Michael Gove
Main Page: Michael Gove (Conservative - Surrey Heath)Department Debates - View all Michael Gove's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Today’s Second Reading marks the first legislative step towards the fulfilment of our manifesto commitment to improve England’s education system. It grants greater autonomy to individual schools, it gives more freedom to teachers and it injects a new level of dynamism into a programme that has been proven to raise standards for all children and for the disadvantaged most of all.
The need for action to transform our state education system has never been more urgent. In the past 10 years, we have seen a decline in the performance of our country’s education in comparison with our competitors. We were, 10 years ago, fourth in the world for the quality of our science education; we are now 14th. We were, 10 years ago, seventh in the world for the quality of our children’s literacy; we are now 17th. And we were, 10 years ago, eighth in the world for the quality of our children’s mathematics; we are now 24th. At the same time as we have fallen behind other nations, we have seen a stubborn gap persist between the educational attainment of the wealthiest and the opportunities available to the poorest.
Pioneering work by Leon Feinstein for the Institute of Education has proven that educational disadvantage starts even before children go to school and that children of low cognitive ability from wealthy homes overtake children of greater cognitive ability from poorer homes even before they arrive at school. As they go through school, the gap widens. Schools, instead of being engines of social mobility and guarantors of equality, are only perpetuating the divide between the wealthy and the poorest. At key stage 1, some 71% of pupils who are eligible for free school meals are reading at the expected level, compared with 87% of pupils who are not eligible for free school meals. At the end of key stage 2, the gap has grown wider. By the end of primary school, just 53% of pupils who are eligible for free school meals reach level 4—the expected level in English—compared with 76% of pupils who are not eligible for free school meals.
As students go through secondary school, the gap becomes even wider. By the time they are taking their GCSEs, just 27% of pupils who are eligible for free school meals get five A to C grades, including English and maths. That is exactly half the figure for those students who are not eligible for free school meals. When it comes to A-levels and university entry, the gap is wider still. In the last year for which we have figures, of the 81,000 who had been eligible for free school meals, just 45 made it to Oxbridge by the time they turned 19, whereas one top London school gets an average of 82 Oxbridge admissions a year. We cannot go on with such a drastic waste of talent, which is why we need to legislate now to ensure that opportunity becomes more equal in our society.
As well as the legislation that we are bringing forward today, the coalition Government are bringing forward a series of changes to transform our educational system. We are hoping to transform teaching for the better by doubling the number of graduates on the Teach First scheme, which has already been proven to raise attainment, particularly in the poorest areas. The expansion of Teach First was backed by every party in the House of Commons at the time of the last general election, but it is the coalition Government who have found the money to ensure that the very best graduates are in the schools that need them most. We will be bringing forward proposals to improve the continuous professional development of all teachers to ensure that the current crop of teachers—here I agree with the shadow Education Secretary that they are among the best ever—can benefit from the best evidence available on how to raise attainment.
When it comes to attracting great teachers, we know that we need to take action on discipline, because the biggest single disincentive for talented people going into the classroom is the standard of behaviour that they encounter. As a result, the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), has outlined proposals to change the rules in order to give teachers greater confidence on the use of force, greater confidence when they exercise search powers and greater protection when false or vexatious claims are made against them.
As well as changing the rules on discipline, we are conducting a thoroughgoing reform of special educational needs. The Bill makes it clear that in future there will be protection for all pupils who have statements when they apply for academy schools, so that they are treated on an even keel. We shall have a comprehensive review, led by the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), to ensure that the heartache suffered by so many children who cannot get the school they need for their special needs is addressed.
We shall also be taking steps to ensure that our children are reading fluently earlier in primary school, and we shall be transforming our curriculum and our examinations so that they rank with the world’s best—less prescription in the curriculum, more rigour in our examinations.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman was speaking expressly about the curriculum that those schools will pursue. Many of us are worried about two areas where the schools may effectively opt out of things we believe are important to everybody. The first is religious education. Schools might advocate a set of religious prescriptions that were inimical to the broad understanding of most people’s expectations about British society. The second is sex and relationship education. We believe that it is important that every child should have an opportunity to understand their self-worth, so that they can make better decisions affecting their future.
Michael Gove
I respect the hon. Gentleman for his commitment to both those issues. As part of our curriculum review later this year, we shall address both religious education and sex and relationship education. I agree that it is important that when sex and relationship education is reformed—as it will be—we go for the maximum consensus across the House, and that we do so in a way that ensures that as many schools as possible buy into our belief that we should have a 21st-century curriculum that reflects a modern understanding of sex and relationships.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I welcome the Second Reading of the Bill. It has gained a huge amount of support in Bournemouth. Despite what the unions say, many teachers and schools are looking forward to the extra powers they are likely to gain from the Bill.
My right hon. Friend mentioned the curriculum. As he knows, I am a huge supporter of the international baccalaureate, and if, as I hope, the Bill becomes law, could he say what scope it will allow schools to drop A-levels and take on the international baccalaureate?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is a great advertisement for the way in which the international baccalaureate develops a rounded individual, with all the characteristics needed to succeed in life. It is a pity that the commitment of the previous Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to have a school offering the international baccalaureate in every neighbourhood was one that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) decided to abandon. I assure my hon. Friend that academies can offer the international baccalaureate and, to be fair to the shadow Education Secretary, some academies that opened on his watch, including Havelock academy in Grimsby, offer the middle years programme of the international baccalaureate. One of the things we want to see is a greater degree of curriculum flexibility, so that teachers, not bureaucrats, can decide what is in the best interest of their pupils.
Michael Gove
I am going to hand power back to teachers. There are some teachers, Vernon, like yourself, that I should be a little less reluctant to hand power back to.
The Bill trusts teachers. It marks a big step forward from what happened under the last Government. The last piece of education legislation that Labour tried to bring forward sought to prescribe in excessive detail exactly what should happen in every school, but all the evidence suggests that a greater degree of autonomy and freedom yields results for all pupils. Even before academies, a group of schools—the city technology colleges—was established by my right hon. Friend Lord Baker of Dorking. All of them were comprehensive schools in working-class, challenged or disadvantaged areas. All of them were established independent of local authority control. They are now achieving fantastic results. On average, their GCSE performance involves more than 82% of students getting five good GCSEs, including English and maths, which is at least half as good again as the average level of all schools in the country.
We know that CTCs have been successful. They have been in existence for more than 20 years and are a proven model of how autonomy can work. It was their persuasive work and the evidence of school improvement they generated that prompted Tony Blair, when he was Prime Minister, to go for the academies programme. He believed that the autonomy CTCs benefited from should be extended much more widely.
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
Is the Secretary of State aware that Dixons CTC, one of the first in the country, has hardly any European students at all, yet the new Bradford academy, which is less than a mile away, is overrun with new arrivals from eastern Europe? How does he explain that?
Michael Gove
My understanding is that the Bradford Dixons CTC operates a banded entry system, which is one of the truest and fairest methods of comprehensive entry, but I recognise that demographic change in Bradford and elsewhere is posing challenges for all schools. One of the things I believe is that the success of many CTCs shows that children, including those with special educational needs and those who have English as an additional language, can flourish. I hope that other schools in Bradford will contemplate—as several of them are—taking on some of the freedoms in the Bill to address the very real deprivation that exists in that city and that my hon. Friend has done so much to address, both as a councillor and as a Member of Parliament.
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
The Secretary of State makes a compelling case about why schools should get away from the control of local education authorities, such as the dead hand that we have in Essex. In the era of the big society, should not the number of elected parents on an academy’s governing body at least match the number of elected parents on a secondary school’s governing body?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend mentions the big society. I was asked earlier today on Radio 5 Live, “What is the big society?” and an image of him came to my mind. In many respects, he sums up the big society. He is not only an exemplary legislator, but a dedicated citizen activist who has always put Colchester first and last. I believe that he will be able—I know this from our informal conversations—to use the legislation to ensure that schools in his part of the world can acquire academy status, with an equal number of parent governors and other governors, thus providing him with the sort of model that, I am sure, he will press other hon. Members across the House to emulate.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
Before the right hon. Gentleman completely rewrites the front pages of every newspaper in Colchester tomorrow, may I return him to CTCs? Can he tell us how many CTCs teach creationism as an integral part of the curriculum? Does he feel that the number is too many, too few or just about right?
Michael Gove
The number is zero, which is just about right. It has often been alleged that, for example, Gateshead Emmanuel CTC teaches creationism as part of the science curriculum. Having visited that school, I know that it does not. I can tell anyone who is a critic of CTCs or academies that the cure for such cynicism is to visit them. It used to be said that the cure for anyone who admired the House of Lords too much was to visit it. Having visited the House of Lords during its deliberations on the Bill, I am full of admiration for the way in which it was debated there and for the many Liberal Democrat colleagues who helped to improve it. To anyone who wants to see how our schools can be improved, I recommend visiting academies such as Mossbourne community academy in Hackney, with 84% of children getting five good GCSEs; Burlington Danes academy in Hammersmith, where a school that was in special measures now has more than half its children getting five good GCSEs; Manchester academy, where Kathy August, on behalf of the United Learning Trust, has taken a school in which only 6% of students got five good GCSEs to a point where 35% do so now—all great successes, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman will want to applaud.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
I do indeed applaud all those successes. Surely the difference between the CTCs and academies that Labour introduced and the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal is that the CTCs and academies deliberately focused on areas of disadvantage, but his proposal is to give first priority to outstanding schools, which are disproportionately in areas of affluence and advantage.
Michael Gove
First, outstanding schools can be found in any area, including areas of disadvantage. Secondly, if most of our outstanding schools are in areas of advantage, is it not a telling indictment of 13 years of Labour rule that all the best schools are in the richest areas? The hon. Gentleman lost his seat just five years ago; if only he had stayed in the Department for Education, perhaps the situation would not have been so bad. We will ensure that every school that acquires academy freedom takes an underperforming school under its wing to ensure that all schools improve as a result.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I believe that I am the only Member of Parliament who is the parent of a child at an academy, and I am a great believer in what academies have been able to do, but I want to reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). Precisely because academies have invested resources in the most disadvantaged areas—the school that my child attends is the 16th most deprived in the country—they have been able to exercise a relative improvement. Surely spreading those resources and the advantages of academy status to highly privileged schools will do the reverse of what the Secretary of State intends and widen the gap in educational achievement.
Michael Gove
I take the hon. Lady’s point, but she is making the case that only resources drive improvement. Resources are critical, but so is autonomy, and the record of the CTCs shows that it was their autonomy that drove improvement. We Government Members all know that it is the ethos and quality of a school, and in particular the capacity of a head teacher to lead, that make all the difference.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to correct two things that he said? The first relates to Burlington Danes, which has traditionally been a very good school. It got into special measures, and became an academy, but did not improve. It has now improved with a new, second, head. Will he accept that often it is not being an academy that makes the difference, but having a good head teacher and a good ethos in the school?
I come to the second point on which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to correct him. We have two outstanding schools with a very deprived intake in my constituency. Both have decided not to become academies. Privately, the schools’ governors have said to me that they believe that special educational needs children and non-teaching staff would be discriminated against if the schools became academies, because they have seen that happen in other academies. So will the Secretary of State not be quite so arrogant in pushing academies on every level?
Mr Speaker
Order. From now on, interventions need to get a bit shorter. The debate is very heavily subscribed, and interventions should be brief.
Michael Gove
On the second point made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), the Bill is permissive. If head teachers do not wish to go down the academy route, that is a matter for them. I trust head teachers, unlike the previous Government who told head teachers what was right for them. We believe in professional autonomy. On the first point, I agree. I agree that the current head teacher at Burlington Danes, Ms Sally Coates, is fantastic; that is why she supports the legislation, and why she appeared with me in public to say that more schools should embrace the academy status that allowed her to do so much for the disadvantaged children whom the hon. Gentleman represents, and who are our first care.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Michael Gove
In just one second, if I may; first I want to make a point that follows on from that made by the hon. Members for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and for Westminster North (Ms Buck), which was that by extending academy freedoms we do not help the most disadvantaged. That was not the view of Tony Blair in 2005, when he introduced the education White Paper. He made it clear then that he wanted every school to have academy freedoms so that they could drive up standards for all. In that sense, we are merely fulfilling the case that was made in 2005. I am happy to call myself a born-again Blairite, but all I see as I look at the Opposition Benches are groups of Peters denying—I hesitate to say the messiah—the previous Prime Minister three times. Now that the cock has crowed, I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson).
Glenda Jackson
I am grateful to the Secretary of State. He called the Bill permissive. What it most markedly does not permit is any kind of consultation with parents, governors, teachers and schools other than the one pursuing academy status. That is the antithesis of localism, which I understood was the bedrock of the Conservative party’s proposals.
Michael Gove
I have great respect for the hon. Lady, but the Bill includes specific provision for consultation. Hitherto, academies had to consult only local authorities, but there is provision for wider consultation in the legislation. More than that, because the Bill is permissive, it is for schools and heads to decide whether to make the change. I know that there are a number of schools in the hon. Lady’s constituency that are very interested in doing so.
Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
When my right hon. Friend was deciding on the ambit of the Bill, did he take note of the recommendation of the Children, Schools and Family Committee, as it was then, in its report on the national curriculum that the freedoms enjoyed by academies should be available to all schools?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend was a distinguished member of that Committee, and it is precisely because the Committee made such a good case that I have been so influenced by it. The case was also made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), who argued that if academy freedoms were so good, why should all schools not have them? If there is a coalition of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil and the former Member for Sedgefield, who am I to stand in its way?
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I think we all accept that the Secretary of State is a humble man, but will he tell us whom he consulted on his proposals and, more importantly, how many schools have applied to make the change under his proposals?
Michael Gove
I consulted head teachers, teachers, and parents, and I also took the trouble to consult the electorate at the general election; the proposal was in our manifesto, and received a great deal of support. Following the general election, I was fortunate enough to find out that the proposal received support from not just my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) and my many other hon. Friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches.
Malcolm Wicks
Does the Secretary of State feel that there will be any need for locally elected education authorities in the future? If so, what will their roles be?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. If I may quote, I believe:
“The best local authorities already increasingly see their primary role as championing parents and pupils rather than being a direct provider of education. We need to see every local authority moving from provider to commissioner, so that the system acquires a local dynamism responsive to the needs of their communities and open to change and new forms of school provision. This will liberate local authorities from too often feeling the need to defend the status quo, so that instead they become the champions of innovation and diversity, and the partner of local parents in driving continuous improvement.”
That was Tony Blair in October 2005—once again, an unimprovable argument.
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
But that speech led directly to the Education and Inspections Act 2006, in which local authorities were given the responsibility for commissioning places. The legislation before us entirely removes the local authority’s role in such commissioning, so the idea that the right hon. Gentleman is the heir to Tony Blair is complete and utter tosh.
Michael Gove
I would never claim to be the heir to Blair; I know that the right hon. Gentleman yearns to fill that role. I was one of the many thousands watching the Labour leadership hustings on “Newsnight”, when he said that Tony Blair was the finest Prime Minister the Labour party ever had. I dropped my cocoa in excitement at the right hon. Gentleman’s conversion to the cause of Blairism. It is somewhat at variance with what is recorded in Alastair Campbell’s diaries, Peter Mandelson’s memoirs and various other documents that have thudded on to my desk over the past few weeks, but I am very happy to see him join the conventicle.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman quoted the former Prime Minister’s words and cited the role of local authorities as champions of parents and pupils. Who will champion the parents of pupils who are excluded from academies?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady will know that academies are governed by the same admissions rules as all local authority schools. They have to abide by the admissions code and subscribe to fair access protocols, so that those hard-to-place children are placed appropriately. I grant the hon. Lady that some academies, when they have made the journey from failing school to academy status, have experienced an increase in the number of exclusions, but that normally settles down after a short period, as it does in most schools with a good new head teacher who is extending discipline and control. Then we find that once academies have become settled, the number of exclusions falls, and that is certainly the case with city technology colleges. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) wished to make a point, and I am delighted to give way.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State consider the greatest missed opportunity of the previous Conservative Government to be the failure to make all schools grant maintained? Therefore, philosophically, does he believe that such freedoms should gradually spread out so that, in the end, the head teachers of all state schools have the same freedoms as the head teachers of independent schools?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I want a greater degree of freedom for all head teachers. If we compare our proposals with the ’90s and the world of grant-maintained schools, however, one big difference is that we do not envisage schools existing in a parallel universe, but collaborating with other schools. One of the great gains of the past 15 years has been the culture of collaboration that has taken root between head teachers and throughout state schools. It is wholly worth while, I wish to build on it and I make no apology for saying that it happened over the course of the past 15 years, because any fair-minded person would wish to acknowledge it and see it develop.
Ed Balls
When the head teacher of Woodberry Down community primary school in Hackney, an outstanding school in a federation with two other primary schools, approached the Department for Education to ask whether the school might access academy freedoms, the Department said it could do so only if it broke up the federation, because outstanding schools would be able to federate only with other outstanding schools rather than underperforming schools. On what basis will such collaboration help less good schools to become better? Is that not just excellence supporting excellence, or has the right hon. Gentleman had to change that policy?
Michael Gove
No, it is my belief that all outstanding schools should be there to support other schools. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for drawing that issue to my attention. Actually, we have made it clear that groups of schools in which one school is outstanding and the others are not can apply. Woodberry Down may well be a school that we would like to see enjoy academy status and hope will work with other schools, but it may not be among the very first schools to enjoy academy status. If he would like Woodberry Down’s application accelerated so that it can become an academy in September, I hope he will join me in the Lobby this evening.
Ed Balls
I have found in the past few weeks that the right hon. Gentleman is never, ever able to answer a straight question in the House. I will try again. An outstanding school was told that it could federate only with other outstanding schools if it wanted academy status. Is that his policy, yes or no?
Michael Gove
It is certainly not our policy, and I am sorry that the headmaster of Woodberry Down has been told that. I shall write to him later or call him, or perhaps he, I and the right hon. Gentleman can have a cup of tea together, to ensure that that excellent school can become an academy by September if it wishes.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I set the right hon. Gentleman straight on one point? Yes, the former Children, Schools and Families Committee did recommend that all schools should have the same curriculum freedoms as academies, but it was never necessary to expand academy status to outstanding schools in order to do that. It was always under the control of central Government and the Department, not local authorities.
Michael Gove
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point, but as a believer in freedom I believe not just that schools should have the chance to have greater freedom over the curriculum but that they should have other freedoms as well. I remember the former Member for South Dorset, who is now Lord Knight of Weymouth, making the point in debate here that academies also have freedoms on pay and conditions, and they need those freedoms to generate the improvement that has been such an attractive characteristic of the academies movement. I agree that the Department can disapply the national curriculum when specific schools apply, but I should like to see a wider range of freedoms.
Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)
May I say how much I welcome many of the freedoms that the Secretary of State proposes, not least freedom for teachers and freeing up the curriculum?
On consultation with local education authorities, the Secretary of State will be aware that in my constituency Oldfield girls school wants to become an academy but the local authority’s reorganisation plan to reduce surplus places envisages it as a co-educational school. Can he assure me that he will not approve academy status if the school remains a single-sex school?
Michael Gove
I take my hon. Friend’s point, which follows that made by the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls). Some 1,800 schools have applied for academy status, and if we were to run through the pros and cons of each my speech would be of interminable length. However, we have discussed that specific school before and I know that my right hon. Friend—sorry, I mean my hon. Friend; that will come later—is seeking in a fair-minded way to see whether that school can become co-educational and enjoy greater autonomy. I am sure we can find a way through.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is slightly ironic to hear Opposition Members make accusations of inadequate consultation on the Bill, given that the previous Secretary of State simply dispatched to my constituency his henchman Mr Badman, who decided to close one of the comprehensive schools there? The consultation was simply on whether to close it or merge it with another one, and it was stated that the new academy must open in September. Does he agree that this Government are trying to deal with the problems that have resulted from a very crude consultation and a very tight deadline?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and the fact that the electors of Gloucester, even though they had a superb Labour MP last time round, chose to elect him, an even better Conservative one, shows what they thought of how the last Government dealt with education.
Michael Gove
I must try to make progress, because many Members wish to speak in the debate, so for the moment I shall not take any more interventions.
I stress that although we are following the path set down by successful schools in this country, we are also following the one set down by successful jurisdictions elsewhere in the world. In America, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is due to visit in just a few days’ time, President Obama is pressing ahead with school reforms exactly analogous to those with which we are pressing ahead here. He is making reforms to ensure that there are better teachers in every classroom and that more schools enjoy greater autonomy. The charter schools in the USA, such as the Knowledge is Power programme schools, with which I know the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) is familiar, have done a fantastic job, free from local bureaucratic control, of transforming the life chances of young people. Children who would not have expected to graduate from high school are now going on to elite colleges because of the quality of the education that they enjoy. Charter schools in Boston have succeeded in cutting by half the achievement gap between black and white children.
In Chicago, as Caroline Hoxby and Jonah Rockoff have pointed out, charter schools have achieved even more dramatic gains for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The striking thing about Hoxby and Rockoff’s research is that in Chicago the children are drawn overwhelmingly from poorer homes. Whether one goes to Sweden, Finland, Singapore or Alberta—Alberta is the highest-performing English-speaking jurisdiction in education—education reform is guided by greater devolution to the front line, greater control for professionals and a relentless focus on higher standards.
Michael Gove
Not at this stage.
The Opposition have tabled a reasoned amendment. My problem with it is that it is not reasoned and nor does it amend matters in our schools for the better. It is simply a list of unjustified assertions. It states that the Bill provides the legal framework for new parent-promoted schools. That is not true; that was created in 2002. It states that our proposals for academy status are funded by cuts in the Building Schools for the Future programme. That is not true; they are funded using money that was in the harnessing technology grant, and we are making the Building Schools for the Future programme more efficient.
The Opposition argue that our proposals are based on reforms in other countries with falling standards and rising inequality. That is not true; they are based on reforms in countries such as President Barack Obama’s America and in Singapore, Canada and Finland, where standards are rising and equity is greater. The Opposition claim that there are no measures to drive up standards, improve discipline or deliver greater equality. At the beginning of my speech, I pointed out what we are doing about teaching and discipline, and, thanks to the impassioned advocacy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil and the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central, we will shortly introduce proposals for a pupil premium.
Mr Ellwood
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. My right hon. Friend has listed a whole series of aspects of the amendment that show it contains many untruths. Would it be in order for the Opposition to be given the opportunity to walk away, rewrite it and come back with an amendment that might be worthy of the House?
Mr Speaker
First, that is an utterly specious point of order. Secondly, it is a waste of time.
Michael Gove
It is, of course, a point of debate, and I look forward to hearing the shadow Secretary of State shortly.
The reasoned amendment argues that we are not building on the success of the academies programme, but the Bill fulfils it. It makes it easier for failing schools to be placed in the hands of great sponsors to turn them round, for good schools to take faltering schools under their wing and for all children from disadvantaged backgrounds to benefit from academy status.
I refer those who argue that we are failing children with special educational needs to the remarks of Lord Adonis in the upper House when the Bill was making progress there. He said:
“On the contrary, in crucial areas of special educational needs, particularly EBD”—
emotional and behavioural difficulties—
“the dynamic innovation…that academies can bring could lead to significant improvements…in ways that enhance the overall quality of the state education system.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 June 2010; Vol. 719, c. 1399.]
The expansion of the academies programme will drive that improvement in state education. I know that some Opposition Members say, “Pause, gie canny, slow down, hesitate”, but that is the argument of the conservative throughout the ages when confronted with the radicalism that says we need to do better for our children. We cannot afford to wait. We cannot afford Labour’s failed approach any more, with teachers directed from the centre, regulations stifling innovation and our country falling behind other nations. We need reform and we need it now. We need the Bill.