Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Martin Vickers and Justine Greening

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The reality is that we are providing an additional £55 million for maintained nursery schools for at least two years while we consult the sector. We are looking at children’s centres at the same time.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Thanks to the casting vote of the Liberal Democrat mayor, North East Lincolnshire Council has approved a motion in support of grammar schools. Given that the coastal communities have poor educational standards, may I invite the Secretary of State to allocate some of her Department’s time to looking at the situation in North East Lincolnshire?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend rightly raises his concerns about ensuring that the young people and children in his area get the best possible start in life. We have published our Green Paper and are consulting on how we can achieve this. There are still too many parts of our country where good school places are not available to children, and that is unacceptable. We should look at all the measures that we can take to change that.

Schools that work for Everyone

Debate between Martin Vickers and Justine Greening

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Again, I do not accept that this is somehow an either/or approach on education. It is about driving more choice for parents, having more schools that can be tailored to particular children’s needs, and, in the end, raising educational standards.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. In the week or so since this debate began, it has received a very favourable response from my constituents. If we are to maximise the opportunities for our young people, we need not just more grammar schools but more young people reaching the standard at the age of 11 to qualify for them. Can she give an absolute assurance that adequate resources will be provided at all schools? She spoke of opening excellent feeder schools, but we want to make the existing schools excellent feeder schools.

[Justine Greening]

One of the suggestions is that expanding grammars could sponsor a primary feeder, particularly in an area of lower-income families, if that was a possibility. As my hon. Friend says, we have to look at all the work we have done in primary schools in terms of phonics and improving maths, driving up attainment to make sure that children are not only ready but at the right level to be able to move into a secondary system and then finish their education from there.

New Grammar Schools

Debate between Martin Vickers and Justine Greening

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Dare I say it, that was yet another Labour MP telling us what is wrong with the current system, in his view, while also arguing that we should not look at that. The legacy that we are interested in challenging is the one left by the previous Labour Government: grade inflation; declining standards; and children leaving our education system without even the basics in maths and literacy. While I was sat on a train last weekend, I listened to a young man talking about how the fact that he did not know how to spell was holding him back at work. We managed to take power from the Labour party, but that man has to live with the consequences of an education system that fundamentally failed him every single day of his life.

We inherited a university system that had a cap on the number of children who could enter it. Record numbers of young people were not in employment, education or training. Youth employment had gone up by 50% by the time Labour left office. We are interested in not only catching up that lost ground for our young people, but making sure beyond that that we leave no stone unturned. We want to look across our entire education system to turbocharge the prospects and opportunities for all children in our country, but especially the most disadvantaged and especially those who do not currently have the opportunities that they need, deserve and should have.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s decision at least to open this debate. A statutory ban on the establishment of grammar schools should be no part of a Conservative Government’s policy. Evidence from my area, where grammar schools are available just down the road in the neighbouring council area, indicates that there is widespread support for the establishment of a grammar school. Coastal communities are particularly vulnerable to poor educational standards, so I hope that the Secretary of State will give due consideration to that if the policy goes forward. May I also urge her to consider the extension of bilateral schools?

[Justine Greening]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will be interested to see our policies when they are published shortly. He talks about some of the elements of our secondary system. I know that he wants to make sure that his local community has access to better schools for more local children, and that is precisely what we are aiming to achieve overall.