Oral Answers to Questions

John Glen Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I am happy to meet MPs from Birmingham and any other area. The crucial aim behind the decision is to improve quality. Getting on the register is a competitive procurement process—everyone had to fulfil the same criteria. It is important to note that, from tomorrow, those that did not get on the register can reapply, so they may yet succeed.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking to support and expand selective secondary education.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

15. What steps her Department is taking to support the expansion of grammar schools.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

Under our national funding proposals, more money will follow students, particularly to schools that are educating pupils who are disadvantaged and from lower-income families. On the roll of one of the schools my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) has highlighted, 25% of the young people are on free school meals, whereas the proportion in the other school is less than 1%. That accounts for the majority of the difference.

[John Glen]

May I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the grammar schools in my constituency, which face a cut of 3% in their funding under the proposed formula, despite a school up the road getting an increase of 11%? Will she examine how, within the absolutely necessary Treasury constraints, such inexplicable outcomes can be avoided? We must be sure that selective schools understand that the Government are fully on their side.

[Justine Greening]

As my hon. Friend points out, I do not get to write my own cheques and I have to live within my departmental budget. We are looking carefully at how to get the fair funding approach right. I agree that we have to make sure that similar children facing similar challenges and with similar needs are consistently funded, wherever in the UK they live, and of course we want to support successful schools.

School Funding

John Glen Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who is right to highlight the unfairness. If there were a rhyme or reason or an explanation, and if it had been done on the basis of an index of deprivation, I could support it, but it is not. It is based on historical anomalies. That is why I wholeheartedly support the principle of fairer funding.

I want to make two points about the detail of the fairer funding. First, the schools that are right down at the bottom, in local authorities such as Poole and Dorset, should not, I suggest, see any reduction in funding. When I respond to the consultation, which I very much look forward to doing, I will make that point to the Minister.

My second point relates to grammar schools. I warmly welcome what the Government are doing in their move towards grammar schools, giving our parents a greater choice. We know that this is popular and that parents want to make the choice that is best for them and their children. I welcome the Government’s direction of travel, but it does seem odd that 103 out of 163 grammar schools appear to be losing out under this formula.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I echo all that my hon. Friend is saying. Similarly, in Wiltshire, we have seen a 2.6% increase, but the two grammar schools are the two out of the 10 schools in the constituency that are suffering, so this needs some further examination.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful for that. I see the Minister for School Standards in his place and I know that he is listening carefully. I suggest that a delegation of Members of Parliament should go to see him—I know that, of all things, that will gladden his heart. He has been very receptive in the past, and I know that he will be again in the future. That is why I support not only the principle of fairer funding, but the fact that we have a chance at the second stage of the consultation running all the way up to 22 March. I see the Minister nodding, so I shall take it as an open invitation to come and knock on his door, with a delegation from the cathedral city of Salisbury and from Mid Dorset and North Poole. I greatly look forward to that meeting. The principle is right; let us now get the detail right.

Education and Social Mobility

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

For me, social mobility is one of the most fundamental objectives of an education system and a Government—it runs deep in my veins. Last week, I had to give a tribute to my father, who recently died of mesothelioma. Without his commitment to my education, as somebody who, like my mother, left school at 16, I would not have had the opportunity to break free from a pattern of manual work, work in service or growing plants, as he did.

Each morning when I leave my flat, I see a framed letter from King George VI in 1943 to my great-great-aunt Maud, who worked as a maid in Buckingham Palace. I regard the fact that, in three generations, members of my family can move from being maids to Members of Parliament as a function of the social mobility that should exist in our country. Before it is suggested that, somehow, being a Member of Parliament is the summit of human achievement, let me say that I certainly do not believe that that is the case.

What I do believe is that education is about choices. I want to address the core motivation that may exist in the minds of those who sought this debate—that grammar schools somehow restrict social mobility to a chosen few, consigning children who go to non-grammars to a future without such opportunities. It is my contention that education is not about the type of school, but about instilling a fundamental belief in the value of hard work. It is about access to high-quality teaching for all and about rigorous standards in education, whatever the type of school. It is also about parental support and encouragement—something we have not heard much about today.

My father passed his 11-plus and he got some O-levels, but whereas his parents fundamentally did not see the point of further study, his grandsons see a very different focus, as my sister and I try to take advantage of every learning opportunity. So let us conceive of education and social mobility not simply as a function of school type. Let us value the framework that surrounds school attendance—the teaching, resources and esteem.

I also want to challenge the notion of stigma—the belief that, if one does not pass the 11-plus, one is consigned to a different life trajectory. It is said by some that such a child is labelled a failure. That is not my experience, looking at the eight secondary schools in my constituency.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about 11 not being the cut-off point that defines a child’s future. Does he support the proposal, which some colleagues have referred to, that there should be multiple entry points into any new grammar schools?

[John Glen]

Absolutely. I totally welcome that point. I welcome the value that we see in university technical colleges, studio schools, academies and the range of other options that exist. There is a lot of mobility between those schools and a lot of transferring to grammar schools at sixth form.

It is wrong to suggest that we should have targets for where children go when they leave school—a target of a certain number going to university. We need to work hard in the House to generate parity of esteem for apprenticeships, higher-level apprenticeships, vocational education and all types of higher education. We should enable movement to these different settings at different stages.

The fact that so many of Salisbury’s young people go to the grammar schools for sixth form is testimony to the enduring quality of those schools’ academic A-level offer. However, the fact that other young people choose the excellent free sixth form is a reflection of how it provides for the diverse needs that grammars do not provide for and of how grammars do not suit all children.

We need to recognise that social mobility is achieved by embracing the broadest possible range of options, by encouraging specialisms and diversity and by valuing the widest context for learning for our young people.

Grammar and Faith Schools

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael]

One day I will have to get to Leicester, given that it had such a good football team and all the experiences that the right hon. Gentleman has highlighted. It is important for people of faith and atheists to learn about each other. That has to be the guiding light when we are talking about such schools and communities.

The Education Committee held an evidence-check session this morning because we believe in evidence, which must be the cornerstone of policy making. Of course, values matter too.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend gathered valuable evidence from the excellence that he saw when he visited grammar schools in my constituency. Does he not recognise that that excellence across 163 schools is also valuable evidence from which we need to learn? We need to work out how we can magnify it across the country as a whole.

[Neil Carmichael]

I certainly did enjoy visiting the school in Salisbury and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to that visit. It was exceptional; we talked about politics and highlighted the great work of a former Member of this House, the right hon. Sir Edward Heath. I was pleased to do that, especially given that we are now discussing Brexit so frequently.

Grammar schools are good schools, but the question we have to ask ourselves all the time is about all the other schools. That is at the heart of the matter. There are 3,500 secondary schools: what do we do about the 3,400 or so schools that we depend on for the vast majority of our teaching?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman). I send my best wishes to the Parliament choir for a successful concert.

In Trafford, part of which I represent, we already have a selective education system. All our schools perform very well, but that is despite selection, not because of it. Trafford’s success reflects excellent teaching, strong schools leadership, a culture of schools working together to support one another, and very good support from families and parents. I pay tribute to everyone—staff, students and the wider community—for the excellent results that Trafford achieves.

It is important to note, however, that selection at age 11 is not an unalloyed good for everyone, or even for the majority of our children. A few weeks ago, I went to meet the headteacher of one of our very successful non-selective girls’ schools—well, I guess it is selective, in that it is single-sex—and she talked about the challenges that she and her staff team face when girls who have failed the entrance examination for our local grammar schools arrive at her school, at the very young age of 11, demoralised and dispirited, believing that they are failures and have been written off.

That headteacher’s team do a tremendous job to recover the morale and confidence of those girls, who go on to perform extremely well, but I find it offensive that we should say to young children, “You are a failure”, on the basis of an inflexible and unsuitable examination that does not reflect the wider context of what is going on in children’s lives and what learning ought to be for. If we have a system in which only one in four of our children aged 11 are told they are successful and have potential, we are getting something very wrong.

As I say, the selective system does not perform well for all our children in Trafford, nor does it deal with the postcode lottery, which Ministers have said they want to address through their proposals. In Trafford, children from the richest wards are by far the most likely to be in Trafford’s grammar schools. Those from the poorest wards, largely concentrated in my constituency, are the least likely to be in grammar schools. In preparation for this debate, I saw a graph of the numbers, and the curve was startling and shocking: a tiny proportion of children in wards such as Bucklow-St Martins and Clifford in my constituency go to grammar school, compared with a much higher percentage of children from Hale and Bowdon, in the more prosperous parts of the borough.

[John Glen]

I always listen carefully to the hon. Lady, but is the issue not sometimes aspiration and getting applicants from a diverse range of backgrounds? If more from such backgrounds applied, could we not make some progress?

[Kate Green]

I will be very honest with the hon. Gentleman: I do not know. I just feel that a system that says to parents, “Don’t bother putting your child forward because they have no chance of succeeding,” is not a very good system either. What that headteacher told me gives the lie to what he suggests. She said that parents felt under pressure to put their child forward for the assessment even when they knew that they were unlikely to succeed. The disappointment is being compounded by a great deal of wasted effort and pain. He is right about the complexities around who applies and what happens when they do, but there is something very troubling about a graph that shows that only children from the richest parts of the borough have a high chance of entry into grammar schools. I suspect that their having supportive parents, and lots of assets in their home to support their learning through educational toys, reading, educational trips and leisure activities and so on, is the reason why they have a higher chance of getting into grammar schools. I do not negate what he says, but I strongly suspect that it is those wider social factors and family resources that dispose children from the richer parts of the boroughs to have a higher chance of entering grammar schools.

New Grammar Schools

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The fundamental premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question is wrong. This is absolutely not about going back to the past. Secondary moderns for many years did not even put their children through a single exam. Our school system has, thankfully, been reformed beyond all recognition since then, so the premise of his question is wrong. This is about improving standards for all children. He asked how we can help to make that happen. One way is by having good and outstanding schools playing more of a role and lifting other schools that can benefit from their experience and knowledge.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on excellence and education for all. I invite her to come and look at the mixed economy that exists in Salisbury, with grammar schools, university technical colleges, a free sixth form, local authority schools and a multi-academy trust forming shortly. I would like to place an emphasis on the dynamics between the different types of schools. In particular, grammar schools work with their neighbours nearby to raise standards across the board. The focus on the Progress 8 score—the progress made by every school—is surely where the emphasis needs to be placed.

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Collaboration and having good schools working with the broader family to raise overall attainment is important. Secondly, he is right that we should be looking to challenge schools on the progress of every single child. Part of the problem with the floor approach of getting children into GCSEs and achieving good A* to C grades was that it missed out on the often brilliant progress that schools make with children who are perhaps further back in their attainment. We should value that work, and that is the intention of Progress 8.

Term-time Holidays

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend made that point better than I could have done.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Although I agree with the thrust of the Government’s response and their determination to raise standards, I have some sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double). When a number of schools have a high concentration of parents who work in the tourism industry and on relatively low pay, and when there has not been a significant enough change in the cost of holidays and there is no momentum around changes to term times, a number of factors come together. I urge the Minister to enter into more constructive dialogue about what can be done for regional economies where this issue will have a significant effect.

[Mr Gibb]

I am happy to enter into a constructive dialogue with my hon. Friend, and with my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double). We have given academies discretion to set their own term dates, and I urge all hon. Members who represent areas with high levels of tourism to work with their schools, the local authority, and other local authorities, to find a way to set term dates that reflect the needs of their local communities.

Engineering Skills: Design and Technology Education

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Michelle Donelan]

Linking education with business can be done in a variety of ways. The most important way is to get businesses into schools to talk to children face to face. Only a certain amount of information can be had from books and the media, and if we continue to perpetuate stereotypes, we will not get anywhere. That is the reality.

To go back to my speech, we must support businesses such as Alford. We must inspire the next generation of thinkers and create an innovation-hungry economy. Britain needs more businesses making more things, designing more things, inventing more things and exporting more things. We must recognise that engineering and manufacturing are an important part—indeed, a vital part—of Britain’s economic future.

What is the answer to all these problems? We need to improve our careers education system, starting at primary school age. Studies show that from age six children rule out careers. That is just perpetuating the stereotyping and the reluctance of girls to enter this industry. We need to strengthen further the links with local businesses and to increase the emphasis that we place on local labour market intelligence, so that we inform our young people about local opportunities and the best career choices and options are available to them.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to my fellow Wiltshire MP from my home town of Chippenham for initiating this debate. Does she concur that one of the great opportunities in Wiltshire is provided by QinetiQ? That company provides thousands of apprenticeships in science and technology, and there is its initiative with the 5% Club to target high investment in apprenticeships, so that local people in Wiltshire can see the opportunities for apprenticeships in science and technology at age 18 locally. That is a good start on the journey that my hon. Friend will take us on this morning.

[Michelle Donelan]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is right. I know at first hand the work that that company is doing in Wiltshire, especially in the area of apprenticeships, which is vital for our economy and for giving young people the opportunity to experience these industries from a younger age. We need to run more schemes like that.

I believe that we need to go further and measure schools on destination reporting—reporting on what careers young people go into—so that we can better measure what is happening. However, this is really all quite simple. To make our economy more productive, we need to make our education system more productive. To put it another way, we need to wake up to the fact that we need to align the business sector and the education sector and ensure that they are working much more to support each other.

The Government have already done quite a lot in this area, and I do not want to overlook that. They have recognised the need to focus on STEM with initiatives such as STEMNET, providing £6.3 million a year to run a number of programmes. That includes more than 28,000 STEM ambassadors. The Big Bang Fair is another initiative that I have seen at first hand in Wiltshire, and Wiltshire College is doing an excellent job of celebrating STEM for young people in the UK. There is also the “Your Life” campaign, which is increasing the number of pupils taking on A-level physics and maths.

University technology colleges are another fantastic way to address the STEM shortage, and I am delighted that more than 55 UTCs will be open by 2017, catering for more than 33,000 students. A number of other initiatives focus on further education and university education, of which the most important is the removal of the cap on university places for STEM subjects. Those are all great initiatives, but we still face a huge skills gap that is threatening our economy.

I believe that the answer to addressing the skills gap lies in the new design and technology GCSE course. For too long, design, technology and engineering subjects have been misunderstood, stigmatised and stereotyped, which is quite ironic given that the skills shortage means that we are in dire need of encouraging more young people to pursue those careers. It is also ironic given that all those subjects give students the best shot at getting highly valued, highly paid jobs, and given the UK’s productivity crisis. Those in the know—business leaders—see design and technology as an essential part of the UK’s remaining a global leader in product design. If we are to plug the ever-growing skills gap and address our rather shameful productivity crisis, we must listen to business and act urgently.

Education is the key to addressing the skills shortage, and design and technology is a key part of that. Entries for the D and T GCSE have declined by 18% since 2010—a decline that, at 26% over the five-year period, is even more dramatic among girls. In addition, the recruitment of D and T teachers has hit an all-time low. Since 2010, their number has fallen by 2,300, and the number of teaching hours has fallen by 16%.

The Government are rightly pushing ahead on ensuring that education is vigorous and gives students the core skills they need for the workplace. It is vital that the Ebacc remains purely academic, ensuring that students leave education with the skills that they need to get on in life. I fully support that. However, the push towards the Ebacc in its current form threatens to undermine any progress being made to address the stigma associated with technology and engineering. I would like the vastly improved D and T GCSE to be included as an option of the science element of the Ebacc. There is huge support for that within the business community and the teaching community—not just in my constituency and not just in Wiltshire, but across the country. They are crying out for this change, and something needs to be done.

Figures vary, but estimates suggest that there are about 54,000 vacancies for the 1,200 graduate engineers each year. That is a brake on business and a drag on the economy. Let me be clear: I am asking not for a U-turn in the policy, but for a minor change to strengthen, improve and safeguard the Ebacc given the scientific and academic nature of the new D and T GCSE. There will be no outcry from vocational subject pressure groups, such as art, music and religious education, as that is a totally different debate.

There is a precedent for the change in the example of computer science. In recognition of the changing economy, the former information and communications technology qualification was revamped as computer science to cater for the economic need for computer programmers and the shortfall in the digital industries. Yet the skills shortages in design, manufacturing and engineering are far vaster, so surely the case is much more pressing.

Without a technology and engineering element to the Ebacc, young people do not have the opportunity to taste those subjects and thus gain a greater insight into those careers. Yes, they can do the core subjects such as maths and science, which can lead them on to a university place or an apprenticeship in such fields, but why would they do that if they had never actually tasted D and T and had no real concept of what it means? In fact, they will not, as the evidence shows us. Between 2010 and 2015, the number of A-level entries for D and T fell by more than 24%, which indicates that the decline in the GCSE is having a further impact that is knocking on through the STEM pipeline.

The Government are committed to 3 million new apprenticeship schemes. Ensuring that D and T is part of the Ebacc will help towards that goal. A taster in a technical course will encourage people to go on to do a technical apprenticeship. I encourage the Minister to utilise the same foresight used with computer science by introducing the newly improved and very scientific D and T course as part of the Ebacc. Doing so would add to the image and value of the subject, and send out a message that D and T and engineering are science subjects that are core to the curriculum. After all, is not one of the key purposes of our education system to create the workforce of tomorrow?

Progress 8, in theory, measures students’ progress across eight subjects: English; maths; three other Ebacc subjects, which can be science, computer science, geography, history or languages; and three further subjects, which can be from a range of the Ebacc subjects or any other highly approved art, academic or vocational qualification. However, many schools—schools are telling me this—are pushing their students towards the academic subjects. Many students are taking more than the expected minimum of five subjects, resulting in D and T being squeezed into a single or double option box to compete with the likes of photography or dance for a single place among the students’ options. It would be tragic for the new, academically rigorous D and T GCSE still to be sidelined after all the work, time and money that has been invested in it.

Some will argue that the Ebacc is only five subjects from a GCSE programme of nine, but that does not really show an understanding of the situation we face. D and T is being marginalised. The brightest students overlook it because they do not perceive it as a scientific subject and because it does not have that Ebacc accreditation.

As a result of the hard work and commitment of the Minister, the James Dyson Foundation and the business community, the content of the new course, which will be launched in September 2017, is highly scientific and a vast improvement on the previous qualification. It encourages the innovation and creativity needed to boost UK productivity, and it is worthy of Ebacc status. The Minister has made some very good points, describing the new GCSE as “gold-standard”, and said:

“This is a rigorous qualification which will require students to have a sound grasp of maths and science, and which will undoubtedly stretch them to further develop the kind of knowledge and skills so sought after by employers and universities.”

Well, I agree. D and T is the only subject in which students put their maths and physics knowledge to a practical test. It is the only subject that gives a window into engineering careers, and it is the obvious pipeline for engineering talent. That view is shared by Sir James Dyson; Dr Rhys Morgan, director of education at the Royal Academy of Engineering; Paul Jackson, the chief executive officer of EngineeringUK; the Design and Technology Association; and hundreds of businesses that have contacted me in the past few weeks. We must listen to the experts and take action. Including the course within the Ebacc would help to challenge perceptions of the subject, and boost recruitment and take-up. There is a 57% recruitment shortfall in trainee D and T teachers, who are concerned over the subject’s future and status.

There are a number of other ways in which we can encourage young people to take engineering and D and T to safeguard the subject and their futures, and I do not deny that I have only really touched on one way today. I am sure that colleagues will go into further depth on other areas. I have focused on including the new D and T course within the Ebacc because I believe that it is crucial and very doable. The simple change is what business and the economy need. It would highlight that the Government understand the need to align the education system much more with the economy and to give our young the best opportunity in life.

We have a chance to include a new, robust and rigorous D and T course within the Ebacc as a science element, just as was done with computer science, to combat any negative perceptions and recognise the needs of the industry. It is unacceptable, at a time when we have such severe engineering shortages and a growing productivity crisis, that we are prioritising only the S and M, and not the T and E, of STEM. What is the point of all the programmes we have to encourage young people to consider a career in the sector if we are going to say that the new science-based D and T course is actually not really science? That is what this categorisation means—that it is not actually science—and it sends out the message that the subject is not important to the STEM agenda.

In conclusion, if we are to remain at the forefront of global product design, we must take action. Bolstering the D and T GCSE by its inclusion in the Ebacc is an important step to addressing the skills shortage, safeguarding the future of the subject, and supporting skills and businesses. As I said to the Prime Minister last month, the skills shortage is a ticking time bomb, and I urge the Minister to act now.

Education and Adoption Bill

John Glen Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Of course, the routes available for giving children a loving, permanent, stable home were considered in full towards the end of the previous Parliament during the passage of the Children and Families Act 2014. Adoption is important, because it gives children a stable upbringing and permanence so that they can progress with their lives and meet their full potential. The Bill addresses one particular aspect of the adoption system that is not working as well as it could, but he is right. Of course the courts will consider all the different options before they get to the point at which adoption agencies operate.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend say a little more about the rationalisation of the large number of agencies and councils? It seems absurd to me, given the number of children affected, that such a bewildering number of bodies are involved in this vital process.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will talk about that and about why we are bringing forward our proposals. In the first three quarters of 2014-15, 20 local authorities or local authority groups recruited fewer than 10 adopters, and 58 recruited fewer than 20. Similarly, six voluntary adoption agencies recruited fewer than 10 adopters and 10 recruited fewer than 20 adopters. That means that we now need to address the issue.

As I said, the House spent significant time considering adoption during the passage of the Children and Families Act. At that time, the urgent crisis facing the adoption system was the failure to recruit enough adopters. The sector has responded positively to the challenge, and I applaud and thank it for its efforts in doing so. However, we are now facing challenges that go beyond the original one of recruitment. There are still 3,000 children waiting for adoption despite there being enough approved adopters across the country, and we also need better adoption support. At the moment, the specialist support that many adopted children need to address the effects of abuse and neglect in their early life is simply not available in their area.

In response to my hon. Friend, actively encouraging local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies to join forces and work together will act as a triple win. It will give councils a greater pool of approved adopters, make vital support services more widely available to adoptive families and better target the recruitment of adopters. It will also provide better value for money for the taxpayer.

Grammar School Funding

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. Unfortunately, public grammar schools are all too often dismissed in public debate as a mode of education supported by an out-of-touch elite interested only in the education of a privileged few. Indeed, last August, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) accused the Secretary of State for Education of pursuing education policies based on “1950s Grammar School nostalgia”. I disagree. Such comments, which seek to make grammar schools a tool of ideological division, do not serve well those pupils who attend our grammar schools up and down the country and get so much out of them. It is not nostalgic to want our children to benefit from a rigorous education that inspires them to aim high, achieve excellent results and lay the foundations for success. I want those principles embedded in all schools, and we should embrace that approach to education generally. That has been at the heart of the Government’s policies, and it needs to remain so.

Some people may wish to talk about increasing the number of grammar school places, but we are here to discuss the challenges facing the 164 grammar schools in our country today. As a number of colleagues have said, there is a real concern that we are putting our grammar schools at risk—not, perhaps, because of a wilful desire to eliminate them, but as an unintentional consequence of some of the funding reforms that have taken place.

I have two outstanding grammar schools in my constituency: South Wilts and Bishop Wordsworth’s. They have faced similar, increasingly challenging financial settlements, primarily because of the decision to ring-fence the education budget for five to 16-year-olds, while the 16-to-18 budget has no such protection. That has had a significant impact, particularly on Bishop Wordsworth’s, which faces a deficit of more than £300,000 in its sixth-form budget this year. In the past three years, it has seen a 7% reduction in its per sixth-form pupil funding. Next year, it faces a budget deficit of more than £150,000.

I am not here to advocate special treatment for grammar schools, because this issue affects all 16-to-18 providers. However, there is a case for arguing that the problem needs to be re-examined and that we need to look at the principle of ring-fencing. It is illogical that a school can run healthy surpluses in its 11-to-16 budget, but that they are immediately absorbed by a growing deficit in its sixth form.

If we are honestly to discuss the financial difficulties facing grammar schools, in particular, we need to acknowledge the wider social mobility issues. Grammar schools must remain focused on doing more in that respect. It is true that, although 16% of pupils are eligible for free school meals in an average school, the figure is considerably lower in a large proportion of grammar schools. However, that is because the pool is smaller in the first place, and those figures do not tell the whole story because they are so small.

Importantly, we need grammar school heads to focus on extending the benefits of a grammar school education to as many as possible in the community, as Stuart Smallwood is doing at Bishop Wordsworth’s. I welcome the steps Salisbury grammars have taken to reach out to local primaries by running 11-plus coaching sessions in schools that have traditionally sent fewer pupils to grammars at 11. However, I ask the Minister how that can be sustained when budgets are in the position I have outlined. If we are to advocate more funding, we must unambiguously acknowledge the value of grammar schools—the transformational impact they have on children’s life chances and ability fully to achieve their aspirations.

I am a governor, not of one of the grammar schools, but of Wyvern college, which is very much on the up under a new headmaster. I can attest to the thoughtful partnerships that exist between grammar schools and schools such as Wyvern. Grammar schools act as beacons of excellence, and they raise standards across the board by working constructively with other local schools.

In welcoming today’s debate, I want to highlight the particular challenge facing grammars whose sixth forms are in dire need of cash injections. Many children in my constituency and nearby commute to Salisbury to attend sixth form, because many schools in the area do not have sixth-form provision. That demonstrates how grammars are perceived as the means of completing a high-quality education in south Wiltshire, providing opportunities not afforded to those educated from 11 to 16 at other schools nearby.

When I visited the Minister for Schools, all he really wanted to focus on was the percentage of pupils on free school meals. His logic was, essentially, that unless schools raise that percentage, they will encounter difficulties. It is quite obvious that they cannot sort out the problem overnight, and the Minister’s argument is an empty one when it comes to dealing with the realities schools have been faced with overnight.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

On funding and particularly the pupil premium for some of our poorer children, does my hon. Friend agree that there are occasions when the excellent grammar schools in cities such as his and mine lose some contact with the community by taking a majority of pupils from some of the richer rural areas further away? Does he agree that, if the DFE gave grammar schools a bit more flexibility on entrance qualifications so that people who have great potential but who are not necessarily well coached beforehand could come in, that might increase the number of pupils getting the pupil premium?

[John Glen]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his characteristically constructive and thoughtful intervention. There is a debate about how the 11-plus exam works and how it could be improved so that it brings in more people. Grammar schools in Salisbury are looking carefully at that issue. However, I repeat that that reform—that enhancement of the journey of moving to grammar school—will not happen overnight. There are some issues to do with the flexibilities, such as discretion over the catchment area, and so on; but let us not be ashamed of the fact that grammar schools are about academic excellence. There is an exam for entry to the school at 11, and we should not be ashamed of the academic criteria.

I urge the Minister to acknowledge the vital role that grammar schools play in social mobility and to allow them to do more of what they do. Let us celebrate the excellent outcomes that they achieve, and not be inhibited about talking about excellent grammar schools. We would do well to have a model of and approach to education that celebrates their achievements and acknowledges the desire that we all have for excellence in all secondary schools, whatever form they take and wherever they are. I believe that that is the motivation of all of us who are here for this morning’s debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

We are able to work with UK record labels on this, but it is a voluntary scheme and we are engaging with music labels and video platforms. We can always look to extend it when appropriate.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of mobile phone coverage in rural areas.

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

Mobile coverage at 2G reaches 99% of premises, but my hon. Friend is well aware of the issues that we have with not spots and partial not spots, which is why we have in place the mobile infrastructure programme and why we are currently consulting on roaming.

[John Glen]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Although I welcome the recent consultation on partial not spots, many areas in rural Wiltshire, such as Bishopstone, remain without any coverage at all. Vodafone’s decision to introduce open sure signal technology in Broad Chalke, as it has recently done in Winterslow, will be revolutionary. What more can be done to incentivise companies such as Vodafone systematically to roll out those solutions before the outcome of the consultation?