PISA Results
Gavin Shuker Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Michael Gove
A lot needs to be done in the north-east in order to improve education. One thing we need to do is ensure that local authorities end their opposition to academisation and free schools and that there is a degree of collaboration among autonomous head teachers who are determined to drive up standards, as we have seen in London.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
The architect of PISA has demonstrated categorically that the lowest-performing schools in the OECD have autonomy but not a collaborative culture. Is that not the perfect description of the Secretary of State’s reform programme?
Michael Gove
No. The perfect description of our reform programme is that it is based on social justice and recognises that the strongest systems combine autonomy with stricter accountability. We have introduced stricter accountability through changes both to Ofsted and to league tables. Unfortunately, those on the Labour Front Bench have not endorsed those changes to help drive up standards. They should be listening to outstanding head teachers who have the right idea, such as Dame Yasmin Bevan in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The sooner he introduces her to his Front-Bench colleagues, the better for all of us.
Co-operatives in Education
Gavin Shuker Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) on securing the debate and on his eloquence in furthering the arguments I support. Despite co-operatives and the co-operative movement having a strong association and history with the Labour party, not least through the 32 Labour and Co-operative MPs in this Parliament, of which I am one, it is praiseworthy that the ideas that power them are not owned by a political party. They are represented by a political party, but they are owned by all of us. It is incumbent on us, in each of our political traditions, to uncover those self-sustaining values for the time we are in now, and the hon. Gentleman has been a powerful advocate today.
I want to start by talking about some of the shifts that we have seen in education in recent years and conclude by talking about some of the ways in which the co-operative movement may be able to contribute to and shape that story, rather than merely being subject to it. We have already discussed several excellent co-operative schools across the country. Cressex, to which the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) referred, is a fine and outstanding example of a co-operative school.
In Luton South we do not have a co-operative school, but we are keen to have one. Co-operative schools, and co-operative education in general, empower local people to take responsibility for the education that they best understand. Co-operative education avoids many of the traps inherent in the fragmentation of education that has occurred in recent years, particularly when it comes to the dispersal of power, which is abused in the education system more often than we tend to admit.
In the past 10 or 20 years, under successive Governments, control and responsibility for education has shifted from local authorities to individual schools. As many Opposition Members have argued in recent years, however, I believe that under the coalition Government we have seen an expression not of localism but of centralism. In other words, the Secretary of State has been given direct responsibility over individual schools. In Luton, we have real issues around community cohesion, we are a good size to allow democratic control to be exercised across all our schools, and schools working in partnership are a key part of where we hope to be in future and the kind of community that we seek to shape. Many of the Government’s choices and decisions have, therefore, been unfortunate for our attempts to pursue our ends.
Whatever we feel about the shift, under either of the previous two Governments, towards more individual schools taking responsibility, taking ownership and taking governance, the change has happened. We see that in the statistics on the adoption of the academy and free school models. Co-operative education provides a powerful mechanism for harnessing some of the positives of that shift, such as the exercise of leadership and good teaching quality, which we understand to be most crucial for raising standards in schools and the provision of education.
Mr Sheerman
May I suggest to my hon. Friend that if he wants to be slightly subversive, the best example I have seen of a co-operative is one in which the pupils are empowered to help run the school through Learning to Lead? That combination is liberating and amazing, and it provides a revolutionary structure of governance. It now exists in more than 100 schools.
Gavin Shuker
My hon. Friend does not anticipate my remarks, as is often said when someone makes a good point that we would like to adopt. He does, however, pre-empt my central argument about the distribution of power in the education system. How do we reap the benefits of allowing people to get on and lead in their own context, while sharing the responsibilities and ensuring that abuses of power do not take place, without sidestepping effective governance? That is where I believe that co-operative schools can be truly helpful.
In my own experience of mixed provision of education, public interest units can sometimes run schools autonomously, which can be good for local authorities. In Luton, two of our high schools became academies under the previous Government’s academies programme, which was designed for schools that were struggling to keep up with others. A further education provider came in and ran those schools. There has been, and continues to be, a strand of scepticism and concern in the community when schools are taken over, which we must acknowledge, but the education provider had a trusted relationship with the local authority and was able to step in and improve results.
A free school has opened in the centre of my constituency. It seemed bizarre to me that the only way in which we could get the basic primary school allocation of places was to bar the local authority from running the school, but we had to find a way to get that allocation, because there is a massive push on places. We found an arm’s-length council body to run the free school. It was a good example of how to use the existing system and to link it back into the community, and I believe that it is a really positive development.
In the mix of those different models, I believe that the co-operative model presents one of the best ways in which to harness elements of the co-operative tradition, even now, when the Labour party does not control but seeks to shape education policy in opposition. We should encourage local authorities and others to adopt the co-operative model to ensure that we reap the benefits of choice and autonomy in the education system. I note the comment of Peter Laurence, who is development director in the Brigshaw Federation, one of the first co-operative trusts in Leeds:
“We could all see the direction of travel of Government policy and the rapidly changing role of the LA. To us self-help is a natural solution.”
Is that not exactly the point? From the rich traditions of the co-operative movement, we find mechanisms that are appropriate to us today.
Jesse Norman
I am reluctant to introduce a note of discord into a debate that has been remarkably harmonious and valuable, but does the hon. Gentleman recognise that there is a potential conflict between the co-operative nature of a school and the demands of the unions, which may sometimes find themselves in opposition, as they have been in other areas of public service?
Gavin Shuker
Brilliant as it is. I was going to say that if we look at the record of co-operative schools’ relationships with other partners, such as trade unions, we see that they perform incredibly well. I point to the Schools Co-operative Society, which has been able to establish nationwide a package of terms and conditions with the network of schools to ensure that that kind of strife does not occur.
Andrew Gwynne
I have seen several schools in my constituency convert either to trusts or to academies, and I know some of the fraught discussions that take place with staff at the schools during the conversions. May I highlight to my hon. Friend the fact that by converting first to a co-operative trust and subsequently to a co-operative academy, Reddish Vale technology college helped to ease some of the concerns of the staff because they had buy-in to the co-operative principle?
Gavin Shuker
That makes the point entirely that the best way to harness leadership is not usually to parachute it in from outside—sometimes that has to be done if a school has failed the community consistently over a period of time, which usually comes down to school leadership—but to empower members of the community who, day in and day out, serve young people and families to get on and lead. That goes right to the heart of how the co-operative governance model works. Those are not simply structures; they are values. It is not about looking to see how we could design an over-engineered, so-called democratic arrangement. It is about saying that certain values of the co-operative movement, in particular the fair distribution of power, can be applied in education extremely well.
In the past few weeks questions, at least, have been raised, or investigations carried out, across the country, about the alleged misuse of power in a number of schools—and a DFE investigation is under way into several schools in my constituency that converted to academies and continued rapidly to adopt other schools. In my region the transition into academies or other types of governance, and the results of that, has been questioned. That has happened in Basildon, Thurrock and Luton; but a previous example in Derby at least raised the question of the fair exercise of power.
The advantage of the co-operative movement is not just the structure, but the ethos. However, the structure is a key factor: the idea that all of us with an interest in education locally can shape it locally and question the authority that is exercised, instead of constantly looking up and across to centralised power in Whitehall and Westminster, or to the immediate leadership of the school. In that way, the co-operative model can present a powerful, positive argument for allowing schools and communities to exercise their own power.
I was proud to grow up in a comprehensive system, with local democratic accountability through voting for and selecting councillors, portfolio holders and leaders, because the link with the community was not broken. Co-operative schools go right to the heart of that issue, and they present a different and powerful model for achieving such democratic control, in which the people who care most passionately about education—the parents, children, teachers, school leaders and governors—come together to share responsibility and power.
I want to ask the Minister about the level of capacity building that DFE is engaged in, particularly in local authorities, to encourage them to examine the co-operative model and consider it as an alternative route, alongside the many others that the Department provides. I understand from speaking to people in local authorities that there is still some misunderstanding about what a co-operative is. That should not surprise us, because we sometimes encounter the same degree of misunderstanding in Parliament, and such things may be difficult for people to get their head around. However, if we are to have genuine choice and to move away from one-size-fits-all comprehensive education, which I have talked about already, it is important to put all the options on the table, and not just some of them. If the Government were to do that they would have more supporters from across the House for their reform of education.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)
May I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) on securing this important debate, and on his passionate contribution, demonstrating his commitment to raising educational standards in his constituency? As he knows, this Government want to be champions of diversity, of high standards and of closer working-together in the education system.
It is always hugely encouraging to hear examples of where standards are being raised. We are seeing improvement, including in the recent results in the Cressex community school in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Like him, I want to pay tribute to the head teacher—David Hood—the governors, the staff, pupils and the whole community, which has played its part in helping to drive up standards. They are to be commended for their efforts.
I assure hon. Members that the Government are wholeheartedly supportive of the role that school partnerships and co-operation play in achieving our shared goal of a high-performing and self-improving education system. As my hon. Friend said, we are in danger of fierce agreement. Politics is not always as black and white as people think it is. Shared values can surface, and this is one such occasion. There is an underlying cause to which we all want to contribute, which is ensuring that every child, whatever their start in life, gets the best possible chance to reach their full potential, as the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) said. The community has a huge role in making that happen.
We have had excellent contributions from the hon. Members for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) and for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), and from my hon. Friends the Members for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) and for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton). I welcome this opportunity to discuss on behalf of the Government the contribution that diversity partnerships and collaboration are making to improving standards in education, performance and teaching through the co-operative movement and other things in our education system.
The evidence is stark. It shows that schools working together leads to an increase in performance for all schools involved in that partnership, even—this should be noted—for high-performing schools that support weaker schools. As Dr Chris Tomlinson, the phenomenally successful executive principal of the Harris academy Greenwich, Harris academy Chafford Hundred and the primary attached to that in the Harris federation of schools, said:
“Working together improves our knowledge about how to get the best out of pupils and staff. It helps us to fine-tune and understand those occasionally small changes that make a real difference”.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe has set out, one of the interesting things about the example of Cressex community school is that it is a maintained school in partnership with a successful converter academy and an independent school, among other partners. That is exactly the sort of partnership that we are developing through our academies programme and in other education reforms.
We should, and do, cherish the values of co-operative trust schools, in particular the importance of shared responsibility for problems and for designing solutions, and the importance of those involved in a child’s learning having a stake in that learning. As we have heard, since the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which introduced trust school status—the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish reminded us that the first was in his constituency—we have seen a steady and increased pace of such schools being set up. Their number is up from 188 in September 2011, as we have heard, to more than 700 by the end of this year. That in itself demonstrates that the permissive nature of the establishment of such schools is doing nothing to prevent schools from starting to form trusts and relationships. Cornwall is perhaps the most acute example of where that is happening right across a county.
The co-operative trust model is one of many that can facilitate effective partnership working. In an increasingly diverse education system, many different models are emerging, which is increasing choice for parents, which we want to see more of, as well as increasing support for schools. We now have academy chains, where schools formally work together, often sharing governance and leadership while benefiting from the autonomy of academy status.
We also have sponsored academies, with more and more outstanding schools now formally sponsoring weaker schools so as to bring about improvement. Six such sponsored academies are co-operative trust academies. We also have federations, where maintained schools formally share governance and expertise. There is also the sharing of head teachers and senior leadership teams; teaching schools; national or local leaders of education; the independent and state schools partnership; and other formal partnerships, such as the Bradford partnership, a not-for-profit organisation consisting of schools from that city working together to improve outcomes for young people.
In that eclectic mix of different models, it will come as no surprise to hon. Members that the Government’s view is that academy status is effective in driving improvement and collaboration. That status is now enjoyed by close to 3,400 schools in England. We believe that teachers and head teachers, not politicians and bureaucrats, should control schools and have more power over how they are run in the best interests of students. With well over half of secondary schools now being academies, and primary schools joining the programme at an increasing rate, research has found that more than a quarter of academies have seen their relationship with other schools improve since they became academies.
The evidence is clear that the freedom that academies have has led to an increase in standards, and that the highest-performing institutions are helping to improve the weakest. As Mary Speakman, head teacher of Altrincham grammar school for girls, one of the lead schools in the Bright Futures educational trust, said:
“The pupils at AGGS get a really privileged education. They do well and our standards are high. We want to share that experience and develop other schools, so that every young person has those chances”.
I am pleased to see that, so far, 173 converter academies are sponsoring 192 academies, and a further 106 projects are approved to open. In the spirit of this debate, I am also pleased to note, as has been said, that the role of the co-operative movement as a sponsor of schools that need extra support is increasing, and to note the increasing number of co-operative schools choosing academy status and becoming co-operative academies. I do not think that the schools have to live in isolation from one another. They share many of the values that, as has been rightly pointed out, exist in the co-operative movement.
It is worth noting what David Wootton, chair of the Independent Academies Association, has said on the issue:
“The academy movement, and sponsored academies in particular, have a strong commitment to social justice and moral purpose. This means a dedication to the communities they serve and a deep desire to improve outcomes and ‘close the gap’ for students in some of the most challenged communities. Many academies have very strong community routes…We in the academy movement welcome the support of the Co-operative movement, who are now actively involved supporting academies, and believe there is room for a diversity of providers.”
Gavin Shuker
I thank the Minister for his warm words about co-operatives. Will he say a few words about the Department’s approach to making the benefits of co-operative governance known to schools that are looking to change their governance arrangements? Is there any literature that goes out? Does he have any officials working on the project? What discussions has he had with the co-operative movement on that?
Mr Timpson
I will talk about that in relation to some of the proposals regarding the ten-minute rule Bill and other measures to try to open that up to a wider aspect of the education system. As I have set out, there has been a huge increase in the number of co-operatives over the past two years alone, which shows that they are not being prevented from doing so.
On the matters raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, I am happy to take back the issue of the messages that the Department and other parts of Government are sending out about the benefit that the movement brings to communities around the country. Our having this debate, and my sending out a strong message of support on behalf of the Government, demonstrates our desire to see diversity in the education system that meets the needs of individual communities.
Early Reading
Gavin Shuker Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I am grateful for the chance to introduce this debate. I want to praise and promote the inspirational Imagination Library in Rotherham, thanks to which, each month, more than 13,600 young children receive a book sent directly to their home and addressed to them. I want to press the Minister to work with us to assess and fully evaluate the Imagination Library. In the meantime, I also want to press him to extend the scheme to three special groups of children who start life facing some of the biggest hurdles and who could benefit most from this scheme.
I am glad to see the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), in his place. If I had to choose one of the Education Ministers to answer the debate, it would be him. We might disagree with much of what he is doing, but I have watched closely over 18 months how thoroughly he has mastered what I regard as one of the big six Minister of State jobs. He and I were elected and entered the House together in 1997, which set me thinking this evening. In almost 15 years as an MP, one of the very best things I have done has been as a dad, when our son first went to primary school. Every Friday afternoon during that reception year, for nearly an hour at the end of Friday afternoons, I read with children in my son’s class—one to one, outside in the corridor, perched on those small chairs. Some, at the start, could read fluently and had a big appetite for books, but we spent a whole month with one little girl teaching her to recognise two letters, an R and a D—the initials of her first and second names. The difference lay in what had happened to those kids at home before they came to school.
It hit home how important early reading was to giving a child a good start in life and at school—and the importance of learning at home, not just in school. As I have gone on and looked harder, it has become clear that this conclusion is strongly supported by academic studies as well as anecdotally. The Institute of Education did a report in 2008 into pre-school, school and family influence on children’s development, and it noted that
“the quality of early years HLE (home learning environment) promoted intellectual and social development in all children”
and that reading at home was an important part of cultivating that environment.
What parents do is much more important than who they are. The Institute of Education report came to an important conclusion:
“The case study findings on pupils who ‘succeeded against the odds’ showed that what they had in common was higher scores on the early years home learning environment”.
That evidence is borne out by the evidence of international studies as well, including some of the institute’s own work comparing early years reading programmes across Europe. The Minister himself has recognised that. Last year, on the number of pupils who still did not reach the expected reading level at the age of 7 at key stage 1, he explained:
“It is vital that all children learn how to read early in their education”
and that
“we need to do more to ensure that our children have the skills as early as possible, to develop into confident, enthusiastic readers.”—[Official Report, 24 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 61WS.]
Given the clear link between early reading, the home environment, a child’s development and successful learning, let us keep in mind this stark fact: one in three young people do not have books of their own. Last year, the National Literacy Trust, in “The Gift of Reading”, a report that established that fact, underlined the importance of children having books that they see as their own and
“the clear relationship between receiving books as presents and reading ability”.
Teachers in Rotherham report that there are children who, without the books they receive from the Imagination Library, would have no books at home at all.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend makes his case eloquently. I rise to speak not only as something of an early years reader myself, but as someone who has seen the work of the Imagination Library in action in my constituency in Luton. I know that he will speak about this, but I just want to mention the sponsorship given by Wates, the construction company, which worked with us on the Building Schools for the Future programme, the partnership with the local authority and the fact that kids in my constituency are getting 60 books by the age of five, growing with their learning and learning to love reading, which is making such a big difference in my constituency.
John Healey
My hon. Friend has been a strong supporter of the scheme in Luton right from the outset. I pay tribute to the council for helping it get off the ground, and to Wates and its foundation trust, as the Building Schools for the Future partner in the borough, for providing the funding to make that happen. I think around 2,000 children in Luton—but a number growing every month—are now receiving books in that way.
As Labour in government, we set up the Bookstart scheme, which took some useful steps in providing all young children with the opportunity—the gift—to read at home. However, the Imagination Library takes a running leap over the limitations of the Bookstart scheme by ensuring that all children, wherever they live and whoever they live with, regularly receive their own books directly at home. Something similar was first started in the United States by Dolly Parton, who has backed our book scheme in Britain. I am proud that the first Imagination Library in this country was set up in Rotherham, and is now run right across the area. I pay tribute to Roger Stone, our council leader, who took the idea forward with great vision and determination. As you know, Mr Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) is a good friend of mine. However, when I tried to see him while he was Education Secretary, it was less my links and more the fact that our council leader promised to bring Dolly Parton with him that opened the doors to his office on that occasion. Indeed, they report in the Department that the permanent secretary had never been so keen to attend a meeting with the Secretary of State—and, of course, have his picture taken with Dolly Parton.
I also pay tribute to Alison Lilburn, who now runs the Imagination Library in Rotherham for us, and to Natalie Turnbull, who runs the national Imagination Library, making the links with Luton and a small-scale scheme supported by primary schools in two wards in Wigan, as well as Scotland, where work is beginning through local authorities to ensure that every looked-after child has access to the scheme. In Rotherham, we now have more than 13,600 children, all aged between nought and five, receiving a book a month. Those signed up to the scheme at birth will have received their own library of 60 books in total by the age of five, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) said. Importantly, nine out of 10 of our Rotherham youngsters are signed up to the scheme, which goes from strength to strength each year. It has been running for four years now, but no child will have completed the full five years of the programme before the summer of next year, 2013. It is therefore still too early to draw conclusive evidence about its long-term effects.
However, Rotherham has seen a year-on-year improvement in young pupils achieving a good level of development at the foundation stage, with 50% in 2009 and 58% in 2011. Within that improvement, children enrolled in the Imagination Library have outperformed those who are not enrolled by more than 6.5%. Above all, our Rotherham scheme shows the power of a parcel arriving with a child’s name on it and their own book inside. It sparks a kid’s imagination from the very earliest age, giving every young child a better start in life and a better chance to read.
Teachers, parents and—most importantly of all—children love the scheme. It fires a desire in the child to read, but it often fires a determination to do so in the family as well. I was with a group of parents and their young kids in Rawmarsh about 10 days ago, and one of the dads was telling me how excited his son was whenever the postman arrived. He thought that every parcel was for him; it was like Christmas every month. One of the mums said that whenever her daughter got a new book, she would bring it directly to her and demand that she read it as soon as it arrived.
Some of the teachers across Rotherham report similar experiences. Anita Butcher is a lead teacher in one of our children’s centres. She says:
“Many of the children in our area are brought up in low income homes where English is an additional language and parents have poor literacy skills. Without the Imagination Library gifting scheme it is very unlikely that these children would experience books within their home environment, leaving them at a distinct disadvantage when starting school.”
Another of our lead teachers is Sarah Lyall. She counters the sense that we sometimes get that learning and education are purely instrumental, saying:
“Once this foundation to reading has been installed you have children on the right path to a whole world of imagination, awe and wonder.”
Donna Mackinnon is the foundation stage co-ordinator at Wath Victoria primary school. She reports on the way in which the school has started to use some of the same books that the Imagination Library is sending to the children’s homes, saying:
“The children started to talk to their parents/carers about how we had used the books and were then asking for them to be read at home. The book lending scheme at school is now used by significantly more children…This has developed directly from the Imagination Library texts being sent into the homes of our children.”
What about the cost? The Rotherham Imagination Library, which is funded by the council, cost about £300,000 to run last year. The scheme costs £2 per child per month, and that covers the cost of the books and the postage. That is £24 for each child each year, or £120 over the full five years. Let us compare that to the average spending on each child in the country during their primary school years. Last year, it was £4,139.
I shall now turn to my direct asks for the Minister. First, I ask him to take a serious look at our Rotherham scheme and to work with us to evaluate fully its potential to be widely followed across the country. Secondly, I ask him to look hard at how the scheme could be extended, and to make a start by backing the young children who start life facing the biggest hurdles. They include children who are in care, babies born to mums who are in prison and children whose parents are serving in our UK armed forces.
Our experience and the academic evidence show that getting our kids to love reading often happens at home before school, but children in care can miss out on that. Once they fall behind, many never catch up. Long-term looked-after children’s achievements are far lower than those of others. In this country last year, 58% of students—almost three in five—gained five A to C grades at GCSE, including English and maths. For children in care, however, the figure was one in eight. In March last year, there were 65,620 looked-after children in England, of whom one in five—about 18%—were under the age of five. With the cost at £2 per child per month, extending the Imagination Library to benefit every child under five in care could be expected to cost less than £300,000 for the books and postage. Of course, signing up the children would be straightforward, as local authorities are the legal guardians of looked-after children; this is what is being done in Scotland and it should now be done in England.
As far as mums in prison and their babies are concerned, there are seven special mothers and babies units in women’s prisons around the country with a total capacity of 75 places. It is hard to get firm figures on the numbers born in prison each year, as many of the babies do not stay there long, but the Imagination Library would offer a small contribution to both the mother’s and the child’s start in life.
That brings me finally to forces children. Forces families move around a lot, with their children’s education often disrupted by their parents’ postings. Imagination Library books follow the kids, so the scheme is a great fit for the lives of service families. There are about 120,000 children whose parents are in our armed forces, most of whom live in the UK. If the proportion under five is similar to that in the general population, about one in four of those—about 30,000—will be armed forces children under five years old, so extending the benefit of the scheme to every child under five with a parent serving in the forces would cost about £750,000 a year. Indeed, the Education Secretary has recognised this special case, saying:
“Service children…face unique challenges and stresses.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 71WS.]
He has pledged £200 a year as a pupil premium to the school of every such child. A much smaller sum—£120 over five years—would give all children in forces families a boost in the vital earliest years as babies and toddlers. I would like to see the Government make this extra modest effort to reward the extra sacrifice that forces families make for the rest of us. Ministers say that they are on the side of Britain’s servicemen and women. Extending Rotherham’s book scheme would be a simple way of showing it.
Finally, I would like to say to the Minister, “Come and see for yourself. We will make you welcome in Rotherham. You can meet Roger Stone, our council leader, and if you are serious about extending the scheme, we might even be able to arrange for you to meet Dolly Parton as well.”
Vocational Education
Gavin Shuker Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Michael Gove
My hon. Friend has campaigned for a better deal for poorer students ever since he first came to this House, and I agree that we must look at international models of good practice. The university technical colleges that this Government are committed to introducing provide a new model that caters for students of different aptitudes, and I believe we can learn a lot from some of the best practice in the United States.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State said in his statement that the purpose of his radical reform programme was to make “opportunity more equal”. Does he accept, however, that it is difficult to realise that aim while local authorities are not being treated equally? For example, in my local authority of Luton there are 3.1 pupils per family, compared with the English average of 1.9. Does the Secretary of State agree that, for Professor Wolf’s review recommendations to be successful, he must fund the measures properly?
Michael Gove
I am not sure what levers I have at my disposal to ensure that other parts of the country can enjoy the same family size as Luton is blessed with. On the broader point of making sure there is funding for Luton, as the hon. Gentleman knows, Luton is blessed with many excellent schools, such as Denbigh high school, which Dame Yasmin Bevan leads, and the Barnfield group of academies and studio schools. I look forward to visiting Luton shortly, when I will have an opportunity to talk to head teachers there. I hope I might also have an opportunity to talk to the hon. Gentleman about what more we can do to help continue the success stories in his constituency.
Education Bill
Gavin Shuker Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for instinctively knowing that I wanted to be called after the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who talks an awful lot of sense particularly about the English baccalaureate.
Today is an opportunity for us to discuss the principle of the Bill, which is why it is so disappointing that the first 52 minutes of the debate were about politics. A number of elephant traps were set to try to make the Labour party look as though it were the roadblock to reform, which is not the case.
The Bill raises important issues. It includes a shift from Whitehall to the classroom, but it also goes in other directions. It goes from local people, in the form of local authorities, to individual schools. Parts 5 and 6, in particular, relate to local authorities and schools admissions and they will remove the admissions role of schools adjudicators, increase the emphasis on academies and remove the requirement to consult on them. Also relevant are free schools, appropriate consultation and the disappearance of local admissions forums. All those issues point to a broad but consistent agenda that seeks to undermine the role of local authorities and each of us in our individual locations. We are losing the sense that we are together making decisions in our towns and cities about how we educate our young people. There are trade-offs involved and we should not seek to minimise them. This is our role in debating the principles behind the Bill.
There has been a lot of talk on both sides about the number of young people coming from a free school meals background and going to Cambridge. I came from a free school meals background and went to Cambridge, so I would have been included in the figures. Much as I am concerned about that issue, I am more concerned about the young people in my constituency who come from a free school meals background, or just above that line, and who are not achieving the results that they should. I went to a comprehensive school in Luton and when I left school in 1998, which is not so long ago, only one third of young people in my constituency were achieving five GCSEs at grades A to C—the kind of thing that would help them to get on in life. At the time of the last election, the figure was two thirds, so real progress was made under Labour.
I concede that much of that progress was made as a result of the arguments about whether we should have more choice and more autonomy in schools. We have two excellent academies in Luton, one of which started in my constituency and will shortly move into a new building. I do not want to undermine the ability of people to come in and turn around schools that are really struggling, but we should not pretend there is no trade-off in relation to the power of individual heads versus power being pooled, or to the sense that together we are educating our young people.
The situation in Luton illustrates those points very well. We had 11 Building Schools for the Future projects cancelled in the BSF cancellations. For us, the projects were not just about providing world-class facilities but about providing the additional capacity that we desperately need. We have a major issue with our primary schools: we have projected that we will need another 5,000 places at a cost of £76 million, but we will get only £4 million over the next four years. As a result of more providers coming in, there is a disjointed admissions policy and successful free schools and academies, will serve only to increase the gap. My concern is that we are squeezing provision and narrowing the options in places such as Luton about how to respond to the diverse challenges required in education. The choice is between academies and free schools or nothing. There is not even a chance to expand good-quality comprehensive education because no additional is money coming in and there is no scope for local people to step in, through the realms of the local authority, and choose what type of school is appropriate for them.
Last weekend, the English Defence League was in Luton and it raised the issue, once again, of community cohesion in our town. Education is about more than children achieving what they can in terms of grades and results. It is also about the kind of society that we want to create. If we want a comprehensive and mixed society in which people from different backgrounds come together, surely in a place such as Luton comprehensive education is the ideal. We have schools that are doing the work and want to expand, so why close them off and tell them that the only route is through free-school education? Schools are drilling down into more reduced catchment areas and the only route to expanding capacity is through academies or free schools. The slimmed-down admissions codes that are coming might make the situation even worse.
In his speech, the Secretary of State cast himself as a brave reformer and cast Labour Members as the luddites who refuse to adapt to a changing world, but that is not the case. I believe there is a move, which started under the previous Government and continues under this one, to put more power into the hands of individual head teachers and away from local authorities, which are tasked with the responsibility of together finding a response that is appropriate to their setting. We have to accept that doing that comes with a cost. If the very principle of the Bill is to suck power away from the pooling of heads, we will have a model for education that is prescribed, controlled and modelled. In Luton, the effect of the Bill will be to store up problems for the future and for that reason—for my constituents—I will not vote for it tonight.
Academies Bill [Lords]
Gavin Shuker Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Vernon Coaker
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the devastating impact of the cuts in the Building Schools for the Future programme on Liverpool, although, of course, it can be seen throughout the country. She is also right to draw attention to the comments of the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, who asked why money should be withheld from perfectly adequate existing schools to create new schools. That is a question that the Minister responsible for schools will have to answer.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
The budgets of three schools in my constituency—among others—have been cut: Stopsley, Putteridge and Denbigh. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a question not just of new school buildings, but of capacity? In the Luton local authority area, 11 new schools have been cancelled—and, unlike the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), my constituency does need more schools. Is not the free schools policy a perfect storm for areas such as mine which need new capacity? The building of free schools is the only option for us now.
Industry (Government Support)
Gavin Shuker Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Vince Cable
I cannot negotiate across the debating Chamber on the basis of announcements that are being made outside this place. It would be ridiculous to ask me to do so. I am, however, happy to keep in close contact with that project and with the people involved. It is clearly an important one, and we have confirmed today that we were willing to support the continuation of the loan. That is all I can say, but I am happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman and others about how we can take this forward constructively.
Vince Cable
I have taken an enormous number of interventions; I will take one from the hon. Gentleman later.
Before I leave the car industry, I must point out that these projects were part of an assistance scheme for the industry, and I think that the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman would acknowledge that they were time limited. Other projects have already made applications, which are being properly considered, but we cannot have a situation in which the car industry, or any other, assumes that it can come to the Government for money, just because it has an interesting project.
It is worth underlining the point that, in large parts of the British car industry, brilliant companies have got through the recession without Government support. My first visit as a Minister was to the Bentley factory in Crewe—[Laughter.] Hon. Members might laugh, but that factory provides thousands of highly skilled jobs and a high-quality product. It is a subsidiary of BMW. It was very badly hit by the recession—it lost half its output—but it kept going. The management took a big pay cut, and the workers joined them, accepting that they had joint responsibility for the company. The company survived; it is now flourishing—it has some of the most sophisticated technology in Britain—and it did all that without a Government guarantee.
Education and Health
Gavin Shuker Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr. Deputy Speaker, I thank you for calling me in this important debate on the Gracious Speech, and congratulate the hon. Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) on his maiden speech. I am sure you agree that every maiden speech makes the last constituency flit away as we hear of the honours and excitement of the new constituency.
It is an honour and a privilege to speak in this Chamber. Indeed, it is something that very few people in each generation are able to experience. A year ago, I did not anticipate that this would be part of my life—certainly not at such a young age—but the voters of Luton South have bestowed on me this position of service, and I will for ever owe them a debt of thanks.
To me, Luton South is not just a seat; it is my home. I was born in the town, receiving the schooling that saw me into Girton college, Cambridge. I was fortunate enough to receive a bursary to study there, and my student fees were covered by the public purse. Those investments in me are, I hope, being repaid in my desire to serve our society. I worked for a local church, and I joined the Labour party. I have always been inspired by the people who choose to serve a place, to commit themselves to it, and to see it change in terms of individual lives and on a regional level. That is the model that I have sought to replicate.
Luton South is a wonderful constituency, and I can honestly say that I would not want to represent any other seat. As well as containing Luton airport, two mainline railway stations, a carnival arts centre, Luton Hoo, the General Motors plant in which my father worked, Stockwood park, many improving schools, and the villages of Caddington, Hyde and Slip End, Luton South is home to a rich and diverse range of communities. Indeed, it has been remarked to me that should it choose to declare itself an independent state, we should have all that we need. Now that my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and I are the only two Opposition MPs in the east of England, perhaps that is not such a bad idea.
I love our town, and it fills me with enormous pride that her residents chose one of their own to represent us in Parliament. In her maiden speech, my predecessor Margaret Moran spoke about a pupil of Dallow primary school. In 1997, that pupil was in a class of 37, facing educational challenges that few would recognise today. Our Labour Government faced up to the reality of that time, and moved to act and invest in education.
Margaret Moran served the people of Luton South for 13 years in a position that carries its own unique pressures, and she deserves recognition as someone who, as part of that significant intake of 1997 Labour Members, transformed fundamentally the terms of debate not just in relation to politics, but in relation to education in particular. The legacy of those Members can be seen in the educational achievement of every child who no longer has to sit in an overwhelmed class or a crumbling building. The House has lost many from that landslide year, and we owe them a debt of gratitude.
I have always believed that education cannot simply be reduced to the economic transaction of knowledge and skills in return for time and money. Education is about the investment that we make in each of our young people. Education is about the kind of society that we seek to create. I should like to think that my own comprehensive education provided me not just with knowledge but with values—the values of a mixed society, and of a shared experience beyond income, race or religion.
While the debate of the coming years will inevitably focus on greater diversity of provision, we must ensure that the vast majority who receive a comprehensive education are not left behind. Education remains the most effective and, indeed, the most intuitive route to ensuring social mobility. We recognise it in developing countries all over the world as the silver bullet—the means of tackling both poverty and inequality—and we should recognise it here as well.
The excellent university of Bedfordshire also has its home in Luton South. In the coming Parliament, we will examine the issue of student funding in greater detail; and here the economic argument continues to hold sway. It is often true that graduates earn more, but it may not automatically be true that as a result they should pay more, at the cost of student fees which, despite all the safeguards, can still deter those from disadvantaged backgrounds. When we educate someone, be it as a teacher, a doctor or even, dare I say, a social science graduate, we all benefit. That must be an important part of this debate.
Finally, let me speak in the context of the times in which we find ourselves. It has become fashionable to say that markets must have morals, but it is also worth articulating that there are limits to markets altogether. In natural monopolies such as rail, in the provision of education, where they can serve to ration provision, and in other areas in which co-operative ideals best express their form, we are forced to examine the prevailing orthodoxies and expose their weaknesses.
My Christian faith confirms in me the conviction that we are fundamentally designed to operate in co-operation and not merely in competition; that not just some but all have inherent worth and value; that tackling inequality is not merely a political concern, but a moral one; and, also, that there is more to life than politics. I am young, but I am not naive. I am sure that I will humbly need to reacquaint myself with those convictions in the years ahead.