Funding and Schools Reform

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has ever been to any of those schools, but if he has seen the transformation in those communities and the messages that the schools send to children in areas that have, frankly, been let down for decades, I am surprised that he rises to his feet to say that that investment is not worth making. Let us talk about his Government and the spending review arrangements that his Secretary of State has recently secured: minus 60%. Let us just think about that figure for a moment.

Just after the spending review, the Financial Times reported senior Whitehall figures chiding the Secretary of State for

“folding too early in negotiations over capital”

spending. The only shock for me on reading that was to learn that he had been negotiating at all. We know that he is courteous, and we like that about him, but minus 60%? I can almost hear him now, politely inviting George and Danny to fill their boots. Is 60% enough? Do they want more? I doubt that the Secretary of State has played much poker in his life—although he has his poker face on now—but, as with sport in schools, it gives a person certain life skills and I recommend it to him.

The average capital reduction across Whitehall was 30%. I would think that everyone in education could live with that. But double the punishment? How exactly does that minus 60% reduction meet the Secretary of State’s “schools protected” claim?

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend surprised at the Government’s announcements, given the fact that the previous Tory Government spent nothing on schools? There are those of us who can remember tumbling-down buildings that leaked and needed the massive repairs that were put in by the Labour Government.

[Andy Burnham]

In the 1980s, I had the misfortune to go to a comprehensive school in my hon. Friend’s constituency—a Merseyside comprehensive. It was not a great deal of fun. School sport had dried up and the buildings were appalling. It fills me with dread that my children will go to secondary school under a Tory Government. We on the Opposition Benches will campaign to ensure that another generation is not failed as others were.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I hope that the Government will take account of my hon. Friend’s point because there is good evidence to show that the policy has been a success and is helping many more young people stay on in education and achieve.

[Mr Watts]

Is my right hon. Friend as depressed as I am about the fact that the Government seem to be saying that financial assistance to families does not matter, the poor state of school buildings does not matter and the overall funding package for education does not matter? What seems to matter is that both the Liberals and the Conservatives are determined to cut education spending and push people back into deprivation.

[Andy Burnham]

That is the inference that people will draw. There is an obsession with structures, not with standards or with helping young people to be the best they can be. I would like to hear the Secretary of State talk a little more about that and a little less about free schools and whatever structural ideas he is dreaming up. Let us focus on standards and on the aspiration of kids from a working-class background. Let us give them some hope rather than introducing organisational reforms that may or may not offer them anything. That is the problem the Secretary of State is facing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

There are three Opposition Members who are eager to intervene. It is difficult to know to which of these young lads I will now give the opportunity to shine.

[Mr Watts]

May I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman go to Specsavers?

The Secretary of State has said that he has met a group of head teachers from academies. Will he meet the other hundreds of head teachers who are desperately waiting to see whether their schools will be modernised and the holes in their roofs fixed? Will he be as keen to meet them as he has been to meet the academy heads?

[Michael Gove]

I am always keen to meet head teachers, and the more head teachers I meet, the more I find that they say the same things: that under this Government, they are at last being treated properly. At last, in the words of Mike Spinks, a head teacher from Stretford and Urmston, the baseball batting of bureaucracy has ended. At last, in the words of Patricia Sowter, a head teacher from the Labour constituency of Edmonton, head teachers are being given the opportunity to do what they have always done, which is to stress the importance of helping the very poorest. At last, in the words of Sir Michael Wilshaw, a head teacher who teaches in the Labour constituency represented by the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), we have a Government who are on the side of extending academy freedoms. I talk to head teachers all the time. When I do, the one thing I say to them is: “You’ve got a Government who’re on your side,” and the one thing that I hear from them is: “At last.”