Michael Gove
Main Page: Michael Gove (Conservative - Surrey Heath)Department Debates - View all Michael Gove's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I welcome the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) to his place as shadow Secretary of State. It is a pleasure to have a historian representing the Labour party on this issue and it was a joy for me to hear him talk about Hobhouse and Keynes, Owen and the mechanics institutes. It is marvellous to have a historian there. However, when he was asked by one of my hon. Friends about more recent history, to wit the Labour party’s record on teaching, his mind was a curious blank. He said he was focused on the future. What a pity that when he was asked that first history question, he passed.
Michael Gove
No. What a pity that when the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central was asked about one of his former history teachers—Mr Morris, I believe—like Peter, he denied him thrice, and when he was asked to stand up for Mr Morris, who has done so much for this young lad to help him into the position he now enjoys, he refused to stand up for him. When he was asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) about Labour’s record on education, once more he declined to answer the question. He may have a PhD from Cambridge, but one thing he has to learn about education in our state schools today is, “You do not pass if you don’t answer the questions.” He did not answer the questions; he has failed his first test in the House of Commons.
Michael Gove
No, thank you. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman has not even asked a question, but I will answer all his points in due course.
As the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central knows, we are fortunate because under the coalition Government we now have—[Interruption.] I will answer the question; he did not. We now have the best generation of teachers—
Michael Gove
In a moment; all in good time. [Interruption.] I know the hon. Gentleman is impatient; he is a young one as well.
We have the best ever generation of teachers in our schools. Gerard Kelly of The Times Educational Supplement has said:
“Contrary to most reports, teaching in Britain has never been in better health”
and it
“is a more respected profession and a more attractive graduate destination than it has been for many years.”
We are also fortunate that we have, as the OECD has reminded us, the best generation of heads in our schools, and more and more of them are now enjoying the autonomy from bureaucracy and freedom from micro-management that the coalition Government have brought. They need that freedom because of the problems we inherited in our education system. As the OECD reported just last month, our 16 to 25-year-olds—those who were educated under Labour—have some of the worst levels of literacy and numeracy in the developed world. We are the only country in the developed world whose oldest citizens are more literate and numerate than our youngest adults, and what makes matters worse is that educational underperformance under Labour was concentrated in the poorest areas.
Julie Hilling
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. It seems to me that his maths is not quite adding up, because surely those teachers who are coming into our schools now, and who are, as he just said, the best teachers that have ever come through, will have been educated under a Labour Government. Why is he running down the profession and why does he not agree that those teachers who are qualified should be joined by the other teachers becoming qualified?
Michael Gove
How could I be running down the profession when I have just applauded this generation as the best ever? Why is the hon. Lady so ungracious that she does not acknowledge that under this coalition Government we have the best quality of teaching ever?
Let me answer the question that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central failed to answer. He has one sole criterion by which a good teacher will be judged: the possession of a single piece of paper which entitles someone to QTS. That is all he talked about in his speech. [Interruption.] He cannot have a second bite at the cherry. No resits for the hon. Gentleman. That was his case. But the truth is that under Labour the number of unqualified teachers rose and under the coalition it has fallen. When we came to power there were 17,800 unqualified teachers in our schools. The figure decreased to 15,800 and is now 14,800. Under Labour, the number of unqualified teachers rose to a high point of 18,800, so by the criterion that the hon. Gentleman applies the last Labour Government were a signal failure and this coalition Government have been a resounding success.
The Labour Front Benchers talk about Teach First—
Michael Gove
In a second, eager beaver.
Interestingly, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central called Teach First “Labour’s Teach First”. That will be a surprise to Brett Wigdortz, who set it up; it is a charity. It is wholly contrary to the co-operative spirit that the hon. Gentleman lauds that he instantly nationalises every worthwhile initiative. Let us not forget that when Teach First was launched, the National Union of Teachers, which seems to be writing Labour’s policy these days, accused “Teach Firsters” of being unqualified. One teacher at the time said:
“When I first”—
heard about—
“Teach First I just thought ‘no way’…My fear was that they were totally untrained teachers.”
But Andrew Adonis, someone who does know something about state education, pressed ahead and backed, as we back, Teach First, and “Teach Firsters”, who were damned as “unqualified teachers” at the time, are now responsible for securing an improvement in every school in which they operate. They were damned as “unqualified” and introduced by a charity, and they are driving up standards. That proves that we have the best generation of teachers ever in our schools, and it is all a direct result of the initiative of individual teachers and the generous support that we have given, because Teach First has expanded as never before under this Government.
Kevin Brennan
Will the Secretary of State confirm that it was the Labour Government who supported the introduction of Teach First and supported its expansion? Will he also confirm that the figures he quoted on an increase in the number of unqualified teachers, which were in a parliamentary answer to me from the Minister for Schools, include people undertaking Teach First who are on their way to qualified teacher status?
Michael Gove
I will happily acknowledge that there are fewer unqualified teachers now, under the coalition, and that it was we who expanded Teach First. What the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central failed to acknowledge when he was asked a direct question by two of my colleagues is that Labour’s record on teacher qualifications was weaker than ours.
Andrew Percy
Will the Secretary of State also confirm that the situation is worse than those figures on unqualified teachers would suggest, because we also saw a massive increase then in the use of cover supervisors, who were often used for very long periods to teach GCSE courses that they had never passed the exams for?
Michael Gove
As ever, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. He speaks with experience from the front line and he knows that it was under Labour that, unfortunately, there was a growth in the use of cover supervisors in a number of schools. Unfortunately, in tough schools such as the one he helped to turn round we did not have people with the qualities needed to hold the attention of a class and to transform young lives. That is changing now, and one reason for that, which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central failed to acknowledge, is that we are introducing a raft of reforms that are helping to improve teaching in all our schools.
Mr Sheerman
May I, for a moment, just raise the level of debate, rather than have this ding-dong? We all want well-qualified, well-motivated teachers who are continuously professionally developed—that is the truth. We should agree on this across the Benches and get on with it, rather than raking over daft stats from the past.
Michael Gove
I am only too happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman, who, as ever, speaks sense. However, it was not the Government who brought this motion and it was not me who failed to answer the question politely put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark. I am enlightening the House in a way that, I am afraid, the hon. Gentleman’s Front-Bench team failed to do. I agree with him about continuous professional development, which is why we are changing the way in which we support teachers, through the establishment of teaching schools. We have 357 teaching schools that have been established. I presume that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central supports that initiative, applauds the teachers who are involved in it and believes it is the right thing to do. It will be interesting to see whether the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) backs it when the opportunity comes.
We are also changing the way in which teachers are trained. The Times Higher Education has reported that under its new inspection regime Ofsted pointed out that school-centred initial teacher training—SCITT—is in many cases better than higher education initial teacher training. According to Times Higher Education, 31% of the school-centred initial teacher training centres inspected were outstanding whereas only 13% of higher-education institution centres were. So we are moving teacher training from those institutions that are performing less well relatively—some of them are still “outstanding”—to those that are performing better. That is a real improvement in the quality of teacher training and professional development.
We have also introduced tougher standards, by which all teachers are judged. We got rid of the fuzzy standards that used to prevail under the previous Government and we have drawn up new, professional standards. They were drawn up by Sally Coates, the head teacher of Burlington Danes academy, in alliance with Joan Deslandes of Kingsford community school, Patricia Sowter of Cuckoo Hall and Sir Dan Moynihan of Harris academies. Again, the question for the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central and his Front-Bench colleagues is: do they believe that the introduction of these new teacher standards was the right thing to do? Do they support them? Do they back them? Do they recognise that they drive improved performance in the classroom? Do they also recognise that as a result of our changes the quality of teaching is higher than ever before?
My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) rightly pointed out that we have a tougher Ofsted regime and a more rigorous accountability regime than ever before; it is tougher for someone to prove that they are outstanding. Under Labour 13% of teaching at primary schools and 11% of secondary teaching was outstanding, whereas the latest figures show that under the coalition Government those proportions have risen. The number of outstanding primary lessons has increased by 12% and the number of secondary lessons judged “outstanding” has gone up by a third. So more quality teaching is benefiting more students in more schools as a result of the changes we have made.
I also hope that the Opposition will applaud the increase in the number of highly qualified graduates from our top universities in our schools. When we came to power only 62% of those entering the teaching profession had a 2:1 or better, whereas the figure now is 71%. So we have a prestigious profession attracting more highly qualified people and transforming more lives.
Simon Hughes
Not only do I have the privilege of being the Member of Parliament for Bermondsey and Old Southwark—the MP for Teach First—but I am still a chair of a primary school governing body and a trustee of Bacon’s college. As such, I can confirm that the view of the head teachers and the governors in my constituency is that the quality of teachers now is better than it has ever been, across the board, and that Teach First has contributed hugely to the inward pressure of new people—although, of course, with educational qualifications they would be better still.
Michael Gove
As is so often the case, my right hon. Friend strikes a balanced and sensible note. He has made the point that under the coalition Government education has improved, and that teachers once damned as “unqualified” by the trade unions and others are driving improvement in our schools. If only we could hear more of him on education and rather less from some in the Labour party.
It is not just the quality of teaching that has improved; attainment has improved for our very poorest. One of the starkest problems in the education system that we inherited was the gulf between the achievement of the wealthy and that of the poorest in our schools. That gap has narrowed thanks to the teachers in our schools, to whom I, once again, wish to pay tribute today. At key stage 4 we inherited a gap of 27.6 points in exam performance, but that has been reduced to 26.3. At primary we inherited a gap of 21.3 points between the poorest and the rest, and that has closed to 16.8. I hope that everyone in the House would applaud that movement towards helping the poorest children do better.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
To truly tackle the social mobility crisis that exists in our country we need much more radical action than the schemes, no doubt well intentioned, that the Secretary of State is talking about. Will he examine the open access scheme championed by Peter Lampl of the Sutton Trust and consider introducing it for the 100 leading independent schools in our country?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman—I hesitate to call him that because he is increasingly becoming my hon. Friend; he knows what he is talking about and is the son of a head teacher—is absolutely right to say that we need more help from independent schools in improving the state sector. I think that Peter Lampl is a hero, but one of the things that the hon. Gentleman and I both believe in—independent schools helping state schools—would be more difficult as a direct result of official Labour party policy, as it would ban teachers in independent schools who do not have qualified teacher status from helping out in the way we would both want. His aim is noble and his heart is in the right place but he is on the wrong side of the House. I hope he will come over to our side, where logic will inevitably lead him.
Mr Graham Stuart
May I correct my right hon. Friend, because the policy is worse than that? The net effect of this highly scrutinised system of sacking people who do not have QTS will be to take high-quality teachers who make such a difference to the lives of the poorest children out of the classroom. To maintain their living, these teachers will be sent to the independent sector, where doubtless they will educate the children of people such as the shadow Secretary of State.
Michael Gove
The Chairman of the Select Committee is right once again. This is a policy for generating unemployment for excellent teachers in the state sector and giving the wealthy—those who have the advantage of the cash that enables them to pay for an independent education—the freedom to benefit from them. It is also important to recognise that the freedom to employ whoever a head teacher believes to be important and capable of adding value to education is essential to the academies and free schools programme.
It is important that Opposition Members are not selective in their use of evidence when they talk about academies and free schools, because academic results are improving faster in sponsored academies than in other schools, and the longer schools have enjoyed academy freedoms, the better they have done. In sponsored academies, open for three years and taking advantage of the freedoms we have given them, the proportion of pupils who achieve five good GCSEs including English and maths has increased by an average of 12.1 percentage points. Over the same time, results in all state-funded schools have gone up, which is good, but only by 5.1 percentage points.
We are clearly seeing academies and free schools generating improved results for the students who need them most. More than that, free schools, overwhelmingly in the poorest areas, have been backed by Andrew Adonis and Tony Blair. Andrew Adonis said that free schools were essentially Labour’s invention and Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, backed them, saying that they were a great idea, explicitly because they were
“independent schools in the state sector”.
He backed them because they had all the freedoms of great independent schools, like University College school and others, to do the right thing for their students.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
Not for the first time, there is a lack of logic in what the Secretary of State is saying. If unqualified teachers are doing such a good job and are so able, why would they find it so hard to achieve formal qualifications?
Michael Gove
If they are doing such a good job, why would the hon. Gentleman want to see them sacked? As far as he and those on his Front Bench are concerned, the only way in which someone can be a good teacher is if a single piece of paper is conferred on them. We believe that the right person to decide who should teach in a school is the head teacher, not the bureaucrats.
Another point that it is important to remember—I shall be explicit about this point, which was hinted at by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central—is that there is a difference of opinion between the two coalition parties about the future of the policy on academies and free schools. It has been a success so far, one in which we share, and I pay tribute to the Liberal Democrats for supporting it.
Michael Gove
In a second.
The difference between Liberal Democrat and Conservative policy, however, is not as big as the difference between those on the Labour Benches. In particular, I mean the difference between the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central on one side and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central on the other. We all know that the hon. Gentleman is a distinguished historian of the civil war, and he knows all about a body politic being racked by internal division. What a pity that it is his body politic that is being so racked.
Let us listen to the cavalier Tristram, talking to Conservative-supporting The Mail on Sunday. He said:
“What I am saying is if you want to do that”—
that is, set up a free school—
“when we are in government we will be on your side. There has been this perception that we would not be, and I want people to be absolutely clear that we are…putting rocket boosters on getting behind parents and social entrepreneurs…We are not going…back”—
no turning back—
“to the old days of the local authority running all the schools—they will not be in charge.”
Three cheers for the cavalier.
Then the puritan—the roundhead—Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central suddenly popped up a few hours later on the BBC talking about the free schools that he had been lauding just a few hours earlier. He said that
“you have…a system which allows…irregularities”
and
“allegations…because there’s no oversight there.”
He said that it was a “dangerous ideological experiment”, yet only a few hours before, it was an ideological experiment with which he had fallen in love. One of the flaws in this ideological experiment, he said—
Michael Gove
In a second—[Hon. Members: “Give way.”] No, I think that the House is enjoying this section of my speech. I will conclude it in just a moment.
The hon. Gentleman said:
“We are not going to go back to the old days of the local authority…they will not be in charge”,
but then on Thursday he said that the problem with free schools was that local education authorities had no role in monitoring those schools. Within four days there has been a complete U-turn, a reversal, as the civil war in the Labour party between those who believe in excellence and those who believe in the unions is embodied in one man. In four days there has been one U-turn and no answers. I am very happy to give way now.
Tristram Hunt
I am delighted that the Secretary of State has finally given way. Let me be clear that the difference between our policy and that of the Government is that we believe in social enterprise and innovation but also believe in having qualified teachers in the classroom and systems of financial accountability and transparency, so that we do not end up with the chaos that we saw at Al-Madinah and Bradford. Let me go back to his earlier point, however. When did the division in the coalition between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives on qualified teacher status first emerge? Can he talk us through the history?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Interventions must be brief, however important the point might be to the person who is making it.
Michael Gove
I know that the hon. Gentleman is interested in splits, because he embodies one. He is a one-man walking split-generating machine. On the one hand, he is determined to remove schools from the hands of local authorities, whereas on the other he wants to impose them on them.
I fear that one thing the hon. Gentleman does not appreciate is the fact that academies and free schools face a greater degree of scrutiny than local authority schools. He has argued that we need local authority oversight because the current regime is not enough, but is he aware that academies face an annual audit from the Education Funding Agency? They must have independently audited financial accounts. They must appoint an accounting officer who has personal responsibility to the National Audit Office and, through that office, to Parliament. Those accounts must have a regularity opinion from external auditors that sets out how regularity over income and expenditure has been obtained. Free schools must also undergo their own financial management evaluation, which is counter-checked by the Education Funding Agency. That is regulation.
What about local authorities, by contrast? The National Audit Office has said:
“Local authorities do not publish systematic data to demonstrate how they are monitoring schools’ financial management and that they are intervening where necessary.”
There we have it: academies are properly regulated whereas local authority schools are not, according to the National Audit Office, regulated with anything like the same degree of intensity.
As laid out in the academies financial handbook, if there is any problem with their finances academies must ensure that they comply with the financial notice to improve and seek consent to any non-routine financial transaction. Local authorities, of course, have similar powers to suspend delegated financial functions, but there is no central record of their doing so in local authority schools, whereas there are many records and examples of academies and free schools being subject to precisely the sort of regulatory oversight that local authority schools lack. For that reason, academies and free schools are better regulated and better protected.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central mentioned one particular free school, the Al-Madinah free school, and there were certainly grievous problems there. However, that is just one school with problems; a number of local authority schools, unfortunately, also have the same ranking from Ofsted and have been graded as 4—inadequate—in every conceivable area. He has not mentioned them because he is entirely selective in his use of evidence. He has not mentioned Hawthorn primary school, Oakhill primary school, Newtown primary school, Doncaster Road primary school, St John’s primary school, Stanhope primary school, Long Cross primary school, Wellfield, Roydon, Rosebrook or a number of others. He has not done so because his selective use of evidence has been designed to discredit a programme under which, just a few weeks ago, he said he would put rocket boosters. The problem, I am afraid, is that those rocket boosters have blown up in his face.
As a historian, the hon. Gentleman should know that excessive reliance on just one source leads to errors. Of course, there have been other historians whose selective reading of evidence has allowed them to make a splash at times in the past, such as Hugh Trevor-Roper, for one, with the Hitler diaries. But although he caused a stir, he also sacrificed his credibility permanently. That is what the hon. Gentleman has done by refusing to acknowledge the brilliant record of free schools overall. He has refused to acknowledge that 50% of new local authority schools have been rated good or outstanding in the latest Ofsted ranking, whereas 75% of free schools have been ranked good or outstanding. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that where it counts, free schools are outperforming local authority schools.
Julie Hilling
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. I have forgotten why I wanted him to give way earlier, but on his last point, how many of those free schools are teaching less pupils—[Hon. Members: “Fewer pupils.”]—fewer pupils because they have not filled all their places? My local free school has far smaller class sizes because it cannot fill those places.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before the Secretary of State replies to that intervention, may I gently remind him that the Speaker asked for brief opening speeches? There are many Members on both sides of the House who want to participate, so I am sure he is keeping that in mind as he comes to the conclusion of his speech.
Michael Gove
I am bearing that in mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I thought it was important that the House was acquainted with evidence, there being a distinct lack of it in the speech from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central.
One of the things that I wanted to stress is that if the Labour policy is enacted, that will mean that there are people currently teaching in the state sector in academies and free schools who will lose their jobs—people like Anita Zarska, who is a chemistry teacher at the new East London science school, who has a PhD in molecular biology. She would lose her job. Howard Bowden, a graduate of Trinity Cambridge, the same college as the hon. Gentleman went to, is teaching at Batley grammar and has won national awards for teaching. He would lose his job. Jane Macbride at Priory community school in Weston-super-Mare, former head of an Asda sales team, who teaches—appropriately enough—business studies would lose her job.
In the week when we have discovered, as the Sharon Shoesmith case shows, that when Labour politicians start sacking people in a knee-jerk fashion, the courts can intervene and cost the taxpayer thousands, has the hon. Gentleman consulted his lawyers? Is his policy compliant with the European convention on human rights? Will he ensure that those outstanding teachers who are in our schools now will not be sacked arbitrarily as a result of a policy drawn up simply to appease the teaching unions? The consequence of his policy would be to sack them.
The consequence of the hon. Gentleman’s policy would also be that independent schools that have joined the state sector through our free school programme would be barred from opening their doors, as the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) wants, to every student who wants to join them—schools such as Chetwynde in Barrow, Liverpool college in Liverpool, King’s school in Tynemouth, all of them independent schools and all with teachers who do not have QTS. All of them would be barred from opening their doors to every child as a result of Labour policy.
What of the contribution of outstanding head teachers from the independent sector who are also helping state schools? What about Richard Cairns of Brighton college, who set up the London Academy of Excellence? What about Stephen Spurr, the head teacher of Westminster school, who is opening a new free school with Harris to help the poorest children? Neither of those has QTS. Both of them are outstanding. Both of them would be barred from helping poorer children under the hon. Gentleman’s policy.
The policy of the Labour party in the past prevented many intellectually gifted educators from helping children in need because those people were imprisoned in ivory towers. Take a chap I know called Tristram. Tristram was an Oxbridge man; he had a top degree; he was universally lauded by everyone in his field. He was a celebrated media figure. [Interruption.] No, I am not talking about the hon. Gentleman. I am talking about Tristram Jones-Parry. I know the hon. Gentleman thinks it is all about him, but this is not about him. It is about the children who will be denied the chance to get a fantastic education because Tristram Jones-Parry, who has a Cambridge degree in mathematics, was barred from teaching in state schools under Labour and is able to teach in state schools under our policy.
As a result of our policy, we now have support from Richard Cairns, the headmaster of Brighton college, the best independent school in the country. Katy Ricks, the head teacher of Sevenoaks, has said that recruiting staff, the job of any head teacher, is quite simply about getting the best possible person for the job. FASNA, the organisation that represents those teachers who are most keen on freedom and autonomy in driving up standards, says that head teachers should be trusted to hire the right people for the job.
Everyone who knows anything about how to improve state education, everyone who backs greater autonomy, backs our Government’s policy. The one person who does not, unfortunately, is the hon. Gentleman. He benefited from great teaching at his private school. It allowed him, as we heard, to make it to Cambridge, but he would deny that teaching to poor children. He got to Cambridge with the help of men and women who did not have QTS, but who had a great degree and a passion for learning, and now he wants to deny that same opportunity to poor children. He knows directly what great teaching in an independent school is and he says that poor children should never have the opportunity to enjoy the same privileges as he did.
It is the same old Labour party—“Do as I say, not as I do”—a Labour party willing to pull up the ladder from the next generation, a Labour party that has benefited from all the advantages that money can buy and then, when the poor come knocking on the door, saying, “Liberate us from ignorance,” says, “Sorry, no. We’re with the unions. We are not on your side.” It is shameless and that is why I hope everyone on the Government Benches will vote against the Opposition motion.