Department for Education

Justin Madders Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I first declare an interest: my wife is the cabinet member for children and young people at Cheshire West and Chester Council and two of my children attend a local school in the constituency.

The recently published University College London Institute of Education report showed a relationship between inspection grades and changes in the socioeconomic composition of pupils. That means, certainly to my mind, that there is an element of good schools becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. I do not think we should be surprised by the finding; parents, of course, want their children to have the best education possible, but an inevitable consequence is that the parents with the most resources will use them to maximise their chances of getting their child into what they consider to be the best school in the area. Where does that leave others? Where does it leave the challenge of improving social mobility? Surely, that can only go backwards in this scenario? Is there a risk that schools not performing as well in the area could get into a downward spiral that they will struggle to get out of?

I have seen for myself the risks, with the University of Chester Academies Trust; as a multi-academy trust, it has been underperforming for some time. Ofsted first raised serious questions about the whole chain’s performance some 18 months ago. In May, the trust announced that it was cutting staff and trying to offload four schools due to a £3 million deficit. That left three schools still in the trust, including the Ellesmere Port Academy in my constituency, which has itself been in special measures for a year. It was pretty clear to me that the trust did not have the capacity or the resources to survive, let alone drive through the changes needed to turn the school round.

Now, thankfully, a decision has been reached—that it is unviable to allow the trust to continue—but it has taken a long time to get to this point, and there has been a lot of uncertainty for parents, staff and pupils alike. That uncertainty will continue until there is a new sponsor. I hope that one can be found swiftly and I am pleased that we are finally addressing the issue. I find it incredible that the situation was tolerated for so long. Had the MAT been a local authority or any of the schools been under council control, I have no doubt that there would have been action long ago.

As we have heard today, claims that every school in England would see a cash increase in their funding have been challenged—not only by Labour Members, but by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the UK Statistics Authority. Given that all but one of the schools in my constituency face a funding cut, the true situation is clear: local schools will lose about £3 million between 2015 and 2019. Pupils in my constituency will receive £300 per head less over the next three or four years.

[Andy Slaughter]

I do not want to indulge in a hierarchy of misery, but every single one of the schools in my constituency will lose money in the five years to 2020—£50,000 to £150,000 for primaries and £300,000 to £600,000 for secondaries. That is more than £500 per child. This is an extraordinary situation. I know that the Minister does not accept these figures; if he does not take them from us, perhaps he should take them from the headteachers in our constituencies.

[Justin Madders]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. I know from talking to parents, teachers and heads in my constituency that schools are already facing very tough choices. The National Education Union survey told us that 55% of schools that responded said that class sizes had risen in the past year and that more than three quarters had reported cuts in spending on books and equipment. The headteacher survey on the state of our schools post the national funding formula found that 90% of schools are now using pupil premium funds to prop up their basic core budgets. That money is meant to be spent on the most vulnerable pupils rather than as part of the sticking-plaster approach that we are seeing at the moment.

The cuts to school funding also extend to council support. Changes to central support grants will lead to about half a million pounds being lost to my local authority in the next decade, which will further emasculate its already diminished ability to support schools—not that it could help most of them even if it wanted to, thanks to the acceleration of the academies programme. What is that programme actually achieving now? Well, the words of David Laws the other day were quite interesting. He said:

“What we know is that the most successful part of the academisation programme was the early part of it… Those early academies had absolutely everything thrown at them. They were academised school by school, with huge ministerial intervention. The new governors were almost hand-picked. They often brought in the best headteachers to replace failing management teams. They had new buildings. Sponsors had to put in extra cash. Our research shows that much of the programme since then has had little impact on standards.”

In other words, early improvements under a Labour Government have been lost to an ideological drive to create a market and to denude local authorities of a role.

The logical conclusion of the mass academisation of recent years is that the local authority is still the admissions authority, but in name only. Because of the difficulties we have had in one of the schools I referred to, as well as one or two other factors, we have ended up with a totally lopsided admissions process this year, which has led to record appeals, many parents sending their children to schools miles away that were not one of their original three preferences and some parents sadly feeling that they will have to home educate.

Nationally, the number of children being home-schooled has risen by more than 40% in the past three years, according to figures obtained by the BBC. That increase is not just about a broken admissions system, but schools perhaps suggesting that a particular child should be home-schooled to avoid an exclusion or that the school environment might not be the best place for a child if they have special educational needs. Yes, of course some parents are simply exercising parental choice, but for me the rise in the numbers of academies and the rise in numbers of those being home-schooled is surely no coincidence.

Who is monitoring and evaluating this explosion in home-schooling? Has there been a 40% increase in resources to do that? Are we confident that the legislation and guidance in this area is as up to date as it needs to be? Are we comfortable that so many children are being educated in this way? Is this a great example of how parental choice operates, or are parents being forced down this route because they have no real choice? What efforts are being made to ensure that children are able to return to school if they can? What scrutiny is taking place of schools or areas that have higher than average levels of home-schooling? Has any analysis been done on why this is the case?

Those are not easy questions to answer, but they should be asked. I fear that the fragmented system we currently have means that once a child becomes home educated, they become somebody else’s responsibility. That is the wrong approach. We owe it to all children to ensure that they get the very best education, no matter where they take it.