeguarding Children

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend is right, and I hope we will have an opportunity in today’s debate and the consultation period the Government have set out to make those very important points so the guidance is stronger than the draft guidance issued yesterday.

I want to highlight some excellent practice in the London borough of Hackney, which has been well evaluated. Hackney is one of a number of London boroughs that have established MASH—multi-agency safeguarding hub—teams to bring together the key services in one place. London boroughs are leading the way in such respects. Clearly, trustworthy and supportive relationships are key to ensuring a focus on the needs of the child.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing a debate on this topic. Does he recognise that since the baby P case there has been an increase across both London and the country in the number of children being taken into care? In Haringey there has been a 40% increase. Does he recognise that we still have to do more to encourage parents and carers to contact social services before problems arise, and that there is growing concern about fear in relation to social workers? This hits the most deprived. Social work is not on the whole an area known to Britain’s middle classes.

[Stephen Twigg]

My right hon. Friend speaks very powerfully on this issue, and makes the case on why the relationships I am talking about are so important. He also, by implication, makes the case for something I shall come to a little later: the importance of enhancing the status of social work as a profession.

These relationships should, of course, be challenging. Hackney has developed approaches whereby mistakes by people working in the services can be openly acknowledged and addressed without fear of reprisal. That is fostering a culture that should ensure systematic learning, including learning from mistakes. The role of local safeguarding children boards in this process has been invaluable. The boards were originally established by the Children Act 2004, and they bring the key partners together in one place to focus on safeguarding. There is significant variation in the quality and effectiveness of these boards, of course, but I hope the work that is now being done to ensure lessons are learned between them, such as through networks of board chairs, will go some way towards addressing that. However, there is concern that in the context of reduced regulation, the Government must remain vigilant to make sure that that learning process moves forward.

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[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who as always speaks most perceptively and with great clarity.

It has been good to sit through the whole debate and to hear the strong cross-party consensus on tackling the issue of safeguarding children, an issue that we all know is of the utmost importance. I therefore congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the shadow Secretary of State, on bringing it to the House, and congratulate previous Secretaries of State and Ministers and, indeed, the current Secretary of State and Ministers on their leadership. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who led for the Government in this debate, has an excellent record on the issue and has shown real leadership in taking the baton forward, as it is his duty to do.

I would have to say, as a professional in education, that safeguarding is one of the most difficult issues that we have to face. In many ways, it is more difficult than the challenges of attendance, retention and achievement, because it is more subtle and difficult to be clear about. For many young people, school is a point of stability in their lives. Many young people have massive challenges in their private lives outside school, and school provides them with solidarity and shelter in a storm.

Professionals, be they in education, health, the justice system or social work, need to get the balance right, and that is a difficult challenge to meet. I recognise the genuine progress that I have seen in my professional life in moving matters forward in relation to safeguarding. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State was right to emphasise the importance of the five outcomes of Every Child Matters. That was a real step forward in dealing with this difficult agenda. We trivialise the focus on well-being at our peril. The Minister is nodding, and I am pleased that he recognises that it is important to capture that in moving things forward. In its focus on safeguarding after the baby Peter Connelly tragedy, Ofsted perhaps swung a little too far the other way, but it certainly made everybody sit up and think things through carefully and sharpened up everybody’s acts. It is important that the pendulum swings a little, but also that the fundamental centrality of purpose is not lost.

[Mr Lammy]

In that swinging of the pendulum, I wonder whether my hon. Friend recognises two things from his experience. First, there is concern among black and ethnic minority families that there are still not the relationships that are needed. We have seen across London an upsurge in black and ethnic minority families in the care system. Secondly, young people in care who reach the age of 18 can find themselves very vulnerable when they are suddenly bereft of any services and have to make decisions about their future.

[Nic Dakin]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important and cogent point from a position of great experience in this matter. I pay tribute to him for the work that he has done in this area.

I would like to emphasise the crucial importance of local safeguarding children boards and applaud the comments of the shadow Secretary of State and the Minister about that. Those boards have greatly helped to bring together professionals across disciplines and across cultures. Cultures are very different, and making them work together with a focus on the child is a big challenge. I applaud and pay tribute to all professionals working in this arena, particularly, in my experience, the social workers in North Lincolnshire, who have always astounded me with their professionalism and done a very good job on behalf of local people.

As the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) pointed out, this is a difficult world in which there are new challenges to do with e-safeguarding. My hon. Friends the Members for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) talked about the difficulties to do with child sexual exploitation. We need to get to grips with those difficulties and challenges. We do that best by working together, cross-party, in allowing the leadership baton to be moved on from one Administration to another, creating a unity that spreads down through the country to local children safeguarding boards. We must bring people together, focused on the child’s outcomes and continuing, all of us in this House and outside it, to work together to ensure that children are safeguarded as best they possibly can be as we move forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Lammy Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State and the whole House will recognise the deprivation in Newham, Tower Hamlets, Haringey and Hackney. Why, then, has the Secretary of State decided to give more money in his pupil premium to Oxfordshire, Surrey and Devon?

[Michael Gove]

We have not. The pupil premium goes to every child eligible for free school meals and is allocated precisely according to need.

Academy Status (Haringey)

David Lammy Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the chance to debate the decision of Ministers to force four primary schools in Haringey to become academies, against the wishes of their governors, parents and teachers. Those schools are Downhills primary school and Coleraine Park primary school in Tottenham, and Nightingale primary school and Noel Park primary school in Wood Green. I am sad to see the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) leaving the Chamber as I begin this speech.

Although this debate concerns those four schools primarily, Ministers have suggested that hundreds of schools around the country could be forced to convert into academies. Schools in Birmingham, Bristol, Durham, Essex, Kent, Lancashire, Leeds and Northamptonshire could be next in the firing line, so this debate is of interest to Members throughout the country and on both sides of the House.

I will deal with three issues. The first is the absolute importance of standards in primary schools and the other interventions that could be made to drive up standards. The second is the fundamentally undemocratic way in which Ministers are taking this decision. The third is the need for collaboration, not confrontation in ensuring that our pupils achieve the maximum that they are capable of achieving.

My remarks will focus on Downhills primary school, but they apply just as strongly to the other three schools in Haringey that are affected by the Minister’s decision. I have known Downhills since 1975, when I first stepped through its doors as a pupil. The school has been serving the local community for more than 100 years. Last week, I received a letter from a gentleman who attended Downhills during the second world war, which stated:

“I have memories of an excellent education—I was even appointed School Captain. My primary education at Downhills led to later success. I was not alone there. We were encouraged to succeed. I hope your current efforts to secure the appropriate status for Downhills Primary School will be successful and that they will help present and future pupils to have a brighter future.”

It is not just me who shares that history and is angered by the Minister’s decision.

I want to make it clear that I do not oppose academies. I support academies that work with parents and the local community to raise standards. I am a pluralist in education. I supported the academies programme of the previous Government, of whom I was a member. However, just as there are good community schools and poor community schools, so there are good academies and poor academies. The Government’s attempt to force schools in Haringey to become academies assumes that academies are the only way to raise standards and that academies always raise standards. Neither is true. The Government’s actions also ignore the fact that schools perform best when central and local government work in collaboration with parents, teachers and governors, rather than against them.

I will start by focusing on school standards. The Secretary of State has branded the parents, governors and teachers at these schools as

“ideologues who are happy with failure”

and “enemies of promise”. However, not one of us is an apologist for poor results. That is why Downhills is under a notice to improve, and we support that. It is worth looking at the Downhills governing body—the very people who are supposed to be opposing this action for ideological reasons. It covers the whole range of the community. It has a solicitor, a former nurse, a senior civil servant and a hedge fund manager, all working for free to make the school better. Is that not what the big society is all about? Should not those people be praised rather than removed? How will getting rid of all of them and imposing a sponsor make the school and society better?

The governing body and I know that if a pupil leaves primary school without the basics, they will struggle at secondary school and potentially struggle throughout their life. We had riots this summer that reminded us of that fact. We are at the coal face, and we do not need to be lectured by those who, frankly, have limited experience of the inner-city context.

We believe in supporting a school to improve, and that is exactly what we are doing at Downhills. Results from 2011 show that the school is above the Government’s floor target for English and maths. Some 64% of pupils achieved the national average level in both subjects, and among pupils who had been in the school for at least four years, 75% did so. More than 90% of parents are happy with the school. We are not resting on our laurels with that 64% figure, because it still leaves too many pupils who do not succeed, but the argument that the enormous upheaval being foisted on the community is justified by the results just does not hold water. Downhills is above the national primary school average. Will its improvements continue if the school is forced through the process of becoming an academy over the next few months, against the wishes of the entire community?

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for how he is representing his constituents in support of Downhills school, which is an improving school. Like many in the country, it is improving because of investment, people’s determination, parents’ support and teachers. Does he have any idea why Downhills and a couple of other schools in Haringey have been selected for this treatment, when other schools have not? Is there a process by which the Department for Education is threatening all primary schools in the whole country?

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. It is not clear why, perhaps apart from political reasons, Haringey has been selected. I certainly want to know whether the Department intends to go after the 2,500 primary schools in the country whose performance is lower than that of Downhills. I will come on to that point.

At Downhills, 72% of pupils have English as a second language and more than 40 languages are spoken by the pupils. More than 45% of pupils are eligible for a free school meal—I mention that fact because I, too, was eligible for free school meals when I attended Downhills—and the number of families living in deprivation is double the national average. Enormous numbers of pupils join and leave the school during the school year, and it has one of the largest Roma populations in the country.

I raise those points not to make excuses for failure, but to point out that pupils from deprived backgrounds at Downhills actually do better than the national average. Speaking another language at home or being from a deprived background is absolutely not taken as an excuse for failure at the school, whatever the Secretary of State might think. We can just look at the results—they speak loud and clear.

Looking further into the figures, the capricious choice of Downhills becomes even more dubious. In 2011, 2,594 primary schools obtained worse results than Downhills primary. In the Secretary of State’s own education authority of Surrey, 26 primary schools obtained the same results or worse. In West Sussex, the area of the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), who will respond to this debate, another 26 schools obtained the same results as Downhills or worse. Does he propose—I hope he will answer this question—to force those 2,594 schools to become academies as well? If his answer is yes, we really will be seeing a revolution in education in this country, and it will certainly get him on the 10 o’clock news. Is that about standards, or is it about politics and ideology? I want to hear the Minister’s answer when he stands up. When we look at the results, we find that London schools do much better than schools in other parts of the country. That is not complacency; I am simply pointing out that if the Minister’s choice of schools to target was based purely on results, he would not be targeting schools in London to begin with.

If the Minister were motivated solely by results, would he not have waited for the second Ofsted inspection into Downhills school, which will show how the school has raised its game since the notice to improve? I remind him that when Ofsted made its monitoring visit in September, it said the school was on the road to improvement and praised the senior management team, including the head. Why is the Minister casting Ofsted aside and saying from Whitehall, “I know best”? Can he explain that new approach to localism, which has emerged in the past few weeks?

The Minister must ask himself whether now is an appropriate time to cause upheaval in the Tottenham schools system following the riots of last September. I urge him to demonstrate the sensitivity that is required after a constituency has experienced what mine experienced—it was witnessed on TV screens not just by hon. Members, but by the rest of the country and internationally.

By focusing only on forced academies, the Government have ignored all the other tried and tested ways in which standards in primary schools can be raised. A relentless focus on teaching and learning, booster lessons, a renewed management team, federation with thriving schools and new buildings all contribute to improving standards in education. All could be tried, and many have been or are being tried, but they have all been cast aside and ignored by the Government.

At Downhills, six teachers have been replaced in a year. A new head was brought into Coleraine Park school to turn the school around 18 months ago, and a new deputy head was brought in from an outstanding school just a few miles up the road. The results show that those changes are working. The trouble is that the Government are ignoring the results and focusing only on forced academies. That approach ignores the fact that, just as there are good community schools and bad community schools, so there are good academies and bad academies. The last results for Marlowe academy in Ramsgate were even described by the former principal as “disappointing”. Mossbourne academy in Hackney is rightly held up by all as a vision of what can be done, but that goes to show that a one-size-fits-all approach to reforms in struggling schools does not work.

It is clear that those reforms need funding. I understand that times are tough, so this is not solely about spending, but it is right to put on record that the Government set up a free school in Muswell Hill last year that will cost the taxpayer £6 million. It has 30 pupils at the moment. For the Minister’s geography, Muswell Hill is a few miles up the road in the London borough of Haringey. The Secretary of State could have given £100,000 to every Haringey primary school and reached 30,000 children rather than 30. Given Muswell Hill’s demographic, the Minister will understand why my constituents are a little concerned and alarmed.

The Minister has remarked that Haringey’s primary schools are the worst in inner London. They are. So why does he not fund them at inner-London rates? Haringey has the same challenges as Islington, Camden and Hackney, but receives £1,500 less per pupil in schools than those areas. For Downhills, that underfunding is worth about £600,000 a year, which is equivalent to one extra teacher in every classroom. Where would Downhills primary’s standards be if we had the money in the London borough of Haringey that we deserve? The Minister’s account in the newspapers this week suggested that mine is an inner-city constituency, but one that has suburban funding. I hope he will say something about what he will do to redress that balance so that we can achieve the improvement we want.

The reforms are working, and the results are improving. Results and standards are vital, and although the Government might ignore the results, we will not. We say loud and clear that standards matter, and we do not tolerate poor results or low aspirations—I certainly do not, and there is no record of my doing anything of the sort in this House over my years as the MP for the area. Results have not been good enough, but they are improving, and we will be relentless—working, I hope, with the Department—in seeking to improve them further. People want the best for their children. This mixed community, which is represented by the governing body, but also by the wider deprivation demographics I mentioned, wants the best results for all its young people.

I am also concerned about the undemocratic way in which these things have been done. In 2010, the Secretary of State said that academies could become the norm, but that it was “down to individual schools” to make the decision, and I support that. Has he changed his mind, or was it always his intention that schools could decide their own destiny, as long as they chose the destiny he had chosen for them?

Two of the schools affected—Nightingale primary school and Noel Park primary school—are in the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green supports forced academies, but her party’s manifesto in 2010 promised to give all schools the freedom to innovate. It is a strange freedom that allows schools to innovate on the ground, but only so far as the Secretary of State will allow from Whitehall.

That freedom is not worth the name, and it is fundamentally different from the freedom the previous Government’s academy programme offered parents and pupils. The Labour academy programme took failing schools—schools that parents were running away from in droves, and where discipline had gone out the window—and gave them the freedom to innovate in the best interests of pupils, with the support and assistance of teachers and parents. That differs hugely from the current programme.

The Government talk the language of localism and pluralism, but when it comes to the crunch, we see something quite different, which is driven solely by mandarins in Whitehall. That is fundamentally undemocratic. There is no collaboration whatever. Given that the Department’s Ministers are so well educated, it is a disgrace that not even the elected MP was worthy of a phone call or a letter. That is not the way one would usually expect Ministers to behave when such massive decisions are being made. The Minister has not even sought to get to the school or to spend any time there. Indeed, there is no record of his having spent any time in a Haringey primary in Tottenham. That is of huge concern, given the decision he is about to make.

The proposals are a massive shift and a departure from the policy under the previous Government. The intellectually bankrupt idea that excellence is synonymous with only one structure is of huge concern, and it does not hold water. It should be abandoned, and I ask the Minister to give some contrite indication of a change of position.

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

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I know he has a close personal and constituency interest in the issue.

Last June we made it clear that our absolute priority is to turn around underperforming primary schools by finding new academy sponsors for them. Our motivation is simply to raise standards for children. We want to find lasting solutions to underperformance so that all children have the same opportunities in life—opportunities that are enjoyed by children in areas neighbouring Haringey.

The 2011 key stage 2 tests show that Haringey primary schools went backwards, dropping 4 percentage points and taking them below the national and London averages in English and maths. Haringey primary schools are the worst performing in inner London. They have the highest number of primary schools currently below the floor—

[Mr Lammy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

If I may, I should like to make some progress. The right hon. Gentleman has had plenty of chances to make his point—

[Mr Lammy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will give way very briefly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

I must ask the Minister to correct his use of the term “inner London”. The Department does not categorise Haringey schools as inner London schools, and it certainly does not fund them as such. Will he also confirm that the performance of the Isle of Wight, the Medway towns, Peterborough and Norfolk are all below that of Haringey, and tell us whether he will be seeking to ensure that they, too, will be forced to have academies?

[Mr Gibb]

On the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, we agree with him that the funding system, which we inherited from his Government, is unfair and opaque. We want to increase its transparency, and we have put out a new approach for consultation. We will report on that in due course. We are taking action against all underperforming schools in the country. We are working co-operatively with local authorities that are co-operating with us. A different approach is being taken by Haringey, however, and that is why there is a difference in this particular instance.

[Mr Lammy]

I think that the leader and the chief executive of Haringey council would want me to place on record that they have been very co-operative with the Department in holding conversations about this matter. The Minister will know that the mainstay of resistance in Haringey has come from the schools themselves.

[Mr Gibb]

That is very good to hear.

I should like to continue with the point that I was making. Haringey has the highest number of primary schools currently below the floor, out of all London authorities, and 12 primary schools there have been below the floor for three or more of the past six years. Demographically similar local authorities such as Hackney, Camden, Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets all outperform Haringey at primary school level.

The floor standard is a basic acceptable level of performance by a primary school. For the record, a school is below the floor if fewer than 60% of pupils are achieving level 4 or above in English and maths or failing to make average progress in English and maths. Insisting that schools educate their pupils to level 4 standard is not a huge objective; nor is it unachievable. Level 4 involves just the basics. To achieve a level 4 in reading, pupils need to be able to interpret and understand the meaning behind a simple story. In maths, all that is required is to be able to understand simple fractions and to add, subtract, multiply and divide without the help of a calculator.

It is unacceptable that so many children in Haringey are being let down. As the right hon. Gentleman said, if a child leaves primary school without the basics, they will struggle at secondary school and throughout life. Those pupils face real disadvantages when starting secondary school and have extreme difficulty in catching up later.

In my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s speech last week at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham college, he said that pupils cannot read to learn if they have not learned to read. They cannot begin to deal with more advanced mathematical concepts, or with physics or chemistry or any number of other subjects, if they have not grasped the fundamentals of arithmetic. No matter how good a secondary school is, there is a limit to the extent to which it can pick up the pieces. It is for that reason alone that we want to take action to secure sustainable improvements in a number of Haringey’s underperforming schools.

[Mr Lammy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will not, if the right hon. Gentleman does not mind, because I want to continue to make my argument and address the points that he has made.

Those are schools whose history of underperformance and ability to sustain improvements are causing us real concern. Downhills primary school was judged inadequate by Ofsted in 2002 and placed in special measures. It came out of special measures three years later in 2005, but improvements were not sustained, and in January 2010 it was again judged inadequate by Ofsted and required significant improvement. Key stage 2 results show that the school has failed to meet the floor standard since 2005. In 2011, 61% of pupils achieved level 4 or above in English and maths, with the other 39% of pupils failing to achieve that basic level. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that it is unacceptable for any school to have a large proportion of its pupils failing to achieve minimum standards year after year. We know that those standards can be met, however.

[Mr Lammy]

rose—

[Mr Gibb]

Let me make this final point before giving way. We know that that can be done. There are schools across London with intakes as challenging as those in Haringey, with proportions of pupils on free school meals and where English is not their first language, that are performing well above the standard. Let me cite one school I have visited in Tower Hamlets. In Osmani primary school, for example, 95.8% of pupils have English as an additional language and 58% are eligible for free school meals, yet that school has 88% achieving level 4 in English and maths. That is what we want to see happening in Haringey.

[Mr Lammy]

We all want to see that, but I say again to the Minister that in the boroughs that he prays in aid, each pupil is funded a great deal more than pupils in the London borough of Haringey. Why does he imagine that we do not need extra teachers and extra support to bring up those pupils’ standards, but that a structural change into an academy will fix that problem? Will he say something about why the structural change per se will fix that problem? Where there are academies that are failing—and there are—what will he do about it in five years’ time, given the autonomy that academies have?

[Mr Gibb]

I have to say that the academies programme was inherited from the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, as indeed was the funding system. Academies have made a tremendous difference in transforming underperforming schools, especially in secondary schools where this approach has been applied. The professionals have autonomy and new leadership is brought in. It has worked in practice.

Let me make one or two things clear to the right hon. Gentleman. First, no decision about any school in Haringey has been taken at this stage. Officials have met the local authority regularly since July and they have met the relevant head teachers and chairs of governors in October, offering to visit any school wanting a further conversation. At all stages we have been clear that our goal is school improvement, and that we believe that the best route for achieving that is through schools becoming sponsored academies. We have sought to work with the local authority and schools to find solutions on which everyone can agree, as we have done successfully in many parts of the country, and as we continue to do successfully throughout the country.

I agree about the importance of consulting the governing body, and this is why officials sought another meeting with each school in early December asking for their views on these proposals. The schools in Haringey have been given time to provide representations to the Secretary of State on his proposed action. Before giving us their views, we fully expect them to engage with the wider school community. We have already received a number of representations from parents, governors and the local community, both in support of and against the approach we are taking in Haringey, which we will take into consideration. When we have the representations from the schools, we will take a final decision and inform them. It would therefore be inappropriate and premature for me to comment further on the specific Downhills case until we have fully considered all those representations and the circumstances of the case.

[Mr Lammy]

Will the Minister confirm that the officials gave the governing body three weeks in which to find a sponsor—three weeks in which to go out and find some captain of industry to take over the school?

[Mr Gibb]

Discussions with the local authority have been going on in Haringey since July, and this is part of that process.

Let me say that this is not happening in Haringey alone. The last Government opened 203 sponsored academies and we have opened another 132 since the election. We are working with local authorities across the country to secure better outcomes for their pupils by transforming these underperforming schools. Over 300 schools have now opened as sponsored academies, a further 1,194 have converted to academy status, and more than 700 maintained primary schools are either open to becoming academies or in the pipeline. Those range from small rural primaries to large urban primaries such as the 843-pupil Durand school in south London.

I would like to assure the right hon. Gentleman that we recognise the real effort that the governing bodies and staff of schools are making to improve the standards of education at their schools in the most challenging of circumstances. We want to help schools that, despite the best efforts of the staff, are struggling to sustain improvements. We believe that substantially different solutions are required—solutions that will help the most disadvantaged pupils to succeed. Academy status led by a strong sponsor is the best way of providing quick and sustainable improvements in order to prevent more children from leaving the school without at least the basic literacy and mathematical skills.

Academy status has been very successful; it is a tried and tested model. A large body of evidence of pupil performance and independent reports show that the academy model—

Oral Answers to Questions

David Lammy Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

I recognise the strong support that my hon. Friend gives Daresbury, which I visited with him only a couple of months ago. Indeed, we will put more funding into Daresbury because of its excellent role in national computing infrastructure, and we will support small businesses in particular through the infrastructure and innovation plan that we have launched today.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that we can have no research and innovation without UK postgraduates? His strategy says nothing about the decline in taught postgraduate courses or the implications of fees at postgraduate level in the UK.

[Mr Willetts]

We are committed to postgraduate education in the UK, and of course we will continue to review the implications for it as our higher education reforms come through, but at the moment we are seeing an increase in the number of postgraduate students in the UK—a record of which we can be proud.

Religious Education

David Lammy Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Brady.

I have been contacted by a wide number of constituents, local schools and educationlists who are concerned about the Government decision not to include RE as a humanities subject in the new English baccalaureate, or E-bac. I cannot express those concerns better than by quoting a few of the individuals directly, beginning with a recent communication from Mrs Robson, head teacher of Archbishop Runcie Church of England first school in Gosforth, in my constituency:

“students qualifying with GCSE full course in RS are young people who demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a variety of contemporary world views and who have demonstrated skills of discernment and evaluation of religious and philosophical issues and arguments, qualities much needed in today’s world.”

She continued that the consequence of not including RE as a humanities option

“would be disastrous for many schools and students and for the future expertise required to teach the subject…The unintended consequence of not including GCSE Religious Studies as an option in the E-Bacc is that many schools will cease to offer RE at GCSE altogether; this in turn will have a very negative impact on the number of students taking RE at A-Level, and therefore on the applications for theology and religious studies at degree level. This means that there will be a corresponding decline in candidates for teacher training and so on teacher supply for RE, a subject which is already lacking in specialist teachers.”

Alison Miller, head teacher at St Mark’s Roman Catholic primary school in Westerhope, expressed her concerns about the Government’s decision, stating that it would be a “retrograde step” to exclude RE from the E-bac, in particular in light of

“the excellent progress that has been made in the teaching of RE at GCSE level over recent years”.

I share my constituents’ concerns. We seriously lag behind the rest of Europe in our approach to education and our ability, through our schooling, to analyse issues and problems from a deeper philosophical perspective. I am concerned that the decision to exclude RE from the E-bac will reinforce that trend, when a better understanding and respect for different faiths, regardless of one’s own faith or practice, would be beneficial.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

At this particular time in our history, when there is so much conflict still in the world, many teachers and parents believe a spiritual literacy and understanding of religion is hugely important and must continue in Britain. Does my hon. Friend recognise fears that that will be diminished at the local level?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I agree with my right hon. Friend and thank him for reinforcing that important point. Religious education should not in effect be downgraded in this way, as a good understanding of all religions is essential to a well rounded education.

I wrote to the Secretary of State for Education on behalf of my constituents, urging him to rethink the Government’s decision. However, I received a very disappointing response from the Schools Minister, which simply reiterated the position that RE is not to be included because it is already a compulsory subject, “throughout a pupil’s schooling”. That argument has been demolished by Mrs Robson, the head teacher at Archbishop Runcie school, who pointed out the difference between statutory or core provision of religious education and the option for students to take religious studies as a full course to GCSE level.

The Minister’s response simply does not address the concern that his decision will lead to a downgrading of the importance of RE, because achievement in designated E-bac subjects will, understandably, become the overriding concern of schools, pupils and parents. Like me, many of my constituents and people throughout the north-east are dissatisfied with the Minister’s responses, and his apparent refusal to reconsider his decision. They include Mrs Pat Wager, head teacher at Sacred Heart Catholic high school in Fenham, which is my old school. She said:

“RS cannot be excluded from a domain entitled ‘Humanity’—RS is the pre-eminent humanity and yet it has no place.”

That is dispiriting for Catholic schools, which contribute so much to performance nationally. Whenever a Minister addresses us, we are told how wonderful we are and our exceptional achievements are celebrated, yet we are being treated disdainfully over this matter, which is so important to us.

For all the reasons outlined so articulately and persuasively by Mrs Wager, Mrs Robson, Ms Miller and the many other constituents who have contacted me about this important issue, I urge the Minister to stop or to pause, and to reconsider his decision not to include RE as a humanity in the English baccalaureate. We would all welcome that U-turn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on securing such an important debate. As has already been noted, it is not actually a religious debate. It is also not just about a religious lobby wanting to fight its own corner; I always think that God is big enough to fight his own corner, on this issue as well as others. Nor is the debate about imparting faith. As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, the best place for that is often the home.

This is a debate about humanities. The Government are keen, quite properly, to ensure that we return the rigour and the study in humanities, especially given the declining numbers studying geography. This is an issue of humanities, geography, history and culture. Religion, particularly Christianity, has shaped our buildings—not just the building we walk in, but those all around. Religion has shaped literature in our libraries, paintings in our galleries and relationships with our neighbours. The debate has looked beyond the classroom, and that is right.

However, we need to recognise what has been going on in our classrooms. There is a freeze on consultants, so I would like to help the Minister with a SWOT analysis—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. First, there are the strengths that one sees around in relation to religious education. Yes, there has been an increase in provision and quality since the mid-1990s. RE is also much more popular. Gone is the caricature of RE lessons as simply being the soft option, where pupils can have an easy ride, go to sleep or cause trouble for the teacher. There is now properly recognised specialist training for RE, and that is reflected in the fact that four times as many students take it up at A-level than was the case 15 years ago.

The statutory curriculum is a strength, and we need to look at it in more detail. In that respect, there is leadership from the Minister and the Secretary of State—including in communications that I have received, which have been more positive than hon. Members have suggested. In them, there has been a commitment to the importance of religious education and to continuing to safeguard its position in the curriculum. They have also made it clear that there are no plans to change the current legal requirement for a daily act of collective worship.

Another strength, which has not been mentioned, is standing advisory councils for religious education at the local level. Local agreed syllabus conferences provide good-quality religious education, and one fine example is Birmingham, where people are being brought together to determine what is best for their community.

However, there are weaknesses, which we need to recognise. Despite a legacy of improvements, we face a difficult time, even leaving aside the concerns about the E-bac. Last year’s Ofsted report “Transforming religious education”—it did not receive a response from the previous Government, and I question whether there will be a formal response from this Government—recognised that there was a lack of systemic monitoring by Ofsted of statutory compliance. It also recognised the inadequacy of professional development and the fact that the quality of religious education is still patchy. That was particularly true—this is the key point—where teachers were non-specialists and there were short GCSE courses. The concern is whether that weakness will predominate around the country with the result that the strengths that have been built up over the years are lost.

However, there are opportunities, as I have mentioned. The Government are quite properly committed to local determination as regards religious education. I could also mention this debate, the 115,000 people who have signed petitions and the people who have lobbied us. It is important to harness that debate and interest to ensure that communities fight the corner of religious education locally so that it is in our schools. We must also ensure that funding streams continue for the religious education advisers who are under threat. There is also greater freedom in the curriculum, and that, too, provides opportunities.

The threats involved in RE’s not being part of the E-bac have been mentioned, and I will not repeat them.

[Mr Lammy]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman mentioned the British Humanist Association, but does he recognise that although we would not generally agree with some of the things that it says, it is also concerned about the loss of religious education in our schools? The association believes that it is important for people who are not of faith—atheists or agnostics—to understand religious views and to hear them put across in schools.

[Mr Burrowes]

I do indeed recognise that. Many associations take part in the local agreed syllabus conferences.

The rebuttal to the concerns about RE’s not being part of the E-bac is that schools still have the time in their curriculums to allow pupils to take RE as a GCSE option. I see that as an option for pupils at successful schools, which have the necessary capacity and time, but it may not be an option for less successful schools and for pupils who are more challenging, who will inevitably go for just the core requirements in the curriculum. The unintended consequence of such an approach could be that RE is not taken up as an option. The concern then is that we would go back to having a lack of specialist RE teachers.

There is a concern that the freedoms set out in the funding agreements for academies and free schools may entail a lower take-up of RE in some areas. There is also a concern that the current statutory requirement is not being followed through to implementation. As has been said, where is the true rigour in inspections? The limited focus on maintaining the statutory requirement in future inspections may have a negative effect on the curriculum. I recognise that the national curriculum review does not include religious education, but one should not ignore the crossover and the links between the basic curriculum and the national curriculum in terms of the whole life of a school and exam options.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister to walk carefully and cautiously in considering the possible impact of not having RE as part of the E-bac. I ask him to recognise the strength of the crucial argument that if RE is important enough to be required by law, it is important enough for us to include it as an exam subject in the English baccalaureate. That would be just one simple and practical way of acknowledging the importance of religious literacy and a proper understanding of our humanity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It has been an interesting debate and I hope that I will not, as so often happens, be the grit in the oyster. I value religion as much as anybody in the House—I have written a book on the decline of religion and how it affects society—but I believe that we owe the Minister a careful hearing, because the whole point of the E-bac is to bring rigor back into academic education. I support RE more than anybody, but too many schools have climbed up the league tables by, frankly, cheating by providing Mickey Mouse courses. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on performing a great service with this debate. I have a son at the London Oratory, which is a Catholic school, and I value that fact. It will do very well out of the E-bac, because a rigorous academic school, which will continue to promote faith studies, will benefit in the league tables by concentrating on rigorous academic subjects such as maths and English.

I intervened on my hon. Friend earlier because those of us who support RE must argue based on what it is. Has it been so degraded in how it is taught that it is no longer an academic subject? Of course we should support other religions and value people of other religions—that goes without saying—but my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) says that we need to understand and to debate whether it is right for people to wear the burqa or the cross. That is fine as a subject of public debate, but should it be part of a rigorous academic subject?

[Mr Lammy]

I generally agree with the hon. Gentleman on these matters, but is he suggesting that Shakespeare is of more value than the Koran or the Bible?

[Mr Leigh]

No, I am not. I am saying that a close study of the Talmud is as valuable and rigorous, and in my view as academic, as a close study of the Koran or the Christian Bible.

If we are to restore religious education as an academic subject, we may have to restore it as an academic study. Otherwise, it will continue to be an easy cop-out. One cannot defend an academic subject on the ground of good citizenship—we should all be good citizens, we should all value other people and we should all be kind and nice to others, but that is not an academic subject.

I hope the Minister will assure us that the exclusion of religious education is not a prejudice against religion. I am sure he will want to assure us about academies, which is an important point. However, I hope that he will also give a hint to those of us who organise religious education—there is no point in denying that it was a bad Ofsted report—that it has to return to its history as a rigorous academic subject.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

The arguments would be the same except that it is unnecessary to make RE a component of the English baccalaureate, because it is already compulsory by law. That is the reasoning behind our decision not to include RE in the humanities component.

RE is clearly a popular and successful subject. Judging by the increasing proportion of students who take a GCSE, it is one that is taught to an academically rigorous standard. There has been an increase in RE GCSEs from 16% of the cohort in 2000 to 28% in 2010. In addition, 36% of the cohort was entered for the short course GCSE in religious studies. By contrast, there has been a decline in the numbers entered for GCSE in history, geography and languages.

[Mr Lammy]

rose—

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way to the right hon. Gentleman, because I am running out of time.

The proportion of young people attempting geography GCSE dropped from 37% in 2000 to 26% last year. Modern languages dropped from 79% in 2000 to 43% in 2010. Of course 79% of pupils in the independent sector attempted at least one foreign language in 2010. We are determined to close the attainment gap between those from wealthier and poorer backgrounds, and this is one tool in our toolbox to achieve that.

Our hope and expectation is that the English baccalaureate will encourage more students to study history, geography and languages. As it is compulsory to study RE until the age of 16, students will continue to take RS GCSEs in addition to the English baccalaureate subjects.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) proposed having a humanity component of two out of three options, including RE, in the humanities block. We have considered that, and we will continue to review it. The concern is that that will extend the size of the E-bac to seven or eight GCSEs, making it less small and therefore restricting the space for vocational education, music and the arts and for those who do not want to study RE to GCSE.

Higher Education Policy

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

Let us turn to that. Given that we face a crisis in the public finances, and given that even the previous Government had planned £14 billion of saving, how does one best deliver those in a departmental budget which I do not think any of the three parties represented in the House said could be exempted from reductions? Fortunately, the previous Government set in train an exercise that helped tackle precisely that problem. In November 2009 they commissioned Lord Browne to review the financing of higher education, and they made perfectly clear the wide range of options that they wanted him to look at.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Willetts]

I will give way in a moment to the right hon. Gentleman, not least because of his role as a Minister in the previous Government, but I hope he will accept that Lord Browne’s report was commissioned precisely so that when public expenditure had to be saved, the finances of higher education would be examined.

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that the higher education review was indicated in the Higher Education Act 2004, some years before the deficit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hughes]

I will of course give way in a moment, although I am trying to be brief as many colleagues still want to speak.

Under the new system, the cost for those who earn £22,000 a year—which is just above the threshold—will be £90 per year or £7.50 a month; that will be the cost of their university education.

[Mr Lammy]

rose—

[Simon Hughes]

If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall give way in a moment.

Those who earn £25,000, which is just above the average wage, will have to pay back £360 a year, or £30 a month. Those who earn £41,000 a year—which is much more than the average wage, let alone the average graduate wage—will have to pay £150 a month. These sums will be deducted from their salaries, in the same way tax is deducted. Those who earn £71,000, which is more than a Back-Bench MP earns, will pay £375 a month.

The first and most important step is to get the message across that there are no up-front fees—no fees when students are at university, and no fees for part-time students at university. They will pay only when they have the money to pay. In that respect, it is therefore not a debt in the normal sense; rather, it is a repayable sum contingent on income. I shall now give way to the former higher education Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

First, let me say to the right hon. Gentleman that £375 a month is a lot of money to our constituents. Secondly, he knows that not a single Member of this House would accept the new terms if their mortgage company were to ring them up and say, “I’ll treble your mortgage, but you’ll pay a lower monthly sum.” That is why students think it is patronising to suggest that this is a good deal.

[Simon Hughes]

The right hon. Gentleman and I have many concerns for the same sorts of people in our communities, and I respect what he has done in that regard, but most of our constituents do not earn £71,000 a year. They will not be earning that amount, and he and I do not earn that much as Back-Bench MPs.

[Mr Lammy]

They want to earn that much.

[Simon Hughes]

Yes, they may want to, and people in this country understand that if they earn more they will pay more to the state and pay more back into the system. That is fair Britain; it is not fair Britain if they pay the same amount for a service they have received irrespective of their earnings. Of course there are issues about perception—and they are big issues, which is why I did not vote for the policy—but I hope the right hon. Gentleman agrees that we now need to concentrate on the cost to the individual who will graduate in 2015 and later. If we start getting that message across, we will be helping young people to go to university, not hindering them, and our prime obligation now is to encourage, not reduce, access.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is illuminating to follow the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). His transformation from critic to passionate advocate is part of the extraordinary nature of the road that the Government have been travelling along with this policy. It is almost surreal.

As a new Member almost a year ago, I expected that the Government would put forward policies with which I disagreed, but I had expected that they would at least be carefully considered, carefully evaluated, thoughtful and mindful of their impact. That was not so. The Minister for Universities and Science said earlier that the Government have a plan, but it seems that that plan is increasingly shaped not by Ministers but by events that they do not control and, at many levels, do not understand. Broken promises, conflicting statements and policy shifts: only when the dust settles will we find out the plan, with the publication of the repeatedly delayed White Paper.

Assurances were given to the House when we debated the Government’s plans back on 9 December, but those assurances have proved worthless. Indeed, had the House known then what we know now, who is to say, given the discomfort of some of those on the Government Benches at that time, what the outcome would have been? I recall the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, in particular, seeking reassurance that £9,000 fees would be exceptional. Let me remind him what the Business Secretary said. He gave the right hon. Gentleman a clear pledge—huh, a Liberal Democrat pledge—that he would not allow the

“migration of all universities to the top of the range.”—[Official Report, 9 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 547.]

Consistently, the Prime Minister and other Ministers gave assurances that £9,000 fees would be exceptional. So where are we? We have seen precisely the migration that the Secretary of State said that he would not allow. Far from being the exception, £9,000 fees are the norm.

We were told at one stage that fees would average £7,000, then that they were calculated at £7,500, then that they might average £8,000. Now we find that the average fee is likely to be just £360 short of £9,000, at the very top end of the range. It did not have to be like this, however. The situation became inevitable because the Government decided to cut the undergraduate teaching grant by 80% without considering the impact or listening to those who knew what it was likely to be. From the outset, vice-chancellors were clear, including many of those who had been browbeaten into supporting the Government’s proposals, that fees of about £8,000 would be needed for their institutions simply to stand still.

[Mr Lammy]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the 80% cut and effective withdrawal of the state from higher education and the funding of arts, humanities and social sciences—there is no other country in the developed world that has made that kind of departure in higher education—will have catastrophic effects in the future?

[Paul Blomfield]

I completely agree. Back in December, the Minister for Universities and Science made the point that this was not about deficit reduction, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) reminded us earlier, but about changing the shape of our system. We stand only with Romania among OECD countries in cutting higher education, and we should be ashamed of that.

As universities have looked more closely at the figures, university councils and governing bodies have exercised the responsibility that they have a duty to exercise by setting the fees that their institutions need. It appears that many in government expected universities to fall into line with their picture of them, with Oxbridge setting fees at £9,000 and other universities ranking themselves where they fitted into the system. But those in government did not understand that university governing bodies would recognise their responsibilities to their students and the communities they serve and would set the fees that they need.

What about widening participation? I stress that this is not simply about Oxbridge. We should credit universities across the sector with the achievements on widening participation that my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State has mentioned. Back in February the Deputy Prime Minister pledged in a BBC interview that Oxford and Cambridge would be given permission to charge £9,000 fees only

“if they can prove that they can dramatically increase the number of people from poorer and disadvantaged backgrounds”

who attend. In the past few days, it has become clear that Cambridge is not in a position, or is not intending, significantly to increase access for poorer students. What are the Government going to do about that? Will they tell Cambridge that it cannot have its £9,000 fees or will they tell the Deputy Prime Minister that he is going to have to confess to another broken promise?

What about the involvement of the private sector? The Minister for Universities and Science confirmed to The Times on Monday that, out of the crisis he is creating for the higher education sector, he expects there to be a bigger role for private sector providers. He has already prepared the ground by awarding university college status to BPP, which is part of the Apollo Group, which is currently being investigated by the United States Higher Learning Commission for deceiving prospective students. Where is the accountability for private sector higher education institutions? They do not face the same requirements on quality, access and numbers, and on the Government’s intentions in relation to the private sector we have had nothing but silence.

In December, the Business Secretary was quoted as saying of the Government:

“There is a kind of Maoist revolution happening in lots of areas like the health service, local government, reform, all this kind of stuff, which is in danger of getting out of control.”

What he failed to say was that the greatest chaos was unfolding in the area for which he is responsible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Indeed. The hon. Lady makes an excellent point; we should always refer to what is happening in the devolved Administrations as well.

In 2007-08, the fees in the Canadian system were £2,866 and in Australia they were £2,600. What has been proposed for this country is absolutely out of line with our competitor countries across the board. According to quite a conservative estimate, the debt that a student will accrue, if they have to pay the £9,000 maximum and then accommodation and living expenses, could amount to about £48,000. If they then went on to do a master’s and a PhD, the student could come out with a debt of £70,000-plus. That is extraordinary.

[Mr Lammy]

On that excellent point, is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that the plans will lead to catastrophically low levels of UK students deciding to go on to postgraduate study? Is she concerned that our university sector is actively recruiting abroad—notwithstanding the visa requirements imposed on it—and that we will therefore educate international students but deny that to students from this country?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Indeed. My right hon. Friend has made a number of excellent points. It is interesting that we have heard nothing from the Government parties and nothing from the Minister about the impact of the proposals on postgraduate education in this country. The House will have to return to that issue in due course.

Graduates could be incurring extraordinarily high debts. The Government simply have no electoral mandate to do what they have done; it was not in any of the manifestos or in the coalition agreement. The costs are being pushed on to students because of the massive 80% cut being made to the university teaching grant. That does not fall uniformly across all universities; it hits hardest the universities with high numbers of students studying arts-based subjects. We simply do not know what the impact will be on the longer-term career aspirations of our students, but we need to continue to develop jobs in the creative industries. That is important for my region of the north-east, but it is also important across the board.

I am also really concerned that the Government do not seem to be paying any attention whatever to the possible deterrent effect of the proposals. There is an increasing constellation of evidence showing that an increase in tuition fees—particularly to the levels proposed —puts off people from applying to university. An Ipsos MORI survey last year of 2,700 11 to 16-year-olds showed that even marginal increases in tuition fees had a significant deterrent effect on participation among young people. Some 17% of the young people who responded said that they were unlikely to go to university if tuition fees increased to £5,000, with 46% saying that that they would not go if fees were increased to £10,000 a year. If the Government dispute those findings, they need to come up with alternative findings of their own. They have simply not commissioned research into the issue.

The Government say that they are remedying the situation with the national scholarship programme and tuition fee waivers, but we know from work that million+ has carried out on the national scholarship programme so far that it is over complex and that students simply do not know what will be available to them. The information about the programme is not available in an easily accessible format. That could lead to a postcode lottery.

We know, of course, that all these changes are part of a wider trend, with the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance and the future jobs fund, which helped to get young people into jobs. The Government are deliberately engineering a situation where the life opportunities of young people will be increasingly worse than those of their parents, and that is simply a disgrace.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Lammy Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Prisk]

Mr Speaker, I think we have both now got our maps out and are sorting out the geography. However, the important thing is that the LEPs will be able to talk to the Government. The policy is led by the Department for Communities and Local Government, but we are working with it, and I am sure that the Government would be happy to hear from my hon. Friend.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Given that Leeds Met is the latest university to announce fees of £8,500, does the Minister think, in advising parents, that an English degree at Leeds Met is the same as an English degree at Oxford?

[Vince Cable]

I would not presume to make that kind of differentiation: it is their choice and they will both be considered by OFFA in due course. I would, however, single out Oxford for compliment, because of its ambitious programme for fee remission.