Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

7. What assessment she has made of the potential role of personal, social and health education in promoting equality.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

We want schools to put high-quality PSHE at the heart of their curriculum, ensuring that all young people are prepared for life in modern Britain. Effective PSHE not only helps provide pupils with key life skills, but gives them the knowledge to understand their rights and responsibilities to respect individual differences and to challenge prejudice and discrimination.

[Neil Carmichael]

Does the Secretary of State agree that embedding PSHE—life skills as she correctly terms it—will help us to deal with social mobility and productivity, and that we should see proper, age-appropriate teaching across the piece in our schools?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to link this matter with social mobility. We know that strong PSHE can make the biggest difference to young people growing up in more disadvantaged communities. It is important not only that we have healthy, resilient and confident pupils coming out of our education system who are better placed to do well academically, but that we improve our non-academic outcomes, as that is also hugely valued by employers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I had a chance to visit a Bristol school last week, which was a fantastic opportunity. That school is working with Bristol University. On our continued reforms, we want to make sure that we see improvements in classrooms. The hon. Lady will no doubt welcome our recent launch of the strategic school improvement fund. That fund is about making sure we can get the investment to schools that need to improve quickly and effectively.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Good and outstanding secondary school provision must include the provision of technical and professional education, which is essential for our skills base for the future. Does the Secretary of State agree that university technical colleges play a really important role in that and can and should be good or outstanding?

[Justine Greening]

I agree. As with all schools, we expect them to deliver high standards. I had the chance recently to go to Didcot UTC, which provides a fantastic education—a very different education perhaps, but one that works for them and their interests. It is getting very good results because of that.

National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I certainly welcome this statement, as will many parents across the country. It has been long awaited, as the Secretary of State conceded, but it has the right tone, the right context and, essentially, the right capacity to make the changes. It will also enable schools to plan ahead, which will be very good for all schools in terms of teacher recruitment and teacher retention, which we also need to address. Will she be sure to accommodate issues about the future of local government, because there will be some changes? This is a national formula, so the future of local government must be considered in that context.

[Justine Greening]

We are busy doing that already. I felt it was quite important, in the second-stage consultation, to recognise the need to understand how a little bit of local flexibility could help us to make sure that the formula works right on the ground. That is therefore part of the consultation I have set out. We have set out our plans for the 2018-19 transition year, and we are asking how we can look at this more carefully for future years. That is precisely why it is important for colleagues from both sides of the House to take the time to engage with the documents—there is a lot of data—we are publishing today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I agree with the hon. Lady that early years provision is a vital part of the education system, which is precisely why we have been consulting on how we can have a sensible approach to its funding, but I disagree with her characterisation that we are cutting funding. That is simply not correct.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will surely agree that fairer funding for schools is a top priority, but another priority must be to ensure that we have adequate skills training, especially in the professional and technical sectors. I believe that that should be a key objective of the Green Paper. Will she reassure the House that that is also her priority?

[Justine Greening]

I made it very clear in my Conservative party conference speech last week that one of our biggest challenges is to ensure that we make the same progress in technical education that we have seen in academic education over recent years. This is vital for the more than 50% of children and young people who do not go on to university, and it will be vital for our employers if we are to have a Brexit Britain that can be successful.

Schools that work for Everyone

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Our proposals are clear on the fact that we do not want a test at 11 to be the principal way that children get into grammars. We want much more flexibility in the grammar system. This is about having a 21st-century education system and a 21st-century approach on grammars. It is wrong to say that we should just freeze grammars in time, and never come back to look at how they can work more effectively. The test is surely the fact that 99% of grammars are judged good or outstanding by Ofsted. Those schools have outstanding leadership and teachers, and a strong, stretching and rigorous curriculum. They deliver for children of lower prior attainment and disadvantaged children, but also stretch those of better attainment. That is why they are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. It would be wrong not to look at how we can pull those features into the broader school system. Many of our reforms have been doing that. Where it is the choice and there is the demand we should be enabling more grammars to open.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Back in 1944, three types of school were proposed—grammars, secondary moderns and technical schools—but by 1959 only 2% of any year group could expect to get to a technical school. The problem is sometimes in delivery and the mechanism for implementation. What plans does the Secretary of State have to make sure that the changes in the Green Paper will be implemented in such a way that we reach every community and every child, and can be sure that we are giving every child the best possible opportunity, either in a grammar school or some other, different type of school? The mechanism—brokering it and checking that it is working—will count for a lot with this policy.

[Justine Greening]

I very much pay tribute to all my hon. Friend’s work as Chair of the Education Committee. This is about building capacity; fundamentally, it is about having more good school places for children around Britain. The test of its success will be a continued improvement in attainment—very much following on from what my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) has said—focusing in particular on those children who do not get as far as they should and have not been able to enjoy and benefit from the broader reforms that so many more children are now benefiting from.

New Grammar Schools

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The first thing I would say to the hon. Lady is that we have not yet actually made any policy announcements; they will be made in due course. She has given a commentary on what I guess she presumes the policy announcement will be. I would encourage her to wait. Broadly, we are interested in increasing diversity and meeting parents’ desire for choice in having a school near to them that matches the needs of their child. We also want to see capacity built into the system, in two ways. We want more good schools near to children where they need them. There are too many parts of our country where, in spite of all the reforms we have made and the improvements in attainment that we have seen, there are still children who cannot get good enough access to a good school. We also want to build capacity by having some of our best schools work with other schools in the system to help collectively to raise attainment and standards as a whole. We want to see all parts of our education system, not just the school system but universities as well, playing a stronger, better role.

The hon. Lady asked about evidence. She quoted a report by the IFS that does mention free school meals. However, I must say that I do not understand her argument. She seems to be criticising the status quo while resolutely defending keeping it in place. It was really interesting listening to her, because, in many respects, the words echoed the voices that I heard in my childhood—people having a dogmatic debate about the education system while I studied in my local comprehensive entirely untouched by that ideological debate. What we want to do, and what we think this Parliament and the country should do, is to be prepared to look at the practical ways that we can improve attainment for our children, and to leave no stone unturned to do that.

Complaining about one aspect of our school system and then saying that we should not even have a debate about that element is, frankly, an untenable argument. It is, in essence, politics and dogma coming before pupils and opportunity. It is about Labour Members prioritising, as we can see today, an ideological debate, while Government Members want a debate about the practical steps we can take to tackle generational failure and schools that still are not delivering for children who live near to them. It would be wrong to discount how we can improve prospects for those children, especially the most disadvantaged, purely because of political dogma. If Labour Members are not willing to ask themselves these difficult questions, how can they possibly come up with any of the solutions?

We do believe that selection can play a role, and we think there is evidence to show that it does for many children in grammar schools—but anyhow, we need to leave no stone unturned. We will set out our policies for consultation in due course, and I am sure that hon. Members will want to debate them thoroughly after that.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

The World Economic Forum has recently reminded us that we are well down the tables in terms of literacy and numeracy. It says that some 20% of 16 to 18-year-olds struggle with literacy, and the figure for numeracy is even worse—25%. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is absolutely vital that any discussion about grammar schools does not distract us from our fundamental task of improving social mobility and ensuring that we make the best use of all the talent across the whole country and do not just talk about the few?

[Justine Greening]

I strongly agree. The Sutton Trust report focused particularly on free-school-meal children and how they performed in, for example, grammar schools. The educational gains from attending grammar schools were twice as high for pupils with free school meals compared with the impact for pupils at grammar schools overall. As my hon. Friend points out, while grammars, in their own way, provide a stretching, outstanding education for many children from all backgrounds that helps them to have better prospects in life, they are one part of a very broad-based school system—a system that has been transformed out of all recognition from when grammars were originally introduced. We now need to look at how we can have a 21st-century education policy that takes a pragmatic look at the role of grammars and, of course, across the whole system. He is absolutely right that we will not lose sight of the broader reforms that we are bringing through that will improve standards across the board.

School Funding

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will make a statement on school funding.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

I am firmly committed to introducing fairer funding for schools, high needs and early years. This is an important reform, to fairly and transparently allocate funding on the basis of schools’ and children’s actual needs.

As the written statement I have laid today sets out, this Government are investing record levels of funding for schools. With that investment, fairer funding will set a common foundation that will enable schools to maximise the potential of every child. They will no longer be held back by a funding system that is now arbitrary, out of date and unfair. Fairer funding will provide a crucial underpinning for the education system to act as a motor for social mobility and social justice.

The first stage consultations on national funding formulae for schools and high needs have been met with an overwhelmingly positive response from headteachers, teachers, governors and parents. I am also clear that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a historic change and therefore we must make sure we take the time to get the final approach right. I will therefore publish the Government’s full response to the first stage of the schools and high needs consultations, and set out my proposals for the second stage, once Parliament returns in the autumn. We will run a full consultation, and make final decisions early in the new year. Given the importance of consulting widely and fully with the sector and getting implementation right, the new system will apply from 2018-19. I will set out our full plans for a national funding formula for early years shortly.

I do understand that local authorities need sufficient information to begin planning their funding arrangements for 2017 to 2018. Local authorities need time to consult with local schools—both academies and maintained—to ensure that the funding they provide is being directed appropriately. As well as a fair system, schools and local authorities need stability and early notice of any changes in order to fulfil this important duty properly.

I have therefore confirmed today in my written statement that no local authority will see a reduction from their 2016-17 funding for schools or for high needs next year. Final allocations for that will follow in December on the basis of the latest pupil numbers, as usual. My written statement also confirms that for 2017-18 we will retain the minimum funding guarantee for schools, so that no school can face a funding reduction of more than 1.5% per pupil next year. As my written statement today confirms, I am determined to ensure both that we move to a fair funding system and that we do so in a measured and properly consultative fashion.

This will be a crucial part of delivering an education system that works for every child, no matter their background.

[Neil Carmichael]

The key point, as the Secretary of State has spotted, is that local authorities need to have time to prepare, and so too do schools. So the essential question is: can the Government really meet this timetable as set out, because that is the desire of all schools, particularly in England obviously, and it is of interest to every single Member of Parliament in England? I ask the Secretary of State to confirm when she really does expect this programme to be fulfilled, and how she is going to be sure that the next consultation period does not take quite as long as the previous one, because that took some three months to complete, and we still do not know where we are. Those are the key questions.

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is right that we want to strike a balance between moving rapidly towards a fairer funding formula while at the same time making sure we do so in a way that allows time not only for the details of that formula to be debated, because they will have a big impact on how it works effectively, but for local authorities, and indeed schools, to understand the changes and then prepare. That is the balance that I have tried to strike today.

I also want to act responsibly by ensuring that we do not rush into making changes without being fully sighted of their ramifications. I know that the debates in Parliament on the fair funding formula have resulted in long-standing frustration, and I am committed to resolving that, but I want to be sure that we do this effectively so that we do not have to revisit it because we have not got it right the first time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I can say that the hon. Gentleman’s Government were responsible because they designed the project. Indeed, Ministers failed to sign it off because they did not sign off projects of less than £40 million. The only money we are spending on it now is in answering his 30-odd parliamentary questions, which have so far cost the taxpayer £5,000.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

7. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the UK’s programme of support for Syrian refugees.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

The UK has allocated £265 million to support refugees in countries neighbouring Syria, providing food for more than 320,000 people per month, 71,000 medical consultations, and an improved water supply for more than 40,000 people. We are working closely with Governments, the UN and others to ensure that the overall international response builds resilience and is implemented effectively.

[Neil Carmichael]

What discussions has the Secretary of State had with Syrian refugees about their hopes of returning to Syria?

[Justine Greening]

I have had many discussions, not least in my most recent visit to a UNHCR registration centre in Lebanon earlier this year, which is handling 1,000 refugees a day. Those I spoke to are determined to go back and rebuild their country, and they want to get their lives back on track. The work that we are doing both with humanitarian support and in pushing for a political settlement will help them to do that eventually.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State visited that region comparatively recently. We are looking at how we can scale up our work on tackling violence against women and girls. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we are also working hand in hand with the Foreign Office on tackling violence against women and girls in conflict.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T2. In recognition of her achievement in securing the 0.7% of gross domestic product target, will the Secretary of State indicate just how many of her investments are leading to improved trade opportunities for the United Kingdom?

[Justine Greening]

We invest around £1 billion in wealth-creating projects, but I would like us to do more in the area of economic development. We need only look at the increase in our exports to China to see how other countries developing their economies will ultimately benefit us, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T6. Following the very welcome news that we have ended Labour’s fuel duty, may I ask the Secretary of State whether she will continue to promote the use of alternative fuels in heavy haulage lorries, as practised by Downton and Howard Tenens in my constituency?

[Justine Greening]

We are very keen to do that. In fact, my hon. Friend might be aware that we have started the low-carbon truck demonstration trial, which now involves £10 million of funding for investigating how we can encourage haulage companies to operate in a lower carbon way. He mentioned the fuel duty impact. Actually, hauliers will be about £4,900 better off on average. The Labour party is interested in carping, but the reality is that we are delivering for people on the ground in a way that it never did.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Neil Carmichael

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman seems to have missed the fact that this Government are having to tidy up a huge financial mess left to us by the previous one. We have made it clear that, despite that mess, we want, first, to protect key pensioner benefits—the benefits that Labour Members claimed we would take away—such as free bus passes, free prescriptions, free eye tests and the winter fuel allowance. That is a range of benefits that the Labour party said we would remove, but we are going to keep them. I can assure him on that, so he can go back to the pensioners in his constituency and explain why he was telling them mistruths during the last election.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

3. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the level of the budget deficit.