Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Thousands of parents are desperately anxious that their child still has no place at primary school next year, and others will be taught in larger classes further away from home. Will the Minister explain to those worried mums and dads why the Government are building two out of five of their flagship free schools in areas where there are already enough places?
Mr Laws
I am delighted to explain the priority school building programme. Unlike its predecessor programme, it prioritises those schools in the worst need, and I am proud that it is doing so, in contrast to the previous scheme, Building Schools for the Future, which did not do so. On the issue of primary places, I caution the hon. Gentleman not to lecture this Government when his Government ignored the warnings of the Office for National Statistics and eliminated 200,000 primary school places.
AS-levels and A-levels
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Seema Malhotra
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I will certainly come back to cost, which has been raised as a concern about the changes. There is a suggestion of possible increased costs for schools trying to provide A-levels alongside AS-levels in a way that is not coherent.
I was talking about education reasons. We have seen increased uptake, and anecdotal evidence suggests that a contribution to the increase in A-levels being attained has been made by AS-levels being a stepping stone. Those who choose not to go on to A-levels have an option to leave at the end of the first year with an advanced qualification. It has arguably also increased the uptake of subjects such as maths, which are perceived to be tougher, because of the option to try a subject and see how it develops.
There is a strong argument for social mobility in keeping the current system. Divorcing AS-levels from A-levels is not only a poor education policy, but a poor social policy due to the removal of that stepping stone, which often gives confidence to talented pupils from poorer backgrounds to apply to a more highly selective university, helping to widen participation.
The Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference—the organisation representing leading private schools—has described the proposals as “rushed and incoherent”. The Russell Group of leading research universities said that it was “not convinced” that the change was necessary, and that it would make it harder to identify bright pupils from working-class homes. Even the Conservative Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), has questioned the proposals, suggesting that some young people could be left behind.
Leading universities oppose the Government’s plans because they will reduce confidence among young people who get good results in year 12 but may not have the confidence to go on to apply for the top universities after year 13.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Is she aware that a decision has been made in Wales to retain AS-levels as a stepping stone to A-level? The vice-chancellor of Cambridge university wrote to the Welsh Education Minister on 19 March, saying:
“Your intention to retain AS examinations at the end of year 12 in Wales will put strong Welsh applicants in a good position. Year 12 exams have been shown to be a good predictor of Cambridge academic success and are taken very seriously by our selectors.”
Seema Malhotra
I welcome that. Cambridge university has perhaps been one of the most prominent universities to raise concerns vocally at every level. Dr Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge university, said:
“We are worried… that if AS-level disappears, we will lose many of the gains in terms of fair admissions and widening participation that we have made in the last decade.”
Dr Parks warns:
“We are convinced that a large part of this success derives from the confidence engendered in students from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds when they achieve high examination grades at the end of year 12”.
Those concerns are shared across the university sector. The Million+ group of universities said that
“this will create a two tier system”
and Universities UK said that it will affect their “ability to widen participation”.
Even more worrying is the research evidence provided by Cambridge university, which the Secretary of State for Education has chosen to ignore. In a research paper, its general admissions research working party said that AS-level grades were easily the best predictors for degree performance, proving to be a
“sound test verging on excellent”
in every subject except maths. I will return to that.
It is worrying that the Secretary of State has chosen to emasculate an exam that a top Russell Group university says provides it with the best way to judge how well a state school pupil is likely to do at university, at a time when he says he wants more state school pupils to be successful in applying. Therein lies a paradox that I hope we will be able to understand further today.
A further challenge has been put forward by the Government relating to criticisms of structure and quality. I would like to address that. There have been criticisms from the Government that exams do not have rigour. Rightly, concerns have been raised by some universities about particular subjects, such as maths, where first-year studies may well have been modified as a result to cater for the level of understanding that undergraduates are showing. However, I am told that that has been partly due to the selection of modules within the current framework, and nobody has said that it is due to the framework itself. There is no reason why we cannot have, and indeed do have, tougher modules and synoptic assessment at the end of A-levels—at the end of someone’s A2 year—which requires an understanding of earlier levels in order to do the examination. There is a lot of room for improvement if we choose to go down that road, and a wholesale change of the system would not be required.
There is a debate, which the sector has told me it is open to, about a change to the weighting of AS-levels as part of A-levels. The weighting is currently 50% and there is some discussion as to whether that could be, for example, 40/60. With the sector so open and willing to have such a conversation, it is indeed a shame that the Government have not shown willingness to work in partnership and with the expertise of those who teach our children, day in and day out. They are seasoned professionals who are keen to see our young people develop a passion for learning and leave our education system as smart young adults prepared for the world of work.
There is also a great challenge before us on coherence. Education planning needs coherence and some predictability so that standards do not suffer. The Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference called the proposals “rushed and incoherent”. It is concerned that the proposals are being driven by a
“timetable based on electoral politics rather than principles of sound implementation.”
Neil Carberry, the CBI’s director of employment and skills, said:
“Businesses want more rigorous exams but we’re concerned that these changes aren’t being linked up with other reforms… We need a more coherent overall system.”
I have had the question of costs raised with me, and perhaps the Government can respond to these points today. The changes will clearly have a cost on the sector and have hidden costs for schools. It would be helpful to know whether the Government have factored in costs for schools, whether they expect A-levels to get more expensive, and whether they expect the overall costs to be higher if schools are providing AS-levels delivered over one year and two years, and A-levels, and where the demand for that is. If providing 16-to-18 education becomes more expensive, will extra funding be provided?
Schools and colleges have raised concerns about the proposed speed of change. Many organisations have said that they are extremely concerned that the changes are going on in parallel to GCSE changes in such a short time and without any real evidence of the need for change presented. Will the Minister confirm which universities are in favour of the changes and of reducing opportunity and narrowing the range of post-16 study, and will he respond to the challenges raised by the Russell Group and Cambridge university in particular?
There is agreement about the need to change on some fronts. A mature dialogue is taking place on the need to reform, and on that, both the education sector and the Government always have to be in a mindset of continuous improvement. My head teachers write, for example:
“We accept the move for eliminating retakes at A-level.”
Prior to January’s oral statement, Ofqual had announced its decision to remove the January exams from September 2013.
Divorcing AS-levels from A-levels is poor education policy, as it is likely to reduce standards and achievement in education. It will narrow the options available to young people and undermine the value of creative subjects at a time when we should be strengthening them. Head teachers in Feltham and Heston have told me how a proposed return to the study of three A-level subjects in a very linear and constrained way will almost certainly diminish the provision and position of minority subjects, such as languages and music. For many pupils, the opportunity to study four or five subjects at AS-level broadens their learning and provides a challenge that they relish. I heard on Friday in my local area how Hounslow pupils benefit from the breadth of learning different AS-levels, even if they decide against pursuing certain subjects in year 13 or beyond.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) has said that evidence of what works should be what informs Government education policy. That is sound advice that the Government should listen to. It is beyond the understanding of my head teachers and many professionals why the Government are pushing through a universally unwanted change that will take our education system backwards. There is grave concern that the proposal is based on ministerial opinion and preferences, rather than solid evidence of the need to change.
At a time when we need to ensure that young people get a broad and balanced education to prepare them for the modern world of work, it is worrying that the Secretary of State is planning to narrow the education available to students. Although students currently have the option to take a subject at AS-level that contrasts with their main subjects, the Secretary of State instead wants to shackle pupils to a two-year programme, which would constrain them and their learning at an extremely formative stage of their development.
We know that we must reform our education system, but it must be the right reform. Labour supports reforms to 14-to-19 education that would deliver a curriculum and qualification system that equipped young people with the skills and knowledge to play their part in society and the economy, but these proposals will not achieve that. Labour has commissioned a review of 14-19 education to focus on raising aspirations for those who want to go to university and for the forgotten 50% who do not. Labour plans to introduce a gold-standard technical baccalaureate at age 18. As the Government’s proposed changes stand, they will take our education system backwards, not forwards. The Government’s proposals undermine the value and status of our AS-level and A-level qualifications.
I hope that the Government have the courage and wisdom to listen to the experts who oppose their proposed reforms. If the Government go that way, the changes will come into effect on the same day as their changes to exams at 16. What assessment have the Government made of the impact of that for schools? What assessment has the Minister made of the impact on widening participation? Are the Government concerned that a two-tier A-level system will limit aspiration for young people in deprived areas? How will universities assess admissions? The Government claim that AS-levels are not considered, but that is not supported by many universities. What would the Government recommend as future admissions criteria? Would that include GCSEs? However, if they are to be scrapped or reformed, what next?
I close simply by saying that I and my constituents look forward to the Government’s response and to, I hope, a change of direction.
Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on securing this important and timely debate.
Following the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), the issue in question is how we provide a framework to support schools and colleges to get the best for our young people. Everyone would sign up to that aim; the dispute is about how. I want to focus on the Government’s intention to divorce AS-levels from A-levels. Having worked in post-16 education for 30 years, I fear that that would be a very retrograde step and would do lasting damage to the education of students in key stage 5. I am not surprised that, as my hon. Friend said, the Government’s extensive consultation showed that 77% of consultees were against going down that route. The people who were consulted know what they are talking about. Their responses were driven by experience and evidence, rather than dogma and belief.
If the divorce goes ahead, we are likely to return to the worst aspects of A-levels prior to 2000: a much narrower curriculum, where a significant number of students committed to a two-year programme, but came away with nothing. That was a scandal. Since 2000, there has been much progress in the right direction. That does not mean, as my hon. Friend said, that there is no need for continued change and reform; it means that it needs to happen in a framework of stability if we are to get the best for our young people from what those who work in education can provide.
Young people are very fluid in their choices. One of the traditional features of our post-16 education compared with that of some of our most successful global competitors is its narrowness. Asking a young person to focus on just three subjects at A-level means they must specialise early and jettison areas of interest.
Kevin Brennan
I talked yesterday to a teacher whose son, Joseph, went to a state school. Had the current proposals been in place he would have taken English as his AS-level rather than A-level, but he is now studying English at Oxford. That never would have happened if the choices had been narrowed, as is suggested, at the age of 16.
Nic Dakin
It is difficult for us to understand how young people are at 16, and how much they are exploring their way in the world. That is a good thing, and one of the things that we should do is to provide a framework that helps them to make the right choices. Sometimes, allowing them a little more choice and flexibility—25% more subjects post-16—enables them to choose differently according to their experience. At 17, they are much more mature than at 16. People mature at different rates, too. I am not surprised by the story about someone taking A-level English as the fourth choice—English in that example could be replaced by any subject—and at the end of the period of post-16 study going on to study it, or a subject that it significantly underpins, at university, or indeed going into employment related to it. That is not unusual in my experience of working day in, day out, for 30-odd years, with 16 to 19-year-olds. It has been a familiar story since 2000.
Before 2000, people did not have that flexibility and choice. The curriculum was far less able to get the best out of young people. The dramatic change brought about by Curriculum 2000 allowed youngsters to continue with a broader programme and delay the final specialisation until the end of year 12. That meant that those advising students could encourage them to take more risks—to stick with physics as well as music alongside their maths and geography, keeping their options open longer, or encouraging them to do a modern foreign language for another year. What students would chose to focus on at the end of year 12 was often different from what they might have focused on at the end of year 11. People who have not worked with 16 to 18-year-olds, as I have for many years, might be surprised at how much young people mature in their first year of post-16 education, and how much their focus can change after they have been informed by another year’s study and another year’s consideration of what they intend to do next.
The current system allows students to choose four subjects at AS-level before specialising in three at A-level or taking all four through to full A-levels. There is a significant jump in difficulty from GCSE to A-level, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham has indicated, and the AS has assisted students so that they can choose a broader range of subjects before specialising in year 13. Denying students that choice risks denying them the opportunity to discover a particular aptitude or passion for subject areas in which they previously had less confidence and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston has indicated, it is liable most negatively to affect students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, who are most likely to be less confident.
My understanding of the Government’s current plans—and they are fluid, rather like a young person’s—is that although they will allow the content of the AS to be within the A-level initially, they intend, once the change is embedded, that A-levels and AS-levels will have distinct content, as they did pre-2000. If that is the case, it will be uneconomical for AS-levels to be taught and they will wither on the vine, because it will no longer be possible to co-teach them in the same class as A-levels. That is significant, because the pre-2000 history of AS-levels shows they never really got much traction.
The removal of AS as a stepping-stone qualification will almost certainly reduce the uptake of subjects that are regarded as relatively harder at A-level than at GCSE, and I suspect that there will be an impact on languages and mathematics in particular. Without validation at the stepping stone point, less confident students are likely to be discouraged from embarking on the A-level. With validation, there is less risk to the individual, who can always bank an AS at the end of one year and focus on their other three subjects at A-level.
Nic Dakin
For a start, when we are dealing with young people, we are dealing with a collection of individual choices. In my experience, as someone who has spent a lot of time advising young people and encouraging them to make choices, if they are focusing on three subjects, languages are often vulnerable to not being tried. What turns out to be someone’s fourth subject—the one they drop down to AS—might not have been their fourth subject when they picked it. We can play around with statistics, but what is important is the impact on the young person at the point of choice, when they decide on their post-16 programme. Being able to do four AS-levels and then either take all four through to full A-levels or to bank one, increases the flexibility of choice, minimises risk and encourages people to take subjects that would be beneficial to them—mathematics, for instance.
Kevin Brennan
My hon. Friend knows what he is talking about, and the Association of Colleges backs what he says. In the briefing for this debate the association states that
“the removal of the AS as a stepping-stone may well reduce the take-up of subjects which are regarded as significantly harder at A-level than at GCSE,”
in particular,
“maths and modern languages.”
Nic Dakin
My hon. Friend makes the point for me. Indeed, all those students and staff related to the university of Cambridge make the point for her and for themselves. I think that the Minister is listening today, and I hope that it is active listening so that we can get a better outcome for young people.
Kevin Brennan
If my hon. Friend is right that the Secretary of State has claimed that, it is very odd, because Cambridge university, in a letter from Dr Geoff Parks, the director of admissions, wrote to him on 12 July 2010:
“We are worried…if AS-level disappears we will lose many of the gains in terms of fair admissions and widening participation that we have made in the last decade.”
That was in July 2010.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin, and to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on securing the debate. You pointed out at the beginning that the clock is an hour behind, and it is probably appropriate to our debate on education policy that the clock has been turned back, because that is exactly what is happening in what we are discussing. [Interruption.] I remind the Minister for Schools that the best humour is always recycled.
As someone who sat A-levels, like most people in this room, and who has taught and marked A-levels and set an A-level examination syllabus, I could say a lot of things and make many general points about A-levels and their history. Those points include those made today about the Government’s reforms, such as the speed of change and the political timetable—that was the phrase of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference, I think, not mine—that they are being driven to.
There is the point about not reforming all A-levels at the same time, which is a ludicrous thing to do. The Government should take the time to do it properly and in all subjects, not have a two-tier approach to reform. Ofqual has leavened that a little by introducing a few more subjects, including one of the two subjects that I used to teach at A-level—economics—in which the Minister for Schools has a double first from Cambridge university. They have been added to the list, but nevertheless there is still a two-tier process in the reforms of A-levels, which is ludicrous.
There is the fixation on core subjects, and the lack of focus in the proposals on those not progressing to university. The Government seem to assume that A-levels exist only for the purpose of getting into university, which is of course a parody of the reality. That may be the experience of 100% of Ministers, but not the experience of 100% of youngsters sitting A-levels in the country, to which we might have thought that Ministers would pay some attention.
There is the elbowing out of non-Russell Group universities. It seems to me that the Government are almost trying to create a tier of polytechnics—ironically, since the Conservatives abolished them, they now seem to be absolutely determined to have a first division red-brick and sandstone university sector and a polytechnic sector. Why do they not just rename them polytechnics, if that is the Government’s real intention and what they are about?
There is the silly attitude towards methods of assessment. It is an absolutely daft attitude to think that all the different subjects, knowledge and skills—believe it or not—that are required to pass A-levels can be assessed in final examinations. There is the silly interference with question design by Ministers, which is absolutely ludicrous. Anyone who had taught in a classroom for one minute, even at A-level, would know that there is a wide range of mixed abilities among students taking A-levels. Getting them into the exam so that they can show what they know is also important: as well as supplying stretch to the most able, a way into the examination has to be supplied for many students.
There are also all the resulting timetabling issues—obviously, none of the Ministers has tried to write or put together a timetable—and the proposals are absolutely ludicrous. Everybody in the profession is telling them that, but they are not listening. I could go on and on, but I want to focus on the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), once I have congratulated my hon. Friends the Member for Feltham and Heston, for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and for North West Durham (Pat Glass) on their speeches, and congratulated the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who did not venture a speech, but has made some intelligent interjections to help us along in the debate.
I want to focus on the AS-level. It is only fair at the outset to make it clear that we regard the decision to divorce AS-levels from A-levels as one of the least evidence-based, most captious and casually damaging decisions that the Secretary of State for Education has taken so far. It is therefore only fair clearly to signal to everyone here and to the education world that we will not implement it. We will re-couple AS-levels and A-levels in September 2015, after the next general election.
Nobody outside the bunker in Sanctuary buildings thinks that divorcing AS-levels from A-levels is a good idea. I doubt whether even the part-time Minister for Schools—he does not have exams or the curriculum on his list of responsibilities but is here today because the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), is away on a foreign trip—thinks that it is a good idea, although he will tell us that it is because he has to perform his role as the Secretary of State’s flexible friend. I cannot really believe that he genuinely thinks that that is the case, but while we have him here, I ask him to listen and to look again at the decision that has been taken.
When the Under-Secretary announced the measure in the House, she tried to give the impression that she had support for the divorce. When I pointed out to her that she did not, she grandstanded, and tried to give the impression that she had the support of the Russell Group universities. Let me remind Members what the group actually said:
“The current AS-level provides a useful indicator of progress, which is invaluable for university admissions. We worry that without these results universities will have to place more emphasis on A-level predicted grades—of which more than half are wrong— school references or older GCSE grades. From our experience these are less reliable and would unduly prejudice disadvantaged students who receive less help when applying to university.”
Hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that that is exactly what the 1994 Group and Universities UK have said. As I pointed out to the Under-Secretary at the time, the most trenchant opposition to these proposals came from not the Labour party, the National Union of Teachers or even from the “The Blob”, as the Secretary of State likes to refer to those educationists who study these subjects and spend their time doing research into education matters, but the admissions tutors in the university of Cambridge.
The Minister will be aware that, as long ago as July 2010, Cambridge university’s director of admissions, Geoff Parks, wrote to the Secretary of State, warning him that he could lose many gains in terms of fair admissions and widening participation that had been made in the past decade. He went on to add that it was no coincidence that
“our utilisation of AS scores as a core component of admissions decisions has been accompanied by a noticeable reduction in the number of complaints we have received from schools and colleges about the fairness of our selection process. The same period has also seen marked improvement in Cambridge examination performance.”
So it is good for students; good for fair access and good for Cambridge university, according to the admissions tutors, but what do they know?
The Minister will also be aware of the research that was undertaken by the Cambridge university general admission research working party, which found that AS-level grades were easily the best predictions for degree performance, proving to be, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston said, “sound verging on excellent”, and that was in every subject, bar maths, where the sixth term examination paper was better.
It is not surprising that 40 Cambridge admissions tutors signed a letter to The Daily Telegraph, which was published on 30 January, a week after the announcement was made, calling for the reversal of the decision. In their letter, they said:
“Good results give students from all backgrounds the confidence to compete for a place at highly selective universities, including our own. They reduce reliance upon grade predictions and enable schools to hold the line in the face of pressure to raise predicted grades unrealistically.”
Anyone who has ever taught in a sixth form or college will be aware of the pressure from pupils and parents to raise A-level grade predictions. It is sometimes difficult for teachers to hold the line, which might be why those predictions are not always particularly accurate, as the Government’s own studies have shown. They are particularly inaccurate about those from less affluent backgrounds or ethnic minorities. Heavy pressure is often put on teachers in relation to predicted grades. With the AS-level, there is no argument. There is a public examination, which is externally assessed, marked and a grade awarded.
The admissions tutors finished that letter to The Daily Telegraph by saying:
“If AS levels disappear, university entry will become less fair.”
They were referring to the divorcing of the AS-level from the A-level.
Kevin Brennan
Apart from the strange explanations that we get from Ministers about trying to free up some time for people to do other things in year 12, the only reason that I have heard is that it relates to the experience of the Ministers in the Department and that they want to go back to the good old days when four out of five of them were in private school doing their A-levels. Perhaps they think, “It was good enough for me; why shouldn’t it be good enough for everyone else?” If that is what they are doing, they are ignoring the evidence.
I challenge the Minister today as someone who says that he is committed to fairness, who is a Liberal Democrat Minister, who has enjoyed the privilege of a fee-paying education and a Cambridge university education and who claims to be committed to social justice. How can he defend this policy in the light of the clear and thoroughly researched evidence that it will result in university entry becoming less fair?
Damian Hinds
We must be a little bit careful with this widening participation and access argument. Although it is undeniably true that many more young people have gone to university in the past 10 years, the figures show that the intake of the most selective universities has changed very little by comparison. Of course it is a very good thing that more young people have gone to those universities, but we must not confuse the two things and say that AS-levels have been a force that has made Cambridge university much more open.
Kevin Brennan
The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. Cambridge has been the university that has most used AS-levels to bring about widening access. It can show that it has widened access as a result of them in the past 10 years. If he wants to challenge the admissions tutors on the claim that they have successfully widened access through the use of AS-levels, he is free to do so. They are absolutely clear about it and say that if AS-levels disappear, university entry will become less fair. The Minister must answer that point. So far, Ministers have failed to answer it, or to explain why they are persisting with the policy.
In any case, the Government accept that Cambridge is right, and presumably that the Russell Group, the 1994 Group, Universities UK, the Association of Colleges, the Sixth Form Colleges Association, the National Union of Students, the teachers and head teachers associations and we, God forbid, are right about the usefulness of AS-levels. Nevertheless, the Government will proceed with the damaging and unnecessary divorce of AS-levels from A-levels. Like the EBacc certificates, no one supports the move. The Government quite rightly abandoned their proposals on the EBacc. The Minister might well have had an influence on that decision. Who knows? It happened to coincide with his appointment to the Department. As I said earlier, we will not proceed with the divorce of the AS-level from the A-level, and everyone should be aware of that.
Pat Glass
We have had people with huge expertise coming to us and saying that this is the wrong thing to do. The only other area where we have seen such an overwhelming objection has been to the proposed changes to GCSEs. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that, because the Government ultimately took the right decision in that area.
Kevin Brennan
My hon. Friend is right. The Secretary of State has had to issue a direction to Ofqual in relation to this proposal, because everyone thinks that it is nonsense, and it was confirmed in parliamentary answers to me that he had to issue a direction. On 31 January, I tabled a parliamentary question to ask what assessment Ministers had made of the recent Cambridge university admissions research working party study of AS-level as a predictor, and the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk, said that she had “reflected on” the study. So, she had reflected on it and she agreed that AS-levels were
“a useful aid for university admissions”.—[Official Report, 31 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 887W.]
So the Government agree with everybody that AS-levels are a “useful aid” for admissions. They know what the research is, and they have reflected on it.
Seema Malhotra
In the spirit of reflection, I was reflecting myself on the list of organisations that my hon. Friend gave that are opposed to these changes. Does he agree that it is quite staggering and quite concerning that no real evidence has been put forward for this change?
Kevin Brennan
I might have found it staggering some time ago; I am afraid that I no longer find it staggering when the Department for Education proposes major changes for which there is no evidence. However, I should retain my surprise at its happening, because it is staggering when something is introduced simply because the Secretary of State believes—on a whim—that it ought to happen and when there is no evidence that it should happen, despite the fact that I am sure that he has layers and layers of submissions from his civil servants that point out the opposition to the proposals. But he does not listen to his civil servants; I am afraid that he only listens to his odious special advisers on education policy, and that is possibly the reason why the Government are proceeding with this change.
The Minister for Schools has a chance to do what is right, to go to the Secretary of State and to reflect a little himself on these proposals; he should speak to the Secretary of State and try to make him listen to the evidence and see reason. If the Secretary of State will not listen to that evidence or to the Minister, perhaps the only person that he will listen to is himself, because back in 2010 he made it clear to Ofqual that, to quote from Ofqual’s briefing, he wanted A-levels to serve their purpose as
“one of the selection tools used by HE”—
that is, by higher education—
“to identify the most suitable and best students for their courses”.
We know that the AS-level is the best exam tool to serve that purpose; at least, that is what the evidence shows. It should be used more, not less, for that purpose and yet the Secretary of State is determined to discard it. We will not discard it, and he should not discard it.
Mr Laws
I will make more progress before giving way again to the hon. Lady.
Some critics of the linear A-level have cited a link between the introduction of modular A-levels as part of the Curriculum 2000 reforms, which the hon. Member for Cardiff West, the shadow Schools Minister, mentioned earlier, and widening participation in higher education. However, the major increase in HE participation took place in the early 1990s, before the introduction of modular A-levels in 2000. Universities continue to work hard to widen participation and ensure they are opening their doors to students from all backgrounds, and I am confident that they will keep doing so when the new linear A-levels are introduced. Indeed, in many cases they need to do much more to offer those opportunities to young people, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Government intend to work in partnership with some of the universities, particularly those that have poor rates of access, to try to target those youngsters who should be gaining access to some of our best universities, but are not doing so.
Making the A-level linear does, of course, have implications—the hon. Gentleman raised this point earlier—for the current AS qualification. My ministerial colleagues and officials have been talking to and working with school and college leaders and universities to understand precisely the concerns that he set out so clearly to ensure that we can address them.
As we move to fully linear A-levels with exams at the end of the two-year course, the AS-level will remain as a qualification in its own right. It will continue to be available as a stand-alone qualification to be taught over either one year or two years, but the marks from it will obviously no longer count towards the A-level. Longer term, our ambition is to develop a brand new AS qualification that is at the same level of challenge as a full A-level, but for the time being that is for the future.
From 2015, the AS-level will be decoupled as a stand-alone, linear qualification and will remain at the same level of challenge as existing AS qualifications. That means that schools and colleges can decide whether to teach the AS-level over one year or two years. If schools and colleges decide to teach the AS in any given subject in one year, that would give them the opportunity, which I think the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) was seeking—it is a valid concern—to co-teach the AS and the new A-level together, if that meets the needs of the students and if it is a sensible way for those institutions to ensure that they can deliver education for all young people who want to access both A-levels and the AS.
We want to preserve the AS so that students can study a fourth subject in addition to their full A-levels. We know that universities consider the AS a valuable qualification to provide that breadth, which a number of hon. Members mentioned. We also know that some universities use the AS in their admissions processes, although most place more emphasis on GCSE results and predicted A-level grades, as well as looking at a range of other information, including personal statements, academic references and, in some cases, admissions tests and interviews.
Mr Laws
I will make this one point before giving way.
Most universities do not use AS results as the main basis for making those decisions. Indeed, in some subjects GCSE results can provide a better prediction of degree results across all universities than AS results. Students who have very good GCSE results from schools where the general pattern is for below-average GCSE attainment also have real potential to progress at university.
Kevin Brennan
If the Minister continues with his proposals, AS-levels will be available for universities to use as evidence in only one subject, instead of all the subjects that the young person is studying. Although we could do with more research, he knows that there is powerful research evidence that suggests that AS-level is in fact the best predictor of how young people will do at university. [Interruption.] He can shake his head, but his own university’s research suggests that AS-levels are the best predictor—far better than GCSEs, and far better even than university admissions tests. I have the research here. I thought he had read it, but obviously he has not.
Mr Laws
I repeat the point I have just made: the majority of universities do not use AS-levels as the main basis for making such decisions. Indeed, we know that, in some subjects, GCSE results provide a better prediction of degree results across all universities than AS results.
Forced Conversion of Schools to Academies
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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John Pugh
Yes, that is distressing. The hon. Gentleman is a witness to the fact that we have moved from a situation in which parents were allowed a vote to one in which parents do not have a voice.
I would like to draw attention to the well documented fact that some of the brokers’ behaviour is markedly aggressive. One governor of fairly robust temperament described a broker as “seriously scary”. I find the process appalling. Regardless of what one feels about the academy programme, I find it distressing that people who have the interests of children and their schools at heart feel that they have been put in that situation. It strikes me that it is bullying. The intention is to close the contract and sign it there and then, which is the worst kind of sharp salesmanship, if I can put it like that. It is obviously wide open to corruption; it is about making offers that people cannot refuse, straight out of the Vito Corleone textbook. I see absolutely no reason why we who wish to stop bullying in schools allow the bullying of schools.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Fortunately, we have the Minister with responsibility for bullying here, so she can deal with any accusations of bullying.
Surely the hon. Gentleman is being completely unfair to the Government. Did he read the article by Warwick Mansell in The Guardian yesterday? It quoted Tim Crumpton, a councillor in Dudley, who said that after he made accusations of bullying, he received a letter from the Department saying:
“We carried out a thorough investigation and found no basis in the claims.”
Does that satisfy the hon. Gentleman?
John Pugh
I am sure that the Department took the broker’s word for it. What I am describing has been told to me by people I have known for some time, who have no axe to grind and whom I trust.
I feel particularly aggrieved about my area. Under previous regimes, not a single school in Sefton ever opted out. We had two ballots, both of which were lost. There were good reasons. Sefton was one of the first LEAs to give schools true financial independence to pioneer; in fact, I was on the local authority at the time. It has kept its central costs low. It has always prioritised education and schools. It stands favourable comparison with other LEAs. Its schools are good and, better still, there are good relations between the LEA and the schools, which themselves cluster together harmoniously and supportively. There is a genuine communitarian spirit, accompanied by good results. To make things more acutely painful, Sefton has a good record, praised by the Schools Minister, for improving its schools; it is in the top five of LEAs.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) on securing the debate. He gave us a thoughtful and philosophical discourse, as ever, on forced academisation. Interestingly, he described what he saw as bullying going on within the system. I will come back to that. He also introduced us to the interesting concept of an under-occupancy subsidy for some types of school that the Government are currently promoting. I am sure that we will hear more about that in the future.
I also congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) on his speech. He managed to turn it into a bit of a debate about pensions, which might be a separate issue from what we are discussing today, but he did show his erudition by quoting Yeats. I, too, will quote some Yeats:
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”.
In some of what is going on with the forced academisation debate, there is a problem with the falconer not knowing what the falcon is getting up to out and about in the field. I will also come back to that point.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) described what she called snake-oil salesmen in relation to forced academisation. The hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) said that this policy was not so much ideological as egotistical on the part of the Secretary of State for Education and that he needed to be seen to be doing something dramatic, which explained his actions. It reminds me a bit of the goalkeeper’s dilemma during a penalty shoot-out. Statistically it is proven that, very often, to stand still is the best thing to do during a penalty shoot-out, but if the goalkeeper does that and the opposition scores, they are roundly criticised. If, however, the goalkeeper dives in completely the wrong direction and the opposition scores, they are praised for at least having a go. Perhaps that explains the phenomenon that the hon. Gentleman described.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) told us about his own experience, including helping to set up academies in his constituency, and about his fear of politicisation and of profit-making schools. I recently met colleagues from Sweden, who described to me the utter disaster of profit-making schools—free schools—in Sweden. The impact has been to lower standards because of the race to the bottom that profit-making schools entail. Also, Sweden has had to reinstate a requirement for teachers to be properly qualified in free schools, because of that race to the bottom for low-paid staff and maximising profit. That has happened in free schools in Sweden, so there is a lesson for us there as well.
This debate is about forced academisation. Let me say at the outset that I am a supporter of academies and have been throughout my 12 years in the House of Commons. Of course, the genesis for the academies programme under the previous, Labour Government was to launch a direct assault on the double disadvantage of social and economic deprivation. Our concern about the current Government’s academies programme is not about the freedoms that can be granted—that come along with academy status—but about the loss of focus on under-performing schools in areas of high social and economic deprivation and the fact that that might result in the positive impact of the academies programme being diluted. I worry that the principal foundations for the success of the early academies—collaboration and partnership—have been replaced by what other hon. Members have talked about here today, a fixation on the numbers game. That is what we are seeing at the moment. It explains why we are having this debate on forced academisation today. It is all about numbers, rather than standards.
I am not wedded to any particular model for the way in which schools should be run. As a former teacher myself, I agree with the hon. Member for Southport that the structure makes very little difference. We know what makes a good school; we know what factors are involved in that, and there is plenty of research to show it. I do not think that there are many people, either—there may be some here—who think that local authorities should directly run all state-funded schools these days. A lot of us agree that local authorities did not always do a particularly good job of running local schools in many cases in the past, but just because a job was not always done well does not mean that there is not a job that needs to be done. There is a job that needs to be done at local level in relation to our schools, and that focus is being lost by the current Government with this numbers game that they are fixated on.
I welcome the Minister who will reply to the debate. It is a shame that the Minister for Schools is not replying to it. I know that responsibility for this subject lies in the House of Lords, but it would be good to have the Schools Minister here to reply to the debate, because he could then explain why he supports the current policy when he said in his manifesto at the last election that he wanted to
“replace Academies with our own model of ‘Sponsor-Managed Schools’. These schools will be commissioned by and accountable to local authorities and not Whitehall”.
That was his policy previously, which perhaps explains why he never fronts up on this subject as Schools Minister and turns up to debate it. I would welcome his doing that in the future.
However, I am glad that we have the hon. Lady here to answer on behalf of the Government about the worrying reports that we are receiving from around the country. Despite my intervention earlier about yesterday’s article by Warwick Mansell in The Guardian, there seems to be a growing number of reports from around the country about bullying behaviour by the individuals who are being sent round by the Department for Education to bring about forced academisation of schools.
Last year I visited a group of schools that had formed an education improvement partnership. One of the primary school head teachers in it was desperate to tell me about her experience with what some people locally have described as gauleiters being sent out by the Department for Education. What she told me made my jaw drop. She told me that when the adviser from the Department turned up, she was told that she had to meet them and that no one else was to be present. When she objected to that, she was told that perhaps at a stretch she might be allowed to have the chair of governors present with her for part of the meeting. She wanted to have, and in the end she insisted on having, the head teacher of the local secondary school, which was part of the education improvement partnership, with her for the debate, but she told me several stories about how she was leaned on—that is the only way it can be described—and told that there was no alternative to her school becoming an academy, despite the fact that the governors did not want that, the parents did not want it and it was clearly an improving school. In the end, having taken legal advice, they were able to fend off the adviser who had come from the Government, using those bullying tactics, but I am told that as she left she said, “I’ll be back”, Arnold Schwarzenegger-style—no doubt after further efforts have been made to undermine the efforts being made by the school to operate as part of an education improvement partnership to raise standards in the school. That is happening around the country. I have also been told that in the same area, one head teacher has seen a gagging clause put into their contract, having been forced out of a school as part of this process.
It is all very well, under the cloak of standards, to go around to schools and offer them an opportunity to consider academisation—the sponsored academy approach. That can be entirely appropriate on many occasions, but the bullying behaviour—we are hearing, and I am receiving, more and more accounts of it—is very worrying. I therefore want the Minister to answer a few questions about that. How many schools does she know of that have successfully resisted forced academisation procedures? How are the academy advisers recruited? How are they rewarded? Is it true that they are on a payment-by-results regime? I hope that the Minister will answer this question particularly. Is there any code of conduct for those people as to how they should behave? As the Minister with responsibility for the issue of bullying, will she give us an absolute assurance that if there is one, she will publish it, and that if there is not one currently, she will ensure that one is available? I ask that because some of the behaviour that is being described—
Kevin Brennan
I do not have time to give way I am afraid. I would otherwise, but I want the Minister to be able to answer.
Given the behaviour that is being described, if there is a code of conduct, it is obviously not being adhered to in any acceptable way. Is it acceptable to insist on meeting heads alone, not allowing them to have other people with them? Do the advisers have targets? To whom are they accountable? What evidence is there that forced academisation raises standards? We do not have much time and I want to give the Minister the chance to answer the questions. Why has the Department backed down in the face of a legal challenge from Coventry council about forced academisation? Will she undertake to ban gagging orders on heads who are forced out of their jobs and introduce transparency into the process?
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
We will ensure that our attendance procedures are absolutely correct, so that we know whether students are at school or not. If they are being home-schooled, that is a decision for their parents; if they are at school, they must be properly at school, and their attendance records must be properly monitored.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
May I take this opportunity, on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition, to wish Her Majesty a speedy recovery?
The Minister is actually making the curriculum less flexible. For instance, she is insisting that primary school children will have to study Dafydd ap Gruffydd. Can she tell us about Dafydd ap Gruffydd, and can she spell Dafydd ap Gruffydd?
Elizabeth Truss
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, in that we are ensuring that students gain a good chronological understanding of history throughout their school career. During my own school career, I spent one lesson studying Sir Francis Drake and the next talking about the princes in the tower. I would certainly have preferred a school career that enabled me to learn about chronology and understand our island story.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
14. What proportion of new over-18 apprenticeships have been taken by people in existing employment since May 2010.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)
Apprenticeships are designed to help people develop the skills they need to enter an occupation, and to reskill and progress within a job. The 2011 apprenticeship pay survey found that 77% of apprentices had some experience of work with the same employer before the start of their apprenticeship.
Kevin Brennan
Will the Minister undertake to make clear in all statements about apprenticeships how many are new starts in employment, and how many are existing employment? Will he confirm that a lot of the increase in the number of apprenticeships has come from converting the previous Train to Gain scheme into apprenticeships?
Matthew Hancock
It is very important not only for people to enter the workplace, but to improve their skills within it. For instance, 99% of those on management apprenticeships had some previous experience of work in the company, which is to be expected. It is about getting people out of unemployment, but also ensuring that their skills improve while they are in a job.
Curriculum and Exam Reform
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I am a great fan of that movie, especially the role played by Sean Connery, who is one of my heroes.
Michael Gove
Both, actually.
Our new history curriculum will affirm the important place of British heroes and heroines in fighting for liberty over many centuries. Let me also take this opportunity to say that the role of Mary Seacole is not just cemented but enhanced in the curriculum. I also believe the new history curriculum is fairer in its treatment of black and minority ethnic figures in European and world history, and is more inclusive in its approach to the contribution women have made to our past, but I look forward to hearing all responses from both sides of the House about how we can make sure the subject is taught properly. As for creative and artistic subjects, we will do everything possible, working with the Arts Council and others, to make sure that they are of high quality.
A-level Reform
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
May I thank the Minister for her statement and for advance sight of it? I understand that the Secretary of State is rather busy today, which is why we have her and not him, and why I am speaking rather than my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—[Interruption.] I am not being patronising. I have welcomed the Minister’s statement.
It is somewhat ironic that the cause of the Secretary of State’s busy afternoon is that he has been summoned before the Procedure Committee to account for his Department’s failure to answer parliamentary questions. In effect, he is not here for his examination because he is in the headmaster’s study for failing to do his homework. As the part-time Minister for Schools does not do exams, the hon. Lady has made the statement, and I am glad she did so.
The Secretary of State first announced his plans to scrap AS-levels in July 2010. He now says that AS-levels will not be scrapped as such, but just rendered irrelevant by the fact that they will not count towards a final A-level grade. To describe that as a dog’s dinner would be an insult to the pet food industry. It is no wonder that leading universities are opposed to the change.
Why, when the Secretary of State says he wants to consult Russell Group universities on exam reform, has he completely ignored its opposition to this emasculation of AS-levels? Dr Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge university, has said:
“We are worried…if AS-level disappears we will lose many of the gains in terms of fair admissions and widening participation that we have made in the last decade.”
He warns—Government Members should listen to this—that:
“We are convinced that a large part of this success derives from the confidence engendered in students from non-traditional backgrounds when they achieve high examination grades at the end of year 12”.
The question the Opposition want the answer to is this: why are the Government treating the views of admissions tutors on what helps state schools pupils to gain Oxbridge admission with such total contempt? That view is shared across the university sector—it is the view not just of Cambridge university, but of the million+ group and Universities UK.
In addition, the Secretary of State says he wants to create “facilitating subjects” in A-level that are ready for teaching in 2015, but they will only be in the EBacc subjects. Yet again, there is no value for creative subjects or computing and engineering. What has he got against those subjects? His plan means there will be two types of A-levels: one designed, blessed and endorsed by him; and another that is seen as less valuable—once again, that is a two-tier system from the past.
Anyway, what is the Secretary of State doing designing exams? Is he going to write the questions and mark the papers too? Is he overstepping his powers? Is that what the Minister meant in her statement by “stepping back” from the design of A-levels? Are the plans an order from the Secretary of State or just an expression of preference? Given the widespread opposition to his plans, we need to know their status.
Today’s statement, as so often, is backward looking, and for the few and not the many. Let us have exams that open up life chances rather than reforms that will slam the door of opportunity in the face of the many.
Elizabeth Truss
It is absolutely no surprise that the Labour party opposes any change to our system: they are the educational reactionaries; we are looking to the future. We are looking to compete in the modern world, which is why we have leading universities, such as Cambridge and Imperial, helping us to develop the new curriculum. The Opposition oppose any change; they want students to be on an exam treadmill at age 16, 17 and 18. We want students to have the opportunity to think, to learn, and to study subjects in depth; they just want constant exams.
We have discussed these changes with the Russell Group, which is bringing forward proposals and leading these reforms. I have also been in conversation with Universities UK and the 1994 Group, as they want to be involved too. I suggest that the Opposition get with the programme, otherwise they will be left behind even further. Let us not forget what happened under Labour Governments. Let us not forget Curriculum 2000, which saw a drastic reduction in the number of students doing maths A-level—down 20% in two years. We are now the country with the lowest number of students who are studying that important subject in the entire OECD.
Elizabeth Truss
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She is absolutely right: we have some fantastic universities. That is why we are so excited that they are getting involved in developing new qualifications. Not only are they helping us with new qualifications—[Interruption.] I think the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) should actually speak to some of these academics and maybe he will get a slightly less biased picture.
Elizabeth Truss
Well, I do not know who he was talking to. The point is that not only are we developing new A-levels, we are also developing a new mid-level maths qualification with Mathematics in Education and Industry and Tim Gowers, which I am very glad the Opposition support.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Michael Gove
My hon. Friend, once again, hits the nail on the head; he is acquiring a reputation in these Question Times for cutting straight to the heart of an issue. He describes why the changes we have made to ensure that all students who fail to secure adequate GCSE passes in English and maths at 16 are now required to take those critical subjects on beyond that age are so important. That is also why we are absolutely delighted that we are recruiting a better cohort of teachers than ever before, to build on the achievements of the past.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
A quote:
“The EBacc is very similar to the exam I sat in 1951…the School Certificate. It’s exactly the same, exactly!”
That was changed in 1951
“because it simply wasn’t broad enough for most children…I was part of a privileged elite. And the EBacc is a throwback to that.”
Those were the words of former Conservative Education Secretary, Lord Baker. Discuss.
Examination Reform
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Stephen Twigg
I certainly accept that we need to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of the changes that have been made. We made a number of reforms. I was a Minister when Curriculum 2000 was implemented, which created the AS-level. That was a positive reform that has stood the test of time. There is a case to look again at modularisation, but as I will say in my speech, that does not require us entirely to remove controlled assessment from the core subjects that make up the secondary school curriculum.
Sir Jonathan has been joined by other leading British innovators in warning the Secretary of State that his plans are “jeopardising Britain’s future prosperity”. Research carried out for the Department for Education by Ipsos MORI demonstrates the effect that the EBacc performance measure has already had on creative subjects. For example, more than 150 schools have withdrawn the important subject of design and technology from their curriculum. There have been similar declines in drama and art. I fear that the Secretary of State’s plans for EBCs risk making the situation even worse.
A survey by YouGov for the National Union of Teachers that was published earlier this month found that more than 80% of teachers said that the proposed changes to exams at 16 were being rushed. Louise Robinson, the president of the Girls Schools Association, has said that the Education Secretary is transfixed by
“a bygone era where everything was considered rosy”.
She said:
“You can’t be forcing a 1960s curriculum and exam structure on schools. These children are going to be going out into the world of the 2020s and 2030s. It is going to be very different from”
the Secretary of State’s
“dream of what it should be.”
It is an indication of the Secretary of State’s unpopularity that voices from the private schools sector and the National Union of Teachers are united in their opposition to his plans.
Stephen Twigg
My hon. Friend makes the point powerfully, and it is absolutely the right point to make. It is not simply Opposition Members who are making it—it was the central argument of the CBI’s excellent report on education before Christmas, when it called for a pause in the Government’s proposed EBCs. That is why, in our motion, we urge the Government to rethink. We have reflected on what we are hearing from business, as my hon. Friend rightly reminds us, and from the world of education that they are not the reforms that take our education system, our economy, or our broader society in the right direction.
The Government’s plan for EBCs is very much in tune with the Secretary of State’s wider programme for education: a narrowing of the curriculum, backward looking in terms of assessment, and a policy for the few, not the many. Last year, the Secretary of State presided over the fiasco in GCSE English marking. Now, on his plans for changes to exams at 16, week after week we see increasing opposition, whether from business, entrepreneurs, teachers or parents. In contrast, I want to see a true baccalaureate approach to assessment and qualification reform. Labour Members are working to build a consensus in the worlds of business and education on reforms that will work and will last; reforms that will strengthen, not undermine, our standing in the world. On that basis, I commend this motion to the House.
Mr Speaker
Order. I will take the hon. Gentleman’s point of order in a moment. Just before I call the Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) to respond from the Government Front Bench, I should say that in order to try and accommodate the level of interest, I have decided to impose an eight-minute limit on each Back-Bench contribution. Mr Brennan, I could never forget you and I was in no danger of doing so.
Kevin Brennan
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given that, unusually, the Secretary of State has decided to wind up the debate rather than to respond to the opening speech and has intervened on the shadow Secretary of State on five occasions, is there any means by which the time could be extended to allow the Opposition Front Bench the opportunity to intervene on him the same number of times without him being able to cry shortage of time?
Mr Speaker
The short answer is no, and I should emphasise, for the avoidance of doubt, that nothing disorderly has occurred.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman, as he rightly says, did not say that. The order in which Ministers appear at the Dispatch Box is exclusively a matter for the Government. It may be unusual, but there is nothing improper about it whatsoever. The House will now wish to hear Mr David Laws.
Kevin Brennan
I am sure the Minister is grateful to his right hon. Friend. Does the Minister recognise these words?
“There has been a breathtaking rise in performance in education since 1997. Inner London was a basket case pre-97; ninety per cent of students were failing to get decent grades at 16 back then. The improvement’s been astonishing, dramatic, unbelievable.”
They were his words in February 2010.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
We have had, as others have said, a good debate. There are areas of consensus, which is what the shadow Secretary of State wants us to achieve, and those are to be welcomed. The first of those is that there is a need for some reform. I will not rehash what we have already heard, but there have been problems with the system and with people’s confidence in it, which I share.
We need to look at rigour, which is now a fashionable word on everybody’s lips. We also need to examine the pressures of assessment crowding out learning. We want to make sure that there is room for deep, wide-ranging learning so that teachers are free to teach. The coalition Government have been clear about that from the outset. We should be clear that we have excellent teachers, probably the best qualified and best motivated that we have ever had, who are doing a great job. If results have improved, it may be in part because there has been competition between exam boards and changes in assessment patterns. It has also been because of improvements in teaching—the Secretary of State has acknowledged that, and I do too—and because young people themselves have worked incredibly hard to achieve those results. It is not an either/or situation. As the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said, we must remember that those young people should be at the heart of all the decisions we take and the discussions we have.
Our duty as legislators is to raise aspiration even further, but to raise it across the ability range too. The Secretary of State has rightly highlighted the small number of people from the most deprived backgrounds—those on free school meals—who have gone on to attend Oxford or Cambridge, so that gives us one measure to consider. I hope—I am sure it is true—that we as a Government will look across the ability range to make sure that whatever people are capable of achieving, they are supported in doing so. It is not just about the very high flyers; social mobility is about making sure that everybody gets to where they could go. That is good for them, but it is also good for us as a country to ensure that we are making use of their skills and talents in future. We want a system that allows them to achieve, supports them in doing so, and does not dispirit or disillusion them in any way.
The Government have acted on vocational qualifications to distil what has worked and what has not—what is of value and what is not—to try to ensure that we have a suite of qualifications that people in business understand and can have confidence in. I welcome that work. The Government have also been prepared to revisit issues with engineering to make sure that we have got things right. That is a mature and grown-up way of doing things.
On qualifications at 16 and the GCSE, the Government have discussed internally how they should respond to the need for reform. It is unfortunate that back in the early summer a leak was reported in a national newspaper suggesting, some thought, that there was an intention within the Conservative party to move towards a two-tier qualification. The Secretary of State has made it clear that he is happy with a pattern of having one wider qualification that develops in future. The shadow Secretary of State seemed to want to return to where we were with the business of the leak instead of looking at it in the context of a formal Government announcement, but we have moved on from that. I am sure that he would acknowledge that people such as Mike Tomlinson and John Dunford have acknowledged that the proposed qualification is not a two-tier system. For example, the proposed statement of achievement would ensure that the same small number of young people who are not entered for GCSEs get something. Under the current system they have not had anything, so that is a step forward. It is important to get my understanding of that on the record. To his credit, the Secretary of State, with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and other Ministers, is considering the views expressed in consultation to make sure that we get it right. That is absolutely the right approach.
I welcome the fact that Opposition Front Benchers have used some of their supply time for this debate. I might question the terms of the motion, but I welcome the debate. In recent weeks I have submitted several bids for a Westminster Hall debate on the subject, and this debate has given me the chance to make the points that I want to make.
I should like to draw attention to a couple of issues that others have raised. On assessment, my right hon. Friend the Minister said that nothing was set in stone. However, the Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), from whom we have already heard, have been very keen that examination is a recognised and rigorous way of carrying out assessment. The system must work as a good assessment of the young people who are able to take that approach and to achieve under those circumstances.
Others learn and should be assessed in a slightly different way. That is not to say that I agree with programmes of study that are assessed by 100% continuous assessment. We need a balance. In the past, GCSEs were much more balanced, and that has got out of kilter. Assessment through examination during the course is another problem, because it can lead to constant learning and cramming towards a test. I can understand that from young people’s point of view it is good to bank something early on but, on balance, that has negatives.
We want to make sure that coursework is assessed properly. We in this Government trust teachers, so we know that they will be able to tell the difference between something written by the student they have in front of them week in, week out and something that has been written by their parents or friends or has been taken from the internet. It is possible to make those judgments, and we need to support teachers in making sure that they have the skills and knowledge to do so if they are lacking. We can also tighten up through moderation and so on. I hope that the door is not bolted on 100% examination for all subjects, because that bears greater exploration.
Another issue is the name of the qualification. We already have in the English baccalaureate a suite of qualifications that means one thing, and now we have an English baccalaureate certificate, so it is debatable whether the name is right. However, as long as the qualification is right I am more relaxed about its name. There is some justification for discussing which subjects are included and which are not. If it is introduced gradually to different subject areas over time, it is possible that those who get it first will be seen in a different way from those who get it later on, and we have to be careful about that.
I broadly welcome the focus on reform, which has been widely called for by people outside this place as well as by parties in the House. In particular, the statement of achievement is a big step forward for young people.
Kevin Brennan
Given what the hon. Gentleman has said so far, what is it in the motion that he disagrees with?
Dan Rogerson
The motion is set up to say that the Government should scrap their thinking and start again. The Government are examining and will respond to the consultation, which one could call rethinking. [Interruption.] We know what Opposition days are about—they are a chance for the Opposition to get their point of view on the record, as I am sure that they will; in fact, they have done so more successfully today than they have in the past on these issues. [Interruption.] Both sides have had the chance to clarify matters through their conversation over the Dispatch Box; I was not being churlish about the shadow Secretary of State’s ability to get his point across.
I hope that as the Government look at the responses to the consultation they re-examine some of these issues to make sure that we have got this absolutely right. What we want at the end of the process is a qualification that stands the test of time so that the young people who are now being born in my constituency and others across the country and who may well take the examination in future will find that it is still valued and understood by employers, teachers and everybody else. We must get it right. We have an opportunity to do that, and I am sure that the Government will take it.
Neil Carmichael
First, I want to pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on beliefs and experience. We all have beliefs and some of us have had experience as well. One of my sharpest experiences was that of marking examinations taken by undergraduates who displayed an innate intelligence but not necessarily a huge ability to communicate. We should all think about that during the course of this debate, because it is important that communication skills and mathematics should be embedded as early as possible.
My second point is that there is much more continuity between those on the two Front Benches than might first be supposed. That came to my attention when I was reading Lord Adonis’s recent book on education. He has paved the way for some of the changes that we are continuing—
Neil Carmichael
I am not suggesting that Lord Adonis supports everything that we are doing; I am saying that there is some continuity. That is good, because we need more continuity in education policy. A lot of the measures that we are introducing will be useful, in that they will make things better and build on some of the achievements of the previous Government. That needs to be said.
My third point is that I am a firm believer in the Ebacc, as I stated when the Education Select Committee looked into that subject. In fact, that was the only time I ever voted against the publication of a report. I did so because I believe it is important that the Ebacc should be promoted. One of the myths that needs to be completely debunked is that the Ebacc will stop other subjects being taught. That is clearly not the case, because most, if not all, schools also offer a wider variety of subjects. That is what they are supposed to do, and what they will continue to do. I do not believe that enough attention has been paid to the role of Ofsted in ensuring that schools are going beyond the Ebacc subjects. We need to be much clearer about the process involved in the inspection regime, and about the impact that the Ebacc will have on the delivery of other subjects.
Linked to that is Professor Alison Wolf’s report, which has been discussed by the shadow Secretary of State and the Minister for Schools. I think that Alison Wolf’s report is first class. It sets the scene for proper vocational training. She makes two points, however, that have thus far been overlooked. First, she believes that an academic framework is absolutely necessary for pupils, and that it is not inconsistent with going on to vocational studies. In fact, she notes that it is a good thing to have an academic basis for vocational training. The second point that she makes very clearly in her report is that there is plenty of time in the school day to go beyond the Ebacc and into vocational training. I think that is critical, because it applies to post-16 education—beyond school and into colleges—as well. We need to bear those two points in mind when we think about the EBacc.
It is important to underline what the Minister of State said about universality. I was particularly impressed with it, as I think we should have a system in which all pupils are treated fairly and all pupils have a fair chance of taking an examination, so that we do not get division between one type of pupil and another. One of the great achievements over the last decade or so has been exactly that—and we should celebrate it. I would say, however, that the EBacc builds on that and does not threaten it, which is something of which we should be proud.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
We have had a high-quality debate this afternoon with contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore). We found out from him that at 6 am in the morning, he is checking Lord Knight’s Twitter feed—not something the rest of us would necessarily do at that time. We also heard contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and the hon. Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for Stroud (Neil Carmichael). The hon. Member for Kingswood was obviously only half awake because he seemed to think that Lord Knight’s Twitter feed said that he supported the proposals, which is certainly not the case.
It is more and more clear that the Government’s proposed EBacc certificate is the wrong reform on the wrong timetable. What is more, the Secretary of State has got it the wrong way round. In one sense, I am certain that he agrees that it is the wrong reform, because we know that it is not the reform that he wanted. He announced the reform that he wanted using the now traditional method for making important Department for Education announcements—via a leak to the The Mail on Sunday. He was celebrating his great news triumph when word got through to the Deputy Prime Minister in his hotel room in Rio, presumably wearing his onesie—[Interruption.] That is true; it might be too hot in Rio for a onesie.
The Deputy Prime Minister was so furious with the Education Secretary that he not only made him withdraw his plans and modify them into the incoherent mess that we have been hearing about today, but made him sack his trusted lieutenant, the former schools Minister, and replace him with the current part-time schools Minister, who I think is off in the Cabinet Office doing his other job—a Lib Dem incubus in the Secretary of State’s lair. [Interruption.] He has now come to the Chamber. A bit like horsemeat in a burger, it can be swallowed but it is not very palatable. Even the Secretary of State thinks that it is the wrong reform, because he has had to drop the overtly two-tier approach that he favoured for the covert one that we have heard about today. Everyone else knows that it is the wrong reform, because it does not address, as we have heard overwhelmingly from Members on both sides of the House, the real issues and challenges for education at 16.
First, the reform is anti-creativity. Many people are asking: what do the Secretary of State and the Government have against creativity? As we saw in a debate on the EBacc certificate in another place on Monday, he calls his new qualification a gold standard, but how can a qualification on which the Secretary of State places such a valedictory appellation have no place for the arts? As the former Education Secretary Baroness Morris of Yardley in another place said:
“How can an assessment that marks the end of the national curriculum not recognise achievement in music, dance, drama, art, design and craft?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 January 2013; Vol. 742, c. 547.]
The EBacc is also the wrong reform because it does not seriously examine the purpose and relevance of high-stakes public examinations at 16 when the participation age has been raised to 18. That topic is causing a veritable buzz in the world of education. The Secretary of State needs to listen not just to his closest advisers and cronies and his own soliloquies. We need a proper debate and consensus around reform, which addresses the key issues that the Chair of the Education Committee has often cited, as he did again today—in particular the long tail of underachievement. Perhaps we should rename the EBacc certificate the GOVE—general opposition to vocational education—because the Secretary of State has nothing to say on how we can have a gold standard in vocational education. That is why we have had to take the initiative in developing the Tech Bacc, in which he seems so uninterested.
Another reason the EBacc certificate is the wrong reform is its rigid and mystifying insistence that it should be assessed by final essay-based examination only. The Secretary of State was rightly asked earlier whether it is his role to decide that anyway, and perhaps we will get an answer in his speech, but essay-based exams measure only a narrow range of skills and knowledge. I have been trying to understand what makes the Secretary of State so against controlled assessment and practical exams and why he thinks the only valid way of testing anything is a three-hour written examination at the end of a course. What traumatic event in his past could have led him to have this seemingly inexplicable aversion to the appropriate use of controlled assessment and his insistence that only written exams should count? Then I remembered—
Kevin Brennan
He is ahead of me—he is very quick. The driving test is administered on a basis of a written test combined with a practical controlled assessment, and the Secretary of State failed his driving test on six occasions. And this is the man who does not believe in re-sits!
Had the driving test consisted of a course in the theory of driving followed by a three-hour written test, the Secretary of State would no doubt have passed first time, with flying colours. He might have achieved a merit, perhaps even a distinction, maybe an A* for demonstrating his in-depth understanding of the intricacies of the highway code. But would that have made him a better driver, and would the public have been safe with him behind the wheel? Possibly not.
This is the wrong reform, and it is also being carried out according to the wrong timetable. It is not just the foot-draggers, the naysayers and the vested interests who are saying that. It is being said by Glenys Stacey, the head of Ofqual and the Secretary of State’s guardian of exam standards, who has written to him expressing her concerns—incidentally, we know about her letter only as a result of dogged forensic questioning of the Secretary of State by the Education Committee—and it is not being said just by Ofqual either. In response to a recent survey, more than 80% of teachers said that the changes were being rushed, adding to the huge majority of heads who said that the changes would not be an improvement, and reinforcing the call from the CBI—about which we have already heard today—for a pause in the Government’s timetable.
I am old enough to have taken O-levels—I also have a CSE in woodwork, a grade 1—and A-levels, and I taught for O-level, GCSE and A-level. One thing that I do know is that it is impossible to introduce successful examination reform without being clear about the curriculum, without consensus, and without proper piloting of new qualifications. GCSE reform was kicked off by Shirley Williams, and brought in by Keith Joseph after many years of development. It is necessary to aim for that breadth of consensus at the start if lasting reform is to achieved. However, the English baccalaureate certificate proposal is not a product of consensus based on evidence; it is being rushed through to meet a political, not an educational, timetable. That is the wrong recipe for reform, and the right recipe for chaos.
The Secretary of State’s reform is being introduced for the wrong reasons, the wrong way round. The Secretary of State says it is about rigour, but rigour is achieved through engaging, imaginative, high-quality and creative teaching, not through dispiriting learning by rote that is based only on facts. That is not a recipe for rigour; it is a recipe for rigor mortis in the classroom—the stiff dead hand of Gradgrindian misery about which we heard earlier.
In a recent television interview, Lord Baker reminded us of the welcome contrast between the current CBI report on education and that of one of its predecessor bodies, which states that all that was, or should be, required of the curriculum was that it should teach “literacy, numeracy and obedience”. Sometimes, listening to what is said by members of the Government, I wonder whether that is what they believe now. As Lord Baker also said, if that is all we think is required today, God help us, because that is the attitude that has created
“the long tail of underachievement”,
demotivated generations of young people, and wasted the talents of so many.
It is, however, the background noise that hisses around the Secretary of State’s approach to this reform. The proposal is the wrong way around. It puts the cart before the horse, the exams before the course, and the outcomes before the aims.
Here are some possible aims of a curriculum for the Secretary of State. It should produce
“a confident person who has a strong sense of right and wrong, is adaptable and resilient, knows himself, is discerning in judgment, thinks independently and critically, and communicates effectively; a self-directed learner who takes responsibility for his own learning, who questions, reflects and perseveres in the pursuit of learning; an active contributor who is able to work effectively in teams, exercises initiative, takes calculated risks, is innovative and strives for excellence; and, a concerned citizen who is rooted”
in his country,
“has a strong civic consciousness, is informed, and takes an active role in bettering the lives of others”.
The Secretary of State may think that that is wishy-washy. It is, in fact, a list of the aims of the curriculum in Singapore, and perhaps he ought to take a look at it before he starts to design a new exam system. How can this style of examination achieve those aims? It cannot, which is why Singapore has been reforming its education in our direction.
This is a case of wrong reform, wrong timetable, wrong way round: wrong, wrong, wrong. The new three Rs are all spelt with a W, standing not for “reading, writing and arithmetic” but for “wrong, wrong, and”—as the Secretary of State might say—“thrice wrong”.
Personal, Social, Health and Financial Education
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Diana Johnson
Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes the point very well.
Although Ministers have met none of the groups I thought they might have, extensive evaluations might have been going on of the education programmes available on PSHE. I therefore asked the Secretary of State another question:
“what lifeskills educational programmes (a) he and (b) his Department has evaluated.”
In response, the Minister said:
“This Department is in the process of assessing the strength of the evaluation of Botvin Life Skills Training Programme. Once completed, the assessment will be added to the Department’s open-access database of evaluations of programmes aimed at improving outcomes for young people.”—[Official Report, 17 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 585W.]
There was therefore a little glimmer of hope, but there was no mention of one of the most successful, biggest and best-informed education programmes developed in the UK, the Good Behaviour Game. I therefore asked another question:
“what representations his Department has received on the effectiveness of the Good Behaviour Game as a lifeskills programme; and if he will commission a review of the effectiveness of the programme within the English curriculum.”
It is worth noting that, at first, the Department thought the Good Behaviour Game was about discipline and not that it was a life-skills programme. It worried me that it did not seem to know the difference. In response, the Minister said:
“The Department has not received any representations in respect of the effectiveness of the Good Behaviour Game as a lifeskills programme. The Government has no plans to commission a review of the effectiveness of this programme.”—[Official Report, 7 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 81W.]
The Department is obviously not spending a great deal of time looking at or evaluating educational life-skills programmes, so perhaps it is focusing on the individual components of PSHE. I therefore thought I would ask some questions about relationship education. I asked the Secretary of State
“what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of relationship education”—
this goes to the point that was just raised—
“in…combating violence against women and girls and…changing attitudes towards domestic violence; what evidence on these issues has been presented to his Department in the last five years; what plans he has to review any such evidence; and if he will make a statement.”
This answer was a little better. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), said:
“There is some evidence, such as Taylor et al 2010, showing that schools-based programmes can improve awareness, attitudes and knowledge of gender violence and harassment prevention. Relationship education can be provided by schools as part of…PSHE…It is for schools to determine what they teach on these issues”.—[Official Report, 17 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 586W.]
The Minister went on to say that the Department was part of a cross-Government committee that looks at violence against women and girls and that it was “responsible for some actions”—he was not very specific—to deal with the issue. It therefore seems rather depressing that the Department accepts that relationship education can be effective in combating violence against women, but it seems to have no plans as to how that should be promoted.
What is the Department saying about alcohol? I asked the Secretary of State
“what assessment he has made of the role of alcohol education within the curriculum; what representations his Department has received on the nature and effectiveness of alcohol education; whether he plans to review such evidence; and what steps he intends to take to improve the quality and prevalence of alcohol education in schools.”—[Official Report, 14 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 527W.]
The answer, which is quite shocking, is that the Department
“has not conducted a specific assessment of alcohol education within the curriculum.”
The answer continues:
“From April 2013 a new two-year contract will be in place to deliver information and advice to practitioners, including teachers, in the field of drug and alcohol education. It will build on the best of national and international practice”—
I do not know how the Department will do that, because it does not seem to evaluate anything—
“and ensure commissioners and practitioners understand the evidence-base and use programmes known to be effective.”—[Official Report, 14 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 528W.]
Will the Minister tell us how that will happen and how it will fit with the drugs education forum? Its role was to bring together good practice from agencies, and it did that for the modest sum of £69,000, which was cut by the Government when they came into power and then hastily reinstated when they realised what a good job it did.
I turn to the PSHE review and drugs education—perhaps things will be better in relation to drugs. Again, I asked the Secretary of State what
“assessment he has made of the role of drugs education within the curriculum; what representations his Department has received on the nature and effectiveness of drugs education; whether he plans to review such evidence”.
The Minister replied:
“Pupils are currently taught about the negative physiological effects of drugs as part of the statutory National Curriculum Programmes of Study for science, and may also receive wider drugs education as part of non-statutory Personal, Health and Economic (PSHE) Education.”—[Official Report, 9 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 341W.]
It is disappointing that the Government do not seem to understand the importance of comprehensive drugs education in our schools. Drugs has cross-departmental reach, and I thought, perhaps naively, that much work was going on at that level. From another parliamentary question, however, I discovered that Education Ministers have attended the inter-ministerial group on drugs only four times out of 12. I also obtained the agendas for those meetings and, shockingly, drugs education has never been on the group’s agenda.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Was my hon. Friend able to ascertain through parliamentary questions whether the 66% failure to attend those meetings was down to authorised or unauthorised absences by Education Ministers?
Diana Johnson
My hon. Friend makes an important point that the Minister will perhaps address.
I am conscious that I have taken up quite a lot of time, but I am concerned that the Government, who have set up a review, seem to have failed to conduct it properly. Although I am sure that all hon. Members recognise the importance of PSHE and life skills, the Government need some lessons in how to govern effectively and how to review evidence and to make decisions based on that evidence.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on securing this important debate. She told us about teenage pregnancy in Salford and reminded us that a move to make PSHE statutory before the last election was blocked by the Conservative party during the wash-up. That was a shame. Perhaps Back-Bench Members from whom we have heard today could exert some pressure to reverse that position.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) said that there were not many positive images of long-term relationships on television. I used to be a fan of “Coronation Street” and always thought that Jack and Vera Duckworth or Hilda and Stan Ogden were wonderful role models. I do not have enough time to watch any soap operas these days, so I am not sure what is going on. I think it has got much more sensationalist since my day.
Kevin Brennan
Yes, I had heard. But those were long-term successful relationships.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) highlighted the Government’s lack of activity and, in doing so, highlighted the great deal of activity that she has put into this subject. I will say more about that later.
The hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd)—the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, no less—spoke with great passion and conviction, as always, on this subject. I congratulate her on the cross-party work that she has done on this subject, which she has got across recently in the media. She said that teenage pregnancy under 16 was low. I know, from the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South in Salford, that figures for teenagers above 16 range from a low of 216 to 250, whereas for the under-16s it ranges from 37 to 51. It can be as high as 20% in some areas. Although I take the hon. Lady’s point, I would not describe it as very low: 20% is a worryingly high proportion.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke with conviction, although perhaps his view is not shared by the majority of hon. Members present. Age-appropriateness is the issue here. I think all of us can agree that sex and relationships education should be delivered in that way. I appeal to him for clear evidence and actual, practical examples of where he thinks abuse of this provision is taking place, because it is important that this debate happens in the light of evidence.
In the 1980s, ill-conceived media coverage and ill-conceived views expressed about what was being taught to children led to section 28. I was a teacher at that time and a colleague, who was a gay man, had to keep his sexuality hidden because of the consequences of section 28, which was based on unsubstantiated rumours that what was being taught in our schools was promoting homosexuality.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about age-appropriateness, but does he agree that it is appropriate that the value judgments of many people in the regions of the United Kingdom, particularly parents, about how children should receive sex education should also be borne in mind?
Kevin Brennan
I agree that it is a devolved matter and should be decided by the Northern Ireland Assembly, although I hold to my remarks about age-appropriate education.
The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) brought his experience as a teacher into the debate. He said that he was a pupil when PSHE was first introduced. At that time, I was a teacher. Some may find that hard to believe, but it is true. He also mentioned that his art teacher did not take it seriously. Art teachers are probably an endangered species these days. However, the hon. Gentleman is right about the importance of pastoral care. Hon. Members should not forget that teaching and learning responsibilities were rewarded with extra money and that was the first time in many years that pastoral care had ever been there, and that points were available on the teachers’ scale for it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) spoke with expertise. I congratulate her on her long-running campaign on safeguarding. Her points about the nature of consent, and the importance of teaching that to boys, were well made, as were the points made by the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), whom I did not find terrifying, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) did. I found the hon. Lady’s remarks about body image persuasive. She made a good point about parents sometimes reinforcing body image issues. It is important that children have another source from which to gain confidence to combat that. I agree strongly with her remarks about education being more than just examination passes.
My nearish neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, made points about teenage pregnancy that he has been making for many years, campaigning on the issue. He made an important point about unconditional love.
One general observation about the debate is that lots of hon. Members are reluctant, sometimes, to call for things to be made statutory and compulsory. I am, too. But there has to be a transmission mechanism for things to happen. I am afraid that despite the Government’s simply saying, “It would be quite nice if it does happen,” it does not work that way. Over time, we will find out—provided that this is one accountability measure that the Government do not change to hide the impact of their policies—that PSHE will not get better unless there is a serious attempt to get schools to do it. Only statutory provision will make a real difference.
As hon. Members have said, the Department for Education carried out a review on PSHE, a response to which we await with bated breath. The consultation finished on 20 November 2011, not 2012. Any young person with a good sex and relationships education will be able to tell hon. Members that the typical gestation period for a human being is nine months. However, the gestation period of this consultation most resembles that of the elephant, which is 20 months, and we are fast approaching that point. We are eager with anticipation—I was going to say “pregnant,” but I will not—to see when this will come about.
Will the Minister tell us directly when she will deliver the Government’s promised position? When she does, I should not like her to do that in the way in which she answered parliamentary questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North, which was the equivalent of what Lloyd George called the perfect parliamentary answer. He was once driving in north Wales and stopped to ask directions of a Welsh farmer, asking, “Where am I?” The farmer answered, “You’re in your car.” Lloyd George said that was the perfect parliamentary answer, because it was short, accurate and told him nothing he did not know already. The answers given by the Minister and her ministerial colleagues did that in respect of my hon. Friend’s questions, by saying, “some time later this year”. It is clear that the Government are hugely conflicted about PSHE. Essentially, the Secretary of State appears to think that it is all a waste of time, but he cannot bring himself to say that in those terms or authorise his Ministers to do so.
It is important to teach children essential skills, such as how to work in a team, what to do about their body changing and their body image, and how to develop good social, employability and financial skills and good relationships. It is symptomatic of the Government’s attitude that, at first, the Minister—she raised this matter in Business questions a few weeks ago—refused to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and representatives from the PSHE community.
I give the Minister, who is a relatively new Member and Minister, a piece of advice. At first she will sit in her office, as all hon. Members who have been through this process have done, surrounded by civil servants, radiant with lawful power, feeling pleased with herself. However, she should not ignore requests from parliamentary colleagues of whatever political party, but agree to meet them, where it is a reasonable request on a subject that is within her ambit. If she allows civil servants to erect a wall of steel around her and gets trapped in her Department, she will regret it. She should read and answer parliamentary correspondence and attempt to give full answers to parliamentary questions that will inform the House and Ministers. There are good reasons to do that. First, doing that will make her a better Minister. Secondly, it is right that she welcomes scrutiny in our parliamentary democracy. Thirdly, Back Benchers have the tools at their disposal to make her life a misery if she does not follow those practices. I can see that her civil servants are listening, and they should listen carefully. She should agree to reasonable meetings and answer questions and correspondence promptly. The Department has a poor record on that.
It is not just policy makers and stakeholders who are joining the call for more robust PSHE. A new report called “A new conversation with parents” by Pearson and Family Lives, has shown that parents also want this to happen. It is clear that the knowledge that comes along with PSHE does not need to be cut or ignored. The Government should not have the cavalier attitude that they appear to have. Let us have a clear and unequivocal statement from the Minister on why we have heard nothing from her and her colleagues on the subject over such a lengthy period and why the Government, in not responding, are undermining good-quality PSHE in our schools.