Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Swales Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

The risk of that is picking out an arbitrary number, but we are clear that we want to see consequences for the actions we are putting in place, and reduce figures for unnecessary work load. We are commissioning biannual surveys to measure the effectiveness of the policy. I hope that the Labour party will sign up to some of the measures included in the conclusions of the Workload Challenge, including the protocol that would set out minimum lead-in times for significant changes in curriculum qualifications and accountability, which has been very much welcomed by teachers.

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

15. How many state secondary schools and colleges in England engage alumni to support students.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

We encourage all schools to involve former students in advising young people about career opportunities and the course choices that can lead to them. Future First does excellent work in helping schools to do this.

[Ian Swales]

St Peter’s school in my constituency is in one of the most deprived communities in the country, yet it has produced the current head of performance engineering at the Williams Formula 1 team and the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark). Does the Minister agree that such alumni can play a valuable role in raising aspiration in the next generation?

[Nick Boles]

I agree with my hon. Friend absolutely. It is hard to know who I admire more: my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells or the other gentleman he refers to. One of the key tasks of the new careers company being set up by Christine Hodgson is to help every school in the country to have an enterprise adviser, a current or recently retired local executive, who can help the school and the students identify opportunities in the area for their future career.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

Why will the hon. Gentleman not secure from his party leader a per pupil funding? Under our spending plans, the next Conservative Government will be spending £590 million more on schools than his party will.

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

T4. All Durham’s secondary schools were rated good or outstanding in 2013, and there was such a surplus of places that one school closed. That school became the home of the Durham free school, and I noticed that the Secretary of State was in Durham confirming its closure just last week. Why does she think her Department allowed this waste of taxpayers’ money, and what lessons has it learned?

[Nicky Morgan]

I was pleased to meet some of the parents from the Durham free school, and we discussed various interests. I made it clear to them that my Department operates on the basis of putting the interests of children absolutely first. We will of course look at all the lessons to be learned from the way in which the application was processed and considered in the first place. Nevertheless, 24% of open or free schools have already been judged outstanding by Ofsted, and more have been judged as good. This is a successful programme, but there will inevitably be some issues, and we have taken swift action to deal with problems in this case.