Examination Reform

David Ward Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, which has been interesting and stimulating up to this point. What are the aims of Government policy in education? There are two: to raise standards for all, and to close the gap between rich and poor. I think those two aims bring the whole House together in support.

Expert advice from the university of Durham and elsewhere is that there has been grade inflation, which means an undermining of confidence in the currency of GCSEs. It has to be said that we saw some occasionally rushed changes driven by the Department under the last Government, which contributed greatly—although we have not yet reached our conclusions on it—to the GCSE English furore last year. The truth is that changing so many elements at the same time contributed to the difficulties we saw with the English GCSE last year.

I agree with many of the criticisms made by Ministers. I believe there are issues surrounding modularity, and I am delighted to hear from the Minister that he is not moving towards an absolute position on every single subject. It is right to be informed by an understanding that modularity has been counter-productive in too many ways, without necessarily getting rid of it where it is the best way of delivering the most effective assessment.

The Government’s move to reduce the number of re-sits is also correct, as is their move to address equivalences. The shadow Secretary rightly raised some issues about one of the few successes that came out of the diploma debacle—specifically, the engineering diploma. As disasters go, the fact that it has been reconstituted at whoever’s behest suggests that it has not been that catastrophic and that sufficient flexibility exists in the system to allow the good elements to be retained.

As I have said before in education debates, we attempt to define what is wrong with the current system, perhaps spending rather too long on that, and we then talk about the nirvana we would like to move towards, doing very little on what is in front of us now—the mechanics of the changes. We do not give them enough protection because we get into a fight with one side defending its period in office and another side pointing out that there are some serious problems and asking whether the other side is going to deny it.

To his great credit, as has been acknowledged, the shadow Secretary of State has said that he could see a few problems but that that was as far as he could go. That does not mean, however, that the Government’s particular recommendations are the right ones. It means that there is a case for change. We then have to make sure that we examine it. As for the controversy over the diploma, I recall the now shadow Chancellor, whom I would describe as gleaming-eyed in his certainty, sitting before us as expert after expert came before the then Children, Schools and Families Committee and said, “Slow down; listen to the evidence; take your time; get this right; there is a real chance for a legacy”—leaving something that, if got right, would last for whoever was in government in the future. The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) did not listen, and we ended up with much of what was positive about the diploma being lost, with only some of the good salvaged from it. We do not want to make that mistake again. It is important that we carry people with us, not least politically. Otherwise, whatever happens to the Labour party at the next election or the one after that, we will not see the benefits of having a more rigorous system in place.

I ask the Government to consider some slowing down. The Secretary of State told the Select Committee that

“coherence comes at the end of the process.”

Well, I think coherence comes at the beginning of the process. To look at it simply, if we are dealing with assessment, we first need to work out what needs to be taught—the curriculum. That can be looked at in isolation and work can be done on what we think should be taught. Everything else then needs to be looked at coherently. We need to look at the assessment that matches it, and then at the system of accountability that drives behaviour in schools, drives the allocation of teachers to certain types of pupils in all sorts of ways. The Government have acknowledged that, and we need to get it right.

We have had an announcement on new qualifications before we have had the findings of the secondary curriculum review. I think that looks like putting the cart before the horse. It would be helpful to have those findings. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for undertaking to do an accountability review, but qualifications and accountability need to be seen as a coherent whole, working with the curriculum and the syllabus. I worry that we have not quite got that right.

Appropriateness of assessment is an issue. The Government want to set the bar higher. The Secretary of State is a dynamic man, who wants people to aspire and thinks that a lack of aspiration and acceptance of poor performance has gone on too long, and has entrenched poverty. He is right about that. But if we move the metric up, what is it about the measure that will change teacher quality? It can have some effect, but let us face it, is it the key driver of improvement in education quality? I do not think so. If we exclude equivalencies, in 2011 48% of children did not get five good GCSEs including English and maths. If the GCSE currency is so bankrupt, weak and devalued, and yet half of children are failing to achieve that measure, it is not obvious that pushing it up will magically lift performance, unless the accountability is wrong. However, our accountability is driven and focused to an obsessive and damaging extent. It pushes schools to focus desperately on trying to get people over the line, and yet 48% of kids still do not get over it. That is not because they are not focused enough on it; they could not be more focused—they are excessively focused on it.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Is it not possible that moving the metric up could have the perverse outcome of demotivating people?

[Mr Stuart]

My hon. Friend, who serves on the Education Committee, leads me neatly on to structure.

How sufficient was the understanding—I did not have a sufficient understanding—of the nature of how our qualification system works? I come back to tiering. Ministers did not know—they will correct me if I am wrong—the share of young people who were doing tiered exams. Last year, in AQA English—the largest board—45% of children did the tiered exam. One of the Secretary of State’s objections is that by putting them into this thing where, a bit like the old CSE, the top grade they could get was a C, the two-tier system was alive and well within our GCSE system, we just did not know it, and that we must get rid—maybe it came out of coalition politics; maybe it was the leak of the new O-level—of any form of separation or tiering. We must make sure our assessment is appropriate, because otherwise children will sit exams that, unless some genius designed them, put them off learning, rather than encouraging them. [Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Let me pick out just one quote from Deborah Annetts, the chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians:

“It is as if the Olympics never happened. Design—gone, technology—gone, music—gone. This short sighted, wholesale attack on secondary music education will emasculate not only our world class music education system but also our entire creative economy”.

Those may be apocalyptic words, but they reflect the depth and breadth of the views of people who really care. I recognise that all parties involved in the argument care, but I shiver a little when I hear belief after belief, but no evidence. That is a dangerous way of changing and making policy, and it imperils the quality of what goes on both inside and outside our classrooms.

[Mr Ward]

The hon. Gentleman has been dragged away from a crucial point that he was making about formative and summative assessments. A horse race would have different winners 10 yards before the finish line and 10 yards after it. The crucial thing is not just the who or the what that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, but the when. It is the judgments made at a particular age that divide people into successes or failures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

A short while ago, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), challenged the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) to say what he objected to in the motion. I must say that we new MPs are used to seeing rather stronger worded motions than today’s, which makes me wonder whether the Opposition’s heart is really in it. The motion talks in general terms about requiring a rethink, but without specifying or committing to the things that they think are wrong and the things they would do differently.

The Opposition cite a few opponents of the Government’s plans, however, and they are worth reflecting on. Business, they say, is opposed. My experience from the Education Committee was that, if we were looking for a unified voice from business on qualifications and so on, good luck! To the extent that there is a unified voice, however, it is complaining about the things that the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) talked about—employability and workplace skills—but it is talking about the young people coming through the system now, not about some change that might happen in the future.

The Opposition also cite as opponents the champions of vocational qualifications, but that ignores the fact that the Government are also reforming vocational education and training. They have commissioned the Wolf review and are now implementing it. We must recognise, however, that Alison Wolf states, again and again, the value of academic qualifications alongside vocational qualifications. It should not be seen as an either/or. From a social mobility perspective, we know that countries with earlier specialisation tend to be associated with lower levels of social mobility, whereas those in which people specialise later do better in that regard.

On the creative industries and the arts, I had the opportunity recently to have a fascinating discussion with Mr Julian Lloyd Webber. Of course, any lobby or interest group will lobby to have its subject as part of the suite of subjects that has this name—many of us will have benefited from hearing from a lot of religious education teachers, for example. On the arts and creative industries, however, the argument is based on a false premise. Britain is a world leader in these industries—a world leader in the arts—but that was achieved without those subjects being forced on pupils in school, with or without a national curriculum.

When the shadow Secretary of State was at school, when you were at school, Madam Deputy Speaker, when I was at school—when all of us were at school—in most schools, art and music were optional subjects at aged 15 and 16 and they were over and above a set of subjects that pretty much everybody would do. The EBacc suite—[Interruption] I like the word “suite”—is not a compulsory set of subjects.

[Mr Ward]

What the hon. Gentleman says about the education we received many years ago is true, but back then there was not a national league table by which the institution was judged on the basis of whether it had an A-level in art, drama or whatever. That is the fundamental change that has taken place.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is right to identify that, and it is that focus on the five-plus C-plus—almost regardless of what subjects they are in, with the exception of English and maths, which have held an elevated position—that has caused the problems that now need to be addressed. Even if the Ebacc were made up of a compulsory set of subjects, there would still be ample room in the curriculum for optional subjects, just as there always has been.

I would never claim that everything that happened between 1997 and 2010 in education was bad, but I am afraid that this whole system around qualifications, examinations and league tables is one area where things went badly awry. This was a time of stiffening international competition, yet in this country, we had grade inflation, smashing all domestic records, while slipping down the international league tables. That eroded confidence in the system, and the people that lets down are not the politicians, but the young people themselves.

Although the current shadow Secretary of State rightly acknowledges the existence of grade inflation, that is a relatively new road-to-Damascus conversion for the Labour party. Until relatively recently, it was keen to keep hammering on that all the improvements in children’s outcomes were actually real improvements and that we should celebrate them, rather than criticise them.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ward Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

First, may I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the interview he gave in The Guardian today? In it, he pointed out that the quality of education that he received was a tribute to the grammar schools of the past. What a pity it is that a past Labour Government did such damage to the education system that allowed him to become such an effective advocate for the people of Bolsover. It is thanks to the election of a Conservative county council in Derbyshire that Tibshelf school will be rebuilt. Something that the Labour councillors of Derbyshire were never able to achieve, the Tories of Derbyshire are at last achieving. I hope that as the hon. Gentleman mellows with age, he will realise, like me, that true blue Derbyshire is achieving far more than it ever did when it was as red as Ed.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

An earlier question linked aspiration and universities. Does the Minister agree that we need to avoid the situation in which those who do not go to university are regarded as failures and that the key thing is creating and supporting high aspirations in all young people and then giving them the opportunity to achieve what they aspire to?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and although we should always insist that young people’s aspirations should be raised so that they can consider university when they come from communities where that has not been an option in the past, we should also emphasise that there are high quality vocational and technical options that are every bit as demanding, impressive and likely to lead to the individual concerned fulfilling themselves. My hon. Friend’s words are absolutely correct.

Safeguarding Children

David Ward Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

I will confine myself to making one point about this multifaceted topic.

Complimentary comments have rightly been made about social workers. For many social workers, it is not a question of whether there will be a difficult case when they go in each day, but of whether one of their many difficult cases will blow up overnight when they go home.

One of the safest places for young people, as we have heard, is school. That is not always the case, but particularly for those from dysfunctional homes, it is seen as a safe place to be. Although complimentary remarks have been made about social workers, we really need to listen to the concerns that educational social workers have. Local authority educational social workers regard their client, first and foremost, as being the child. I am concerned, as are they, about who the client will be as central budgets go down and are devolved out to schools. If the new academies and free schools, and even the maintained schools that are allocated central budgets, decide not to spend that money on educational social workers, they will be picking and choosing the children whom they have in their schools. Many of those schools think that the educational social worker should regard them as the client and not the child.

I am extremely concerned that we have not worked out the relationships between the Government and the new schools, and between the local education authority and the new schools. The Education Committee heard about that today. There is still a vital contribution to be made in supporting schools and monitoring schools, but also in challenging schools about their attendance policies. In particular, schools must be challenged if they are deciding whether or not to chase pupils who are not in school.

Recently, a mother came to my surgery whose young son had been out of school for 10 weeks. There had been a half-hearted attempt at a managed move and they were considering a transfer. If that child had been on course for five A* to C grades, he would have been in school. The truth is that the school was not too bothered about whether the child went in. An educational social worker would have been bothered. That is the big concern that has not been addressed since right at the beginning. It was mentioned when we considered the Academies Act 2010. Who is the client? First and foremost, it must be the child, not the school.

Education Bill

David Ward Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Ofsted inspectors need to learn what an outstanding school looks like. That always was the case. Even when schools are exempted from inspection, inspectors will still see outstanding schools in themed inspections, which might look at how religious education or maths is taught. On those occasions, inspectors will still experience outstanding schools.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that the way to deal with coasting schools is not so much through the inspection process, but through the publication of contextual value added evidence from schools?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Performance tables are an important piece of the jigsaw of measures that holds publicly funded schools to account. We are not going to pursue the contextual value added measure, because of its flaws, not least of which is the fact that it tends to entrench low expectations for certain sections of society, which we do not believe is right. All children, from all backgrounds, should be expected to reach the best of their academic ability at school, and schools should deliver a high quality of education to all young people. However, there are other important progress measures, such as how a child performs at the end of key stage 2 compared with how they perform in their GCSEs.

As I said earlier, in the performance tables to be published in January, we intend to have separate columns indicating how well a school performs in relation to children who enter secondary school with a level 5 at key stage 2 and those who enter with a level 3.

Schools (Bradford)

David Ward Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Thank you for chairing this debate, Mr Sheridan, and I thank the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), for attending. I would like to begin with a quote:

“Funding totalling £337 million has been secured after an outline business case by Bradford Council was approved by Partnership for Schools (PfS), the organisation which administers the Building Schools for the Future programme (BSF) on behalf of the Government.”

It continues:

“Kath Tunstall, Bradford Council’s strategic director for services to children and young people, said: ‘We are delighted that the final stage of the improvement programme has been given the go ahead.

We will now be able to provide the most up-to-date environment and facilities for all our secondary schools.

Bradford children will be taught in the surroundings and with the technology that their efforts deserve. This is marvellous news.’”

It did, indeed, seem to be marvellous news.

That was the lead story in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus on 7 April 2010, just one month before the general election. What a cruel deceit. It was cynical and mean. At the time, I was a governor of one of the 19 schools in phase 3 of the Bradford BFS programme, and I was pretty sure that it was all too good to be true—I think that many of us felt the same—and so it proved to be. It was an example of the sheer dishonesty of a Government who knew that they were going to lose the forthcoming election, promising the earth in the full knowledge that the new Government, of whatever political complexion, would never be able to deliver the BSF programme. It was shameful.

Unfortunately, the problems that the BSF programme was designed to remedy are still with us today. The reception year population in Bradford is increasing rapidly—in fact, we have one of the fastest-growing young populations in the whole country—which is having a severe impact on school places in our primary schools. Although, nationally, numbers in maintained nursery and state-funded primary schools started to increase in 2010, they have been increasing in Bradford since 2006.

A significant number of our primary schools are now full, particularly in the lower age groups in key stage 1, which will start to impact soon on key stage 2. To overcome the additional demand for places in primary schools, 28 schools—nearly 20% of our primary schools—have increased their published admission numbers. Do not forget that, year on year, we have already asked our schools to increase their numbers, but here we have 28 trying to respond, all in one go, to the increased demand. To accommodate the additional children, the schools have been included in a building expansion programme funded through basic need allocations. Bulge classes had previously been established, but a more permanent solution was required to help schools with their organisation, management of staff and classes, and to enable them to plan ahead. For all schools, an extensive programme of building works to provide additional accommodation incrementally over a seven-year period is required as the larger cohorts progress through the year groups.

The lack of information on capital allocations beyond 2011-12 means that the building programme has to be broken down into phases. Funding is only secured for phase 1, which will provide additional accommodation to cater for the children up to and including 2012-13. It should be pointed out, however, that a number of schools also have a backlog of maintenance issues. In phase 1, the council cannot address many of those issues due to the limitations of available capital. The figure for the backlog on repairs for primary and secondary is approximately £55 million.

Phase 2, for growing other year group capacity and beyond, will depend on available funding. Future forecasts also identify the need for further additional capacity over and above the current expansion programme. Additional problems have been caused by a reduction in pupil admission numbers at Catholic primary schools proposed by the diocese and governing bodies of voluntary aided schools. The reduction in places in certain schools and the desperate need for additional places is a double whammy. This is not simply an inner-city issue, as it is often portrayed. We are now experiencing difficulties in most areas across the Bradford district.

Although plans to provide additional capacity are in place, potential proposals and approvals of free schools in the district—of which the local authority has no knowledge at any one time—give rise to what can be described as tensions in the planning process, particularly where clear expansion programmes have begun to be delivered and there is a need to continue them through the older year groups.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Is it not true that Bradford has taken a very pragmatic approach to free schools? The local authority and all three parties on the council have decided to support the principle. There might be arguments about each other’s schools, but free schools will be members of the family of the wider school population. However, there are issues that affect that wider school population.

[Mr Ward]

I have read some comments to that effect. They are not actually accepted in principle by the Liberal Democrat group, but I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. My point about free schools is about the difficulties they create for a strategic view of school admission numbers across the district.

We are also experiencing significant pressure in the secondary sector, particularly lower age groups. Numbers in secondary schools in Bradford started to increase in 2008 and are forecast to continue rising. As I understand it, that is against the national trend. Recent statistics on pupil projections identify state-funded secondary schools showing a decline since 2004, and they are expected to decline even further until 2016. That is not the case in Bradford.

Previously, there were plans to increase capacity at a number of secondary schools—I mentioned 19 in phase 3—through the BSF programme. However, the cessation of the BSF programme means that that route is not available. Alternative plans are being developed. The current approach, where possible—we have done this with our schools over a number of years with some success, and we have to pay tribute to the head teachers and governing bodies of schools for accommodating it—has been to request schools to admit year 7 pupil numbers above their pupil admission numbers. However, that is not a sustainable solution. It can only be done where there are gaps later up in the school years, and it soon exceeds capacity.

With the basic need allocation for the district fully committed to the expansion of primary schools at this stage, no funding has been secured to implement any plans for secondary expansions. It is estimated that, in addition to any expansions of existing schools, two further 1,000-place schools will be required in the next three to four years. Those two new secondary schools are required in Bradford in addition to the capacity potentially being introduced through known proposed free schools in the district—they are over and above. There is a tension between current place planning and proposed expansion programmes with the unknown quantity of free school places. We now have five free schools in Bradford and we do not know what will become available in the future. That creates the potential—perversely and inadvertently—to develop overprovision in certain areas.

As previously stated, we have information on capital allocations up to 2011-12 only. In the past, we had three-year allocations. The most recent announcement for capital allocations for 2011-12 was for one year only. Failure to be able to plan over a three-year period has led to considerable problems, such as the inefficient use of resources. Capital schemes have been broken down into smaller phases, which are proving more costly than larger schemes. On the ability to complete schemes on time, due to the late announcement of funding—I believe that there were big headlines in the Telegraph and Argus last week—it has proved difficult to contract and mobilise building contractors to complete programmes in time for the beginning of the new academic year. Hundreds of school days were lost recently as a result of schools opening late. On long-term planning, schools are finding it extremely challenging to plan ahead in terms of space, resources and staffing.

The only capital resource provided by the Department for Education for additional accommodation is basic need funding. That is based on the need for additional teaching space and is insufficient to deal with existing inadequacies of accommodation, or the provision of other important spaces required for the successful operation of a school—play space, dining space, space for whole-school gatherings, community space and so on. The indications from the James review are that space requirements are likely to be reduced, which is also a serious concern.

The methodology used by the Department to determine the allocation of basic need funding to authorities is based on the local 2011 school capacity and forecasting information return, which only focuses on a five-year forecast. Basic need pressure across the secondary school estate will only realistically become apparent by the end of that forecast period and will require addressing in the time frame of this funding announcement.

Bradford’s very welcome £7.4million allocation towards its basic needs will, I am afraid, be insufficient to cover the pressure on pupil places across both the primary and secondary school estate. In addition—I have referred to this—there are significant backlog maintenance requirements to bring existing accommodation up to suitable standards across Bradford’s existing school estate. Basic need funding is not provided to address this issue.

Although a new programme, the priority school building programme, was announced in July to deal with the most serious cases, only a limited number of schools in Bradford qualified to bid for that funding, given the criteria that were set. Importantly, none of the primary schools being expanded qualified, while some of the smaller primaries, as well as a smaller secondary school, Queensbury, did meet those criteria but declined to take part because of fears about the affordability of the private finance initiative deal on offer. Should the six secondary submissions to the PSBP programme—Aire Valley, Belle Vue boys’ school, Carlton Bolling, Oakbank and the two new schools—be rejected by the Department for Education, pressure on pupil places throughout the secondary estate will not be dealt with and the authority might well face difficulties in fulfilling its statutory duty.

As an aside, I can comment on one of the schools that I have mentioned, Carlton Bolling, where I am a former chair of governors. Although the backlog maintenance is only 30.71% of the total costs of a new build, the school currently has sections that are structurally unsound. In fact, some areas of the school are roped off and unusable because they are unsafe. Also bear in mind that the other schools were part of the reorganisation programme, which was when they most recently had investment, but at Carlton Bolling the previous reinvestment occurred as the result of a fire. The fire damage, however, was not to the classroom area but to the sports and dining room areas, so the heavy investment during that time was in the non-classroom parts of the school. The classroom area has not therefore received substantial investment and includes the part that I referred to as structurally unsound.

The purpose of the debate is to explain the need for support for Bradford schools, which are in dire need of capital investment, and to emphasise the scale of the issue. It is incredibly difficult to plan strategically for school places in Bradford, not simply because of the considerations that I have presented but because of the enormous difficulty faced by the council in meeting its statutory responsibility to provide the right number of school places in exactly the right areas, given the short-term capital allocations and a highly turbulent and mobile school population.

Recently, in questions to the Secretary of State, I pointed out that 60% of the children in a year 3 classroom that I had visited were not together in reception. Go to many areas, even in Bradford, and 90% of those who come into reception go on to the same secondary school. Our turbulent and mobile school population makes the dynamics of forecasting for future places very difficult. In addition, we have free schools supported in their desire to set up when and where they choose, the freedom of popular schools to expand their pupil admission numbers without having to consult their local education authority and school fears about the private finance initiative. I will welcome the Minister’s comments on such crucial issues.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) on securing the debate. Clarity on how the Government are funding and ensuring fairness and choice for parents and their children throughout the country is important. The debate is particularly timely, as the academies and free schools programmes gather pace and as we announce our additional basic need allocations for those areas deemed to be most in need, which include Bradford.

Bradford is playing an active part in the academies programme, with seven schools already open as academies and another 10 in the pipeline. Bradford has 27 outstanding schools, which offers an excellent basis on which to continue to drive up standards and school-to-school collaboration. Currently, two free schools in Bradford are open, both of which directly support local needs. The Rainbow free school aims to improve education quality for children in central Bradford and to reach out to children in challenging circumstances. The positive local reaction to the Kings science academy was reflected in a high volume of applications for places in its first year.

My hon. Friend mentioned five free schools altogether, and a further three are due to open in September next year, helping to provide new school places where they are most needed. However, I accept his point that the need goes beyond the supply provided by the new schools. What has been achieved is educational transformation, delivering professional autonomy and recognising the expertise of teachers and the best leadership in the country. That is what we hope to achieve through the academies and the free schools programmes. None the less, real challenges face Bradford, with its increasing school population and the capital expenditure needed to repair and maintain its schools.

My hon. Friend was right to point out the political dishonesty of announcing a major piece of school funding one month before there had to be a general election and when everyone knew that there simply was not the sum of money needed to provide such a scale of school building in any part of the country, let alone in one particular area. The Chief Secretary wrote on leaving office that “there is no money”. It was political dishonesty of the worst kind to make those promises in Bradford and elsewhere, writing blank cheques when there was no money to support them.

We are committed to providing practical support to enable Bradford to manage its pressures. On school places, the Secretary of State’s 3 November announcement on capital allocation included a further £500 million for basic need, in addition to the £800 million announced for the same financial year to reduce pressure on school places. As my hon. Friend said, that led to £7.4 million for Bradford, in addition to the basic need allocation of £10.3 million in 2011-12, announced last year. That is on top of the £45.9 million of capital grant for Bradford in 2011-12, which covers capital needs including maintenance.

On school buildings, the priority schools building programme, which was announced in July 2011, targets those schools that are in the worst condition or have severe basic needs. Four Bradford schools have applied, one of which is Carlton Bolling; as my hon. Friend pointed out, parts of that school are structurally unsound and cordoned off from use by pupils and staff. Each application will be assessed fairly on its merits and against the criteria. Once all applications have been assessed, the successful schools will be announced, which should happen by the end of the year.

On disadvantaged pupils, in 2011-12 the Government are providing a pupil premium of £9.1 million for more than 18,000 pupils in schools throughout Bradford. I was taken by the point made by my hon. Friend in oral questions concerning the churn of pupils in his schools—60% of the year 3 pupils had not been at that particular primary school in reception. However, we must still provide a high quality of education for those children. The pupil premium of £488 per pupil this year will increase over the next four years. We are doubling the total expenditure on the pupil premium next year, from £600 million to £1.2 billion, and it will rise to £2.4 billion by 2014-15. I agree with my hon. Friend that at all stages the processes of how decisions are made and how money will be spent to deliver real impact must be clear.

My hon. Friend raised his concern that local authority budgets will be top-sliced to pay for the academies and free schools programme. In the context of the pressures highlighted in the debate, I understand that concern, but I hope I can reassure him that no school, parent or child should be disadvantaged financially by academies and free schools. Far from disadvantaging other schools and breaking up the system, they will improve parental choice and ensure that all schools aim to raise their standards.

LAC SEG—the snappy acronym for the local authority central spend equivalent grant—enables schools converting to academy status to pay for those services that they previously received free from the local authority. To avoid the taxpayer paying twice for those services, the element paid to academies needs to be recouped from local authorities. How that recoupment is calculated and top-sliced from local authority grants is subject to consultation, and the Government will respond to that consultation and make an announcement in due course. The key is to ensure that local authority-maintained schools and academies are funded fairly.

The academies and free schools programme aims to meet demand for school places and to increase choice for parents and children. Our commitment is to ensure that parents and their children have a choice of school places, whether in maintained schools, academies or free schools. On performance, failure to secure high-quality education for pupils will not be accepted. The Government are committed to tackling underperformance. It is unacceptable that more than 200 primary schools have been under the floor standard in their key stage 2 results for five years or more and that more than half of those schools have been underperforming for at least 10 years. A further 500 or so have been below the acceptable minimum standard for three of the past four years. Those schools have let down repeated cohorts of children. We are starting work, as an urgent priority, on turning around the 200 schools nationally that have most consistently underperformed by finding new academy sponsors for them, so that they can reopen from September 2012. We want to work closely with the schools involved and the local authorities to ensure that that happens.

We have collective responsibility to make education provision more effective and efficient within the current economic climate. To do so, we must increase choice for parents and their children, so that they have the highest possible quality of education provision to choose from. Academies and free schools are a key part of that reform, but every education institution has a role to play. The security and predictability of front-line school budgets will be vital to that success.

My hon. Friend spoke about the importance of being able to plan for more than one year at a time. In December 2011, there will be another announcement on capital for future years, to address that planning point. We must ensure that there is up-to-date information, so that funding is targeted to the right areas. We are gathering that data now, so that funding can be targeted as accurately as possible on where the need lies.

We have announced that capital spending will be £15.9 billion over the four years of the spending review period, and I assure my hon. Friend again that no money is being diverted away from other schools to academies. Our commitment within the spending review is clear—to protect school funding in the system at flat cash per pupil—because even when funding is tight, as it is with the current imperative to tackle the country’s budget deficit, we realise that it is essential that buildings and equipment are properly maintained to ensure that health and safety standards are met and to prevent an ever-increasing backlog of decaying buildings that would be difficult and expensive to deal with.

We have learned the lessons of the private finance initiative contracts entered into by the previous Administration, but it is important that in being able to deliver the necessary capital expenditure we transfer some of the risk of maintaining buildings to facility management operations that ensure that those buildings do not deteriorate. That is the essence of the PFI arrangement.

[Mr Ward]

The concern of the smaller schools—five primary schools and one small secondary school—seems to be affordability. Does the Minister have any words of reassurance for such schools?

[Mr Gibb]

I do not want to give assurance on a particular proposal, but in general terms schools must maintain their buildings, and when looking at whether something is affordable, the calculations often omit looking at what a school will have to spend on maintenance over the next five, 10 or 20 years. When assessing the value for money of a PFI arrangement, it is important to do just that, and not simply to compare the cost of building a school with a design-and-build arrangement within the PFI arrangements. It is important to take into account those long-term maintenance costs.

By stopping wasteful and bureaucratic Building Schools for the Future projects we have been able to allocate £1.4 billion to local areas to prioritise their maintenance needs, and that includes £195 million of devolved formula capital, which has been allocated directly to schools to use in line with their priorities. On top of that, we have allocated £800 million of basic need funding for 2011-12, which is twice the previous annual support, despite the fact that we are dealing with a very difficult budget deficit. As recent events in Europe have proved, we took the right decisions early on in this Administration to help to tackle that deficit.

Earlier this year, the Secretary of State announced an addition to the £800 million of a further £500 million to provide extra school places where there is greatest pressure caused by the increasing pupil population—that makes a total of £1.3 billion—because we recognise the importance of ensuring that every pupil has a place when they start school, whether primary or secondary school.

Future allocations and the management of funding for 2012-13 to 2014-15 will be informed by the outcome of the capital review, but the Secretary of State has already indicated that local authorities may expect the headline amounts of capital available in future years to be broadly in line with those allocated when we first announced the figures for 2011-12.

As well as radically reviewing how capital funding is allocated and spent in future, the Government have renewed their focus on finding an academy solution for the weakest primary schools in the country. In that respect, Bradford will be supported by the Department for Education in challenging underperformance and securing improved performance in schools that are struggling. The introduction of the academies and free schools programme should be viewed as an additional tool in the arsenal of local authorities as they seek to eradicate any basic need pressures they are encountering. We believe that giving those involved in education the freedom, flexibility and support they need to shape the future of our schools and opening up opportunities for others to enter the education sector will offer an education system to meet the needs of local communities.

New Schools

David Ward Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The experience so far of existing head teachers, where new free schools have been set up, has been in some cases concern before the application has come forward and, afterwards, some trepidation, but after the school has opened there has been a general recognition that wider choice and an emphasis on helping the most disadvantaged students has helped to raise the prestige and reputation of state education overall, so such proposals should be seen as friendly emulation and not as a threat to any school.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Last week, I visited a school in Bradford, you will not be surprised to hear, Mr Deputy Speaker. Indeed, you will know that it was not in Bingley and Ilkley when I tell you that 60% of the children in one year 3 class were not in it in year 1. We have more than 7,000 in-year starters in our schools, and that exceeds the number of children who start in reception class each year. That is the level of mobility and churn, so will the Secretary of State please tell me how on earth the local education authority is to fulfil its statutory responsibility for the strategic planning of school places at the same time as maintained sector begins to fragment completely?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I appreciate that one of the challenges in Bradford is that we have not just huge population churn, but different communities with different needs and a requirement to ensure that those communities feel that they are part of one Bradford. It is therefore important that, when we bring forward proposals for free schools and the growth in academies, we recognise the achievement of the local authority and of the leadership of existing maintained schools. I hope that, before too long, I will have the chance to come to Bradford and talk to existing and new head teachers about how we can all work together in the interests of Bradford’s children.

Apprenticeships (Small Businesses)

David Ward Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing the debate and thank him for enabling us to discuss this important subject.

My father left school at 14. He benefited from an additional year at school, but he had very little in the way of qualifications and he served an apprenticeship for seven years before becoming a master plumber. I suppose that I served a kind of apprenticeship when I was articled as an accountant. Apprenticeships have almost disappeared from the industrial scene. The value of them coming back can be found not only in the many things that we have discussed today, but in the concept of a young person’s commitment to achieving something specific and focused over an extended period. Of course, a business or an organisation must also show commitment to sticking with an individual and seeing them through.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

My hon. Friend talks very powerfully about apprenticeships. He has mentioned some of the history of apprenticeships and the apprenticeship that he went through, which was not unusual a number of years ago. Does he think that we need to change the culture, so that apprenticeships are far more valued? Should we perhaps return to some of the older values and have freemen of towns and cities and passing out ceremonies, where apprentices go along to the city hall or town hall and receive their papers from the mayor or lord mayor?

[Mr Ward]

There is a lot in that idea because the concept of working towards and developing a skill—in the old days, a craft—and a profession has been lost. The idea of sticking with something and staying with it until a body of knowledge has been achieved or a degree of experience or skill has been acquired has been lost over the years. I remember very clearly my father’s small card showing that he was a master plumber. The importance of both an organisation’s and a young person’s commitment perhaps ought to be recognised more formally.

We all welcome the Government’s drive to increase the number of apprenticeship places, particularly in areas of unacceptably high youth unemployment—for example, Bradford. In a couple of the wards in my constituency, one in eight young people are not in education, employment or training, and they are desperately in need of some sort of future. It is perhaps unfashionable in some quarters to defend one of the schemes that is still in operation but on its last legs: the future jobs fund. However, I want to talk about the importance of what has been described by others as getting people ready for apprenticeships and making sure that young people are employable in the view of those who wish to take on apprentices.

We need to be very careful not to throw away the baby with the bathwater. The future jobs fund in Bradford got off to a poor, bureaucratic and frustratingly slow start, but it did become a success, particularly with categories of young people who struggled to get into apprenticeships. It was successful both in getting young people into work and in giving them the skills and the work experience that it was hoped would help to them into employment long into the future. More than half of young people on future jobs fund placements in Bradford did not return to benefits after 28 weeks. They found some sort of career progression after, in many cases, pretty difficult young lives. A major criticism of the future jobs fund has been that a high proportion of jobs were created in the public sector but, in Bradford, around 75% of the placements were in the voluntary or community sector. That is big society at its very best.

I should like to mention the Thorpe Edge project. As you will know, Mr Davies, that is a community furniture project that had 13 future jobs fund placements over a period of years. It was apparent that, for some of the young people on that project, getting out of bed before lunch was an achievement, let alone having an apprenticeship where they were expected to arrive at half-past 8 and work through until the leaving time that night for five days a week. The people on that project were fortunate because those who were responsible for running it had experience of dealing with young people in a difficult area. If someone on an apprenticeship did not turn up at 8.30 am and perhaps came in at 10 am, they would have probably lost their job. However, through their knowledge of the young person concerned, Thorpe Edge project supervisors knew that the young person concerned probably came from a background where there was a lone parent or the person concerned was on drugs or suffered from alcohol abuse. In such circumstances, simply getting into work at all was an achievement. By providing intensive support and help for some of those young people, the programme allowed them to get into college or employment.

The focus of my comments is on those people who simply will not get those apprenticeships, however many placements we manage to generate and however many placements the Government are willing to fund. Additional apprenticeships certainly offer a good alternative to the future jobs fund or schemes of that kind in many cases, but there is space for both types of programme. We need schemes that benefit people who are employable and who will do well out of placements and people who would struggle to get on to apprenticeships at all.

There is clearly a supply-side problem in many economies. I hope that the Minister will set out some of the measures that can be used to address the shortage of apprenticeship placements. A scheme in Bradford with the local social housing provider in communities recently received more than 600 applications for just seven apprenticeship places. Evidently, demand is massively outstripping supply.

Other hon. Members have raised all sorts of issues about the barriers and why businesses are not willing to take on apprenticeships, whether because of bureaucracy and red tape—we have mentioned some of those issues—or because of a lack of awareness of apprenticeships, as hon. Members said earlier. Many people who have been in business for years might never even have considered offering an apprenticeship. We need to consider what is happening in the schools and through the careers advice service. We also need to recognise that in some communities, certainly for small businesses, cost is an issue. We need to bear that in mind.

The Federation of Small Businesses has been quoted a lot with regard to the implications for small businesses. I understand that the Government have decided not to extend an apprenticeship grant for employers that provided some time-limited financial support for businesses. We still need to consider that as necessary for certain businesses, particularly small businesses, and in certain economies with high unemployment and a small number of available opportunities.

Let us not forget that although businesses receive 50% for post-19 and a full 100% for pre-19—I understand that that might be extended in some cases—they still have to pay for the young person. For many small businesses in particular, that is identified as being the most important cost. An FSB survey identified that it is simply too costly to take on. Of all the reasons why they were not taking on apprentices, the fact that it was just too costly came out top.

An FSB survey on skills identified that 66% of businesses said that, with the right measures in place, they would take on an apprentice. Those measures include a financial incentive for taking on an apprentice, greater clarity in terms of Government contributions to wage and training costs, and a separate body, interestingly, to manage the payroll costs. That has to be a way forward for many of our young people.

For 20-odd years, I worked in a university. We have heard some comments about university today. I agree that it was wrong to specify a 50% target. For many young people, the message was that if they do not get to university they have failed, and that closed up a lot of options. I also have tell hon. Members that, as someone who worked in a university for nearly 25 years in total, many young people, especially towards the end, were there because they did not know where else to be. They were there to find themselves and to delay a decision. They were there to gain something—a qualification, which they hoped would be useful—but also to defer a judgment on what they should do with their lives.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that those young people found themselves after the three years they were under his stewardship? The fundamental issue, brought up by many hon. Members, is that we do not start to talk about the world of work early enough. Many hon. Members have said that there is an issue about education and schools. I have never been impressed by the careers system and careers officers across the board, either in my era or now. Does the hon. Gentleman have any greater sense of confidence in the careers system that mentors our young people?

[Mr Ward]

There are measures to improve the system. It has failed in many instances. On getting information through to young people, I would add that the most important individuals for many young people as they go through their education—a blinding flash of the obvious—are the teachers, not the careers advisers. How many teachers have any experience of life outside of a school, whether in manufacturing, engineering or not being a teacher?

I am concerned that we miss a trick if we focus on developing the careers advisory service, recognising that it is a weak area that we could develop, without looking at the crucial issue of the experiences of the most influential characters in our young people’s education—the teachers themselves. Perhaps the Minister has something on that—it may not be his remit, I do not know—but exchanges between business and schools are important. When young people consider what they want to do with their lives, they should be surrounded by people who have experience of something other than going to university or being in another educational setting.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

In Burnley, we have got the big local companies involved with mentoring students in schools for the future. Is that something that the Minister will pick up, run with and expand across the country not only with big companies, but with smaller companies?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ward]

I should like to conclude by coming back to the focus of my comments. I think that the figure of 8% was mentioned as the number of businesses who take on apprentices. If we look at that figure, however, the vast majority are small businesses. Those are the statistics. We know that the vast majority of businesses are small businesses—the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker and so on. We want to fill the supply side gap. Yes, we want to get the big companies involved and that in some ways that is relatively easy. If we are to provide at a practical local level experience and apprenticeships in small businesses, we need to consider some element of wage subsidy.

[Richard Graham]

The figures back the hon. Gentleman up. Some 3.3 million businesses have sole proprietors; that is, 3.5 million people. That is 16% of all people in business. One apprentice for a third of those would take a million people into employment.

[Mr Ward]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those comments, and for giving me time to look at my own notes.

The FSB has pointed out that two thirds of apprenticeships are offered by small businesses. Of that 8%, the vast majority are in small businesses, so we have a problem. Small businesses, certainly in areas of high youth unemployment, have been the main provider. However, small businesses in those economies are struggling the most and can ill-afford the cost associated with apprenticeships. I would argue that there may be a case for businesses—small businesses in particular, in areas of high unemployment, particularly high youth unemployment—to consider some element of wage subsidy to enable those who will simply not otherwise get into apprenticeships to be taken on by those businesses and partly fill the gap that has been left by the withdrawal of the future jobs scheme.

English for Speakers of Other Languages

David Ward Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Six or seven months before the election, I attended a session on phonics at a school where I was a governor. The session was also attended by 50 parents—48 women and two men. I am not suggesting that all those who attended were poor at English, but the parents of only 10% of the school’s children—there are nearly 700 children at the school and its nursery—were born in this country, so Members will appreciate the difficulties that the children have at times with the lack of English in their homes.

When Kate and Will looked at their contribution to reducing the deficit, I am sure that they carried out a cost-benefit analysis and decided that their wedding was worth while, because of the tourism and the extra hotel rooms that would be booked. In the case of ESOL provision, too, we really need to look rigorously at the cost-benefit analysis. We are not talking about people who are fluent in Urdu, Punjabi or Gujarati, or in the languages of Slovakia and Lithuania. Very often, although not so much in the case of eastern Europeans, we are talking about people who have never developed language skills, even in their mother tongue, and ESOL lessons are the first time that they learn not only English, but how to develop language skills.

One of the most powerful arguments used against the education maintenance allowance, which I did not agree with, was the infamous dead-weight argument that 90% of people would go to college or stay on even without EMA. However, surely that argument does not apply to the situation that we are discussing. Clearly, the majority of people who benefit from ESOL provision would not be able fully to fund it themselves. At Bradford college, 46% of ESOL students who are currently fully funded would not receive full funding, and they would not be able to access ESOL provision.

We have a social contract. I did not sign the pledge on free higher education, which has been a massive subsidy to the middle and upper classes for years, and I welcome the fact that those people will now have to contribute to the cost of their higher education. However, there is a social contract for those up to 18, and all parties agree that we should provide free education up to the statutory leaving age. We have reached that agreement, because we realise that young people need to develop basic knowledge and skills, including language skills, to make the best of themselves when they leave full-time education. Why do we not extend that free aspect? Why does that social contract not extend to those who do not have English, whatever their age? Whether people are 19 or 90, if they do not have the skills to enable them to be fully functioning members of society, why do we not extend that social contract to them, as we do to those under 18? The argument that is made is that that is a matter of equality. We do not fund, apart from those on active benefits, those who are over 19, so why should we provide ESOL for those over 19? However, the lesson that I have learned over many years in my community is that if unequal people are treated equally, inequality is reinforced. If one does not favour those who are over 19 but who lack the basic skills to be part of a functioning society, one is disadvantaging and reinforcing the inequality that already exists.

Bradford college, one of the largest providers of ESOL in the country, has considered the impact on the local community. Those on low incomes are likely to remain on low incomes, as they will lose out on the opportunity to develop their language skills and to improve their employment prospects.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, with this approach, the Government are creating an environment of social alienation, which can be so damaging to multicultural communities such as mine?

[Mr Ward]

That approach is damaging to my community, as well. I believe that that is a fundamental consideration that needs to be taken on board. Bradford college has also said:

“The college currently makes an excellent contribution to Bradford’s widening participation, social mobility and social cohesion agendas. The ESOL team is a significant force in meeting these agendas.”

Coming from Bradford, I know the cost of not having social cohesion, which is a cost that we cannot afford. We need to do all that we can, which includes fully funding ESOL provision for all those who require it. In answer to the question whether, pound for pound, provision should be for translators or for ESOL, it should be both—maybe we could fund that from the royal family.

Post-16 Education Funding

David Ward Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We will do everything in our power, but colleges and college principals who understand the ecology of the local labour market and the needs of local students are often in a better position to tailor support than any Minister or bureaucrat sitting in Whitehall would be when developing that scheme in the abstract.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

I strongly welcome the statement but I wish there had been a tiny glimmer of acknowledgement from the Opposition of the ground that has been shifted here. They all say that the person who never thought twice never thought once, and I want to thank the Secretary of State for thinking twice on this. Does he agree that this is not a U-turn because a U-turn takes you back to where you were before and we are not where we were before? Nobody who opposed the removal of EMA in our debate on this issue was of the opinion that it did not need to be reviewed, so I welcome the review. Will the Secretary of State give us an undertaking that there will be a review of the new proposals to make sure that we get to where we want to be—supporting children from deprived backgrounds to enable them to do what they want to do with their lives after 16?

[Michael Gove]

I always take seriously what my hon. Friend says because before he came to the House he worked very hard as a councillor in Bradford to ensure that the education of the poorest children was enhanced. I am grateful to him for his support. The point that he makes—that we need to make sure that the new regime is kept under review to ensure that it helps the very poorest—is right. I look forward to working for him. The tough questions that he asks and the constructive support that he offers are a model to the rest of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ward Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

We announced in December that the capital allocation for 2011-12 would be £800 million for basic need, £858 million for capital maintenance and £185 million for devolved capital, which amounts to £2 billion out of a £4.9 billion capital budget. The difference between those two figures covers the BSF commitments and an allocation for free schools.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

The proposed King’s Science Academy in Bradford—for which, miraculously, £10 million has been found—has described itself in its application as a “non-selective” school. Is the Secretary of State as surprised as I am that it has already started sifting applications for admission, and, according to its website, intends to use a “non-verbal reasoning test”?

[Mr Gibb]

I should be happy to take up that case. If my hon. Friend will write to me, I will respond immediately.