Schools that Work for Everyone Consultation

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, in terms of the Statement there are two important issues. The first is on the issue of selection. As a party we are totally opposed to the expansion of grammar schools, and I guess quite a large number of the members of the Government are too. The Minister knows perfectly well that had this been done in a different way, as was originally planned, he would not have been successful in getting it through the Commons, so this is a back-door way of trying to achieve that.

Why are we opposed to grammar schools? Every single study—whether by the Sutton Trust, Durham University, Education Datalab, the Education Policy Institute or the Institute for Fiscal Studies—says that it fails to find any evidence that grammar schools increase social mobility. In fact, it seems that children in a selective area who do not pass the 11-plus do worse than they would have done in a comprehensive area. We also know the effect the grammar schools often have on a community: they often take the best teachers, who want to teach in the grammar school, and of course they cream off pupils as well.

The Minister talked about developing a capital programme for grammar schools. Let us remind ourselves that only 5% of pupils go to grammar schools, and these plans will do nothing for the 95% of children who go to a local secondary school. In fact most grammar schools are in better-off areas; pupils in the north-east, most of East Anglia, the south coast and the west coast will not benefit from one penny of this money. We should also remember that when the Government increased the schools budget after the election, they did so by taking money away from local schools’ capital budget. They took money away from the capital programme of those schools, including PE facilities and other central projects. So what we are seeing here is money being taken and used for a small group of people, not even a geographical spread across the country.

If every single place at these expanding grammar schools went to children who were on the pupil premium, we would be talking about a very small number. However, if these grammar schools do not take children from disadvantaged backgrounds, what will the Government do about it?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raises some important points. On the benefits of grammar schools, we know that pupils attending selective schools make better progress. On average, they achieve around half a grade better in eight GCSEs across core subjects compared to pupils with similar prior attainment in other schools. When disadvantaged children attend selective schools, the attainment gap is significantly reduced. So it is worth remembering that.

I want to tackle the issue of the low proportion of disadvantaged, free-school-meals children attending grammar schools at the moment. Launched in conjunction with the announcement on Friday were two important initiatives. First, to be eligible to apply for what we are calling the selective schools expansion fund, the grammar must submit a fair access and partnership plan. It has to set out very carefully what it is going to do about increasing the vulnerable group that the noble Lord refers to. Secondly, we also announced a memorandum of understanding with the Grammar School Heads Association, which represents 90% of all grammar schools, for it to take steps to widen access to all the other grammar schools. So they know where the wind is blowing on this. We are very focused on it.

[Lord Storey]

And if that does not happen?

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords—