Free Schools (Funding)

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It is important to bear in mind that the Building Schools for the Future programme was not the most effective way of allocating resources to local authority schools. We have increased provision for additional school places in Coventry, compared with the last Government: they spent £25 million and we are spending £41 million. Coventry is also the area that has benefited fastest from our new Priority School Building programme. Whitmore Park primary school was one of the first to open, just a couple of weeks ago, and there are other schools in Coventry in desperate need of maintenance money which we are now helping at a lower cost and faster than under Building Schools for the Future.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Was not the real vanity project the Building Schools for the Future programme that my right hon. Friend has just alluded to, which was hugely costly? Are not this Government now picking up the pieces of the last Government’s unbelievable lack of planning at primary level, and in a way that guarantees quality, diversity and choice to parents?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Again, it is important that the House recall that under the last Government the provision of primary school places was cut, and under this Government it has expanded. At the same time as increasing the quantity of school places, we have raised the quality.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

The Secretary of State recently saw basketball being taught in Mandarin at Bohunt school in my constituency. Will he join me in commending Bohunt on its immersion programme, and how can we get more people studying this strategically important language?

[Michael Gove]

I hugely enjoyed my visit to Bohunt school, an absolutely outstanding school. When the Financial Times visited it, it said that it was easily better—like so many state schools—than independent schools. One of the great things I saw today when I visited Chobham academy in Newham was a year 7 class being taught Mandarin through total immersion. The transformation of modern foreign language teaching over the last couple of years is a wonder to behold, and the commitment of so many of our modern foreign language teachers to extending Mandarin, Spanish and French teaching is vital to ensure that this country escapes the insularity that, sadly, afflicted us in the Labour years.

PISA Results

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It is absolutely right that we encourage more men to consider teaching, particularly in primary schools, as an aspirational profession. I am delighted that there has been an increase in the number of highly talented men entering primary teaching.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Although it may be politically attractive to try to scare people with the red herring of unqualified teachers, is this not really a question of trusting heads? Non-qualified teacher status teachers have long existed in the state sector, but they are relatively few in number and fewer now than under the previous Government. As it happens, the most improved region—London—employs the most.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a characteristically well-informed point. One of the revealing things over the past 50 minutes or so is that some Labour MPs have been wise enough to acknowledge that there is a great deal of common ground between both parties on the need to reform our schools system, but those Labour MPs who have asked critical questions have criticised us on only one thing and they have used statistics that, I am afraid, simply mislead.

Curriculum and Exam Reform

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I think the real harm occurs when children are at schools where teaching is not of a good quality, and where ambitions and aspirations for those children are insufficiently high. One of the problems we have experienced in the past is that employers have said that some qualifications—including those introduced under the last Government—do not command confidence. That is a tragedy, but today we are playing a part in the ending of it.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I greatly welcome the move away from the blunt, simplistic “five-plus C-plus” measure involving the “three perverse incentives” to which my right hon. Friend referred. Will he strive to make the new progress measure a lot simpler and easier to understand than “contextual value added”, which was so complex that it was hardly ever used?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend—who used to be a member of the Education Committee—has made a very good point. One of the other problems with contextual value added was that it seemed to embed a culture of low expectations by automatically assuming that students from particular ethnic minority backgrounds would do less well. The “value added” measure that we hope to introduce will be clearer and simpler, and will also embed high expectations for every student.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am happy to say that what was an academic education limited to a narrow elite in the 1950s is now being extended to more and more children. I am very sorry that the snobbish attitude that prevails on the Labour Benches—[Interruption.] It is interesting to see Labour Members uniting behind a view that academic education should be available only to a minority, and it is a unique historic trap into which they are falling by endorsing the idea that English, maths, science and modern foreign languages should somehow be denied to young people. What a pity that the party that once stood up for ragged-trousered philanthropists is now standing up for closed-minded reaction.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Despite the concerns that have been expressed about arts and creative subjects, is it not true that there is plenty of room in the curriculum for young people who are interested in studying those subjects, even while taking the full English baccalaureate suite?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, and I find it curious that there are those who say, for example, that English literature is not a subject that encourages creativity. The assault on the subjects in the English baccalaureate betrays the most narrow of mindsets, whereby the only things that are creative are those which fall within a particularly narrow spectrum. I think that scientists are creative; I think that those who study physics are capable of creativity; I think that geographers are creative; I think that historians are creative. To have Labour Members attacking those subjects as somehow not being creative and not being appropriate for the 21st century is as revealing as the dog that did not bark in Sherlock Holmes’s story.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is an excellent point. Now that more than half the number of secondary schools are either academies or en route to becoming academies, those who attack the academies programme are attacking the majority of state schools in the country. It is a pity that there are people in the Labour party who are enemies of state education at a time when so many great head teachers are taking advantage of academy freedoms to raise standards for all.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

12. What steps he plans to take to improve the quality of teaching.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is a very fair point, and design and technology has many powerful champions, including the hon. Gentleman, but I would emphasise that the single most important thing that we can do if we are to ensure a generation of not just technicians but manufacturing leaders in future is make sure that we perform better in mathematics and that there are more students studying physics and chemistry. They are the key to success, and one of the reasons why the English baccalaureate has been so successful is that it has encouraged students to study those essential subjects.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there have always been core subjects and option subjects, and that the value of the E-bac is in signalling the most widely valued core subjects without precluding option subjects? That advice is of most value to the most disadvantaged in our society.

[Michael Gove]

That is a typically acute point from my hon. Friend. The subjects in the E-bac bear a close resemblance to the sorts of subjects in an Arnoldian vision of liberal education but, more than that, they are the subjects that modern universities and 21st-century employers increasingly demand. One of the problems that we have had in the past is that too few students from poorer areas have been able to access and benefit from great subject-teaching in those disciplines.

New Schools

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Having visited Nottingham twice over the past six weeks, I am under no illusions about the passion that Nottingham’s MPs and its people have for improving educational performance. I shall do everything possible to ensure that the local community is involved in plans that I think are exciting and will extend opportunities to a particularly deprived constituency.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the pace of his reforms and his constant focus on narrowing the gap for the underprivileged? Does he agree that the benefit of free schools can be felt not just where they appear but much wider afield? The fact that such a school could be set up helps to raise the bar. They can act as beacons of excellence and innovation.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes my own case better than I could ever make it myself. It is true. We have seen with the academy programme that excellent schools prompt the question, “Why can’t all schools be like that?” As more schools adopt longer school days, longer terms and more personalised learning, parents increasingly ask, “Why can’t more schools offer what these schools are offering?” It is a virtuous circle that raises aspiration and attainment for all.

School Funding Reform

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am in favour of more flexibility overall, but we need to recognise that money spent on state education should stay in state schools. There are many great state schools in Portsmouth, and I was fortunate enough to talk yesterday with the leader of Portsmouth city council, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, and appreciate how hard he is working, along with my hon. Friend, to ensure that Portsmouth gets the support it deserves for its state schools.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

In making the new capital programme more efficient than BSF, will my right hon. Friend confirm that sums of money will not be earmarked and siphoned off for things like the unnecessary IT projects that led to such cost overruns under BSF?

[Michael Gove]

That is a very distinguished point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). One of the problems with BSF is that £210 million was spent by local authorities on consultants, including IT consultants, and some of that money was invested in material that we would not describe as state of the art. It is critical to ensure that we get value for every penny we spend. Information technology is critical to effective learning in the 21st century, but so is ensuring that we get proper value for money.

Building Schools for the Future

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making her case. Waltham Forest, as an effective and efficient local authority, has already been in touch with my Department, and I am delighted to say that we will be in conversation with it to ensure that the right judgment is made in due course. But, with respect to the hon. Lady and all Opposition Members, although many schools are in desperate need of rebuilding, the question that must be asked is, “Why weren’t those schools rebuilt effectively in the last 13 years, and why did the Building Schools for the Future scheme operate in such a wasteful and inefficient fashion?”

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Sixty million pounds spent on consultants; £1,625 per pupil spent on IT. Would my right hon. Friend say that Building Schools for the Future represented the very best way of spending money for the future education of our children?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend, who serves on the Education Committee, has made a study of the waste inherent in Building Schools for the Future, and he is right: it is a scandal that, while buildings, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) pointed out, were in a state of decay, unfortunately millions of pounds were spent on consultants. One individual, in one year, made more than £1 million as a result of his endeavours as a consultant working on Building Schools for the Future.

Schools White Paper

Debate between Michael Gove and Damian Hinds

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Overall spending on schools has risen as a result of the comprehensive spending review.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I welcome the broadening of the base for the gold standard in GCSE attainment, but what can my right hon. Friend do to ensure that children who are far above that standard—and those in the most challenging circumstances who may be expected to fall quite far below it—are also fully stretched and given the encouragement that they need, and how can schools’ efforts in that regard be fully recognised?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend has made an extremely good point. Along with Ofqual and others, we will ensure that our examinations are as rigorous as the world’s best, so that children who are truly talented receive that support. Some children may not be able to access GCSEs, although I imagine that many more will be able to pass them: that is what we expect, and that is what those in other countries succeed in doing. We are working with Alison Wolf on qualifications that will ensure that every child’s achievement and hard work are recognised.