European Union: Future Relationship

Debate between Michael Gove and Pat McFadden

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I have said before from this Dispatch Box, given a 52-48 referendum result and 650 different views in the House, not everyone will be satisfied with every aspect of our negotiating approach; but with a united Government, a clear approach and a general election mandate, and given that this document is underpinned by clear work by lawyers, trade negotiators and others, I believe that we can secure a deal, and I am sure Members throughout the House recognise that we should not make our own personal perfect the enemy of the common good.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The Minister’s statement and the document published today show that the Government have made a fundamental choice, which is to prioritise sovereignty over any economic argument or consequence for either goods or services. Is there not a danger, however, that having made that choice, the Government will impose long-term economic consequences on the country in pursuit of the prize of a sovereignty that they will end up not using very much, because at the end of the day good standards in the environmental, labour market and consumer sectors actually make sense?

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Gentleman always makes thoughtful contributions to our debates, and I take his point. It will be for this Parliament and future Parliaments to decide how our sovereignty is exercised in accordance with the wish of the British people, but the experience of history tells us that the countries with the maximum amount of control over their own destinies are the best equipped to succeed economically and, indeed, to secure a greater degree of equity for all their citizens.

Teaching Quality

Debate between Michael Gove and Pat McFadden

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

I agree. The previous Government had a black country challenge for precisely those reasons, and the Secretary of State did not continue with it, which is a great shame given the support that we need.

Apart from good leadership in schools, the second thing we need is that the local authority function to challenge standards and improve must be carried out with passion and a determined focus on school improvement.

Thirdly, we need curiosity and a willingness to learn from what has worked elsewhere. If that means changing the way we do things, then so be it. The only vested interest that matters in this is the vested interest of the pupils themselves. Nothing should get in the way of improving the opportunities for them.

The school environment has changed. The clock cannot be rewound. The future landscape will inevitably be a more varied one, and we must learn from the turnaround experience elsewhere.

My fourth point is directed at the Minister so that she addresses it in her wind-up. Areas that accept a verdict, such as that of Ofsted, as I have urged Wolverhampton to do, also need help in turning things around. There is not unlimited school improvement and turnaround capacity in every part of the country. As I said earlier, we should not shoot the messenger. However, it is not enough simply to pass damning verdicts and then walk away. If Wolverhampton responds by saying that it accepts the verdict in the Ofsted report, understands that there is a problem and wants to turn things around, the Department for Education and Ofsted have a duty to play their part in helping the city to do that.

I have already arranged to meet the regional head of Ofsted to discuss the matter in the next couple of weeks and I know that relations between the Department and Ofsted have been damaged by the events of the past week. I want the Minister to address this specific point: will she and the Secretary of State back Ofsted in a role that involves not just passing verdicts on schools but helping areas such as the one I represent to turn the situation around and improve opportunities for the future?

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Gentleman is giving an outstanding speech and I agree with almost every word that he has said. He has given me the opportunity to place on record my admiration for the work that Sir Michael Wilshaw has led to ensure that HMIS—

[Michael Gove]

I will ignore that comment.

I am grateful to Sir Michael for the work that he has done in ensuring that HMIS can play a role in school improvement. Another thing we need to do is ensure that we have more national leaders of education deployed. If the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) would like to invite me to visit his constituency to ensure that that work can advance, I would be delighted to accept.

[Mr McFadden]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his intervention, and as he has expressed his admiration I would encourage him to tell his Department and those who work for him of that too.

I believe that we should respond to the report and not with the usual series of excuses for educational failure, but by saying that the only interest that matters is that of the pupils themselves. They deserve the best, they deserve the highest ambitions and they must never be written off. I hope that Wolverhampton is up for the challenge, but the city will need help to turn around. I hope that the Secretary of State will follow through on what he has said and give us the help we will need.

Secondary Education

Debate between Michael Gove and Pat McFadden

Thursday 21st June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a very valid point. One thing we need to do is ensure that more students are capable of taking more rigorous examinations. If we look at other jurisdictions that are performing better than us, such as Singapore, we find that 80% of students there take their O-level examinations, some at 15, some at 16 and some at 17. I see no reason why we cannot have a similarly rigorous situation here. He is also right that there should be no cap on aspiration, and one of our deepest problems is that some schools and some local authorities are insufficiently ambitious for their young people.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is absolutely right to say that there is a close link between educational achievement, opportunity and social mobility, so the question is not “Change or no change?” but “What kind of change?”

What is his reaction to the analysis published in the Financial Times of his proposed reforms, suggesting that the new CSE will be a poorer person’s qualification and a northern qualification? Would it not be a tragedy if any such reform reinforced the educational divides that exist, instead of providing a bridge out of them?

[Michael Gove]

That is a typically acute point by the right hon. Gentleman; every time he speaks on education, I hear a voice of good sense. It is absolutely right to say that we need to tackle a culture low aspiration that has held students back in many northern cities and in places such as east Lancashire for far too long. Any reform of the examination system and curriculum needs to ensure that we do not place a cap on aspiration in those areas.

I have had a look at the Financial Times analysis and think that it suffers from one thing: it itself is a prisoner of the culture of low aspiration that we are tackling. I hope to work with the right hon. Gentleman and other fair-minded people to ensure that we do not fall into that trap.

Funding and Schools Reform

Debate between Michael Gove and Pat McFadden

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Later.

The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) asked whether I played poker. I have to confess that when I was growing up and learning card games, poker was somewhat frowned upon at the Kirk socials that I attended, although we did play the odd game of knockout whist. One of the things that I learned in card games is that one has to play the hand that one is dealt. What was the hand that we were dealt by the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues? Credit agencies ready to downgrade our debt; a £150 billion deficit; and a letter, left by the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, saying that there is no money left. I know that that is painful for Opposition Members to hear, but it is even more painful for the people in our school system who have been let down by the profligacy, arrogance and extravagance of a party that still does not have the humility to say sorry for debauching our finances.

[Mr McFadden]

The Secretary of State mentioned the academy programme. I am a supporter of the academy programme that the Labour Government introduced. It gave hope and higher standards to children who had not been given the opportunities that they deserved under what went before. Earlier this year, he issued his list, which said that the Building Schools for the Future programme in the city that I represent would be unaffected by the changes, and that programme includes two city academies, one of which is in my constituency. However, they are now being told that there will be a cut in that programme of up to 40%. How can he say that the programme is unaffected and that that will not have an impact on opportunity for those children who need it most?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a great deal of respect. He was a very good Minister, and it is a pity that he is not on the Opposition Front Bench now. I absolutely share his commitment to improving academy provision, not just in the west midlands, but across the country. I can reassure him that all those schools that were recorded as being unaffected will have their building work backed. The money will be there, but we have a duty, to both the taxpayer and those schools, to ensure that when we negotiate with the contractors—with the private sector—we get the best possible value for money. The more money we can save in our negotiations with contractors, the more we can invest in education elsewhere to ensure that the many, many school buildings that are in a state of dilapidation and extreme need receive additional support. I know that the right hon. Gentleman—when he was a Minister, he always sought to secure value for money for taxpayers—will appreciate that that tough negotiation on behalf of the public is exactly what a responsible Government should do.

Hon. Members know that education standards should not just be measured against the past. Countries across the globe are improving relative to the past. We need to measure ourselves against the best in the world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) said, the grim truth is that the statistics produced by the OECD show that over the past 10 years, educational standards in this country, relative to other nations, have fallen. We have moved from being fourth in the world for the quality of our science education to 14th, from seventh in the world for the quality of literacy to 17th, and from eighth in the world for the quality of mathematics to 24th. Those are facts that we cannot deny. At the same time as we have fallen behind other countries, the gap between rich and poor, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said, has grown wider.

In the last year for which we have figures, the number of children who were eligible for free school meals, bearing in mind that every year 600,000 children attend state schools, was 80,000, of whom just 45 made it to Oxbridge—[Interruption.]. It is absolutely the measure. The right hon. Member for Leigh might not like to hear it, but on his and his Government’s, watch the poorest children were denied opportunity. He made it to Cambridge; why should not more children from poor homes make it to Cambridge and Oxford? Why do children from Westminster, St Paul’s, Eton and such bastions of privilege make it to Oxford and Cambridge but not our poorest children in state schools? This Government—the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats united together—are at last investing in social justice, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that that figure is a scandal and that at last the investment is going in to secure reform.