Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

6. What progress has been made on the academies programme in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

There are currently 203 academies open in 83 local authorities. More academies will open in September, with numbers continuing to grow each year now that the programme has been opened up to all schools. For the academies with results in 2008 and 2009, the increase in the proportion of pupils achieving at least five A* to C GCSEs including English and maths is 5 percentage points, an increase on last year’s academy improvement rate of 4.3 percentage points, which is double the national average.

[Bob Blackman]

Progress in opening academies under the last Government was extremely slow. Some 1,100 schools have applied for freedom from local authority interference, and freedom to set their own standards to ensure they demonstrate the highest possible quality. What comfort can the Minister give to ensure that those applications will all be honoured, and that those schools will not be dissatisfied?

[Mr Gibb]

I hope I can give my hon. Friend the comfort he seeks. Of the 1,100 schools that have applied, 626 are outstanding and we have said that we will provide them with a fast-tracking process. That should give him the comfort he seeks.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

May I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his post and wish him well in it? He shadowed me on a number of occasions, and now I am shadowing him. However, is not the excellent progress made by academies in the past 12 months the result of the involvement in their development of parents and teachers and, as the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) said, of local authorities? Is placing such power in the hands of the Secretary of State not therefore a huge step backwards and a hugely centralising measure? Why are local decision making on the development of academies, parent power and devolution being replaced by centralisation and the exclusion of parents, local authorities and teachers from that process?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words; it is nice to be on the Government side of the House, instead of on the other side. However, this is not a centralising but a decentralising measure, beyond the local authority and down to the school level. This is about trusting professionals and having faith in the autonomy of schools. Our advice to schools is that it is important for them to discuss with parents and pupils their intention to convert. Existing legislation for setting up academies does not require such consultation with parents, so even when the hon. Gentleman was the Minister for Schools, there was no requirement for academies to consult parents.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I warmly welcome all the Ministers to their posts. May I ask a question both as a Member of Parliament and as the chair of governors of a Church of England primary school? Could the follow-up to the Secretary of State’s letter to outstanding schools such as ours include a letter to the chair of governors setting out the advantages and disadvantages of academy status to schools, and the advantages and disadvantages, if any, to local authorities and to diocesan boards of education?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Of course the advantages of academy status are very clear: this is about trusting professionals to run their schools without interference from politicians and bureaucrats, either locally or nationally. I am sure that all the people he refers to will be aware of that. In the last set that we have seen—that of 2009—the results of a third of all academies showed an increase of more than 15 percentage points compared with those of the schools they replaced, so the advantages of academy status are very clear.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What steps he plans to take to support children with special educational needs.

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[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

9. How much funding he plans to allocate to (a) Slough borough council and (b) other local authorities where there are insufficient primary school places in order to increase the number of such places available in the current financial year; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

School capital allocations announced in 2007 for the current spending period include £1.5 billion for new pupil places. Additionally, around £1.9 billion is allocated for primary school modernisation, some of which will fund new places. The capital support for Slough and its schools this year is some £25 million, including nearly £9 million specifically for new primary school places.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I am glad to hear that that £9 million is confirmed. It was given by the previous Government to increase the number of our primary places. We still have 60 reception and year 1 children who do not have places for next year and those funds are essential to provide them, but a note from the Library advised me that £32 million of Slough’s external finance, which includes a number of grants in relation to education, is at risk. As we have not had a detailed breakdown of what funds to local authorities have been protected by the Government, can the Minister assure me that £1 in £6 going from the Government to Slough borough council will not be cut by the coalition Government?

[Mr Gibb]

Despite the fact that the Government inherited a public finance deficit of £156 billion, we have been able to say that there will be no cuts in front-line funding for schools, Sure Start or 16-to-19 funding.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

10. What recent assessment he has made of the level of participation by primary schools in the academies programme; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

There are currently 23 all-age academies open that include primary provision. The Academies Bill will also open up the academies programme allowing all primary schools to apply to become academies in their own right. There has been a very high level of interest from schools with more than 250 outstanding primary schools already registering with the Department. We expect the first of those schools with an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted to open as academies from September 2010.

[Mr Turner]

The Minister may recall that in the early years of grant-maintained status, secondary schools were able to opt out, but primary schools had to wait, although subsequently they found that the operation was relatively easy. Will he ensure that, this time, primary schools have the opportunity as quickly as other schools?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to see in the Academies Bill, which is receiving its Second Reading in another place, that primaries will be able to apply for academy status. Indeed, the 250 outstanding primaries that have registered an interest with the Department will be fast-tracked to that status by, I hope, this September.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

12. What his Department’s priorities will be in allocating funding for new school building.

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[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

We will improve standards of discipline in schools by giving heads and teachers the powers they need to deal with violent incidents and remove disruptive pupils or items from the classroom. We will introduce no-notice detentions so that poor behaviour can be dealt with immediately, give teachers wider powers of search and clarify their powers to use force. We will stop heads being overruled on exclusions and will reinforce schools’ powers to maintain good standards of behaviour through stronger home-school behaviour contracts.

[Mr Baron]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. About 70% of all allegations of physical assault and sexual assault are never proven, yet the figures released clearly show that, despite those accused being exonerated, the records are kept on file and they come up on Criminal Records Bureau checks. What are the Government going to do about that?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. False accusations against teachers can have a devastating effect on the careers of those teachers. We intend to introduce anonymity for such teachers and will announce more details of that in due course.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

T6. The Children, Schools and Families Committee report on the national curriculum called for a five-year cycle of review and reform of the curriculum. Will the Secretary of State put in place such a cycle and ensure that the early years foundation stage, the national curriculum and the arrangements for 14 to 19-year-olds are viewed as a continuum? Will he also tell us whether he plans to implement the Rose review in the meantime?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Teachers do not welcome perpetual revolution in the curriculum; schools need some stability, and we will shortly make some announcements about the review of the curriculum. Thereafter, it will not be our intention to have five-yearly-cycle reviews.

Regarding the Rose review and the decision by the previous Government to implement a new primary curriculum from September 2011, as both parties in the coalition made clear in opposition, we do not intend to proceed with the proposed new curriculum. We believe that the Rose review’s proposed approach was too prescriptive in terms of how schools should teach and diluted the focus of what they should teach—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry but the answer is simply too long.

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[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), has today announced the introduction of no-notice detention. How is that compatible with good child safeguarding procedures, and how will he ensure that children who have caring responsibilities, and who often do not let their schools know that they have them, are not adversely impacted by this retrograde proposal?

[Mr Gibb]

This is a deregulation matter. It is not a prescriptive matter requiring schools not to give 24 hours’ notice for detentions: it merely enables them to do that if they wish. Trusting head teachers and teachers means that they will make these arrangements themselves if schools feel that they are necessary. We are trying to take out of the statute book impediments to maintaining good order and good behaviour in our schools.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his post, but may I return to the subject of special educational needs? He will be aware that in a low-spending authority such as Gloucestershire, parents, particularly disadvantaged parents, often struggle to get their children the special educational needs treatment that they need. Can he assure me that there is no place in this country for a postcode lottery for special educational needs and that every child in this country should get equal treatment for their needs?