Improving Education Standards

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

I welcome this debate as it gives me the opportunity to comment on school standards and how, in the London Borough of Barnet, they are being affected by the number of school places and the ability of headteachers to attract qualified teachers. I am particularly pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) is in her place. My hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) has had to leave for a Whips’ meeting, but he said he would attend this debate so he could hear what was said, particularly about Barnet.

It is fundamentally a given that we need teachers to undertake the teaching in our schools, and we need places and spaces in which to teach our children. I think it is a given that we can all agree on that point. I want to focus on those two areas, which both impact directly on school standards. My constituency of Hendon lies within the London Borough of Barnet. As the education provider, Barnet Council has established its strategic vision of education:

“Resilient schools, resilient communities: we want Barnet to be the most successful place for high quality education where excellent school standards result in all children achieving their best, being safe and happy and able to progress to become successful adults.”

Usually, I do not buy into woolly mission statements, but in this case the council has got it absolutely right. It has established what that vision looks like: a shared mission to ensure that every child attends a good or outstanding school. Once again, I think everyone here can agree with that. That is a sensible and laudable ambition.

Barnet is different from some local authorities in that the attainment and progress of children in Barnet schools is within the top 10% nationally, and that the progress of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils is accelerated in order to close the gap between them and their peers. Some may say that Barnet and Hendon are a rich part of London, but I would say that, economically, it is very diverse. I have areas where people certainly live in £1 million houses. In other areas, however, the median income is very low. We therefore educate a wide range of children from different social classes. For Barnet to do that is already a great achievement.

Along with the need to focus on the attainment and progress of all pupils and deliver the strategy, there has to be sufficient provision in the borough for all children and young people. The provision needs to be of the highest quality both in terms of school buildings and teachers. The Minister was kind enough to see me on the latter point several months ago and is therefore aware that this is a significant problem in my constituency and in the constituencies of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet and my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green. Indeed, it is a problem across much of London, where teacher recruitment and retention is a major challenge due to high housing and living costs.

Many schools, such as Colindale primary in my constituency, which has been rated as good by Ofsted under the leadership of Lucy Rogers, rely on teachers from Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada. They invest time and money in these teachers only to lose them because they cannot reach the points required for a tier 2 visa. I also brought this point to the Minister’s attention. Schools are then either left struggling with less than a full complement of teachers or buying in services from agencies, which is very expensive. However good the teachers may be, teaching and learning inevitably become disjointed and inconsistent, and the ultimate result is a fall in standards.

The Minister said in his opening remarks that more money has been invested in schools to promote standards. This is correct, but the amount per pupil has actually declined, because of the increased number of pupils on roll. Schools in my constituency, and indeed all those in the London Borough of Barnet, face an additional issue, which is the formula that allows additional resources for so-called inner-London boroughs. This anachronistic financial mechanism ensures that Barking and Dagenham, Brent, Camden, City of London, Ealing, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster all receive a greater amount of resources, which allows their schools to make additional payments to their teachers. This ensures that teaching is more financially attractive in inner-London schools. Consequently, schools in Hendon are in direct competition with schools in neighbouring boroughs such as Camden and Brent, which are better funded and so able to pay higher salaries.

The NASUWT website advises that a newly qualified teacher at an inner-London school should receive a starting salary of £28,660, compared with £26,662 for a school in Hendon, which is a difference of £1,998. If a newly qualified teacher is offered a position at two schools, one in an inner-London borough and one in an outer-London borough, it is pretty obvious which one they will choose. I presume that the inner and outer-London designation is a legacy of the old Inner London Education Authority, but I gently suggest to the Minister that, 28 years after its wise abolition, it is time to abolish these designations. People living in one part of London pay the same costs as those in another, while all face the disproportionate cost of living in London compared with the rest of the country. Schools across London, including mine in Colindale, can have 15 or more languages spoken by pupils, so it is no longer an issue for inner-London schools only, and many of the issues that bedevilled the ILEA have now spread to outer-London boroughs.

Under this Government, the number of teachers has not kept pace with increasing pupil numbers. The number of pupils per qualified teacher has increased from 17.8 five years ago to 18.7 last year. Most worryingly, the recruitment of initial teacher trainees has been below target in each year since 2012, with wide variations across subjects. In addition, the numbers of full-time teacher vacancies and temporarily filled posts have both risen since 2011. Overall, pupil numbers are expected to continue rising, with the number of secondary school pupils projected to increase by 15% between 2018 and 2025.

That brings me to my second point: school places. Two years ago, the BBC reported on a projection of school places based on a population bulge. It showed that the primary population was 4.5 million and predicted it would rise to 4.68 million by 2020, when it would stabilise. It suggested, however, that the next big increase would be in secondary schools, where the population was projected to rise from 2.76 million pupils to 3.04 million in 2020 and then 3.33 million in 2025. This is a particular problem in the London Borough of Barnet. The previous Labour Government prioritised secondary schools through the Building Schools for the Future programme but left us in Barnet to ensure the provision of schools places under our own primary schools capital investment programme.

It was left to my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green and I, as leader and deputy leader of the council respectively, to resolve the issue. We did this through PSCIP, an innovative programme whereby we released land for residential development while investing the resources raised into the schools programme. I was fortunate to end up being the cabinet member overseeing the projects, and I was proud to oversee the construction of several schools, including Fairway, Orion, Parkfield and Broadfields in Hendon, as well as receiving Beit Shvidler into the voluntary aided sector.

It is important to note that the programme has ensured that since 2009 more than 9,000 additional permanent school places have been established in the London Borough of Barnet. That is as a result of central and local government investment. Barnet is now one of London’s most populous boroughs and has ambitious plans to grow further through the regeneration of areas such as Brent Cross, Colindale and West Hendon. It is also appropriate to note that of these 9,000 places 4,751 have been introduced in the Hendon constituency. I am very proud of that and pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend and the current council leader, Richard Cornelius, for their work.

In order to maintain standards, we must ensure that every child attends a good or outstanding school, and so must continue this work in my constituency. It may be parochial, but I am keen to acknowledge for the record the hard work done in the last decade. In four wards—Colindale, West Hendon, Burnt Oak and Hendon—investment in the schools of Colindale, Orion, Blessed Dominic, St Mary’s and St John’s, Menorah Foundation, St Joseph’s and the Watling Park Free School is meeting current demand. That said, a shortfall is likely to emerge again this year as new housing is completed in the Colindale area. In the Hale, Mill Hill and Edgware wards, additional places have been provided at Broadfields, Beit Shvidler, Etz Chaim, Millbrook Park and the London Academy, and we hope that there is enough capacity in those schools to achieve the necessary provision for local children.

The success in the primary schools sector is now filtering through into the secondary schools. St Mary’s and St John’s in Hendon expanded provision last year, but St James’s Catholic High School and Mill Hill have had to offer a bulge class, which is not in the best interests of the schools in the longer term. It is predicted by the local authority that from next year until 2023, with no new school provision, we will be looking at a shortfall of 429 places next year, 406 the following year, 540 the year after, and 680 in 2023.

Fortunately, St James’s Catholic High School has expanded by two forms of entry and Saracens High School is due to open in Colindale, so they will alleviate some of the problems, but I make a plea to the Minister. The Government have approved Compton Free School’s application to open a new sixth-form entry in Barnet, but the Department for Education has not identified a site. On the request and advice of Mill Hill councillor Val Duschinsky, I propose that the site being vacated at the Jehovah Witness Kingdom Hall on the Ridgeway in Mill Hill be considered as suitable.

In my maiden speech, I spoke about aspiration and said that if aspirations were not raised, the local people would be on a downward trajectory. It has already been said how education provides social mobility. I certainly agree. We must ensure the best possible school provision in places such as Barnet if we are to achieve the social mobility we want to see across the country, and although the Government have made good progress, having raised the figure from 66% to 84%, we need to ensure that that work continues and that no child is left behind.

I genuinely appreciate the work of teachers and all those employed in the education sector. One of the best things about being MP for Hendon is visiting its schools, not only engaging in things such as the Schools Meal Week and Democracy Week, as I did recently, but hearing what children want to do with their lives. As a child, I never had a single good teacher—I cannot recall a single good teacher—but rather than feeling resentful, I want to ensure that the pupils and young people in my area have good teachers and schools, and good life chances.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to improve social mobility.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

20. What steps his Department is taking to improve social mobility.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)]

Social mobility is a top priority right across the Department, from the early years at school to supporting disadvantaged students into university and improving technical education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Offord]

A recent OECD report stated that the children of poor families are likely to take five generations to start to earn an average income, compared with two generations for families in Denmark and three in Sweden. Why has it taken the United Kingdom so long to bridge this gap?

[Damian Hinds]

These are big topics and, indeed, stubborn statistics that take quite some time to move. As anybody who has compared the 1970 cohort with the 1958 cohort will attest, it is a problem that goes back through multiple Governments, but we need to keep working on it. The most recent OECD statistics show a more encouraging picture than there was previously thought to be. [Interruption.]

Visible Religious Symbols: European Court Ruling

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Extraordinary self-effacement; the hon. Gentleman is setting a very dangerous precedent.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Although the judgment applies to men and women, does the Minister agree that it sends an appalling message, particularly to Muslim women in places such as my constituency? Will she reassure me that she will take tangible action to reassure specific faith communities that the United Kingdom certainly will not go down this route?

School Funding: Greater London

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I will reinforce that point in a minute. The modelling undertaken by London Councils indicates that at constituency level the national funding formula element of the changes alone will mean that 28 schools lose in Barking; 35 in Bermondsey; 42 in Bethnal Green; 41 in Poplar and Limehouse; 37 in Tottenham; and 48 in West Ham, to list just a few. Leyton will lose £4.5 million —equivalent to 6.8% of its funding; Deptford £6.1 million or 7.6%; Hammersmith £5 million or 7.6%; Brent North £9 million or 7.3%; and Hendon £5.5 million.

My council, I am happy to say, is not one of the worst affected. We are still waiting for some of the modelling data, but I think that that is to do with the churn factor that the Government have introduced. Even allowing for that, many individual schools still stand to lose. Westminster Academy, for example—last time I looked, it was the seventh highest on the free school meal indicator, making it one of the most deprived schools in the country—will potentially have its funding cut by a quarter of a million pounds. According to analysis undertaken by the council, all but two secondary schools are potential losers, including Westminster Academy, Paddington Academy, St George’s, St Augustine’s, Pimlico Academy, St Marylebone and Westminster City. Primaries that face losses include George Eliot, St Joseph’s, St Luke’s, Robinsfield and Barrow Hill. Many Westminster children attend schools across the borders in Kensington, Camden and Brent, which are hit even harder. A number of local parents will be affected by the impact of the cuts on schools outside the boundary.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate, which comes at an important time. She is talking about the indices of deprivation, which are important. In the London Borough of Barnet, we do not suffer to the same extent as other people, but we have a significant number of one-form entry schools. Yesterday, I visited Etz Chaim Primary School, where the staff explained to me that economies of scale mean that they will find themselves in a very difficult financial situation. Does she agree that the Government should be looking at that as part of their funding formula? It is not just the shires that suffer from that problem; so do some local authorities in inner London.

[Ms Buck]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The pattern of school development in London—not just inner London—means that we have a historically large number of smaller schools and one-form entry schools, which are taking a particular hit from this formula.

Our troubles do not of course end with the impact of the redistribution through the funding formula. We know that the changes will coincide with the wider spending shortfall identified by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and by last month’s National Audit Office report on the financial sustainability of schools. The report identified a £3 billion squeeze, reflecting the fact that education is protected in real terms, but not against inflation, the pressures arising from salary increases and national insurance contributions—my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) mentioned that—or pension contributions, the impact of the rates revaluation, the apprenticeship levy and other costs.

Taken together, the funding formula implications and the unfunded cost pressures hitting schools are turning what would already be a challenging situation into a nightmare. Schools spending next year will be reduced by £6.6 million in Westminster, £23.3 million in Newham, £13.5 million in Enfield and £11.1 million in Ealing. For some individual schools, such a scale of cuts is equivalent to £1,000 per pupil per year.

As both my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) have said in respect of their own local schools, heads and schools are also contacting me to describe their fears about the consequences of this reduction in funding. Many are anxious not to be individually identified at this stage, as in many cases they are not absolutely certain which of the many unpalatable decisions they may have to make to balance the books they will have to make, but they are keen to stress their concerns.

Heads point out that many of them are struggling to recruit at current pay grades, and trying to retain more experienced staff is of course more expensive. For others, the cuts mean the loss of teaching staff, and particularly of support staff, and some very worrying cases of special educational needs support being under threat are emerging. The early intervention services relating to mental health, speech and language, and SEN support are in some cases being targeted as areas where cuts are more possible to make than they are in the number of teaching staff. In many of those cases, schools are already grappling with the consequences of the loss of funding through child and adolescent mental health services.

One of my long-standing concerns, which I know is shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, is the issue of gangs and serious youth violence. That issue has a crossover with child protection, and it is having an impact even down to primary schools, not just secondary schools. Early intervention and support in schools is absolutely vital if we are to turn what is, unfortunately, once again a rising tide in London. At the extreme end, two teenagers have already lost their lives in the past fortnight. I know that this is a particular concern for the Mayor, who is being briefed on the impact of school budget cuts with particular reference to early intervention.

Our outstanding nursery schools are also coping with pressures because of unrelated and already extant changes to their funding. One told me yesterday that the payment for the 30 hours provision for early years that they expected to begin in September is exactly half of what they were getting per child two years ago.

Why are we putting the quality of our children’s education at risk when, facing so much uncertainty, we need skills and creativity more than ever? Why would we risk undermining London’s crucial role as an economic driver for the whole country? The Government must think again, not choose this moment to inflict damage where it will hurt most—in the foundations of our future.

I want to end my speech by asking the Minister a few specific questions. I hope he will be able to answer them now, but, if not, that he will be kind enough to write to me after the debate. Although I appreciate that some parts of the country have historical spending patterns that are perceived as unjustly low, is it fair that the deepest cuts are being proposed for schools in the poorest local authorities in the country, most of which have to cope with the impact of very high staffing and other operating costs? What specific recommendations are the Government making to heads in respect of efficiency savings, which are cited as a way in which schools could accommodate both the funding formula changes and the £3 billion spending squeeze identified by the NAO? Will the Minister tell us what efficiency savings are being recommended to schools to achieve these savings?

What guidance will be given to ensure schools do not seek to meet shortfalls by seeking additional contributions from parents, as is increasingly being flagged up by schools across the capital? What action will the Minister take to ensure that special needs and pupil support are protected within school budgets, and what protection is available to schools hit by the combined impact of reductions under the funding formula and cost pressures? I know that a cap is being applied to school funding changes through the funding formula, but not to the additional cost pressures, which actually have a larger total impact. I hope that the Minister will be able to address some of those comments, and I look forward to what he has to say.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

What we are doing is investing more in apprenticeships than any previous Government, and apprenticeships create lab technicians and nursery nurses—[Interruption.] They do. They are very successful, and they are much more valuable than full-time college courses. An apprenticeship for a nursery nurse or a lab technician is a much better way to go for a young person than any other.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Although the Department has created many opportunities for business, one of the biggest concerns in my constituency is late payments to small business. What steps have the Government taken to address that problem?

[Matthew Hancock]

We are taking unprecedented steps to tackle late payment, including in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, which we hope will become an Act today. A change in culture is needed to make 30 days payment terms the norm and 60 days the maximum. We are changing the prompt payment code to reflect that and to say, “If you don’t sign up to that and practise what you preach, you’ll get kicked off the code, so we can change this culture for good.”

Education Regulations and Faith Schools

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The evidence for that is absolutely overwhelming.

I now want to turn to Ofsted and the terms of this motion. It may be that the time has come for Ofsted to put itself in special measures, in certain respects. It appears to be guilty of trying to enforce a kind of state-imposed orthodoxy on certain moral and religious questions. This has provoked huge controversy and has rarely been out of the news. We have to ask whether we can any longer have confidence in Ofsted’s reports. Ofsted’s own director of schools, Sean Harford, has admitted that the reliability of inspections is a problem. Sadly, Ministers deflect every question by saying, “It’s a matter for Ofsted.” Perhaps Ofsted is out of control because it is not being held accountable by the Department. That is why we are having this debate.

In September, the National Association of Jewish Orthodox Schools wrote to the Secretary of State complaining that Ofsted inspectors asked hugely inappropriate questions and bullied their pupils into answering insensitive and anti-religious questions.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Jonathan Rabson, who is chairman of NAJOS in my constituency, has said:

“Jewish schools now have the sense that our Jewish values and ethos are being questioned. We have experienced a campaign to discredit Jewish schools and to challenge the values we espouse…We ask you to take this matter extremely seriously.”

Does my hon. Friend agree that Jewish people feel under attack as a result of Ofsted?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Absolutely. It is no secret that I admire enormously the Jewish religion and the ethos that it creates. What a pity that one of the school’s year 11 girls said that the questioning made them feel “threatened and bullied” about their own religion. Another young girl said that she felt “traumatised” after they had been asked whether they had a boyfriend, knew how babies were made, and knew whether two men could marry. Rabbi David Meyer, the incoming director of the educational oversight body, Partnerships for Jewish Schools, has said:

“We are seeing a worrying trend of Ofsted inspectors showing a lack of respect of the values and traditions of our community.”

I fully support the right of Jewish schools to promote their own ethos and religion.

Let us turn to some other schools. In 2013, St Benedict’s Catholic school in Bury St Edmunds tied for first place in national state school tables for the proportion of pupils going to Oxbridge. What a marvellous school! In September 2014, it was subject to a no-notice inspection. No-notice inspections were part of the response to the Trojan horse scandal. Clearly Ofsted thought that there could be a fundamentalist Catholic conspiracy within St Benedict’s Catholic school. No-notice inspections are quite devastating for the school. Ofsted turns up, rings up, and says, “We’re in the car park. We’re coming in now.” It usually happens because it suspects that something quite serious is going on. The head teacher of St Benedict’s thought that perhaps a no-notice inspection was started because he had not printed a statement on citizenship, although he does not know. The resulting draft report downgraded the school to “requires improvement”. It said that in three of the five inspection areas, the

“younger students show less awareness of the dangers of extremism and radicalisation”.

Electoral Registration

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises the importance of a complete and accurate electoral register to the health of our democracy; welcomes the fact that 1.8 million voters have registered using online registration, but notes that, according to the Electoral Commission, 7.5 million eligible voters are missing from the register; notes with concern that an estimated one million voters have left the register in the past year and that the shift to individual electoral registration could see millions more fall off the register; calls on the Government and the Electoral Commission to do more to tackle under-registration, including block-registering students in university or college accommodation and people living in adult sheltered accommodation and care homes, introducing a schools registration scheme, on the model of the Northern Ireland Schools Initiative, to boost registration in time for the General Election on 7 May 2015, and maximising the use of national and local data sets in securing a complete register; and further calls on the Government to set a clear goal to reduce the numbers of missing voters and to delay fully implementing individual electoral registration until this goal is met.

As the Government’s timetable has meant limited time for debating this important matter, I shall focus my remarks on the motion and how we can ensure that the general election in 92 days’ time is as fair as possible. We want the electoral register to be as complete and accurate as possible—something that I hope we all want. After all, it is the lifeblood of our democracy. If a person is not on the list, they cannot vote—it is as simple as that.

However, the electoral register also performs a much wider civic function. It provides the building blocks that the Boundary Commission uses to decide parliamentary constituency boundaries. One of the fundamental principles of our legal system—trial by one’s peers—depends on the register, as it provides the list of those who can be called for jury service. Those who are not on the register will find it more difficult, and maybe even impossible, to secure credit or a mortgage.

That is why it is so appalling that according to the Electoral Commission’s own research some 7.5 million people are missing from the register. We know what kinds of voters are more likely to be missing: young voters, students, those who have recently changed address, those who rent privately, the unemployed, those from ethnic minorities and those in socio-economic groups D and E—in other words, poorer members of society.

Some 95% of the over-65s are on the electoral register, yet estimates of the proportion of 18 to 24-year-olds on it vary from 56% to 70%. If that were not a big enough problem, we know that there is also considerable variation in the rates of those who actually vote. Just 44% of 18 to 24-year-olds voted in the 2010 general election, and the figure for the over-65s was pushing 75%.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

On 13 October 2011 the right hon. Gentleman said that 10 million people would lose the right to vote, but he has just said that the figure is only 7.5 million, so how has the situation improved since then?

[Sadiq Khan]

I am not sure what point the hon. Gentleman is trying to make—that 7.5 million is somehow more acceptable? He will appreciate, because he cares about these matters, that it depends on what figures are referred to. The Electoral Commission has done some estimates, as have other academics. It might be a laughing matter for Conservative MPs, but we think that it is a very serious issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

That is contrary to the facts. One thing the Government did was to learn the lessons from Northern Ireland. Without going into all the detail, we preserved the annual canvass, for example. Electoral registration plummeted in Northern Ireland because it did not have the annual canvass. Since IER went live, however, nine out of 10 electors have been automatically transferred to the electoral register. No one on the electoral roll at the last canvass will lose their right to vote at the next general election.

[Dr Offord]

Much emphasis is placed on people missing from the register. The Minister said that people entitled to be on the register are on it for two years. When I asked my office to go through some of the people seeking asylum and indefinite leave to remain in this country, we found that 16 people not entitled to vote under the old system were on the register and that 10 of them continued to be so. I have duplications and people who should not be on the register. What provision will be made to remove them?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend points to why we introduced IER. He should take the matter up with his local ERO, who is responsible for ensuring the integrity of his local register.

Online registration has made it simpler and easier to register to vote, and I am pleased to announce that 900,000 18 to 25-year-olds have registered to vote online. As I said, we have learned the lessons from Northern Ireland.

I can assure the House that every resource request, from electoral returning officers, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and the Electoral Commission has been met. I pay tribute to all the electoral administration officers and dedicated professionals in the Cabinet Office who are working to make the transition to IER a smooth one, but we are not complacent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

We live in a democracy and it is the sacred duty of every Member of this House of every party to ensure that as many people register to vote and as many people can vote as is humanly possible. To throw out this red herring of fraud when there has only been a handful of cases—[Interruption.] As my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) reminds me, only one case has ended in a successful prosecution. Denying millions of people the right to vote is the biggest fraud we are perpetrating in our democracy and we should not be collaborating on that.

[Dr Offord]

The reason there have been so few prosecutions could be, as we found out in the case of Nigel Kennedy, that there is a limited period in which a prosecution can be brought. That period may expire before the time it takes to get the evidence, and that determines that there will not be a prosecution.

[Mr Allen]

One case has been proven and taken forward. I want to give a couple of other statistics, and, sadly, there are a lot more zeros in them. Some 7.5 million people were not registered to vote at the last election. That works out at about 10,000 people in each of our constituencies. In fact, in deprived areas, such as my constituency, I am damned sure that it will be more than that—so more than 10,000 of my electorate are not even registered to vote, let alone not taking up the right to vote. Of those who did register at the last election, 16.5 million people decided not to bother to vote. If we add the non-registered to the ones who did not bother to vote, it comes to more than the number of those who voted Conservative and Labour combined.

This is a scandal. I am not blaming the Government for this; I am just saying that we as a Parliament need to take this in hand. We as a Parliament need to get people to register. We need to encourage people to vote not just because the techniques are right, but because they feel engaged in their system and believe that decisions are made not just at the Whitehall level, and because they feel they own their democracy and own decision making, particularly in own locality.

The point about EVEL—English votes for English laws—has been thrown into the debate again, but that is a procedural technicality for this House, rather than a question of how we devolve power, as they do in virtually every other western democracy, to people at the grass roots, to seize the opportunity to develop their own ways in their own areas.

--- Later in debate ---

18:59

Division 149

Ayes: 216

---

Labour: 205
Scottish National Party: 5
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1
Green Party: 1

Noes: 289

---

Conservative: 244
Liberal Democrat: 43
Independent: 1

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This afternoon, the Serjeant at Arms confirmed to me that the former Member for Eastleigh, Mr Chris Huhne, had applied for and been granted a parliamentary pass. Given the low esteem with which many Members of this House are held by our constituents in regard to poor behaviour, is there any method that we can use to rescind that application to ensure that someone who is a convicted criminal cannot freely walk around the Palace of Westminster?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He has put his concerns on the record. That said I will, if I may, make two points. First, these are matters dealt with by an established process under the auspices of the Serjeant at Arms, and although I do not cavil at the hon. Gentleman having an opinion on the matter, we do not discuss security related matters on the Floor of the Chamber. Secondly, I put it on the record that, although the hon. Gentleman has a view that he has expressed with great alacrity, there is also the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which is on the statute book. I note what he says and I understand his concern and no one will deny him the right to his point of view, but we will leave it there for tonight.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that case. As we both know, very serious allegations have been made in connection with the Barnfield Federation. They are currently being investigated, and nothing I say, do or publish should prejudice those investigations. However, as has always been the case, whenever there is information that it is right we should share with those affected and with the public, we will share it in due course.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

T4. What action is the Minister taking to support parents and children in deprived areas, particular those in temporary accommodation and without access to IT facilities, to access and retain permanent school places, and is he willing to look at the system in place at Barnfield primary school in my constituency, with a view to seeing how the Government might encourage effective support in other schools?

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I would be delighted to look at the situation in my hon. Friend’s constituency to see what we can learn from it. During this Parliament we have more than doubled the capital budget for basic need compared with the budget under the previous Labour Government, and that is helping us to deal with such pressures across the country.

Free Schools

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Ian Mearns]

That question needs to be decided. At the moment, local authorities do not have oversight and it is clear—I will come on to this—that the other organisations given the duty of oversight do not yet have the resources to do it effectively.

It is particularly worrying that the Government, in the shape of the Education Funding Agency and Ofsted, seem to find out about failures of governance only when whistleblowers inside the schools feel it necessary to act. Free schools have a great deal of freedom in how to constitute and run their own governing bodies, and there is little evidence that either the EFA or Ofsted is able to identify and act on emerging problems.

In spite of Her Majesty’s chief inspector’s criticism of local authorities for not picking up problems in academies, one basic tenet of the free school movement is that they are totally detached from the local authority. Schools such as the Al-Madinah free school in Derby, Kings science school in Bradford, and Barnfield Federation in Luton—we are not entirely sure how many others there might be, and it seems that the Department for Education and Ofsted are not sure either—show that the wheels are well and truly coming off the free-school wagon and that free schools are vulnerable to a catalogue of problems.

Chief among those problems is the lack of good governance. That failure of governance is compounded by weaknesses in inspection and oversight of free schools. The three schools that I mentioned are examples of that. I should like to make it clear that, when we talk about schools, we are talking about children who, as the Secretary of State reminds us, get only one chance at a good education.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has secured this debate. In the past few weeks the tone used in respect of free schools has changed. I welcome the new approach by the Opposition Front Bench. However, I plead with the hon. Gentleman not to accept that all free schools have poor governance and poor arrangements in place. For example, in my constituency, Etz Chaim school has high standards, good governance and good people running it. I ask the hon. Gentleman not to characterise all schools and categorise them as he has done.

[Ian Mearns]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He has given a good example— an anecdote—of a school in his vicinity, but there are 174 such schools and as yet the mechanisms do not exist to ensure that every free school is of the high quality that he mentioned.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) on a good presentation of a fairly solid case. I want to make a few remarks and then to bring a particularly graphic case to the Minister’s attention.

I am unenthusiastic about school structure changes in general, but I do not have the same hang-ups about free schools as I do about academies. Academies seem to involve alienating an asset without the consent of the community or the parental body. However, it is fair to acknowledge that free schools also have critics—the hon. Gentleman is obviously among them—and Ministers normally have answers to some of the criticisms they raise.

The big issue that the hon. Gentleman raised, which I will dwell on ultimately, is governance, but there are other criticisms. There is the effect on school places—the fact that there can be over-supply when a free school is created in an area with surplus places. However, I think the ministerial team take that into account, or they say they do, when they give schools the go-ahead.

There is the fact that a lot of free schools are denominational, but, hey, a lot of state schools are also denominational, and we have a quid pro quo in connection with that. There is the claim that free schools involve selection via the back door, but it is not over-selection. The hon. Gentleman also put the case that the funding is somehow rigged, but I am fairly confident that the Minister will have a good answer on that score as well.

There is the fundamental point that free schools can sometimes end up not teaching the shared values or the world view of the funder or the Government. That can be an issue—we think of the Al-Madinah school, where the issue was values, or creationist schools, where the issue is the world view. I am more concerned about free schools that do not teach the shared values of our society. I am not so much concerned with the content of what individual schools teach, where that is at variance from the norm, as long as the teaching itself is proper teaching and not simply indoctrination.

I have to be relatively relaxed about non-qualified teacher status, because I did 30 years’ teaching, and I was not trained to teach at any point. I got into a secondary modern school, and I taught for two years. When I had survived for two years, I got a nice letter from the Department of Education and Science telling me that I was a qualified teacher. During my teaching career, I taught five different subjects, and only in the last 10 years was the subject I taught the same as the subject of my degree. I have to say that my teaching career was not dotted with failure throughout.

[Dr Offord]

The hon. Gentleman illustrates that people do not have to have a teaching degree to make a valuable contribution to education. Indeed, the head teacher of the shadow education spokesman, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) did not have any teaching qualifications, and I do not think that did him any harm either.

[John Pugh]

I must correct the hon. Gentleman; I have a master’s in education and a diploma somewhere, but they have no relevance to my teaching capacities. I never found that they were terribly instructive.

On the positive side, the argument for free schools is that they are set up by parental demand. That partly explains the good results. The biggest factor correlating with educational success is parental support. Enthusiastic parents produce enthusiastic kids, who get good results. We should not be surprised if free schools achieve marginal educational improvements. The key selling point for the Government has always been that free schools are innovative and diverse, in a way that state schools seem not to be expected to be.

I wonder whether, twenty years on, a free school will have settled down to a clear recipe that it understands, and will be producing clear results that it understands. Even if that does not happen, why should not the innovation and flexibility that free schools are given be on the menu for all schools? If they are good things, they should be given to schools regardless of their structure or character—to LEA schools as well as free schools.

The LEA’s role is extraordinarily helpful, and has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson). It does not spend most of its time interfering with schools and telling them exactly how and what to teach; we can safely allow the Secretary of State and Ofsted to do that. By and large, its job is to advise, support and co-ordinate, and to step in when difficulties arise. That brings me to my main point.

By serendipity—it is a fine thing—I was contacted a few days ago, not knowing that the hon. Member for Gateshead would suggest this debate in such a timely way, by someone who had a problem with a free school. I shall not name the school, except to say that it is not in my constituency; it is a lot nearer to where we are today than to my constituency. However, the problem that is described tells us something about what is wrong with governance in free schools, and about what may be going wrong with the experiment. It results from some straightforward playground bullying, and parents getting involved, as they often do, in defence of their child—both the bully and the one being bullied. The issue spiralled alarmingly, because after a while parents became aggressive towards one another.

My e-mail came from a mother, who sent her child to a free school because she believed that such a school was a wholly good idea—she had no problem with that—and because she had had difficulty getting her child into other schools in the area:

“It was reported to us that at the Parents Forum Meeting…parents not present when the assault took place were openly discussing the incident”—

between two parents and two children—

“whilst the representatives of the school sat and said nothing. The Parents Forum Meeting then descended into chaos. A small number of aggressive parents hijacked the meeting and began shouting and yelling…Eventually the Chairman asked one of the most aggressive and disruptive parents to leave”

but that parent refused. The e-mail says:

“The Chairman, Head Teacher and Deputy Head, were speechless in their shock”

and did nothing to try to change events. Parents

“apparently left the meeting in distress, whilst others felt for their safety. The meeting was…abandoned. The Chairman has also since told me that the only reason he was chairing the meeting…was because no one else would do it, that he’d had to cancel a dental appointment to be able to attend and that after what happened he really wished he’d gone to the dentist.”

Subsequently, the parent who contacted me spoke to the deputy head.

“He had no words. He was completely speechless and could not give me any guidance or assurance that the school had the matter under control.”

My correspondent tells me

“We feel that this situation should never have been allowed to get to this point and believe it has, simply because some parents have been allowed to feel for far too long, that they are in charge and that the school answers to them. This I feel is partly because Free Schools appear to request parental involvement in the way the school is guided, and the schools appear not to be adequately equipped to deal with situations when they become difficult, and have”—

this is a key point—

“no higher level of management to turn to for support, other than perhaps their own boards of trustees who, in this case, appear not to be professionally experienced in the education sector.”

The e-mail continues:

“I am unsure whether or not the school were aware of their legal footing, but I do know that a number of parents, including myself, sent them links and documents to various websites including the Department of Education guidelines with regards to bullying outside of school, and how to manage anti social parents behaviour. They seemed uninterested in this and told me that they had consulted a lawyer and there was nothing more they could do with regards the aggressive and intimidating behaviour of parents.

What struck me as most concerning was that the management of the school appeared to have no idea as to their legal rights, or what they could or could not do to address the situation. The Head Teacher appeared to need to consult the Chairman of the school trust for guidance and in turn the chairman had to seek independent legal advice on what action he could tell the Head Teacher to take.”

The writer—someone who chose to send her child to a free school—concludes:

“We feel that our children have become part of a wider social experiment; new schools are clearly needed but why largely rely on people with little or no experience of running schools to set them up and manage them? We now believe this is a dangerous experiment...Free schools are a tempting option when so many state schools are either over subscribed or failing to offer a decent level of education. It is apparent that no guidance is being given by the State, nor is anyone monitoring what is going on”.

Adoption

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Nandy]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight that. National adoption week plays an incredibly important role in raising awareness of adoption and flagging it up to potential families as something that they may not have considered before but may consider in the future. Of course, what happens to those potential parents next is also incredibly important, as I know she recognises.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Although I take the point about adoption week, I would like to make the point that, as councillors are corporate parents of looked-after children, they have a specific responsibility, and their role is crucial in ensuring that adoptions happen quicker. I would like to see all local authorities and all councillors ensuring that every week is an adoption week.

[Lisa Nandy]

I welcome that intervention and would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to it. Like many other hon. Members here, I was a local authority councillor before I came to this place, and it caused me great concern that the extremely heavy duty placed on councillors as, in effect, the parents of children in the looked-after system is not well understood by the majority of councillors. We need urgent action to tackle that.

In the 2006 Children’s Rights Director’s report on children’s views of adoption, children said that the best thing about being adopted was joining a new family; the worst was leaving their old one. One child described adoption as

“a scary, sad and happy experience”.

That sums up better than I could, especially as I did not go through this process as a child, how confusing and difficult an experience adoption can be, even when it brings great excitement and joy.

I think that everyone now recognises that there is a pressing need for ongoing support—practical, emotional and sometimes financial—for adoptive parents. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) and the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) talked about that very eloquently. I look forward to the Minister’s response on the issue. That support, not just for adoptive parents but for children, is essential to prevent adoption placement breakdown. Before the debate, Barnardo’s made the point that the support should be able to continue beyond three years, particularly where children are teenagers and going through many of the difficulties that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich described. I am talking about children coming to terms with what has happened to them, sometimes long after the event, and deciding how they feel about it.

Children speak powerfully about the trauma of placements failing. Some children told the Children’s Rights Director that they felt that they were responsible for trying to make their adoptive placements work out. One child said:

“I felt that if anything went wrong it would be my fault”.

Sometimes we seriously underestimate the amount of responsibility that children take for the decisions that are made that affect them, so ongoing support could not be more important. I look forward to seeing more details of the adoption passport when they are announced. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether that will be part of the announcements tomorrow. In the meantime, I agree with the Local Government Association that funding is an issue. It says that local authorities face cuts of up to 28% in social services budgets. If the adoption passport is not fully funded, it will remove funding from elsewhere in children’s services, which children can ill afford, especially given that the social worker is the critical person in the process.

It should be of deep concern to us all that when children are asked what the worst thing about being adopted is, many still say that it is their social worker. In all my recent meetings with children who have been through the care system, they have talked about social work turnover. It is often not a criticism of the individual, but a criticism of the amount of time that a social worker is able to give them, or of the fact that they have had two, three or four social workers in as many months. With budgets under pressure and higher case loads, that could be a real problem.

As we heard from many Members, children need time, information and a sense of control. They often need to be given information over and over again, because, as anyone who has ever worked with children knows, sometimes they are just not capable of taking it in, particularly information of this kind. Time is therefore precious, which brings me back to getting it right for children.

We need to consider adoption as part of the wider system. We know that adoptions are not always the right solution for children. There is no hierarchy of placement where children are concerned. I want to quote something from the Children’s Rights Director’s report, because it is so powerful:

“children have strongly told us that fostering is one thing, being adopted is quite another, your plans should be for which of these is best for you as an individual, and adoption shouldn’t be put forward for anyone just because councils want to get as many children adopted as possible.”

That is set against the backdrop of issues in fostering, including allowances and supply. According to the Fostering Network, a foster placement is needed every 22 minutes. Due to the shortage of foster families, almost two thirds of local authorities have had to split up siblings who are in care over the past year. Allowances to foster carers are not keeping pace with inflation, and, in some instances, are falling below the national minimum recommended by the Government. The Fostering Network says that the situation is particularly bad in Scotland, where the Government have set no minimum rate.

There is concern outside this place that progress on adoption is detracting from the pressure points elsewhere in the system. I am sure that the Minister agrees that there is no reason why that should be the case. We can, and should, look at the system as a whole. When will the Government publish the eagerly awaited plans, expected this summer, to improve the system for all looked-after children?

Finally, it is a glowing tribute to professionals and adoptive families that, when asked, so many children say that there is no worst thing about being adopted. One child said that knowing that they could stay for ever if they wanted to was the best thing about it. That so many front-line professionals are clearly getting it right should be a source of real encouragement to all of us, as we seek, collectively, to do better.