Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Colleges do absolutely critical work, and they do brilliant work with special needs children. I have seen it for myself at Hammersmith and Derwent colleges, and we continue to support those colleges.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Parents of children with SEN very rarely welcome the closure of their schools, and I say respectfully that we must treat the parents in Chippenham and Trowbridge with great sensitivity. None the less, does the Minister not agree with me and welcome Wiltshire Council’s great vision in spending £20 million on building a state-of-the-art school at Rowdeford, which will bring children from across the whole of North Wiltshire to an absolutely superb facility?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I agree with my hon. Friend that Wiltshire is doing a tremendous job in SEND provision. The inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission has been exemplary. There is a legal challenge to the investment of £20 million and it would be inappropriate for me to comment on that. I know that neighbouring colleagues take a different view as well.

Special Educational Needs: Wiltshire

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I of course agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was once a governor at a special school, before I was elected. If I reflect on the provision then and the provision now, I am quite clear that matters have improved, but that does not mean to say that we should be complacent. What the hon. Gentleman said is correct: we need to ensure that every child has the ability to reach his or her potential. That is as true of a mainstream child who is going to become a doctor or a lawyer—or even a politician—as it is for a child at a special needs school whose horizons, in a classic sense, are necessarily going to be rather more limited. They are equally important and their potential needs to be maximised.

The proposition before the council is that it closes two schools and builds a big school on the site of a third one. That would be a very big school by SEN standards, and many of us have concerns about that, because this particular subset of the school population undoubtedly benefits from a provision that is more intimate than perhaps would be necessary for their mainstream compatriots. That would necessarily not be the case were this big school to be created in place of the ones it would replace. The council refers to the big school as a centre of excellence, but my contention is that we already have a centre of excellence in my constituency—it is called Larkrise School.

The claim is made that Larkrise is bursting at the seams and that its facilities and equipment are insufficient, but there is more to a school than bricks and mortar, and there is more to a special school than hoists. The school community understands that, which is why it is so opposed to the local authority’s prescription. It is clear that, being strapped for cash, the council has to balance the books. Rightly, it worries about the financial deficits that have been projected for each of the special educational needs schools, but deficits are projected at several mainstream schools, too, and nobody is suggesting that the solution is to close them.

The county’s financial position is not helped by its having to place 300 special educational needs pupils outside Wiltshire because of the long-standing insufficiency of in-county provision. Those of us who represent seats in Wiltshire will be well used to people attending our advice surgeries to discuss that. The council wants to remedy this out-of-county placement situation by creating a new school with 350 places serving the north of the county. Although the way that the numbers are presented in the consultation documents makes comparison very difficult, 350 places seems inadequate to cope with the planned closures, the out-of-county placements and the growth that is projected given local population increases, housing demand, and the recently announced moves of the residue of the British Army in Germany largely to Wiltshire and the need to accommodate them. Even by its own arithmetic, the council appears to be set on under-provision. That means that out-of-county provision is bound to continue, that projected spend on the new school will be greatly exceeded, or that the new school will very quickly become overcrowded, or, more likely, a combination of all three.

The plans anticipate no sixth form. Instead reliance will be placed on the county’s further education college, Wiltshire College, for 16 to 19 provision, together with a vaguely defined private provision. No further details are given. For example, we do not know how many days a week pupils aged 16 to 19 will have.

All this is of great concern as SEN pupils across the UK have been let down historically in our system in the transition from school to adulthood—from school to life as supported young people in the community. Provision for 16 to 19 is absolutely crucial in this transition. Wiltshire Council’s consultation document asserts that the new centre of excellence will be able to provide what is called

“outreach capacity to support mainstream schools.”

It is not clear what is meant by that. On the face of it, there is a risk that resource will be diverted from the severe and profound to the milder end of the SEN spectrum. That is surely not what is intended. If it is, it needs to be stated in plain terms. The perception is not helped by the confusing terminology used in the text and the apparent misunderstanding of which schools currently offer what, in what is admittedly a complex and overlapping needs mix. Response to the consultation has rightly honed in on that.

Last month, I took part in a march in Trowbridge in support of the threatened schools. Predictably, there were children, parents and teachers, but what struck me was the number of ordinary citizens with no direct link to the school. The orthodoxy is that society wants people with disabilities of the kind that special schools deal with to be hidden away. The orthodoxy is that society is embarrassed by them and that they make it feel uncomfortable. Well, that may be the orthodoxy but it is not true in Trowbridge. Larkrise has a very special ethos. It does not believe in the hiding away of kids with the most profound difficulties. Its students are part of the local scene, out and about in the community. Nobody gawps at them, looks away or crosses the road, because they are an accepted and expected part of the community. They are recognised, welcomed, and helped in the shops, and that does not happen by accident.

We must not hide special needs children away in remote large, impersonal facilities, miles from their homes and communities. That is the very opposite of inclusion. It is segregation. Now I know that that is not the intent of the council, but it would be the consequence of its plans as drafted. Mobility today means that, like as not, children in mainstream schools will make their adult lives away from the towns in which they grew up, but children with special educational needs are much more likely to remain. Where they are is where they will be. Larkrise understands that, which is why its staff, ably led by headteacher Phil Cook, have put so much effort into local involvement and ensuring that their children are integrated in the community. I know that a similar situation applies at St Nicholas.

It is not surprising that, in its latest report, Ofsted rated Larkrise as “good”. It is surprising that the council believes that shutting this good school in Wiltshire’s county town should be part of its plans for raising standards. That is particularly so, as the council’s own task group stated that

“it would not be appropriate to combine all three schools into one site”,

and its “School Places Strategy” document says that children are best educated at the heart of the community—absolutely.

Over the year, parents with statemented children, and now children with educational health and care plans, have been to see me in my advice surgery. Invariably, the issue is not directly about care or education, but about transport.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and speaking out so passionately for his constituents in Trowbridge. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on speaking out for the parents from St Nicholas. Does my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) accept that there are a great many children with special educational needs throughout the county for whom Rowdeford would actually be a great deal more convenient than either Trowbridge or Chippenham, and that what the county is proposing—a £20 million investment to build a really state-of-the-art school—might well be welcomed by children with special educational needs across the whole of the northern county, leaving aside his own town of Trowbridge?

[Dr Murrison]

I am particularly grateful for my hon. Friend’s presence here today, and the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham. I join my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) in welcoming the extra money that is going into special educational needs, and I commend the council for that, but it is counterintuitive to suppose that the replacement of effectively three schools with one at Rowdeford would reduce travel times.

It has been a constant throughout my 18 years as a Member of Parliament that transport is the overwhelming preoccupation of parents with children at special needs schools. It is difficult for many of us who do not have direct contact with children with special education needs to understand how important it is. For the parents of a mainstream schoolchild, getting their child to school may be difficult, but for the parents of a child with special educational needs, it can be a preoccupation. It can be the cause of anxiety, distress and behavioural difficulties, and it can be the key focus of the parents’ day. Sometimes we forget how vital it is to ensure that the impact of travel-to-school times is minimised in order to enhance the quality of these young people’s school experience. That is why the council needs to think again about the plan to replace the three schools with one school, as it seems intuitive that that will increase the trauma that travel to school causes.

The council has made great play of getting more therapists into the proposed new school, and it is right to want to improve the level of service for children in school, but it is not clear how that will happen, since the principal difficulty with therapists right now, as I am sure my hon. Friends will agree, is a county-wide shortage of suitably trained staff. How will the council magic up physios, occupational therapists, and speech and language specialists at the new establishment when it cannot at existing schools? To what extent has it taken into account the disincentive introduced by increased travel-to-work times for them? As a rule, therapists are not wealthy people. They tend not to live in premium price market towns such as Devizes and associated villages. They do live in larger settlements such as Trowbridge and Chippenham.

Local campaigners have produced a helpful map to evidence precisely that. Wiltshire Council is rightly concerned about the number of SEN out-of-county placements and the cost, but it is not clear that the new mega-school will help. By the council’s own figures, it will be inadequate to satisfy demand. The council has not published evidence that it has consulted with other local authorities to see whether a model based on collaboration might be possible given that the administrative borders hold very little interest for a mum or dad trying to get their child to school.

In many ways, Wiltshire Council has been showing the way. It has grasped the 2014 Act imaginatively and worked on its version of the local offer, from birth to 25, all the way to placement in the community. I applaud it for that—I really do—but I also believe that it has temporarily lost its sense of direction. Its plans to close Larkrise School and for a new super-school are plain wrong. Its action and its conduct in this matter is wholly out of character. I expect the council to respond to the consultation fully and openly—

Schools: Nottingham

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Lilian Greenwood]

Sheku Kanneh-Mason is indeed an acclaimed cellist, and Trinity School and all of us are rightly very proud of him. I will say more about the importance of music and other enrichment activities and why they are under threat.

Students from across the city not only enjoy playing or singing in an ensemble, but are equipping themselves with perseverance, self-belief and a lifelong love of music. It is particularly pleasing to note that Nottingham is in the top quintile for those on pupil premium learning a musical instrument. However, while the Nottingham Music Hub is always exploring new ways to generate income, I am concerned that the local authority and individual schools may find it more difficult to fund the service in the future.

Schools provide other opportunities. The number of children able to swim 25 metres at the end of key stage 2 has more than doubled to 45% in the past four years. Some 6,000 primary and 5,300 secondary students are involved in competitive school games and sports.

I began the debate by saying that I wanted the Minister to recognise that there is much to be proud of in Nottingham schools, but I would be failing my constituents if I did not also acknowledge that we need to do much better in ensuring that every child leaves school with the skills and knowledge they need to lead successful adult lives. Formal qualifications are an important measure, but they are not the only one. I hope the Minister will recognise that good schools also ensure that students are resilient, kind, reflective, motivated, confident, and have respect for themselves and others. Character development is vital and should be valued.

Many Nottingham families live in poverty and some have low aspirations. Too many live in inadequate or overcrowded housing and have very low incomes and poor health, both mental and physical. Some children face additional challenges because English is not their first language, and we know that white working-class children, especially boys, are often the hardest to reach. Even where children are making good progress at primary school and are achieving at the end of year 6, that is too often not maintained to GCSE level. We clearly need to improve the transition from primary to secondary education, but there is concern that the Government’s emphasis on a limited range of academic subjects up to age 16 is off-putting to those pupils, including the academically able, who would be enthused by a more vocational route. That view is expressed not only by teachers and heads, but by the former Conservative Education Secretary, Lord Baker, who has championed high-quality technical education for more than two decades.

Nottingham is working hard to provide sufficient primary school places by expanding existing good schools. We know that the bulge in pupil numbers will mean a shortfall in secondary school places if action is not taken now. A reliance on the emergence of new free schools is not enough. Nottingham needs extra capital resources to expand existing schools or to open new ones. The high level of in-year admissions is a further challenge, particularly for our maintained schools. The current system is not transparent and there is concern that some academies are reluctant to admit pupils with additional needs, placing some of the most vulnerable children at risk of missing time in school. The White Paper, “Educational Excellence Everywhere”, called for local authorities to have a co-ordinating role in dealing with such admissions. Will the Minister say whether he will be returning to that proposal?

A further concern is the high level of permanent exclusions at key stages 3 and 4. Last year, 108 city children were permanently excluded, and this year the number is set to be even higher. It is deeply concerning that a high proportion of those students have special educational needs. The pupil referral unit now has more than 300 students on its books, and those young people are placed with a number of alternative providers across the city, but the cost is very high and outcomes are poor. Funding for such provision falls on the local authority and diverts resources away from other high-needs children. What action will the Government take to incentivise schools to tackle poor behaviour, rather than using exclusion too widely to shift responsibility?

As the Minister is well aware, school funding—already a hot topic—rightly became the focus of debate during the general election. I have listened carefully to the Minister’s responses since then, and I do not believe he has adequately addressed my voters’ concerns. He says that the schools budget has been protected in real terms since 2010, but he knows that pupil numbers are rising. The cake may be bigger, but it has to be shared between more people. Will he come clean and admit that the increase in the budget has not been sufficient to protect per pupil funding in real terms? He knows that all schools face higher national insurance contributions, pension contributions, unfunded national pay rises and now the apprenticeship levy.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that spending per pupil would fall in real terms by 8% and the National Audit Office confirmed that,

“funding per pupil will, on average, rise only from £5,447 in 2015-16 to £5,519 in 2019-20, a real-terms reduction once inflation is taken into account.”

The Minister says he will support schools to offset these pressures, but I can find little evidence of such support in delivering the savings required. One head at a primary academy told me:

“We have already renegotiated every single contract both as one school and as part of a Multi-Academy Trust. We have lost and not replaced three teaching assistants, a sports coach, a music teacher and an art teacher. Our pupils walk to their Swimming lessons for 12 sessions rather than travelling by bus for 36. If a teacher is ill, we don’t use qualified teachers to stand in front of classes until day four of their absence because insurance for teacher absence that starts after the third day is considerably cheaper than insurance that starts on the first day.”

It really is that bleak. Schools in Nottingham are making cuts that have a direct and damaging impact on the quality of education.

The head of an outstanding primary school told me that they had cut the number of teaching assistants, teachers and learning mentors, increasing pressure on remaining staff and providing less support for children with additional needs. As he said:

“All of this is also taking place within the context of an increase in the numbers of families who need extra support, due to benefit changes, higher levels of domestic violence, more families being evicted...and the rise of the number of families seeking support from food banks.”

Secondary schools paint a similar picture: fewer teachers, larger classes, less subject choice, and cuts to after-school activities.

I note that the Minister has sometimes resorted to blaming his Government’s choices on the budget deficit in 2010. That is simply not good enough. His party has been in power for seven years. They promised that as a result of their austerity plans, the deficit would be eliminated by 2015. Any shred of economic credibility is long gone and their decision to spend £1 billion on buying a parliamentary majority underlines that point.

A head told me what inadequate funding means to his school: “Am I able to replace the 18 failing interactive whiteboards in our classrooms? No. Am I able to purchase library books to inspire a love for reading in the next generation? No. Can the disabled child’s carer have overtime to accompany her for a full day’s educational visit? Of course, yes. As a result of that carer’s overtime, can the five-year-olds have another set of glue sticks for the summer term? No.” He said:

“As the Headteacher I am not bemoaning the lack of capacity for investing in education at a level that will make a significant difference to the life chances of my pupils; I am genuinely struggling to see how I can squeeze basic school provisions out of the funding available.”

On top of the existing level of real terms cuts we also face the prospect of a new national funding formula that will take money away from every single school in my constituency. I welcome the Minister’s promise that,

“there will be no cut in per pupil funding as a consequence of moving to the national fair funding formula”,

but, as he knows, protecting a budget in cash terms is no protection at all. With rising inflation and increasing demands—for example, the introduction of much needed mental health support—school leaders simply feel unable to deliver what is asked of them. I could fill hours with the testimony of dedicated school staff who feel that the Government are not giving them the support they need. Adequate funding, especially for schools serving areas of high deprivation, is essential. Schools cannot keep doing more with less. They are at breaking point.

I hope the Minister will not simply dismiss my concerns and those of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who will speak shortly. I want the Minister to commit to, at the very least, maintaining school funding in real terms for Nottingham schools. If he cannot, I will not stop asking. I also want him to come and see why I am asking.

Last Friday I visited the city schools exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary. The gallery’s head of learning told me,

“what we are hearing from teachers again and again is that coming to a gallery, working with artists, really helps their children think differently, think creatively, question, be critical and reflective...particularly it builds confidence in those children who are told too often they are wrong, to keep quiet and not question. The gallery offers those children a place to thrive.”

While I was there, students from Southwold Primary enjoyed telling me about their work. Southwold is a good school, but it serves one of the most disadvantaged parts of my constituency: 46.1% of pupils have English as an additional language and 47.6% are eligible for free school meals. I have seen for myself the creative ways in which the school works to give their children a great start in life.

The head said,

“we are giving our city children the experiences that more affluent counterparts can afford. Our pupils find it hard to make connections due to limited experiences and we need to provide these experiences so they can better access the curriculum and understand contexts for learning.”

She explained that in last year’s SATs reading test, one text was about a safari park; some children did not know what a safari park was, let alone visited one. As she says:

“All this needs funding and at the moment we are trying to do it on a shoestring.”

Nottingham’s schools need our support. They need the resources to do their vital job of investing in the next generation. I hope the Minister will come and see our schools for himself and commit to supporting them, enabling every Nottingham child to thrive.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Unusually, and for good constituency reasons, I call the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) for no more than four or five minutes.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

It is this Government who have introduced advanced learner loans; we are going to have maintenance loans for students going to institutes of technology or national colleges, and for future distance learners; and we have just announced an extra £500 million to support further education. This Government are actually backing skills and giving people the funding they need.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Britain’s record in engineering and technical training at the moment is deplorable, with our being 16th among OECD countries, so I very much welcome the Minister’s announcement earlier about maintenance grants. Does he agree that the private sector has a role to play? In particular, will he welcome Sir James Dyson’s recent announcement that he intends to open a new technical and engineering college at Hullavington in my constituency, with it being at least partly paid for by giving the students salaries?

[Robert Halfon]

I could not have put it better myself; my hon. Friend is exactly right, and I congratulate Dyson. What is happening with that company and elsewhere in the country, with the investment the Government are putting into skills—the £500 million extra announced last week, and the £40 million for pilots in lifelong learning and studying—show that we are investing. We are putting our money where our mouth is and building a skills and apprenticeship nation.

West Sussex Schools Funding

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the funding of West Sussex schools.

Good morning, Mr Gray, and thank you very much. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time in Westminster Hall. [Interruption.]

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Will one of the sound engineers deal with the echo? There is something wrong with the machine.

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I am grateful to have the opportunity, with my West Sussex colleagues, with whom I have been working for a considerable period of time on this matter, to draw the House’s attention on this occasion, which certainly is not the first, to the question of fair funding for West Sussex schools. I am fortified by the presence and support of my hon. Friends and parliamentary colleagues for West Sussex, who have been campaigning on this matter for a long time now. We have campaigned together and are wholly in agreement. Those of my hon. Friends who are able to be here will speak to explain the case further to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I welcome her to her place and am delighted that she will answer on behalf of the Government. May I say to her at the beginning that the very rude things I will say about her Department are absolutely in no way aimed at her at all? I regard her, as we all do, as an exemplary and remarkable Minister—none of this happened on her watch.

For the 32 years I have been a Member of Parliament—I am an amateur compared with my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), who has been here much longer than me; he is not the Father of the House but practically the grandfather of the House—the treatment of West Sussex in local government finance terms has been unfair and indeed wholly unsatisfactory. The issue of today’s debate is really the catharsis of 30 years of financial bad treatment for West Sussex. In respect of education, it is now a question of fairness.

The position is surgically plain. West Sussex has per pupil funding of £4,198, which is £438 per pupil below the national average and makes schools and academies in West Sussex the fifth worst-funded nationally. That is not acceptable to the West Sussex Members, it is not acceptable to our county council, and much more importantly it is increasingly unacceptable and causes great anxiety to parents, pupils, headteachers and staff. We look to the Department for Education to fix it.

The current situation puts us below our neighbours in East Sussex and Surrey, and well below the very well funded urban authorities of the city of London, which comes right at the top of the pile with double the funding of West Sussex. Our position in West Sussex is therefore very bad. There is no other way of describing it, not least since we all agree that every child deserves the same chance in life when it comes to state-funded education. Frankly, they are not getting it. The figures graphically show that, in West Sussex, it is emphatically not the case. It is not even as if the results are anywhere near as good as they should be. Indeed, they are disappointing and must improve. Resources are a part but only a part of that equation.

The West Sussex Members of Parliament met Ministers in September last year and again in February this year to press the case. We met the Minister for School Standards 10 days ago for a useful meeting, and we are to meet the Secretary of State this very afternoon. The aim is to try to find a sensible way forward to resolve a crucial and unacceptable situation, and to try to understand the thinking of the Department for Education. It has big reforms to come and will look for our support. We need to fix the grassroots basis of the funding of local education before we move on to some of those more exotic, and indeed welcome reforms. They will require our support, but without this situation being fixed, it is difficult to see how that can occur.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

I call the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), even though he was not standing up.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The purpose of that announcement was to enable the chief schools adjudicator to focus on the concerns of parents and not to have the system absorbed by the need to handle multiple objections by campaigning organisations. That was a recommendation of the adjudicator as a consequence of her experiencing those issues in her term of office.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I think that the Minister is referring to secular organisations that have been trying to clog up faith school application and appeals processes. Will he confirm to the House that the code of practice brought in at the beginning of this year will specifically prevent that sort of thing from occurring?

[Mr Gibb]

Yes. The announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was to ensure that the school admissions process is fair, that parents—and only parents—can object to admission arrangements in their area if they regard them as unfair, and that it is not used as a campaigning tool.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that eligibility for free school meals in Scotland is a matter for the Scottish Government. The Scotland Bill will give the Scottish Government power to top up or reverse tax credits, or to raise taxes, but they are noticeably silent about what they will do to ensure that such eligibility continues.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

As the Minister correctly points out, free school meals in Scotland are a matter not for him but for the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Is it not odd to hear Members of the Scottish National party questioning the Minister about free school meals in England, when I cannot go to Edinburgh and question Ministers there about free school meals in Scotland?

[Mr Gyimah]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s question. He highlights the delivery of our manifesto commitment to English votes for English laws, to ensure that English MPs rightly have their say on issues that affect England.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman has shown yet again by his question that he has no vision or plan for education in this country. He would be letting down the children of this country were he ever to be allowed anywhere near the Department for Education. In a recent GQ Magazine interview he said:

“But what I have found challenging is that you can be so busy without achieving much, meeting upon meeting and then I think, ‘Where is the outcome? What have I achieved?’ Sometimes you can tick boxes but not feel you have made progress.”

That, so far, is the story of Labour’s education policy.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that there are outstanding private schools throughout the country, such as University College school in Hampstead and St Mary’s school in Calne in my constituency, which make a gigantic contribution to the local society, but nearly always under the radar, nearly always by secret means and through a thousand different links across the community? Those could never be judged or counted by any organisation; they are none the less to be encouraged.

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The issue with the recent policy announcement is that much of the collaboration and partnership between schools, whether private and state or within state schools, is already happening. I have already mentioned that 11 independent schools were approved as academy sponsors. Last month we announced that 18 new primary independent/state school partnerships had been awarded DFE funding, so this is already happening. As usual, Labour is late to the party with zero policy.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I note that, as a Scottish Member of Parliament, the hon. Gentleman is asking about English educational standards, but I am happy to answer his question. I wondered whether he might apply for the job of the Labour party’s leader in Scotland, but I see that he is here. There are fewer unqualified teachers in state-funded schools than there were in 2010. The Government trust head teachers to get in the best possible people to broaden young minds.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State not agree that, up and down the land, there are some outstanding and inspiring teachers who do not hold professional qualifications? The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), for example, brags that he sometimes teaches in Stoke schools when they allow him and that he has taught a primary school about the armada, of all things. Is he really the sort of person who should not be allowed into a school?

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend tempts me to speculate on the shadow Secretary of State’s qualifications to teach in schools. He is absolutely right that it is for heads and teachers to decide who is best qualified to teach in their schools. In state funded schools, 96% of teachers hold qualified teacher status. The figure is 97% in maintained schools and 95% in academies.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

As the hon. Gentleman will understand, we are not going to comment today on leaked reports. Tomorrow the Secretary of State will be in a position to set out very clearly the way in which we intend to respond to both reports, but I would say to the hon. Gentleman gently that all those engaged in the education debate have something to learn from this. Birmingham local authority did not cover itself in glory in all aspects of these issues either.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Governors across North Wiltshire who run some of the best schools in the land do an outstandingly good job, but many of them tell me that they are overburdened by rules, regulations, bureaucracy and the forms they have to fill out for central Government. Is there a way that they could be freed from some of these responsibilities so that they can take a much more strategic overview of the direction of the school and spend less time bogged down in bureaucracy?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is exactly right that the Government want to reduce all aspects of bureaucracy in the school system. We want to make sure that governors are not overburdened with bureaucracy but are armed with the vital information that will allow them to do their job properly and to have more effective governing bodies, which can play a vital role in school improvement.