Schools that work for Everyone

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Justine Greening

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The reality is that we will work with the Charity Commission to set a more stretching, tougher bar for independent schools to demonstrate that they are, indeed, eligible for charitable status. If they are unable or unwilling to meet those tougher standards, they simply will not be able to get charitable status, and that will then, of course, impact on their tax status too.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

What does it say when the new Prime Minister’s first major initiative is so regressive that the former Tory Prime Minister would rather resign from Parliament than be faced with voting for it? The Secretary of State must know what the real problems are. They are, most of all, the shortage of teachers, the workload that we then put on the rest of the teachers, insufficient pupil funding in some areas and, in most places, an absence of the very best, most outstanding leadership. Please, Secretary of State, take this issue away and come back with something serious about standards, not structures.

[Justine Greening]

We are working on all of those things, but that does not mean that we should not ask ourselves additionally how we can make sure that there are more good school places for more children, especially in parts of the country where there are currently insufficient good school places. It is not an either/or question. These proposals today—this Green Paper that we are opening up—are about how we ensure that the overall reforms we are bringing forward are going to be successful.