Schools White Paper
Gerald Kaufman Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
One of the most morale-destroying assignments that I have had in this House has been to read this White Paper. It is riddled with jargon, with ungrammatical structures and with split infinitives. For this to come from the Department for Education is particularly unacceptable. I come from a family of education. I taught for a short time after I left university, and two of my sisters were teachers all their working lives. I know the challenge of education at first hand. Having read this White Paper, I do not believe that the Department knows what that challenge is.
This 122-page White Paper contains a huge number of issues that we could deal with today, but it is inevitable that we shall concentrate on the forced academisation policy. There is no justification for it, and that is illustrated by the fact that it started in my constituency during the last Parliament. An effort was made to force Wright Robinson College in my constituency to become an academy, and the only reason that that did not happen was that the then Secretary of State—now the Secretary of State for Justice—ordered the withdrawal of a warning notice that would have forced Wright Robinson to become an academy.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree with my constituent Glendra Read, a governor at a school that has fought academisation before, when she says that
“If schools and parents are meant to have ‘freedom’, then our freedom of choice is to remain within”
local authority control?
Sir Gerald Kaufman
That is a valid point.
Wright Robinson College was rebuilt under the Labour Government at a cost of £47 million and is a model structure. I quote from a letter that I received from the headteacher last month:
“On the evening of Tuesday 2 March 2016, I attended a meeting with my Deputies and the Ofsted Team, to receive their detailed feedback on the Section 5 Inspection that took place on 1 and 2 March 2016. I then experienced the proudest moment in my entire professional career when we were told that the College had received the full five ‘Outstanding Judgements’ against the criteria of the new and challenging Ofsted Framework.”
That would not have happened if the Government had had their way.
There was an attempt to turn Birchfields Primary School in my constituency into an academy, but I worked with the staff and governors to prevent that and we won. We do not always win. Not long ago, another school in my constituency, now Cedar Mount Academy, was forced to become an academy in a particularly odious manner because it was obliged to merge with schools that are not even in the city of Manchester. From that came a person called Dana Ross-Wawrzynski, who turned the whole situation into what she called “Bright Futures” for which she pays herself more than £200,000 a year. That is what academisation is about: people making money out of an unnecessary structure that does not benefit pupils.
We read in the White Paper that the agglomerations of schools that would be put into academy groups are in some cases not even in the same county. It is nothing to do with locality, local feeling or local sentiment, and parents will have no voice at all. The Government are to create something called “Parent Portal” through which it is alleged that parents will have a voice, but they will not. They will have no voice in the decision as to which school their child will attend or in the quality of the child’s education. The White Paper offers remedies, one of which is to go to the Department for Education. However, if I write to the Secretary of State, she will send me a courteous letter, but she will not deal with the issue that the parent has raised, because she will say that she deals only with policy, not individual or family issues. Another course parents can take is to go to an ombudsman. I worked for Harold Wilson when he created the ombudsman system, but can anyone tell me when somebody went to an ombudsman and actually got a result that improved the situation?
The structure the Government are setting out in this White Paper is compulsory. It is not going to give local authorities any voice. It contains a section about the voice of local authorities, but if we actually read it, we see that local authorities do not actually have any voice, except that they are assigned the role of making sure that kids get to a school. Well, that is not going to happen with an independent academy run by people who are paid hundreds of thousands of pounds—they will tell the local authority to get lost.
This is not simply about the local authority; it is also about the fact that the Government are going to create 500 free schools. We have free schools in my constituency. We have free schools run by the Church of England, and they are very good. We have free schools run by the Catholic Church, and they are very good. The Muslim community wants to be involved as well, but it will not get involved in this because we will be faced with an edict from this Government, who do not care about public education at all. That is the issue: academies are not about public education; academies are about giving a small number of people authority over millions of people.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I just say that we are very tight for time in this debate?
Ruth Cadbury
What many of us in areas with a growing population were looking for in a White Paper was the ability to bring on new schools quickly. In five years, we have not been able in Hounslow to deliver the community school that is needed. Does my right hon. Friend agree that despite the ability of faith schools and some other academy trusts to develop new schools, the community is excluded?
Sir Gerald Kaufman
My hon. Friend is right about that. The fact is that, certainly in my constituency, where I am heavily involved with the schools, it is not a matter of the Government providing a choice for the parents; it is the Government taking away the choice of parents and putting it in the hands of extremely well-paid bureaucrats. This Government are making a big mistake and they need to think again.
Several hon. Members rose—
Points of Order
Gerald Kaufman Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance on a matter relating to ministerial accountability to Members of the House. I recently sent a letter, at the request of a constituent, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose office then notified me that it was being forwarded to the Department for Education for reply. Today, I received a reply from the Department—from the permanent secretary. This is the second time I have received such a letter. The matter about which I wrote was politically controversial, so the permanent secretary has, whether he wished it or not, been drawn into party political controversy by expounding and defending Government policy. This clearly is not satisfactory, Mr Speaker, and I shall be grateful for your guidance on how we should deal with such a situation and prevent its recurrence.
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman has been in the House for 40 years—I think he is in his 41st year of service in the House—so he will know that how Ministers respond to questions is principally a matter for them. However, I certainly think the point that he has raised warrants a ministerial response. For my own part, I will stick my neck out and observe that when a Member of Parliament tables a question, the Member of Parliament wants a reply from a Minister, not from an official. It might even be thought a little unwise to respond to the right hon. Gentleman, of all people, in the way that was done, but I am sure the Secretary of State will have something to say about the matter.
Sure Start Children’s Centres
Gerald Kaufman Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
A year ago during the general election campaign, a woman in my constituency asked me what Labour had done for Gorton. We were standing outside the St James Sure Start centre on Stelling street, where she was waiting to collect her child. That lady, like many constituents of mine, will be wondering what is going to happen to that centre, which she took for granted as though it had always been there, archetypally provided by some heavenly intervention. It fact, of course, it was created by the Labour Government and was one of their most successful innovations. Incidentally, when Parliament was considering the Sure Start proposals, the then Conservative Opposition did not support them.
In a city such as Manchester, which has many areas of deprivation, Sure Start made a hugely positive impact. We have 14 major centres, of which several excellent ones are in my constituency. One in Farrer road in Longsight was built anew at a cost of £3.25 million and provides an exceptional environment where parents can take their children and be confident that they will be looked after. Throughout my constituency—from Gorton right through to Whalley Range—my constituents have come to rely on Sure Start and take it for granted. That is true not only of the centres, but the other facilities provided by Sure Start. In several parks, such as Platt Fields, they provide play areas and playgrounds that were not there before.
Sure Start is very well used and enormously valued. That was shown when my constituents, along with those of other Labour Members with Manchester constituencies, came down to London a few days ago to present a petition to 10 Downing street—to which we have so far had no response—asking for Sure Start to be protected.
Some of the petitioners came from the Levenshulme area in my constituency, and a couple of weeks ago we held a special meeting in Levenshulme to discuss with local parents what they wanted to happen now that Sure Start was under threat as a result of the Government’s policies. Mothers listed a number of reasons why Sure Start had made a difference to their lives and the lives of their families. They spoke of a cohesive approach, and said that Sure Start had given them points of contact with other parents. They said that, as well as providing facilities and services, Sure Start had given them an opportunity to make friends and establish links with peer groups. They said that it was particularly valuable to those who did not have much family support, and that it was very important to single-parent families. They also said that it gave parents the power of choice, but that power of choice is now being undermined and placed in jeopardy by the huge cuts being imposed by this joint Liberal Democrat-Conservative Government. The city of Manchester is one of the top four cities in the entire country to have suffered cuts in local government funding from this Government. Next year the cut will be £109 million, and the following year it will be £170 million.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman is painting a good picture of the work done by Sure Start in my constituency, but I wonder whether he and his fellow Manchester Labour Members will make representations to the city council about the £95 million cash reserves that it is holding, and about one or two jobs that it is advertising. For instance, it is offering annual salaries of £38,000 for a communications manager and £128,000 for a creative graphic designer. Would that money not be better put towards Sure Start?
Sir Gerald Kaufman
The hon. Gentleman reads out some brief that has been thrust into his hands and talks about Manchester. I can tell him that he knows nothing whatever about life in Manchester and nothing whatever about the lives of my constituents, a huge proportion of whom have already lived in deprivation and are now living in worse deprivation as a result of what is being done by this Conservative Government. The latest unemployment figure is 9.4%. Let the hon. Gentleman not be briefed by his Whips to tell me about Manchester, because my constituents sent me to tell the House about Manchester, and that is what I will continue to do.
Sir Gerald Kaufman
If the quality of the hon. Gentleman’s first intervention is anything to go by, I think that the House will be better off without a second intervention from him.
However, the problem is not simply the cuts in Manchester’s overall funding but the cuts in the early intervention grant, which helps to fund Sure Start. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) said that nationally the cuts amounted to £50 per head. In Manchester, the figure is £80 per head: that is what this Government have done to the city. Manchester city council is utterly determined not to close any of our Sure Start centres, but because of what the Government have done—because of the disproportionately high cuts in the early intervention grant—the service that we have been used to in Manchester, and which the council wants to go on providing, will no longer be available.
The council is examining options, not one of which it would prefer to consider. It will have to withdraw from its current role as a provider of services and become a “commissioner of provision”. That means that it will try to provide services which are of sufficient quality and properly targeted, but because of the Government cuts it will not be able to continue to provide the service that a Labour Government enabled my constituents to take for granted as something that they would always have. When I was electioneering for the local elections—
Sir Gerald Kaufman
Oh yes. I shall say more about the local elections in a minute.
When I was electioneering for the local elections last Friday, a constituent came up to me and asked, “Why are the Government doing this to us in Manchester? We did not want this Government in Manchester, but we are stuck with them, so why are they discriminating against us?”
The best that we can do is not to close any centres and to engage in a consultation process. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh has pointed out, on this as on so many other issues, what was said before the general election by both the parties that comprise the present Government bears no relation to what they are doing now to service after service. The present Prime Minister said:
“we back Sure Start, but we will improve it, because at the moment the people who need Sure Start the most—disadvantaged families—are not getting enough of the benefit. So we’ll contract independent organisations that have a proven track record in helping families”.
One of the huge values of Sure Start was that it was socially cohesive. It did not discriminate socially between those who were more affluent and those who were in employment, and those who were less affluent and those who were not able to get jobs—and heaven knows, those who are not able to get jobs constitute an increasingly high proportion of the people I represent. But if the Prime Minister really wanted to approach Sure Start in the right way and to help disadvantaged families more, that is being breached to an even worse extent. The statistics show that constituencies such as mine are being penalised and targeted by the Government, whereas the families who, according to the Prime Minister, do not need Sure Start as much are suffering much less from cuts.
As I said earlier, the early intervention grant in my city has been cut by £80 per child. In Surrey, Buckinghamshire and Wokingham, it has been cut by £30 per child. The Government have decided to discriminate in favour of the affluent Tory-voting south, and against deprived constituencies like mine which need Sure Start. The Prime Minister himself needs Sure Start. But it is not only the Prime Minister who deceived the country before the general election. The leader of the Liberal Democrat party said:
“My party will protect existing child care entitlements and Sure Start”,
and:
“Sure Start is a really important programme that has made a real difference to millions of parents. Difficult decisions are going to have to be made in public spending but Sure Start is one of the best things the last Government has done and I want all these centres to stay open.”
That is what the leader of the Liberal Democrats says, whose party is conniving at undermining Sure Start and taking its valued facilities away from parents in my constituency who need them.
I have mentioned the local election campaign and what people are seeing happening, and I say this: a week tomorrow we in Manchester will be able to pass our verdict on the Liberal Democrats. There is no point in our passing our verdict on the Conservatives because we do not have any of them on the council, but we will be able to pass our verdict on what they have connived at in the abolition of—[Interruption.] I see a Minister grinning at what the Government have done to the deprived people in my constituency—at what they have done on education maintenance allowance and on Sure Start, at the £100 they have deducted from the winter fuel payment, at the deprived and the poor and those who need money having it taken away from them while the bankers’ bonuses go on soaring and soaring. We will decide in Manchester, and this House has got the right to debate these issues, and we will go on debating them until we have shamed this Government out of existence.
Education Maintenance Allowance
Gerald Kaufman Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before calling the next speaker, I must inform Members that—would Members please resume their seats?—52 of them still wish to speak. To be fair, and to try to call them all, I will reduce the time limit to six minutes. I hope that they will bear it in mind when speaking that many Members wish to contribute.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This happens again and again. We are given a restricted time limit, and in the course of the debate it is reduced. One reason why is that the two Front Benchers’ speeches took 50 minutes and 46 minutes. If Front Benchers, taking interventions again and again, are going to reduce the opportunities of Back Benchers to make speeches of reasonable length, we ought to look at the whole system, because it is unacceptable to reduce the length of speeches in the course of a debate.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Sir Gerald, I understand your frustration and anger at the reduction in the time limit. As you will know, it is beyond the power of the Chair to curtail the opening speeches or to prevent Members making interventions in the first place when they have their name down to speak in that very debate, but I am sure that other Members will want to take up your point with the Procedure Committee. It is not a matter for me, however. I am trying, with this debate, to be as fair as I possibly can, and even with six minutes not every Member who has asked to speak will be called before the winding-up speeches. I am afraid that I can do nothing more at this stage, but I will certainly draw the issue to the Speaker’s attention.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
I represent one of the most deprived constituencies in the country. Today’s unemployment figures show that my Gorton constituency has an unemployment rate of 9%. Very few jobs will be available for those who are going to be thrown on to the streets by the Government’s decision today, particularly when we take into account the huge job cuts that have been forced on Manchester city council by the grossly disproportionate Government cuts in local government funding for Manchester and other needy areas.
I have come to the Chamber to speak in this debate because the principal of Xaverian college in my constituency, just around the corner from where I live, wrote to me in a tone of huge anxiety and agitation about what the Government are doing. I also received a letter from the assistant principal of Loreto college in Manchester, a constituent of mine, who wrote that
“the EMA has been the most significant Government instrument to encourage marginalised and vulnerable sixteen year olds to remain in education.”
I do not know whether these people vote Labour or Conservative—I cannot imagine that they are stupid enough to vote Liberal Democrat—but whichever way they vote, they contacted me because of education issues.
In order to understand what is going to happen to the 300,000 young people whose EMA will be cancelled part way through their course, we can return to the letter from the assistant principal of Loreto. He wrote:
“the loss to our economy will be measurable, and further I believe that it is in no one’s interest to have disaffected young people on the streets.”
The Government have decided to do this. They have chosen to do it; it has not been forced on them. They could have dealt with the bankers, with bankers’ bonuses and with a host of other issues, but instead they chose to do this, for socially discriminatory reasons. Some 66% of those on full EMA are from single-parent families, and 21% of those on EMA are living with both parents.
This proposal is also racially discriminatory. Some 84% of Bangladeshis receiving EMA and 70% of those of Pakistani heritage who do so receive the full EMA. They use it for all kinds of utterly essential reasons. We must also note that the participation rate in higher education in disadvantaged areas is only 19%.
Thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), young people who are on EMA miss fewer courses, are more likely to stay in education, are socially responsible and have good achievements at their colleges. EMA has made all of those things possible, and this Government are going to take it away from them for socially discriminatory reasons based on the kind of Government they are.
Let us be clear that we are looking at a Government who cut money and cut benefits right across the spectrum of those who can least stand it. Members of this Government have never needed these benefits. They abolished the health in pregnancy grant, which Ministers have never needed. They abolished child trust funds, but Ministers have inherited wealth. They reduced the scope of Sure Start, but Ministers have never needed Sure Start. They are scrapping 500,000 school meals. How many Ministers in this Government have had to get free school meals for their kids? They are interfering with housing benefit, but they live in affluent owner-occupation, in houses that, often, they have inherited. They are taking away social housing rights from our constituents—a huge proportion of my constituents live in social housing—but Ministers have never had to worry about the kind of house they will live in and their right to go on living there.
The Government could have decided on other polices. This callous and heartless Government are the most right wing since the 1930s. They are targeting the weakest when they could have gone for the strongest. The Government could have gone for Sir Philip Green, with his tax-dodging in Monte Carlo, and Lord Ashcroft—but no, those people get away scot-free. It is the poor, the deprived, those in single-parent households and the ethnic minorities that this Government go for. That tells us what the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are really like. Oldham made a judgment about it last week, and the rest of the country will do the same as soon as it gets the opportunity.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gerald Kaufman Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman, again, shares my profound concern for social mobility and social justice. He can be assured that the Government will take the necessary steps to make sure that disadvantaged learners get every help to fulfil their potential. That is at the heart of our mission.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I have today received a letter from the principal of Xaverian sixth-form college in my constituency, 55% of whose student roll are on EMA? The principal says:
“The decision to scrap the Education Maintenance Allowance will cause great suffering”
among those on her student roll, and particularly
“those with low achievement levels, those from ethnic minorities and those from single-parent families.”
Will the hon. Gentleman drop this damaging policy?
Mr Hayes
The right hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of the House and he is diligent in studying all these matters. He will be very familiar with the evaluation evidence, which shows that EMA is ineffective at targeting the very people he described. I am reminded of Chesterton, who said:
“It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.”