Qualified Teachers
Debate between David Laws and Chris Williamson(10 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
We have had a fascinating debate today and, as I will show in a moment, we have learned quite a lot about the inconsistencies in the Labour party’s position on these matters. Let me first pay tribute to a number of the hon. Members who have spoken today, including the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), and my hon. Friends the Members for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) and for Bradford East (Mr Ward). I also want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright), who spoke today for the first time as the schools spokesman for the Liberal Democrats. He set out our position on this matter clearly and effectively, and I agree with everything he said.
We also heard a fantastic speech from the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), who I have always previously thought of as a Brownite. He morphed today into something of a Blairite and for a moment, I thought, almost into something of a Goveite, until my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State leaned over to tell me that to contemplate a voucher system to allow people to move from the state sector to the private sector was too radical even for him.
Finally, to cap it all, we had a marvellous contribution from the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who was so full of praise for the Deputy Prime Minister that, for a moment, I thought she was going to make an application to join the Liberal Democrats. The offer is still open to her if she would like to take that opportunity while there is still room on our party’s Benches. Sadly, the excellent contributions from the Back Benches were not matched by those from the Opposition Front Bench, although I accept that the shadow Schools Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), has one or two good jokes.
Through the contributions from our Back Benches and from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, we exposed some pretty substantial holes in Labour’s position. First, let me deal with today’s version of the West Lothian question, which was posed very effectively by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). They asked an interesting question at the beginning of the debate, but they got no answer. That question, to which we have still not had an answer, was: why, if Labour Members are so keen on qualified teacher status, was the number of unqualified teachers thousands higher when the Labour Government were in power than it is today? I have the figures here. In 2005, when Labour was in power, there were 18,800 unqualified teachers in state-maintained schools. That figure is now down to 14,800. If Labour Members are so passionate about this, and if they want to join my party in its strong views on it, I think that they owe it to the House to answer the question put to them earlier. Why, if they are so keen on qualified teacher status, were there so many more unqualified teachers when Labour was in power?
I have a second question for Labour Members. Of course the hon. Member for Cardiff West is able to have some fun by pointing out the responsibilities that come with government and the need for compromises in coalition. It is rather more difficult to explain how a party that is not in coalition seems incapable of having just one position on these matters. The second version of the West Lothian question that we must ask today is the Stoke-on-Trent Central question. Even without the pressures of coalition, the Labour Education spokesman, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), seems able to hold in his mind two completely contradictory views, not only on qualified teacher status, important though that is, but on the whole issue of free schools. Will he explain that?
Only a few months ago, the hon. Gentleman was saying that the entire free school programme was a
“vanity project for yummy mummies”.
A matter of only months later, there he was in The Mail on Sunday saying, “Let us have more free schools”. When it comes to contradictions in policy, to holding two different views in one’s mind at the same time and to double first-class intellects, perhaps the shadow Secretary of State will stand up at the Dispatch Box to explain why his party leader was saying to the trade union conference in September this year:
“Let’s be clear we are not going to have new free schools under a Labour Government”?
He could not have been clearer—until the shadow Secretary of State intervened just a matter of weeks later to say in his statement to The Mail on Sunday, “Let’s have more”.
While we are in this mood for honesty and transparency, let the Labour party have the guts to come to the Dispatch Box and explain its policy on free schools. Suddenly, the Labour Front-Bench team has a fascination with discussing matters among themselves. What are they discussing? Is it the weather, or is it the position of the Labour party on free schools? We would all like to know whether the policy is one from Doncaster North or from Stoke-on-Trent Central—or as described in The Mail on Sunday. None of us knows.
It is all very well for the shadow Schools Minister to mess around with his press cuttings, read through the coalition agreement late into the night and tease Ministers about the responsibilities of government, but the Labour party cannot even agree with itself. The shadow Education Secretary cannot even agree with himself! We cannot get agreement even in one head. We then heard the shadow Schools Minister having the gall to say that he was confused about these things and had to look through the coalition agreement to discover what my party’s policy was, but why does he need to do that? Whatever happened to the research department in the Labour party?
We have held our position on qualified teacher status for as long as this party has been around. We held a debate on it at our spring conference in March this year. We put out a press release after the debate. It was no state secret; it said this in the headline:
“Every child should be taught by a qualified teacher.”
As I say, that was in a Lib Dem press release in March, and it was reported in the Times Educational Supplement in the same month. It was commented on by the Department for Education itself, so what on earth was the shadow Schools Minister doing on that weekend of the Liberal Democrat conference? [Interruption.] I know he was not the schools spokesman for the Labour party at that time, but surely he was paying attention. Why is the Labour party so incompetent these days that it has to wait until October—eight months after our debate at conference and eight months after the publicity in the press—before it comes to a realisation on these matters? Labour is a totally incompetent and totally ineffective Opposition.
Mr Laws
I will in a minute.
The question for today should not be about the recent position of the Liberal Democrats, which is entirely consistent and has not been kept a secret. I invite both the shadow Schools Minister and the shadow Education Secretary, who seem to need research support, to come to the Liberal Democrat conference free in the future. They can come in the autumn for next year’s debate. Then we will not have this shambolic embarrassment for the Labour party suddenly discovering our policy eight months after we passed motions at our conference.
Mr Laws
I have only a minute left.
The vast majority of state-funded schools in this country still require qualified teacher status. I have no doubt that there are people on the Conservative Benches who would see that the logic of their policy means that this should be applied to all state-funded schools. They accept that there have to be compromises; they understand that and they do not have difficulty with it. What we have found today is that the parties in coalition accept their responsibilities and that the Labour party is completely incoherent, hiding behind this matter to cover up the embarrassment of its own lack of policies. We will not be blown off course. We will continue to deliver a better education system. We will work together closely in Government as we have since May 2010, and we will go on delivering the reformed and improved education system for which all of us on the Opposition Benches have been working since that date.
Question put.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between David Laws and Chris Williamson(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Laws
My hon. Friend is right to say that we already need to take those first steps towards a more rational and fairer formula. We are doing exactly that by reducing the huge number of existing variables in the formulae across the country to a much smaller number. That is the first step in moving to a fairer formula for the whole country.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
22. What steps he is taking to raise levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy for children from deprived backgrounds; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave a few moments ago to the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg).
Chris Williamson
I am just a simple bricklayer, so can the Minister explain to me why he thinks unqualified teachers in free schools and academies will raise standards, but at the same time he feels it necessary to impose tougher tests on teachers in other state schools in order to achieve the same thing?
Mr Laws
We announced last week measures to raise the quality of teachers across the board, and I think those received a warm welcome across the country. In the past, the standards for going into teaching have been too low. It is sensible to raise those in all schools across the country.