Fiona Mactaggart
Main Page: Fiona Mactaggart (Labour - Slough)Department Debates - View all Fiona Mactaggart's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I take my hon. Friend’s point, and I read with interest and appreciation his article in The Daily Telegraph today. Sir Michael Wilshaw is an outstanding chief inspector—the best ever to hold that post—and he inspects without fear or favour. He has also been responsible for ensuring that the quality of inspection during his time has increased. He has led an academy and seen the benefits that academies and free schools can bring to parts of London, so I know that Sir Michael will bear in mind my hon. Friend’s words and ensure that Ofsted continues to do a highly effective job inspecting all schools and holding them to the highest standards.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I am surprised by the Secretary of State’s description of this report as “praising” his free school programme, because it raises more questions about that programme than he implies. I represent a town with many free schools. I have welcomed them because, as mums who were visiting Parliament said to me today, what we need is enough school places. The problem with the free school programme in a town as diverse as Slough is that it lacks planning and a community cohesive approach to free school places, to ensure that every community in my town has sufficient educational places. What will the Secretary of State do about that?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and she is right to say that Slough is one of the hot spots in the country where a significant increase in the population has placed pressures on the local authority. We have been able to fund the local authority’s school provision, and augment it with the provision of free school places. It is also striking that many of the applications for free schools in and around Slough have come from different communities, who at last have an ethos and a level of aspiration for the schools that they felt had not existed before. If the hon. Lady wants to bring me any specific examples of inconsistencies of provision, I will of course look at them. I am grateful to her for pointing out that she, like many Labour MPs, welcomes free schools in her constituency and is prepared to work with the Department for Education in the interests of young people.