Oral Answers to Questions

David Laws Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

1. What steps she has taken to raise attainment among less affluent children at school.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

We have introduced the pupil premium, which supplies significant additional funding to schools for each disadvantaged pupil.

Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who has been a passionate advocate of higher standards in education for every single child in the country. Our reforms of the curriculum, of qualifications and of accountability, along with the drive to establish more good and outstanding schools, will continue.

[Sir Andrew Stunell]

I can report to the Minister that schools in my constituency are delighted with the pupil premium, and are particularly delighted that they have complete flexibility in relation to how they can best use it to improve the outcomes for children. May I urge the Minister not to be seduced or tempted by those who want more central prescription of how the pupil premium might be allocated in future?

[Mr Laws]

I will not be tempted or seduced. I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend that it is vital for us to continue to give schools the flexibility that will enable them to spend the money in the best evidence-based way. As my right hon. Friend will know, the Ofsted reports that were published last week show that schools are beginning to use it very effectively to narrow the gap.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the ways in which the last Government sought to address this issue was the London Challenge, which, as the Minister will know, had a very positive impact on the achievement gap in London. What lessons does he think can be drawn from it for the rest of the country?

[Mr Laws]

There are certainly a great many lessons to be learnt from the London Challenge. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of reports which have been published over the last few months and which seek to draw those lessons. One lesson that I would draw is that it is important for us to provide the opportunities that the London Challenge helped to create for every part of the country, and not just for areas that have been selected by Ministers.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Even if we believe the argument that faith schools improve attainment—which I do not, given the middle classes’ propensity to discover God shortly before their children’s schooling is due to begin—is segregation by faith a price worth paying by our society?

[Mr Laws]

We certainly do not want schools that seek to segregate members of the society that we have, but, as people in a liberal society, we also want to respect the right of many parents to have their young people educated in the way that they wish.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I welcome the new Education Secretary to her job. I also welcome back the Schools Minister, who has made the greatest comeback since Lazarus. I am not sure why we need two Schools Ministers, one in the blue corner and one in the yellow corner, but perhaps that is the reason.

One suggestion for the Education Secretary that I have received is that she should change the locks at Sanctuary Buildings to ensure that the former Education Secretary and his adviser Dominic Cummings cannot sneak back in after dark. However, she could help less affluent pupils immediately if she reversed her predecessor’s political instruction to Ofqual to end the AS-level link, which research shows helps them to obtain good university places. Will she signal a fresh start by reversing that decision?

[Mr Laws]

There are no plans to go down the route that the hon. Gentleman has suggested. We, as a Government, believe passionately that the final years of education for young people should be years in which they focus not just on examinations, but on learning. The problem during the most recent period of Labour government was that, in the last four years of education, too much time was spent taking exams rather than learning new facts.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

2. What steps she is taking to reform the support available for children with special educational needs in (a) Peterborough and (b) England; and if she will make a statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

4. What steps she is taking to support school governors.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

We recognise the vital role that governors play in our schools. We have increased funding to the National College for Teaching and Leadership to expand and develop training programmes for chairs, governors and clerks and to increase the numbers of national leaders of governance.

[Ms Stuart]

In Birmingham, Ofsted found that governors “asserted inappropriate influence” to

“alter the character and ethos of schools”.

Sir Michael Wilshaw also found that local government structures and accountability are too weak and need to be strengthened. How does the Minister suggest that an authority such as Birmingham should respond to the need to have a coherent approach to its governors when it faces a totally fragmented structure?

[Mr Laws]

We certainly need to learn the lessons not just for Birmingham but for the wider school system of the events that have been reported on over the past few weeks. I should say to the hon. Lady that the Department expects to publish Peter Clarke’s report tomorrow and, with your permission, Mr Speaker, the Secretary of State intends to make a statement to the House on how we intend to respond both to the Clarke report and to Ian Kershaw’s report.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

A school funding revolution is taking place in Northumberland as the fairer funding consultation will lead to an increase in April 2015 of up to 7.2%. That is also a revolution for our governors, who, under the previous Government, were often consulted but always ignored. Will the Minister take this forward and ensure that we have fairer funding for all?

[Mr Laws]

As my hon. Friend ingeniously points out, the funding reforms we are making will certainly help governors and teachers in schools. As a result of his campaigning and that of many other hon. Members we are introducing the fairer funding system next year. When we consulted on this, Northumberland was initially going to benefit to the tune of £10.6 million. I can say that the final settlement is that Northumberland will receive £12 million more to ensure that it is funded fairly in the future.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

23. The Minister said that he felt we should learn the wider lessons of the Birmingham inquiry, not just those about Birmingham schools. Peter Clarke is reported to have described a system of “benign neglect” in the Department for Education. Does the Minister agree that the way to deal with that benign neglect is to introduce a proper system of local oversight?

[Mr Laws]

As the hon. Gentleman will understand, we are not going to comment today on leaked reports. Tomorrow the Secretary of State will be in a position to set out very clearly the way in which we intend to respond to both reports, but I would say to the hon. Gentleman gently that all those engaged in the education debate have something to learn from this. Birmingham local authority did not cover itself in glory in all aspects of these issues either.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Governors across North Wiltshire who run some of the best schools in the land do an outstandingly good job, but many of them tell me that they are overburdened by rules, regulations, bureaucracy and the forms they have to fill out for central Government. Is there a way that they could be freed from some of these responsibilities so that they can take a much more strategic overview of the direction of the school and spend less time bogged down in bureaucracy?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is exactly right that the Government want to reduce all aspects of bureaucracy in the school system. We want to make sure that governors are not overburdened with bureaucracy but are armed with the vital information that will allow them to do their job properly and to have more effective governing bodies, which can play a vital role in school improvement.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that schools such as Priory Lane primary in my constituency, where the governing body wants to take the school forward by academising, should be given a choice of at least two academy sponsors to find the appropriate fit to take the school community forward?

[Mr Laws]

We always pay due regard to the views of individual schools and governing bodies, but it is vital that when we academise schools that have been failing in the past, the Department discharges its responsibility to select the sponsor which we believe will be most effective.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

5. What recent assessment she has made of the performance of free schools; and if she will make a statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

T5. Only one of the six secondary schools on the Isle of Wight, Christ the King, has been judged good by Ofsted. It is massively oversubscribed. Two new schools will open next term, but what is being done to encourage the remaining schools to become good or even excellent schools?

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that educational standards on the Isle of Wight are unacceptably low. That is why, in July 2013, the previous Secretary of State issued a direction notice to Isle of Wight council to improve standards. My hon. Friend will know that Hampshire is now the island’s strategic partner, and that it is making good progress with the schools on the island. However, the Department for Education and all its Ministers will be keeping a close eye on the island to ensure that standards continue to improve.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

T2. The Government’s own figures show that there are nearly 600 fewer children’s centres than there were at the time of the last election. According to the charity 4Children, a further 100 children’s centres are under threat of imminent closure as a result of cuts by this Government. Will the new Minister take the necessary action to halt the decline in the number of children’s centres and to remove the threat to services that are relied on by so many families and children?

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

T8. I welcome the Government’s positive approach in creating a fairer funding formula for schools. That will mean that pupils in Macclesfield will be receiving a £125 cash boost. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that a fairer funding formula will continue to be a strong focus under this Government?

[Mr Laws]

I can promise my hon. Friend that a fairer funding formula will be delivered in 2015-16. His own area will receive an additional £5.7 million. This is the biggest move towards fair funding across England in a decade, and it is long overdue. It should have taken place under the previous Government, and it will take place under this one.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

T3. I was glad to read in the newspapers that the Minister had finally abandoned plans to allow firms such as G4S to run child protection services, but then I looked more closely and discovered that he now intends to allow those firms to set up not-for-profit subsidiaries that would run those services anyway. That would mean that the same firm could place a child into a care home and run that care home, and not be inspected by Ofsted. How on earth can the Minister think that that would be good for children?

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

Schools across Norfolk will every day serve an extra 21,000 free school meals to infant-aged children from September. Will the Minister join me in thanking head teachers and schools in my constituency that have worked hard to ensure that these meals are delivered, and will he update the House on how many schools are going to fulfil the policy?

[Mr Laws]

I would like to thank head teachers, governing bodies and local authorities right across the country that are now delivering the policy. It is one of the most important social reforms introduced by our Government. It will raise attainment, raise the quality of food eaten in schools and help with household budgets. The vast majority of schools are on track to deliver it successfully in September, and we continue to work with the small minority that have further work to do.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

T4. Many parents across Leicester, and I dare say across Loughborough too, do not think it unreasonable to expect teachers to be qualified. Why does the right hon. Lady disagree with them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Local authorities have warned of a £20 million shortfall in capital for the introduction of universal free school meals. What cuts does the Minister expect schools to make to deliver on this Government imperative?

[Mr Laws]

Schools and local authorities are delivering on this policy. We have allocated an additional £150 million for 2015-16. In addition, local authorities have a budget for improving maintenance of £1.2 billion to call on, if they wish to do so.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Minutes of a meeting of governors at the Duke of York’s Royal Military school held on 26 November last year note that the Ministry of Defence, the school’s sponsor “were not keen” to be involved with military academies due to “reputational risk”. Will the Secretary of State elaborate on what that reputational risk comprises, say whether it applies to all military schools sponsored by the Ministry of Defence and enlighten the House about what discussions have taken place between her Department and the Ministry of Defence?

[Mr Laws]

We support the contacts between the military school and state school systems. I am happy to look at the points that my hon. Friend has raised and to write to her about them.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

The current problems in Birmingham academies and my experiences of Byrchall high in my constituency lead me to believe that the last Secretary of State left academy schools completely unaccountable. Will the new Secretary of State take action and change the regulations to force head teachers, at the least, to give a written response to MPs’ inquiries?

School Funding

David Laws Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I am today announcing how we will allocate £390 million of additional schools funding to the least fairly funded local areas in England. This will ensure fairer funding of English schools.

When I addressed the House in March on fairer schools funding, I confirmed the Government’s commitment to ensure that, across the country, schools have a fair funding allocation that equips them to provide a world-class education. Since then, we have consulted on a proposal to allocate additional funding to schools in the least fairly funded areas.

The consultation has confirmed that there is an overwhelming consensus that the allocation of funding to local areas across England is unfair.

The proposal we consulted on was as follows. First, we would protect all local authority budgets at the same cash level in 2015-16 as in 2014-15. After this, we would increase the budgets of the least fairly funded local areas by setting minimum funding levels that all areas should attract for their pupils and schools. Where a local area already attracted these minimum funding levels, we would not make any change to the amount of funding per pupil that it received for 2015-16. If a local area attracted less than these minimum funding levels for the pupils and schools in its area, we would increase its budget so that it met those levels.

I have listened carefully to the views of hon. Members and considered over 570 responses to the consultation. I am confirming today that we will allocate extra money to the least fairly funded local areas using the approach we set out in our recent consultation. I have concluded that this is the fairest way of distributing the additional funding we have available. I am pleased to say that we are allocating £390 million additional funding— £40 million more than I announced in March.

Sixty-nine local areas will attract additional funding. My announcement today means that, for example, Cambridgeshire—the lowest funded area in 2014-15— will now receive an additional £311 for every pupil. Northumberland will now receive an additional £307 for each of its pupils and Croydon an additional £278.

Through the additional funding we are making available, every local area’s allocation of funding will reflect a minimum basic per pupil amount and minimum amounts reflecting other pupil and school characteristics. In every local area, this will mean for example that the most deprived pupils in primary schools will attract at least £4,454; in key stage 3 at least £5,820; and key stage 4 at least £6,372, and this will continue to be supplemented by further direct funding through the pupil premium.

In the consultation we published in March this year, we gave an initial indication of how, under our proposal, additional funding might be allocated to local areas. We were clear that these indicative figures were calculated using the most recent data available at that time, and that we would use updated data for the final allocations. We were clear that this meant that the distribution of additional funding to local authorities would be different from the indicative allocations set out in the consultation.

The additional funding that we will allocate to local authorities addresses the unfair distribution of mainstream schools funding. During the consultation I have heard the concern that we will not have a completely fair education funding system until we also reform the distribution of funding for pupils with high-cost special educational needs and for early years pupils. This will be our priority for reform during the next Parliament, alongside introducing a full national funding formula for schools.

In the 69 local areas that will attract additional funding, schools forums will now be able to agree a local funding formula for 2015-16. Our intention is that schools in these areas should receive the full benefit of the additional funding we are making available: the local authority should not hold back the extra funding to pay for centrally provided services. However, I want to be clear that it is for local authorities, in consultation with their schools forum, to decide how they distribute this additional funding between the schools in their area. If it is the collective judgment of a schools forum that there is a better way of distributing funding locally, then schools will not receive a budget that reflects each of the minimum funding levels directly.

Today’s announcement of an additional £390 million increase in funding will make a real difference on the ground in the least fairly funded local areas, without creating instability and uncertainty in other local areas. We remain committed to taking the next vital steps towards fully fair funding once long-term spending plans are in place after the next spending review.

I will place copies of the documents I have published today in the House Library.

School Places (London Borough of Harrow)

David Laws Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, for what I think is the first time. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing the debate and setting out so clearly his concerns about the situation in his constituency. I know that he has been a champion of schools in his constituency and has worked hard to make sure that problems relating to basic need are dealt with.

I believe that this is the first debate since the change in responsibilities within the Government, so I would like to take the opportunity, if you will allow me, Ms Dorries, to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). He was an outstanding Secretary of State for Education under the coalition Government, and he focused a great deal on the need to improve standards of education and to narrow the gap between young people from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds. He will be much missed in the Department for Education, and we wish him good luck in his new and considerable responsibilities.

I would also like to pay tribute and send best wishes to my hon. Friends the Members for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) and for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), who have also gone on to important roles in government. I welcome back to the Department the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), who was an outstanding Schools Minister in the early years of the Government.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East for giving me the opportunity to set out some of the crucial work that the Government are doing to deliver new school places across the country and in his constituency. I also want to respond to the points that he raised. During this Parliament, the coalition Government will have invested more than £5 billion to create much-needed school places, which is a considerable increase on the amount allocated under the previous Government. As a result, last year there were more than 250,000 more places in English schools than at the election in 2010, when the coalition Government were formed.

That extra investment is necessary, as my hon. Friend has explained. The number of pupils in English schools is rising, and is set to continue to rise well into the next Parliament, first in the primary sector and then on into the secondary sector. The London borough of Harrow anticipates a 26% rise in primary pupil numbers between 2009-10 and 2015-16. London authorities face a particular challenge given the scale of population growth in our capital city and in the south-east, the mobile population, the challenges of finding suitable sites for new schools and expansions, and the high costs of building in our capital city. From 2011 to 2015, London has been allocated £1.6 billion of funding from the Department, which is more than a third of all the money available in England for new school places.

Ensuring that every child can attend a good or outstanding school in their local area is at the heart of the Government’s comprehensive programme of reform of the school system, and it is a key requirement of every parent across the country. To achieve our aims, we have announced an additional £2.35 billion to support local authorities in planning and creating the new school places that will be needed beyond the end of the Parliament, from 2015 to 2017. That is, of course, on top of the £5 billion that I mentioned for 2011 to 2015.

Funding for school places is allocated to support local authorities in their statutory duty to ensure that there are sufficient school places where they are needed, and local authorities have responsibility for determining how that funding should be invested in the schools across their area, and whether they should expand any of the schools in the area, including academies, free schools and voluntary aided schools, or establish new schools. To make it easier for local authorities to carry out their duties, we have extended the basic need allocations to cover a three-year time horizon, rather than local authorities having to plan a year at a time. That gives them more certainty and allows them to plan strategically for the additional places that they may need.

We have listened to representations about the particular challenges faced by London authorities, including Harrow. The methodology used to allocate funding for 2015 to 2017 has taken into account, for the first time, the higher cost of building in our capital city. There is a special uplift for London authorities, which London Councils has welcomed. We are targeting funding more effectively, based on local needs, using data that we have collected from local authorities about the size of schools and forecast pupil projections. We have also taken account of some of the specific pressures in local authority areas, rather than looking at those areas as a whole and possibly missing pockets of local need.

Along with other authorities, Harrow faces challenges because of increasing pupil numbers, as my hon. Friend clearly set out. As I have said, Harrow anticipates a 26% rise in primary pupil numbers between 2009-10 and 2015-16. Under the previous Government, between 2007 and 2011, some £11.1 million of basic need funding was allocated to Harrow. The coalition Government have allocated £57.5 million in basic need funding to Harrow over this Parliament—including through the targeted basic need fund, which I think my hon. Friend mentioned—and we have announced a further £12.5 million for basic need between 2015 and 2017. That will amount to almost £70 million of basic need funding for Harrow during this Parliament.

Although I fully accept my hon. Friend’s suggestion that the previous Government were rather slow to identify the trends in pressure on primary school places, I hope that he will accept that the coalition Government have really stepped up efforts to address the problem and put much more money into areas such as his constituency. The Department wants to continue to roll forward the basic need allocation for an additional year each year to allow local authorities to plan over a longer time horizon. If we can do so and collect the data from local authorities on time, we expect to make another allocation at the end of the year or the beginning of next year.

[Bob Blackman]

On the potential allocation of additional funding, will the Minister clarify whether a bidding process will be involved, or whether the allocation will be based on existing data that have been provided? If there will be a bidding process, what is the cut-off time by which the local authority must apply, so that there are no excuses about being unaware of the need when the money is allocated? I hope that Harrow will get its fair share of money.

[Mr Laws]

It is not a bidding round on this occasion. We will take a similar approach to the one we took last year. We will ask local authorities to supply us with their school capacity data, which show trends in pupil and population figures in their local area. We will look at the pressures across the entire country and at the costs of school building in different parts of the country, as we did last year, and we will review the assumptions we make in our planning process. Based on the pressures that we identify, which we will carefully reconcile with councils, we will make an allocation of moneys to councils across the country, but we do not require councils to bid on this occasion.

The money allocated during this Parliament includes the £34 million from the targeted basic need programme to expand the 15 existing schools. Those projects will create more than 2,800 new places and will be complete by 2015. The targeted basic need programme means that more places will be available at popular and high-quality local schools, which is part of the criteria. Successful expansion bids had to demonstrate a strong need to provide more places that would help to address high levels of over-subscription. Additionally, the places had to be in good or outstanding schools, based on Ofsted ratings.

As my hon. Friend mentioned, one of those schools was the Whitefriars community school, which received £15.9 million through the targeted basic need programme. That money will create an additional 210 primary places and 825 secondary places. I carefully note what he said about start-up costs for the project. Officials have been in touch with the school to support it through the conversion process, and they explained to the school that any start-up or growth funding costs would need to be met by the school or the local authority, which we would expect to manage and resolve those issues locally. That is the usual procedure for all these arrangements, and I look forward to hearing about the school’s progress.

My hon. Friend set out his concerns on that issue, and if he is not satisfied with my answers, or if he feels that inconsistent information has been given, I would be willing to meet him and people from his local area. Before he considers whether that is necessary, I undertake to write to him after this debate to set out clearly my understanding of the issue in detail.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the Minister for giving way once again. My understanding is that the school, as a multi-academy trust that is expanding to provide secondary places, is a unique case that was not considered by the Department in that round. Equally, and most importantly, when the board of governors embarked on the mission to expand, one set of rules was in place, which was that funding for start-up costs would be provided directly by the EFA. It appears that the rules changed during the process to require the funding to be from within the schools forum allocation, which the board of governors regards as a potential breach of trust—that is how I would frame it—in the sense that it was told one thing and the rules changed as the process went along. I do not expect a response now, but I would appreciate it if the Minister considered that when he writes to me.

[Mr Laws]

I have carefully noted what my hon. Friend says. Of course, I cannot make any commitments today on which I might not be able to deliver, but I will look into the details. I will write to him after the debate to set out clearly the Department’s view. If he is not satisfied with that response, he should communicate with me or come to see me. I would be happy to discuss the matter with him.

Harrow council has assured us that it has good plans in place to ensure that all children in the borough will have a school place for this September, and that it has plans to secure sufficient school places in the long term. Given the pressures across the country, we are obviously looking closely at the delivery in each part of the country, and we will keep those things closely under review, particularly in areas where there are pressures.

The Department is also rebuilding the four schools in Harrow that are most in need of repair through the Priority School Building programme. Those projects represent an investment of some £39 million in Harrow schools. A number of the projects will include an expansion of the school’s capacity, thereby increasing the number of children who can learn in a safe environment. We have also announced a second round of Priority School Building programme bids. The deadline for applications is next Monday, and we will announce the bids that have been successful later in the year.

The London borough of Harrow has two open free schools. Free schools are making a major contribution to delivering basic need, and they are delivering good quality in areas where they are needed. Seven in 10 open mainstream free schools have been set up in areas where additional school places are needed. Those free schools are in addition to the £5 billion provided for basic need, and the Government have funded 174 new free schools, thereby massively increasing resource in areas where it is needed. Some 24,000 pupils are currently attending free schools, and all open and planned free schools will eventually provide 175,000 new places overall.

I thank my hon. Friend for the support he has consistently given to Avanti House school and for his tireless work in supporting the search for a suitable site for the school. I am delighted that the Whitchurch playing fields site is suitable for the permanent secondary site. The school only opened in 2012, but it is already proving popular with local parents. When it reaches capacity in 2018, the school will provide 1,680 much-needed local school places. The local authority supports the school, and its sister school, Krishna Avanti, is also popular—so much so that it is doubling in size to provide places to meet demand.

I also thank my hon. Friend for supporting the application for the Harrow bilingual primary school. I am sure he understands—he indicated that he did—that I cannot comment on applications that are under consideration until the assessment process is finished, but in the Department we have carefully noted his support for the project. The Department hopes to be able to announce the successful applications by the end of September 2014. If the group is successful, the Department will of course write to let him know.

In addition to the investment of basic need funding in Harrow, Krishna Avanti primary has been awarded more than £700,000 through the academies capital maintenance fund to expand by 270 places. I understand, however, that there have not been any applications from Harrow schools in the current round of applications to the ACMF. The fund can help academies to expand, and I suggest that Harrow academies may want to explore that option in future.

Although Harrow is fractionally below the London average on the wider issue of first-choice preferences, the vast majority of parents, despite the pressures that my hon. Friend carefully set out, have been offered a place at a preferred school—the figures are 94.6% for primary and 94.7% for secondary. We should not be complacent about that, however, as we know that a number of parents were not offered their top preference school, and we know about the demand pressures in the system. That is why we are working at pace to reform the supply of places at good schools through a rapid expansion of the academies programme, and by creating the additional free schools that I mentioned.

I am glad to have been given this opportunity to update the House on our progress in delivering sufficient school places across the country, and particularly in Harrow. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in his part of London. I will write to him about the specific issue that he raised with me.

Question put and agreed to.

Social Mobility/Child Poverty Strategy

David Laws Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the opportunity to debate this very important and wide-ranging subject. I also thank the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), for sponsoring the debate and for opening it in such a powerful way. Their extensive speeches covered a great many of the major policy areas relating to social mobility.

I especially enjoyed the right hon. Lady’s speech. I enjoyed her challenges on some of the issues about which she thinks the Government should be doing more. I was interested to hear about her own family background, and her mother’s efforts to take all the opportunities that life presented. I congratulate her particularly on her success, and the success of her constituent, in helping to change some of what sounded like the rather backward-looking arrangements for the admission of postgraduates to Oxford university. I imagine that it is even more difficult to change the arrangements for admissions to Oxford university than it can sometimes be to change Government policy, so I think that that was something of a victory for her and her constituent.

The Government are committed to the principle that where people start in life should not determine where they end up, and that forms the basis of a huge amount of work that we are doing on both economic and social policy, which we have set out in the recent child poverty strategy and the social mobility strategy. It was good to hear not only the two opening speeches, but the speeches made by other Members including the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain), my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright), the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and, of course, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali). They made powerful speeches which covered different aspects of the debate, and which signalled that in all parties, whatever their philosophy and whatever their ideology, there is a strong commitment to changing society in this regard, and ensuring that there is genuine opportunity for everyone regardless of background. That national consensus comes across clearly in the foreword to the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission report from the autumn of 2013, where Alan Milburn and his fellow commissioners said:

“It is part of Britain’s DNA that everyone should have a fair chance in life. Yet too often demography is destiny in our country. Being born poor often leads to a lifetime of poverty. Poor schools ease people into poor jobs. Disadvantage and advantage cascade down the generations.”

That is the challenge that we all face. The last Government faced it and we face it in this Parliament.

It is our ambition to build not only a stronger economy out of the rubble of the crash of 2008 but a fairer society, even in these challenging times. We are not only getting on with that job but making progress, as we have set out in our strategy report and as is highlighted in parts of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission report. The economy is now escaping from the worst recession in generations. We have already helped record numbers of people into work and put in place far-reaching measures to improve the educational attainment of the poorest people in society.

The right hon. Lady praised Alan Milburn and all members of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission for their work, commitment and dedication to that shared cause. I join her in thanking Alan Milburn and the commissioners for their work. She was also kind enough to praise the Government for their bravery, I think she said, in taking the novel step of setting up an independent watchdog and asking a leading former Cabinet Minister from the Labour party to chair it and to be our critical friend on those issues. That demonstrates how serious the coalition Government are about that policy agenda. We decided to take a risk in setting up a body that we fully expected would be not only a friend but a critical friend and would challenge us on our ambitions to address social injustice and create a society of real opportunity for every individual.

The Government’s child poverty strategy sets out that our approach is rigorous and evidence-based. We are focusing on sustainable solutions that will work in the long term and make our society fairer. I acknowledge that the last Government also had a strong commitment in that area. It did some important work, not least in schools policy. In the debate, we have talked about the success of London schools in the last 15 or so years. I pay tribute to former Education Secretaries and individuals such as Lord Adonis who played a large part in some of those education reforms.

It is also true that, in their strategy in this area, the last Government became very dependent on public expenditure through the benefits and tax credits system. By the end of the last Parliament, it became clear to most commentators and people in the House that the strategy of relying on ever more means-tested benefits was not sustainable in the long term, particularly in an environment where the public finances were deeply in deficit.

Therefore, we are now focusing on tackling the causes of inequality and social injustice. That is why we are putting a particular focus on some of the areas that right hon. and hon. Members have raised today: on investing in the early years, on improving the quality of our schools system, and on ensuring that people get more opportunities in work and make progress in work, rather than simply being in work on low pay. I would like to set out some of the Government’s plans in those areas and to try to respond to some of the points that right hon. and hon. Members have made.

The right hon. Lady placed a heavy emphasis on the importance of tackling disadvantage in the early years, as did a number of other Members, rightly. The Government fully share the view that, in order to address disadvantage and inequality of opportunity, we have to be able to act early on. Far too many young people start off way behind as they join our schools system. Schools then struggle to try to make good the disadvantage that has already been embedded in the early years. We have to do more in those crucial early years to prevent these gaps from opening up, so across the early years we are helping disadvantaged children to gain access to high-quality education and we are providing more help to parents who want to get back to work. Our new entitlement for the parents of the most disadvantaged 40% of two-year-olds will mean that about 260,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds will be entitled to get a Government-funded early education place from September.

Earlier this year, we also announced that from 2015-16 we will extend the pupil premium, which is having a profoundly important impact in schools, into the early years, so that we ensure that three-year-olds and four-year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds can get the best start in life. That is extra money to raise the quality of teaching and pay for more qualified teaching staff, particularly in settings with a large number of disadvantaged youngsters. We have announced the consultation on that and the level of the early years pupil premium for 2015-16, and I very much hope that the party or parties in government after the next election will continue to be committed to the early-years pupil premium and to the schools pupil premium. I hope we will significantly increase the early-years pupil premium so that it is at least as great financially—if anything, I hope it is more—as the pupil premium for primary schools, on a full-time equivalent basis. We know that investment in these areas makes the biggest impact when we invest early, which is why we decided in 2014-15 to put almost all the increase in the pupil premium into the primary setting rather than into secondary education. We are also doing other good work.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The pupil premium is based on free school meal eligibility, but we still do not know which recipients of universal credit will be entitled to free school meals for their children. We have been waiting for this decision for about three years, and I think the delay is because of a disagreement—or an inability to reach agreement—between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education. Is the Minister able to tell us when that very important policy decision will be made?

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[Mr Laws]

I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that there is no disagreement in government. This is a very important decision to get right, for the reasons he explains, and we have no intention of undermining support for disadvantaged youngsters through the decisions we take. We have to make sure that we use the new mechanisms that will be available, including through universal credit, to target money effectively. We will be taking decisions shortly—Ministers often say that—on this matter, but in the meantime it is perfectly reasonable for him to ask questions about it, because it is important for us to get it right.

We are also taking other action to support families in the early years: for working families on universal credit, we are further increasing support for child care costs to 85%, as Alan Milburn’s commission urged us to do, making sure that for these families work will always pay; we are introducing tax-free child care; and the Deputy Prime Minister recently announced the commencement of flexible parental leave, so that all parents can get the support they need to go back to work. As the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has consistently argued, the early years are the most important years in young people’s lives. That is why we are investing so heavily to make sure that all our children get the very best start they can and why we are giving a priority in public expenditure terms to this area, even in these times of austerity.

Understandably, education in our schools system has been a major area debated today, and it is one of the Government’s big priorities. I am very proud, as a member of the coalition Government, that even in these times of austerity, when we are trying to deal with the massive deficit we inherited, that we have made the commitment to fund a pupil premium for schools. As hon. Members have said, we are focused not only on raising attainment for all school pupils, but on closing the unacceptable attainment gap between richer and poorer pupils, and we are making progress. Under this Government, poor children are doing better than ever at school. The proportion of children on free school meals and the pupil premium who are getting five good GCSEs has increased, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South said, from 31% when the coalition came to power to 38% now. That is a very significant increase over a relatively short period, and comes at a time when we are ensuring that there is no grade inflation in the system, which means that these improvements in recorded results are real improvements.

We are also making big improvements in narrowing the gap at key stages 2 and 4. At key stage 2, the acceleration in narrowing the gap seems to have been present since the pupil premium came in, and we need to ensure that that acceleration is sustained in future years and that it is present in both key stages 2 and 4.

As hon. Members have said, a massive amount more needs to be done in this area. It is still the case that, despite the progress, six in 10 children on free school meals fail to secure five C grades at GCSE, including English and maths. I hope that all of us across the House agree that that is entirely unacceptable in an advanced country such as Britain. As the Chair of the Select Committee pointed out so powerfully, we can see that that is unacceptable when we look at the levels of attainment and the reduction in the gap in some of the best schools where they have large numbers of disadvantaged young people. In those schools, including in areas such as inner London, the teachers and the head teachers are proving that there is nothing inevitable about this level of underperformance. There are parts of the country today where almost 80% of young people who are considered disadvantaged are failing to get those five Cs, and that is not something that any of us can accept.

We are continuing to put our money where our mouth is —through the pupil premium. Since 2011, we have invested almost £4 billion to help schools directly to address educational disadvantage. This year, the pupil premium will increase to £2.5 billion a year—the full amount that we promised in the coalition agreement. That means that children who are poor and who receive the pupil premium throughout their school career will now receive—or their schools will receive—an additional £14,000 to boost their attainment, which is a significant amount of money. Schools will be able to make powerful use of that money, and they will be informed by the mechanisms to improve education that the Education Endowment Foundation has flagged up as things that work.

I have been to schools in very disadvantaged neighbourhoods around the country, and recognise that this boost to the budget is quite transformational. With my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales), I visited a school in his constituency with very high levels of deprivation—80% or 90% of young people were entitled to the pupil premium. It is a community that never really recovered from the de-industrialisation of the 1980s and a community where aspirations have been very low. This additional money is giving that school the opportunity to change the life chances of those young people.

Of course we have to ensure that, even though we give discretion to schools to spend this money in the way they think best, there is accountability for it. The right thing to do in the school system is to have more freedom and autonomy, but those things have to come with accountability. The accountability mechanism that we have chosen is through Ofsted. When Ofsted goes into a school, it will look to see whether the disadvantaged pupils are making good progress and it will see whether the gap is closing. If those things are happening, it will not have to ask lots of questions and it will not be wasting the time of school leaders and teachers by creating a bureaucracy around this. Where there is not progress and where the gaps are not closing, it will challenge schools. Schools that thought they might be outstanding will discover that they are not so graded because they are failing in this area. Schools that are weaker will be highlighted. Head teachers today know that this is now an important area for their school’s performance, and Ofsted will recommend pupil premium reviews by outstanding system leaders of schools that are not using this money sensibly.

Later this month, Ofsted will report on its view of how the pupil premium is being used in schools. Although I would be the first to accept that not every school is using every penny perfectly, I believe that the evidence will show that the school system increasingly does understand what this money is for and is using it and targeting it in the right way.

Another important thing that we have done is to change the accountability systems for both primary and secondary schools and in 16-to-19 provision. For too long in primary education we have set the bar too low for schools. At one stage, we accepted that 40% of young people could fail to reach the level of attainment to which we were aspiring and we now know that even that level was too modest and was, for those people who were just achieving it, a passport to failure later in life and in their educational career. We are raising the bar and we are expecting more young people to get over it.

As the Chairman of the Select Committee pointed out, by focusing more on progress and not on the C-D borderline, we are giving a real incentive to schools to value the progress made by every pupil—the B-grade students going to A, the A-grade students going to A* and, critically, the F-grade students going to E, the E-grade students going to D and the D-grade students going to C. One of the disappointments under the previous Government, in spite of the progress made in some areas of education, was that a lot of the progress was across the C-D borderline on which schools had an incentive to focus. A lot of the most disadvantaged youngsters who were not on that borderline saw almost no improvement in performance under the previous Government. They and many of the most disadvantaged communities saw precious little improvement during the last Parliament and I hope that our accountability reforms will change that.

I am optimistic. We had the pupil premium awards recently and saw some splendid best practice across the country. Schools are doing the right things, with high expectations and good teaching. That includes schools such as Mossbourne academy. The recent destinations data show that a large number of young people from those schools are going to first-class jobs and first-class educational settings, and are going on to places such as Oxford and Cambridge. More people from that school did that than was the case from some entire local authority areas, as, disgracefully, there are still some parts of the country in which no pupil at all goes on to our best universities.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

The Minister will know that thanks in part to the flexibilities that this Government have introduced, there is an increasing correlation between the amount of money that schools get and their efficacy in a way that there was not in the past, which is probably a good thing. That shows the need for a new national funding formula that ensures equitable distribution of funds across the country. We do not have that now. London is doing well, and we are all delighted about that, but it is also the best-funded part of the country.

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree. Money is of course not always the answer—if it is spent badly, for instance—but it is really important. If we did not think that money was important we would not have the pupil premium, which is about money, accountability and best practice. We must make sure that we have a fairer national funding formula. We are making the biggest step for 10 or 20 years towards fairer school funding through the minimum funding levels we are introducing, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be able to say more about the additional funding we can give to underfunded parts of the country when our consultation concludes.

As well as addressing attainment in education for disadvantaged groups, we need to help them to secure the right jobs so that they can get on in life. Apprenticeships are at the heart of our drive to equip people of all ages with the skills employers need to grow and compete, and we are very proud that more than 1.6 million new apprenticeships have been started in this Parliament at more than 200,000 workplaces. More than 860,000 people undertook an apprenticeship in the past academic year, which is the highest recorded figure in modern history. Our new programme of traineeships will help young people to develop the skills and attributes they need to secure apprenticeships and other sustainable jobs.

We are also pleased that the work we are doing with young people means that the number not in education, employment or training has been falling. We will continue to do more to help young people from 16 to 18 and to ensure that, as a number of hon. Members have said, we have proper careers advice and guidance, and proper incentives for educational establishments to focus on destinations.

We are also helping young people in work, helping parents to find jobs and helping to ensure that take-home pay after tax increases. We are incentivising employers to take on more young people by abolishing employer national insurance contributions for most employees under 21 from April of next year. We are raising the national minimum wage to £6.50 per hour, which represents the biggest cash increase since 2008 and will increase the pay of more than 1 million people. We are cutting income tax for those on the minimum wage by almost two thirds and we have increased the personal allowance five times, from £6,475 when the coalition came to power to £10,500 in 2015-16, which is a massive support to many people on low pay in employment—people who are also, incidentally, going to benefit from the free school meals for infant-age pupils from this September, and that will also be extended for the first time to disadvantaged young people in college settings who previously, for no rational reason, were excluded from the entitlement that there was to free school meals for those in schools. I am pleased that this Government have resolved that very long-running injustice.

We are also working with business to ensure that it helps people to progress, earn more and have responsible terms and conditions. We are addressing exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts and are committed to the social mobility business compact. I am proud that, as a consequence of the work the Government have done and of the recovery of the economy, employment has increased by nearly 1.7 million. In just the past year unemployment is down by almost 350,000, and we have one of the highest employment rates in the history of our country.

Because we know that work is the best route out of poverty, our welfare reforms will incentivise even more people into work, and ensure that work always pays and that work pays more than benefits. We provide intensive, personalised support for parents who have been out of work for 12 months or more through the Work programme. To date, around 300,000 people on the Work programme have found lasting work. We are also supporting families with multiple disadvantages to get back to work through the troubled families programme, in order to help young people.

We cannot highlight the importance of social mobility and of tackling child poverty enough. They are central to the Government’s mission and to what the coalition hopes to achieve over our period of five years in government. Quite simply, no child should become a poor adult for the simple reason that their parents were poor.

I have set out the steps we are taking in early-years education and 16-to-19 education, and in trying to improve employment outcomes, but we know there is more to do. We have listened carefully to the proposals made by hon. Members and we are listening carefully to what comes out of Alan Milburn’s reports and the work of his commissioners. We will seek to build on the success so far, to make sure we break this unacceptable link between social backgrounds and success in life.

Early Years Pupil Premium

David Laws Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Today, we are publishing a consultation document setting out our proposals for the implementation of two key changes to early years funding in 2015-16: the introduction of the early years pupil premium for disadvantaged three and four-year-olds and moving to “participation funding” for disadvantaged two-year-olds.

Achievement at school is the strongest determinant of a child’s future earnings. Pupils who achieve five A* to C grades at GCSE earn on average 10% more than those who do not. However, the Sutton Trust have suggested there is a 19-month gap at the start of school between the most and least disadvantaged children. These gaps persist and widen throughout a child’s life. Research also shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds can benefit the most from receiving a high-quality early education.

The New Early Years Pupil Premium

The aim of the early years pupil premium is to close the gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers by providing funding to early years providers to help them raise the quality of their provision.

All children aged three and four are already entitled to 15 hours a week of funded early education, for 38 weeks of the year (570 hours/year). The early years pupil premium will complement that entitlement by providing nurseries, schools and other providers of Government-funded early education with an additional £300 a year for each eligible child accessing the full 570 hours with them. We estimate that over 170,000 children could benefit from the early years pupil premium in 2015-16.

Providers will be funded for the early years pupil premium along with their existing early education funding. We are also publishing today indicative local authority funding allocations for the premium.

The consultation document seeks views from professionals, parents and other interested parties on our proposals for the implementation of the early years pupil premium. We propose that—

(i) Those from low-income families, children in care or children adopted from care should be eligible for the early years pupil premium;

(ii) Providers are best placed to know how support their disadvantaged pupils with the early years pupil premium and so should have the freedom to decide how it is spent;

(iii) Ofsted will hold providers to account for how they have used the early years pupil premium to support their disadvantaged children through the regular inspection process.

Participation Funding for Early Learning for Two-Year-Olds

In September 2013 the entitlement to early education was extended to the 20% least advantaged two-year-olds, and from September 2014 it will be extended further to the 40% least advantaged two-year-olds. The early years pupil premium will close the gap at ages three and four between the additional support disadvantaged children get at age two through the new free entitlement and the additional support they get in school through the school-age pupil premium.

The consultation also covers moving funding of the free entitlement for two-year-olds onto a stable, long-term footing by introducing participation-based funding from 2015-16. This will mirror the way that the three and four-year-old entitlements are funded. This means that we will fund local authorities according to the actual numbers of eligible two-year-olds taking up a place. We recognise local authorities’ concern that we use the most up-to-date data to determine funding in the first year of participation-based funding. We are therefore proposing to use two data collections rather than one in 2015-16 to help us to do this.

The early years pupil premium and the two-year-old entitlement both only apply in England.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Laws Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

2. When he plans to publish the results of the recent consultation on fairer funding for schools; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Our consultation on fairer schools funding closed on 30 April. We are currently analysing the responses and will publish our final response next month.

[Mr Walker]

The Government have been right to commit to delivering fairer funding and I welcome the first small steps that have been taken. Schools in Worcestershire tell me that they are facing major challenges from increases in national insurance and pension costs. May I press the Minister to listen carefully to the concerns of the F40 authorities, which want to see fairer funding sooner?

[Mr Laws]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the strong lead that he has taken in arguing the case for fairer funding, which is long overdue. As he has acknowledged, schools in his area will gain to the tune of some £5 million from the proposals that we made a couple of months ago. I repeat the commitment that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have made on previous occasions: we are committed not just to this first big step towards fairer funding, but to a national fair funding formula, which should have been introduced many years ago but which the last Labour Government did nothing to address.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

Head teachers in my constituency are concerned about their budgets for this year, and they tell me that the big effect will come with the Government’s changes to sixth-form funding. Will he look again at those changes?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the Government have protected schools funding in the existing Parliament, and we have introduced a pupil premium to make sure that youngsters in more disadvantaged areas are also assisted. I agree with him that in the future we must make sure that education funding is as protected as possible across the system, and he will be aware of the announcement that the Deputy Prime Minister made on behalf of my party today. It is now up to other parties to make similar commitments.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

The move towards fairer funding in Northumberland has been welcomed by all my teachers and those in the F40 who are likewise affected. Will the Minister remind the individual councils of the F40 local authorities that all the schools in previously underfunded local authority areas should benefit, not just some chosen few?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is right that we want to see the money go from local authorities to schools. He will be aware that in his area the proposals that we consulted on involve a significant increase of some 6.4%, which is more than £10 million more for local schools. We want that money to go right through to the front line.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

When will the Minister agree with the wish of the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) to have a much broader review of funding? Children attending reception class in Wandsworth have almost twice the amount of money of children attending in Birkenhead. Neither of those two authorities was in the review. Given that the Government have been in power for four years, that national review is long overdue.

[Mr Laws]

I will not say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that, given that his party was in power for much longer than that, this could have been addressed by him. I will, however, accept the serious point he makes that we need not only to move to a national fair funding formula when we know the long-term spending plans, but that it will make sense for the next Government to consider all the different forms of deprivation funding, including a prior attainment area-based funding, to make sure that there is a coherent whole. I am very proud of what we have done on the pupil premium in this Parliament, but we ought to look in the round in the next Parliament.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

On fairer funding, is it acceptable that, according to a London Economics report today, academies have approximately £1,600 more to spend per sixth-form student than sixth-form colleges?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman should know that, as part of the Government’s reforms to school funding, we are making sure there is consistent and fair funding across the system. Where there is not, we have been converging funding to ensure institutions are appropriately and fairly funded.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

3. What assessment he has made of the recommendations of Sir Martin Narey’s report “Making the Education of Social Workers Consistently Effective”, published in January 2014, on the training of children’s social workers.

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[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to adopt a revised funding formula for schools.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Our proposal to allocate £350 million to the least fairly funded local areas in 2015-16 is the biggest step towards fairer schools funding for a decade. This puts us in a much better position to introduce a national fair funding formula when multi-year spending plans are available.

[David Mowat]

The Minister may be aware that Warrington is ranked 137th for funding out of 152 authorities. As a comparator, Westminster, which is ranked 10th, receives £3,000—60% extra—more per child each year than Warrington. It was therefore disappointing that in this new allocation, Westminster received a big uplift and Warrington received nothing—perpetuating that differential, which is really unacceptable. Will the Minister explain the logic behind that, and does he agree that we need to move to a national formula very quickly indeed?

[Mr Laws]

I would make two points. First, what we sought to do in the announcement of a couple of months ago was address the issues not just of low funding, but of unfair funding. It is still possible for some parts of the country that are not the lowest funded to be underfunded, as we saw in the announcement. As for comparing Westminster with Warrington, although traditionally thought of as an affluent area, Westminster has had something like 50% of its children entitled to free school meals over the last six years, so it benefits, quite rightly, from high levels of disadvantage funding. Secondly, I agree with my hon. Friend in that his points make the case for moving on from this allocation to a full national fair funding formula in the next Parliament, to which both our parties are committed.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Education Select Committee heard evidence that secondary schools in areas that will not receive extra money under changes to the funding settlement will face a £350,000 a year shortfall due to increasing costs. Meanwhile, £400 million of basic need money has been used on free schools. Instead of spending it on them, would not that basic need money have been better spent on the schools now facing a shortfall in their basic needs?

[Mr Laws]

I do not accept the premise of the question. Many schools whose areas are not benefiting from the uplift are in areas with high levels of disadvantage and deprivation that have benefited enormously from the pupil premium that we have introduced. As for basic need, we have allocated considerably more than the last Government, which is why we are able to have a very ambitious programme for new schools and extensions across the country.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

North Yorkshire is a very sparsely populated rural county, and is one of the 40 least well funded. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the problem of funding small schools in rural areas of that kind—which includes the problem of sixth-form funds—and will he address it?

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. As she knows, North Yorkshire is one of the areas that will gain from the measures that we proposed a couple of months ago. It was set to gain by £7.2 million under the proposals on which we have consulted. The sparsity issue is also extremely important in areas such as North Yorkshire, and we have therefore introduced a sparsity factor to allow local authorities to protect schools in areas where children would otherwise have to travel an unacceptable distance.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As was pointed out earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), it is the sixth-form sector that is really being hit by funding cuts. Is the Minister aware of the impact survey conducted by the Sixth Form Colleges Association, which was published today? I hear reports that officials have been asked to prepare further cuts, which will be announced in September. May I urge the Minister to think again? The sector simply cannot take any more cuts.

[Mr Laws]

I understand the concerns of the 16 to 19 sector. Ministers are very alive to those concerns, and we will consider them carefully before we set our final spending plans for 2015-16. I do not know whether the Labour party has made any commitments on school funding into the next Parliament, but I suggest that the hon. Lady and her hon. Friends make the same commitment that the Deputy Prime Minister has made on behalf of my party today.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to obtain data from HM Revenue and Customs to improve the development of destination measures for school leavers.

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[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

12. What provision has been made to fund the furnishing of new school buildings built under the Priority School Building programme.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

The Priority School Building programme provides funding for fixed furniture and equipment. Where a school is increasing in size, the PSBP also provides funding for loose furniture and equipment, such as tables and chairs.

[Mr Cunningham]

A school in my constituency, Ernesford Grange community academy, has just had a new school building built under the PSBP. However, the Education Funding Agency has informed it that there is no funding to cover furniture for the new building. That is presenting a serious problem for the school—and, I am sure, for many other schools. Will the Government try to find funding to help buy desks and chairs for the new builds, or meet me to discuss the situation?

[Mr Laws]

Of course I will look into the issue or meet the hon. Gentleman. Where funding is needed to fix furniture and equipment, we provide that centrally. The hon. Gentleman has three PSBP projects in his constituency. All of them are going to be receiving some funding for fixed equipment—over £1 million in total. Where there is existing equipment that can sensibly be reused in the new buildings, we ask schools to do that, but if the hon. Gentleman thinks that is posing problems, I will be happy to look into the detailed circumstances.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

This morning I visited the Holmesdale community infant school in Reigate, a very successful and popular school which is seeing a significant number of new places being provided under the new schools programme. However, with the doubling in school numbers over the past decade, there is chaos outside; there are enormous problems with traffic, which requires changes to the road structure. Is it possible to arrange some form of funding that covers the entire scheme of both setting up new school places and supporting them effectively?

[Mr Laws]

Usually it is appropriate for the local authority to fund transport improvements from its transport budget, but if my hon. Friend sends me the details of the case that he raises, I will look into it carefully.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Although the Government’s commitment to rebuild the Duchess’s community high school in Alnwick is very welcome, the problem of furnishing a new-build school is arising there. Will the Minister discuss with me how we can meet that problem?

[Mr Laws]

I will be happy to have those discussions with my right hon. Friend. I am sure he accepts that where there is furniture and equipment that can sensibly be reused, it should be—it would be ridiculous in these times to waste good furniture and equipment—but where there is a need for support, we will certainly consider that.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

13. What progress his Department has made on increasing the number and quality of apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds.

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[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

16. What steps he has taken to reduce absenteeism in schools.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

We have strengthened the rules on pupil absence and published clearer advice to schools. School attendance has improved significantly, with 7.7 million fewer school days lost in 2012-13 compared with 2009-10.

[Sheryll Murray]

I have been approached by many parents in my constituency who work in the tourism industry and simply cannot afford to take holidays during the busiest time, school holidays. What can be done to help these small business owners take holidays with their families without fearing punishment or hurting their children’s education?

[Mr Laws]

I know that this is a real issue in constituencies such as that of my hon. Friend. Indeed, last year about a third of all children in Cornwall’s primary schools missed school for a term-time holiday, a figure higher than the national figure for primary schools, which is about 20%. That is clearly not acceptable. I would say two things to my hon. Friend. First, head teachers retain the discretion to grant leave in exceptional circumstances. Secondly, and more significantly as regards the cases she raises, we are deregulating so that all schools control their own term dates from 2015. That might give schools in her area greater flexibility to make a judgment about when to have their holidays and about what the right time might be for them.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

17. What steps his Department has taken to increase the number of primary school places in a) Winchester constituency and b) England.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

During this Parliament, the Department has allocated more than £5 billion in basic need funding to help local authorities in England create the additional places that will be needed.

[Steve Brine]

I have campaigned throughout this Parliament to secure new primary places for my constituents. We now have a combination of additional places at existing schools and brand-new provision at the excellent new Westgate all-through school, which is the first in Hampshire. The Government should be very proud of it. Does the Minister acknowledge that Hampshire, like so many other areas, is using the additional funding he mentioned not to fund an ideological whim but to do the basics and secure new primary school places for families who need them?

[Mr Laws]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who will be interested to know that the allocation of money to Hampshire for basic need has almost quadrupled between the time of the previous Labour Government and the present coalition Government. We have allocated £88.9 million to basic need in Hampshire between 2011 and 2015; that compares with just £23 million over a comparable four-year period in the previous Parliament.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

18. What change there has been in educational attainment in a) Kettering constituency, b) Northamptonshire and c) England since May 2010.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Attainment has risen in all the areas mentioned from 2010 to 2013: in Kettering from 55.4% to 57%, in Northamptonshire from 51.9% to 58.1%, and in England as a whole from 55.3% to 60.8%.

[Mr Hollobone]

Northamptonshire is one of the fastest growing counties in the country and Kettering is one of the fastest growing parts of Northamptonshire. What special extra help is Her Majesty’s Government giving to boost educational attainment chances in constituencies such as Kettering that have a high population growth rate?

[Mr Laws]

I agree that there are challenges in Kettering and Northamptonshire, including from the rising pupil population. In that part of the world not only are we delivering the pupil premium and the additional interventions to support better school leadership, but we have almost doubled the allocation of money for new places for basic need from £29 million in the last Parliament to more than £55 million in this Parliament.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

T2. Will the Minister tell us how many schools are being built as a result of his programme, and how many have had their conditions improved?

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Yes, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are building, rebuilding and upgrading more than 900 schools during the course of this Parliament. We have also recently announced a Priority School Building programme to rebuild many of the schools that are in the worst condition, including many that were not even on the list for Building Schools for the Future.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

T6. We are in the third year of phonics tests for six-year-olds, and I understand that the tests have shown an improvement in decoding skills. What action will the Minister take to ensure that we are stimulating the enjoyment of reading?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

What will the Government do about the fact that there are more than 4,000 infant school children in classes of more than 30 in the north-east and North Yorkshire?

[Mr Laws]

That is precisely why the Government have doubled the allocation of money for basic need, by complete contrast with the previous Government who cut the number of places in primary schools despite the boom in the birth rate.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Thinking that it faces too many bureaucratic hurdles, the Local Government Association is looking for more powers to interfere in free schools and academies. All too often, local authorities are the bureaucratic hurdles, holding back inspired head teachers, inspirational boards of governors, and parents who want a better future for their children. Will my right hon. Friend resist these efforts by local government to take back controls?

Education Spending

David Laws Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I am today announcing plans for a second phase of the Priority School Building programme.

Education is one of the Government’s highest priorities. Even during a difficult economic climate, we have continued to invest in our education estate to ensure that the fabric of our schools is maintained and improved. Our aim is that every child will have a good-quality school place in school buildings which are safe and fit for purpose. That is why over the course of this Parliament we are spending a total of £18 billion on school buildings. Thanks to the decisions we have taken to improve efficiency and reduce waste in central school building programmes, this Government are building or improving the condition of almost 900 schools—twice as many as the previous Government. This includes building almost 300 brand new schools, rebuilding and renovating 200 of the most dilapidated schools in the country, and delivering funding for more than 400 projects from previous programmes. Coming on top of building work undertaken by local authorities, the coalition is delivering central Government’s biggest contribution to the school estate in decades.

Our first priority is to ensure every child has a place at school which is why we have more than doubled funding for new school places in areas of need to £5 billion. By last May, this had already led to the creation of 260,000 places, with thousands more on stream.

It is also critically important that children can learn in a safe and secure environment. Too many schools are in a poor condition, while previous school building programmes targeted funding according to factors such as pupil attainment, rather than the condition of the existing buildings. As a result, many of the most dilapidated schools in the country missed out on funding.

That is why we launched the Priority School Building programme, to address need at 261 schools with buildings in the worst condition. Successful applicants were announced on 24 May 2012 and all schools are due to be opened by the end of 2017, two years ahead of schedule. Design work has begun at 234 schools, 28 schools are under construction, and today Whitmore Park in Coventry has become the first school to have its new building opened under the Priority School Building programme.

Building on the work of the James review, the Priority School Building programme is being delivered much more efficiently and at much better value for money than the Building Schools for the Future programme: at a number of schools work has begun in half the time, while costs have been cut by up to 40%.

But we want to do more, building on the success of the Priority School Building programme. So today I am announcing that, as part of our capital expenditure over the next spending review period from 2015-21, we will fund a second phase of the Priority School Building programme, with a value of around £2 billion.

The original Priority School Building programme worked on the basis of the condition of the whole school site. We will now refine this to look at targeting individual school buildings, as well as whole school rebuilds where this is appropriate, so that the Department can focus much more tightly on addressing specific issues in the estate. This is only possible thanks to the data coming out of our detailed condition survey. That survey will be complete by the summer and will give us a detailed pattern of need which will be a useful tool for targeting the available resources most effectively.

Through this extension to our already successful programme we are helping more schools and ensuring we target more money directly at those schools in the worst condition.

Copies of the application guidelines will be available from the Libraries of both Houses. Details of how schools will be selected for the new phase of the Priority School Building programme will follow shortly, and will be published on the Department for Education’s website.

Catholic Schools (Admissions)

David Laws Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) on securing the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on taking on the mantle so well and setting out his concerns so clearly. I also join him in the comments that he made at the beginning of his speech about the tragedy that has occurred in Leeds. It is on the minds of all hon. Members. Our condolences are very much with the relatives of the teacher who died, and our thoughts are with the governors, teachers and pupils at that school.

We have had an extensive debate, with good participation from a number of hon. Members. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) and the hon. Members for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), for Fareham (Mr Hoban), for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) and for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) for their contributions. We have had good representation from those of the Catholic faith here today. They even seem to have got through to the Front Benches, because I also have to declare an interest, having been educated only at Catholic schools—at a Catholic state primary school and an independent Catholic secondary school. I think that I can therefore speak with a bit of knowledge and some sympathy for the points made by hon. Members.

I want to place on record the fact that the Government recognise the important contribution that the Churches and faith schools—schools of all faiths—make to our education system. About one third of the schools in England are Church or faith schools and, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire said, about 10% of all schools are Roman Catholic. These schools are usually popular with parents and include some of the highest-performing schools in the country. Catholic schools in particular generally outperform other types of state school. Last year, at primary level, 81% of pupils in Catholic schools achieved level 4 and above in reading, writing and maths at key stage 2, compared with 75% of pupils at all state schools. At secondary level, 67% of students secured five good GCSEs, including English and maths, in contrast to 61% of students at all state schools in 2013.

A number of hon. Members have commented on the composition by deprivation of pupils in Catholic schools compared with other schools. Obviously, that is a complicated issue, because the fact that there are differences between schools in their disadvantaged cohorts does not necessarily prove that there has been an attempt by schools to skew their intake in one way or the other. The underlying demographics of the area and the people who want to access the faith schools may mean that they are represented in different ways from the national average in terms of their deprivation characteristics. It is worth noting that the proportions of pupils eligible for free school meals in Roman Catholic schools are not notably different from the percentages of all pupils who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

[John Pugh]

The Minister has just profiled the difference between Catholic schools and other kinds of school in terms of educational achievement, but to the credit of a lot of Catholic schools, they also have very good pastoral arrangements. Has the Department any data showing, for example, the number of exclusions from Catholic schools as opposed to other sorts of school? My instinct is that they are rather better at catering for pupils who have problematic histories than normal state schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting issue. I do not have those data to hand, but I am happy to look into the statistics that the Department has. I suspect that we probably do or could access such statistics, and I will write to my hon. Friend to let him know whether his hunch is supported by the data.

I know that the Catholic Church feels a strong sense of mission to provide a high-quality education through its schools. That stretches right back to before the Reformation, but was confirmed and strengthened more recently, following the reintroduction of Catholic bishops in 1850. Catholic schools do extend opportunities to pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. As I said, it is true that Catholic schools have slightly lower proportions of pupils on free school meals, who are eligible for pupil premium funding, but at both primary and secondary levels, poorer pupils in Catholic schools are doing better than their peers nationally, resulting in smaller attainment gaps.

In 2013, 49% of pupil premium pupils in Catholic schools secured five or more A* to C grade GCSEs, including English and maths, compared with 41 % of their peers nationally. That is a healthy advantage in favour of Catholic schools. It equates to an attainment gap of 24 percentage points in Catholic schools. That is lower than the national average of 27 percentage points.

Catholic schools continue to serve high numbers of children from immigrant families—as my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire said—both old and new, and from deprived communities. According to the Catholic Education Service, with which we meet and engage regularly, 30% of pupils in Catholic maintained secondary schools are from ethnic minorities, compared with 24% nationally, and 17% live in the most deprived areas, compared with 12% nationally.

My hon. Friend asked whether we had made an assessment of some of the trends in demand for Catholic schools recently. We have not made such an assessment. Obviously, there is an issue about active participation in religion, which is declining in our society, but he is right to point out that we have had an influx of immigrants from communities with strong Catholic representation abroad. That has put pressure on Catholic school places in some communities in the country.

The Education Act 1944 brought many Church schools, including from the Catholic sector, into the state education system, and we continue to benefit from that settlement today. There are nearly 2,000 Catholic schools in England, serving more than 700,000 children—more than 400,000 primary school children and about 300,000 in secondary schools. The notable involvement of the Catholic sector also extends into higher education, particularly through the teacher training colleges, such as St Mary’s.

There is a lot more for us to do, however, and a lot of scope for Catholic schools to play a big role in the education system. Many parents want to see more school places, particularly in parts of the country where there has been that bulge in the primary population since the increase in the birth rate in 2004. That is why the Department has allocated a total of £5 billion for local authorities between 2011 and 2015 to meet basic need.

To support the expansion of schools across the country, we have also allocated large amounts of basic-need capital beyond the existing Parliament, which will help to fund those school expansions. I urge Catholic schools to play a full part in expanding, to help us in those areas with a shortage of school places to meet basic need. I think that that will provide some of the opportunities that my hon. Friend has been seeking, but it is also, in many communities, a responsibility that those who are engaged in state education should want to meet.

Our free schools programme is also helping to meet parental demand for good local school places. Once they are full, the 173 open free schools will provide a total of around 82,000 additional places, with around 23,000 of those places at primary school level. There are two open Catholic free schools. One of those cases was not uncontroversial with the Church, and I will say something later in my speech about the potential involvement of Catholic schools in the free schools programme.

The free schools programme offers new opportunities to groups of all faiths and none to set up new schools in their community. However, faith free schools and new provision academies must be open and welcoming to the communities around them. Where the Government fund new Church or faith school provision, it is right that such new schools cater for local demand in the faith, but the needs of children in the broader local community must not be overlooked. We want all local children to have the same opportunity to access high-quality state-funded education. The fact that it is state funded is the point.

One of the fundamental principles of our education system is the idea of parental choice, something that is important not only to Liberals but to Conservatives and members of other parties. Parental choice is particularly important in the context of new Church and other faith provision. Creating new Church and faith schools gives parents who want their children to have a Church or faith education the opportunity to choose to seek a place at a Church or faith school. However, the Government and I are clear that parental choice also means that all parents should be able to exercise choice and apply to suitable state-funded schools. That includes parents of another faith or not of the faith who may choose to seek a place in their local faith school. It is vital, when we establish new academies and free schools, that we balance those two elements of parental choice. The schools must be set up to serve the needs of the wider community, not simply the faith need. That is why we pledged in the coalition agreement to ensure that all new academies follow an inclusive admissions policy. We followed that up by saying that we wanted to ensure that at least 50% of places in new provision free schools and academies with a religious designation are not allocated on the basis of faith but are accessible by the local community to children who are of the faith, of a different faith or of none.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I apologise for being delayed because of other commitments. I had two sons at the London Oratory school, and I never knew why Tony Blair drew up the ladder after him and stopped the school interviewing. The school made every effort to make its intake very socially diverse, and it was. The Minister says that he went to an independent Catholic school. Why can we not simply let independent schools do what independent schools do, and give them freedom of admission? Of course they will try to create a socially diverse system. They will admit who they want. Why do we have to tie their hands?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Laws]

I am coming directly to that point. I think that there is a significant difference between schools funded by taxpayers, who have the right to access schools that are, in many cases, their local schools; and schools chosen by parents who seek paid-for private education. I will go on to explain how the 50% works in practice, because it is not quite as some hon. Members have described. The Government are taking forward the principle that was in place under the academy provision created by the previous Government, so there is consistency between the 50% approach that we have taken and the previous situation. The 50% cap represents a balance between providing places for parents who want their children to be educated in line with their faith, and preserving the inclusive, broad local community focus of the school so that local parents, who may not be of that faith, can exercise their choice over state-funded schooling.

We have no reason to believe that the balance is not working effectively. Proposer groups, representing many different faiths and none, still come forward and are keen to set up free schools. Those schools are proving popular with parents. The 50% limit on faith admissions does not mean that Catholic children must be turned away once the school has reached the 50% threshold. A faith free school may end up recruiting more than 50% of pupils who share its faith as long as no more than half the places were allocated on the basis of faith. Other Catholic children have the same opportunity as all other applicants to access the remaining 50% of places, which are allocated according to the other over-subscription criteria.

We do not believe that a 50% limit on faith admissions is incompatible with the provision of high-quality faith education. Church and other faith free schools have the freedom to deliver religious education and collective worship according to the tenets of their faith and to appoint teaching staff and leaders by reference to faith. Not all Church and faith schools, even those with a faith priority in their admission arrangements, admit only children of their faith. If a faith school is under-subscribed, the school must admit all children who apply, regardless of their faith.

Many Church and faith schools choose not to adopt faith-based admission arrangements. The Catholic Education Service’s data show that the average proportion of Catholic pupils in its maintained schools is 70%, and its independent schools have an even larger proportion of non-Catholic pupils. I have been looking during the debate at the percentage of Catholic pupils in Catholic schools, which ranges from 72.8% of Catholic pupils in Catholic primary schools to 42.6% of Catholic pupils in Catholic sixth-form colleges. In the independent sector, only 36.4% of pupils in Catholic schools are Catholic. Only 5% of maintained Catholic schools and colleges—100 institutions—have entirely Catholic pupils, and 20% of Catholic schools, or 401, are already operating with half of their student body composed of non-Catholic children.

I do not believe, however—I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire agrees—that the 95% of schools that do not have a fully Catholic population are not providing a high-quality Catholic education for all their pupils. Indeed, the attainment levels of Catholic schools bear that out. Many of us who have been in Catholic schools know that a school can have a large proportion of non-Catholic pupils and still maintain its faith principles. The Government and I are clear that that is one of the conditions under which non-Catholic or non-faith pupils enter Catholic or faith schools.

[Damian Hinds]

Does not what the Minister sets out raise an obvious question? If such diversity already exists, and if large numbers—30%—of pupils at Catholic schools are non-Catholic, why is there a need to impose a cap? Such a cap would come into play in places where there is a large Catholic population over a slightly wider area. Children would not be turned away for being Catholic but, inevitably, other children who happened to live a little closer to the school would be preferred in their place.

[Mr Laws]

There are two separate points. I sought to make the first point by addressing the question that my hon. Friend raised in his speech about whether it was possible to have a Catholic ethos and education in a school in which a large number of pupils were not Catholic. If he agrees that it is possible to retain that ethos, I welcome that. I come back to the issue of there being two competing rights in a state-funded school system: people’s right to choose to have their children educated in the way that they wish, and the right of taxpayers who live near state-funded schools to have some ability to access them despite the over-representation of people from the faith that the system allows.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the Minister clarify the Government’s position on new voluntary-aided schools?

[Mr Laws]

I am coming to that, and I hope I will be able to get to it before the end of my speech. As a Catholic—this is a personal comment and not one that I make on behalf of the Government—I think that our faith is at its best when it reaches out to people beyond the faith, and I urge the Catholic faith in this country not to think of itself as providing schools to serve only people of the Catholic faith. Surely, in a society where all religions seem to be struggling to keep people engaged, faiths such as Catholicism should welcome the fact that many parents want their children to attend those schools even if they are not of the faith. I acknowledge that that is an issue for Catholic schools and the Catholic faith; it is not for me, but I think it should be considered.

Although I recognise that the Catholic sector has aspirations whereby it continues to have objections to our policy on admissions in faith free schools, I am keen that that the Catholic Education Service should continue to engage with us in discussing the matter. We remain committed to continuing our engagement with the Catholic Education Service on this issue, and we would welcome innovative ideas from it. For example, a free school that, in response to local demand, met the anticipated faith demand but had a capacity greater than that demand and thus did not exceed the 50% limit would still be eligible for funding. Such a school would help to provide additional school places where they are most needed and extend school choice to parents who might not be Catholic but nevertheless want a Church education for their children. I must be clear, however, that we currently have no plans to change the 50% limit. Given the fact that we have a very small number of Catholic free schools, I hope that Catholic schools will consider engaging further in that programme.

In understanding the importance of the 50% limit in ensuring that new provision Church and faith schools are also accessible to their local community, it is vital that we recognise the wider pressures on the schools system. Making sure there are enough high-quality school places for the growing population will remain one of the Government’s top priorities. The Department has allocated a total of £5 billion of basic-need money to local authorities between 2011-12 and 2014-15. That is considerably in excess of the amount for the previous Parliament. Local authorities and other schools in those areas have already created about a third of a million additional school places, and must continue to create such places in future.

The Department provides funding to enable local authorities to meet the demand for new places based on authorities’ forecasts of pupil numbers in their areas. The Government welcome Church and faith schools as part of the diverse and autonomous pattern of education provision in this country. We therefore provide for faith designation of both maintained schools and academies. A voluntary-aided school can seek to convert to academy status, just like any other maintained school, but a voluntary-aided school converting to academy status would convert under existing arrangements—

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Order.

Education

David Laws Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Ministerial Corrections

[Mr Sheerman]

To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps he has taken to assess the morale of teachers.

[Official Report, 17 March 2014, Vol. 577, c. 388W.]

Letter of correction from David Laws:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) on 17 March 2014.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mr Laws]

We have enormous respect for teachers and the vital role they play. We continue to support teachers by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy. We trust them to use their professional judgment and we reward good quality teaching, including through pay flexibilities which allow heads to pay good teachers more.

A recent survey for the Times Educational Supplement found that teachers generally feel positive about the work they do. Last year, the Varkey GEMS foundation's Global Teacher Status Index found levels of public respect for the teaching profession in England were higher than in Finland or Germany.

It is very encouraging that so many good people are choosing a career in teaching. 74% of new teachers now have a 2:1 or a first degree—the highest ever recorded. 14% of Oxford graduates go into teaching, and the annual Graduate Market in 2014 report identified Teach First as Britain's biggest graduate recruiter.

The correct answer should have been:

[Mr Laws]

We have enormous respect for teachers and the vital role they play. We continue to support teachers by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy. We trust them to use their professional judgment and we reward good quality teaching, including through pay flexibilities which allow heads to pay good teachers more.

A recent survey for the Times Educational Supplement found that teachers generally feel positive about the work they do. Last year, the Varkey GEMS foundation's Global Teacher Status Index found levels of public respect for the teaching profession in England were higher than in Finland or Germany.

It is very encouraging that so many good people are choosing a career in teaching. 74% of new teachers now have a 2:1 or a first degree—the highest ever recorded. 14% of Oxford graduates enter the education sector, and the annual Graduate Market in 2014 report identified Teach First as Britain's biggest graduate recruiter.

Primary and 16-to-19 Assessment and Accountability

David Laws Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I am today announcing the final elements of our schools accountability reform programme: reforms to primary and 16-to-19 accountability from 2016. This builds on our plans for secondary school accountability.

Progress will now be the most important way in which we will hold schools and colleges to account. The new accountability system will be fairer, measuring the progress that students make while at school or college. This ensures that all students receive equal attention: we will measure the progress that all students make whatever their starting point. This will prevent the unfair focus on those at threshold borderlines.

To help all parents and students to compare schools and colleges, we will require all schools and colleges to publish the key information for primary, secondary and 16-to-19 phases on their websites in a standard format. This information will clearly show the progress that students make, their attainment and how well they do in English and mathematics.

Primary

We are resetting the standard for success for primary schools. Expectations are currently too low (level 4c in English and mathematics). In 2012, fewer than half the pupils who had only just reached this expected standard went on to achieve five good GCSEs. Under the new system, we will expect schools to support at least 85% of their pupils to achieve a new higher standard (closer to the present 4b level). With the continued improvement in teaching, the sharper focus of the new curriculum and increased funding, results should rise.

We have invested through the pupil premium so that schools can give disadvantaged pupils the help they need. With more than 1.1 million pupils from reception to year 6 currently benefiting, schools receive £953 for each primary-age pupil rising to £1,300 from April 2014.

To judge schools’ progress more fairly, we will work with experts to introduce a new assessment taken during reception as the baseline. This will sit within teachers’ broader ongoing assessments of children’s development and progress throughout reception. The reception baseline will be used to assess schools’ progress for children who start reception in September 2016 and beyond. Schools that choose not to use an approved baseline assessment from 2016 will be judged on the 85% attainment standard alone.

From September 2016, the early years foundation stage profile will no longer be compulsory. The early years foundation stage will continue to be statutory and the basis for Ofsted inspection of early year settings including children in a school nursery and reception classes, thereby ensuring children receive a broad education and are able to learn and thrive in school.

I can also confirm today that the grammar, punctuation and spelling test will not form part of the primary floor standard in 2014.

16-to-19

Our changes to 16-to-19 accountability support the reforms we have already made to improve the quality of 16-to-19 education and training. The introduction of study programmes and traineeships last September, the reforms to A-levels and vocational qualifications and the emphasis on English and mathematics support our ambitions to make sure that students in this country can compete with the best in the world.

We will introduce new, fairer minimum standards for 16-to-19 providers. Wherever data allow it we will use progress measures. This will apply to academic and applied general qualifications. Where the data are not robust enough, we will use a combined completion and attainment measure.

We will introduce five headline measures of performance for all 16-to-19 providers to give a broader picture of educational outcomes than attainment alone. These headline measures include: progress measures; attainment measures; retention measures; English and mathematics progress measures for those who did not achieve good grades at age 16; and destination measures.

Conclusion

We believe that the single most important outcome for any school or college is to give as many students as possible the knowledge and skills to flourish in the later phases of education and life. The reforms that I have set out today set the framework for schools and colleges to meet this challenge: ensuring all children move on to secondary school ready to succeed and all 16-to-19 students can move into further or higher education or employment.