Racial Discrimination in Schools

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Janet Daby]

I thank the right hon. Member for giving the example of some excellent work taking place in his constituency. That is a great example of a headteacher allowing that to happen and other teachers getting on board to drive it through. Strategies are really important, and the Government need to have a clear one to ensure that this type of thing happens in all schools to eliminate discrimination.

Teach First’s report examining diversity in the English literature curriculum highlighted the lack of ethnic minority authors offered on the syllabus. The largest exam board, which accounts for 80% of GCSE English literature entries, features no books by black authors and only two by an ethnic minority author. That is disappointingly low. Children from diverse backgrounds need to gain a sense of pride and self-worth by identifying with people who look like them in their learning. There is a risk that if children are not exposed to diversity in the school curriculum, they miss the opportunity to find out about those who are different from and those who are similar to them, and to be enriched by that difference and similarity. Will the Minister agree to look at how the school curriculum can be updated to increase ethnic minority representation?

Hon. Members will know that the issue is not just what children are being taught; who is teaching them also has an impact on their learning. Research conducted by University College London shows a lack of teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds in our schools. Sadly, when it comes to leadership, only 4% of headteachers are non-white. It is positive for all children, no matter what their ethnic background, to experience a diverse teaching workforce. That is important for their learning and their personal development. Will the Minister outline what steps the Department for Education is taking to recruit and retain greater numbers of ethnic minority staff and to encourage the promotion of ethnic minority staff to senior leadership roles?

[Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

In my constituency of Woking, we have a very diverse community, including a very large Muslim community, and I am pleased to say that our schools and, indeed, other organisations have made great strides in recent years on these issues. The hon. Lady talks about leadership. May I point out the importance of governors—chairs of governors, and the whole governing body? Would she, like me, encourage people from all communities to come forward and serve on those bodies, because they are a backstop but can also help the headteacher to set policy and the right example?

Learning outside the Classroom

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Gentleman reminds me that we are not talking about an exclusive society of brethren. There are a lot of us, including the Scouts, the Prince’s Trust and lots of other wonderful organisations. The wonderful chief executive of the National Trust came to visit John Clare’s cottage in Helpston only a month ago. We need to work with the National Trust and all the organisations that can offer wonderful destinations to more and more schools. I would be wrong not to mention the Institute for Outdoor Learning, whose chief executive Andy Robinson was very helpful as soon as he heard that I had secured this debate. There are a lot of organisations out there.

All the research shows that it is good for children to come to the countryside. It shows the real improvement in academic subjects, as well as in achievement across the board, from getting children out for a day in the countryside, a museum or somewhere they can get a different perspective on their learning.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I absolutely share his passion for outside learning. My most vivid memories from primary school are of visits to museums and nature walks in the countryside, but I never got to visit a mosque, a synagogue or a Hindu temple. My own children are now at school. What better way to illustrate a religious education lesson about Judaism than with a visit to a synagogue? Does he encourage schools and other organisations to do that for our young people as well?

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; I was going to come on to historical places. He is also right about mosques, synagogues and the diversity in our country of religious buildings in which young people can learn and can better understand the lives of other people who live not far from them.

I secured this debate because not only does all the research show that it is good for children to go out into the countryside, but it highlights a problem that still exists. More privileged children, from homes that are better off and have more money, get the chance to go to the countryside regularly, but a very substantial number of young people in this country never get that chance. Many children in our urban centres and in not so urban centres never go off their estate. That is a shame, but the research shows that it is true. There are children in Huddersfield who do not often go even into the centre of Huddersfield, let alone into the lovely, medieval Bradley wood or to the perfect hunting lodges of Henry VIII that are still around. What a wonderful habitat for them to visit if they had the opportunity!

What is the secret? I have a very good proposal for the Minister. I want him, or somebody, to give me a little bit of money—do you know, Mr Paisley, that there is a magic sum of money if you go to a school? In the old days, when we did our first inquiry—the Minister will remember this—people used to say, “No, we don’t want to go.” One of the big teaching unions said things like, “No, we’re not going to co-operate any longer”, “It’s a bit stressful for teachers”, “It’s more than our jobs are worth”, “What about health and safety?”, and all that. Our report put the lid on that. Health and safety has become not such a big issue; the forms to fill in have been made much easier and the guidance is much better.

The real secret of a school that opens itself to adventure and takes children out is having staff who want to do that and who see its value. When schools do it well, it is nearly always because they have trained one or two members of staff to be the experts who know about the subject or the organisation, who are inspired and who have the passion. That gives comfort to the school and gives focus to the challenge, so that children end up going to the right place at the right time in a safe and rewarding way. We need teachers who are trained and up to speed.

The other thing that we need to do, which is most important, is go to schools with £500 in our back pocket. We have found that that is the magic sum for getting a school much more interested in travel. The organisation goes to the school and says, “This won’t cost you anything. We’ll take 30 of your children into the countryside to have wonderful learning experiences of various types, beautifully mediated by trained teachers or mediators. We’ll take care of the travel and look after the children for the day.”

I have a wonderful challenge for the Minister and any Member who is listening to the debate. I hope that we can go back to it in the new Parliament—I hope that you, the Minister and I will all be re-elected on 8 June, Mr Paisley. I want to continue my programme of challenging every Member of Parliament to raise £5,000, which would cover 10 schools in their constituency—as long as I can persuade them to include schools that do not usually visits.

I am selling some wares in this debate, because we need children in this country to learn better. We need to find and liberate that spark, that talent and that potential in them. If we can do it through the medium of getting them out of school, we will have learned a lesson from good research and good experience. It works here and it works for other countries like ours, so we can draw conclusions from that.

My message is simple. I want more children to come to the countryside and fall in love with it. I want more children to go to museums, mosques and synagogues and learn outside the classroom. There is nothing wrong with a classroom, as long as the teachers in it are good, inspired, well qualified, well motivated and well paid. I will not go into political territory today, but we all know that it is much easier to get kids to go outside the classroom in Maidenhead than in Huddersfield. I am sure that it is very comfortable in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, but I do not represent a constituency in it. Like you, Mr Paisley, I represent a much more diverse constituency, where I look at the schools and want the children in them to have all the same advantages as children who live in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

Mr Speaker—sorry, Mr Paisley—I want several things. I want every school to dedicate itself to being open to more out-of-school visits. I want every Member of Parliament to be energised to find 10 schools right across their constituency to go into the countryside and learn. I will not be parochial. They do not necessarily have to go to the John Clare cottage, although we always like to see people in Helpston, which is a lovely place just between Peterborough and Stanford, and halfway to Huddersfield. They could come to Huddersfield to see some of our attractions; it has more listed buildings than Bath or York, as I am sure you knew, Mr Paisley.

If children want a day out, they can go to Huddersfield, to the John Clare cottage or to the Minister’s constituency. Let us inspire them. Let us get them thinking in a totally different way about the countryside, about their lives and about their potential. That is the message of my speech and my reason for trying to secure this debate for some time: it is vital that we get children out of the classroom to learn.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) on securing this debate. I very much enjoyed his passionate contribution. I know how long he has championed learning outside the classroom, all the way back to his chairmanship of the Children, Schools and Families Committee. When I was still a fledgling Member of Parliament, he showed me the ropes in the ways of Parliament and I am indebted to him for giving me an insight into how to make things happen in this place. Obviously I now have to do it through a different route as a Government Minister. Nevertheless, he gave me a sense that this place can make a difference, on this issue and on many others.

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, because of the timing of this debate—it is the penultimate Westminster Hall debate of this Parliament—I am unable to set out anything more than the current Government policy on learning outside the classroom or to commit to any further funding or policy. Be that as it may, it is clear that learning outside the classroom has a key role to play in children’s education. His most successful route to championing it during the next six weeks may be to influence his party’s manifesto and to see whether his proposal can be taken forward. We are all beavering away trying to ensure we get our own ideas into the literature of our respective parties.

When outside activities are structured and organised effectively, they can provide young people with stimulating experiences that build on the knowledge and understanding they gain through the formal lessons with which most of us are familiar. It is up to individual schools and teachers to use their professional judgment to decide how learning outside the classroom meets the needs of their pupils, and to plan lessons and use their budgets accordingly. There are plenty of excellent examples of schools doing just that, which I will say a little more about later.

The national curriculum includes specific requirements for schools in relation to learning outside the classroom in certain subjects. For instance, the national curriculum programme of study for PE includes specific requirements for outdoor and adventurous activities through key stages 2 and 4. Geography is another such area, with outdoor learning through simple fieldwork and observation of key human and physical features in the surrounding environment. There are opportunities through the national curriculum for children to get outside and envelop themselves in what the environment has to offer. Under the new geography GCSEs and A-levels being taught in schools, GCSE pupils need to carry out at least two pieces of fieldwork outside the classroom—that requirement was not there before—and fieldwork is required in both A-level and AS-level content for geography.

Traditionally, science has been seen as one of the ways into learning outside the classroom. The national curriculum provides guidance that schools should use their local environment throughout the year—we are a country that has four seasons—to explore and answer questions about plants growing in their habitat, as well as to provide opportunities to support the aspect of working scientifically in the science curriculum. The guidance specifies the understanding of the nature processes and methods of science for each year group that should be embedded with the content of biology, chemistry and physics. We all remember going outside with a quadrilateral, triangle or square to try to come up with some leaf litter that was interesting. Those types of memories when people recall what they learned as a child at school are very powerful.

[Jonathan Lord]

Does the Minister agree that, in order to learn outside the classroom, pupils do not need to go miles and miles away? West Byfleet Junior School in my constituency has a tiny patch of woodland in the corner of its site. It has turned it into the Willows forest school—children follow a forest school curriculum during the course of a year. It is like going into another world. The school itself is only 50 or 100 yards away, but it is a magical place where younger children can explore nature, animals, bugs and science.

[Edward Timpson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is so much opportunity out there for children if they are given the permission to experience it. Someone who lives in the countryside and is surrounded by fields of cows might learn where milk comes from, but there are also city farms—there is one just down the road in Vauxhall—as well as forest schools. When I was training for the marathon in Delamere forest near where I live, I passed a forest school for early years—two to five-year-olds—run by the Forestry Commission. There are lots of ways into the subject, but we need to give children the chance, rather than making them feel that they have to stick with the classroom for all of their learning experience.

As the hon. Member for Huddersfield said, seeing original paintings, sculptures and historical artefacts in art galleries and museums is a very different experience from seeing printed images. Attending a live concert can enhance pupils’ understanding and enjoyment of music. Seeing a live performance of a Shakespeare play or—dare I say?—a recital of a John Clare poem, which the hon. Gentleman is clearly taken with, can provide pupils with different insights from studying a play or a poem on paper. We have recently updated the subject content for GCSE drama and A-level theatre studies to try to reflect that, and to ensure that students study those subjects with an entitlement to experience live theatre. I am not sure whether the House of Commons would qualify in that regard, but it is an important step forward.

A key element the hon. Gentleman raised was how disadvantaged children can get that equal opportunity of experience outside the classroom. I think back to one of the first children my family fostered. He was four or five years old and we took him on a holiday to north Wales. As we came over the brow of a hill and he saw the Irish sea for the first time, he looked at it and said, “Is that a big puddle?” He had never seen the sea before and did not know what it was. That is the challenge. Yes, we have free museums and we make sure that teachers feel equipped and confident to use learning outside as an important life-skill approach to enhancing learning, but the challenge is to ensure that no child gets left behind when we provide that opportunity.

That is why we support a museums and schools programme to deliver high-quality opportunities for all school pupils to visit museums that are linked to the national curriculum and support classroom learning. Last year, 72,870 pupils from 1,215 schools took part in that programme, including at the Barnsley Museum, the Great Yarmouth museum, SS Great Britain and many others. The £6 million for the programme since 2012 will be supplemented by a further £1.2 million over the next financial year. We are expanding the National Citizen Service for 16 and 17-year-olds.

Young Fathers

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak in this Adjournment debate. I want to talk about a particularly important subject—young fathers, a group that is often overlooked, frequently marginalised, and rarely supported in our society.

Over the past few years, there has rightly been a lot of concentration on young mothers, with particular public policy concentration on teenage pregnancy. However, there is so little provision for young fathers that we do not even know how many there are in Britain, because there are no accurate figures. However, those of us representing constituencies like Tottenham know that they exist and that they are frequently crying out for help and support.

Modern society is changing more quickly than ever before. The traditional society of the 1950s was opened up with the social liberal revolution of the 1960s and the economic liberal revolution of the 1980s. Both have brought more women into the workplace, raising their skill levels and aspirations, with society increasingly seeing them not just as mothers but as workers in the workplace. That is incontestably a good thing. At the same time, the British family has changed. Between 1975 and 1997, the time British fathers spent with their children on an average working day increased from just 15 minutes to two hours. Again, that is incontestably a good thing.

However, policy has often not caught up with the way that families want to live their lives. Too often, it rests on outdated assumptions of one carer, usually the mum, and one breadwinner, usually the dad. That does not reflect the reality of very many families out there in our country. Therefore, in 2010, I set up the all-party group on fatherhood to place the importance of fathers on to policy makers’ desks and into their in-boxes, and to bring our 19th-century social policy up to date with our 21st-century economy and family life.

Many others have been instrumental in raising these issues over many years, often against a backdrop of official indifference or, sometimes, hostility. Adrienne Burgess and her colleagues at the Fatherhood Institute have shifted the terms of the debate, as has Professor Tina Miller at Oxford Brookes university, both of whom well understand that active, engaged fathers are good for families, good for children, and, importantly in these straitened times, good for the economy. I salute their work.

I also salute the work of many organisations—too numerous to mention—that work with not only fathers, but young fathers in places such as my constituency. They often do so out of the limelight and often try to convince local public services of the value that dads can offer families. I am thinking in particular of Shane Ryan and his group Working with Men, which works extensively in south London. Such vital work is too often under-appreciated.

Encouraging active fatherhood has been a subject close to my heart since my own father left my mother and our family when I was 12 and I grew up without a father in my life. I have in the past discussed general policies in relation to fathers, such as paternity leave, but today I want to address issues specific to young fathers.

Although teenage pregnancy remains an issue in our society, at least it is accepted that young mums have problems that are specific to them and that they need help and support. That rarely happens with the young dads who have fathered those children. Too often we treat young fathers as problems to be solved and not people to be supported or helped.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Is not the problem he is outlining exacerbated by the benefit system? Sometimes young fathers are discouraged by the woman and her family themselves, because she might be less well-off with a man. Would it not be better—emotionally and for our society and the future of the children—for those fathers to be given a chance?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point to which I will return. We as policy makers need to think about and understand families. There may not be a relationship between mum and dad, but more often than not the father needs to remain engaged. In the case of young fathers, they need a lot of support to remain engaged, or they might walk away and never return.

Our media talk so often about “feckless fathers” and “deadbeat dads” and assume that all young fathers fit the same, sometimes inaccurate stereotype. That has to stop. It is time for young dads not just to be listened to, but to be heard, because they are all too often unwilling to disappear from their children’s lives. They are often disfranchised by neglect and by lack of support from the system, not by design. Mums, dads, children—the whole family—lose out if young fathers find themselves in that position.

Let us be clear: as President Obama has said, what makes a man is not conceiving a child, but having the courage to raise one. Fathers of whatever age have to live up to their responsibilities and to the high expectations that we should all as a society have of them. That does not mean that society should not help them live up to those expectations, particularly when they are young people.

Young fathers present specific issues. It is often the case that they were looked-after children, excluded from schools or raised in poverty. Teenage fathers are three times more likely to have failed to have completed secondary education and much more likely than their peers to not be in education, employment or training. Unfortunately, many are young offenders: 12 % of 15 to 17-year-old offenders have children of their own, and nearly half of those aged 22 and under are or are about to become fathers. Many of them have never seen what good parenting looks like so, without support, how do we expect them to raise their own children properly?

Too often, we condemn young fathers for their background. They are failed in their schools and failed in their families, and we fail them again when they become fathers. That feeds feelings of deep inadequacy and shame. They know that they are unprepared for fatherhood, but do not know where to turn to for support. They have much higher rates of anxiety and depression than their peers without children. Most of all, they are often very angry, and often with good reason.

However much teenage dads want to play a role in their child’s upbringing, life seems to conspire against them. A job will be hard to come by for this cohort of fathers, given the state of our economy. Their partners may get a home, as has been indicated by the hon. Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord), but if they are not together, it is highly unlikely that the father will get one. The public services to help them with their role as a dad will be patchy or non-existent. Jobcentre Plus will be more interested in processing their benefits than in working with them to obtain the skills for work while bringing up their children.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to ensure that all pupils attain basic levels of literacy and mathematics before leaving school.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

15. What steps he is taking to ensure that all pupils attain basic levels of literacy and mathematics before leaving school.

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

Before I answer the questions, may I say on behalf of the House that you, Mr Speaker, would want us to pass on our best wishes to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), who has recently suffered an accident from which he is slowly recovering. We all miss him. He was a fantastic constituency MP and great scrutineer of education [Hon. Members: “He still is!”] He still is, and we look forward to him being restored to full health.

The new national curriculum includes more demanding content in English and mathematics. In line with high-performing south-east Asian countries, mathematics will have more emphasis on arithmetic, fractions and decimals. There will be a new professional development programme for mathematics teachers at key stage 3, which will help them teach fractions more effectively, with robust evaluation of the results. We are, of course, also reforming GCSEs and making changes to nursery education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to make sure, of course, that we intervene early to ensure that the next generation succeeds at a higher level than ever before, but we also need to ensure that older people who, for whatever reason, failed to benefit from the education on offer during their time, are given the chance to re-engage with the world of education to improve their literacy and numeracy.

[Jonathan Lord]

Last year, the CBI reported that two thirds of businesses were complaining that too many school leavers were struggling with basic literacy and numeracy and were unable to use a computer properly. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is unacceptable to ask our employers to set up remedial classes in these most core basic skills?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. No young person can confidently take their place in the world of work unless they are secure in literacy and numeracy. That means having secured a GCSE equivalent or better.

Engineering Careers

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Matthew Hancock]

That is an important point, and I will look at what more we can do in enterprise zones to add a skills element. The employer ownership strategy is about ensuring that we provide the skills that employers need. We have a conundrum in this country. Although youth unemployment is falling, it is still slightly less than 1 million, which is too high, but, at the same time, we have skills shortages. That tells me that the skills and education system has not worked to match up the supply and demand for skills.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to McLaren in my constituency, which helps to sponsor an annual technology and engineering prize? Indeed, the Prime Minister came the other year to give out the prize to the winning team. Not only glamorous technology companies such as McLaren, but every technology and engineering company should hold open days and become involved in such competitions, to engage young people and, indeed, their teachers to ensure that they are aware of the career options that are on offer and the sort of subjects that need to be studied to pursue those careers.

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely. I pay tribute to what McLaren, and many other companies, are doing. That brings me on to my second point, which is about careers advice. The Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network, or STEMNET, is a network of 25,000 STEM ambassadors who go into schools. Where they go into schools and inspire the pupils, they can be a huge driver, by explaining the exciting things that are going on in modern engineering, and not only to boys but girls. After all, only 7% of those in engineering are female, and so the easiest way to increase the number of engineers is to have more of a balance, because if we are only recruiting—broadly speaking—from half the population, we are clearly missing a very important trick.

Competitions in skills are very important, too. The annual skills show, which was in Birmingham in 2012, is an extravaganza of brilliant exhibitions of high-level skills by highly trained people. There is also an element of competition to show the very best of British skills, as it leads on to the world skills competition. It is absolutely brilliant, and I encourage everybody to go and see it for themselves. Similarly, the Big Bang fair is a competition to drive the excitement of this agenda about engineering through schools.

In addition, the new duty on schools to provide independent and impartial advice and guidance to pupils from the age of 12 all the way up to 18 is very important. Ofsted is studying its implementation. It was introduced only last September, and this summer we will have a report from Ofsted on how it is going. So, as I say, the second element is careers advice and getting that right, and engaging with STEMNET in particular to get inspiring people into schools to inspire pupils about engineering.

The third element is reforming the skills system, so that it is more rigorous and more responsive. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire talked about the need for more rigour in the schools system, but we also need to drive up rigour in the vocational qualifications area. We have done that by supporting and recognising only the highest quality vocational qualifications from 14 to 16 in the new accountability structures—they were set out by the Secretary of State for Education last week—but we also need to do that further up the age range.

In addition, we need to ensure that the skills system is responsive to the needs of employers, which brings us back to employer ownership of skills. In the field of apprenticeships, the Richard review very much drove down that track, and I am looking forward to responding to it with enthusiasm, because the vision set out by Doug Richard was a powerful one that argued for apprenticeships to be much closer to what employers need and for employers to be able to start up skills academies and apprenticeship qualifications. Autotech has started a skills academy. However, more broadly—not just in that single example—we need to have more apprenticeships with the qualifications, as well as the content, designed by employers themselves.

I encourage employers to respond to the Richard review and to engage with it, as we try to improve those qualifications. That is already happening in two areas. First, the Royal Academy of Engineering is introducing four new engineering qualifications for students aged 16, which I think will be very important. We hope that they will be high-quality. Secondly, we are introducing the technical baccalaureate at 18, which is an idea that has cross-party support.

Finally, I urge all Members to get involved in apprenticeship week. It starts on 11 March, and it will be a big, national celebration of what apprenticeships have achieved during their 600-year history and what they can achieve if we can reform them to make them better. I end by reiterating that the passion shown by Members of all parties today, and my passion, is a passion to ensure that we solve this problem, which has bedevilled our country for far too long.

Further Education Loans

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hayes]

Actually, if one looks at the impact assessment closely, it suggests that after clear communication of the offer, we will expect full take-up of the funding for loans. A very significant majority of people, when the circumstances of the loans were explained to them, said that they would participate. Initially, some were very likely to do so and some were less certain, but the number saying that they would participate grew as these things were explained to them. By the way, full take-up of the loans would be 90% of 24-plus learners studying at level 3 and above. We are therefore talking about a very significant majority of 10% of the cohort. That is where we are in terms of the overall FE numbers.

It should be borne in mind that the impact assessment was carried out before I announced the mitigation package, to which the hon. Member for Blackpool South has referred. I was coming on to why we put that in place. A case was made about access to HE. It seems to me perfectly fair to argue that it would be unacceptable for someone to borrow to study an access course and then borrow again to study an HE course. The hon. Member for Blackpool South asked whether we could look at the issue of timing. I think that we should and I will do so. I think that there is an argument for people who do not immediately progress to HE, but do so perhaps a year or two years later. We need to consider how we manage that, but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point and I will certainly look at it.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

Would my hon. Friend the Minister care to tell us a little more about the £50 million bursary fund that is available over two years, because that is quite an important element of the mitigation and support package?

[Mr Hayes]

I am almost as excited about that as my hon. Friend. I will certainly come to it, because it is wonderful news. I have been asked to give more detail and I will in the time available. Let me just finish my point about the access-to-HE measures. They mean that anyone who goes on to HE will see their access loan written off. That is very important, as that route disproportionately contains people with poor levels of prior attainment; after all, that is why they are doing access-to-HE courses. They are often doing so later in life. There is also a disproportionate number of women and women returners in that group. That is very important, too. What we are doing is therefore socially regenerative; it is about social justice. All I do is driven by my passion for social justice. That is what those courses are about and that is why we have taken this action.

However, that alone, in my judgment, would not have been sufficient. That is why I wanted a bursary fund. The hon. Member for Blackpool South has asked how much of that is drawn from existing provision. About £20 million is completely new money. As hon. Members will know, there is some existing learner support money in FE. It is targeted at, for example, people with learning difficulties and disabilities. That will be made part of this bursary, but I do not anticipate that any learner will be worse off as a result of these changes. In other words, we are not displacing the interests of any group of learners. It is just more straightforward for colleges and learners to have these things in a single national bursary package.

I have always favoured the idea of a national bursary fund, by the way, so this is the fulfilment of another long-held ambition, framed by the discussions that I have had over many years with the sector, which argued that it would be a very effective way of allowing colleges to respond to local circumstances. They know their cohort best; they know their circumstances better than I ever could. We therefore need to build in a level of discretion to allow colleges to work with their communities, their learner base and their local employers to ensure that what they are providing meets the needs.

However, the point made from the Opposition side of the Chamber about how much discretion there will be was well made. I think that we should set down some criteria according to which we expect the money to be allocated and I will do so, having had discussions with the sector and bearing in mind—let us get the time scale clear—that the application period for loans opens in April 2013 for courses starting in August or September 2013. Therefore, although it is true that we will not have a chance to debate the matter more fully until this September, it is not happening until the year after the next academic year. The hon. Member for Blackpool South makes the point that FE colleges must plan and he is right. That is why we have done what we have now, rather than waiting any longer. I hope that the fund will address the issue of older learners, who were, according to the impact assessment, disproportionately risk averse in terms of loans. That is hardly surprising. Someone of 55 might perceive a 30-year loan in a rather different way from someone of 20 or 25.

University Technical Colleges

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I would be delighted to look at that website, and I would like to study it more, because it is good to see successful examples in action.

So far, 18 new UTCs have received support from the Education Secretary, with 13 announced last month, and 130 companies are supporting them, which I think is a record in industrial investment. For the past three years the Baker Dearing Educational Trust has worked with the Department for Education, the private sector, universities and further education colleges to build the network. The Chancellor has doubled the funding for UTCs and found money for at least 24. The Opposition always go on about cuts and the legacy of youth unemployment—left by the last Government, as I have mentioned—but we are talking about a concrete investment of at least £150 million, with more funds levered in from the private sector, to tackle that very issue. This is not small beer.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I agree with the thrust of everything that my hon. Friend is saying, so is it not disappointing that at least one union leader in the education sector has come out against UTCs? Is that not incredible?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is almost a mind reader, because I was about to say that it is disappointing that, not so long ago, John Bangs of the National Union of Teachers said of UTCs:

“There is a real fear about a move towards selection by division, selection by direction and selection by assumption, with these routes being mapped out for kids for evermore”

That is the mindset of the left, which we have to consign to the dustbin, because UTCs will create opportunity and social justice for everyone. He is also wrong, because there are no tests to enter a UTC at 14: they are inclusive, not exclusive. To be fair, it is no accident that the Baker Dearing Educational Trust is a cross-party project that is strongly supported by Lord Adonis—who, although he is from the other side of the fence, is someone I admire greatly. The chief executive officer of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, Peter Mitchell, was a head teacher for 18 years in Walsall and Staffordshire. He turned round a failing school and was mentioned twice in the chief inspector’s report as “outstanding”. I believe that the UTC movement should unite the House, not divide it.

In conclusion, I want to talk briefly about Harlow’s bid for a UTC, which I mentioned at the beginning of my speech. Harlow is a new town. It was built after the second world war, with a vision to change people’s lives and create jobs and growth, but its potential is still unfulfilled. School results have risen sharply over the past 10 years. Most secondary schools now perform around the national average, and this year two secondary schools became academies. I am sure that the Minister will have watched the excellent recent television programme about Passmores school.

Harlow college is now widely recognised as one of the best further education colleges in the country, with pass rates exceeding 99.5%. Anglia Ruskin university opened a campus in the town this term that now has approximately 200 students studying for degrees. Wherever I go in Harlow, parents are delighted with the idea of a new apprentice school, which is exactly what it is, and they have no ideological objections. In fact, the Harlow bid for a UTC is not opposed by the local state schools. Harlow council and Essex county council have said that they support UTCs, and would like to see a UTC in Harlow.

In the first round, we assembled a strong bid, but found out only very late in the process that Harlow was to benefit from an enterprise zone, specialising in bio-tech and medical technology. In his feedback, Lord Hill was very fair and made the point that we should now reflect the new enterprise zone in our bid. That was the right decision; it is worth taking the time to get the bid right.

The Harlow partners are responding to that feedback. Anglia Ruskin is broadening its university courses, to meet the needs of the emerging “MedTech” enterprise zone, with firms like Bupa Home Healthcare. Harlow council is delivering the proposed “MedTech” campus—a specialised industrial estate, which will employ the highly skilled technicians that a UTC provides. Harlow already has several biotech and pharmaceutical firms, such as GlaxoSmithKlein, and is in the London-Cambridge science corridor. We have several strong local hospitals—primarily Princess Alexandra hospital and the Rivers private hospital in Sawbridgeworth. The Health Protection Agency is considering a move to Harlow, partly because of its own financial position, and partly because of the enterprise zone. I hope that in due course it too will have a need for medical technicians and engineers. In the second wave of UTC applications we hope to include medical technology as one of the Harlow specialisms, and to submit an even stronger bid. I hope that the Minister was listening very carefully to that last statement.

If there is one thing that I would urge the Minister to do, it would be to go much further and much faster. As the Baker Dearing Educational Trust has said:

“The Government has committed to funding 24 UTCs. But we hope to see 100 within five years.”

We know that public spending is constrained, but UTCs offer us the chance to get back to the great vision of Rab Butler, who sought to establish a high-quality technical education in Britain for the first time. It is worth quoting what Rab Butler said in this very House about his Bill in 1944:

“It is very wrong that in so many parts of England, particularly in industrial areas, which I have visited myself, that decades have been allowed to elapse before the technical development necessary for education in those areas has come to anything at all. There are many towns and cities I have been to in which the technical college has always been the mirage in the distance across the other side of the desert. We cannot allow that state of affairs to go on, and that is why we insist that there should be a proper development of technical education...Compared to our competitors, friends and enemies, we shall…depend more than anything else on the skill of our people...therefore…we must concentrate upon producing the most highly-skilled technologists the world can show.”—[Official Report, 23 March 1944; Vol. 398, c. 1086.]

Exactly the same is true today.

It is not enough just to support and fund UTCs; we have to evangelise about them. Just the other week the statement on UTCs was tacked on to the end of the statement on free schools at the end of a long day—just after the former Defence Secretary had also addressed the House. UTCs, however, are not just an extension of free schools; they will transform our skills base and the lives of young people, and they will be a conveyor belt to professional apprenticeships. They are the phase 1 of an apprentice revolution in Britain and the reaction from the public—parents, students and others—has been unbelievably positive. That is why they have to be centre-stage, not backstage. When the second round is announced next year—including Harlow, I hope—I would like UTCs to get a separate statement in their own right, showing that they are a forceful answer to the youth unemployment that we have inherited. They will then prove that the apprenticeships are no longer second class, and are now first class.

I hope that, ultimately, every British student will be able to say—just as my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning said yesterday at a UTC reception in the House—“I only became an academic because I wasn’t clever enough to be practical.”

Vocational Education

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

On the continuation of the study of maths and English after the age of 16, we will, in the context of raising the participation age, explore legislative and other options to ensure that all children have the opportunity to follow those paths,. On the related question of the 80:20 split, Professor Wolf says that to ensure the maximum chance of progressing along academic and vocational pathways, there should be an academic core up to the age of 16. She also argues that it is a good thing for all students to experience some practical learning. That is not prescriptive; it is a guide, and one of the points she makes is that university technical colleges, which have a longer school day and school week, can have a full academic core as well as a significant additional layer of practical learning on top.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

Before coming to the Chamber today, I addressed a business breakfast on the edge of my right hon. Friend’s constituency and mine. Is he as concerned as I am about the finding in the CBI survey published this week that 40% of firms are not satisfied with the basic literacy of school and college leavers and that more than a third are not satisfied with basic levels of numeracy? Does he believe that the measures he has announced today will help to reverse that sad state of affairs?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. He speaks very effectively for the businessmen of Surrey, who are doing so much to provide opportunities for young people, and I have to say that he is absolutely right: one of the major complaints from employers is that there are bright, intelligent, get-up-and-go young people who, sadly, have left the school system without the numeracy and literacy required to fit into almost any modern role. There is no more important task for this Government than to get those basics right, and I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Leigh for acknowledging that in the first part of his response.

Schools White Paper

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. The teaching schools that we will establish must act as hubs and serve as an exemplar of how teachers can be trained for all schools in their area. At present, we have that model of teaching school in embryo in Manchester, the black country and London. We want to spread them, so as to ensure that in the south-west, the south-east and the north-east there are more great and outstanding schools providing that sort of support.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I welcome the White Paper. Is my right hon. Friend aware that pupils can pass a GCSE in English without reading a novel? What will he do about that?

[Michael Gove]

We are working with the exams regulator, Ofqual, to make sure our exams are as rigorous as those in the world’s most demanding education jurisdictions. It is vital that we encourage more people in this country to read fiction—[Interruption.]—and I am sure the right hon. Member for Leigh has already thought of all sorts of quips that he will be only too happy to use against me as a result of my having made that comment.