Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Ed Balls and Michael Gove

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

In that case, Mr Speaker, I will make no reference to the fact that a requirement that the admissions code should attach to such schools was excluded from the Bill, nor will I refer to the fact that parental consultation could have been strengthened, but that that was ignored.

Let me come to the substance of the Bill as we find it. The thing that worries me most is this—

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

That Unite backed Ed Miliband.

[Ed Balls]

The right hon. Gentleman makes his jokes, but as Secretary of State he is, in my view, presiding over the most profoundly unfair piece of social engineering in this generation, and in the end he will be ashamed of what he has done this evening and over these past few days. That is my strong view. The contemptuous way in which he has treated the House of Commons in recent weeks is a matter of great shame to him as well.

In any case, the Liberal Democrats appear to have completely forgotten their manifesto, which declared that

“we will ensure a level playing field for admissions and funding and replace Academies with our own model of ‘Sponsor-Managed Schools’. These schools will be commissioned by and accountable to local authorities and not Whitehall”.

However, the Bill entirely removes any role for local authorities. We are told now by the Schools Minister that there will be a new ministerial advisory group. However, the fact is that cutting out the role of the local authority will mean that there will be no check on the pressures for free market schools to lead us not just to massive unfairness, but to what we fear will be much greater social segregation in the coming weeks, months and years. I fear a new education social apartheid arising from this Bill.

I am very fearful, and that is why I say to Government Members that this Bill is the greatest threat to our state education system in 60 years. It is a Bill of great significance, but it has been rushed through in a way that is an abuse of Parliament. As I said a moment ago, I think that the Secretary of State should be ashamed of himself. This evening we challenge the coalition, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats alike, to put a halt to this deeply ideological, free market experiment before it is too late, and to vote against the Third Reading of the Bill.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Ed Balls and Michael Gove

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. If I may quote, I believe:

“The best local authorities already increasingly see their primary role as championing parents and pupils rather than being a direct provider of education. We need to see every local authority moving from provider to commissioner, so that the system acquires a local dynamism responsive to the needs of their communities and open to change and new forms of school provision. This will liberate local authorities from too often feeling the need to defend the status quo, so that instead they become the champions of innovation and diversity, and the partner of local parents in driving continuous improvement.”

That was Tony Blair in October 2005—once again, an unimprovable argument.

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

But that speech led directly to the Education and Inspections Act 2006, in which local authorities were given the responsibility for commissioning places. The legislation before us entirely removes the local authority’s role in such commissioning, so the idea that the right hon. Gentleman is the heir to Tony Blair is complete and utter tosh.

[Michael Gove]

I would never claim to be the heir to Blair; I know that the right hon. Gentleman yearns to fill that role. I was one of the many thousands watching the Labour leadership hustings on “Newsnight”, when he said that Tony Blair was the finest Prime Minister the Labour party ever had. I dropped my cocoa in excitement at the right hon. Gentleman’s conversion to the cause of Blairism. It is somewhat at variance with what is recorded in Alastair Campbell’s diaries, Peter Mandelson’s memoirs and various other documents that have thudded on to my desk over the past few weeks, but I am very happy to see him join the conventicle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I want a greater degree of freedom for all head teachers. If we compare our proposals with the ’90s and the world of grant-maintained schools, however, one big difference is that we do not envisage schools existing in a parallel universe, but collaborating with other schools. One of the great gains of the past 15 years has been the culture of collaboration that has taken root between head teachers and throughout state schools. It is wholly worth while, I wish to build on it and I make no apology for saying that it happened over the course of the past 15 years, because any fair-minded person would wish to acknowledge it and see it develop.

[Ed Balls]

When the head teacher of Woodberry Down community primary school in Hackney, an outstanding school in a federation with two other primary schools, approached the Department for Education to ask whether the school might access academy freedoms, the Department said it could do so only if it broke up the federation, because outstanding schools would be able to federate only with other outstanding schools rather than underperforming schools. On what basis will such collaboration help less good schools to become better? Is that not just excellence supporting excellence, or has the right hon. Gentleman had to change that policy?

[Michael Gove]

No, it is my belief that all outstanding schools should be there to support other schools. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for drawing that issue to my attention. Actually, we have made it clear that groups of schools in which one school is outstanding and the others are not can apply. Woodberry Down may well be a school that we would like to see enjoy academy status and hope will work with other schools, but it may not be among the very first schools to enjoy academy status. If he would like Woodberry Down’s application accelerated so that it can become an academy in September, I hope he will join me in the Lobby this evening.

[Ed Balls]

I have found in the past few weeks that the right hon. Gentleman is never, ever able to answer a straight question in the House. I will try again. An outstanding school was told that it could federate only with other outstanding schools if it wanted academy status. Is that his policy, yes or no?

[Michael Gove]

It is certainly not our policy, and I am sorry that the headmaster of Woodberry Down has been told that. I shall write to him later or call him, or perhaps he, I and the right hon. Gentleman can have a cup of tea together, to ensure that that excellent school can become an academy by September if it wishes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ed Balls and Michael Gove

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I very much take the point made by my hon. Friend. One of the defects of the BSF scheme was that, in many parts of the country where there was real need as a result of a growing population, the money was not there to provide new school places. As a result of our capital review, we will ensure that where there is additional population pressure and additional basic need, particularly in primary schools, which BSF did not cover, we will provide the support that is necessary. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend to help the parents and teachers in those two great schools.

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

For parents, children and teachers in Ilkley and Bingley, the initial shock of learning that their new school building has been cancelled will have turned to outrage at the seemingly arbitrary and chaotic way in which the Secretary of State has made and announced his decisions. The right hon. Gentleman must now know that there is widespread anger in all parts of the House. Following weekend reports that he was advised by his officials not to publish a list of schools at all, I wrote to him yesterday to request answers in advance of today’s oral questions. I have received a reply that does not answer any of my questions: it merely attaches a new list—list No. 5—containing 20 additional cancelled schools compared with a week ago.

I shall ask the right hon. Gentleman for a straight answer to a specific question. Did he at any point receive written or oral advice from departmental officials or Partnerships for Schools urging him not to publish a list of schools until after he had consulted local authorities, to make sure that his criteria were sound and his facts were right?

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Gentleman says that there was anger across the House. There was—at the way in which the BSF project had been run by the right hon. Gentleman. There was justifiable anger at the way in which a project that was originally supposed to cost £45 billion ended up costing £55 billion, and it was shared by those who were shocked that under the previous Government, one individual received £1.35 million in consultancy fees—money that should have gone to the front line. From the moment that I took office, everyone involved in this process said to me, “Make sure that you ensure that this faltering and failing project ends.” That is what I have done. I inherited a mess from the right hon. Gentleman, and we are clearing it up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ed Balls]

The right hon. Gentleman cannot give a straight answer to a straight question. The people of Bingley and Ilkley will not be satisfied by that answer, and nor are we. Interestingly, his letter today says very clearly that his fifth list has been validated by local authorities—presumably a clear admission that the information should have been validated before the list was published in the first place, including by Bradford authority, in which the schools of Bingley and Ilkley are situated.

Let me ask the right hon. Gentleman another straight question. Is it not the case that he was advised of the risk of legal challenge from private contractors, but that he personally decided to ignore that advice and take that risk with taxpayers’ money? That is a very simple question. We all know that he is on shaky ground, and that he is fast losing the confidence of pupils, parents and teachers. If he had any sense, he would end this shambles, withdraw these error-strewn lists, and let our communities have new schools.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for once again stretching so far the geographical definition of Bingley and Ilkley. Let me point out that under him the cost of setting up the procurement vehicle for Building Schools for the Future was £10 million, before a single brick was laid. The taxpayers of Bingley and Ilkley have re-elected a Conservative MP because they are disgusted with the waste and squander of the right hon. Gentleman. There is a dividing line between this side of the House and that side of the House: when mistakes are made, we apologise and we take responsibility. The right hon. Gentleman has never apologised for a single mistake in his life; that is why he is on that side of the House and we are on this side of the House clearing up his mess.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend, as ever, is a redoubtable scourge of waste, and it is always a pleasure to hear him as he turns his eye to yet another non-departmental public body.

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

The letter from the Secretary of State, which was published at 2.35—the fifth list—refers to local education partnerships. It will be no surprise to the House to learn that already, within 25 minutes, the first mistake in this list has been found. The right hon. Gentleman referred earlier to past mistakes and the SATS fiasco. In that case, there was an independent inquiry. If he would like to establish an independent inquiry now into the BSF shambles, he would not find it easy to repeat his failure to answer questions in this House. Is not the truth that he should withdraw this list, apologise to local education partnerships and stop treating children and this House with such total contempt?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful once more to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I would welcome an inquiry into just what went wrong with Building Schools for the Future and Partnerships for Schools under the previous Government. The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee pointed out in February 2009 that the estimates of progress for which the right hon. Gentleman’s Government were responsible were fanciful, but steps were not taken to ensure that we were moving in the right direction. The list that we have issued today is one that has been verified by Partnerships for Schools and by the Department for Education. The most important thing that we need to ensure is that the waste that characterised the previous Government does not characterise this one. That is why we have taken steps to ensure that in future the public money that should be going to the front line is protected. The mess that the right hon. Gentleman and his team created is being cleared up by this Government—these two parties—who are at last acting in the public interest.

Education Funding

Debate between Ed Balls and Michael Gove

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Labour Government built or refurbished 4,000 schools—the biggest school building programme since the Victorian era—and today is a black day for our country’s schools. It is a damning indictment of this new Tory-Liberal coalition’s priorities and it is a shameful statement from this new Secretary of State, who will for ever go down in history as the man who snatched free school meals from 500,000 poorer pupils and has now, today, in one stroke axed hundreds of brand-new schools from communities across the length and breadth of our country.

Building Schools for the Future was a once-in-a-generation chance to transform the whole local fabric of education—of secondary education, special schools and vocational learning, too. The freezing of the programme that has just been announced is a hammer blow for many hundreds of thousands of children, parents, teachers and governors who will now not get the transformed new school they were promised.

I predicted this day during the general election, and, after weeks of indecision, uncertainty and media speculation that has led to widespread confusion and concern in schools and in the construction industry, too, I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman has finally made a statement to this House. However, is it not a disgrace that, even now, the Secretary of State has not provided a list of all the schools that will be affected? How can hon. Members on both sides of the House ask questions of the Secretary of State when they do not know which of the schools in their constituencies will be affected? The Secretary of State knows the names of the schools. I believe that he has a duty to tell the House and the country and that he should agree to publish the list now—straight away—so we can give it proper scrutiny.

Let me turn to the some of the detailed issues that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. On standards, will he confirm that in the recent trends in international mathematics and science study—or TIMSS—England has risen from 25th in the world to seventh in the world and that among 10 to 14-year-olds we now have the highest achievement in mathematics of all European countries in that study? Why cannot he stop running down the achievements of our children and teachers in our schools?

On teaching, does the Secretary of State agree that we have the best generation of teachers that we have ever had? Will he confirm that the previous Government had already invested in expanding Teach First, including pilots for primary schools? Is he aware that it was the leadership of Teach First who warned me that to accelerate the expansion of the programme any faster would put at risk the quality and success of Teach First—a risk that he has just taken in this statement?

On the Building Schools for the Future programme, the National Audit Office looked into the programme last February and said that originally the forecasts were “overly optimistic”, and that local authorities were asked

“to spend more time to improve their proposals, because…it was more important to improve the quality than to accelerate the programme.”

The NAO concluded that the processes for procurement had “significantly” improved and also found that the total capital cost of each BSF school was similar to that of other schools and 17% cheaper than that of previous academies.

In the next year, as the Secretary of State travels around the country opening the 200 new schools set to open under the BSF programme, will he tell pupils, parents, governors and contractors that their school is part of a programme he believes to be “dysfunctional” and a “waste” of money? Or will he withdraw these unrepresentative and vindictive remarks? It is not the bureaucracy that he is abolishing, but hundreds of new schools for children in our country.

As for my record as Secretary of State, some very serious allegations have been made. I have this afternoon written to the permanent secretary at the Department for Education, who was also the accounting officer for the whole time I was Secretary of State. I have asked him to confirm that all capital funding announcements, including those on BSF, were made with prior agreement between the Department and the Treasury in a normal and fully legitimate way and with his full agreement as chief accounting officer and to confirm that if that had not been done properly, the accounting officer would have insisted on a ministerial direction but that no such directions were issued by me and none were requested. If the right hon. Gentleman has evidence that the proper processes were not undertaken, it is incumbent on him to provide that evidence to the House, rather than make these allegations. I hope that he will agree that his permanent secretary must be encouraged to clarify these issues as soon as possible today.

The right hon. Gentleman has chosen today to freeze BSF and to ask one of the Prime Minister’s old university chums to review the whole programme. He has offered no assurance that this review is anything more than a fig leaf, however. Is it not the truth that 750 schools that have not yet signed their contracts will now be told that they will not get their new school building? We need to know how many schools will be affected, where they are, and how much money has already been spent on those programmes. Is it correct, as the Financial Times reports, that more than £1 billion-worth of new undertakings have been signed since the general election? Does the right hon. Gentleman have an estimate of how much his Department will now have to pay in legal and contractual costs associated with those frozen or cancelled contracts? How many private sector jobs does he think will be lost as a result of these decisions?

The Secretary of State says that this decision is inevitable. That is what Ramsay MacDonald said in 1931, and Margaret Thatcher said to the House in 1980 about investment spending cuts. Only a few weeks ago, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House in the Budget statement that

“an error was made in the early 1990s when the then Government cut capital spending”

and said that he had decided that there

“will be no further reductions in capital spending totals”.—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 170.]

Is it not the truth that, while I won my battles with the Treasury for rising education spending, the Secretary of State has lost his battle and is now planning cuts of between 10% to 20% to the schools budget? Will he also confirm that his top priority for the spending review will be his free-market schools policy, which will see new schools being built in an unfair two-tier system paid for by cuts to the Building Schools for the Future programme and to the new schools that were promised over the past year or two in the constituencies of hon. Members on both sides of the House?

What we have seen from the coalition today is another attack on jobs, another assault on opportunities and a huge blow to the life chances of children in communities across our country. This was not an unavoidable decision; it is a choice that the right hon. Gentleman has made, and in my view, he has made the wrong choice. I say to every family, every school, every Member of Parliament and every community blighted by this decision that we on this side of the House will fight to save our new schools. We not stand idly by and see this happen.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for his questions. As I pointed out in my statement, the number of schools rebuilt under Building Schools for the Future under the previous Government was just 96 out of 3,500 secondary schools. Under this Government, 706 projects will go ahead. It is also the case, as he said, that we know where those school projects are. As hon. Members will know, projects will go ahead in those local authorities that have reached financial close, and I presume that they will know whether their local authority has reached that stage. Every single one of the school projects that is to go ahead will be listed, and every Member of the House and every local authority is being written to today to be told which projects are going ahead—[Interruption.] The Opposition will appreciate that, with more than 1,500 projects involved, many of them needed to be looked at in detail. That is why I will be writing to every Member of the House.

The right hon. Gentleman said that we were going to cancel free school meals. I must remind him that not a single child in receipt of free school meals will lose their free school meals under this Government. That is an unsubstantiated allegation. He also said that he predicted today’s announcement during the general election. However, during the general election, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) said that we would be looking at Building Schools for the Future, and that we could not guarantee any project beyond financial close. So there was no prediction on the part of the right hon. Gentleman, but there was a grim warning on the part of my hon. Friend that the devastating assault on the public finances over which the right hon. Gentleman helped to preside meant that tough decisions would have to be taken by anyone, whatever the result of the election.

The right hon. Gentleman argues that under the proposals, the private sector will lose out. I have to point out to him that we are sticking precisely to the limits on capital laid out by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling). If the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) thinks that the proposed level of capital spending is devastating for the private sector, he should have been campaigning against the last Chancellor of the Exchequer before the last election. [Interruption.] Let me rephrase that. He should have been campaigning more vigorously against the last Chancellor of the Exchequer before the last election.

The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood says that the leadership of Teach First did not back our proposals for expansion. I have to say that our proposals for expansion were negotiated with the leadership of Teach First, who were delighted to see the Government carry forward what the previous Government were not able to do. He says that that is money wasted, and he refuses to back that expansion of Teach First. I believe that investing money in quality teaching in our poorest schools is the right choice for the future. It is interesting that he thinks it is the wrong choice. It is also interesting that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that having gone to a public school and Oxford university automatically rules someone out of making any decision about the future of school capital, in which case he is hoist by his own rhetorical petard.

Let me make it clear that if we compare the improvement in attainment between Building Schools for the Future and Teach First, a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers showed that Building Schools for the Future had little statistically significant impact on people’s attitude and behaviour and there was no firm evidence of improved attainment, whereas Teach First, in a study by the university of Manchester, has been shown to have led to a statistically significant improvement in GCSE results.

The truth is that the right hon. Gentleman made unsustainable and irresponsible promises that he knew no Government could keep. He went around the country saying that new schools would be built, when the Chancellor had pledged to cut capital spending in half. He asks about the reality of his irresponsible spending. In the three years in which he was in charge of his Department, the amount of spending that he was relying on coming from other Departments—the amount of underspend that he was relying on—rose from £80 million to £800 million and now to more than £2.5 billion. That £2.5 billion of unfunded commitments is evidence of scandalous irresponsibility.

If anyone in the House wants an example of a truly damaging decision on school building, I remind Opposition Members what the last Labour Government did with the Learning and Skills Council. Ministers invited scores of schools and colleges to submit building plans, which cost those schools and colleges millions of pounds. Ministers then arbitrarily and without warning cancelled 90% of those projects scheduled to go ahead. When those projects were cancelled, schools’ budgets were devastated and there were holes in the ground—

Free Schools Policy

Debate between Ed Balls and Michael Gove

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education to make a statement on the free schools policy, which was announced in a press notice on Friday 18 June.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for this opportunity to update the House on our progress on reducing bureaucracy in the schools system, giving more power to front-line professionals and accelerating the academies programme, which was begun with such distinction under Lord Adonis and Tony Blair.

During the Queen’s Speech debate, I outlined in detail our plans to extend academy freedoms. I mentioned then that we had more than 1,000 expressions of interests from existing schools. I can now update the House by confirming that more than 1,700 schools have expressed an interest in acquiring academy freedoms, with more than 70% of outstanding secondary schools contacting my Department—a remarkable and heartening display of enthusiasm by front-line professionals for our plans. As I have explained before, every new school acquiring academy freedoms will be expected to support at least one faltering or coasting school to improve. We are liberating the strong to help the weak—a key principle behind the coalition Government.

As well as showing enthusiasm for greater academy freedoms in existing schools, teachers are enthusiastic about the opportunities, outlined in our coalition agreement, to create more great new schools in areas of disadvantage. More than 700 expressions of interest in opening new free schools have been received by the charitable group the New Schools Network, and the majority of them have come from serving teachers in the state school system who want greater freedom to help the poorest children do better.

That action is all the more vital, because we inherit from the previous Government a schools system that was as segregated and as stratified as any in the developed world. In the most recent year for which we have figures, out of a school cohort of 600,000, 80,000 children were in homes entirely reliant on benefits, and of those 80,000 children only 45 made it to Oxbridge—less than 0.1% and, tellingly, fewer than those who made it from the school attended by the Leader of the Opposition.

Given that scale of underachievement, it is no surprise that so many idealistic teachers want to start new schools, such as those American charter schools backed by President Obama, which have closed the achievement gap between black and white children. In order to help teachers do here what has been achieved in America, we announced last week that we would recreate the standards and diversity fund for schools, started by Tony Blair and abandoned under his successor. We are devoting to that fund £50 million saved from low-priority IT spending—less than 1% of all capital spending allocated for this year—and we are sweeping away the bureaucracy that stands in the way of new school creation, with the reform of planning laws and building regulations.

Five years ago, the then Prime Minister said outside this House:

“What we must see now is a system of independent state schools, underpinned by fair admissions and fair funding, where teachers are equipped and enabled to drive improvement, driven by the aspirations of parents.

We have pushed higher standards from the centre: for those standards to be maintained and built upon, they must now become self-sustaining to provide irreversible change for the better.”

That is the challenge that Mr Blair laid down, and this coalition Government intend to meet it.

[Ed Balls]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for coming to the House, because his free school policy raises important issues of funding, fairness and standards—and it should not have been smuggled out in a Friday morning press statement. I should also say that Lord Hill has written to my colleagues in the other place confirming that the Academies Bill will, in fact, be enabling legislation for free schools. The Secretary of State should have the courtesy to inform this House, and those on the Opposition Front Bench, of his plans in that regard.

On funding, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm not only that his free school policy will establish a free market in school places, in which parents will be encouraged to set up taxpayer-funded new schools at will, but that he has secured no new money at all from the Treasury to pay for it? Will he confirm that he is using savings from cutting free school lunches for poorer children to fund his announced £50 million of start-up support, and that that is a drop in the ocean compared with the billions involved in the actual cost of his new policy?

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm Professor David Woods’s finding that the proposal for a new parent-promoted school in Kirklees would

“have a negative impact on other schools in the area in the form of surplus places and an adverse effect on revenue and capital budgets”?

The question is whether existing schools will see their budgets cut and lose teachers to pay for the new schools, and whether the Building Schools for the Future programme is now on hold to fund his new free schools policy. On fairness, does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the Swedish Schools Minister that

“free schools are generally attended by children of better educated and wealthy families making things even more difficult for children attending ordinary schools in poor areas”?

How will he ensure that the losers from the budget cuts will not be the children of middle and lower-income families?

It is important that the right hon. Gentleman should answer this question. Has he put in place clear safeguards to stop existing private schools from simply reopening as free schools, with taxpayers taking over the payment of school fees? On standards, can he confirm that since the Swedish free schools policy was introduced, England has risen to the top of the TIMMS—Trends in Mathematics and Science Study—league table in maths and science, but Sweden has plummeted to the bottom?

Will the Secretary of State amend the Academies Bill to prevent parents from delegating the entire management of free schools to profit-making companies? Alternatively, can we look forward, as in Sweden, to the grotesque chaos of private companies scuttling around the country touting to parents, saying that they will set up a new school for them, and make a profit, at the expense of the taxpayer and other children’s education?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ed Balls and Michael Gove

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. The aim of Building Schools for the Future was to ensure that funding is prioritised for areas of need, and understandably so, but it is also the case that Building Schools for the Future amounts to less than half the total available schools capital, and there are funds available to repair schools such as the Duchess’s high school in Alnwick, which I and the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), have visited, and which, having visited, I know are in need of repair. I will look sympathetically on the case my right hon. Friend makes, and I hope that I or one of my ministerial colleagues will have a chance to visit Alnwick soon to see for ourselves how the school is coping.

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wrote to the Secretary of State last night to request that, two weeks on from the Treasury announcement, he give this House details of the £670 million of departmental cuts and the £1.2 billion of local government cuts he has announced. Twenty minutes before questions, I received an answer. That answer gives no reassurance at all to the hundreds of schools whose new building plans appear to be in limbo—and I must say that this is no way to make announcements to the House of Commons. In that letter, the right hon. Gentleman does confirm that he is cutting free school meals in primary schools, one-to-one tuition and the gifted and talented programme, but there are no details at all of how cuts to local government budgets will affect children’s services, including services for looked-after children and disabled children, youth clubs and action to reduce teenage pregnancy. Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm whether he was advised that by agreeing to smaller central Government savings than his Department’s equal share, he has knowingly shifted the burden to bigger and more damaging cuts for essential children’s services financed by local governments: yes or no?

[Michael Gove]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for avoiding the Labour leadership hustings in Southport and instead making his presence felt here today. I am afraid, however, that the points he made were, perhaps unintentionally, at variance with the facts. We are not stopping anyone who currently receives free school meals receiving free school meals. We are ensuring that funding is in place to cover the areas he mentioned. What we are specifically doing is cutting £359 million from a variety of budget areas that, in our judgment, are not priority and front-line areas. Details are in the letter I sent to the right hon. Gentleman, a copy of which will be available in the Library. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we are not cutting front-line spending on schools, but before the general election he promised to cut 3,000 head teachers or deputy head teachers. Not a single front-line job is lost as a result of the economies the current Government have made. That is the difference between us.

[Ed Balls]

I showed the House the courtesy of coming to questions rather than going to a GMB conference, and I think the right hon. Gentleman should have shown the House the courtesy of making his cuts announcement in a written ministerial statement or oral statement to this House, in which he made it clear that children across the country in the pilot areas will be losing the free school meals that we announced some weeks ago.

Let me ask the right hon. Gentleman a second question, however, as we got no answer to the first. Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister told the House that the pupil premium will be additional to the education budget. In the formal post-election coalition talks, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) and Chief Secretary told me that the Conservative party had promised the Liberal Democrats that the pupil premium would be on top of our announced spending plans not for one year but for three years, yet the Secretary of State told the House last week that his budget was protected for only one year. Who is telling the truth on education spending: the Secretary of State or the Chief Secretary to the Treasury?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for revealing what went on in those coalition talks between himself and the Liberal Democrats. Those talks were clearly a roaring success, and I am surprised that his recollection is so perfect in that area when it is hazy in so many others. Let me reassure him that funding for the pupil premium—so effectively championed by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), and so effectively carried forward by the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather)—will come from outside existing education spending. As the Prime Minister pointed out at Prime Minister’s questions last week, we have not cut front-line spending, but the right hon. Gentleman would have. That is the difference between the Government and the Opposition.

Education and Health

Debate between Ed Balls and Michael Gove

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He, too, is a dedicated fighter for his constituency, and I know how hard he has fought for the interests of the people of Coventry. However, given the difficult state of the public finances and the situation that we inherited from the Government whom he supported, we have had to make some tough decisions. My judgment was that we had to prioritise spending on the front line. That has meant that those bodies—BECTA and the QCDA, which were responsible for spending money not on the front line, but in an arm’s length way, as quangos—have had to accept that economies are necessary. I have ensured, by writing to those responsible for both organisations, that we handle any redeployment and any redundancy in the most sensitive way possible.

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. Before the interventions started, he confirmed that he had agreed with the Treasury to match the previous plans for spending in the current financial year—2010-11 —for Sure Start, schools and 16-to-19 education. Can he confirm to the House that he has reached a similar agreement with the Chancellor of the Exchequer to match funding for 2011-12 and 2012-13 as well?

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Gentleman, I am sure with admirable zeal, wants to look into the crystal ball and find out what will happen in future. However, I have to remind him that just six weeks ago, during the general election campaign, he was engaging in his own form of future forecasting. Just six weeks ago, he said that if we took office, there would be 38,000 fewer staff working in our schools, 6,900 fewer teachers in primaries and nurseries, and 7,300 fewer teachers in secondary schools. Those redundancies have not taken place. The Nostradamus of Morley and Outwood was found out. His predictions did not come true. For that reason, I will not enter into any forecasting about what will happen in future years.

What I will say is that unlike the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, we have secured additional funding from outside the education budget, as confirmed by the Prime Minister at this Dispatch Box just an hour ago, in order to fund our pupil premium—something that the right hon. Gentleman was never able to do, but that we have been able to do in partnership—to ensure that funding goes to the very poorest children. I would have hoped that he would find it in himself to show the grace to applaud that achievement for our very poorest children. I would also have hoped that he would applaud the Chancellor for protecting front-line funding for Sure Start, 16-to-19 education and schools.

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[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making the point, as I was arguing, that other countries are taking action now—in this year, even as we speak—to deal with these problems. He stood on a platform, as did the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood, saying that it would be “folly” to take action this year. That view—that action was required this year—was not put forward only by Conservative Members, as it was the view of the Governor of the Bank of England, who backed early action to deal with the deficit. He said that we needed to

“tackle excessive fiscal budget deficits”

and added:

“I am very pleased that there is a very clear and binding commitment to accelerate the reduction in the deficit over the lifetime of the Parliament and to introduce additional measures this fiscal year to demonstrate the importance of getting to grips with that before running the risk of an adverse market reaction.”

How wise were those words and how welcome is such robustness from the Governor of the Bank of England. Indeed, one newspaper columnist has argued:

“That is why Bank of England independence, once a controversial idea, is now accepted across all parties and by both sides of industry.”

The columnist in question is, of course, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood, writing in the Wakefield Express.

[Ed Balls]

It is a great column!

[Michael Gove]

It is a great column and a great newspaper—never was a truer word said. It is against the backdrop of the terrible fiscal position left us by the previous Government, in which the right hon. Gentleman played such a distinguished part, that we have to make our judgments in this Queen’s Speech.

Hard times require tough choices, and we have chosen to put health and education first, not just in terms of spending, but in terms of reform. Unlike the last Prime Minister, we recognise that investment in the front line has to be matched with trust in the front line. That is why, in both health and education, we will devolve responsibility down—away from Whitehall towards schools and hospitals. Power will be taken out of the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, and placed in the hands of teachers, nurses and doctors.

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[Michael Gove]

I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but I must point out to him that £36.50 per teacher goes to fund the GTCE, and much of that money actually comes from the Department itself, although some comes from teachers as well. I believe that the money the Department currently spends supporting the GTCE should instead be spent on supporting the front line, because I believe that overall we need to ensure that money that is currently spent on resources such as bodies, institutions, protocols and frameworks that do not raise the quality of teaching and do not improve the experience of children in the classroom should be shifted so that it is spent in the right direction.

[Ed Balls]

Just for the record, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us how much he will save for the public purse by abolishing the GTCE?

[Michael Gove]

I have asked officials to calculate exactly how much we will save. [Interruption.] Well, we will bring forward legislation, but there is a sum of £36.50 for every teacher, which will save us hundreds of thousands of pounds. [Interruption.] Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the GTCE is the right organisation to keep in place? Does he believe that this money is better spent on the GTCE than in any other area? Does he believe that the hundreds of thousands of pounds that I think we should have spent on the front line should continue to be spent on that body?

[Michael Gove]

Some do, but many do not. It is precisely because the Department pays the fees for so many teachers—it pays £33 of the £36.50—that I have asked officials to work out how much we can save. If, instead of simply carrying on objecting to saving this money, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood wants to tell me how he would spend it, or whether he would keep the GTCE going, I would be delighted to hear from him.

[Ed Balls]

I remind the right hon. Gentleman that it is he who is now the Secretary of State, not I, and therefore he is the person who has to take the decisions and is responsible. It is not proper government for him to come to the House to make an announcement and for it to turn out that he has not even seen the advice on which the announcement has been made, and then for him airily to say, “Well, I think the figure is hundreds of thousands of pounds.” The right way to do it is to get the information first, then make the decisions, and then report them to the House; that is a better way of doing things.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his kind advice, but the one thing he has not done in his question—or statement, even—is point out whether he agrees with the policy. If he will tell me whether he agrees with it, I will be interested to hear his views. We do know, however, that money will be saved, and that introducing this change in respect of this organisation is in the interests of teachers and of making sure that money that is otherwise spent on bureaucratic bodies can be spent on the front line. [Interruption.] I have had the opportunity to read the advice, and I know that this is the right thing to do. [Interruption.] I would be interested in advice from the right hon. Gentleman about whether or not he thinks—

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[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) on his new role as Secretary of State for Education. It is a huge honour and a great privilege, but also a great responsibility.

I know that driving up education standards is a goal that we all share. The words “children” and “families” no longer appear in the name of his Department, but I hope that the Secretary of State and his Front-Bench team will commit themselves to giving every child the best start in life, and to breaking down all the barriers to the progress, safety and well-being of all children in our country. I can tell the House that, when the Secretary of State gets it right—when he acts to open up opportunities for more children and drive up standards for all—he will have our full support.

We did not agree on everything over the past three years—and neither does it seem that I will get his nomination in my party’s leadership election—but we always had an open and honest relationship. I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing him all the best in his new role.

I thank the Secretary of State for the generous remarks that he made about me, at least at the beginning of his speech. On behalf of all Ministers at the former DCSF in the last three years, I pay tribute to all those with whom we worked so closely to implement our children’s plan. I think that the right hon. Gentleman will find that the civil servants in his Department are the very best in Whitehall, and that his permanent secretary is second to none. He will also find that our country’s social workers, and those working for local authorities and in the voluntary sector, as well as those in the children’s and family services, are distinguished by their dedication and professionalism. He will discover too that, in our head teachers, teachers, teaching assistants and support staff, our country has the best generation of educators that it has ever had.

While I was worried by the new-found enthusiasm of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) for cutting the youth jobs fund, and for immediate and rather drastic cuts to local government spending this year, over the last three years he was a dedicated and wise spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats in opposition. I am sure that the whole House will join the Secretary of State in wishing him well, and I expect that we will see him back on the Front Bench at some point.

Indeed, the children and teachers of our country have rather more to thank the right hon. Member for Yeovil for than they probably realise. For the past two years in opposition, the new Education Secretary was unable to pledge to match our education spending for 2010-11, let alone for future years. We all know why: the former shadow Chancellor would not support him in making that pledge.

In this debate, we will hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), the shadow Health Secretary, who achieved great things in protecting our vital national health service for the future. He will set out why he fears that the reforms proposed by the Government in this Queen’s Speech will be a backward step for the NHS. The NHS and international development were protected by the then shadow Chancellor from spending cuts this year. In his speech, the Secretary of State tried to divert attention from the threat in future years to the schools and children’s budgets by pointing to our economic record.

For the record, first, it was our Government who made the Bank of England independent in the face of opposition from the Conservatives, and took the tough decisions to get our national debt down lower than that of France, Germany, Japan and America before the financial crisis. Secondly, it was our Government who led the worldwide effort to stop a global financial collapse turning recession into depression, again in the face of bitter and wrong-headed opposition from the Conservatives. While the right hon. Gentleman may now pray in aid the loyal support of the Governor of the Bank of England and the German Finance Ministry in advocating immediate and deflationary spending cuts to reduce the deficit faster this year, he and his Chancellor are out of step with worldwide opinion and are running grave risks with the recovery, jobs and our vital public services.

For the past two years, the right hon. Gentleman was unable to match our schools spending this year. Then came the intervention of the right hon. Member for Yeovil who, in the days after the general election, stepped in and saved the day by securing ring-fencing for 2010-11 for the schools budget. Let me give the Secretary of State some gentle advice based on experience. It is rather dangerous to rely on the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to fight his public spending battles for him. Moreover, with the right hon. Member for Yeovil now out of the Treasury, let me say to the Secretary of State—this may come as some surprise, although I mean it sincerely—that I stand ready. If he needs a little help with how to win arguments with the Treasury in the next couple of years, I am here to help.

In office, the Labour party achieved, as I think the right hon. Gentleman generously acknowledged, some good things in education over the past decade. We doubled spending per pupil, we had 42,000 more teachers and the biggest school building programme since the Victorian era, and we went from one in two schools not making the grade in 1997 to just one in 12. We had more young people staying on in school, college or an apprenticeship or going to university than at any time in our history. That is a record of which Labour can be very proud indeed.

However, in the tough current financial climate in which we need to get the deficit down steadily, I agreed last December with the Treasury that there would be rising spending above inflation for schools, Sure Start and 16-to-19 education not just for one year, but for three years to 2013 because I was determined to fight my corner for the future of the children and young people of our country. I can assure the Secretary of State, now that the roles are reversed and he, not me, is doing the negotiating, that if there is anything I can do to help him secure the best deal for children, schools and families, not just this year but in the next three years, I will play my part, although it is his responsibility.

From what we heard today, no assurances at all for 2012 and 2013 have been communicated to the right hon. Gentleman by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Nor does he seem to have received any assurance that the pupil premium, his free schools and his new academies will be met with additional funding from outside his departmental budget. I hope he has some assurances from the Chancellor. If I were in his place, I would make sure I had them in writing.

[Michael Gove]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman may have been otherwise engaged during Prime Minister’s questions, but the Prime Minister pointed out that funding for the pupil premium would come from outside the education budget.

[Ed Balls]

But I asked whether the funding for schools, Sure Start and 16-to-19 education would be guaranteed to match our rising spending above inflation in 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13. What we discovered from the right hon. Gentleman was that he does not have those assurances for the next two years—this year maybe, thanks to the right hon. Member for Yeovil, but for the next two years he said we would have to wait and see.

I shall come to the issue of funding. Given that the Secretary of State spoke for 50 minutes and rather a lot of hon. Members want to make their maiden speeches, I will be briefer, but I will take a couple of interventions and try to resist promising a meeting with the former Schools Minister.

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[Ed Balls]

Yes. Back in February, we thought that it was one of the shadow Schools Minister’s flights of fancy. We never realised that he was serious when it was suggested that, despite schools being almost at the point of signing the forms, when the work had been done and the contractors pretty much hired, at the last minute all would be put on hold. That dashes expectations for children and it takes away contracts and jobs. All we heard from the Secretary of State was that it was important that we built new free schools somewhere else. It is no satisfaction to know that there will be a new school down the road for some parents, if another school, which was planned to be rebuilt, is suddenly put on hold. That is a reality for 700-plus schools all round the country.

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Gentleman painted a devastating and damning picture of people who had been expecting capital funding but were denied it. That is exactly what happened under his Government, when the Learning and Skills Council left colleges unbuilt and denied principals cash. Precisely the picture that he paints, and which he says is bleak, was delivered under his Government.

[Ed Balls]

And the right hon. Gentleman is not the only one who can abolish quangos, but I have to say to him that back in 1997 no money was being spent on further education. There is £2 billion-plus being spent on further education capital projects now, so we are not going to take any lectures from the Conservatives on new school buildings or new further education colleges. Under their previous Governments, such schools and colleges were starved of resources.

Then we hear that, along with the free schools and the new academies, they are going to fund the new pupil premium. However, people will ask, “Where is the money going to come from?” I have seen some of the past advice, and I know how difficult it is to find the money to pay for such measures, so if I had to make an estimate I would say that an additional £1 billion a year is going to be needed if the pupil premium is to have any meaning.

Where will the cuts fall to pay for the pupil premium? Will the right hon. Gentleman scrap the extension of free school meals? Will he scale back one-to-one tuition and the Every Child a Reader programme? Will he cut education maintenance allowances? Will he cut the budgets for disabled children, for children in care, for youth services, for school sport and for school music? Will he scale back the 15-hour offer for three and four-year-olds? Will he abolish free nursery care for two-year-olds?

Where is the money going to come from? I do not expect answers today, but we will need answers soon. The difference between the right hon. Gentleman in opposition and now in government, as we found earlier, is that there is nowhere for him to hide. He will have to answer those questions and my advice is to him is, “Read the advice before you start making statements in the House,” because if he does not he will find that he gets into trouble very quickly indeed. Indeed, he can no longer rely on the right hon. Member for Yeovil being in the Treasury to bail him out on spending issues.

The right hon. Member for Yeovil might have ridden to the rescue to support the Secretary of State on protecting schools spending, but on other aspects of Conservative education policy he was withering: he called the right hon. Gentleman’s free schools policy a “nonsense”; he said that having a strict national curriculum for some schools while letting others opt out was “dotty”; and we all recall his views on the elitist policy whereby only people with a 2:2 or above would be allowed to go into teacher training. The new Schools Minister, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), seemed to go even further down the elitist road in recent weeks. He said:

“I would rather have a…graduate from Oxbridge with no PGCE teaching than a…graduate from one of the rubbish universities with a PGCE.”

We need to know whether that is a statement of Government policy. If so, which are those “rubbish” universities? We need to see a list.

I agree with the Minister for Universities and Science, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr Willetts)—I hope the Secretary of State does, too—that we can be proud of our university sector in all its diversity. My advice to the Education Secretary is, disown the Schools Minister—it probably will not be the last time that he has to do so during this Parliament—and join me in saying that we welcome as teachers excellent graduates from all our universities.

Whatever university the Secretary of State attended, however, he is a very intelligent man, and I know that he will be delighted, as always, to show us all once again just how very, very clever he is. For that reason, I have prepared for him another Queen’s Speech quiz. I know how much he enjoyed the last one, but given the Schools Minister’s presence why do we not play “University Challenge”?

Here is their starter for 10—no conferring on the Front Bench. Who this weekend said:

“The free schools are generally attended by children of better educated and wealthy families making things even more difficult for children attending ordinary schools in poor areas”?

Gove, Lady Margaret Hall? It was Mr Ostberg, Mr Bertil Ostberg, as the right hon. Gentleman should know, the Swedish Education Minister.

Let us try again. I have an easier one this time. Here is their starter for 10—definitely no conferring at all this time. Who in April described the new Conservative-Liberal Government’s proposed free schools policy as a “shambles” and went on to say:

“Unless you give local authorities that power to plan and unless you actually make sure that there is money available…it’s just a gimmick”?

I am going to have to hurry them. Yes, Teather, St John’s, Cambridge. It was in fact the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), the new Minister for Children and Families. In recent months, the Education Secretary’s new Front-Bench colleague has made some notable speeches—notable in retrospect, at least. Back in March, she told the Liberal Democrat spring conference:

“The Tories don’t know what they are talking about. They have no idea how the other 90% live. Scratch the surface and the old Tory party is alive and well.”

[Interruption.] There is more. She also told her party conference last September that the Tories’

“only motivation is that they think it’s their turn. They don’t really think they can make things better. All they believe is that they have a right to rule.”

Of course, they are ruling only because the hon. Lady and her Liberal Democrat colleagues put them into power. I only wish I was attending the ministerial team meetings to see the sparks fly. There is a serious point here. As we now know, on education policy this Government are divided from the start. It is not only the new Minister who needs to be persuaded that this new-schools policy is not an uncosted shambles, to use her word.

It will be no surprise to the Secretary of State that we Labour Members have very serious reservations about his lurch in education and academies policy. It is reported that he has written to 2,600 outstanding schools, inviting them to become what he calls academies. They are told that they will get extra funds—funds that are currently being spent on special needs, school food, transport and shared facilities such as music lessons, libraries or sports facilities. At no point in his proposal does the Secretary of State explain the impact that that may have on other local schools.

Where our academy policy gave extra resources and flexibility to the lowest-performing schools, the new Secretary of State proposes to give extra money to his favoured schools by taking money away from the rest. Where our academies went ahead with the agreement of parents as well as of local authorities, the new Secretary of State is proposing in legislation to abolish any obligation on schools to consult anyone at all before they become academies—no one will be consulted, including parents and local authorities.

We brought in external sponsors such as universities to raise aspirations, but we were clear that profit-making companies were not welcome to sponsor academies. However, the right hon. Gentleman is abolishing the requirement to have sponsors at all and encouraging private companies to tout around the country to parents, offering their services for profit to provide education. Our academies were non-selective schools in the poorest communities, but his new academies will be disproportionately in more affluent areas and he will allow selective schools, for the first time, to become academies too. Where we used accredited schools groups to encourage school-to-school collaboration to raise standards, he is allowing schools to opt out and go it alone.

The policy is not an extension or even a radical reshaping; it is a complete perversion of the academies programme that the right hon. Gentleman inherited and that my noble Friend Lord Adonis and I drove through in government. It is not a progressive policy for education in the 21st century, but a return to the old grant-maintained school system of the 1990s. It will not break the link between poverty and deprivation, but entrench that unfairness even further, with extra resources and support going not to those who need it most, but to those who are already ahead. My very real fear is that that will lead to not only chaos and confusion, but deep unfairness and a return to a two-tier education policy as the Secretary of State clears local authorities out of the way and then encourages a chaotic free market in school places.

I am not the only one who is concerned. Let me quote the chair of the Local Government Association, Margaret Eaton. I am sorry; I should have said the new Conservative peer Baroness Eaton, who said:

“Safeguards will be needed to ensure a two-tier education system is not allowed to develop”.

Those are very wise words, and such concerns are widespread in local government and across the school system. Will schools that do not become academies pay financially for those that do? Will the admissions code apply to new academies and be properly enforced? Will academies co-operate, as now, on behaviour policy, or will the Secretary of State allow high-performing schools to exclude pupils as a first resort, without any role for local authorities, Ofsted or children’s trusts? Will he step in if things go wrong in what will be a massively centralised education system and how can he reassure us that disadvantaged children will not lose disproportionately from the resources for wider children’s services that will be transferred from local authorities to high-performing opt-out schools, as they take the money away with them? Those are the questions to which we will want answers. We will return to these issues in much greater detail in the coming weeks as he tries to rush his Bill on to the statute book.

I want to make clear to the House what sort of Opposition we will be on education and children’s services. There are cuts that have to be made, and we will support them, as I did before the election in outlining cuts to a range of non-departmental bodies. When the right hon. Gentleman gets it right, we will support him. When he is genuinely supported by teachers and parents, we will support him too. On some of the very difficult issues that will pass across his desk—some of the most sensitive issues that the Government have to deal with on a daily basis, as I know—he will have our understanding and our support. However, I have to say to him that every school building that this Government cancel, this Opposition will fight against tooth and nail; every programme vital to ensuring that every child succeeds, this Opposition will defend; and every individual child’s future that this Government put in jeopardy through their programme of immediate cuts, whether directly by abolishing the child trust fund or indirectly by attacking local government funding, this Opposition will oppose. That is because we believe that every child matters, not just every other child. The right hon. Gentleman may have changed his Department’s name, but we will not let him duck his responsibilities.