Teaching Quality

Debate between Mel Stride and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

The hon. Lady admits an important point, on which we can agree. We both want to move towards having more qualified teachers. I am glad that we agree on that, and that she will be supporting that part of the motion tabled by her coalition colleagues. Under the Labour Government, teachers working on a permanent basis in the classroom were working towards qualified teacher status. That is the vital difference: we believed in working towards qualified teacher status, whereas this Government believe in deregulation and de-professionalisation.

The first plank in Labour’s schools policy is to focus on standards and not structures. We do not think that the job is done simply because a school has changed its name to that of an academy or a free school. We think that the most important relationship is between a teacher and a pupil, and we would therefore ensure that all teachers in state-funded schools were qualified or working towards qualified teacher status. We currently have a deregulated, downgraded system of professional teaching standards. Shamefully, under this Government, a person needs more qualifications to work as a burger bar manager than to be in charge of the education of our young people. We believe, as the Prime Minister did once and as the Deputy Prime Minister might still do—it is always difficult to tell—that our young people need highly qualified, highly motivated teachers in their classrooms.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman will know that there are many unqualified teachers in the independent sector. If that is such a bad thing, can he explain why so many parents make such financial sacrifices to send their children to those schools?

[Tristram Hunt]

The most recent evidence I have seen shows that more than 90% of teachers in the independent sector have qualified teacher status, so that is the vast majority. I suggest that the remaining number should be working towards qualified teacher status so that they can transfer their skills to the state sector.

Under a Labour Government, we would not have the scandal of an academy school in Leeds advertising for “an unqualified maths teacher” with just four GCSEs. We would not have the scandal of the Al-Madinah free school where the presence of so many unqualified teachers did such damage to those pupils’ learning. We would not have more than one in 10 teachers in free schools being unqualified.

Qualified Teachers

Debate between Mel Stride and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend has made the crucial point that Teach First was a Labour innovation. We believe in innovation, but we also believe in some basic standards in our schools.

The Secretary of State used to praise teaching standards in Finland, South Korea and Singapore, saying:

“In all those countries teaching is a high prestige profession.”

How would the Government ensure that it remained so?

“By making it difficult to become a teacher.”

But what has the Secretary of State done in office? He has done everything possible to make it as easy as possible to assume control of a classroom. He has undermined the profession, sought to remove teacher training from universities, and adopted a policy of wholesale deregulation. That has led to a 141% increase in the number of unqualified teachers in free schools and academies. The surprising truth is that under this Government, people need more qualifications to get a job in a burger bar than to teach in an English school. While I salute the efforts of restaurant chains to improve the skills of their work forces, I should like history teachers, as well as hamburger restaurant managers, to have some basic qualifications.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is, in my opinion at least, a fine historian. He will recall that when he was at school he was taught by a very fine teacher, Terry Morris, who was the head of the history department. Will he tell the House whether Mr Morris was a qualified teacher, or simply an inspiration?

[Tristram Hunt]

The great thing about qualified teachers is that they can be both qualified and an inspiration. [Interruption.] I know that the Conservative party is developing something of an obsession with me, so let me say that if Conservative Members want to invite me to a special session of the 1922 Committee to talk about my past and history, I shall be more than willing to take up their invitation.

Why does the Labour party believe in having qualified teachers in our classrooms? The Secretary of State’s 2010 White Paper put it best:

“The first and most important lesson is that no education system can be better than the quality of its teachers. The most successful countries…are those where teaching has the highest status as a profession’’.

In Finland, the world’s highest-performing education system, teacher education is led by universities, and all teachers are qualified to Master’s level. In Singapore, all teachers are fully trained and have annual training entitlements. The most effective way in which to improve our children’s education is to boost the quality, elevate the standing, and raise the standards of our teaching profession. We need to train teachers up, not talk them down.

Big Society

Debate between Mel Stride and Tristram Hunt

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure and a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), and I congratulate the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who is no longer in his place, on securing this debate. We on the Opposition Benches are enormous fans of the big society, not least because it cost the Conservatives an overall majority at the general election. Well, we thought it did until we saw their friends on the Liberal Benches.

I was happy to put my name to the motion, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) suggested, the big society is absolutely fundamental to the Labour vision and to the Labour traditions of mutualism, co-operation and associationalism. However, there is a strong case for saying that we have lost sight of many of those traditions. We lost sight of them in the early 20th century, when we allowed clause IV to be written as it was, and we lost sight of them in the later years of our period in government, when we became over-regulatory and over-zealous in our admiration of the state. The hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) cited some of the Criminal Records Bureau’s activities, and that is an example of exactly where we began to go wrong.

As I think about how the Labour party begins to renew itself and ask questions of itself as we prepare for our speedy return to government, I think about our relationship with the big society and the tradition re-emerges.

[Mel Stride]

Before the hon. Gentleman processes on his speedy return to government, may I ask him something, as someone who has an interest in history and knows that he has an acute interest in history? That aspect of the state crowding out private and mutual endeavour was highlighted by William Beveridge in his report. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that Beveridge would look back now and say that the state had become too big, and that Labour Governments had played their part in that?

[Tristram Hunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. That is an acute question. I do not always accept the notion of crowding out, although there are times at which one can point to that.

The Labour tradition, as it has evolved, has sought to create a critical relationship with local government and central Government, and that is the difference between ourselves and Conservative Members. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West suggested, the enabling state is part of the Labour tradition. When we look back to where we have come from, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) will imminently explain in beautiful prose, we can go right back to the late 18th century to the traditions of Paine and of critiquing the functioning of the market while believing in market principles. This was based on a belief that the state was not always a force for good. As Adam Smith argued, the state in the late 18th century was often a force for arbitrary activities, clamping down on the rights of working people and interfering in proper market practice.