Children and Families Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I have personal and family experience and experience in local and central Government of the matters covered by the first three parts of the Bill.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the shadow Secretary of State, on his speech and its emphasis on the overall approach that must be adopted to invest in the well-being of young people and families from the very earliest years.

The Minister’s personal commitment and grasp of the issues are obvious and welcome, and I wish him well in taking the Bill through the House. I advise him not to take the advice of the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and get himself moved to the Ministry of Justice, as I am sure the Secretary of State for Education will give him the support needed to do the job.

The welcome streamlining and speeding up of adoption, with safeguards, under part 1 is very welcome, but as a number of Members have said in interventions, we should not forget the critical role of families, including grandparents, and of intensive fostering, which is often forgotten. When she was the social services chair in Birmingham, Edwina Currie came to Sheffield while I was social services chair there to see what we were doing with intensive fostering. Our approach comes in waves, and then it goes away again. A lot of money can be wasted if we avoid doing the obvious of getting people with expertise and supporting them in doing their job.

On part 2 and the subject of family justice, I have a slight disagreement with some of my colleagues. I do not normally speak about this, because it is too raw and sensitive. Although I am not saying that they should not speak, if they have not had experience of the family court and the family justice system they should be wary of taking a view. It is a nightmare and it is almost impossible for those who do not have large sums of money to deploy.

I welcome the Government’s emphasis on Norgrove 1, as David Norgrove and his colleagues did an excellent job. It was rational that Norgrove 1 should be the way forward. The child arrangements orders and emphasis on mediation, even if it does not work perfectly, are the right way to proceed and I advise people to listen to Mr Justice Ernest Ryder on these issues, as he has enormous experience and a great deal of wisdom to offer.

I have both personal and family experience of the issues covered by part 3. Let me pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who, like me, has had experience of special needs, and emphasise the importance of ensuring that those with disabilities and special needs do not end up being separated out. We should build on our experience of the education, health and care plans and early assessment. Back in the 1970s, Sheffield and Coventry received Government funding from the social services and health Departments to experiment with these questions and those who are worried about the obligations or otherwise of the health service should consider whether joint funding arrangements might be needed in some places. Barbara Castle invented that approach and it was a good thing. Our approach often goes in waves and we often come back to things that we have abolished. Such an approach would have a lot to offer, but would be accessible only when all services were prepared to collaborate and work together so that the money could be drawn down to meet the plans.

There is no point in having a local offer, the information or the signposting, although that is crucial, there is no point in having the code, although I welcome the Minister’s commitment to making that available in Committee and for consultation, and there is no point in letting families believe that an offer of entitlement is on the table unless it is funded and the rights are applicable and accessible without the need to go to court. We need to work together.

Let me say a word about the welcome commitment to nought-to-25 provision. My experience of residential school started at the age of four, and although I would not recommend that, over the years I have been won over to a strong belief in the principle of integration. As with other provisions in the Bill, we must ensure that the child’s needs are paramount. We need a system that works within a local authority area, collaborates across local authority boundaries and uses a degree of regional planning—if I can use that term, as it is not fashionable any more—to provide real options and choices and, when necessary, a national perspective. That is particularly true in post-16 provision when residential care and support is needed. Above all, the emphasis should be not just on education and skills but on skills for life that enable people to live independently on equal terms and to be self-reliant. That takes more for some people than simply going, as I did when I left residential schooling, to the local college of technology.

We need an approach that means that the colleges which will be called section 41 colleges know that they have secure funding. I do not understand why the Skills Funding Agency cannot be used for that purpose, rather than relying on a lottery of very expensive care from local authorities, as I said at a recent reception. I also said that funding for prisoners was greater than that for which we were asking for post-16 residential provision, and that in terms of location, food and discipline, my school was a bit like prison sometimes. One young man who was at the reception to support college principals waggishly suggested that it was the same in the school he went to—I do not think he had a very good welcome after that. It is not the same; things have moved on. We live in an entirely different environment, thank goodness, and we have the necessary collaboration.

For once, on most of the issues, we have genuine commitment on both sides of the House, but we shall achieve what we seek only if there is collaboration across all services. I shall give just one example. If child and adolescent mental health services are not adequately funded, and there is not support from both health and local government, we will end up spending far more down the line, both in terms of mental health services and the Prison Service, than if we get it right. Together, we can do the job better—and I am sure we will—than if we knock bells out of each other individually.

Curriculum and Exam Reform

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the fantastic work he did during his time as a Minister to ensure that some of the mistakes made in the past were reversed and that some of the successes achieved in the past were built on. I absolutely agree with him: the curriculum took a wrong turn in 2007. Real improvements were made to the national curriculum and how it was taught when the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) was Education Secretary. Sadly, those improvements were not maintained. I hope we are now back on course in order to ensure that our curriculum ranks with those of the highest-performing jurisdictions in the world.

Copies of the national curriculum, my letter to the exam regulator Ofqual and all the other relevant documents will be placed in the Library.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Flattery will get the Secretary of State nowhere. I welcome the glimmer of humility, as well as many of the changes announced this morning, not least the range of subject areas that will now count for the value-added tables and for GCSEs. Will he confirm that all these subjects will now be of equal weight and that citizenship will not only remain in the curriculum, but have a national programme of study?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman not only for his distinguished tenure of the office of Education Secretary and the reforms he introduced, but for the statesmanlike way in which he has responded, which I am sure others can learn from. I can absolutely and with pleasure confirm that citizenship will remain a programme of study at key stages 3 and 4. I look forward to working with him to ensure that this valuable subject is even better taught in more of our schools.

Exam Reform

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. Let me first take this opportunity to say that, during his two and a half years in the Department for Education, he did more than anyone else to ensure that rigour was injected back into our education system—[Interruption.] I shall ignore the graceless remarks from the Opposition Front Bench.

I want to underline my gratitude to my hon. Friend for doing such an exemplary job, from the introduction of the phonics test at the end of year 1 and the reform of key stage 2 tests to ensure that spelling, punctuation and grammar were properly marked, to the groundwork that he carried out in this examination reform. Future generations of teachers and pupils will be grateful to him. His comments on exam textbooks are very well made, and I believe that the reforms we are making to eliminate the race to the bottom will provide room for education publishers to do just what he hopes they do: to enhance the quality of textbooks.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I hope that the Secretary of State will stop maligning my former special adviser on these occasions. When I inherited the brief in 1997, my Conservative predecessor involved me in preparing the Dearing inquiry and in setting up the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which the Secretary of State has abolished. Is it not time to stop the chest banging and belligerence—the sheer, artificial anger about the past—and to agree to collaborate in the interests of parents, pupils, head teachers and teaching staff? That way, we can reach a consensus on a way forward for agreed improvement in rigour and on a qualification fit for the 21st century, rather than adopting the current approach, which is, “We know best, you know nothing; we’re going to do it.”

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution, and I am sure the whole House will note with approval his conversion to a style of politics in which he abjures machismo and chest beating. It is entirely our intention to seek to work with everyone who wants to ensure that our examination system can be better. That is why we are having a consultation process over the next few years—to ensure that we can have an examination system that suits all students.

The right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to refer to his former special adviser, Mr Conor Ryan. Far from maligning Mr Ryan, I wish to embrace him, just as he has embraced these reforms in a spirit of bipartisan consensus and progressivism.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

The crucial task in which the taskforce is now engaged is preparing a kind of mini-clearing system in which there will be firm information about places available at specific universities and on specific courses that would have been available for suitably qualified overseas students at London Met. I can tell the hon. Lady and the House that that matching process will open and start on 17 September. We also know that the UKBA will not send out any letters about their 60-day limit to apply to the overseas students affected until 1 October.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I have a registered interest.

I put it to Ministers that although enforcement is critical, the message that needs to go out from the Government is that Britain is open for business in higher education, and that we care greatly about it for students, universities and our economy. What message is being sent by this Department to ensure that the world knows that we welcome higher education students and are proud of our record?

[Mr Willetts]

I very much agree with the right hon. Gentleman, as do the Government. Of course Britain is open for business. That includes being open to attract students from around the world who have a legitimate entitlement to study here. There is no cap on the number of overseas students who can come to study in Britain. Through our Foreign Office posts around the world, we have re-emphasised that message in the light of the experience of London Met.

Secondary Education

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. One of the principal problems with our education system is not only that it has fallen behind other nations, but that it is one of the most inequitable, stratified and segregated. The way in which we tackle that is not by dumbing down on qualifications, but by raising expectations at every level.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I appeal to the Secretary of State to stop rubbishing everything that happened before he came into office; BG—before Gove—is not a very attractive proposition. Will he tell the House why Margaret Thatcher introduced a common national curriculum and a common examination system in 1988?

[Michael Gove]

I am at pains, I hope, never to rubbish everything that preceded this Government, but I want to tell the truth, and the truth is that, although there were improvements, many as a direct result of the right hon. Gentleman’s stewardship of the Department for Education, wrong turnings were taken, one of which, I am afraid, was to allow a race to the bottom in examinations, which serves no one’s interests.

Free School Meals (Colleges)

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I am sure that it will be a pleasure serving under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I am pleased to be doing so. I thank hon. Members from all parties who have taken the trouble to attend what I consider an important debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) for the enormous amount of work that she has done on this issue, bringing it to public attention.

I hope that we have reached consensus across political parties that action is needed. The issue is simple. Those who are in school and go through to school sixth forms continue to receive free school meals and those who are in free schools or academies from 16 to 19 or in university technology colleges are entitled to free school meals, but those who are in general further education or in sixth-form colleges are not. That is so inequitable, unfair and discriminatory that I know that the Minister will say, “Time to put this right.” As it is unfair and discriminatory, it is unjustifiable. The Minister might say, “Why didn’t you do this before?” Do you know, there are times in life when it is best to put our hands up and say, “We should have done.”? Of course, we introduced the education maintenance allowance. I was Secretary of State when we introduced it and I am proud of it, and I am sorry that it has effectively been abolished.

I was proud of our Government’s taking steps to equalise funding, which the coalition Government are continuing, between those in different forms of 16-to-19 provision. That is welcome. We do not, of course, have a pupil premium for those aged 16 to 19. Had we such a provision, it might be possible to argue that youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families would receive additional support, but they do not.

The issue is simple. Is it right that more than 100,000 young people, nationally, should be denied something—because they made a conscious decision or received proper careers advice and took up courses in sixth-form colleges and in further education—that those who continue into school sixth forms get automatically. Clearly, it is neither acceptable nor justifiable.

I hope that, with a smile on his face, the Minister—[Interruption.] I do not know how often he smiles.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

He is smiling a lot.

[Mr Blunkett]

I understand that the Minister is smiling now, and I hope that that will yield fruit. I know that the case that will be put over the next 85 minutes by hon. Members from all parties will persuade him.

We have two new sixth-form institutions in my constituency. One, known as Hillsborough college, is part of Sheffield college and the other is a free-standing sixth-form college called Longley Park. Both were established from 2004. Up to that time, my constituency regrettably had the third worst figures in the country for staying on in education post-16. Only Bristol South and Nottingham North were worse. A great deal of work was done by the Further Education Funding Council, which became the Learning and Skills Council, including, for example, research by Sheffield Hallam university on the causes and issues.

We were convinced that youngsters would stay on if there was an accessible institution, with support—the education maintenance allowance—and if their parents could be persuaded that youngsters would be supported in other ways. That worked. Both institutions that I have mentioned are now over-subscribed, contrary to what the cynics thought, and young people’s lives have been transformed. Now the colleges are worried about what is happening to the young people in terms of the careers advice that they receive, because careers advice has been in what might be described generously as an interregnum. I hope that, online or otherwise, advice will be more readily available.

Advice is skewed. Understandably, because it is human nature, schools with sixth forms do their best to persuade youngsters to stay in the school. If they can also say, “And you’ll receive free meals,” where entitlement exists and, “But if you take a different course or even the same one in a college, you will not receive free school meals,” that is bound to have at least some impact on a really disadvantaged family. That brings me to my final point, because I want other hon. Members to emphasise the situation.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I am one of eight children and, unfortunately, felt the embarrassment or shame of having to claim free school meals. Not only should those aged 16 to 18 in further education who qualify get school meals, but there should be a way to pay for those meals that does not single them out: a cashless payment of some sort. In Liverpool, Walton, extrapolating what happens in school, some 24% of those going into FE could be entitled. It is important that we de-stigmatise people on free school meals.

[Mr Blunkett]

My hon. Friend is right. With the advent of new technology, it is possible to make the system sensitive, non-discriminatory and easy. Institutions with other facilities that are available to disadvantaged youngsters make them available appropriately and sensitively.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Blunkett]

Anything for Merseyside this morning.

[Mr Field]

I hope that the Minister has the same view as my right hon. Friend.

Some time ago, on a Friday afternoon, I asked a group of 15-year-olds in Birkenhead what they wanted from school. I asked how many of them would have their next proper main meal at their school dinners on Monday. About 40% of that group would wait till Monday for their next main meal. That does not mean that some poor families are not good at budgeting and would not ensure that their children were well fed over the weekend, but it underscores my right hon. Friend’s point that, for many families on low incomes, it is difficult to make ends meet. We give child benefit up to the age of 19, and school dinner costs wipe out that additional sum given to families.

I hope that the Minister will, with a smile on his face—[Interruption.] He is smiling. I cannot believe that it would be impossible for him, looking at the Department’s budget over, say, the past three years, to find a spare £30 million at the end of the year and allocate it to the task that my right hon. Friend has brought to his attention.

[Mr Blunkett]

I agree. I do not want to want to give away secrets, but there were times between 1997 and 2001, when I had responsibility for education, when I was told by officials that there was no chance of finding the necessary funding for small expenditure and schemes. I am sure that the Minister has found that to be so in the past two years. However, it is amazing, when suggesting taking away things that officials are particularly interested in, how the money suddenly emerges. I recommend that he think about that. The now Lord Heseltine mentions some interesting times when reflecting on his wily ways and getting his own way when he was a Secretary of State. I recommend that the Minister chat with him if he has any problems finding the resource.

Sheffield college, including Hillsborough college, takes on 47% of all the youngsters who had free school meals during their school life. Longley Park and Sheffield colleges between them have more than 1,000 youngsters who would have been entitled to free school meals had they been on a sixth-form course. That is clearly unacceptable, in particular given that Sheffield college has had to set up food banks to help students and that staff bring in food parcels for the youngsters, although, obviously, in a sensitive way behind the scenes. However, that is not a situation that we can countenance in 2012, whatever the deficit or the difficulties of the recession. I rest my case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

Absolutely. I represent an inner-London constituency so I see very high levels of deprivation there, but there are also high levels of deprivation in rural areas, which is often unseen either because it is in pockets or because people might perceive that because an area is leafier it must also be wealthier. Many rural schools, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency, will benefit from the pupil premium and will be able to focus their efforts on raising the attainment of all their pupils.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I have written to the Minister’s colleague the Secretary of State about a specific issue relating to transient populations clustered in particular areas, such as north-east Sheffield, where as many as 25% of primary school pupils and about 15% in one secondary school do not claim the usual benefits that entitle their school to receive the pupil premium. I therefore take the unusual step of asking the Minister to come to Sheffield and to my constituency, so as to examine this issue and then reformulate the pupil premium so that such schools can be supported and helped?

[Sarah Teather]

Obviously, I have not seen the right hon. Gentleman’s letter to the Secretary of State, but I would be happy for either me or a colleague to come to see the specific issues in his constituency. I recognise the challenges of having a transient population and ensuring that all those families are claiming their benefits and are registered for free school meals. The Department is beginning a series of work to encourage schools to make sure that all families are signed up to free school meals.

Academies (Funding)

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right. It is not clear where the Opposition stand on, for example, free schools. Since the election, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) has said that he opposes the establishment of free schools. However, since the news broke that one of Tony Blair’s closest aides is setting up his own free school, the right hon. Gentleman has told journalists that he now supports free schools. Which is it: does he support our academies programme and the free schools programme, or would he close down those schools if he came to power?

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

When I published the original policy paper on academies 10 years ago, it was never intended that they should be overpaid and that local authorities should be underpaid for doing the job of supporting pupils. Can the Minister confirm that the 2.25% that has been withdrawn from school funding generally and the overspend on academies have denied other children the key services that they need to raise standards and give them the life chances that all of us should want for every child?

[Mr Gibb]

I think it is rich when former Education Secretaries attack us for this policy. We are talking about a system that this Government inherited from the previous Government, and we are trying to sort it out. We will look at every instance of underfunding or overfunding of academies on a case-by-case basis. We want to reach a position where all schools and academies in this country are funded through a fair, simple and transparent process.

Education Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The total increase as a proportion of the cohort was actually less than 1%, because it was a remarkably low base. The right hon. Gentleman cites a selective statistic, because he chooses only two years from Labour’s record. It is interesting that he chooses only those two years, because, when we look at the broad spectrum of statistics, we see that he cannot gainsay any of them.

If the right hon. Gentleman wants more statistics, why does he not look at the OECD programme for international student assessment—PISA—statistics? He quoted them yesterday, and they tell us what happened on Labour’s watch to every child’s education. We know that the poorest were worst off, but the other set of statistics that he invoked yesterday demonstrates that, actually, all our children were failed by Labour. We moved from fourth to 14th in the world rankings for science, seventh to 17th in literacy and eighth to 24th in mathematics by 2007.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Gove]

Not yet. I shall be delighted to give way in just a second.

By 2010, we had moved from fourth to 16th, from seventh to 25th and from eighth to 28th in those subjects. In mathematics, 15-year-olds in Shanghai are more than two years ahead of 15-year-olds here. The OECD found that, in this country, the number of 15-year-olds who can generalise and creatively use information based on their own investigations and the modelling of complex problem situations is just 1.8%; in Shanghai, it is 25%—more than 10 times better.

[Michael Gove]

In a second.

The only way in which we will generate sustainable economic growth is by reforming our education system so that we can keep pace with our competitors. How can a country that is now 28th in the world for mathematics expect to be the home of the Microsofts, the Googles and the Facebooks of the future? The only way in which we can hope to compete effectively is not just by educating a minority to a high level, but by utilising the innate talent of every child, and that is what the measures in this Education Bill will do.

[Mr Blunkett]

Of course it is true that many countries throughout the world are investing in and driving forward their educational standards in a commendable way. However, the PISA study to which the Secretary of State referred and the changes in tables that he described are affected substantially—are they not?—by the fact that the number of countries taking part doubled, so he was not comparing like with like.

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely was comparing like with like, because the whole point about these tables is that they show us how we are doing relative to our competitors. Much as I admire the right hon. Gentleman, and much as I am grateful to him for embarking on a course of reform which, sadly, was thwarted subsequently, I have to acknowledge, as does he, that the statistics produced by the OECD are ungainsayable. I would love to be able to celebrate a greater level of achievement, but I am afraid that this is the dreadful inheritance that our children face as a result of the Government whom he latterly supported from the Back Benches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I say to the Secretary of State that on reflection nothing is ever quite as good or bad as we think it is: I was not as good a Secretary of State as I thought I was, and I have a feeling that the right hon. Gentleman is not quite as bad as I think he is—at least I hope he is not.

The Bill is a mixture of incrementalism, with which I agree, contradiction, with which I do not, historical misinterpretation, downright old-fashioned conservatism and, with the exception of the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), complete humiliation for the Liberal Democrats, who have been against most of the things in the Bill, but who now have to vote for it.

On incrementalism, as the Secretary of State managed to get across several times in his 52-minute speech, there is clearly much in the Bill with which the Labour party can agree and which in fact we put in place. However, there are major contradictions, one of which is that the more academies and free schools we have, the less the Secretary of State’s prescriptions on the curriculum, which he laid down this afternoon, will actually apply. In fact, I thought at one stage this afternoon that the Secretary of State was going to lay down a menu for all school meals that would have sweet and sour from Hong Kong, a little tortilla from Mexico and rolled herrings from Sweden, and would be dictated by the Secretary of State, so that nobody missed out on the five portions of fruit and veg required every day, because that is how he is coming across.

There has been a complete misunderstanding of the historic mission of providing diversity and flexibility. We would all agree on having the highest quality world-class headship and top-class teaching in the classroom, but the Secretary of State went into great detail this afternoon, picking out a bit of the curriculum here and a bit there from across the world, indicating that schools would have to teach certain things to reach a particular configuration—an indigestible menu that will in fact not be manageable by most schools. I therefore ask the Secretary of State to think again. He should by all means build on the progress that has been made, learn from the mistakes that we made and transfer genuine power to heads and teachers, but he should not pretend that he is doing that when he is doing exactly the opposite.

Another contradiction that I have noticed over the past few days is the way in which the Prime Minister has indicated that we should have a sense of identity inculcated in our schooling system and our society. I do not disagree with that—indeed, I have put that in place on a number of occasions, both in education and at the Home Office—but we cannot have that at the same time as seeking to abolish citizenship from the curriculum. If we really want to ensure that we have a sense of belonging and mutuality together, and that we understand our history, we need more than simply the teaching of historical figures, so that we can understand how our world works and how people find their place in it.

Above all, my worry about this Bill is the sheer politicisation involved. The power placed in the hands of the Secretary of State, with the abolition of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, is a worrying factor. Let us just imagine for a moment what our media, including our beloved BBC, would have done if we had abolished the QCDA and the Training and Development Agency, and placed their powers directly in the hands of a Labour Secretary of State. It would have been on the “Today” programme every morning, with somebody, probably from Real Education—it would probably have been the former inspector, Chris Woodhead—parading themselves, saying what a dastardly thing it all was, yet here we have a Conservative Secretary of State politicising the education curriculum and the education service.

This is not just about central administration; it is about an hegemony that can be seen throughout, with the politicisation of our life more generally. In each area—it is most heavily writ large in the case of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, matched only by the current Secretary of State for Education—the parade is of freedom and localism, while the measures are about centralisation and diktat, and this goes right across the board. I fear that as the Government preach freedom, they take away the rights, as has already been described, of those who should be driving the system, namely the parents of the children concerned. Taking away rights in respect of the adjudicator and sheer fairness, as well as the right to have one’s voice heard and to get redress, will lead either to the courts or to complete disillusionment. Either way, that is a bad outcome for the education system.

As we are dealing with a Bill that includes a real rate of interest for students under the new fees system, which will create difficulties and have a dangerous impact on access, it is worth reflecting on the fact that Cambridge university has today announced that it will be charging the full £9,000 fee, because it believes that the demolition of the contribution from the Government—the taxpayer—towards teaching makes it impossible to do otherwise. The whole Bill could have been about building on progress made, learning the lessons or drawing down on world-class experience; instead, it is about—

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Gentleman refers to building on progress and mentions Cambridge. Does he feel that much progress was made when only 42 pupils who were on free school meals went to Oxford or Cambridge in the last year?

[Mr Blunkett]

I was about to say that the Bill is about those contradictions and a historical misinterpretation. What the hon. Gentleman might actually be arguing for is an increase in access and a transformation in how schools relate to Oxford and Cambridge. I was at Cambridge last week—it was the nearest thing to being at Cambridge that I have ever managed, unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), the shadow Secretary of State. I was pleased to be there and to find not pomposity or exclusion but a desire—from the students at least—to reach out to try to persuade students and staff in schools across the country that their pupils could aspire to the best we have to offer. Incidentally, it is not always Oxford and Cambridge doing that; it is often our best universities and their departments across the country.

I want to give time to those who have not had the privilege that I have had of contributing to education debates over the years, but I appeal to the Secretary of State and his supporters please to not reinvent the wheel. We do not need what the Business Secretary described as the perpetual Maoist revolution; instead, we can come together on sensible ways of improving the life chances of our children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

I do not have time to list them all, as the Secretary of State knows, but here are a few examples: which subject students should study, how teachers should teach and what types of schools communities should have. He will say that he is just nudging them in that direction, but a nudge with a loaded gun is very different from a gentle steer.

What is it about the Secretary of State, assisted by the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), that makes him so obsessed with grabbing more and more power at the centre?

[Mr Blunkett]

Megalomania.

[Kevin Brennan]

I would not quite go that far, but whether it is the power to close schools or the power to discipline teachers individually, which has been so carefully and consensually put beyond politicians in recent years, we have to ask why the big power grab.

I do not know whether any Members with children have ever seen the TV cartoon “Pinky and the Brain”, but the Minister of State and the Secretary of State rather remind me of it. As the title suggests, there are two characters. Pinky is good-natured, but he is dominated by the Brain, who is self-centred and thinks he is a genius. Every episode, after the opening titles, there is the following piece of dialogue: Pinky says, “Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?”, and the Brain says, “The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world.” That could almost be a transcript of the ministerial meeting at the Department for Education. I know the Secretary of State thinks he is clever, possibly the cleverest boy in the Government, but trying to create an education system in his own image, with all the powers in his own hands, is ultimately a recipe for chaos, not world domination.

The Secretary of State is so intent on making sure that he grabs all the power to himself that he is getting rid of some of the bodies that might get in the way of his scheme not once but twice. Bodies such as the General Teaching Council, which was set up to give teachers the same professional autonomy as other valued professions, are abolished not only in this Bill but in the Public Bodies Bill, presumably just in case abolishing them once is not enough to make absolutely certain that they are absolutely dead. It is in case they suddenly rise up, like the false ending of some schlock horror film. We knew that the Secretary of State had a penchant for drama—we see it every week in the Chamber—although, I hasten to add, not enough of a penchant to include it in the English baccalaureate. However, killing a body twice to make sure it is dead is a bit over the top, even for him.

Why this centralising power grab? It is not just power for power’s sake, it is part of his vision of education. In their mind’s eye, the Secretary of State and the Minister of State see serried ranks of schoolchildren sitting at individual desks, preferably wearing short trousers, chanting after their teacher their conjugated Latin verbs and copying down the dates of the kings and queens of England from the board. [Interruption.] Did I hear a “Hear, hear” from the Conservative Benches? I think I might have done.

If the Secretary of State thinks that is how to raise standards, he is wrong. A curriculum designed to train a few people to run the empire is not a system that will inspire and motivate the next generation to use their talent and creativity to the maximum benefit of themselves and the country. He has made it clear that in his mind a grade C GCSE in an ancient language, a laudable achievement in itself, is more valued than an A* in engineering or information and communications technology. He is, to coin a phrase, creating an analogue curriculum for a digital age.

All pupils need the basic building blocks of literacy and numeracy, but beyond that, corralling pupils into a narrow range of subjects post-16 restricts choice and stifles creativity. Schools up and down the country, having been nudged by the Secretary of State with his loaded gun, are busily rewriting their timetables and pressurising pupils into taking GCSEs that are not necessarily the best ones for them to fulfil their individual talents. We must bear in mind the fact that they will already have studied history, geography, science and a modern language through the national curriculum. The English bac took a bit of a kicking from some Members on his own side of the House today, and he should listen to what they had to say.

Why is the Secretary of State doing all this? Just so that at the end of this Parliament, he can point to a measure that he invented and imposed ex post—that is a bit of Latin, in case anybody did not know—and say, “Look how we’ve improved things. More people are studying the subjects that we have retrospectively said they should have been studying all along.” It is actually pretty hard for people to fail a test when they have set the questions themselves. The provisions in the Bill on PISA tables are fine, but the Secretary of State had better stop misquoting statistics that he knows the OECD has disowned, and he had better stop ignoring evidence, such as that from Hong Kong or Scandinavia, when it does not suit his overall vision.

When the Secretary of State finally gets round to saying something about vocational education, which he seems fundamentally to believe is for people who do not do well academically, he should remember that medicine is a vocational training that he ought to support. His problem is that he sees the English baccalaureate as the premiership and any league table of vocational qualifications as the Beazer Homes league—[Interruption.] I agree that there is nothing wrong with the Beazer Homes league.

Finally, presumably the Secretary of State blames the previous Labour Government for the decline in social mobility in Government Ministers, and believes that it is our fault that the Government Front Bench is dominated by old Etonians, because we did not do enough on social mobility in government. On that point, I shall sit down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

I absolutely agree that the early years play a vital role in social mobility, which is precisely why the Government have chosen to prioritise funding in this way. Tomorrow, we will debate the Second Reading of the Education Bill, whose first clause provides the enabling powers for us to regulate so that we can help an extra 130,000 two-year-olds to experience high-quality early education by the end of the spending period.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that there is an inherent contradiction in a policy that announces that the Government will protect the original local Sure Start programmes in the most deprived areas, which I was proud to develop from 1997, while, with the so-called “localism programme”, saying, “It is entirely the fault of the local authorities,” which have been denied the money to maintain those programmes in the first place?

[Sarah Teather]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to be proud of the Sure Start children’s centres, which are an excellent programme. That is precisely why the Government have made sure that the money is there in the early intervention grant, and why we have built on that by providing extra money for health visitors, through the Department of Health, and more money for things such as the family-nurse partnerships, which we know work on the ground and are often delivered through children’s centres. I believe that localism is the right way forward. Good local councils are thinking creatively about, for example, how to ensure that they can cluster their centres and merge their back offices, and how to prioritise outcomes for children—it is outcomes that matter.