Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Joan Walley

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

15. What his policy is on converting primary schools into academies.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

I am in favour.

[Joan Walley]

I am pleased that we have got the Secretary of State to answer the question. I am in favour of head teachers, governors and local education authorities having a real debate about how to get primary schools to improve. How will the Secretary of State take account of special educational needs and outstanding Ofsted reports? Would he or one of his Ministers meet me, the local education authority and the heads about the schools which, it seems, will be forced to become primary school academies?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point. As she knows, education standards in Stoke-on-Trent have not been good enough for too long, and we particularly need to tackle underperformance at primary level. We need to find the right sponsors to help those primary schools turn round, but we can do so far better if we collaborate with the local authority and co-operate with local Members like herself and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who are passionate about change. I will make sure that a Minister makes time to talk to her and her parliamentary colleagues.

School Sports Funding

Debate between Michael Gove and Joan Walley

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I shall give way to the hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), but then I want to make some progress.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State not in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? In my school sport partnership in North Stoke, we have transformed participation in sport. He asked how much our shadow Secretary of State wished to cut the budget by, but it is not a question of how much—it is a question of keeping the infrastructure. Can we for once use Parliament as a means of finding a solution to how we get sport in schools and in our communities? Will the Secretary of State continue his contribution in that spirit?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the fair point she makes. I chose to begin my remarks by making it clear that I wished to operate constructively. I should like to ask some questions to ensure that we have a proper informed debate about the successes, and about the areas where the current strategy may not have been delivering the value for money we wanted.

Schools Funding

Debate between Michael Gove and Joan Walley

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend refers to the list. The list was furnished to me by those involved in the Building Schools for the Future project, but it was my responsibility to check it before it came to the House. I was anxious to do so in as rigorous a way as possible. The fact that the list contained inaccuracies when it came to the House is my responsibility alone. It was for that that I wished to apologise, and I underline that apology thanks to my hon. Friend’s question.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Surely the Secretary of State owes the House an explanation as to why he brought wrong information to it. We do not seem to have had such an explanation. Just for the record, given that the list is now elsewhere and not available to hon. Members in the Chamber listening to the statement, could he reassure us about and explain the decision that has been made on the Staffordshire schools?

[Michael Gove]

I would like to make two points in response to the hon. Lady’s question. I sought as quickly as I could to bring to the House a statement explaining the future of Building Schools for the Future. That is why I made the statement on Monday. There had been a great deal of speculation about the future of the project, and to allow it to proceed would have meant that whichever schools were built, unnecessary additional administrative costs would have been incurred. That is why I sought the fullest possible information, and sought to bring it to the House in a statement at the earliest possible stage. I know that the hon. Lady is a Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent. One announcement that I was able to make on Monday was that Stoke-on-Trent, as a local authority that has reached financial close, will see all the schools under Building Schools for the Future rebuilt or refurbished.