Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Laws and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I know that my hon. Friend is a champion of the schools in his constituency, including the two that he mentions. In addition to the priority school building programme phase 2 funding, we recently announced £4.2 billion of funding for the improvement and maintenance of school buildings over the next three years, and his local authority is able to draw down on those moneys allocated to its area for the schools that he mentions. On the ranking of schools, we have no plans to publish a ranking list of surveyed schools, which could be misleading without taking into account other information supplied by schools and local authorities with their PSBP 2 bids.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

5. What recent discussions she has had with teachers associations and unions on teacher work loads.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

The Secretary of State and I engaged with teachers associations and unions in the discussions about teacher work loads, most recently through the work load challenge. I welcome their contribution to the debate, including through the programme of talks at the Department for Education.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Government’s own figures show that the average primary teacher is working 60 hours a week. Teachers in Bristol tell me that their work load is at an unsustainable level and that the accountability system in particular has reached absurd levels and demonstrates a profound lack of trust in teachers. Teachers are too often unsung heroes, under-appreciated and overworked. When is the Minister going to let them just get on and do their job?

[Mr Laws]

The work load burden on teachers, which has been present for some time in this country, including under the Labour Government, is precisely the reason that we established the work load challenge. The hon. Lady will have seen the comprehensive and detailed plan that we published, which we believe will help over time to drive down the unnecessary work load of teachers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Laws and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[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.

Secondary Schools (Accountability)

Debate between David Laws and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for arranging the visit to his constituency some months ago. I very much enjoyed visiting a couple of schools in his part of the country. Those schools that achieve a particularly high level of progress—one grade more than expected—will have that exemption from Ofsted inspection, and that will send out a clear signal to those schools that we are rewarding the extraordinary progress that they are making.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am sure the Minister is an avid reader of ConservativeHome, so he will have seen the blog post by the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) in August in which he talked about

“a new social divide in subject choices.”

He said that pupils from state schools, in particular pupils on free school meals, often went for the softer options. Will the Minister confirm what I think he said in his statement: that arts and vocational subjects are considered high value, and that performance and attainment in those subjects will be rewarded?

[Mr Laws]

Yes, I certainly can. In the best eight measure there will be three spaces reserved for subjects that can include arts, music, and vocational and other subjects. One of the great benefits of today’s announcement is that there will not be the pressure on schools, which was there in the past, to focus only on five GCSE subjects. For many students that created far too narrow a curriculum at the age of 16.