Education and Adoption Bill (Ninth sitting)

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes. My hon. Friend again puts it more eloquently and accurately than I could have. There is a general concern about a lack of attention to pupils with special educational needs and disability needs in a lot of the Government’s thinking, not just with regard to the Bill and this particular provision but more broadly.

The Schools Minister answered written question No. 2637 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on 22 June. We thank him for that answer, which stated that

“pupil referral units…will…not be eligible to be defined as coasting schools.”

It would, however, be possible to use secondary legislation under section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to include pupil referral units in the definition. The Minister said in Committee on 9 July, column 273, that he would consider extending the clause 7 duty to academise to pupil referral units using secondary legislation. We would welcome further clarity from the Minister on pupil referral units as well as his response to the remarks made by my hon. Friend in his intervention.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I am sorry to have to disagree with the hon. Member, because I have agreed with everything that he has said up to now, but there is another special problem with pupil referral units in so far as their population is very volatile; it changes all the time. A longitudinal assessment over three years might be quite hard to accomplish to help decide whether a school is coasting.

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[Mr Gibb]

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman on the figures in a moment, but I want first to talk about the powers to intervene.

As my noble Friend Lord Nash made clear when he gave evidence to the Committee, we will be just as rigorous in identifying academies that fall within our coasting definition as we will be in the case of maintained schools. Just as I have outlined for maintained schools, any academy that falls within the coasting definition will be challenged and required to demonstrate that it can improve sufficiently or face further action.

[John Pugh]

The Minister describes commendable vigilance by the Department or heads of academy chains, but there will come a day when academies are perfectly standard, with lots of them right across the country. They may even form the larger proportion of the educational system. He is setting up a regime for identifying coasting schools, and he needs to make it future-proof. Is it not a very weak scheme if the only future-proof element is relying on the vigilance of future Ministers—Ministers who may not belong to his party and on whom he may not be able to rely to be vigilant?

The Minister must have a view on what will happen come the day when the majority of schools in this country are academies, some of which will be coasting. Do we not need an automatic trigger to indicate to the Department and other interested parties when things are not going as they should? To rely on the personal intervention of the Minister, Department or academy chain itself is a very weak system.

[Mr Gibb]

I do not agree, because we have established a network of regional schools commissioners. There are eight regional schools commissioners spread throughout England and they are supported with advice from local headteacher boards. That is the mechanism through which the Secretary of State and her Ministers can ensure that we are addressing failure in the academy system. The system is designed to address failure, not to intervene in success. Where schools and academies are successful, we do not want regional schools commissioners to intervene; we want to allow the devolution of power to the frontline, to teachers and headteachers.

[John Pugh]

I accept the Minister’s point; my own is simply this. In the Bill, there is an automatic trigger whereby one can identify coasting schools and address them in a particular way. Academies have no such automatic trigger. In terms of future-proofing the Bill, whether it be the schools commissioners, the academy chain or the Minister who have to act on the coasting element in academy chains or academies, there does not seem to be provision to avoid any lackadaisical approach by any of those parties. If they are not vigilant—and that is the only thing that the Bill in its current form relies upon—academies will coast and the intervention will not happen.

[Mr Gibb]

There are several points there. When one is dealing with a state education system one needs the elected officials to be vigilant—whether at local authority or national level. That is inherent in our democratic structure. If people are misguided enough to elect a Government in which Ministers are not vigilant, people have the right—as Nick Ridley famously said—to vote for unemployment. In a democracy, people have the right to vote for inadequate Ministers. I say that they ought not to do that; they ought to vote Conservative at every election to ensure that that will not be the case, but people in a democracy have that right and we see the consequences around the world.

On a more serious point, we will be updating the funding agreement to contain a comparable clause that defines the coasting definition. Of course, as the hon. Member for Cardiff West says, we cannot rewrite all 5,000 funding agreements, or however many there are. The way the system has worked is that those funding agreements have gone through an iteration process, so that when they are renegotiated and renewed, and when new schools obtain funding agreements, they will always be required to adopt the latest draft. Even before those provisions in the funding agreement, regional schools commissioners are very vigilant. They were appointed on the basis that they would be vigilant in identifying and tackling underperformance. They will now be guided by the definition of coasting in the way that they assess underperformance in the academy schools.

Education and Adoption Bill (Sixth sitting)

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Steve McCabe]

I will be very brief. It seems to me that one of the central parts of the argument about this clause is whether the Minister has succeeded in persuading the Committee that he really has evidence to justify the powers that he seeks to take. Let me preface my remarks by pointing out that I like the Minister. He and I came into the House at the same time. In fact, I can remember tipping him in a poll of new Tories to be watched. Let me be clear on what I meant by that—new Tories who might succeed in climbing up the ministerial ladder, not slippery characters we needed to keep an eye on.

I should take advantage of this opportunity to clarify something raised earlier. I asked the Minister if he could cite some examples of local authorities being obstructive and say why he needed new powers. The Minister cited the example of local authorities seeking judicial review and went on to comment specifically on Coventry City Council and Henley Green primary school. I am sure the Minister did not want to mislead the Committee on this matter, but it is worth pointing out that at that time, Henley Green primary school was not in special measures. It was not a failing school. In fact, it was a school that had just received a “satisfactory” Ofsted report and some excellent comments in particular categories. What had happened was that its SATs results were way below the Government minimum. As a consequence, the Government decided that it should be part of a forced academisation programme. Before that, there had been no examples of the Government forcing a school to become an academy unless it was in special measures or had failed Ofsted before.

Coventry council objected because it said that the Secretary of State did not have the power in law to force academisation in these circumstances. It pointed out that it had already met voluntarily with the head of the school and had agreed an action programme in which Frederick Bird school would buddy the school to improve the situation. It was extremely successful. Within a few months, the SATs results had moved beyond the minimum standards, and in English and Maths had risen by more than 20%. So successful was the programme that the Government decided not to challenge Coventry’s decision, acknowledged that they were wrong and backed down. So it would not be right for the Minister to pray in aid this example of a council being obstructive to defend his position. This was an example of a council taking a very sensible course of action that led to the right outcome. It was a council quite legitimately seeking to test whether the Secretary of State was exceeding his lawful duties. I do not think it was the Minister’s intention to mislead us, but as this is such a central part of the argument about this clause, it is only fair that the Committee should have a much fuller picture.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I was going to say that it is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan, but we were both on the Crossrail Bill and I have to say that it was not a pleasure all the time.

I have something to add about the appeal mechanism. Although I think that amendment 19 is a little too heavy-handed to address the issue, I want to appeal to all Members to consider carefully the concept of appeal. With regard to governing bodies, in certain cases an appeal for them would be worthless because they can be part of the problem. I am sure that members of the Committee can think of poor governing bodies in their own areas that have very little to say in defence of poor results and performance. However, there is another side of the story and I would like to give an example from my neck of the woods.

I have in my constituency a single-form-entry primary school that fell below the standard for entirely comprehensible reasons. There were quite a lot of staff changes, which make a big difference in a single-form primary school, and the school also had intake changes produced by an increase in migrant workers. The governing body rapidly found itself trapped in a room with somebody who described themselves as a broker on behalf of the Government and said that the school must join an academy chain as soon as possible—with which, incidentally, the broker had some connection. I never knew there were such people called brokers, but there are indeed; I am simply recording what they do. I have heard many descriptions of what then went on. There was an extraordinarily abrasive and unpleasant conversation, in which the broker said that either the school must join the academy chain, or the head and the governing body—the full set—would be replaced.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Is he aware that some of those brokers, as revealed in parliamentary answers, were being paid up to £1,000 a day by the Department for Education to carry out the work that he is describing?

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[John Pugh]

I have not finished describing it. A number of witnesses—people I have learned to trust—described the conversation as brutal and tantamount to bullying, and we are all against school bullying. Neither the head nor the governing body in that case was weak. They were saved at the last hurdle, because Ofsted produced a more favourable picture by bringing in objective data. The school is now thriving, and is part of the local education authority family. Had the broker got their way, it would have joined a chain, in which the nearest other school was 20 to 30 miles away. That example illustrates what can happen if some of the hurdles to what is called improvement are clipped away. Not only might there be a brutal, ineffectual intervention, but we might be endorsing a form of bullying, which we would all regret.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am sure we all want to confirm that we like the Minister. One of the reasons why I like him is because he welcomes the fact that when others disagree with him, they do so vigorously. He enjoys the cut and thrust of debate. We should not be misinterpreted as not liking him on a personal level.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak and the hon. Member for Southport have given practical illustrations of why it is important that there is a safeguard or appeal mechanism in these sorts of processes. This may have settled down a bit now, but during the early years of the coalition Government—I should point out that there were Liberal Democrat Ministers in the Department for Education—some of the activities being carried out by those mysterious academy brokers were extremely dubious. They turned up at schools and metaphorically took the headteacher for a walk in the woods with a rubber truncheon, with the express intention that, by the time they came back from that treatment, they would roll over to anything that was demanded of them—in particular, that they would join an academy chain, whether or not that was the right solution for the school. For doing that work, they were paid huge sums of public money—up to £1,000 a day—by the Government. It is right that a light should be continually shone on those sorts of activities.

In our view, clause 2 represents an unnecessary further step towards centralising control over the school system in the hands of Ministers. It does so in two ways. First, it gives the Secretary of State the power to issue a warning herself. That might seem a small step, because the difference between the Secretary of State telling a local authority to do something, which is what the 2006 and 2011 Acts set out, and doing it herself might seem modest, but it is significant. Previously, the Secretary of State had to channel warning notices through local authorities, thereby ensuring that they are engaged in the process and that schools do not receive mixed messages. The clause does not even contain any requirement for the Secretary of State to consult a local authority before issuing a warning. There is no requirement on her to inform herself properly about what has been going on, merely a right to insert herself into the process whenever she feels like it.

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[Mr Gibb]

I don’t buy that argument. Groups or chains of academies are all about collaboration between the professionals within those chains. Those chains are often led by former or current headteachers. It is about collaboration, working together and finding a common vision. The most successful academy groups are those with a central, core vision that is developed by professionals within the chain. That best practice is then rolled out, which is how very successful chains such as Ark and Harris have managed to deliver remarkable achievements in some of the most deprived parts of the country.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak responded to my example of Henley Green, but I must tell him that the warning notices are not for “inadequate” schools; they are separate provisions in the Bill and the 2006 Act for schools requiring action because they need to improve and are underperforming for other reasons—for instance, poor SATs results, as the hon. Gentleman cited. That was the case with Henley Green. During the process, the results did rise above the floor, but we are talking about the floor standard. The Government agreed to withdraw the direction but maintained that it was justified at the time. We do not resile from the direction being the right thing to do. As a consequence of action, the school’s standards rose above the floor.

The hon. Member for Stockport raised concerns about brokers.

[John Pugh]

Southport.

[Mr Gibb]

Southport; I apologise. The hon. Member for Southport raised concerns about brokers. We expect very high standards from brokers. While they are not civil servants, we certainly expect them to follow civil service standards of behaviour. Brokers are commissioned by officials from the Department to visit schools and report back to officials on the discussions they have had. If they are not meeting the high standards we expect of them, the hon. Gentleman should send us more details and we will investigate. In my experience of dealing with brokers, they are very professional people who are determined to raise standards.

I hope that I have dealt with all the concerns raised, and I urge the Committee to support clause 2.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

Other warning notices

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Education and Adoption Bill (Fifth sitting)

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

I suspect that the Minister might not be surprised if I say I beg to differ about exactly how precise this Bill is in what it does. I suspect that will form some part of our exchanges in the next few days.

Returning to the power that was taken in 2011 by the Secretary of State, ably represented in Committee at that time, as now, by his Schools Minister, presumably there has been a pressing need which explains why that power is no longer sufficient and why the Secretary of State now needs to take the power directly to issue the warning notices. If there was something terribly wrong about the way that local authorities work—issuing warning notices or failing to issue warning notices—Ministers would presumably have had to use the power that they took in the 2011 Act a lot; perhaps to issue dozens, maybe hundreds of warning notices since taking that power to direct local authorities to issue those notices.

What is the actual number of occasions that the Secretary of State has issued such directions since that power became available in November 2011? According to a written answer from the Minister for Children to my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on 16 June this year, the Secretary of State has issued directions not on hundreds, or dozens of occasions or even double figures; the Secretary of State has issued directions to local authorities to issue warning notices on precisely four occasions in the last four years.

How can the Minister argue that there is a need so pressing for the Secretary of State to have to lay down primary legislation in order to issue orders directly herself when the Government are struggling to average one direction per year to local authorities since they took the power to direct local authorities to issue those warning notices?

The Opposition believe that Ministers should have to demonstrate that they need to acquire more power and are not just doing it to sound tough. If they really needed this power, surely there would have been many more occasions on which they would have chosen to direct local authorities to issue warning notices than there have been in the past four years since they took that power under the 2011 Act, which amended the Education and Inspections Act 2006. We will listen with interest to the Minister’s justification for taking that approach in the light of the coasting attitude to the need to issue directions to local authorities over the past four years.

Even if the Minister is unable to accept amendment 15 as we have drafted it—I understand that Ministers generally have an aversion to accepting any wording proposed by the Opposition—will he assure the Committee that any actions set out in warning notices by Ministers will be reasonable? What is his assessment of the example I gave of an academy warning notice required by Ministers? I do not argue with the prescriptions within that warning notice—they seem to be fairly standard proposals. Do Ministers seriously put forward the idea that they are the sorts of things that could reasonably be achieved in full during a one-month warning notice period?

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Would it be helpful if the Minister told us how many warning notices—over and above four—have been given to academies?

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes. I apologise for not having that answer to hand myself. I am sure that if the Minister does not have that number before him or in his mind, he will—through the well-established process of parliamentary in-flight refuelling—be able to obtain that information by the time he gets to his feet.

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[Mr Gibb]

Of course judicial review is a perfectly valid and reasonable system to check the actions of the Executive, but it seems odd to use that power when action is being taken to try to improve standards in a primary school.

I want to address the issue about capacity. In the previous Parliament, 1,100 schools became sponsored academies, which is one of the reasons why 1 million more pupils are in good and outstanding schools today than was the case were in 2010. The fact that we have already issued 107 warning notices to academies demonstrates that regional schools commissioners have the capacity to tackle underperformance. They are advised by bodies made up of heads from their areas. Advisory bodies are attached to all the regional schools commissioners. The commissioners have the discretion to decide whether a warning notice is required and they draw on the knowledge of their headteacher board.

[John Pugh]

I listened carefully to the Minister’s exchange with the hon. Member for Cardiff West about the redistribution of powers that the Bill facilitates, especially the powers of local authorities and the Secretary of State. I think he said—he will correct me if I am wrong—that the powers of local authorities à propos governing bodies to deal with representations are implicitly increased by the Bill. Will he clarify that point?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful for that intervention. Clause 2 changes the reference to “local authority” in the 2006 Act to “relevant authority”, which covers the local authority and the Secretary of State. The other changes that we are making to section 60 therefore apply to the local authority and to the Secretary of State. I cited earlier that the original section 60(1)(c) of the 2006 Act states that a maintained school was eligible for intervention if

“either the governing body made no representations under subsection (7) to the Chief Inspector against the warning notice during the initial period or the Chief Inspector has confirmed the warning notice”.

Subsection (7) of the Act is deleted by clause 2. That provision was introducing delay in tackling underperforming schools, and we are removing it, not just for the Secretary of State, but for local authorities.

[John Pugh]

Post this legislation, would a governing body that has serious issues either with the approach of the Secretary of State or the local authority, and genuinely has a case to defend, be in a weaker position than before?

[Mr Gibb]

I am not sure that I have understood the hon. Gentleman correctly. I wonder whether he would reiterate that. I do not think that anybody is in a weaker position than before. Section 60 is about issuing a warning notice to a school. It is not the same provision as clauses 1, or clause 7, under which an academy order is issued automatically for schools in Ofsted’s category 4. This is about schools that are not in category 4, but about which there is concern on the part of the local authority or the Secretary of State, or the regional schools commissioners. The provision enables them to take action that may lead to discussions with the school. We hope that everyone will work together with local authorities and the regional schools commissioners, and with the school’s governing body, to try to bring about rapid improvement of the problems causing underperformance.

If there are no further interventions, I hope that the hon. Member for Cardiff West asks leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education and Adoption Bill (First sitting)

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

Q 35 I apologise for stopping you, but briefly, the Bill says “must” and that was the question I asked you earlier. It does not envisage an IEB as a possible tool to be used in those circumstances.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: No, but IEBs have often been used in those circumstances, so part of the success of the figures that we have just heard is that of IEBs on their way to delivering an academy solution. I know all academies are not successful and I am not claiming that they are, but not all treatments for any problem are successful and it does not mean that you should not have the treatment. In many cases, sponsored academies are doing an amazing job.

Richard Watts: One thing I would add is that local authorities face some bureaucratic hurdles in trying to place IEBs on schools that we think need some intervention. One of the changes to the Bill that we would like to see is to give local authorities the power to introduce IEBs without having to go through the process of applying to the Secretary of State, as that allows us to tackle problems more quickly.

Malcolm Trobe: Coming back to the original question, I would urge members of the Committee to look at the ASCL blueprint for a self-improving school system. We believe that school leaders are very committed to having a system in which there is school to school support, whether that be through federations, schools working together or through multi-academy trusts. The expertise to improve schools is within the profession itself and we believe that it is by schools working together that we will see a continuing improvement in our education system.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Q 36 Following on from that, clearly the problem is coasting. Everybody wants the problem of coasting addressed. The only solution in the legislation is academisation. Apart from changing governance and headteacher, which often follows with academisation, what do academies have in their toolkit to address the problem of coasting that an LEA does not, and vice-versa? Councillor Watts, could you begin?

Richard Watts: My take is that actually governance status is not a very good indicator of any organisation’s capacity to change. There are some very good academy conversions—Harris is an extremely good chain—and there are some very poor academy conversions. Governance status is to my mind a distraction in all of this. There is a set of toolkits which are about getting outstanding leadership and teaching into schools, and any middle-tier organisation, be it an academy chain or a local authority, should have the powers to do that quickly and decisively. Primarily, good schools are made up of outstanding leaders, good teachers and a capacity to improve internally, working with partners. That is the only proven record across the piece of driving up schools.

[John Pugh]

Q 37 Following on from the earlier question, would a local authority have more difficulty in doing that than an academy chain?

Richard Watts: We are somewhat hampered by regulation at the moment because we have less capacity to intervene than academy chains do in their own schools. Were that playing field level, I think we could do it just as well.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: What does an academy chain have? It is important that any schools that are taken over are taken over by groups that have a good record. That is the first thing. Academy chains have freedoms in terms of how they operate outside the local authority. They have resources of excellent teachers in their schools, they have the ability to move budget around to help schools within their groups. They have all of those kinds of freedoms. A local authority is removed from its schools, whereas an academy chain can build networks for school improvement and deploy resources rapidly and directly.

[John Pugh]

Q 38 Local authorities lack the freedoms necessary.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: Local authorities often do not use the freedoms that they have. There is nothing that we have done in any of our schools that were failing that a local authority could not have done. In every case, the local authority simply did not do it and it had to have someone else take it over and make it better.

Emma Knights: I think that is the absolutely pertinent point. There are some local authorities that have done it and some that have not. There are some chains that have, and some that have not. There are some governing bodies that have, and some that have not; some school leaders that have, and some that have not. I completely agree that this is not about legal status. It is about good people and harnessing the good people at all levels of the system.

[Graham Jones]

Q 39 Emma, you represent school governors. I forgot to say that my partner is a school governor. Why are school governors not intervening in all of this? Where is their role in this? Why does the Bill not address school governorship, which you say could do everything an academy could do in terms of a transformational agenda? Where is the role for governors in this and why are they not succeeding in some schools as well as in others?

Emma Knights: You are absolutely right to say that governing boards are at the heart of this. If the governing board was doing its job right we would not be seeing failing or even coasting schools. Our job is to improve school governance and some governing bodies have absolutely driven school improvement while some, quite frankly, have not had the capabilities to do that.

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[Suella Fernandes]

Q 90 I am a chair of governors at a free school. I want to build on the Minister’s point about the measure used to identify standards in schools and the move to Progress 8. We heard evidence from Dr Allen, who did not really think that Progress 8 was a suitable standard because it did not capture data for the requisite amount of time and displayed the same social gradient. She also said that the assessment of coasting would add an extra layer of accountability, which schools would find confusing. Could you all say a bit about what you think of those comments and opinions?

Dr Coulson: I think that the definition of coasting is a measured increase in ambition. What you heard earlier was about whether the threshold of 60% under the current measures and then 85% for primary schools gives a ceiling for the number of schools that would come into the scope of being addressed. I would love to address every single school. The draft regulations give a significant increase in ambition to schools that really need a focus, while managing the capacity question that I have been asked several times about how much we can grow the system in order for schools to come into it.

The points we heard about tweaking the measures were all really well made. There is a balance in terms of what the increase of ambition means at this stage in the draft regulations. As crafted now, they show a significant increase in ambition, even if they do not address every single school that people would like to have focused attention on.

Zoe Carr: I would like to pick this up from the primary angle, if I may. The 85% attainment measure—which all aspire to, so we will live up to it and do everything that we can—is more challenging for disadvantaged schools. However, the biggest thing for me is whether affluent schools will be identified under this coasting definition if they achieve the 85% measure but their progress continues to be poor. We must not miss that really important aspect when the Bill passes through Parliament, because we still need ways to identify those sorts of schools. I think that is the reason for the Bill being here in the first place—to try to address the coasting schools in our education system.

If those schools’ progress measures are not above the median for a number of years, yet their attainment is above 85%, it is right that we look at those elements. That is where schools in disadvantaged areas will feel that they are being hit twice by these accountability measures, whereas schools in affluent areas will have a much greater chance of attaining the 85% and their progress will not then really be looked at.

Lee Elliot Major: I was going to make exactly the same point. I worry—for me, it always goes back to the disadvantaged children—about the progress of children in high-attaining schools. I would love the Bill and the discussion to think about those schools in very advantaged areas. A lot of children coming into those schools are already high attaining, therefore the school’s results will generally be higher. My worry is: what about the sometimes small number of children—it is a significant number across the nation if you add them all up—who are not succeeding in those schools? You are then looking at progress measures in both primary and secondary schools. That would be my worry—that we miss out on those hundreds of thousands of children.

One final point—I was not here for Dr Allen’s evidence, but year groups come and go and can be very different in a school, so I like the fact that this will be triggered by a three-year passage of time. That is a sensible approach.

[John Pugh]

Q 91 I have two questions for Zoe Carr. You told us about the laudable efforts and improvements made by your trust. If, in years to come—heaven forbid—some of your schools or perhaps your whole trust is found to be coasting, you could not reasonably object to having imposed upon you the same disciplines, rigours and procedures as applied by the legislation to the maintained sector, could you?

Zoe Carr: Absolutely not. In my experience, through the work of the regional school commissioner and the headteacher board, those are exactly the rigours that the academy sector has now. The data for each academy are looked at in a great deal of detail and where schools are found not to be performing well enough then an immediate intervention is put in place.

[John Pugh]

Q 92 You are suggesting currently you have that same kind of discipline.

Zoe Carr: Yes, in the academy sector.

[John Pugh]

Q 93 Following on from what Peter Kyle said earlier about parental consultation, at first you started talking about underachieving or failing schools and then we got on to coasting schools. Is it your view that if a parent consultation indicates a marked lack of enthusiasm for the academy solution—in a school that is coasting but may be graded good or outstanding by Ofsted—none the less it would be right to ignore parental opinion?

Zoe Carr: We have already heard that in coasting schools there will not be one clear way forward in respect of the school.

[John Pugh]

Q 94 Suppose parental opinion is, “No, we don’t want to become an academy” and this is a coasting school which may well be graded good. Is your view that it should still proceed in that circumstance?

Zoe Carr: I would still look to see whether that school could improve with the opposition from the parents.

[John Pugh]

Q 95 Would your view therefore be that parents in that scenario would not know what was the best outcome for their children? That is the only rationale for doing that, is it not?

Zoe Carr: I would have to go back to leadership and governance once again and determine whether that school has enough available resources to be able to lead the school.

[John Pugh]

Q 96 Parents at a good school might none the less not have the right view of their children’s educational welfare.

Zoe Carr: It goes back to data and figures and the proportion of children in the school who are actually making the expected progress.

[John Pugh]

Q 97 The parents will be too ignorant to make that sort of decision on their behalf?

Zoe Carr: No, absolutely not. We consult parents an awful lot.

[John Pugh]

Q 98 Can I just persist with this point? You could give them the data as part of the consultation. Suppose you give them the data and you share all the data with them, and none the less it is their view in their school—this is my scenario—which may be a good school, but none the less is graded as coasting, that they would rather stay with the local authority than become an academy. Your view is still, in that circumstance where you share the data with them, that their view should be overridden.

Zoe Carr: That school would be given time under a plan that we have already talked about to see whether it could make the improvements that we discussed previously. If it is found that that school still cannot make those improvements, then the route forward would be for that school to become a sponsored academy.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 99 In the earlier session, we heard that we have little evidence of which formal intervention works best. There are anecdotal examples of academies that have improved, but clearly we cannot say across the board that academisation is the best answer for all schools. What is clear is that teaching and leadership is the most important factor in improving schools. Would you all therefore say whether the Bill will make it easier, harder or have no impact on the ability of schools to recruit and retain teachers?

Lee Elliot Major: It is hard to know. I would urge, as part of the Bill, looking to trial this in different schools so that we can come back to a Committee in three years’ time and know the evidence. One thing I would say straightway is that we should try to develop some evidence around this because there is very little at the moment. As I said earlier, our evidence is—and there are lots of claims and counter-claims in this area—that there are academy chains that do very well and there are others that do not. That is the honest truth. In terms of recruitment, I think it can go both ways. There are some academy chains that have better career progress for teachers because they can go between schools. There is better professional development. There are other chains that do not do it very well, to be frank. It can go either way depending on the academy chain.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Steel is a very important industry, employing thousands of people in Britain. It is important to see what we can do to help, so I or my right hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise will be more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

What plans, if any, do the Government have to make local enterprise partnerships more democratically accountable? They have more funds than the regional development agencies, but are less accountable.

[Sajid Javid]

It is right that LEPs are business-led, but it is also important that they include democratically elected people, and that is how they are working. It is important to review LEPs after a few years of operation and to ensure that they are truly accountable.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I understand that the Secretary of State had a very enjoyable visit and I, too, would enjoy visiting the school to see the innovative approach it is taking to IT and other elements of the curriculum.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Coasting schools are to be forced to become academies. What is going to happen to coasting academies? Are they to be forced to become schools?

[Mr Gibb]

The Government have powers to issue pre-warning notices to a trust, demanding urgent action to improve, and ultimately a warning notice can be issued by the Government to change sponsors. We have in fact changed the sponsors for 69 academies. The academisation programme is delivering higher standards across the board. Schools that have been academies for four years are improving their GCSE results by 6.4%, and there are similar high improvements in primary schools that have become academies. This is about improving standards across our school systems, and I expect the hon. Gentleman to support this approach.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

As I said earlier, I strongly support faith and Church schools in this country. They offer an excellent education, but the Government have already made moves to ensure that all schools have to teach a broad and balanced curriculum, which many, if not all—almost all—faith and Church schools already do. There is the importance of teaching values of mutual respect and tolerance of others with other faiths and beliefs. If that is not happening, we will not hesitate first of all to inspect and then to take further action.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

T9. An hour ago, in Mr Speaker’s House, there was a broadcast edition of Michael Sandel’s “The Public Philosopher” and many parliamentarians were present. What are the Government doing to encourage philosophy and critical teaching in schools?

Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

Well, what wishful thinking and, indeed, guff from the hon. Gentleman. If he wants to talk about the quality of teachers, he needs to look at the outcomes. This country has more good and outstanding schools than in 2010. He ought to listen to the families who want their children to be taught well. If he is so worried about unqualified teachers, what does he say to the schools in Stoke that allow him in to teach?

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

4. What assessment she has made of the effect of pension changes on school budgets; and if she will make a statement.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

The employer contribution rates for the teachers’ pension scheme will increase by 2.3 percentage points following the recommendation to reform public sector pensions by the former Labour Minister, Lord Hutton of Furness. That will ensure that high-quality teacher pensions remain sustainable and affordable.

[John Pugh]

That is reassuring, but why are so many secondary heads in my constituency alarmed by the prospect of increased national insurance contributions?

[Mr Laws]

We have delayed the increase until September 2015 to give schools and head teachers time to plan; protected the schools budget in real terms in 2015-16; and—I know that my right hon. Friend will welcome this—allocated an extra £390 million to raise school funding in the most underfunded parts of the country. All those measures mean that the increase in pension costs is affordable.

Catholic Schools (Admissions)

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for introducing this significant and important debate. The backdrop to debates on education is often the London scenario. Frankly, I fail to recognise the landscape spoken about in such debates: the fierce competition for places; sharp elbows; tiger mums; socially-segregated intakes; and back-door selection via baptism and church attendance. I come from an area where half the schools are denominational, with the bulk of them being Roman Catholic. Unlike the Minister, I did not go to a Roman Catholic school, but in the ’70s and early ’80s I taught at a Catholic comprehensive in Bootle, where the situation was very different from London: St Kevin’s in Kirkby was not the Oratory.

My school was run by the Salesians, a religious order that originally set out to look after the poor of Milan. When I taught there, that spirit prevailed, although over time as an order they had migrated into selective and boarding schools, as is often the way. However, some of the original fervour was certainly there: the headmaster taught remedial maths and, even after he resigned as headmaster, continued to do so.

When I joined, the school had just amalgamated with another Catholic denominational school, St Joan of Arc, which was again far from being like the Oratory. That was a school that, throughout its history, had had a proud reputation of never having entered a pupil for a public exam. It was a dockland school and the only qualification that pupils left with was the—slightly discounted now—Bootle school leaving certificate. In fact, to get a job in that area, one needed only to befriend the local shop steward to be assured a job; one did not need to be particularly good at maths or anything like that. The comedian, Tom O’Connor, honed his act in such a school.

I was latterly a governor and a parent. My children went to Christ the King school in Southport, which was a community school with a tradition of caring for pupils; it did not expel them even when they had appreciable problems. When I reflect on that, I must say that the system that we have got is not a planned system, but one that has evolved. The state took responsibility for education only after the churches had spent many decades doing so in the 19th century. It funded what was there, but, at that time, there was political sensitivity that we might now find difficult to understand about Rome on the rates, or, in fact, any church on the rates, particularly in my party. The solution was the funding of religious autonomy but only in return for a capital contribution: the Butler settlement. Congregations did indeed partly fund the schools and, as a result, got certain privileges.

That deal has now been superseded by the Blair Government and the coalition Government with a new deal that I do not claim to understand perfectly: it does not have the same funding snags, but there certainly is a protracted debate about admissions and admission policy. That policy has been developed by the coalition, but I do not claim to understand the rationale perfectly. Perhaps the Minister can help me with that.

However, insofar as the Government make the offer to religious bodies to promote schools, it is almost certainly not because they want to promote a religious ethos or because they believe that, because those schools have a religious ethos, they are good per se. The promoters certainly believe that, but secular Governments in a secular, pluralistic society cannot usually claim that. The argument appears to be that there is a demand and will to provide these schools in many parts of the country, that educational standards are good—I think that that is recognised widely—and that no social objectives are being significantly impaired.

That is a point on which most Members party to this debate are probably on a different side from, say, the British Humanist Association, which regards serious social objectives as being compromised by the sheer existence of faith schools: it talks about the promotion of sectarianism and the like. That claim is contentious, but that is not the issue of this debate. The issue today is whether schools set up for an avowedly religious purpose function in a way that separates pupils by class or ability, because that, surely, is what the Government are against and the real question is whether there is a case for saying that.

There seem to be three bits of evidence to look at. One is the disparity that occasionally exists between a school’s social mix and the neighbourhood. It must be acknowledged that that exists. Secondly, frequently cited is parents affecting religious affiliation or enthusiasm to get their children into faith schools and that schools overtly collude in that. Thirdly, which I think is the point made by the former Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), there is some evidence that, in faith schools, there are relatively lower numbers of pupils on free school meals compared with other schools.

None of that strikes me as conclusive. As the hon. Member for East Hampshire pointed out, a disparity between neighbourhood and social mix should sometimes be expected. In an area where Catholics are very much a minority population, such as Salisbury, where there is only the one Catholic church, there will be a difference between the families immediately adjacent to the Catholic school and those who send their children to that school, but that would equally apply to other faith schools. A good example is in Liverpool, where one of the most popular and successful schools is King David high school, which is a Jewish school that does not necessarily reflect the wider social area in which it sits. I do not think, therefore, that that argument is conclusive.

Equally, I do not think that it is conclusive to point out what we probably all know: sometimes, parents affect a degree of religiosity to get their children into a school that they might not otherwise succeed in doing. That argument is hard to address, because it is not possible for schools—or churches, for that matter—to have proper insight into the fervour or motives of the people who turn up en masse on a Sunday. We surely cannot ask the Government to do that either.

Therefore, we come to the crucial point, which is the most difficult point for faith schools to address: a lower proportion of children receive free school meals in faith schools than in state schools in comparable areas. It cannot be supposed that Catholics, or those of any other faith, are innately prosperous and unlikely to be on benefits. That is a dilemma for Catholic schools, but also for the Government. If there is a remedy to that, that would be for the faith schools to be more rigorous in applying the faith criterion rather than any of their others, and I am not sure that the Government could advocate that.

None of the solutions would satisfy the critics of faith schools. I regard the Government’s policy as a muddle to some extent, though not a pernicious or problematic muddle. I do not see how what we have in the way of faith schools at the moment can concern a Government who are seeking to address the joint objectives of promoting educational achievement and ensuring that all pupils have fair access to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Dobbin, to participate in this debate under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on his charity in taking on this debate when the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) was unable to. As ever, he led the debate ably and elucidated the issues very well.

The hon. Member for East Hampshire mentioned that free schools—this may come up in the Minister’s response—are given priority over the setting-up of a new voluntary-aided school. If a new Catholic school is needed because there is demand from a sufficient number of Catholics in an area, why should free schools or any other schools be given priority over voluntary-aided schools? The Minister could solve the problem here and now, and perhaps he will pick that up in his response. I do not see why that should not be possible.

The hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) told us that he taught at St Kevin’s school in Kirkby.

[John Pugh]

To put the record straight, I should say that I used St Kevin’s in Kirkby as an example; I believe it does not exist any more. I taught at Salesian high school.

[Kevin Brennan]

I apologise, Mr Dobbin. I obviously did not listen carefully enough to the hon. Gentleman’s philosophical—as always—contribution. In view of his usual intellectual contributions, perhaps he should have taught at St Thomas Aquinas high school.

[John Pugh]

There was indeed a St Thomas Aquinas high school down the road from Salesian high. It was known locally as “Tommy Ackers”.

[Kevin Brennan]

I understand that school could squeeze the pupils into very small spaces.

We also had contributions from the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), who referred to free schools, and the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who thought that some critics of Catholic admissions and education were sneering. I congratulate all hon. Members on their contributions and interventions.

Like other hon. Members here, I attended a Catholic school and I am a Roman Catholic. I attended St David’s Roman Catholic school in Cwmbran and St Alban’s Roman Catholic comprehensive school in Pontypool, which, as was said earlier, drew from a wide catchment area in that part of what was first Monmouthshire and then Gwent. It included my home town, Cwmbran, and Pontypool, Blaenavon, Abertillery, Ebbw Vale and other areas of the Gwent valleys.

Given my name, which is Irish, hon. Members may not be surprised that I had a Catholic education, and the names on the school register were diverse. I shared classes with people such as Michael Sczymanski, Endonio Cordero, Maria Bracchi and the usual mixture of people with names such as Mario Evans and so on. There were many Italians, Irish and Poles mingling with the Welsh, and they were a diverse and interesting group of colleagues.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) on securing the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on taking on the mantle so well and setting out his concerns so clearly. I also join him in the comments that he made at the beginning of his speech about the tragedy that has occurred in Leeds. It is on the minds of all hon. Members. Our condolences are very much with the relatives of the teacher who died, and our thoughts are with the governors, teachers and pupils at that school.

We have had an extensive debate, with good participation from a number of hon. Members. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) and the hon. Members for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), for Fareham (Mr Hoban), for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) and for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) for their contributions. We have had good representation from those of the Catholic faith here today. They even seem to have got through to the Front Benches, because I also have to declare an interest, having been educated only at Catholic schools—at a Catholic state primary school and an independent Catholic secondary school. I think that I can therefore speak with a bit of knowledge and some sympathy for the points made by hon. Members.

I want to place on record the fact that the Government recognise the important contribution that the Churches and faith schools—schools of all faiths—make to our education system. About one third of the schools in England are Church or faith schools and, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire said, about 10% of all schools are Roman Catholic. These schools are usually popular with parents and include some of the highest-performing schools in the country. Catholic schools in particular generally outperform other types of state school. Last year, at primary level, 81% of pupils in Catholic schools achieved level 4 and above in reading, writing and maths at key stage 2, compared with 75% of pupils at all state schools. At secondary level, 67% of students secured five good GCSEs, including English and maths, in contrast to 61% of students at all state schools in 2013.

A number of hon. Members have commented on the composition by deprivation of pupils in Catholic schools compared with other schools. Obviously, that is a complicated issue, because the fact that there are differences between schools in their disadvantaged cohorts does not necessarily prove that there has been an attempt by schools to skew their intake in one way or the other. The underlying demographics of the area and the people who want to access the faith schools may mean that they are represented in different ways from the national average in terms of their deprivation characteristics. It is worth noting that the proportions of pupils eligible for free school meals in Roman Catholic schools are not notably different from the percentages of all pupils who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

[John Pugh]

The Minister has just profiled the difference between Catholic schools and other kinds of school in terms of educational achievement, but to the credit of a lot of Catholic schools, they also have very good pastoral arrangements. Has the Department any data showing, for example, the number of exclusions from Catholic schools as opposed to other sorts of school? My instinct is that they are rather better at catering for pupils who have problematic histories than normal state schools.

Teaching Quality

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. All we are asking for when we talk about qualified teacher status are minimum safeguards to ensure quality.

That is only part of the story. A Labour Government would demonstrate our commitment to elevating the standing of teachers by expecting them to undertake regular professional development, which would sit alongside any internal appraisal structure or the intervention of Ofsted. That is vital to raising standards, and it would bring teaching into line with other high-status, mature professions such as lawyers and doctors. It is also vital for future-proofing our education system. Technology is transforming education—it is remarkable how the internet is allowing access to so much of the artistic and historic creativity of humankind—but I was shocked to receive a letter from Microsoft telling me that, according to one of its surveys, 74% of teachers believe they do not have the skills to teach computing properly because the subject is moving so fast. That is exactly where we want teachers to be up to date with continuing professional development.

Just as doctors are revalidated on their knowledge of new medicines and trials, so teachers have to be up to date with the latest research and pedagogy. We need teachers to share expertise, to observe lessons, and to collaborate across schools and trusts.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I think the hon. Gentleman said—it will be in his script—that successive Secretaries of State have not been interested in continuing professional development. I think that is exactly what he said. Can he explain to me why inset days used to be referred to as Baker days?

[Tristram Hunt]

Because they were introduced by Lord Baker, as the hon. Gentleman knows.

The best continuing professional development produces remarkable results for young people, and the process needs to be profession-led. If we are interested in serious professional development, it cannot be a bureaucratic box-ticking exercise. I am encouraged by what the Prince's Teaching Institute says in its proposals for a royal college of teaching:

“Certification will be the process by which teachers’ standards are assessed by the College.”

As the former Secretary of State, Baroness Morris, has written:

“The idea of a Royal College of Teachers, fast gaining support from all sides, is the obvious organisation to lead on developing the idea”

of revalidating or recertifying to ensure that teachers are up to date with their professional development.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

This debate has the entirely laudable aim of raising the status of teachers. There has been a need to do that ever since George Bernard Shaw said “those who can’t, teach”, to which Woody Allen added that those who can’t teach, teach PE.

I have to begin with a confession. I began teaching without any teaching qualifications. Having left university with a philosophy degree, I took a job with Liverpool city council as an estate manager. At that stage, Liverpool city council thought that it needed to employ graduates, but it was apparent after a week that neither the council nor I knew exactly what I was supposed to do. I saw an advertisement for Warwick Bolam secondary modern school in Bootle and within a week I was teaching 11 to 16-year-olds in what was a surprisingly good and well-run school. I had to learn quickly on the job because the tradition in Bootle was that the children felt obliged to play up and the teacher had to demonstrate that they could exert control. Failure to do so was a route to a nervous breakdown, resignation and a pretty unhappy life. The children actually preferred not to mess around, but the onus was on me to demonstrate that they could be prevented from doing so.

After two quite happy years in the classroom, I was sent a letter by the Department of Education and Science, as it then was, saying that I was a qualified teacher. By that time I had moved on to Salesian high school, also in Bootle, which had become a comprehensive school, where I taught English, history and social studies. The last of those was a new subject introduced for embittered 15-year-olds who had been badly affected by the raising of the school leaving age and were disgruntled to be there, but it worked.

It gets worse. I was then asked to take on A-level sociology, which I believe to be a much underrated and misunderstood discipline. Unbelievably, I helped to revise and set the extremely testing and highly theoretical A-level syllabus and exams for the Joint Matriculation Board. The students’ A-level results were pretty good—in line with, or better than, their grades in other subjects.

After a happy and successful decade, I moved to a top independent school as head of religious studies, also teaching some Latin, neither of which subjects I had taught before. Only towards the end of my career did I teach philosophy at A-level, which was what my degree was in. In the meantime, I had done a diploma, an MEd and even, for no apparent reason, a course in teaching maths, which I found interesting rather than of any real use in the classroom.

I therefore clearly cannot argue credibly that teacher training is either a sufficient or a necessary condition for being a good teacher. Indeed, I would probably argue that an effortless grasp of some subjects, such as that shown by brilliant mathematicians and the like, often equips people poorly to explain them to lesser mortals who are struggling to comprehend them. I believe that teacher training can help, inspire and provide a fund of ideas that the grind of day-to-day teaching might not. It cannot provide commitment and dedication, which are indispensible to successful teaching, but it can do much that is good.

I refer hon. Members to the recent, surprisingly enlightened, CBI report on our education system, “First steps: a new approach for our schools”. It argues that good schools are those that are well led and have clear and challenging targets, but that have considerable flexibility in how they organise themselves and their staff, and that even an enlightened Secretary of State should back off. It seems to me that today’s teachers would welcome that. They have a prodigious, often unnecessary administrative load, and they are already assessed rigorously in every school worth its salt. To add a national scheme of revalidation for every teacher, as proposed by Labour, seems to me overload on top of overload and would not be welcomed by the profession. It is likely to annoy good professionals, to no real effect. Continuing professional development—we are up for that. However, Government teacher MOTs would simply produce clones, not charisma, if successful and further de-professionalisation and more of a tick-box culture if unsuccessful.

[Michael Gove]

I intervene just to say that my hon. Friend is making an outstanding case and I would love to hear more.

[John Pugh]

Well, I am going to close, because other Members want to speak, but the CBI states that the approach that we are taking towards education is rather like the conveyor belt approach abandoned by industry in the 1980s, and we simply have to get away from it. I will finish by quoting the CBI—I do not suppose I will do that many times in my political career. It stated that head teachers and teachers

“are professionals—we should treat them as such”.