Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Austin of Dudley

Thursday 20th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. May I take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend not just on her election to this House but on her brilliant maiden speech yesterday? Consultation with environmental and animal welfare groups has been at the heart of the approach that DEFRA has taken, and it has also been central to developing the new policy agenda that I hope to take forward.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I am very concerned about the potential impact on animal welfare in Dudley of illegally dumped waste at the Rowan Oak site in Shaw Road. Local businesses are furious about the amount of time it is taking the Environment Agency to deal with this. Will the Secretary of State look at this personally, talk to the Environment Agency, and help me to get this matter sorted out?

[Michael Gove]

I certainly will. Again—

Free Schools (Funding)

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Austin of Dudley

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

Parents in Dudley are spending this week in appeals once again because their children have been allocated places in schools they do not want to send them to. Why should pupils be denied places in popular and successful schools because those schools just do not have the space needed to accommodate them? Why will the Secretary of State not promote competition and expand the market by enabling well-run, oversubscribed, financially sound schools to borrow the resources needed to provide those extra facilities and be able to pay them back with the revenue the extra pupils would bring?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I read with interest and appreciation the article he wrote in The Independent on Sunday outlining a similar case, and I have asked officials in the Department to see what we can do to give effect to his suggestion. If he would like to come to the Department and share his thinking with officials, I shall be delighted to see what we can do to take this forward.

PISA Results

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Austin of Dudley

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Both.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

These figures are actually further evidence of the lamentable failure of successive Governments and our country in general to take education seriously enough, so will the Secretary of State set aside his partisan point scoring and agree that what this country needs is a royal commission in order to get cross-party agreement and the support of the teaching profession, business and parents to make education our No.1 priority and to back policies and long-term funding to transform the quality of education our children receive?

[Michael Gove]

I have a lot of time and admiration for the hon. Gentleman. I am not in favour of a royal commission. As someone once said, royal commissions take minutes and last years. I agree that we need a sense of national urgency and a unified commitment to raising standards. I know that the hon. Gentleman agrees in almost every respect with the details of our educational reform, and I look forward to working with him further in the future.

Qualified Teachers

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Austin of Dudley

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Austin of Dudley

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I apologise, Mr Speaker, and thank you. We are reforming GCSEs to ensure that they stand comparison with exams in the highest-performing jurisdictions. We are consulting on changes to subject content for GCSEs. Ofqual is also consulting on changes to the structure, grading and standard of the new qualifications.

[Ian Austin]

I agree with the Secretary of State that many state schools do not stretch their brightest pupils enough to allow them to compete with pupils from private schools. In my constituency, only two out of seven schools reached the national average in GCSEs last year. I do not think there should be a school in the country in which fewer than 70% or 80% are getting five good GCSEs, including English and maths. Will he consider bringing back the black country challenge to boost standards in Dudley in the way the London challenge improved them in London?

[Michael Gove]

That is a very acute point from a Member of Parliament who, I know, is passionate about education. I will do everything I can to ensure that all the elements that made the London challenge and black country challenge a success apply to schools in his constituency through collaboration and a culture of excellence. I look forward to talking with him about how we can work together to ensure that his championing of high educational standards can be extended across the black country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Austin of Dudley

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

A university technical college for Dudley would not only transform the education available in the town but help address the skills shortage and rebalance the economy while encouraging young people to pursue careers in high-tech manufacturing. I am sure that the Secretary of State will be as pleased as I am that a bid has now been submitted for the Aston university technical college in Dudley. Will he take this bid from me today and ensure that it is approved as early as possible so that we can get the changes made that we need in Dudley?

[Michael Gove]

I shall take the bid and look on it sympathetically. I know that the Prime Minister, as a Villa fan, would want me to do everything possible to satisfy the hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Austin of Dudley

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her point. We need to ensure that all children who have special needs are better educated and we particularly need to ensure that the energy and enthusiasm of people in the third sector are galvanised. At this stage, I cannot give her a firm figure on how many students and schools are involved; all I know is that a small bridgehead will expand over the course of this Parliament.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will no doubt be delighted to hear that, on Friday, I visited the university technical college in Walsall and, credit where it is due, it was fantastic. He will also be pleased to hear that tomorrow I am meeting Lord Baker to discuss my campaign to bring a UTC to Dudley. Sadly, only one of the 70-odd UTCs that will open nationally is currently in the black country. Will the Secretary of State meet me too, so we can discuss how we can open a UTC in Dudley and deal with the urgent need to drive up vocational standards and bring new jobs and industries to the area?

[Michael Gove]

It would be a joy.

Free Schools Policy

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Austin of Dudley

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is a former teacher, and a brilliant one at that. We will ensure that all academies continue to abide by the same rules on admissions, hard-to-place children and exclusions that apply to all state schools.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State knows that I have spent the past five years trying to persuade the councils responsible for Dudley school to transform standards by introducing academies and producing a decent bid for Building Schools for the Future. Before the election I was promised that the Department had funds available if the councils were able to produce a decent bid. Does that promise still stand?

[Michael Gove]

I know how passionate the hon. Gentleman, who is the son of a head teacher, is about ensuring that that school moves towards achieving academy status, and he knows how keen I am on academy status. I suggest that he come into the Department, so that we can talk about exactly how we can advance that programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Austin of Dudley

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and congratulate him on his election. Both he and his predecessor have been impassioned champions for the interests of the Jewish community and other faith communities in the London borough of Barnet, and I am deeply concerned that parents of Jewish children have to pay out of their own pocket to ensure that their children are safe in school. It seems to me quite wrong that, simply because of the faith or community from which a child comes, their parents should have to pay extra to ensure that they are safe. That is why I have asked for talks with the Community Security Trust and the Board of Deputies of British Jews—to ensure that we can do everything possible to safeguard those children.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I think that I have discovered why the Secretary of State was so disparaging about the recipe book that the previous Government produced, which as you will recall, Mr Speaker, included recipes for proper English food, such as Lancashire hotpot and cottage pie. The right hon. Gentleman might not have heard of those, because I understand from The Times this morning that his favourite meal is something called “scaloppine with parmentier potatoes”. I am afraid that we cannot get that in Dudley, so I asked somebody more familiar than myself with the fancy foreign food available in expensive London restaurants, and apparently it is veal. Is that what the pupils of Britain can look forward to eating now that the Notting Hill elite are running the Government?

[Michael Gove]

I am enormously grateful to the hon. Gentleman for paying such close attention to my wife’s column in The Times. I should point out that the issue is not about fancy London restaurants; I do not have time to eat in them. The dish is cooked by my wife, and, if he and his wife would like to come round for dinner, scaloppine will be on the menu. I shall make sure that I have some Banks’s Mild, as I know that it is his favourite tipple, and we will have an opportunity to discuss together how I can help the black country.