Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

6. What assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of educational provision in rural areas.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

Local authorities are responsible for assessing educational need in their areas, and they have a statutory duty to ensure that there are sufficient school places, including in rural areas. Nearly 600,000 additional school places were created between May 2010 and May 2015, with many more delivered since then and in the pipeline. The Government have committed a further £7 billion for school places, which, along with our investment in 500 new free schools, we expect to deliver another 600,000 new school places by 2021.

[Chris Davies]

Very sadly, Builth Wells and Llandrindod high schools in Radnorshire are under threat of closure. What more can my hon. Friend do to ensure that we keep educational parity across rural areas, so that pupils have access to superb local schools no matter where they live?

[Mr Gibb]

In May, the Government set out a package of measures to secure the continued success and sustainability of rural schools in England, including a £10 million fund for expert support to help rural schools through the academy conversion process and a new double lock to sit alongside the existing presumption against the closure of rural schools. By contrast, in Labour-run Wales, with a Liberal Democrat Education Minister, there is no presumption against the closure of rural schools.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Schools in urban areas face challenges, too, with many reporting huge difficulties in retaining teachers. Today, the Education Policy Institute revealed that one in five teachers in England is working more than 60 hours a week. What priority is the Minister giving to analysing why schools are finding it so difficult to retain teachers and what impact workload has on that?

[Mr Gibb]

The EPI report is based on a 2013 OECD teaching and learning international survey. In response, in 2014, the previous Secretary of State announced the workload challenge—there were 44,000 responses to that—which highlighted issues such as dialogic marking and data collection. We set up review groups to look at that, and they have reported. We have accepted their recommendations, and now we are acting on those recommendations to ease the burden of workload on teachers in our schools. We are acting, and we have acted.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s comments today about rural schools, and I have a large preponderance of rural schools in my constituency. However, the fact is that Taunton Deane receives £2,000 less per pupil on average than the national average. I know that the Secretary of State and the Minister are working hard in the best interests of our young people, our teachers and our governors, but can he please confirm that due consideration will be given to righting the funding disparity between our schools and our pupils?

[Mr Gibb]

We have protected the core schools budget in real terms, but the system for distributing those funds, as my hon. Friend pointed out, is outdated, inefficient and unfair. That is why we consulted on the principles and the building blocks of the formula in the spring of this year. That will include sparsity as a concept, and also a fixed sum, which of course helps small schools. We will issue our detailed proposals on the design and impact of the formula for consultation in the autumn.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

The key to successful educational provision in rural areas is the quality of teaching. The Labour party has long believed in having qualified teachers in our schools. One area of cross-party agreement in the last Parliament was on having a Royal College of Teaching. Will the Minister update the House on how far the Government have enacted that?

[Mr Gibb]

There is a Royal College of Teaching. We are meeting the initial funding costs of the Royal College of Teaching, and it is going to be a great success. I should point out that 95% of all teachers in our system have qualified teacher status and that 93% of all teachers in academies have QTS.

[David Mackintosh (Northampton South) (Con)]

7. What steps the Government are taking to increase the uptake of languages.

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[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

8. If she will set out her response to the letter to her of July 2016 from hon. Members on the inclusion of design and technology in the EBacc.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

As I said in my letter to my hon. Friend, the Government believe that all students should study a broad and balanced curriculum. Design and technology is an important and valued subject, which is why we are doing a huge amount to promote the importance of D and T, and why we have reformed and improved the curriculum, working with the James Dyson Foundation and other experts to raise the quality and rigour of the design and technology GCSE. D and T is a very popular GCSE choice, with 185,000 entries this year.

[Michelle Donelan]

We have an annual shortage of 69,000 trained engineers in the UK, with only 6% of that workforce being female. Those shortages are much more severe than in computer science. As the Minister has pointed out, the new design and technology GCSE has the same academic rigour as the other subjects in the EBacc, so will he explain to the House why he felt that computer science was more worthy of EBacc status than design and technology?

[Mr Gibb]

The EBacc is about a small number of core academic subjects, focused on those subjects that keep options open. I am confident that the new, reformed design and technology GCSE will lead to even more young people wanting to take this qualification in future years, once the new curriculum is in place. However, our policy objective is for more students, particularly those taking design and technology, to study the traditional sciences.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister take seriously the role of technical education in our schools? Design and technology has been peripheralised in the opinion of many people. On the day that the Royal Greenwich University Technical College is to close, with university technical colleges closing up and down the country, there is something rotten at the heart of Government policy.

[Mr Gibb]

No. We have engaged in a huge reform to improve the quality of technical qualifications. That is what the Alison Wolf review did in 2011, by removing from performance tables the qualifications for which students were entered but that were not valued in the workplace. Technical qualifications taken by young people now have real value and provide proper jobs. We have also improved the quality of the apprenticeship scheme, which the Minister of State, Department for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), talked about earlier.

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in welcoming UTC Oxfordshire, based in Didcot in my constituency, which opened this time last year. In fact, it was opened by Brian Cox, no less. Thanks to this Government, children across Oxfordshire can now enjoy a first-class technical education, supported by companies such as BMW Mini, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and RM Education. I hope he will find time to visit it in the coming months.

[Mr Gibb]

I would welcome the opportunity to visit my right hon. Friend’s UTC. The UTC programme is another example of how, with our academies programme and our free schools programme, we are providing diverse types of specific and specialist education for every child in this country.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister will recall from the meeting he held with me and some excellent headteachers in Slough to discuss our teacher shortage problem that two outstanding grammar schools with excellent GCSE and A-level results are not meeting his demands on EBacc levels because they have chosen, confidently, to provide subjects—such as design and technology, art and design, and drama—they felt their students would benefit from and needed. Why cannot schools without such confidence make choices for the future of their pupils, rather than to satisfy the Minister?

[Mr Gibb]

It is not to satisfy the Minister; it is to ensure that young people have the widest possible opportunities available to them. We kept the EBacc combination of core academic GCSEs small enough, at either seven or eight, to allow sufficient time in the curriculum for pupils to study those subjects that interest them. That is why I have resisted calls for more subjects to be added to the EBacc.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

9. What progress the Government have made on raising the quality of technical education.

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[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

11. What progress she has made on maintaining the availability of GCSE and A-level qualifications in community languages.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

After several months of negotiations, we have secured the exam boards’ commitment to continue to provide all but one of the existing language qualifications at GCSE and A-level. I place on record my thanks to Rod Bristow of Pearson and Andrew Hall of AQA for their help and support in securing a long-term future for those important qualifications. It is right that we have a range of language qualifications available, reflecting the diversity and dynamism of today’s Britain.

[Bob Blackman]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his answer and on the negotiations that have taken place.

Every year, thousands of young people from the age of five onwards begin learning Gujarati, Urdu or Punjabi, expecting it to lead to a long-term qualification. What steps can my hon. Friend take to make sure that those qualifications are secure not just for an interim period but in the long term, and that the teaching staff are available to provide that education?

[Mr Gibb]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in helping to secure those qualifications, particularly in Gujarati, working with the Consortium of Gujarati Schools. I am pleased that we have secured the continuation of qualifications in community languages. There will be no gap in provision—the existing qualifications will continue to be offered until 2018, when the new qualifications are introduced. We continue to support the recruitment of high-quality language teachers, including by offering bursaries of up to £25,000. There are also many successful and long-standing Saturday schools, which help to ensure that culture and languages continue to be taught.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

14. What assessment she has made of morale in the teaching profession.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

We want motivated, enthusiastic teachers in our schools, and the latest OECD teaching and learning international survey reported that 82% of the teachers surveyed in England agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied with their job. We recognise the challenges for the profession, however, such as unnecessary workload, which we continue to address. The latest official statistics show that teacher retention rates one year after qualification have remained stable at around 90% for 20 years. In 2010, 70% of teachers were still teaching five years later, and more than 60% of teachers remained in the classroom 10 years after qualifying.

[Christian Matheson]

I am grateful for that answer, but is it not the case that 40% of teachers leave within the first five years, and why is that?

[Mr Gibb]

The figures are not dissimilar to those in other professions. We realise that there are workload challenges, which was why we set up the workload challenge in 2014. There were 44,000 responses, which we analysed carefully. Three top issues were raised: dialogic deep marking, data collection and the preparation of lessons. We addressed all three issues by setting up three working parties, led and staffed by experienced teachers and headteachers. They reported and made recommendations, which we accepted, and action has now been taken.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Thousands of EU nationals across the UK play key roles in children’s education, be it as classroom assistants, teachers, janitors or cleaners. We cannot overestimate how morale is affected by xenophobic rhetoric such as we heard last week at the Tory party conference. Does the Minister agree that it is time to do the right thing and give a solid guarantee that EU nationals can remain and contribute to our children’s education?

[Mr Gibb]

The Prime Minister has made it very clear that we expect all EU nationals resident in the UK to remain here, but of course that depends on reciprocal arrangements for British citizens living in other EU countries.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Despite the Minister’s earlier response, the Education Policy Institute has shown how excessive hours are driving record numbers of teachers from the profession, including friends and former colleagues of mine. NASUWT has found that half of teachers have been to see a doctor in the past year due to work-related illness, and one in 10 have been prescribed antidepressants. We know that the Minister is on the record as not valuing those of us with the postgraduate certificate in education, but can he not see that the Government’s failure to support teachers is at the heart of the crisis in teachers’ morale?

[Mr Gibb]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Education shadow Front-Bench team. I understand the challenges of the teaching profession, and we are taking action. That is why we set up the workload challenge in 2014. The report published today by the Education Policy Institute is based on the 2013 TALIS. When that survey was published we looked at it very carefully, which is why we conducted the survey that we did and are taking action. The key thing is that 1.4 million more pupils are in good and outstanding schools today than there were in 2010, including 4,500 more in such schools in Trafford and 27,900 more in the city of Manchester.

[Mr Speaker]

There is some sort of screed written in front of the Minister of State. He may find it profitable for himself and others to deposit it in the Library, where colleagues can consult it if they wish in the long winter evenings that lie ahead.

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[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

T5. As part of local democracy week, I visited two excellent primary schools, Hillcross and The Priory, in my constituency this morning. As I left, the headteacher of one of them asked me about the primary school assessment framework. Can the Minister confirm to the House how long he expects the transitional arrangements to be in place?

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

We will be announcing the response to the primary assessment arrangements shortly. It was important that we raised academic standards in our primary schools, and that is why we had a new curriculum introduced by 2014, after two or three years of preparation and consultation. We are raising standards in reading—there are now 147,000 more six-year-olds reading more effectively than they otherwise would be—and we are raising academic standards in maths and in grammar, punctuation and spelling. That is very important, and we will make further announcements about the details of the assessment soon.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

T2. In the Higher Education and Research Bill, the Government will allow universities simply to shut down if they fail in the HE marketplace, as though their role in local communities was a matter of no significance or concern to Government. That takes no account of the impact that closures will have on students and lecturers or the businesses and communities around them. Will the Government think again?

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[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

T7. How is our proper and welcome focus on phonics progressing?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question; it is progressing extremely well. In 2012, 58% of six-year-olds passed the check. This year, 81% passed the check. That is a huge improvement in the quality of the teaching of reading in our primary schools.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T4. Can the Secretary of State explain how allowing schools to select all their pupils by religion, abolishing the 50% cap, will in any way help to bring communities together?

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[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

On mandarin, I know my hon. Friend will be impressed of the work of St Catherine’s College’s Confucius school and the Eastbourne District Chinese Association. It is clearly important to promote language learning at home. I am pleased to note the uptake in Mandarin, even though I am a French teacher by profession. Can my hon. Friend assure me that we will continue to value opportunities for British students to study abroad?

[Mr Gibb]

On the last point, yes. We continue to value travel abroad. Learning a language is key to being able to travel and work abroad, and that is what the Mandarin Excellence Programme is all about. We hope 5,000 students will be fluent in Mandarin, reaching levels of HSK4 and HSK5, which go beyond A-level. We want more young people to take languages in our schools—including the language my hon. Friend teaches—following the fall in the numbers taking GCSEs thanks to the Labour party.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Today is World Mental Health Day. The Government acknowledge there has been an increase in the number of young people affected by anxiety, depression and other mental health conditions, yet so much more could and should be done to prevent them. When will the Secretary of State bring forward statutory compulsory and high-quality personal, social, health and economic education in every single school, so that we can equip the next generation with the skills and confidence to get help early on?

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[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

The leaked small schools task force report shows that the Department ignored advice to continue funding small schools to provide universal infant free school meals. This will affect 566 children in the schools represented by the Education Front-Bench team and thousands more children represented by those on the Government Back Benches. Will the Minister today commit to reverse this short-sighted cut and ensure that small schools have adequate funding to feed their infant children free school meals?

[Mr Gibb]

I do not quite understand what the hon. Lady is talking about. We are funding free school meals for infant schools at £2.30 a head. On funding rural schools, we are consulting on a formula that will protect rural schools for the long term.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Minister was just attacked for removing the cap on faith schools. The implication was that they do not promote cohesion. Is it not a nonsense to suggest that our wonderful Anglican and Catholic schools are not broad-based and do not promote cohesion? Above all, they have good academic standards. The unacknowledged point of the cap was to stop 100% Muslim schools. It was simply not effective and was therefore useless, so the Minister was right to do away with it.