Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Pugh and Michael Gove

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend will be aware that there is a vacancy for the chair of the Parole Board. I would encourage him to—[Interruption.] I encourage others to apply for that post who can ensure that we have a much more rigorous and evidence-led approach to reviewing the grant of parole.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Given the rising trend of suicide in prisons, what advice is being given to governors to allay this serious problem?

[Michael Gove]

This is a very serious problem and the hon. Gentleman is right to raise it. The work that Lord Harris of Haringey has done on self-inflicted deaths in prison has provided a series of recommendations that we are considering as part of our prison reform programme. More broadly, we are aware that the increased use of psychoactive substances in prison is leading to increased levels of self-harm and harm to others. The Psychoactive Substances Bill, which is being taken forward by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice, will play a considerable part in ensuring that our prisons are safer places.

Teaching Quality

Debate between John Pugh and Michael Gove

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[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”.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Pugh and Michael Gove

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I do share my hon. Friend’s frustration. It is incumbent on Labour Front Benchers to show leadership and to call out the local authorities, from London to the north-east, that are standing in the way of opportunity. Until they do so, I am afraid that we will have to conclude that Labour is still too weak to govern.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of the relative achievement levels of boys and girls.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Pugh and Michael Gove

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am pleased to be able to say that the statistics the hon. Gentleman quotes come from a period before the introduction of our school direct programme, which has achieved a dramatic increase in the number of highly qualified graduates entering the profession. In addition, thanks to the work we have done with the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Chemistry, there are more graduates in shortage subjects with 2:1s and firsts coming into the classroom. The more people with great degrees from great universities, such as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), we have teaching in our schools, the happier I am—even if it runs contrary to Labour policy.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

T4. There are 37 academy brokers on up to £700 a day. Are they bound by the civil service code of conduct?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. They are not bound by the civil service code, but they do have to have regard to the civil service code. I believe the question was raised in a Westminster Hall debate and he secured a partial answer from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss)—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Pugh and Michael Gove

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

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

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

With your permission, Mr Speaker—

[Michael Gove]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have had lots of meetings today and they have all been fun. Getting advice from you is the most fun of all.

[John Pugh]

Last month, the Secretary of State attacked the National Audit Office for being one of the “fiercest forces of conservatism”, and that statement was raised with the NAO in the Public Accounts Committee last week. Is such a statement wise, given the helpful advice that the NAO has provided on matters such as the overspending on the academies programme? After all, we all want to defeat the forces of conservatism.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to expand briefly on those remarks. It is important that the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee should strike a proper balance between respect for public money and the encouragement of innovation. As the NAO pointed out, the academies programme has been a success for this Government. We also need to ensure, however, that every penny that we have is spent wisely.

New Schools

Debate between John Pugh and Michael Gove

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

To finish on a factual note, how many free school applications have been rejected or declined and what percentage is that of the total?

[Michael Gove]

More than 200 have been declined. I should emphasise that some of those were free school applications that had significant merits, but required additional work to take forward. One of the reasons why only some 50-plus were taken forward is that we wanted to make sure that every free school application was meritorious.

The point was well made by the shadow Education Secretary—the quality and performance of charter schools in the United States was variable. However, in states where the performance of charter schools was strong, a filter had been placed by the authorising authority to make sure that only the best applications went forward. Overall, between a fifth and slightly more than a fifth—I do not know the exact percentage—of proposed schools have been approved. One of the reasons for that is that, like the hon. Gentleman, we want to make sure that when we spend public money, it goes to people who are going to use it in the public interest.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Pugh and Michael Gove

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I know that the hon. Gentleman served with distinction as a Minister in Tony Blair’s Government, and was then defenestrated when the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) took over. He should be aware that Tony Blair made it clear, when he was Prime Minister, that academy freedoms should be extended to all schools. In that respect, we are simply carrying on the good work that was begun under the Prime Minister who was wise enough to have the hon. Gentleman on his Front Bench, rather than following the disastrous course that was taken by Gordon Brown and the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls).

[Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I have here a press cutting in which a local head teacher in my constituency complains about his school appearing on the Department’s database as “interested in academy status”, when all that he had actually done was to ask for details of a sketchy scheme. He now says that the chances of his school wanting academy status are minimal and that people are “playing politics” with this. How could such things happen? Could it be that the demand for academy status is being overstated? Also, will the Secretary of State correct the database?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Pugh and Michael Gove

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

2. If he will publish each representation his Department has received from (a) head teachers and (b) associations representing head teachers in favour of greater autonomy for schools.

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

My Department has received more than 1,100 expressions of interest from schools in relation to my offer to open up the academies programme to all primary, secondary and special schools.

[Dr Pugh]

I am grateful for that brief answer, but perhaps the Secretary of State will acknowledge, in these days of evidence-led policy, that there is limited evidence of schools demanding freedom from local authorities, as opposed to freedom from central Government tinkering. Also, the majority of schools targeted to become the new academies became “outstanding” schools within the local authority family. Finally, it is rather hard to become better than outstanding.

[Michael Gove]

Evidence shows that academy freedoms have a key role to play in driving up standards, and that academy schools have improved their academic results at twice the rate of other schools as a result of using those freedoms. Moreover, the specific freedoms that an overwhelming number of head teachers wish to acquire will be used not only to improve the education of children in those schools, but to help other schools which desperately need freedom from local and central bureaucracy in order to drive up standards for all.