Social Mobility/Child Poverty Strategy

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered social mobility and the child poverty strategy.

I was tremendously moved and impressed by the depth of knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) and the other Members who contributed to the previous debate. It was a pleasure to listen to their contributions.

The second debate this afternoon is also on a very important topic on which there is a great deal of cross-party consensus. We may differ on some issues, but, like protecting children in conflict, social mobility raises a sense of passion, commitment and determination to improve things, which should be a matter for celebration among hon. Members. I look forward to their contributions.

I thank my fellow members of the all-party group on social mobility, some of whom are in the Chamber, although Baroness Tyler cannot be here because she is a Member of the other place. I pay tribute to her work on character and resilience, and on the manifesto she has published. I also pay tribute to the in-depth academic and practical information she has drawn together, which almost gives a new perspective on social mobility, and which we have debated for a considerable period. I will mention later a couple of the points she makes.

I also thank Alan Milburn, chair of the commission on poverty and social mobility. All the members of the commission are doing a tremendous job on behalf of the House. In the introduction to his “State of the Nation” report, he says he was appointed to hold the Government’s feet to the fire. He is pleased about that, and he has not pulled any punches in his recommendations. He has excellent people with him on the commission. In my view, they make not only academic observations, but practical recommendations not only for the Government but for employers, hon. Members, parents, families and citizens of our country. For the Government, taking the step to appoint the commission was brave, because having an external body that holds their feet to the fire is not always the most comfortable situation, as I can testify as a former Minister. However, external bodies give different views, information and perspectives. The report has therefore been tremendously helpful for all of us. The work that has been done is absolutely meticulous. The research conducted means that we now have a body of evidence on child poverty and social mobility that we did not have previously. That has been translated into pretty accessible language that I think most people can understand. The commission has given us a new impetus to take these issues forward.

The question we will all be asking ourselves at the outset is this: why does social mobility matter? Why is it the subject of regular debates in the House? Why, increasingly, are employers concerned about it? Why does it affect every bit of our community?

For me, this is a very personal issue. My mum and dad left school at 14. They did not have the opportunity to stay on into further education, let alone have access to higher education. They were absolutely determined that their children would have the opportunities that they had not had. My mum probably coined the phrase “Education, education, education” long before our previous Prime Minister did. That has been the sense for many years in our country: the people who did not have the educational opportunities, money and resources to pursue their own dreams wanted to make sure that the next generation would have that chance.

My mum—I just want to place this on record as a tribute to my mum—won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Arts when she was 14 years old. She was an immensely talented artist. Her father was at the war. She came from a very poor background and did not have the money to take up the scholarship in London. She was, therefore, unable to go. If anything, that absolutely redoubled her commitment to education. She took her first O-level at the age of 38. She took an A-level in English in her 40s. Her lifelong love of education was absolutely apparent. In our lives, sometimes the people in our families are our inspiration to try to make things better. She was certainly my inspiration.

I think the issue matters because it is about fairness. Most of us are committed to fairness and ensuring that, as far as possible, people have a platform to succeed and to reach their potential. It is also about merit—a characteristic that is deeply embedded in most of us in this country and in countries across the world. That sense of a meritocracy—that if someone is good enough they will be able to get on in life and break through barriers—is a really powerful driver.

It is also, perhaps in more prosaic terms, a financial issue. Research undertaken by the Sutton Trust states that if we do not tackle the issues of social mobility, the subsequent waste of talent and skills could cost this country £140 billion by 2050. There is an ideological justification, but also an absolutely compelling practical and financial justification too.

Where are we at the moment? I am afraid that the report does not paint a very happy picture:

“We see a danger that social mobility – having risen in the middle of the last century then flat-lined towards the end – could go into reverse in the first part of this century.”

It is part of Britain’s DNA that everyone should have a fair chance in life, but at the moment Alan Milburn warns that Britain could become “a divided country”. Those comments should make us all take a step back, reflect on where we are and redouble our efforts to make sure that the situation does not continue, and does not continue to get worse, in the coming years.

There has been some extremely good research by the Sutton Trust and I want to outline a few sharp bullet points that might help to put the debate in perspective. The state we are in now in the 21st century, in a modern industrialised, relatively wealthy affluent nation, causes us all a great deal of concern. Children in the poorest fifth of families are already nearly a year behind children from middle-income families when they start school at the age of five. I see this in my constituency day after day. I see children coming to school with speech and language problems—they are not even ready to access education. I see children, because of difficult family backgrounds, falling behind almost immediately when they come to school because they do not have the back-up from home and the community.

At the other end of the scale, 3,000 state-educated pupils achieve the A-level grades necessary to enter the country’s most selective universities, but who, for a variety of reasons, do not end up there. There are 3,000 children who are good enough academically, but are not able to take that next step into higher education. Four private schools and one elite college sent more students to Oxbridge over three years than 2,000 schools and colleges across the United Kingdom. State school pupils, when they do get there, are far more likely to get a 2:1 or a first class degree at university than their private school counterparts with the same A-level results. It is therefore not that children from working class backgrounds are not capable of achieving some extremely high academic outcomes; it is that there are barriers in the system that prevent them from achieving their potential.

Those are worrying facts. We clearly need to take action to ensure, as far as possible, that we get rid of the barriers that are not about how clever, bright, determined or hard-working pupils are. They are systemic barriers that have dogged us for generations. We are making some progress. I acknowledge that Government action is taking us along, but it is so slow and so inch-by-inch that I think there is more we can do more quickly to make that happen.

Alan Milburn, in a very important previous report, raised the ability of children to access professions. He talked about the rising use of unpaid internships to access many professions, whether law, journalism, fashion, couture and, dare I say it, politics. Internships increasingly became the way to access professions, but they were denied to many young people from less-affluent backgrounds. Working for free does not come cheap. Most of the internships that provide access to professions are based here in London. If people cannot afford accommodation and do not have the bank of mum and dad, it is virtually impossible to come to London and take them up.

Many companies have made progress on internships in the past few years. The social mobility business compact, working with employers, has begun to highlight the fact that offering long-term unpaid internships is utterly unfair. It is a bad practice and it should not be carried out by the best firms in our country. We now have a whole range of companies providing first-class paid internships, with proper development opportunities. Companies such as KPMG, Ernst and Young, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and Fujitsu, which operates in my area, are offering paid internships and developing young people’s skills and talents. CH2M Hill, a massive engineering firm, has just set up a scheme for paid internships, particularly to draw more women into science, engineering and consulting. Johnson & Johnson, the medical and pharmaceutical industries and BP are just some of the examples I know about where firms have changed their practice. In the past, they may have had unpaid internships, but now that practice is no longer acceptable. That is making a key difference to young people, not just in attaining education but in providing the access to professions and jobs that will ensure that they earn a decent income and can have an exciting future.

We used to have a lot of unpaid internships in the House some years ago. I am delighted to say that with the advent of the Speaker’s Parliamentary Placement Scheme, which I helped to establish with the 100% backing of Mr Speaker, I think and hope the number of MPs who take people on unpaid internships can now be counted on the fingers of one hand—maybe just one or two Members. We all now recognise that that might have been the culture in the past, but excluding young people from working-class backgrounds from getting into politics is not just unfair to them: it is bad for our politics. We have a lot of complaints about the political class. I did some research. In 1979, 3% of MPs of all parties came from that career transmission belt of being special advisers working for Ministers and so on. At the last election, it was nearly 25%. We have a real problem getting people from diverse backgrounds to Parliament. I am pleased to say that Mr Speaker’s scheme is making a significant difference. I am grateful to the companies that have supported the scheme. I am beginning a dialogue with the Government on how we can ensure that it is sustainable in the long term. I am extremely encouraged by the all-party commitment to the scheme, which has been endorsed by the three party leaders. That is evidence of consensus across the House. I hope we can achieve sustainability.

There are problems at the beginning of life and with early-years development. There are problems with A-level achievement, problems with access to university and problems with access to professions. These are all systemic barriers.

However, as we get better at tackling each of those issues, the problem seems to settle in different areas. An example of that arose from a case in my constituency involving postgraduate education. At first I wondered why postgraduate education was a social mobility issue: surely, I thought, by the time people reached that stage, they would have gone through the system, obtained their degrees and so forth. However, when a young man in my constituency, Damien Shannon, applied to Oxford for a place on a postgraduate course, he was required to meet certain conditions. Not only did he have to find £11,000 for tuition fees; he also had to find just over £10,000 to cover living expenses, and he had to prove that the necessary liquid cash was available to him. The “living expenses” included entertaining, dining in hall, and being able to sustain an “Oxford lifestyle”.

Damien comes from Salford, and he is a very bright young man. He decided that, one, the requirement was not fair, and two, he could not possibly meet it. He could get a career development loan for the tuition fees, but there was no way in which he could get a loan to enable him to have an “Oxford lifestyle” in the form of dining and entertaining. He therefore decided to bring a legal challenge, and we have worked on that together for the last 18 months. I initiated a very good debate about the matter in the House, to which the Minister for Universities and Science responded. We had endless conversations with Oxford university, which, I am delighted to say, has now changed its admission requirements for postgraduate education, and has abandoned the requirement for applicants to show that they have sufficient living expenses.

Damien has taken up his place at Oxford. He is absolutely delighted, and he is doing really well. I want to place on record my admiration for a brave, clever, determined young man who was not going to let the system beat him. I have no doubt that he will have an absolutely brilliant career in the future. However, we really cannot have that in this day and age, in our top universities. We cannot allow them to hark back to another age when people may have spent slightly more time punting than they spent attending lectures and gaining academic achievements. There is still a wide range of barriers, and I think that we still have a long way to go.

The report also deals with poverty and poverty pay. Many children are finding it very difficult to achieve in the same way as their colleagues because of poverty. The Government will tell me that many more families are now in work, and that the number of completely workless households has been dramatically reduced. However, there is still poverty in families who are out there working hard, doing all the things that we ask them to do, playing by the rules and supporting the system.

The problem of the cost of living and low incomes is a really stubborn one. We need to deal with it, because that poverty is feeding through to children. It is very difficult for them to have a platform for achievement when they are living in difficult housing conditions with no room to do their homework, their parents are extremely low paid, and life is a real struggle. The report recommends that the minimum wage should be increased, and that we should try to give people access to the living wage. I think that that is the least that we can do if we want to give children and young people a chance to get on in life.

Another significant issue raised in the report is one to which I referred earlier. The issue of character and resilience is very new in this area. In the past, people used to say that children at private schools somehow acquired the character and resilience that they were taught in that environment, whereas children at state schools did not have the “grit” that is, increasingly, a foundation for success. As was shown in the “Character and Resilience Manifesto” produced by my noble Friend Baroness Tyler, that quality of character and resilience is not something that people are born with. It is not necessarily in their genetic make-up, and they do not have it because they come from the best families in the land. Character and resilience can be taught.

I have been fascinated to learn that character and resilience, and the ability to get on in life, are about three things. First, one must have a work ethic and be prepared to focus, concentrate and apply one’s mind to a task for a long period. That can be taught. Secondly, one must be prepared to accept deferred gratification and be prepared to invest for the longer term, rather than wanting success immediately. That means saying “If I work now, I will get results. I may get them a little further down the line, but it will be absolutely worth it.” Thirdly, in the context of social mobility, one must have the ability to bounce back from adversity. There is an increasing body of evidence to suggest that those three things can be taught, and they are crucial to the personal ability of someone to succeed in life.

Let me ask the Government specifically to look into what we are doing in our state school system to inculcate in youngsters from tough backgrounds the ability to work hard, focus and concentrate, the ability to accept deferred gratification—it will not all come now—and that essential resilience and ability to bounce back from adversity. If we do that, we shall be doing something which I think will be sustainable in the long term. Rather than developing a programme or a specific initiative, we shall be training our young people to recognise that it is their responsibility as well to acquire the tools that they need in order to make progress.

Alan Milburn has made some very interesting practical recommendations about what the Government could do in regard to educational attainment in particular. He refers to, for instance, the need to ensure that we can have the best teachers in the worst schools. We have talked about that for a long time. I remember, before I was in the Government, looking at our manifesto and asking “Is there a way in which we can reward the teachers who are prepared to come and teach in difficult inner-city schools where life can be really tough?” We have experimented with various schemes and programmes such as Teach First, but I think we must recognise that teaching in some of our most challenged schools is an extremely hard job. I should like to see something in the system, rather than a scheme or a project, which recognises that and rewards teachers for doing it.

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

The right hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, and I think that she and Alan Milburn are absolutely right to focus on the need to embed those incentives in the system. The combination of the pupil premium and the changes in accountability are systemic approaches to provide the wherewithal to reward people for coming in to teach in those schools, and to ensure that we do not have an accountability system whereby those in more prosperous areas are less likely to be found wanting than those in areas where the educational fight is fiercest.

[Hazel Blears]

Obviously I support the pupil premium, because it is a way of putting a substantial amount of money into the system to be targeted at the children and young people who need the most help. However, I have to say that I have been very disappointed by the monitoring and the accountability of the pupil premium. I know of many schools where—unsurprisingly, at a time of really tight budgets—it is being used to back-fill what could be described as conventional posts, rather than being targeted at the children for whom it was designed. The challenge for us is to ensure that the money is used in the way in which it was intended, to raise the achievements of the poorest children to the level of, at least, the average achievements of the rest. I shall refer to some schemes that have been able to do that, but let me say to the Minister now that better monitoring of the use of the pupil premium is essential.

Alan Milburn also talks about action by employers, and refers to the living wage, apprenticeships and fair internships. Those are practical measures, and if we can persuade all employers to adopt them, we shall make a difference. Alan also makes what I think is quite a brave suggestion; he is well known for being prepared to be brave. He talks of breaking the last “taboo”, which he says is parenting.

I am a former Home Office Minister who was responsible for the antisocial behaviour programme, the respect programme and the beginning of the troubled families programme. The Government are continuing some of that work, but at the time it was highly controversial territory: why were the Government telling parents how to bring up their children? However, all of us will know from our constituencies that in some families the responsibility for setting boundaries, and for supporting children and encouraging them to do their very best, simply is not there. I believe that there is still a huge gap in that regard. There should be more support for parents to enable them to do for their children what they no doubt want to do, but for various reasons are incapable of doing. All politicians should be as brave as the commission has been in saying that we need not just to talk about that problem, but to take action on it, before the family are so dysfunctional that we have to have a troubled families programme, with all the intrusion and intervention that that entails.

What practically can we do through early intervention? In his most recent Ofsted report, Michael Wilshaw said that the big problems of educational under-attainment have moved from the inner cities to some very poor coastal areas, remote areas and suburban areas. I was fascinated to see how that has happened. A lot has been said about the London challenge and how that has transformed schools in London. When I came into Parliament in 1997, about 22% of children in Salford were getting five A to C grades. Now the figure is 76%. There has been a fantastic transformation in the quality of the schools in my inner-city constituency. That is where the focus has been. The big problems of social mobility are now in communities that have not had access to such provision and are not well-off—they are quite poor and almost not on the radar. Michael Wilshaw has done us all a great service in highlighting that. He said:

“Today, many of the disadvantaged children performing least well in school can be found in leafy suburbs, market towns or seaside resorts.

There are stark consequences for our nation if we do not act with sufficient urgency.”

That reinforces the view I took when I was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government that there were pockets of deprivation in otherwise affluent areas and that, for reasons to do with the data and the information we had, they were not addressed. What are the Minister’s plans to ensure that children in those areas receive the attention that they need?

I find it fascinating that, if there is early intervention in schools through a specific programme where there is evidence that it can make a difference, the transformation can be dramatic. I want to single out two schemes of which I have personal experience. The Place to Be scheme operates in six primary schools in my city and helps families and children who are in the most difficult circumstances imaginable. Many of the children’s parents have problems with alcohol and drug addiction. Many of the children are not able to go to school sometimes because of family difficulties. Place to Be provides a support and counselling service. It has been operating with the pupil premium—that is the reason that money has been provided. I have seen evaluated evidence that is incredibly impressive. The rate of progress of the children in the worst families is now the same as the average rate of progress among the other children in those schools. It is almost a miracle, dare I say it. The head teachers who chose to use the pupil premium for that project have done a great service to their community.

The Shine on Saturdays scheme does Saturday schools. It does Serious Fun on Saturdays. It has a fantastic evidence base. Owing to the work it does on Saturdays, it is helping the most deprived communities. In many places, people will say, “We do not have the money to do that extra programme, on top of what we are already doing.” I ask the Minister to consider carefully—I have spoken to the Secretary of State about the matter—the possibility of mobilising social investment to fund such community-based interventions, which are able to make a dramatic impact and have a strong, rigorous evidence base. That social investment can be repaid through the savings that we make when those children get on in life, rather than causing myriad problems, including welfare dependency and criminal action, which cost us a fortune. It is an excellent way to invest for the long term. Now that we have an evidence base, we have a responsibility to find out how we can spread that across the country. I will declare my unpaid interest as a member of Big Society Capital’s advisory board. The things I have seen, which can be done if we mobilise private investment for public good, are impressive and I ask the Minister to take that into account in his closing remarks.

I had a couple of other questions for the Minister; I think I have raised most of the questions that I had. I have no doubt that he will be pressed for time. Social mobility is sometimes a relatively academic term for something that most of us know in our hearts: all families want their children to have a decent start, to get a good education to get on in life and to be able to bring up their own family. If we are not careful, we are in danger of not seeing that generational improvement. I do not want to live in a society in which people are not motivated to get on and do their best and succeed. It is a primary responsibility of any society to provide a framework in which that can happen.

I was always told growing up, “If you work hard, the world’s your oyster. You can do anything. You can achieve anything.” That has motivated me throughout my life. I want us to be able to say that to every child in this country—if they work hard, the world is their oyster, they are as good as anyone else in this country and they will succeed. It is a huge challenge for us and I look forward to what colleagues and the Minister have to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hazel Blears]

I record my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate. I hope it will agree with me that the time was extremely well spent.

We heard a number of very high quality, well-informed, accurate and passionate speeches from Members on both sides of the House. I want to thank in particular the chair of the all-party group on social mobility, the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who again gave us a formidable tour de force of his data analysis. I like to think my politics are evidence-based. Occasionally he does manage to convince me, but occasionally my emotions also play a part in my political ideology, but I have great respect for the work he does in this area.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for her contribution, and I would like to say to her that I hope electoral circumstances may result in her having the chance to achieve her undoubted potential to be a very successful Minister in future.

I thank the Minister for his response, his personal commitment and his passion for this area. He has acknowledged that a lot has been done and there is a lot more to do. That is a familiar phrase that we all should subscribe to.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain), too. I had no idea he was a university admissions tutor. It is amazing how much information we discover about each other in these debates.

I thank the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), for his support in going to the Backbench Business Committee to request this cross-party debate.

My final thanks are to the commission on social mobility, and to a particular member of it. I would not normally single out a member of that commission, but David Johnston, chief executive of the Social Mobility Foundation, is a key member of it. For many years he has not just been talking about the problem; he has been running the Social Mobility Foundation. He and that organisation have helped thousands of young people become doctors, lawyers and engineers or get jobs in the finance professions. Those young people would never have got to university without the residential programmes, one-to-one mentoring and face-to-face careers guidance—all the things that we talked about today. My thanks go to David Johnston because he stuck at it.

That is the message for us on this agenda. It will still be here when we come and go. We have to stick at it and work together, as we can. In that way we will continue to make progress to ensure that everybody in this country has the chance to achieve what they are capable of and to do well. It is an incredibly optimistic agenda and one that I am delighted to be part of.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered social mobility and the child poverty strategy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are ahead of ourselves, notwithstanding the sedentary chuntering. All relevant personnel are present and correct so we will proceed with topical questions.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

My Department plays a key role in supporting the rebalancing of the economy through business to deliver growth while increasing skills and learning.

[Hazel Blears]

The Secretary of State will be aware that legislation is in place, supported by the Government, to ensure that when commissioning public services we seek social value as part of a wider value-for-money framework. That means local jobs, local supply chains, apprenticeships and local labour. How will the Secretary of State ensure that in his area, through the regional growth fund and massive investment in infrastructure, we get the same kind of social value to support our regional and local economies and get young people back to work?

[Vince Cable]

I recognise the considerable value of the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, and I acknowledge the right hon. Lady’s role in promoting its take-up. The Department has a unit that is currently promoting social enterprise, which lies at the core of this issue. Some 68,000 such enterprises now employ 1 million people, and I was at the launch of that unit last year. For our overall policy, we try through the industrial strategy to ensure that procurement is strategic and takes into account long-term training and innovation requirements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. I fear we have reached a tipping point in the number of schools that have become academies at secondary level, with more than 52% of pupils now educated in academies. As a result of that, even in local authorities where there are perhaps one or two more small c conservative head teachers, I believe that the overwhelming evidence of the benefits that academies bring will ensure that we see more schools going down that path.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I know that the Secretary of State shares my determination to improve social mobility. Will he therefore support my constituent, Damien Shannon, who has been prevented from taking an MSc place at St Hugh’s college Oxford simply because he cannot lay his hands on £21,000 immediately? How does that help social mobility?

[Michael Gove]

May I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the right hon. Lady’s commitment to social mobility and the work she has done in encouraging internships in this House? I shall look as quickly as I can into that case and discuss it with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. This is something of a personal interest for him, and I pay tribute to him for raising it in this House and in his constituency, where only this week he launched a “Save a Life by Volunteers in Emergencies” scheme for pupils. Our aim, through the review of the national curriculum, is to ensure that the school science curriculum, including biology, is focused on teaching pupils core essential scientific knowledge and about scientific processes, so I do not think that it would necessarily be most appropriate in that context, but it is sensible and helpful for schools to want to teach it to their pupils, and Ofsted will pick up on it as well.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

4. When he plans to make an announcement on the next round of bids for university technical colleges.

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

5. What assessment he has made of the role of university technical colleges in bridging the skills gap.

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

University technical colleges provide a high-quality technical education. That is why they are a key part of our school reforms and why, in last year’s Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor doubled the funding so that we can open at least 24 UTCs in this Parliament. We intend to make an announcement about the next tranche by the end of May.

[Hazel Blears]

The Secretary of State will be aware of the joint bid for a university technical college at MediaCityUK that is backed by the Lowry arts centre, the Aldridge Foundation, the city council and the university—by everybody in the city. The creative industries are vital for our economic growth. Will he therefore ensure that local young people in Greater Manchester and in Salford have the skills, through the university technical college, to take up the opportunities that will be coming over the next few years?

[Michael Gove]

The revival of Salford over the past few years is a model of how urban regeneration should be led, and the right hon. Lady has played a vital part in that. I have to be fair to all the bids, but undoubtedly this bid, given the heavyweight support that it enjoys, will be taken very seriously by the Department and by the Baker Dearing Educational Trust.

Public Disorder

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I am proud today of the way in which Parliament has conducted this debate. For me, the politics of law and order and of security and protecting our citizens have never been about the difference between right and left; they have always been about the difference between right and wrong. Parliament has made that very clear indeed today.

I want to pay my personal tribute to the men and women of Salford’s police, Greater Manchester police and the police forces that came to our aid this week, in very difficult circumstances indeed. They were incredibly brave, committed, courageous and fearless in the face of some pretty horrendous circumstances. On Tuesday night, I saw for myself, in my community, the violence that was going on at Salford precinct. It was localised; we managed to contain it in one small area of the city, but in that small area, it was extremely intense. The cars of local journalists were torched. At one stage, according to the chief constable, there was a mob of about 1,000 people, and we did not have enough police officers to face them.

The Home Secretary herself acknowledged today that initially we did not have enough police officers on the ground. In the first instance, we had ordinary officers in their ordinary gear—clearly, we could not send them into such circumstances. They had to stand by, and the fact that they did so while looting took place was a devastating blow to public confidence. When the riot police came, fully protected and with the right training, there were not enough of them, and at one point in the evening they had to retreat in the face of violence. They ceded the ground to the thugs and criminals. We can never let that happen again. The message to people that they, not the forces of law and order, are in control is absolutely devastating. I know that our chief constable is learning the lessons of that evening and it will never happen again. I am not criticising the police officers but we have to make sure that those tactics are not repeated.

I am pleased that overnight the number of arrests in Greater Manchester and Salford has increased. On that evening, there were only three or four arrests, because the police did not feel able to go in and arrest people on the spot. Now, there have been more than 30 arrests in Salford and, I think, 170 across Greater Manchester. I am delighted that the courts are sitting on a 24-hour basis. Three CPS officers were in the police station overnight preparing the cases and the charges and getting them to the courts. The headline in today’s Manchester Evening News, “Instant justice”, sums it up: people have been given immediate custodial sentences—they committed the action and they have got the consequences. That is what the public wanted.

I commend the Manchester Evening News because it has given every single photograph it took throughout these events to the police. I say to the other media—the broadcast media in particular—that they must do the same. It is their duty as public servants to make sure the police have that information.

My final point is that we have all seen positive things—in my area, young people have been on the streets cleaning up. In the past 10 to 15 years, we in Salford have changed our community dramatically and transformed opportunities for young people: we have new schools and a new hospital; whereas before only 20% of young people got qualifications, now 70% do; and our unemployment rate has come down. There are opportunities. Salford is my city, and I am determined that we will not slip back to the bad old days of despair and hopelessness among our young people. We have a massive job to do, but I am determined to ensure that local and central Government, our public services and our citizens themselves use all our efforts. Yesterday, I heard expressions of shock, outrage and horror, but what I also heard from Salford people, who are the salt of the earth, was a fierce determination that these people will not win and we will protect our city.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Not yet.

Let us consider policies on vocational education. One concern I have is that in a debate about staying on in education, the right hon. Gentleman made no mention of specific proposals to improve vocational education. I therefore have this question: does he back or oppose the policies we are putting in place? Does he back or oppose the additional investment that is going into university technical colleges? If he backs that, it is welcome, and shows that he recognises that action is being taken. If he opposes it, however, he will have to answer for saying no to reform. Does he back or oppose the expansion in the number of studio schools, specifically targeting disadvantaged young people who need a special type of education in order to encourage them to stay on? Does he back or oppose the growth in apprenticeships—the 75,000 additional apprenticeships that we are providing? All of these questions are to do with decisions about investments in improving education and the life chances of the very poorest, and we do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is in favour or against.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Michael Gove]

In a few seconds.

This is not just about improving vocational education. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I believe in aspiration. I believe that other young people born into circumstances similar to our own, whose parents never went to university, should have the chance to go to university. That is why we are putting in place policies to improve academic education. Again, however, we do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman supports or opposes the investment we are putting in to improve it. Does he support or oppose our reading check at the age of six, to make sure every child is decoding fluently, and will be literate by the time they leave primary school? Is he in favour of that, or against? Does he oppose or support our position on GCSEs? Does he believe it is right or wrong to get rid of modules in order to make them more rigorous? Does he back or oppose the English baccalaureate? Does he believe it is right to encourage more students—[Interruption.] There is only one answer that he and some—some, I stress—Opposition Members have to the question of how to increase aspiration, and it is represented by three letters: EMA. It is important that we remove barriers and that we have the right support, but in respect of social mobility it is also important that we have a coherent and inclusive widespread education policy. From the Opposition, on all these areas we have either mulish silence or reactionary opposition.

Is the right hon. Gentleman for or against our drive to ensure that more students get good GCSEs in English, mathematics, sciences, languages, modern history and geography? I could not tell last week. At the beginning of last week he was against, in the middle of last week he was almost in favour, and towards the end of last week Labour MPs were telling me that it was now their party’s position to support our English baccalaureate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

No, thank you. It would be a pleasure to spend time with the hon. Lady and her constituents. I know how many of them in London schools are passionately committed to greater equality.

[Hazel Blears]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

I will give way to the right hon. Lady and then I will try to make some progress.

[Hazel Blears]

The Secretary of State has said time and time again that he supports breaking down the barriers and that he supports aspiration. Is he aware that Salford had the lowest staying-on rate in the whole of Britain before the introduction of EMA, but within months of its introduction the number of young people staying on at 16, not just to go to university but to get the vocational qualifications they need to have the chance of a decent future, increased by 10%? I am at a loss to know why he thinks that abolishing EMA will give young people in Salford the same opportunities as they have had for the past few years. I cannot believe that the Secretary of State is setting out on a deliberate path to limit the aspiration and social mobility of young people in Salford.

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Lady knows that I am a fan of her and her policies. [Interruption.] It is a pity that more of them are not adopted by the Labour party now. However, she will also be aware that a number of things have helped to improve the staying-on rate and ensured that children have more opportunities. Central to that is ensuring that the right offer is in place in terms of the nature of qualifications, and that we improve both vocational and academic learning, as well as teacher quality. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) said, policies to improve teacher quality were not mentioned in the speech made by the right hon. Member for Leigh, which lasted for nearly an hour. He did not make it clear, at any point, whether he backed or opposed our investment in expanding Teach First.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

One of the coalition Government’s commitments is to ensure that more data are published about attainment at every level to ensure that meaningful comparisons can be made between schools, and that we can learn from the best.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

16. What assessment he has made of the effect on the number of young people in the north-west who remain in further education of his decision to end education maintenance allowance.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

Where young people in the north-west are facing financial barriers to participation, schools and colleges will be able to agree whether they should benefit from the enhanced learner support, which will enable closer targeting of resources to individual student need.

[Hazel Blears]

I thank the Minister for that reply. The pupil premium is supposed to help the poorest children to succeed in education. How does that sit with the decision to abolish the education maintenance allowance, which currently supports 3,000 young people in Salford to stay on at 16? Is it a case of confused policy making, or is it really a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul?

[Mr Hayes]

The right hon. Lady will know that the evidence that I described in answer to an earlier question is clear about the ineffectiveness of EMA. That is supported by a letter that I received recently from north-west England from a teacher with 12 years’ experience in her area who said:

“I would like you to withdraw EMA”

because it is just not effective. We act on the basis of evidence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I will do everything possible to ensure that other schools, like the European school, that are committed to increasing our understanding of the rest of the world, prosper.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I know that the Secretary of State will want to be known as a Minister who keeps his word and who is consistent in his policy. Will he therefore confirm that the brand new academy linked to MediaCity in Salford, which is included in the £135 million Building Schools for the Future programme, will go ahead? Those programmes have got to financial close, and if he were not to proceed with that world-class academy it would give the lie to his party’s commitment to progress on the whole of the academies programme across the country.

[Michael Gove]

It is a pleasure to see the right hon. Lady in her place. If that programme has reached financial close, then I look forward to being able to visit it in due course with her.