Out-of-school Education Settings

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the proposed regulation of out-of-school education settings.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner, and to welcome such an excellent Minister, dedicated to school standards, and an even more excellent Opposition spokesman—I say that in the hope that they might be nice when they sum up.

How have we come to a situation in which a Conservative Government are proposing that a parish church must register with Ofsted before it can teach children the Bible for more than a few hours? The Department for Education’s consultation—I emphasise that it is a consultation—on its plans for out-of-school settings is well intentioned enough. Nobody denies that. When Sir Michael Wilshaw goes on the radio to defend them, he tells us about children

“at risk of abuse and at risk of radicalisation.”

We all have those concerns, but why does tackling abuse and radicalisation in a very tiny number of madrassahs mean that every voluntary group in England that instructs children for six or more hours a week has to register with the state? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education told Radio 4 that she thought the number of problem institutions could be numbered in the tens. Why, then, are we requiring tens of thousands of totally innocent groups to register with the state?

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

Does my hon. Friend remember that when we were in opposition, we opposed the then Labour Government’s ContactPoint database precisely because it sought to capture information on every child in the country? We said, “No, it should be proportionate. We should capture the information on children at risk, not every child.” Why does he think that that principle is not being applied in this case?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend makes his point very well, and I agree entirely that the Government should capture information only on the very small number of children who are at risk.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

rose—

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Ladies first.

[Mrs Gillan]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate him on securing the debate. This issue has caused great concern among my constituents, particularly Rev. Simon Cansdale, who leads our churches in Chesham. He makes the point that surely we should be the Government who are responsible for wiping away red tape and disincentives for voluntary organisations to carry out this sort of work, but we appear to be putting more red tape in the way and creating more disincentives for them. As far as I am concerned, the proposals could even apply to, for example, teaching children music for recitals or outdoor skills, or to any sort of activity such as singing songs or reading out stories to young children. Surely it is verging on the ridiculous and should be swept away.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

rose—

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. Before Sir Edward continues—

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Yes, your intervention was too long, as you say.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It may have been too long, but it was very good, Mr Turner. Of course it is ridiculous. It is an attack on the big society. These voluntary groups are precisely what the Prime Minister was trying to create. There is no point regulating them.

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Just seven months ago he proudly stood on a Conservative manifesto, which, on page 61, stated that the Conservative party would

“reject any suggestions of sweeping, authoritarian measures that would threaten our hard-won freedoms.”

Does he believe that the proposals fit in with that promise?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Exactly. How proudly I stood on that manifesto. [Laughter.]

Returning to my speech, if the number of problem institutions could be numbered in the tens, why should all these voluntary groups be subject to inspection by Ofsted? Why does that mean that churches could have inspectors deciding whether their doctrine meets the “British values” test? Why should totally moderate, mainstream mosques and madrassahs have to register on a list of potential extremists?

The DFE says that an out-of-school education setting is

“any institution providing tuition, training or instruction to children aged under 19 in England”.

Exceptions are schools, colleges, and registered childcare providers. The Government talk about “intensive education”. That sounds bad—like it has a controlling influence on children—but the document says it is

“anything which entails an individual child attending a setting for more than between 6 to 8 hours a week”.

It says that that could be an hour or so every day after school.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I speak as somebody who even this coming weekend will be engaged in working with young people in a Sunday school. Does my hon. Friend think that, even if we normally do one or two hours a week, the proposals will apply if we take the children away for a weekend, which will be far more than six hours?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is a very good question and is precisely what the Minister needs to respond to, because the proposals could apply and we want to know the answer.

Huge numbers of groups have the kind of contact with young people that we are discussing. They will all have to register as part of a scheme designed for spotting a few Islamic extremists. It sounds a bit excessive, doesn’t it? The DFE is clear that it has in mind

“activities and education for children in many subjects including arts, language, music, sport and religion”.

This scheme for spotting jihadists is therefore going to impose state regulation on groups teaching arts, music and sport, activities in which jihadists are not particularly known to engage. Stalin used to persecute innocent groups of philatelists or Esperanto learners; is this a very British kind of Stalinism? Members will be thinking of the many scout troops, sports teams, youth groups, churches, conservation groups and after-school clubs in their constituencies. They will all have to register, even though we can say with a high degree of certainty that none of them—none of them—are poisoning young minds with extremism.

The Scout Association has contacted me to say that the

“proposed threshold is neither helpful, nor workable”

and that “sufficient scrutiny already exists”. Of course, that is right. One does feel sorry for the association. It is hard enough nowadays to get volunteers to give up their free time to run scout groups, without more over-regulation.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Like, I am sure, many others present, I have had to go through the process of a Criminal Records Bureau check, which is now a Disclosure and Barring Service check. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an important but onerous process? Sometimes, one has to be checked more than once, because it does not transfer to another activity that one might undertake with children if one is foolish enough to do a full weekend with the Sunday school. It is a very rigorous process, and if it was applied to the people who teach children Islam in all teaching environments, it would be a very good tool to deal with any excess problem that there might be.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. We should be using DBS checks if, for instance, people are trying to teach extremism, jihadism or whatever in an out-of-school setting or at home. We should use intelligence and existing powers to deal with the problem, not try to take a great sledgehammer to crack a nut.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. My constituents are concerned about the additional burden not only on volunteers, who do incredible work up and down the country, but on Ofsted. They are concerned about whether Ofsted has the capacity and the resources to implement the proposals, and about what the costs might be.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I believe that Ofsted has neither the capacity nor the resources. It should concentrate on its job of ensuring good educational standards.

The DFE consultation document also mentions settings that are used during school holidays. Clearly, summer camps were in view. The Department now says that “one off residential activities” will not be covered. Fair enough. The body charged with registration is the local authority, but I am afraid we have seen enough local authorities banning Christmas and pulling funding from church groups to know that there will be places where relationships between local churches and the council are not friendly.

Apparently, out-of-school settings will be

“eligible for investigation, and if appropriate, intervention where concerns were reported”.

Investigation? Intervention? This is pretty intrusive stuff. The Government say that all this has

“the broad aim of keeping children safe generally from the risk of harm, including emotional harm”.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. I speak as somebody who, like other Members, has run residential courses like those that have been mentioned. Does he agree that we might end up with all the good, diligent organisations registering, while the ones we are trying to crack down on will not bother registering at all?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is precisely the point, and I will come to it in a moment. Extremists will not register and will not talk about cutting off people’s heads when the Ofsted inspector is around.

Emotional harm is a vague concept. Atheists such as Richard Dawkins say it is “mental abuse” to teach children that the Bible is true. Does the Department agree? I am sure not. Do some Ofsted inspectors agree? I hope not.

The system includes a requirement to “register”, a power for Ofsted to inspect and a power to impose sanctions, including barring people from working with children and closing premises. Although the consultation process was, I believe, inadequate, the Department received thousands of responses, because people, especially Christian groups, are really worried. They are terrified because, for the first time, Ofsted will decide whether to bar someone or close down their youth work by assessing whether their teaching is

“compatible with, and does not undermine, fundamental British values.”

The Department says that prohibited activities will include:

“Undesirable teaching, for example teaching which undermines or is incompatible with fundamental British values.”

Does the Department really have a right to decide what is desirable and undesirable teaching in churches? Many groups focus on hobbies, sports, music, the outdoors —things that have no relevance whatever to British values. The truth is that those thousands of hobby groups are being forced to register only so the system looks even-handed. That is the point: the Government are terrified of not looking even-handed, and therefore they are bringing in all those other harmless groups.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on making a characteristically forthright speech that is based on common sense. Does he agree that the state has tools to address such issues in a risk-based way? We do it all the time with immigration and policing. Clearly, if there are risks, we should have a risk-based, proportionate approach based on common sense.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That sums it up very well. All the tools are there, and I will list them in a moment. They are based on risk.

The DFE’s real target, as we all know, is religious teaching; let us be honest about that. The major problem is that many religious groups do not have confidence in Ofsted. I led a debate last year on the treatment of certain Church and Jewish schools. I will not repeat all I said on that occasion. I mentioned the particular problems that Orthodox Jewish schools are having; I read out letters from pupils at a Christian school; I mentioned St Benedict’s Catholic School in leafy Bury St Edmunds, which was accused of not doing enough to tackle radicalisation; I mentioned Middle Rasen School in my constituency, which, according to Ofsted, is not British enough. I will not repeat those points, but they are on the record.

The Catholic Education Service does not oppose the plans, but it has a number of concerns, including the risk of

“Vexatious complaints and the use of the system as a means of pursuing critical objectives”.

Ofsted told Trinity Christian School in Reading to invite leaders of other faiths to lead collective worship and actively to promote other faiths. Ofsted denies it, but why would the school make it up? I am afraid that Ofsted has a reputation for being unfair to some Christian and Jewish schools. When inspectors went into the Birmingham non-faith schools that were part of the Trojan horse Islamist plot, they first rated them as “outstanding”. One of the key figures in the scandal was an Ofsted inspector, so it hardly has a stellar record of spotting extremism. Yesterday, I talked to Sir Michael Wilshaw, who is a very reasonable, able man and is clearly doing his best. I have no doubt that he has worked hard in the past year with his resources to root out radical jihadism, but because he has to look even-handed, he has to take part in this activity of controlling thousands of other group.

Are British values the answer? One only has to say the phrase now and people roll their eyes. The consultation paper says that British values include

“democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”

That is too vague to provide a basis for state inspection of churches and scout groups. It is also sloppy. We cannot show respect and tolerance for all beliefs. Jihadism is a belief, and we certainly do not respect that.

The Government admit that their out-of-school plans will create a new burden on providers—the understatement of the year—but I do not think they have any idea of how big the bureaucratic monster they are creating is. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations—hardly an extremist group—says that there are more than 160,000 voluntary organisations in the UK. Many of them work with children and young people. For 37,000 of them, it is their core work. The NCVO counts only registered charities, but a vast amount of voluntary work is done without the formality of setting up a charity, so there are many thousands more groups not included in the NCVO figures.

I have several questions that I hope the Minister will reply to. How will those tens of thousands of bodies be notified of the new obligation to register, given that some of them do not even have a permanent address? Whose responsibly will it be in the setting, especially if the group is informal and has no structure? What about venues with different groups operating on the same premises? How will ad hoc groups calculate whether they breach the six-hour threshold? How many will be forced to register just in case? How will they know what Ofsted is looking for if they ever get a visit? How will they prepare for a visit? Can football be played in a non-British values compliant way? Can a conservation club be intolerant? Should martial arts clubs be worried?

The whole thing is a ridiculous mess that will severely damage the big society—our big idea. Some groups will cut their provision to less than six hours to avoid having to register, and some will close down altogether. Groups that rely on teachers as volunteers will be especially vulnerable because teachers will not want to risk their career by being involved in an amateur outfit that might slip up with Ofsted. It is the children who will suffer, not us, Ofsted or the Government. There will be less provision, which means that in future there will be fewer footballers, swimmers, linguists, artists and other high-flyers, all because of this bizarre, unfocused, ill-thought-out, politically correct imposition on our freedom.

[Mrs Gillan]

I am also greatly worried about the cost and burden that the scheme will place on our already squeezed local authorities and on the Government. More taxpayers’ money will be spent on the scheme, and I think it would be unreasonable to expect local government to meet the cost.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

From talking to our local councillors, we know that the last thing we should do is impose more burdens on them.

To top it all, the scheme will not make children any safer from extremism; it will just tie up thousands of non-jihadi groups in red tape. The idea that jihadists will take the time to register is incredibly naive. Islamist extremists regard our laws as a total irrelevance. If they have no conscience about teaching children that Jews and Christians are worse than dogs, does anyone seriously think they will have a conscience about registering with the local authority? Are they really going to put themselves on the radar for an inspection? If they beat up children for not memorising the Koran, do we really think they are going to put their hands up and say, “Here we are—come and inspect us”? If Ofsted turns up to assess them, does anybody think that they would use the occasion to show their ghastly videos?

If we want to find extremists groups that put children at risk, we have to use good old-fashioned intelligence. We spend a huge amount of money on the intelligence services. We have to rely on intelligence, surveillance, common sense and the bravery of members of the public who blow the whistle on such groups, including the many good Muslims who are fed up with this, frankly, and the good Muslim mothers who do not want their children to go to such places.

We should use existing laws, of which there are plenty. If these groups urge children to do things that break the law, we should prosecute them for encouraging the commission of a criminal offence under section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007. If the children are at risk of significant harm, we should get a prohibited steps order or a supervision order under the Children Act 1989. If the premises are dangerous, we should invoke health and safety law to close them down. If it is really an unregistered school, we should use the Education and Skills Act 2008 to close it down, as the DFE did last week to a school in Stamford Hill. We have the powers, and we should use them to deal with the genuine cases.

This out-of-school setting scheme is a total and utter distraction. We will end up with a list of tens of thousands of law-abiding, non-extremist groups, and Ofsted inspectors will try to justify their existence by picking on the occasional conservative religious group and brand them non-compliant with British values. It is a typical case of politicians and civil servants wanting to look as if they are doing something, rather than actually doing something. If they actually want to do something, they need to knock together the heads of the police, social services departments, Ofsted and all those with existing powers to make them use those powers properly.

This scheme is fundamentally illiberal. It is big government at its worst. It would do little or no discernible good, and an awful lot of harm, leading to false allegations. Ofsted knows that false allegations against teachers are a massive problem in the profession. A system based on “British values” and “undesirable” teaching is ripe for subjective, exaggerated and politically-motivated complaints, especially against religious groups. This will generate false flags and waste time. Finding extremists is already like finding a needle in a haystack. This system will just make the haystack much bigger.

Sir Michael Wilshaw tried to justify the new plans on LBC Radio last week by citing cases of unregistered schools where children were

“living in appalling conditions in a filthy environment where there was homophobic literature, anti-Semitic literature and misogynistic literature”.

That summarises the difficulty. On the one hand, it identifies real problems such as educating children in filthy conditions, but talks about those problems as if we cannot tackle them without a new law. That is not true. We do not need a new scheme to do that. On the other hand, Sir Michael Wilshaw raises issues that involve highly subjective judgments, such as what constitutes “homophobia” and “misogyny”. People routinely use words such as homophobic and misogynistic to describe the contents of holy books of all religions. One can bet there are Ofsted inspectors who take that approach. I half wonder whether the homophobic, misogynistic and anti-Semitic literature found at unregistered schools was just some religion’s holy book. There is some pretty blood-curdling stuff in the holy books of all religions.

I absolutely accept that no religious person has the right to impose any violent language on anybody else, but we are talking about religious people. It does not matter whether they are Hindu, Sikh, Muslim or Christian —they believe their holy book. I am not saying that anyone has the right to enforce their holy book on others, but they do have a right to say that they believe that their religion is right and that others are wrong. That is why they are religious. That is real diversity and pluralism—not this ridiculous situation in which we all have to pretend that we believe the same thing.

The Minister may tell us that the Government have no intention of registering Sunday schools, chiefly because they do not like the sound of the headline, but Sir Michael Wilshaw told the LBC Radio audience last week that Sunday schools would have to register. He is right because Sunday school provision is just one aspect of a church’s work with young people. If a child spends two hours at Sunday school, another two hours at a youth group on Wednesday, and another two hours in choir practice on Friday, they have spent six hours receiving tuition and training from the church. It may have involved three different groups with three different sets of volunteers but it is all in one setting, so that church will have to register. Its Sunday school workers, youth group leaders and choir masters are all liable to British values inspections.

In 1787, it was estimated that a quarter of a million children were enrolled in Sunday schools. They were mainly non-conformist. Frightened by the French revolution, the then Archbishop of Canterbury denounced Sunday schools as “nurseries of fanaticism”. Prime Minister William Pitt almost introduced a Bill prohibiting the dangerous innovation—plus ça change. In conclusion, the Department must think again before it unleashes a whirlwind of destructive over-regulation on the voluntary sector.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I am struck by the parallel with the registration proposals of the previous Labour Government for home education. The thought was, “There could be a problem. We don’t have enough data. We don’t know what’s going on. There could be issues—children could be being abused in their homes. So we must register every single parent,” even though the long-standing settlement was to respect that parents have the duty to educate their children, not the state. This is creeping statism.

I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) not to add me to the list, but I am someone of no faith and there are lots of people in the Chamber with faith. This proposal seems to me a gross infringement of so many rights, including the rights of Muslims, and in a free society we need to respect families of whatever denomination and recognise where the line should be drawn by the Government, notwithstanding the risks.

If we go back, we think of the reds under the bed. It was not that there was not a clear and present danger from communism; it was the fact that a disproportionate, illiberal and un-American response was inappropriate. We can think back to when the leader of the Catholic Church—Islam has no such leader—was clearly opposed to the society and Government of this country, yet we recognised that Catholics were predominantly law-abiding and needed to be respected.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Only predominantly?

[Graham Stuart]

Nearly exclusively. It is exactly the same issue.

I make one final point. If we go ahead with this, it will have the opposite effect on safety to what is intended. Forget all the other points my colleagues have made about how it will break down volunteering and all the rest of what is good—what about targeting Islamic extremism? If we take an organisation such as Ofsted, whose budget has been falling consistently over time—local authorities are in the same position—and ask it to register everyone, it will spend its entire time trying to do that and it will fail to get to the real problem.

With the Labour proposals on home education, we knew that the people who were really troublesome would never register and would evade the authorities with ease. Everyone else—every law-abiding, committed family—would be put through the hoops and subjected to a state imposition that was clearly and utterly inappropriate. That is what we risk here.

I have changed my mind on this proposal. At first, I thought it could be proportionate and reasonable, but I do not think it can be, so let us not do it. ContactPoint was wrong, and so is this—let us put a stop to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

In conclusion, I thank the perhaps up to 20 people—friends and colleagues from all parties—who have turned up this morning. It is not often that we have a debate such as this in Westminster Hall, and we have heard some very powerful speeches and very powerful points.

I will sum it all up: we have sacrificed too much of our liberty in the name of equality, so I beg the Minister to bear in mind the places that are under the radar, as the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) mentioned. Bear in mind the cumulative hours. Bear in mind that there is very little extremism—indeed none at all—ever practised in Methodist Sunday schools. This is the point we are making, and we are doing so powerfully and strongly. We are not a party that intends to further state regulation and control; we are a party of liberty, freedom and religious tolerance. I will leave it there.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

School Expansion

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I really do not know where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. The whole point of this is that it is about parental choice. [Interruption.] Families can absolutely choose; there is no compulsion to attend a grammar school. As I have already said, Trinity free school and the Knole academy will be nearby. There will be other schools as well. There is no contradiction. We are very clear: we believe in parental choice and we believe in excellent education for all.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

This is an important statement because a legal precedent has been set; it will be very difficult to stop any good school setting up an annexe if it can prove it can carry on the same ethos, and I would welcome that. I want to ask the Secretary of State about the funding point, however, which is much more important than one extra annexe. Because of the equalisation of funding of successful schools with large sixth forms—not just grammar schools—the funding of grammar schools has declined precipitously in relation to other schools. The best performing grammar school in Lincolnshire gets only £3,000 per head per year whereas the worst performing comprehensive, which nobody wants to go to, gets £7,000 per head per year. This is simply not fair. I have asked the Secretary of State in Adjournment debates and in meetings to address this: will she do so?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend very much indeed. He will know our party gave a clear commitment in our manifesto to fairer funding, and he will also know that we are working on it. I cannot comment on anything ahead of the spending review, but we are all aware of the need to look at this and make the funding fairer, which is why we invested £390 million in this financial year and the last financial year to try to get towards a fairer funding system, but there is further work to do.

Education and Adoption Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight such issues, particularly the important role played by the city council. Manchester is at the vanguard of the right hon. Lady’s Government’s programme for devolution. Indeed, some might argue that the leaders of Greater Manchester are closer in outlook to the Chancellor than she is. Why is she not part of that agenda? Instead she is taking education in the opposite direction.

Secondly, had the Secretary of State looked further into the history of the Manchester Enterprise academy, she would have found out what any local representative, such as my hon. Friend, or education professional in the city could have told her—that it took many years after academisation for the school to be turned around. There were leadership changes, financial problems and low attainment for many years after it became an academy. It was not academisation in and of itself that improved the school, but a range of interventions, many of which have been more recent than its academisation.

Thirdly, as the Secretary of State cited this example on Second Reading, I wonder whether she is aware of the school’s results this year. Through no fault of its own—indeed, the school continues to go from strength to strength—its GCSE results this year dropped by 9%. As she may be aware, as in many deprived and challenging parts of the country, the new system of comparative results means that no matter how hard the school works and how excellent the teaching is, results can fall as grade boundaries change, making the gap impossible to close. That comparative results system, with its constantly changing grade boundaries, may result in excellent schools, such as the Manchester Enterprise academy, being labelled as coasting. Has she considered the consequences of that? She will also be aware that schools face a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, particularly in maths and science. That, too, could affect a school’s results through no fault of its own.

The Secretary of State’s example highlights my bigger point. Despite having a whole Department working on her speech and sourcing examples, no one brought the real situation of the academy to her attention. Local representatives could have told her about it. That only highlights the difficult job that she has in being solely responsible for thousands of schools. This Bill and the Secretary of State miss the most fundamental point: we need to devolve oversight for all schools to a level where support, collaboration and accountability can happen effectively. The Bill rejects that and her regional schools commissioners fall well short.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

There are 2,024 maintained Catholic schools in England and 386 Catholic academies. As the hon. Lady is speaking on behalf of the new Labour Front-Bench team, may I ask her to pay tribute to our faith schools and assure us that the Labour party is fully committed to their continued existence? In the context of the Bill, will she commit her party to ensuring that if, sadly, an interim executive board has to be appointed, the religious nature of such a school will be preserved?

[Lucy Powell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I reiterate the Labour party’s commitment to faith schools. As he raises the input of Catholic schools, he may be interested to hear that they are opposed to many aspects of the Bill, as we highlighted in Committee. In particular, they are very much opposed to clause 7.

I will spend the coming months listening, responding and developing and setting a course for an ambitious vision for education in this country—something that the Bill fails in. The Bill takes school oversight and parental involvement backwards, and further demonises local authority schools. That is why we will oppose it. It is also a huge missed opportunity for a newly returned majority Government. The Secretary of State has the best and most important job in this country. Is this Bill the best she can do? If I had any doubt as to why the Bill is before us this evening, I do not after reading her interview in The Daily Telegraph this morning. It is clear that the Secretary of State’s primary interest is not raising standards and supporting pupils, parents and teachers; it is narrow political tactics aimed at the Labour party. I am afraid that that is quite a sad and pathetic development.

Education Regulations and Faith Schools

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that Ofsted should respect the ability of faith schools to teach their core beliefs in the context of respect and toleration for others.

Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing the time of these debates, and a number of colleagues, including the hon. Members for Southport (John Pugh) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), would have liked to have taken part in this important debate, but they have unmissable commitments in their constituencies. I am grateful to those of my colleagues who are here to support me.

Faith schools do a marvellous job. That is why parents love them, and I am one of those parents. Of course, when we say faith schools, we are overwhelmingly talking about Church schools. In the state sector there are almost 7,000 faith schools, of which 4,500 are Church of England, almost 2,000 are Catholic, 48 are Jewish, 18 Muslim, eight Sikh and four Hindu. Last year, of the 693 best performing state primary schools, 62% were faith schools—a staggering percentage—even though they account for only a third of primaries nationally.

Church schools are great motors of social mobility. They perform well whatever the background of the pupils. Faith schools are ethnically diverse. About a quarter of pupils of faith schools have an ethnic background other than white British. In my son’s school it is over 60%. Far from preaching intolerance, these schools, because of their strong, unifying, religious ethos, do more for social cohesion than a thousand Home Office initiatives.

Many people’s experience of the Church of England or Roman Catholic school at the end of their road is that it is a delightful haven of well-behaved pupils from all backgrounds and highly motivated teachers putting their heart and soul into the school and its community. But it is faith schools that are under attack from the forces of intolerance, so we must recognise their great contribution and encourage them to carry on doing what they are doing so well.

Groups such as the British Humanist Association would like to ban faith schools. They do no seem to care how much parents and pupils love them or how well they perform—the very definition of intolerance. They try to smear faith schools with what happened in Birmingham with the Trojan horse scandal, but we all know that none of the Trojan horse schools was a faith school. Faith schools should hold their heads up high and not engage in the pre-emptive cringe and kowtow to the latest fashion. They should stand by the principles that have made them such a success: love of God and neighbour, pursuit of truth, high aspiration and discipline.

We do not want any dumbing down. Jewish schools should teach the Jewish religion, and Christian schools should teach the Christian religion. That is likely to give their pupils a better idea of their place in the world, of their potential and of their obligations to others. Yes, they should learn about other religions, which is necessary not only for being a good citizen, but for being culturally aware, but that can take place in the context of the school’s faith ethos. Of course pupils can accept or reject the school’s world view, whether religious or secular. There are plenty of Christians in secular schools and plenty of atheists in Christian schools. The law guarantees freedom of conscience. But by the same token, governors, teachers, parents and pupils who want a religious education also have freedom of conscience, and we must guard their freedoms carefully.

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

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Does he agree that what is important is the teaching of religious education in all schools so that all children can understand religions and non-religions as they progress through school? We should have proper RE teachers to give young people the wide breadth of knowledge they need to understand everyone else in the country and all those who live in their communities.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, of course I agree. It is very important that RE is a rigid academic discipline. Children must be aware of other faiths and of comparative religion, but they must also have a firm grounding in their own faith’s teachings, because that gives them a sense of belonging and place.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman rightly talks about the need for a firm grounding. Is not the line that must be drawn that no taxpayer-funded school should ever be involved in proselytising or indoctrination?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I absolutely agree. I mentioned the thousands of Church of England and Roman Catholic schools. I do not think that there is any evidence that any of those schools are creating Christian jihadists. I have six children, and they have attended faith schools in the state and private sectors. The thought that any of those primary schools in the maintained sector, whether Catholic or Anglican, is teaching intolerance is completely absurd.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

The hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) mentioned the importance of understanding other faiths. Is that not the critical factor? We should all understand other faiths and schools should teach an understanding of other faiths, but that is very different from promoting other faiths in a faith school.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Absolutely. The cornerstone—may I dare use that word?—of faith schools is that they start from their own religion, and what do all of the great world religions teach? They teach understanding, tolerance and love of God and neighbour, so nobody should be teaching intolerance.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

In Windsor we have some really excellent faith schools as well as secular schools—a good mix. I have observed that the pupils who go through the faith schools are equally open minded and tolerant as those in the secular schools.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The evidence for that is absolutely overwhelming.

I now want to turn to Ofsted and the terms of this motion. It may be that the time has come for Ofsted to put itself in special measures, in certain respects. It appears to be guilty of trying to enforce a kind of state-imposed orthodoxy on certain moral and religious questions. This has provoked huge controversy and has rarely been out of the news. We have to ask whether we can any longer have confidence in Ofsted’s reports. Ofsted’s own director of schools, Sean Harford, has admitted that the reliability of inspections is a problem. Sadly, Ministers deflect every question by saying, “It’s a matter for Ofsted.” Perhaps Ofsted is out of control because it is not being held accountable by the Department. That is why we are having this debate.

In September, the National Association of Jewish Orthodox Schools wrote to the Secretary of State complaining that Ofsted inspectors asked hugely inappropriate questions and bullied their pupils into answering insensitive and anti-religious questions.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Jonathan Rabson, who is chairman of NAJOS in my constituency, has said:

“Jewish schools now have the sense that our Jewish values and ethos are being questioned. We have experienced a campaign to discredit Jewish schools and to challenge the values we espouse…We ask you to take this matter extremely seriously.”

Does my hon. Friend agree that Jewish people feel under attack as a result of Ofsted?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Absolutely. It is no secret that I admire enormously the Jewish religion and the ethos that it creates. What a pity that one of the school’s year 11 girls said that the questioning made them feel “threatened and bullied” about their own religion. Another young girl said that she felt “traumatised” after they had been asked whether they had a boyfriend, knew how babies were made, and knew whether two men could marry. Rabbi David Meyer, the incoming director of the educational oversight body, Partnerships for Jewish Schools, has said:

“We are seeing a worrying trend of Ofsted inspectors showing a lack of respect of the values and traditions of our community.”

I fully support the right of Jewish schools to promote their own ethos and religion.

Let us turn to some other schools. In 2013, St Benedict’s Catholic school in Bury St Edmunds tied for first place in national state school tables for the proportion of pupils going to Oxbridge. What a marvellous school! In September 2014, it was subject to a no-notice inspection. No-notice inspections were part of the response to the Trojan horse scandal. Clearly Ofsted thought that there could be a fundamentalist Catholic conspiracy within St Benedict’s Catholic school. No-notice inspections are quite devastating for the school. Ofsted turns up, rings up, and says, “We’re in the car park. We’re coming in now.” It usually happens because it suspects that something quite serious is going on. The head teacher of St Benedict’s thought that perhaps a no-notice inspection was started because he had not printed a statement on citizenship, although he does not know. The resulting draft report downgraded the school to “requires improvement”. It said that in three of the five inspection areas, the

“younger students show less awareness of the dangers of extremism and radicalisation”.

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

I am surprised that Bury St Edmunds is a place where these things are taught.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am very surprised that Bury St Edmunds, of all places, is possibly a centre of extremism and radicalisation. That is not the town that I know.

The idea that Catholics are being radicalised in state schools is as ridiculous as it is offensive. The local reaction forced Ofsted to remove the offending phrase, but the downgrading remained in place. This suggests that once Ofsted has decided that a school does not support “British values”, it will mark it down in all areas. The unreality of its report was underlined when the exam results for St Benedict’s were finally published. At A-level, the school was placed in the top 100 schools nationally, state and private. Its GCSEs, too, put it among the best performing schools in Suffolk. The Catholic Education Service took the rare step of demanding an apology from Ofsted. Anybody who knows the Catholic Education Service will know that it is not an extremist body, by any manner of means—it is very quiet and restrained. Why have the inspectors who handed this ridiculous report never been brought to account?

Let us look at Trinity Christian school in Reading. It wrote to the Secretary of State in October 2014 after Ofsted had failed the school under “British values”, whatever they are. In November 2013, the school had been rated good in every category, and its spiritual education was deemed excellent. That report said:

“Pupils are well prepared for life in modern, multicultural, democratic British society through the teaching of the Christian principle to ‘love thy neighbour’.”

However, the inspection in October 2014 predominantly focused on the new rules on British values, which had come into force a week earlier. The inspector expressed doubts over the continued existence of the school—I stress, its continued existence—because of its non-compliance with the new rules. She stated that the representatives of other faiths should be invited to lead collective worship, and that the school must “actively promote” other faiths. That is directly antithetical to the school’s Christian ethos. There would be justified outrage if Ofsted demanded that secular or atheist schools actively promoted Christianity, so why should Christian schools “actively promote” what they hold to be untrue? I agree that they should inform children about other religions, but actively promoting them is immoral, impossible and, I believe, a crime against their conscience. We have to wonder how far Christian schools need to go to satisfy the new standards.

On the subject of the Church of England, only two days ago I had a word with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is concerned about this matter. I have also had a word with Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, who is also concerned. This is a mainstream concern in the Catholic and Anglican Churches. By their very nature, such people are not alarmists or extremists, but good and open-minded, but they are deeply worried about what is going on.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend know whether the one report he has so far quoted was from an aberrant Ofsted inspector, or is it because of a direction from Ofsted or from Ministers? Who is responsible?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have not yet finished my speech. I do not want to weary the House, but I have several examples. If this was an aberrant inspection of one school out of thousands, we might say that we should not worry too much about it, but I will quote several examples. There is undoubtedly evidence that such inappropriate questioning has taken place. The schools have complained—I will deal with that in a moment—and there is no adequate evidence that Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, has gone back to the schools and questioned pupils, parents and teachers about the inappropriate questioning.

This debate is terribly important: if it achieves nothing else, it will ensure that there is no kind of pre-emptive cringe on the part of Christian schools worried that they might be marked down if they do not promote “British values” rather than their own ethos. I hope that there will be a kind of pre-emptive cringe on the part of Ofsted. Given that all my hon. Friends have come into the Chamber, inspectors will now be worried about asking such inappropriate questions because they might be held to account.

There is a bit of a pattern. I will mention other examples before I sit down because it is important to establish that pattern, and to convince the House that this is not about one aberrant inspector, but has happened in several schools and across several faiths.

[Kevin Brennan]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the problems have arisen partly because of the knee-jerk way with which British values were introduced last summer? In fact, the requirement is actively to promote not other faiths, but respect for, and tolerance of, other faiths. If this had not been introduced in such a rush and with such a knee-jerk reaction, perhaps that would be better understood throughout the system.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree entirely, and we are looking forward to hearing the Minister make that clear. There was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, and perhaps over-zealous Ofsted inspectors have not understood what British values are about. Surely British values are about what our country has always been about, which is tolerance and understanding, not a requirement to promote other people’s religions or values.

We have to wonder how far Christian schools have to go to satisfy the new standards. In September, Bolton Parish Church primary school was told that although

“events such as…Diwali are celebrated…pupils’ understanding of life in modern Britain is underdeveloped.”

Middle Rasen school in my constituency was marked down, apparently because it was too British—a strange problem for north Lincolnshire. How many non-Christian festivals does a Christian school have to celebrate before Ofsted is happy? Faith schools have a legal right to teach their own faith, and English law stipulates that school assemblies and RE should normally be “mainly Christian”, but that has been overridden by inspectors.

Grindon Hall Christian school is one of the top state schools in Sunderland for GCSEs and the top school, state or private, for A-levels. In May 2014, Ofsted rated it good in all areas except leadership and management. In November it was also subject to a no-notice British values inspection—quite alarming for the top performing school in Sunderland. Its primary school pupils were asked if they knew anyone who thought they were in the wrong body. Well, I have sometimes thought that maybe I am in the wrong body—[Laughter.] One parent complained that her 10-year-old daughter was asked if she knew what lesbians did. One sixth-former said that the inspector was

“manipulating the conversation to make us say something to discredit the manner of teaching in school.”

Another said:

“She seemed to have the view that since we are a Christian school we don’t respect other religions and views.”

A third said:

“It felt like she wanted a certain answer from us and wouldn’t be satisfied until she got that answer.”

Ofsted issued a report that rated the school “inadequate”. Despite the fact that it is the best in terms of results, the Ofsted report marks it as the worst of any school in Sunderland. Clearly, results count for nothing.

As with St Benedict’s, Ofsted issued a draft report with phrasing that tipped its hand. The report said:

“The Christian ethos of the school permeates much of the school’s provision. This has restricted the development of a broad and balanced approach to the curriculum.”

I thought the reason why we are such a tolerant and successful country was our Christian heritage, which teaches tolerance and respect for others. Those inspectors clearly regard a Christian ethos as inherently negative. Although the phrase was withdrawn after complaints, the report attacked every area of the school’s performance, not just British values. Hundreds of parents signed a letter to the Secretary of State to urge a review of the report which, they said,

“paints a picture of our school—and our children—that we just do not recognise.”

The Durham free school is a Christian faith school. Department for Education monitoring visits in December 2013 were very positive, but the school was targeted in the November 2014 no-notice inspections. After the inspections, pupils came forward to report questions asked by inspectors that made them feel uncomfortable. Again the views of the inspection team were revealed in the draft report which claimed that

“RE is a narrow study of the Bible”.

Well, I do not know, but I would have thought that in RE it is not a bad idea to study the Bible fairly rigorously. The school told Ofsted that

“only a very small proportion of the RE teaching at any time has constituted study of the Bible…your inspectors simply could not have seen any evidence during the inspection to support this conclusion.”

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Does this not, to some extent, call into question the quality of some of the inspectors? A state school in my constituency said that it would be willing to be inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate, because by and large it has practising teachers doing inspections, whereas Ofsted by and large does not.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend and I had a meeting with the Secretary of State earlier and he put that point to her. It is worth looking at, and we should learn lessons from the ISI and how it does things.

Ofsted issued a report that rated The Durham free school inadequate in all areas. That caused panic in the DFE and within hours the Secretary of State announced that she was closing the school—

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

For the sake of completeness, the hon. Gentleman should mention that both the north-east schools that he has used as examples were found to be teaching creationism as fact in science and biology.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is not what I have been told. What I have been told is that the pupils were questioned inappropriately and that they were frightened and alarmed. I know nothing about whether the schools were teaching creationism and I make no comment on that. Once the inspectors took a dim view of the schools’ performance on British values, they were marked down heavily. All the Trojan horse schools are still open. Whatever one says about Durham, the allegations against the Trojan horse schools were more serious than anything that was said about Durham. They are still open, yet Durham is to be closed.

Ofsted, too, went into panic mode. Questioned about Durham and Grindon in the Education Committee on 28 January, Sir Michael Wilshaw claimed there was

“very bad homophobic bullying going on in these schools”.

The written Ofsted reports do not say this. Sir Michael’s statement is not being backed up by the Ofsted report. I have had a conversation with the Secretary of State. She has claimed to me and my colleagues that the comments are not true, but they have been reported on and parents have complained to Ofsted in large numbers that the reports are nonsense. One lesbian mum at The Durham free school went to the press to say her daughter had been victimised at a previous school because of her mother’s sexuality, but not at The Durham free school.

Under questioning from the Education Committee, which had been contacted by parents of children at both schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw said that if the inappropriate questioning had taken place, the inspector would be

“dealt with very severely by Ofsted”.

He said, however:

“I assure you that the sort of allegations that have been made in the north-eastern schools have been investigated very thoroughly and we found no substance to them.”

What does “investigated very thoroughly” mean? Does it mean contacting the parents who made the allegations? Does it mean interviewing the pupils? Does it mean interviewing teachers? It does not. According to one of Ofsted’s regional directors, Nick Hudson, who wrote to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on 16 February, it means that Ofsted interviews its own inspectors. Unsurprisingly, the inspectors deny saying the things that would result in them being “dealt with very severely”. No wonder, then, that Ofsted gives itself a clean bill of health.

Sir Michael and Mr Hudson claim there is no evidence. Parents’ letters are, apparently, not evidence. They are simply being treated as if they are untrue. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), who would have been here today but for attending an event in his constituency, has written to the Secretary of State demanding to know why Sir Michael claimed on 28 January that the allegations “have been investigated”—past tense—while the Schools Minister, in a written question on 10 February, told Parliament that

“Ofsted is investigating matters raised”.

Which of these statements is true?

The Minister needs to come to the Dispatch Box and announce that there will be a proper investigation into the complaints of parents at these Jewish and Christian schools. There are too many, with too many similarities, for us to believe that they are all just made up. The Minister must tell us that new guidance will be issued to Ofsted on what constitutes age-appropriate questioning—that is all we are asking for—on sex and sexuality. He must make it clear to Ofsted that having a religious ethos is not a negative thing. Contrary to certain inspectors’ fantasies of Anglican or Catholic jihadism, the religious ethos of a school has the ability to imbue its pupils with lifelong virtues that will make them model citizens. That should be welcomed, not persecuted.

The Minister should remind Ofsted that the law prioritises the teaching of the Christian faith in RE and school assemblies because we are a Christian nation with a Christian heritage. He should require Ofsted to respect religious diversity in education. The problems of a few non-faith schools taken over by Islamic fundamentalists in Birmingham do not justify any aggression towards mainstream faith schools. So-called “British values” is a classic bureaucratic response to a problem and it is damaging Christian schools. The truth is that the real basis of actual British values are Christian values. It is the influence of Christianity that has made us one of the most tolerant and successful nations on earth, not this artificial nonsense—a knee-jerk reaction—dreamed up by officials.

The so-called British values the Government are attempting to force through purport to be upholding a status quo, but they are nothing of the kind. In fact, what we are dealing with is an attempt to destroy the rich diversity that currently exists and replace it with a stultifying conformist ideology that is enforced on all people at all times and everywhere. They are happy for people to be slightly Christian, slightly Jewish or slightly Muslim, so long as that is just a pretty façade for agreeing and conforming with an unforgivingly liberal ideology.

We believe in a different Britain. We believe in a Britain where one is free to be truly Catholic, free to be deeply Anglican, free to be an outright atheist, free to be a faithful Hindu, Sikh, Methodist or whatever one’s conscience calls one to be, or even free not to care at all.

We are faced with two roads—one of narrow ideology and the other of broad tolerance and co-existence—and the Department for Education is at the heart of the decision about which road to take. It must be robust with Ofsted. It should tell it to focus on results and to drop the politics. I agree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who said that it was not Ofsted’s place to follow every ministerial fad on British values. Ofsted should look at maths and English, not political correctness. The “Book of Proverbs” says:

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.

Church schools are a great blessing to our young people, spiritually, morally and educationally. I hope that the Minister will tell us he agrees with these sentiments and will require Ofsted to encourage them in its good work, not undermine them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am grateful to all who have taken part in this debate, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Redcar (Ian Swales) and for Southend West (Sir David Amess), the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) and my right hon. Friend the Minister.

In a few moments we are going to pass the motion

“That this House believes that Ofsted should respect the ability of faith schools to teach their core beliefs in the context of respect and toleration for others.”

That will be an important moment and the motion will be a guide to Ofsted. We have all agreed that faith schools —I think I am quoting the Minister here—do not have to promote other faiths, only respect for other faiths. We can all agree on that.

With regard to the particular allegations, there has not been time, unfortunately, for the Minister to deal with them all. They are hotly contested. When the chief inspector writes to me, I hope he will cover the point I made that there is no point in his asking his own inspectors; he must go back to the pupils, parents and teachers. We do not want any more inappropriate questioning of very young people. We want to create an atmosphere in which faith schools have the confidence to actively promote their own faith in the context of respect for others. On that, I am sure we can all agree.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House believes that Ofsted should respect the ability of faith schools to teach their core beliefs in the context of respect and toleration for others.

Electoral Registration

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I have always known that the hon. Gentleman is no great advocate of increased public expenditure, but defence tends to be an exception. He has made his own point in his own way.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You talk about the main act, but is this not an appropriate overture for the main act? After all the Scottish people are determined to stay in the Union precisely because they want to maintain Trident.

[Mr Speaker]

That may be so. We will leave it there. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

Indeed. The Church proceeded speedily with women priests and I suspect it would move speedily with the appointment of women bishops, based on merit. The Bill will ensure, as I have pointed out, that female diocesan bishops, as they are appointed, do not have to wait to join the House of Lords as Lords Spiritual.

The Church’s decision to ordain women has been gradual and has taken place over the past 30 years or so. It has been something of a journey for the Church, beginning in 1975 when the General Synod passed the motion

“that there are no fundamental objections to the ordination of women into the priesthood”.

In 1985, it passed legislation to allow women to become deacons; in 1992, it allowed women to become priests; and in 2014, it took the historic decision, warmly welcomed in this House and elsewhere, that women as well as men could become bishops. Last December, the Rev. Libby Lane was announced as the future suffragan bishop of Stockport in the diocese of Chester. As a suffragan, rather than diocesan bishop, she is not yet eligible to join the Lords Spiritual.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Just in case the Minister is coming to the end of his remarks, may I refer him back to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell)? Tomorrow, in the chapter house of Westminster, 100 yards away, we will be celebrating the 750th anniversary of our first Parliament. Back then, of course, every bishop would have been Catholic. I and my hon. Friend are not asking for a statement today. Bearing in mind the fact that women priests unfortunately make union between our two Churches less likely, we simply ask that the Government have an open mind about allowing bishops of other denominations to enter the House of Lords.

[Mr Gyimah]

The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), made it clear during the brief debate on the timetable motion that this is a tightly focused Bill with one substantive clause, and that is what we would like to focus on today.

The Bill would come into effect on the first day of the next Parliament. Subject to the Church appointing a female diocesan bishop, we could therefore have a female bishop among the Lords Spiritual as early as next year. The Bill is supported by the Church and the Opposition. It has been brought forward by the Government, working closely with the Church, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the bishops, senior clergy and Church officials for their help. In particular, I thank the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom I am delighted to see in the Gallery today.

This is a modest but important Bill, and it has one simple aim: to bring female bishops among the Lords Spiritual sooner rather than later. Given how long women have waited to become bishops, that is right. The House of Lords should not have to wait for an unknowable period before its Lords Spiritual Benches reflect the new make-up of the episcopate. I look forward to further debating these provisions in today’s debates.

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

The Bill has a single and momentous purpose: to enable vacancies among Church of England bishops in the House of Lords to be filled by female bishops, instead of the male bishops who would otherwise have become Members of the House under the current law. It is about recognising the important reform that the Church has undertaken and ensuring it is reflected fully in Parliament.

As the Minister said, the journey has been long, and there has been heated and passionate debate within both the Church and wider society. Over 20 years ago, the Church decided women could be priests. It took a long time, but the success of equality campaigners shows the merits of considered and careful argument taking on a thorny issue and creating a consensus about the need for change, and on 17 November 2014, the General Synod enacted the final legislation necessary to allow women to become bishops.

The Bill represents an important milestone towards gender equality. As the Minister said, if the arrangements legislated for under the Bishoprics Act 1878 were left unamended, it would take years for a newly appointed diocesan bishop to become sufficiently senior to take a place in the House of Lords. For that reason, the Archbishop of Canterbury, after consultation with the Lords Spiritual, requested that changes be accelerated to allow the entry of female bishops into the House of Lords. The Opposition welcome this important change. We applaud the Church’s decision to appoint female bishops and we support its decision to speed up their introduction into the House of Lords.

We are proud of Labour’s record on reform of the House of Lords and the equality agenda. In government, we removed all but 92 of the hereditary peers. We created an elected Lord Speaker and a Supreme Court and we introduced people’s peers. We were the party that introduced the Equality Act 2010, establishing a clear legislative platform to tackle discrimination, including barriers to women in all areas of public life. Against that background, the significance of today’s Bill cannot be overestimated.

For the Church, allowing women to take up a diocese will show a renewed relevance. Experience from other countries is interesting. Research from Denmark shows the effect the Church of Denmark’s decision to promote gender equality has had on the service and presence of the Church in communities up and down the country, with a renewed emphasis on pastoral work and delivering everyday, often practical help to families and communities. Having women at the very top of any organisation not only ensures a female perspective and voice at the top table; it can also improve that organisation’s ability to achieve its wider aims. Research has also shown that female clergy are often less interested in tribal conflicts within the Church and more focused on getting the work done for their members and the community. That is perhaps yet another argument for improving female representation in this place as well.

We should not forget the effect this change will have on wider society. Although church attendance is not as high as it used to be and more people do not identify with any faith, the Church of England remains the established Church in England. It is central to many state occasions and many other aspects of community life. Its presence in wider society remains important. We know from our constituencies, including my own, the impact the Churches have, including the Church of England—for example, in running food banks and working with homeless people and various other community groups—as well as the crucial role the Church plays in education. Although operating in different ways, the Church remains a vital institution in our society, so to have gender equality at the very top of its hierarchy is a necessary and long overdue step in the modern world. Ensuring that that is properly reflected here in Parliament seems to me a basic step in affirming this important change.

Let me say something about the broader context of reform of the other place. In supporting the Bill, the Opposition are in no way moving away from our commitment to a democratic second Chamber. We favour an elected senate of the nations and regions, which would ensure a clear voice for the nine English regions in the other place, as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Presumably the Opposition are also open-minded about representatives of other religions and denominations being Members of the House of Lords.

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Part of the argument that I would make for a democratic second Chamber would be about ensuring that the diversity of our modern society is reflected, including people who are from or are representatives of other faiths. There are practical issues with different faiths, such as the representative institutions they have, but as we debate reform of the other place it is absolutely right that, in seeking to have a second Chamber that is a senate of the regions and nations, the diversity of faiths is reflected, alongside the representation of the Church of England.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

In my capacity as Second Church Estates Commissioner, I should like to thank the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for the support they have personally given to this Bill. I should like also to thank the Leader of the House, the business managers and the usual channels for providing an early opportunity for the Bill to have its Second Reading and other stages undertaken, so that, if agreed by this House, it can go promptly to the House of Lords for consideration, ensuring sufficient time for it to be enacted before this Parliament is dissolved at the end of March.

When in 2012 the General Synod failed to agree a measure that would have enabled women to become bishops in the Church of England, I was summoned to this Chamber to answer an urgent question. Shortly after that, we had a half-day debate. The number of hon. Members present on those occasions—from every part of the United Kingdom and from all political parties—who asked questions and made speeches indicated that Parliament was keen for the Church of England to get on and ensure that women could become bishops. When the General Synod did agree the measure, there was genuine rejoicing and happiness that that could now happen, and that sense of happiness was well reflected in the debates on the measure for women bishops in the House of Lords on 14 October last year and in this House on 20 October.

Bishops have been part of Parliament ever since Parliament began. This year, for example, we will celebrate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, and it is worth recalling that the whole idea of Magna Carta had been initiated by Stephen Langton, the then Archbishop of Canterbury who dusted off a 113-year-old proclamation of King Henry I and showed it to the barons, when the idea of a new improved charter, “a great charter” took hold. Indeed, Magna Carta begins, and I translate from the Latin:

“John by the Grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, to his Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Justices, Forresters, Sheriffs, Reeves, Officers and all his Bailiffs and faithful subjects, greetings. Know that for the sake of God, and the salvation of our soul and the souls of all our ancestors and heirs to the honour of God and the exultation of the Holy Church and of the reform of our Realm, by the advice of our venerable Father, Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church; Henry Archbishop of Dublin, William Bishop of London, Peter Bishop of Winchester, Jocelain Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh Bishop of Lincoln, Walter Bishop of Worcester, William Bishop of Coventry and Benedict Bishop of Rochester”.

So, it is quite clear that archbishops, bishops and abbots took precedence over earls and barons, and that the list of those from whom the King had taken advice was headed by the bishops. Indeed, we rightly remember that Magna Carta has a number of noble sentiments, such as:

“No free man is to be arrested or imprisoned or disseized or outlawed or exiled or in any other way ruined nor will we go or send against him except by the legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of England”,

and that

“to no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.”

In fact, the opening commitment of Magna Carta, chapter one, clearly states beyond all of those other commitments to the rights of barons or freedoms of individual citizens:

“Firstly, we have granted to God and confirm by this our present Charter for us and our heirs in perpetuity that the English Church—

“Ecclesia Anglicana” in the original—

“shall be free and shall have its rights in full and its liberties intact and we wish this to be thus observed which is clear from the fact that before the discord with our Barons began we granted and confirmed by our Charter free elections which are considered to be of the utmost importance and necessity to the English Church.”

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am very disappointed that my right hon. Friend did not read all that out in Latin. I am sure that you would have been happy to let him do so, Mr Speaker.

Earlier, in an excellent intervention, my right hon. Friend said, quite rightly, that the established Church represented all our churches. I am a warm supporter of the Church of England and its establishment nature, but—I mentioned this earlier—presumably it has no principled objection to the representation of bishops from other denominations, or leaders of other faiths, in the House of Lords.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

That was made clear in evidence to the Wakeham commission, and by the body that set up the Joint Committee earlier in the current Parliament. However, I think my hon. Friend will find that it is said by the Vatican and by the Roman Catholic Church itself—not just in England, but throughout the world—that bishops and cardinals cannot be members of national legislatures. That is entirely an issue of authority. By definition, any Catholic bishop who sat in the House of Lords would have to take the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen, and the Vatican is not willing to allow Catholic cardinals or bishops to take an oath of allegiance that acknowledges the authority of the Crown.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We do not want to become involved in too theological an argument. My right hon. Friend is of course entirely right, but the Catholic Church has absolutely no objection to the appointment to the other place of lay people who can represent the Church. Believe me, I am not trying to talk myself into a job; I am merely making a point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Tomorrow is the 750th anniversary of when barons, burgesses, bishops and abbots collected in the cathedral chapter, just 200 yards from where we are now sitting, to found our first Parliament. It is rather charming and appropriate that, the day before that anniversary, we should be celebrating a Bill that will apparently ensure the arrival of the first woman bishop in the other place. It has been quite a long wait, perhaps—750 years—although naturally, as a Conservative, I believe in organic change.

The logic is that women bishops should take their position in the other place. I would have thought that the Bill was unopposable. Sadly, that means that the great county of Lincolnshire will have to wait a year or two more to get its bishop into the other place, but we are a patient lot in Lincolnshire, and our bishop, as has been mentioned, is a generous man.

This debate gives me an opportunity to make another point about representation. Nothing that I say detracts from my strong support for the established Church; if we were to de-establish the Church, that would send entirely the wrong signal in an increasingly secular world. The Church of England is such a broad-minded institution—perhaps, in some people’s view, so broad minded that it is sometimes difficult to see where the bounds begin and end, although that is not really any of my business. It seeks to represent all people. I am a warm supporter of the Church of England, of women bishops and of the Church of England being the established Church.

A tremendous amount of work has been going on between the Catholic and Anglican Churches over the past 40 years to try to achieve union. I was speaking recently to Archbishop David Moxon—a superb representative of the Church of England in the Vatican, where he tries to take the process forward. He said to me that excellent progress is being, and has been made, in achieving that union so that we can take joint communion. It is a matter of great pain to many of us Christians that we cannot take communion together. Huge progress—quite surprising progress—has been made on issues that for centuries have proved very difficult indeed, such as transubstantiation of the nature of the real presence in the Eucharist. I think the two Churches can come to some sort of unity of view that it is some sort of spiritual change in the person, so tremendous progress is being made on that.

Tremendous progress is also being made on the nature of the supremacy of the see of Peter: all Christian denominations can, while maintaining their own supremacy in their own dioceses—as does the Orthodox Church—view the primacy of the see of Peter.

Sadly, however, there is one block. I am sorry to mention it, but what appears to be an insuperable block for many years is the fact that we now have women priests in the Anglican Church. This is a difficulty for the Orthodox denominations in the east and the Catholic denomination in the west. I am not going to make any comment on whether having women priests in the Anglican Church is right or wrong; I am just stating a fact that, sadly, we seem to have reached an impasse, but we are where we are. I say that because, very sadly, that will be a situation where we will remain divided for many years.

I want to emphasise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) and which I have already made in a couple of interventions. I hope that Members on both Front Benches will keep a very open mind when it comes to reform of the other place. Other denominations—other faiths—need to take their place in the House of Lords. I was delighted with the response of the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), when I intervened on him. I was a tiny bit disappointed that when I put the same question to the Minister, he did not choose to answer it. I would have thought that it would be perfectly possible for the Government to announce that they are open minded about any reform.

The reason I say that is that, while I fully support the fact that there are 26 Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords—they are all Anglican and I have no difficulty with that—I do not want people to say that, because there are already 26 religious people there, there is no room for representatives of any other denominations or faiths. We have heard that there is already a Methodist priest in the other place, and we have heard the reasons for there being no Catholic bishops. [Hon. Members: “And the Chief Rabbi.”] There is also the Chief Rabbi.

I sat on a senior committee that discussed what our attitude in the Catholic Church should be towards one of our bishops being invited to join the House of Lords. I believe that the late Cardinal Hume was invited to join the House of Lords. Indeed, the Queen referred to him once as, “My cardinal,” which was quite touching. As the Second Church Estates Commissioner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) has made clear, there are difficulties in canon law relating to bishops of the Catholic Church taking their place in the legislature. Be that as it may, I am sure a way forward can be found to have representatives of the Catholic Church and more representatives of the Methodists and of other faiths.

As we discuss those things, I very much hope that we will keep an open mind on the issue. Meanwhile, we wish the Anglican bishops in the other place well and look forward to a woman taking her rightful place there for the first time in history.

Grammar School Funding

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

What better way to start a parliamentary Tuesday than with a debate on grammar school funding, in the name of Sir Edward Leigh?

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. It is a convention to say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, but in this case it is heartfelt.

This debate is about the funding not only of grammar schools, but of successful, well performing comprehensives with good sixth forms. I am proud to declare that one of my children attends a grammar school, and I am proud to have two excellent grammar schools in my constituency: Caistor grammar school and Queen Elizabeth’s high school. They are centres of excellence, and I salute the Lincolnshire county councillors who have always kept in mind the importance of our grammar schools and saved them.

The phasing out of grammar schools in most of the country was one of the greatest policy disasters of the post-war era. By the 1960s, grammar schools were so successful that we achieved an unqualified and unprecedented level of social mobility—it was greater than anything this country has achieved in its long history, before or since. Many of the nation’s poorest, most deprived people were given their first great chance to move up. Those schools were so successful that the independent sector feared that it would fade and decline into irrelevance, barring the odd Eton or Harrow. Across the country, we need to nurture those centres of excellence and learn lessons from them that we can apply across the state sector as beacons.

The purpose of this debate is not to honour grammar schools, but to ensure that they are not buried by stealth. A growing concern has emerged recently about the disparity of per-pupil funding for grammar schools, which also affects high-performing comprehensives with large sixth forms. Changes in the past three years have adversely affected grammar schools disproportionately in comparison with other state schools. The minimum funding guarantee of minus 1.5% gives the appearance of preserving per-pupil funding. However, as Mr David Allsop, the headmaster of Queen Elizabeth’s high school in Gainsborough, notes:

“Sixth form funding has been dropping much more significantly and we have managed to maintain our funding as flat by increasing the number of students in the sixth form.”

In 2013, Mr Allsop analysed Lincolnshire schools that were not academies, and looked at per-pupil funding. The grammar school that he heads was the least well funded school per pupil in the county. It receives £4,474 per pupil on average, while a similar sized comprehensive school in Lincolnshire receives £6,481 per pupil. Those figures are from the Government’s consistent financial reporting data. If we are to promote educational excellence, it is not a good idea to give the best school in Lincolnshire, which everybody tries to get into, only £4,000 per pupil per year, while giving the worst performing comprehensive in Lincoln, which nobody wants to go to, £7,000 per head per year. That is a daft way to run our education system.

We are asking only for fairness. Back in the 1960s, one of the criticisms of grammar schools was that they were treated unfairly well by county councillors. It is ironic that the reverse is now happening. Grammar schools are in a uniquely bad position, in terms of state funding.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a compelling case. Is not the reason why grammar schools are so badly funded comparatively that they have disproportionately high numbers of pupils at sixth forms? Is not the real issue the way in which the Government have dealt with sixth-form funding, rather than with grammar schools funding per se?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is exactly right, and I will come to that point in a moment. Mr Roger Hale, who runs the successful Caistor grammar school, wrote a heartfelt plea to me. Of course, he will struggle on and do his job—that is what teachers do—but he said:

“We were one of many schools who answered the call from Michael Gove to set off on our own as an Academy so that we would have better control over our resources. In the first few years, this worked very well. However in the last 18 months, the funding we receive to be an Academy has been sharply reduced.”

I have read letters from grammar schools from all over the country that say the same thing.

On the face of it, it seems fair that the Government equalised post-16 per-pupil funding between schools with sixth forms and further education colleges. A lot of the problems are due to the law of unintended consequences. I do not think for a moment that Ministers intended to hit grammar school funding adversely, but their laudable aims had unintended consequences. The funding for FE colleges and schools was equalised, which was fair enough. However, that ignored the significant further pastoral support and enrichment programmes for pupils in sixth forms. Sixth formers take on a broader programme of AS and A-levels, in addition to supervised study, sport and other programmes, in contrast to FE students. Per-pupil costs for sixth forms are in many cases higher than they are for further education colleges. Sixth formers, on the whole, have between 20 and 25 taught hours per week, while the figure for those in further education colleges is closer to 17. Furthermore, that equalisation was achieved not by choosing a figure in the middle of the previous levels of sixth-form and FE funding, but by brining sixth-form funding down to the same level as further education.

I am grateful for the argument made to me by Mr Önaç, the headmaster of St Olave’s school in Orpington. He said that the scale of the reduction that the change has brought has been huge, and that it often amounts to a whole fifth of the per-pupil budget. Although it has applied across schools, it has affected grammar schools, because almost all of them have sixth forms that comprise a much larger proportion of their total school population than other schools. That is why we have this problem. I am not sure that it was envisaged at the start of the changes.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman did not make the debate about 16-to-19 funding as a whole, because the same would equally apply to sixth-form colleges, which also have to pay VAT.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Although I wanted to talk about the problem affecting grammar schools—one should be absolutely honest—as I said at the beginning of my speech, the problem affects not only grammar schools, but successful comprehensives with large sixth forms. The hon. Gentleman is right to make that point. I hope we can look at this issue in a bipartisan way. It should not be about grammar schools versus other schools, but about fairness. All sixth-form pupils, whatever school they are in, should be funded as equally as possible.

Supplemental funding for the disadvantaged is widely welcomed, and we all accept it. Part of the reason why I and others are such passionate advocates for grammar schools is that they provide a superb helping hand for pupils from less-advantaged backgrounds.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I have a number of brilliant grammar schools in my constituency, but one of the reasons why they are comparatively underfunded is that, compared with the other schools in my constituency, they do not attract the pupil premium because they have fewer pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. The funding system, which is skewed towards disadvantage, has disadvantaged grammar schools, so the claim that grammar schools help disadvantaged pupils is belied by the statistics.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Grammar schools can help people, in particular those from ethnic minorities. In the school that my son attends, 60% of the pupils are from an ethnic minority background, which is high. I believe that, if there were more grammar schools, we could do more to help people from disadvantaged backgrounds. One of the problems is that there are not enough grammar schools. We are not going to get into this debate now, but I wish county councils had the freedom to set up more grammar schools if they want to do so. That is what localism is all about.

The way that the funding is worked out—there is an over-emphasis on pupils who qualify for free school meals—is not adequately grounded in the hard evidence of the additional costs associated with disadvantaged pupils. The Government have injected additional funding into four sections: pupil premium; special needs; pupils who have failed GCSE English; and pupils who have failed GCSE maths. As I have said, that intention is laudable, but unfortunately, in many cases, it means that the Government have perhaps unwittingly pumped four different funding streams into the same child.

We also need to recognise that that funding increase has a converse effect on the opposite end of the spectrum in grammar schools and sixth forms more generally. It would be counter-productive to unbalance the funding of education so much towards disadvantaged pupils that we undermine centres of excellence in the state sector that we want to protect. This is not a zero-sum game: we can help disadvantaged pupils and promote centres of excellence. Surely that is the right way to proceed.

The number of young people over the age of 16 educated on a full or part-time basis has increased in recent years as a result of raising the participation age to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015. Schools and further education colleges have come under pressure to expand to accommodate such increased numbers. That is fair enough, but at the same time, the funding pot for post-16 education has become fixed, and the method of distribution has changed from a model that included higher levels of funding for courses with large practical elements, and incentives for institutions with high levels of success and retention.

The simplification of the funding system—funding is attached to the student rather than the course—is welcome, but the impact on high-achieving academic schools with large sixth forms, including the grammar schools in my constituency and others, has become considerable. The funding system means that, in some local authorities, students receive more funding for education from 11 to 16 than from 16 to 18—can that be right?—even though it is widely recognised, and obvious common sense, that the cost of delivering the curriculum increases as a student gets older. That is why many universities feel justified in charging fees of £9,000 a year.

As students move through the school system, they can exercise an increasing level of choice over the subjects they study, which tends to reduce financial efficiency. More broadly, there is a bigger perspective, which I want to end on. We need to think about that point, which I want to emphasise. The world is becoming more and more globalised. As the Prime Minister keeps telling us, Great Britain is competing in a global race for excellence. For us to compete successfully, we need more scientists, more engineers, more mathematicians, more doctors and more innovators.

[Kevin Brennan]

What evidence can the hon. Gentleman give to show that areas with selection at 11 produce more people in those professions than areas that do not have selection at 11?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I think I can establish that grammar schools provide real add-on value and are, in themselves, centres for excellence. I do not want to get into a wider debate about whether there should be more or fewer grammar schools in Lincolnshire, but the Government have decided that the existing grammar schools should survive. Nobody in the Government, or the Labour party, suggests that grammar schools should be phased out. Presumably, they accept that those schools have a contribution to make. All we are asking for is fairness. I am not saying to the Government that there should be more grammar schools, although I might well believe that. I am simply saying that I want fairness. The Government have decided that the schools should exist, so they should be funded fairly. The removal of additional programme weighting for sciences, technology and mathematics is particularly unwelcome.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I had thought that the grammar schools system controversy was found only in Northern Ireland, but it would seem to happen in England as well. The research notes we have received show that the Government gave a commitment as far back as 2010 that the disparity in funding would be addressed by 2015. Does the hon. Gentleman see any sign of that? Why the disparity?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The disparity exists for the reasons I have described, but we have a quite excellent Minister who has committed his whole life to education. We are all waiting for his response.

It is vital that our young people are equipped with the knowledge, understanding and skills that will enable them as individuals, and the United Kingdom as a nation, to compete successfully in a global marketplace. That is so obvious and we all agree with it. Changes to post-16 educational funding were examined in isolation from funding for 11-to-16 education, and therefore little is understood about the cumulative effects of decision making on particular schools.

Different types of school are affected in very different ways. Schools for 11 to 18-year-olds with large academically successful sixth forms—I cannot make the point too often that that category includes both grammar schools and high-performing comprehensives—have lost large chunks of money. Whatever one’s view on the grammar school debate, and whether one thinks they are good or bad, that is undoubtedly true. It is rooted in fact. Those are often the very same schools that are unfairly funded pre-16.

The sacrifices demanded of those schools compared with schools for 11 to 16-year-olds, in which levels of income have remained relatively stable, have been significant. As a consequence, the curriculum for students is narrowing, class sizes are increasing, teaching time is reducing and support staff are being withdrawn.

We are sleepwalking towards a future in which some of the country’s best performing schools—centres of excellence—will no longer be able to offer a broad and balanced curriculum to their students. Music and modern foreign languages will join Latin and Greek A-level to become largely the preserve of those whose parents can afford to pay for their education. Our nation’s brightest students will have access to fewer opportunities and resources than their peers. Is it fair that bright students whose parents cannot afford to pay are disadvantaged? Where is the fairness in that?

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

Christ the King College, the best school in my constituency for providing quality work for children—others schools are improving but that one is the best—is not a grammar school, but a good comprehensive.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The debate is about not just grammar schools, but good comprehensives. By the way, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) wanted to be here to make some of the points I am making, but she has to serve on a Committee elsewhere. I am grateful to all my colleagues who have turned up this morning. There is a lot of concern throughout Parliament about grammar school funding.

What we need is not 80% or 90% of funding allocated on pupil-led factors, but simply funding per pupil fairness between pupils. To that end, we need to achieve a meaningful, basic entitlement, and genuinely fair and transparent funding. That would ensure that all of our children, whatever background they come from and whichever kind of school they attend, can enjoy a broad, balanced education that will equip them for life in the 21st century.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Perhaps at the outset I should say that I was educated at a comprehensive school, I taught at a comprehensive school, and my daughter attended a comprehensive school. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) very deftly tried to change the terms of the debate away from the title on the Order Paper. He opened his speech by saying that the debate also applies to comprehensive schools. It is a pity that he did not actually put that in the title of the debate and say that it would be about sixth-form funding. I understand why he might have put it in the terms he did—the juxtaposition of the terms “grammar” and “school” is catnip to his Conservative colleagues. Had he said that the debate was about 16-to-19 funding, many other colleagues from areas of the country that do not have one of the 164 remaining grammar schools might have liked to attend and raise with the Government their concerns about 16-to-19 education funding in schools and sixth-form colleges in their constituencies. It may well be that another debate is needed to enable a broader cross-section of the House to participate.

In introducing the debate—I thank the hon. Gentleman for the advance copy of his speech, which he supplied to me prior to the debate, and wish I was that well organised—he said:

“Supplemental funding for the disadvantaged is widely welcomed”.

He then went off script and said “we all accept that”, and yet, towards the end of his speech, he said:

“What we need is not 80% or 90% of funding allocated on pupil-led factors”,

but simply “funding per pupil”. I do not know how the hon. Gentleman squares those two statements, and how he can achieve that without reducing funding to the other schools in his Lincolnshire constituency. He might want to explain to the head teachers of the other schools in his constituency how much of their budget he thinks should be cut to accommodate what he said in his speech.

The right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) went as far as saying that the current 16-to-19 funding system introduced by the Government is

“damaging the life chances of children.”

That is very serious, and I hope the Minister will respond to that charge in his summing up.

The hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) talked about grammar schools in Kent, but he did not talk about the overall impact of a selective system and how Kent overall gets poorer results than many comparable non-selective counties. That feature in defence of grammar schools was not entered into during the debate. The hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) also criticised the effects of the Government’s policy on 16-to-19 funding.

The hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), along with many others, said that what was happening was due to the unintended consequences of what the Government have done on 16-to-19 funding. He called for a re-examination of the policy of ring-fencing the schools budget for five to 16-year-olds because of the impact it is having on the 16-to-19 budget. I would be interested to know the Minister’s response to that suggestion. By the way, if it is an unintended consequence, that calls into question the competence of the decision in the first place, because if funding at 16 to 19 was going to be levelled down while protecting the five-to-16 budget, it was obvious that that would have significant impacts. Presumably Ministers, and the submissions they received from civil servants—we do not get to see those—went through fully and in detail the consequences of taking the decision and the impact it would have on sixth forms and sixth-form colleges.

The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), who, like me, is a former school teacher, pointed out all the other additional costs that are coming down the pipeline for schools. Again, the Minister should respond to that point. I recall from an earlier debate that the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood taught in comprehensive and secondary modern schools, so he has a full experience of both sides of that equation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) pointed out the impact of 16-to-19 funding on all post-16 providers, not just the selective ones—although all post-16 providers are selective in some ways, because that is the very point at which selection is permitted within our system overall. The hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) agreed that 16-to-19 funding was unfair and gave examples from his constituency.

I should say something about grammar schools, as that is the advertised title on the Order Paper. Overall, it is the Opposition’s view that a system of selection at 11 is not the way to raise school standards or to promote social mobility. In fact, that is currently the Government’s position. Instead, we should focus relentlessly on supporting schools to raise standards for all pupils regardless of their backgrounds. The most effective way to do that is through promoting great teaching and leadership in our schools. The evidence for that is absolutely clear internationally. Andreas Schleicher, who is often quoted by the Government and who oversees the OECD programme for international student assessment scores, has made it absolutely clear that the international evidence shows that systems with selection for children at the tender age of 11, and all that that entails, perform less well than non-selective school systems.

Far from promoting social mobility, selective systems entrench social division. The difference in the domestic average wages between the top 10% and the bottom 10% of earners is much wider in selective areas than in non-selective areas. Schools that select at age 11 are also highly socially selective institutions overall. Almost all the remaining 164 grammar schools in this country have fewer than 10% of pupils eligible for free school meals. In 2010, 96,680 year 7 pupils received free school meals from a total of 549,725 pupils in state schools. Of the 22,070 grammar school pupils in that age bracket, only 610 were receiving free school meals. It is undeniable that the poorest children are losing out, in part because in some areas almost everyone who passes the 11-plus has had private tuition of one sort or another.

I will not go into great detail about the evidence from the past—it is probably not where we should go in today’s debate—but suffice to say, the rose-tinted view of the selective system of the past is not true. At its height at the beginning of the 1960s, a third of grammar school pupils got only three O-levels, and only 0.3% of grammar school pupils at that time with two A-levels were working class. It is therefore a myth that grammar schools were great engines of social mobility. There are many reasons for the great surge in social mobility, but selection at 11 is not one of them.

That is why the current Prime Minister was absolutely right in 2007 when he said that those who wanted to expand the number of grammar schools were

“splashing around in the shallow end of the educational debate”.

He went to say that his party was in danger of becoming “a right-wing debating society” rather than

“an aspiring party of government”.

That is why the current Government have held on, largely, to the policy of not allowing more schools that select at age 11, although they have permitted a loophole to those that he said were

“clinging on to outdated mantras that bear no relation to the reality of life”—

they have created a loophole to allow the expansion of selective provision by stealth to locations many miles away from existing grammar schools.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Let us agree to disagree on grammar schools. In the last couple of minutes of his speech, will the hon. Gentleman focus on the fact that the Labour party presumably is committed to a fair funding formula for all schools with successful sixth forms?

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, I can do that, and I can confirm that. Labour policy remains that the remaining selective schools should be a matter for local parental choice. Our policy has not changed on that since it was introduced in 1998, and it has been reconfirmed by the current Government. In the course of the hon. Gentleman’s speech, he was right to point out that sixth-form or 16-to-19 funding is causing a great problem for many schools across the country. Of course, there is no different formula for grammar schools—I would like to make that point, so there is no myth about it. The difference in funding between grammar schools and others is largely because of the difference in their pupil intakes, because of all the factors we have heard about. However, he is right that many schools, including grammar schools, have been hit very hard by the severe cuts in sixth-form and college funding that the Government have imposed. As I said, it might have been more fruitful to have a debate under that broader title to allow others to introduce that subject.

Finally, there are a few questions that the Minister needs to address. Was the decision to slash 16-to-19 funding intended to impact hardest on sixth forms, colleges and, indeed, selective schools? What was the rationale for that decision? Was the result deliberate, or is it, as many hon. Members have suggested, an unintended consequence, in which case there would be an issue of incompetence in relation to the decision?

Since 2006, the Conservative party has said that it is against more selection at 11. Is that still the case? Will the Minister tell us what is happening with the decision about the satellite grammar school in Kent? Will he pledge to include financial data in performance data relating to academies, so that we can debate them?

European Parliament Elections Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Friday 9th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on presenting this Bill. I concur and agree with my hon. Friend—indeed, he is a good friend—the Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) who has adduced some very powerful arguments for a change in thinking. Much as I admire the Minister’s independence of spirit, I accept that he is hardly like to change Government policy on a wet Friday in January, but I very much hope that he will listen to the very intelligent arguments that have been made.

In my view, and in that of most people, an open list system is a much more democratic way of electing Members of the European Parliament. It is undoubtedly entirely pernicious that a small group of people—sadly, modern political parties are quite small in their numbers—can decide on who heads a list and that person is then automatically elected. All they have to do for the next five years is attend every party meeting and ensure that they are well in with their regional party. They remain No. 1, and whatever the people want, they get elected. We have heard the history of the debate in the Labour party in the 1990s, so I will not repeat it, but it shows that this is not a party political matter. It is an issue that the Labour party could look at as well as the Conservative party.

If we believe in the European Parliament and want to create interest, we should want to have characters elected—people who stand up for something. It is surely right that if they are popular in their region, they can rise up the list and people can vote for them individually. The political parties should not fiddle around, decreeing that a certain sort of person should rise to the top; it is up to the people to decide, as the will of the people is seldom wrong.

Before I sit down—it is the will of the House that this debate is fairly short—let me say that there is a wider issue. A big debate will continue about whether we have elections to the House of Lords. Personally, for all sorts of reasons, I do not agree with elections to the House of Lords. If they do happen, they will undoubtedly be under proportional representation. It would be a complete disaster if people were elected to the House of Lords under a closed list system. It really would be ridiculous to put a load of party hacks in the second Chamber, which is not about people forming a Government but about rationally trying to reform legislation, because we had kept this closed list system. The arguments are very strong. We will not get a result today—

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Before my hon. Friend sits down, may I say that we have a system that is neither open nor closed; it is neither fish nor fowl. Yorkshire and the Humber region elected Edward McMillan-Scott as a Conservative on a closed list system. Basically, people were invited to vote for a party and they voted Conservative. He defected to the Liberal Democrats and carried on as the MEP as a Liberal Democrat, even though nobody had voted for him as an individual; they had only voted Conservative. The current system is complete nonsense; it is neither one thing nor another.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It is also scandalous that someone can defect from the party to which they had been elected and then just carry on in the European Parliament. My hon. Friend has put his finger on it: this is neither fish nor fowl. It is actually completely illogical. Debate and reform are needed, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch for moving this Bill.

Preparing Young People for Work

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the creation of this company. I intend that in the longer term employers will see the value of the company and therefore will invest in it.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I agreed with the Secretary of State when she said: “as much as I want the next generation to be able to solve a quadratic equation, I also want them to be able to make a compelling pitch for a job”.

If we are going to win the global race for excellence, we need top-flight scientists and mathematicians, and a disproportionate number of them are provided by our remaining 160 grammar schools, yet under this Government funding for grammar schools has been cut, meaning that the top-performing grammar school in Lincolnshire gets £4,000 per pupil per year and the worst-performing comprehensive gets £7,000 per head per year. We must do more to help our excellent schools provide the top-class mathematicians of the future.

[Nicky Morgan]

I am not sure I agree with the entirety of my hon. Friend’s question, but I agreed with his final point: we must ensure that all our schools are good or outstanding local schools and are encouraging our young people to consider studying science and maths for longer. As we have seen, it makes a difference to young people’s earnings. The best way to improve social mobility is for all our schools to be good or outstanding, and, since 2010, 1 million more pupils are in good or outstanding schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I will be happy to write to the hon. Lady with the answer.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Last week, a primary school in my constituency at Middle Rasen was marked down from “outstanding” by Ofsted for being too British. That follows other faith schools that have been marked down because they are falling foul of the Secretary of State’s new British values. Let us be honest: not a single traditional Catholic or Anglican school preaches intolerance in this country. When will the Secretary of State take action to ensure that we have freedom of faith in our faith schools?

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend will know, if he has read the Ofsted report carefully, that the school was marked as “good” right across all the categories on which Ofsted marks, not just on the spiritual, moral, social and cultural education that the school provides to all its pupils. He will also know that the requirements on schools to actively promote fundamental British values, to teach a broad and balanced curriculum and to have regard to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural education given to their children, have been long in the drafting. They have, of course, come into sharper relief since the events in Birmingham. I agree with him that all good schools—including all faith schools, of which I am a huge supporter, and Church schools—already do a huge amount to teach their young pupils about life in modern Britain. We want all pupils to have mutual respect and tolerance for each other and for people of all faiths.