Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

2. What steps she is taking to monitor the financial accountability of multi-academy trusts.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Academies and multi-academy trusts are subject to a much stronger financial accountability regime than local authority-maintained schools. Academies are required to publish audited financial accounts annually, and the Education and Skills Funding Agency oversees compliance with the funding agreement. We take swift and robust action at the first sign of failure, either financial failure or academic underperformance. The auditors gave 98% of academy trust 2015-16 accounts a clean bill of health.

[Mike Hill]

In my constituency, we have suffered significant cuts in central budgets that support the most vulnerable people in our communities. Hartlepool Council has suffered cuts of almost 50% over the last five years, at a time when demands on services continue to rise rapidly. The council has tried very hard to protect frontline children’s services, but there has nevertheless been a 14% reduction in funding for them, Can the Secretary of State explain how our most vulnerable children and young people will have increased social mobility, given the significant and growing pressures on social care, funding for those—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. First, the question is far too long, and secondly, I am afraid that it does not relate to the matter that we are discussing. We are supposed to be talking about the financial accountability of multi-academy trusts.

[Nick Gibb]

We are spending record amounts on school funding. We are spending £41 billion this year, and that will rise to £43.5 billion by 2019-20. In the new national funding formula, a fair system that previous Governments have shied away from introducing, we give huge priority to funding for the disadvantaged.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

During education questions last month, I raised the case of High Crags primary school in my constituency, which had £276,000 snaffled from its funds by Wakefield City Academies Trust shortly before the trust’s collapse. The school is in a very deprived part of the constituency, and, quite understandably, it wants its money back. Will the Minister tell us what he is doing to ensure that that happens?

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend should know that no academy trust can profit from its schools, and the Wakefield trust will not be able to retain any reserves that it has at the point of dissolution. We are working with all the academies and the preferred new trust to determine what is appropriate support and proper funding.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I hope that the standard of the question is up to that of the jumper, Mr Speaker, but I fear that it may not be.

Notwithstanding what the Minister has said, the acting chief executive of Wakefield City Academies Trust managed to pay himself £1,000 a day in a company owned by his daughter and to pay £60,000 a year for clerking services. Despite those excessive sums, however, it appears that the audit committee did not meet for a full calendar year to sign off the probity of those payments. How many more academy trusts across the country are in special measures? Into how many more trusts has the Minister sent his special auditors so that they can have a look? He sent them into Wakefield, but he did not tell anyone else about what was going on, leaving the trust to fail in September during the first week of the new term.

[Nick Gibb]

All related-party transactions must be disclosed, and they are. We are working with the trust to transfer all 21 academies to new sponsors with a track record of improving schools and delivering high academic standards. Those transfers will take place in a way that secures the financial future of each school.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

The excellent Priory multi-academy trust has been working with King Alfred school in Highbridge, in my constituency, since the school was placed in special measures last year. They have made some very good progress, but the trust’s board of directors is nervous about formalising the sponsorship until urgently needed repairs have been completed at the school. Will the Minister meet me, along with representatives of the trust and the school, so that we can resolve the impasse at the earliest opportunity?

[Nick Gibb]

Yes, of course; I will be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to try to resolve that impasse. We are spending record amounts of capital on our school system: £23 billion in this period.

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

I am confused. In 2015 the Education Funding Agency conducted a financial management and governance review of the failed Wakefield City Academies Trust, but the Department refused to publish it, placing the trust’s commercial interests above the interests of the 8,500 pupils. So can the Minister answer the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh): how many more MATs are in peril on his watch?

[Nick Gibb]

As I said earlier, 98% of academy trust accounts for 2015-16 got a clean bill of health. We take the financial probity of the academy system very seriously. All academies have to publish audited financial accounts, which maintained local authority schools do not. The fact that far fewer schools today are rated as inadequate than in 2010 is a tribute to the structural reforms and the academies programme. Currently, 450,000 pupils are in sponsored academies rated as good or outstanding. Under the watch of the hon. Gentleman’s party these schools were typically underperforming, before we turned them into sponsored academies.

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of capital funding for schools.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

10. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of capital funding for schools.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

The Government are making a significant capital investment in the school estate: we have committed over £23 billion in capital funding over the period 2016-21. This will create over 600,000 new school places, rebuild buildings in the worst condition at over 500 schools through the priority school building programme, and deliver thousands of projects to improve the physical condition of school buildings. Since 2010, capital funding has resulted in 735,000 new places and revenue funding is at an all-time high at £41 billion.

[Stephen Morgan]

Recent research by the National Education Union and Tes found that 94% of teachers pay for essential classroom supplies, including at schools in my constituency where glue-sticks are being brought in by hard-working staff. With this in mind, does the Minister still maintain that Portsmouth’s schools have enough money and resources?

[Nick Gibb]

No parent should be expected to pay for the basic needs of their school, although they can, of course, be asked to fund school trips and extra things. We are spending record amounts on our school system: £41 billion this year, rising to £43.5 billion by 2019-20, and standards are rising in our school system, too, in reading, maths and GCSEs, despite a more rigorous curriculum in our secondary and primary schools.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Can the Minister confirm that, despite the additional £1.3 billion announced in July, the schools budget is still facing a £1.5 billion real-terms funding shortfall, which nothing has been done to reverse?

[Nick Gibb]

No. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced an additional £1.3 billion in July, as the hon. Gentleman kindly acknowledged. That means that not only have we maintained school funding in real terms, as we did in the last Parliament, but we have maintained school funding in real terms per pupil in this period up to 2020.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Currently, bids for capital spending on maintenance for schools are assessed on the state of the building. Given that there is significant competition for these bids and it is very difficult to assess the state of buildings in different schools across the country, is there not a case for also assessing the historical underfunding in various areas of our country?

[Nick Gibb]

We deal with the historical underfunding through a fairer national funding formula. On capital funding, we are spending £10 billion between 2016 and 2021 on school replacements, maintenance and improvement. That must be determined according to the condition of the school, and we have conducted a national survey of all schools in the country so that the system is fair.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Through the Minister, may I thank the Secretary of State and her Parliamentary Private Secretary for their superb response to the question I asked at the last Education questions session? On Friday, I was at Shiphay Learning Academy meeting its headteacher Elaine Gill, to discuss the condition of its building, and particularly the roof. Will the Minister reassure me that there will be an adequacy of funding to seriously consider the bid it is about to put forward to the condition improvement fund?

[Nick Gibb]

Obviously I cannot comment on a particular bid, but we are spending £10 billion on ensuring that we have sufficient capital to replace schools and improve the maintenance of schools. I hope that that answer was as superb as the previous answers that my hon. Friend has had.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

18. The executive member for children on Leeds City Council wrote to me today after writing to the Secretary of State on 28 September about health and safety issues in local education authority schools, including schools that are trying to become academies. The response from the Department was about the condition improvement fund for academies, so I am going to ask again: what funding and support are available for LEA schools with serious health and safety concerns, including concerns about asbestos and fire safety? What funding is the Secretary of State going to provide for those schools?

[Nick Gibb]

We have allocated £4.2 billion since 2015 to maintain and improve school buildings. Some of that is allocated to local authorities, because they are best placed to know the priorities of the schools in their local authority area.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Sawtry Village Academy in my constituency is in serious financial difficulty, not least because of the activities of its former head, which included building a sex dungeon alongside his office for his private use. That headteacher is now in prison, but the financial difficulties of the school remain. Will the Minister kindly agree to meet me and representatives of the school to discuss the way forward?

[Nick Gibb]

Yes, I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the financial and academic future of that school.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Can the Minister confirm that the Budget actually cut education capital funding by £1 billion in this spending review, and that part of that cut involves removing more than three quarters of the healthy pupils capital programme? Perhaps he recalls the Government’s pledge earlier this year that the healthy pupils fund would not fall below £415 million, regardless. Will he now apologise for breaking that promise?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Lady has misunderstood the budget process. We have not cut £1 billion from the capital spending of schools. What we have done is convert an element of the healthy schools budget into revenue spending, to ensure that schools are properly funded on the frontline, because we believe that schools need to be properly funded and that is how we have managed to allocate an extra £1.3 billion to school funding—something that she and the school system have called for.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

4. What steps she is taking to ensure that academic A-levels are taught in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley.

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[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

6. What steps her Department is taking to promote coding and programming education in schools.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

We are committing £84 million of new funding between 2018 and 2023 to support computing teaching in schools, which will include training up to 8,000 secondary teachers to teach the new computing science GSCE, a national centre for computing education and an online resource for the A-level. That will support schools in delivering the new computing curriculum, which includes coding from key stage 1, and our reformed GCSE and A-level, both of which have a strong focus on programming.

[Scott Mann]

Cornwall is one of the fastest growing areas for tech start-ups in the whole country, and it is vital to address the challenges that we face on rural poverty as we move from a place-based economy to a skills-based economy. Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the secondary schools and the colleges in Cornwall are ready and raring to go to fill those gaps in that growing market in the economy?

[Nick Gibb]

We recognise both the challenges and the successes in Cornwall. My hon. Friend, of course, is one of Cornwall’s greatest champions. Cornwall and the Scilly Isles is one of the first areas where we are establishing a skills advisory panel with the local enterprise partnership to bring together local representatives, including local businesses; train providers and colleges; and develop a comprehensive analysis of the area’s skills needs to help ensure that skills provision meets those needs.

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

The success of T-levels, which will incorporate coding and programming in education, will largely rely on addressing the chronic underfunding of our colleges, so was the Secretary of State disappointed, as Bury College and Holy Cross College in my constituency were, that the Chancellor ignored the pleas to address the great iniquity of post-16 funding? What will the Secretary of State do about it?

[Nick Gibb]

Maybe the hon. Gentleman missed the announcement of £500 million of extra funding for technical education post-16.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

7. If she will make an assessment of the adequacy of local authorities’ oversight of the education and wellbeing of children who are home-schooled.

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[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

16. What steps her Department is taking to increase the number of pupils studying Mandarin.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

The aim of our Mandarin Excellence programme, which was established in 2014, was to have 5,000 pupils fluent in Mandarin by 2020, and it is on track to achieve that. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who originally proposed this idea to me. The programme is now in 37 schools, with more than 1,400 pupils participating, all of whom are committed to eight hours of study—four hours in class and four hours of homework—each week. The intention is that by the time these pupils are in year 13, they will be fluent in Mandarin, reaching the international standard HSK (Level V).

[Mr Speaker]

The answers that are scribbled by those who serve Ministers are very informative, but the trouble is they are too long. It is the responsibility of Ministers to reduce their size. We are all very entertained by the Minister of State, but it would be good if he could do so more briefly.

[Will Quince]

Last week, the British Government hosted the UK young leaders’ roundtable and the people-to-people dialogue between the UK and China. Having recently visited China myself and seen the great opportunity that exists, does the Minister agree that having more schools offering Chinese or Mandarin as an option would help to strengthen the global strategic partnership between our two countries?

[Nick Gibb]

Yes, my hon. Friend is right. Last week we invited Minister Chen from China and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to meet 140 pupils who were participating in the Mandarin Excellence project. Minister Chen was impressed, as we all were, by the standard of the Mandarin being spoken by year 8 pupils who had been studying on the programme for just one year.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

17. What assessment she has made of the effect of the UK leaving the EU on staffing levels in universities.

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[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

T4. The Secretary of State is absolutely right to shout about the fact that 1.9 million more children are now in good or outstanding schools, including in Corby and east Northamptonshire. That equates to 87% of children in such schools now, compared with 66% in 2010. Does the Minister agree that that is real progress and not, as some have suggested, the result of an increase in the school-age population?

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We want every child to have a good school place that provides them with the knowledge and skills to succeed in the future. Thanks to changes made by this Government, and the hard work of thousands of teachers across the country, he is right to say that 87% of children are now in good or outstanding schools compared with 66% in 2010.

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

The academic community in the north of Ireland might have a way ahead in the light of the recent Brexit negotiations. Will the Secretary of State give the same reassurance to the academic community in Scotland which, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) highlighted, is concerned about the recruitment and retention of EU nationals?

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[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Parents in my constituency largely have access to schools offering faith-based education for their children, if they desire it, but every one of those schools is over-subscribed. What more can my right hon. Friend do to ensure that there is real choice for parents in faith-based education?

[Nick Gibb]

We greatly value the important role that faith schools play in our education system. They are high performing, they are popular with parents and they make an excellent contribution to our education system. Through the free schools programme, we have facilitated the creation of 71 new state-funded faith schools.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

T5. What impact has the £659 million of cuts to Sure Start and early years investment had on the educational attainment of Britain’s poorest children?

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[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Will the Minister for School Standards join me in congratulating Swindon Academy, in conjunction with Marlborough College, on doubling its intake this year, with children from all backgrounds now having a real chance of accessing the very top universities?

[Nick Gibb]

I would be delighted to join my hon. Friend in congratulating Swindon Academy. I enjoyed visiting the school with him and meeting Ruth Robinson, its exceptional principal. The school runs special programmes to help the most able children to fulfil their potential, as well as providing very high standards of education across the board.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

If the Department is serious about meeting its apprenticeships targets, surely the Minister will agree with me about the need to reclassify apprenticeships as improved education or training so that young, hard-working apprentices, such as Chloe from Hull, save money on their transport and prescription costs.