School Funding (London)

Debate between Nick Gibb and David Lammy

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate. I think that the tone has been very measured, but I say to the Minister that back in communities across London there is tremendous fury, frankly, at what the Government are proposing. I really want to warn him. I went to school in the 1970s in London; I have seen schools in the 1980s in London, and I am deeply worried that we will be returning to that story in this city. When London slips back, as night follows day, the nation slips back on education. London’s contribution to our GDP is bigger than at any time since 1911. In the Brexit environment that we are now going into, this is a very dangerous move. The Government simply cannot talk about social mobility and about families that are just getting by, and see the sorts of devastating cuts that we are hearing about right across the city.

[Mr Gibb]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lammy]

No, I will not give way. I think of the Willow Primary School on the Broadwater Farm estate—no one at that school is well off—and of the six teachers and all the learning mentors that it might have to lose. I ask the Minister, with all sincerity, how he can stand by the cuts. When he says to my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) that Tower Hamlets is the best-funded local authority in the country, has he knocked on doors in Tower Hamlets? Has he seen the deprivation that exists in Tower Hamlets?

The Minister knows, as we all do, that the education debate in this country is not between state schools in deprived areas of the country, but between the state schools and private schools. That is the big gap, and that is what any Government with any ambition to raise the standards of children across the country should be seeking to match, not cut. Let us not have this fake debate about redistribution across already deprived constituencies, when the real debate is how we level up to the standard of private schools. When he says, “Look, you are getting just under £7,000 in Tower Hamlets,” let him remember that a child that goes to Eton means £33,000 a year. That is the debate. If he is sincere about social mobility, he will go back to his friends in the Treasury and ask for more.

I have been asked by this Government to do a review into the disproportionate number of black and ethnic minority young people and adults in our criminal justice system. I have to warn the Minister that this situation will lead to more young people in our pupil referral units, and more young people in our young offenders institutions and prisons as a direct result. That is because teaching assistants help to keep the peace and order in our schools, and help with kids with special needs, and they will have to go. It is because a class size of 30 or 32 kids is hard on one teacher. I commend all teachers committed to teaching in deprived constituencies; it is a vocation that none of us should forget about in this debate.

I say to the Minister, do not just interrupt Members and quote the figures blindly at us. We know what this is about. This is a direct cut of the education budget. The Government are turning their back on a commitment they made when they first came into office, and we must and will hold them to account.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this important debate. I trust that she would agree that we share the ambition to have a country that works for everyone, where all children have the opportunities for an excellent education that unlocks talent and creates opportunity. That should be regardless of their background or where they live, which is why today 1.8 million more pupils are in good or outstanding schools than was the case in 2010, and why 147,000 more six-year-olds are now reading more effectively this year compared with 2012 as a result of our reforms.

The Government are prioritising spending on education and have protected the core schools budget in real terms so that, as pupil numbers increase, so will the amount of money for our schools. School funding today is at its highest level on record at more than £40 billion in 2016-17, and is set to rise to £42 billion by 2019-20. However, the current funding system is preventing us from ensuring that the money is allocated fairly. In the current system, similar schools and similar local authority areas receive very different levels of funding with little or no justification. For example, a secondary school in Wandsworth that is teaching a key stage 3 pupil with English as a second language and low prior attainment would receive £7,699, but if that same pupil were in a school in the neighbouring Borough of Lambeth, the school would receive £10,263, which is a difference of more than £2,500. There is no reason why moving just a single mile should lead to such a change in funding.

Opposition Members complained about the debate. They do not like their figures being challenged, but I am afraid that I am going to do so, because they repeatedly cite misleading campaign data from the National Union of Teachers. First of all, let us take the hon. Member for Nottingham—

[Mr Lammy]

It is Tottenham.

[Mr Gibb]

Haringey is the 11th best-funded local authority in the country at the moment and it will remain—

Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Debate between Nick Gibb and David Lammy

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 5th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I know that that issue has been discussed and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families will listen very carefully to my right hon. Friend if she tables such an amendment.

We are not introducing change for the sake of change. If existing LSCB arrangements are working, there will be nothing to prevent them from continuing in a similar vein within the new legal framework set out in the Bill. Importantly, the local safeguarding partners will have a clear responsibility for the arrangements and the flexibility to change and improve them if they are not working.

I should briefly mention two other provisions in chapter 2 of the Bill. Clause 11 is largely technical and allows the Government to use their powers to intervene in combined authorities where their services are failing vulnerable children and young people, in the same way as the Government can intervene in individual authorities. Clause 31 was an amendment to the Bill, and it will enable the Secretary of State to extend whistleblower protection to people applying for jobs in children’s social care, as well as to existing employees.

Part 2 sets the legal framework for the establishment of a bespoke regulator for all social workers in England. High-quality social work can transform lives, and social workers play a critical role in our society. Every day, social workers deal with complex and fraught situations that require a great depth of skill, knowledge, understanding and empathy. However, when social workers are not able to fulfil their role competently, the consequences can be grave. In order to protect the public from these risks, social workers have to meet high standards of acceptable practice and competence, which are overseen by a regulator.

The need for an improved system of regulation for the social work profession was highlighted in recent independent reviews by Sir Martin Narey and Professor David Croisdale-Appleby. Our ambition, through the establishment of a new bespoke regulator for social work, is to continue to improve the practice of social work and raise the status of the profession. For too long, the bar on standards has been too low. Some graduates are leaving courses and being registered as social workers without the knowledge and skills required to do the job, and that cannot be right. The new regulator will ensure, following consultation with the profession, that minimum standards are set at the right level. The new regulator will be a separate legal entity, operating independently of Ministers in its day-to-day work. The Government have always been clear that we have no intention of making decisions about the performance of individual social workers. As with other independent health and social care regulators, the Professional Standards Authority will oversee the operations of Social Work England. The PSA has welcomed the revised clauses.

We are planning to table a further amendment regarding the national assessment and accreditation system. That will introduce a nationally recognised post-qualification specialism in child and family social work, which will reinforce the focus on quality of practice.

There are two other crucial measures that are not in the Bill, but about which amendments will be tabled shortly. First, amendments will be tabled to ensure that looked-after children in England and Wales can legally be accommodated in secure children’s homes in Scotland. Recent case law has cast some doubt on the present arrangements. Secondly, amendments will be tabled regarding the power to innovate. That power is a direct response to the issues raised by Eileen Munro in her independent review of child protection. She has said:

“Trusting professionals to use their judgement rather than be forced to follow unnecessary legal rules will help ensure children get the help they need, when they need it. Testing innovation in a controlled way to establish the consequences of the change, before any national roll out, is a sensible and proportionate way forward.”

The purpose of the power is to allow individual local authorities to test new ways of working by changing or disapplying specific legislative provisions within a controlled environment, with a view to achieving better outcomes for children. As hon. Members know, the other place was unhappy about the clauses that were included in the Bill at introduction. We appreciate that this is a new way of working in Government and we understand why some noble Lords were wary, but the provisions are too important just to let them drop. I emphasise that this is a grassroots power, empowering local authorities to test new and better ways of working in the best interests of children.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am coming to the concluding elements of my comments.

Local government overwhelmingly supports these measures, and the national associations and individual authorities have made it clear that they do not want us to lose this opportunity to allow them to test new ways of working. We have, therefore, reviewed and substantially revised the clauses to make sure that they avoid the issues raised in the other place, and there are several notable new features. We have removed the provision that allowed a body carrying local authority functions under an intervention arrangement to apply to use the power. Only local authorities can apply to use the power and if they do not wish to, that is the end of the matter. The power was never intended to be used to alter or remove children’s fundamental rights or entitlements. Its sole purpose is to allow local authorities to trial better and more practical alternatives to the sometimes very specific and overly prescriptive requirements set out in legislation in order to provide better outcomes for children. The new amendments will put that beyond doubt.

We will set out further provision for the process surrounding the power to ensure that it is based on sound consultation, transparency and robust safeguards. All applications to use the power will be subject to local consultation, scrutiny by an independent panel and parliamentary approval. Pilots will be closely monitored. Those changes will be in addition to amendments the Government tabled in the other place about the scrutiny process that accompanies the power—

[Mr Lammy]

On that point, will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way to the right hon. Gentleman because he was not here at the beginning of my speech, when I set out a lot of the basic principles surrounding the Bill.

As I said, those changes will be in addition to amendments the Government tabled in the other place about the scrutiny process that accompanies the power and ruling out the use of the provision for profit. The Government are committed to working with the sector. The changes we have made are the result of significant consultation and we believe that these clauses are the safest possible way to test new approaches. My hon. Friend the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families is very keen to meet any colleagues who have concerns to discuss these provisions further.

This is a Bill for the welfare and prospects of vulnerable children and young people. All its measures are designed to improve the services that so many of them rely on, and I commend it to the House.

EBacc: Expressive Arts Subjects

Debate between Nick Gibb and David Lammy

Monday 4th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I will start on a personal note. Thirty-three years ago, in the wake of Aled Jones, who had just got to No. 1 with “Walking in the Air” and who sang in the choir at Bangor cathedral, some primary school teachers at a small school with an unfortunate name, Downhills, in Tottenham decided that a young black boy could be one of the first black cathedral choristers in the country. I wanted to contribute to this debate, despite all that is going on in our country and in this House at the moment, because I am clear that I would not be here as a Member of Parliament were it not for that opportunity to go to one of the country’s best state—I emphasise “state”—cathedral schools, the King’s School in Peterborough, attached to Peterborough cathedral. There I was able to express myself in the context of a fantastic music education, but I also learned the rigours and discipline of music, which is why I take umbrage at the idea that the performing arts, music or drama—I will come on to that—can be sidelined as somehow less than, not as academic as and not as important as other subjects.

I challenge anyone who has got to grade 8 in any part of the musical repertoire to tell me that it is not fantastically hard and difficult to do. If we have a future king, Prince William, who can go to St Andrews and study art history, why are we suggesting that these disciplines should be denied to so many young people in our country? I am hugely concerned at the direction the Government have taken. It is very important to have had the petition and to be having this debate in the House at this time.

In the Government that I was part of as a Culture Minister, there were intense arguments about the place of the arts and the performing arts—music and drama—in the curriculum. The truth is that there were some serious turf wars between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Education, but fortunately we achieved great partnerships. We had something called Creative Partnerships—a fantastic scheme that got musicians, architects and performers of all kinds into schools. It was pioneering and much was learned from that scheme. Of course we had to go into the evidence-based arena and try to explain, defend and demonstrate the benefit, but it was a partnership between the DCMS and the Department for Education.

When we look at what is happening in the DCMS under this Government—the White Paper, policies on heritage and support for museums—we get the impression that that Department gets it. The problem is that the DCMS is losing out in the Whitehall turf war; the Department for Education is riding roughshod over it and saying, “No, we are utilitarian in this Department.” It is interesting because it is almost as though, in order to compete with China and India, we have to ensure that the basics—maths, English and science—are there in the curriculum to the exclusion of other subjects, yet ironically, when we speak to leaders in those countries, there is something missing, and that missing component is the British creativity that means that we have one of the most important creative economies in the world, and the intangible question of how we achieve it. We achieve it because of those fantastic—now I am going to get emotional, thinking of the music teachers who got me here—music, drama and performing arts teachers across our country who are really bringing that into the curriculum. For so many young people, particularly those from more deprived areas, that is sometimes their way through to other parts of the curriculum that feel remote.

I grew up in a home with only two sets of books. We had the “Encyclopedia Britannica”, which took a long time for my mother to buy, on loan, and Mills and Boon. It was my ability to excel at music that enabled me to access other parts of the curriculum. Time after time—we learned this through Creative Partnerships, the scheme we set up in those years of Tony Blair’s Government—the professionals say that that is how it works, so I look forward to hearing the Minister’s contribution.

There is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that 40% of the jobs that young people who are in primary school today will do when they grow up have not yet been invented, and those jobs will require a degree of creativity. Many of us have an iPhone. The iPhone is nothing as technology alone. Design is at its heart, but those disciplines are dropping out of the curriculum. Design and technology is really losing out in this new horizon.

I recommend the Diamond Fund for Choristers to the Minister, if he does not already know about it. Cathedrals are not struggling to recruit young people from all sorts of backgrounds—things have moved on a lot since I was one of the first working-class choristers, and there are now many across the country—but they do need support, so the Diamond Fund for Choristers has been launched. It is hugely important. Many cathedrals are concerned about what is happening with music.

The Ebacc decision is compounding cuts to local authority support for music across schools. With many schools becoming academies and the Department placing emphasis solely on the more utilitarian subjects, there is not only a collapse because of the EBacc; local authorities are moving away from funding music, local museums and local arts as well.

[Mr Gibb]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about music collapsing. In 2011-12, there were 40,761 entries for GCSE music. That went up to 41,000 and something the following year, then to 42,400, and then, in 2014-15, to 43,654 entries.

[Mr Lammy]

I know the figures game, as I have sat where the Minister is. When he replies to the debate, will he break those figures down into state schools, academies and private schools? If he does, I think we will find that the pattern is very different indeed.

Academy Status (Haringey)

Debate between Nick Gibb and David Lammy

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I know he has a close personal and constituency interest in the issue.

Last June we made it clear that our absolute priority is to turn around underperforming primary schools by finding new academy sponsors for them. Our motivation is simply to raise standards for children. We want to find lasting solutions to underperformance so that all children have the same opportunities in life—opportunities that are enjoyed by children in areas neighbouring Haringey.

The 2011 key stage 2 tests show that Haringey primary schools went backwards, dropping 4 percentage points and taking them below the national and London averages in English and maths. Haringey primary schools are the worst performing in inner London. They have the highest number of primary schools currently below the floor—

[Mr Lammy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

If I may, I should like to make some progress. The right hon. Gentleman has had plenty of chances to make his point—

[Mr Lammy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will give way very briefly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

I must ask the Minister to correct his use of the term “inner London”. The Department does not categorise Haringey schools as inner London schools, and it certainly does not fund them as such. Will he also confirm that the performance of the Isle of Wight, the Medway towns, Peterborough and Norfolk are all below that of Haringey, and tell us whether he will be seeking to ensure that they, too, will be forced to have academies?

[Mr Gibb]

On the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, we agree with him that the funding system, which we inherited from his Government, is unfair and opaque. We want to increase its transparency, and we have put out a new approach for consultation. We will report on that in due course. We are taking action against all underperforming schools in the country. We are working co-operatively with local authorities that are co-operating with us. A different approach is being taken by Haringey, however, and that is why there is a difference in this particular instance.

[Mr Lammy]

I think that the leader and the chief executive of Haringey council would want me to place on record that they have been very co-operative with the Department in holding conversations about this matter. The Minister will know that the mainstay of resistance in Haringey has come from the schools themselves.

[Mr Gibb]

That is very good to hear.

I should like to continue with the point that I was making. Haringey has the highest number of primary schools currently below the floor, out of all London authorities, and 12 primary schools there have been below the floor for three or more of the past six years. Demographically similar local authorities such as Hackney, Camden, Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets all outperform Haringey at primary school level.

The floor standard is a basic acceptable level of performance by a primary school. For the record, a school is below the floor if fewer than 60% of pupils are achieving level 4 or above in English and maths or failing to make average progress in English and maths. Insisting that schools educate their pupils to level 4 standard is not a huge objective; nor is it unachievable. Level 4 involves just the basics. To achieve a level 4 in reading, pupils need to be able to interpret and understand the meaning behind a simple story. In maths, all that is required is to be able to understand simple fractions and to add, subtract, multiply and divide without the help of a calculator.

It is unacceptable that so many children in Haringey are being let down. As the right hon. Gentleman said, if a child leaves primary school without the basics, they will struggle at secondary school and throughout life. Those pupils face real disadvantages when starting secondary school and have extreme difficulty in catching up later.

In my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s speech last week at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham college, he said that pupils cannot read to learn if they have not learned to read. They cannot begin to deal with more advanced mathematical concepts, or with physics or chemistry or any number of other subjects, if they have not grasped the fundamentals of arithmetic. No matter how good a secondary school is, there is a limit to the extent to which it can pick up the pieces. It is for that reason alone that we want to take action to secure sustainable improvements in a number of Haringey’s underperforming schools.

[Mr Lammy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will not, if the right hon. Gentleman does not mind, because I want to continue to make my argument and address the points that he has made.

Those are schools whose history of underperformance and ability to sustain improvements are causing us real concern. Downhills primary school was judged inadequate by Ofsted in 2002 and placed in special measures. It came out of special measures three years later in 2005, but improvements were not sustained, and in January 2010 it was again judged inadequate by Ofsted and required significant improvement. Key stage 2 results show that the school has failed to meet the floor standard since 2005. In 2011, 61% of pupils achieved level 4 or above in English and maths, with the other 39% of pupils failing to achieve that basic level. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that it is unacceptable for any school to have a large proportion of its pupils failing to achieve minimum standards year after year. We know that those standards can be met, however.

[Mr Lammy]

rose—

[Mr Gibb]

Let me make this final point before giving way. We know that that can be done. There are schools across London with intakes as challenging as those in Haringey, with proportions of pupils on free school meals and where English is not their first language, that are performing well above the standard. Let me cite one school I have visited in Tower Hamlets. In Osmani primary school, for example, 95.8% of pupils have English as an additional language and 58% are eligible for free school meals, yet that school has 88% achieving level 4 in English and maths. That is what we want to see happening in Haringey.

[Mr Lammy]

We all want to see that, but I say again to the Minister that in the boroughs that he prays in aid, each pupil is funded a great deal more than pupils in the London borough of Haringey. Why does he imagine that we do not need extra teachers and extra support to bring up those pupils’ standards, but that a structural change into an academy will fix that problem? Will he say something about why the structural change per se will fix that problem? Where there are academies that are failing—and there are—what will he do about it in five years’ time, given the autonomy that academies have?

[Mr Gibb]

I have to say that the academies programme was inherited from the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, as indeed was the funding system. Academies have made a tremendous difference in transforming underperforming schools, especially in secondary schools where this approach has been applied. The professionals have autonomy and new leadership is brought in. It has worked in practice.

Let me make one or two things clear to the right hon. Gentleman. First, no decision about any school in Haringey has been taken at this stage. Officials have met the local authority regularly since July and they have met the relevant head teachers and chairs of governors in October, offering to visit any school wanting a further conversation. At all stages we have been clear that our goal is school improvement, and that we believe that the best route for achieving that is through schools becoming sponsored academies. We have sought to work with the local authority and schools to find solutions on which everyone can agree, as we have done successfully in many parts of the country, and as we continue to do successfully throughout the country.

I agree about the importance of consulting the governing body, and this is why officials sought another meeting with each school in early December asking for their views on these proposals. The schools in Haringey have been given time to provide representations to the Secretary of State on his proposed action. Before giving us their views, we fully expect them to engage with the wider school community. We have already received a number of representations from parents, governors and the local community, both in support of and against the approach we are taking in Haringey, which we will take into consideration. When we have the representations from the schools, we will take a final decision and inform them. It would therefore be inappropriate and premature for me to comment further on the specific Downhills case until we have fully considered all those representations and the circumstances of the case.

[Mr Lammy]

Will the Minister confirm that the officials gave the governing body three weeks in which to find a sponsor—three weeks in which to go out and find some captain of industry to take over the school?

[Mr Gibb]

Discussions with the local authority have been going on in Haringey since July, and this is part of that process.

Let me say that this is not happening in Haringey alone. The last Government opened 203 sponsored academies and we have opened another 132 since the election. We are working with local authorities across the country to secure better outcomes for their pupils by transforming these underperforming schools. Over 300 schools have now opened as sponsored academies, a further 1,194 have converted to academy status, and more than 700 maintained primary schools are either open to becoming academies or in the pipeline. Those range from small rural primaries to large urban primaries such as the 843-pupil Durand school in south London.

I would like to assure the right hon. Gentleman that we recognise the real effort that the governing bodies and staff of schools are making to improve the standards of education at their schools in the most challenging of circumstances. We want to help schools that, despite the best efforts of the staff, are struggling to sustain improvements. We believe that substantially different solutions are required—solutions that will help the most disadvantaged pupils to succeed. Academy status led by a strong sponsor is the best way of providing quick and sustainable improvements in order to prevent more children from leaving the school without at least the basic literacy and mathematical skills.

Academy status has been very successful; it is a tried and tested model. A large body of evidence of pupil performance and independent reports show that the academy model—

Religious Education

Debate between Nick Gibb and David Lammy

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

The arguments would be the same except that it is unnecessary to make RE a component of the English baccalaureate, because it is already compulsory by law. That is the reasoning behind our decision not to include RE in the humanities component.

RE is clearly a popular and successful subject. Judging by the increasing proportion of students who take a GCSE, it is one that is taught to an academically rigorous standard. There has been an increase in RE GCSEs from 16% of the cohort in 2000 to 28% in 2010. In addition, 36% of the cohort was entered for the short course GCSE in religious studies. By contrast, there has been a decline in the numbers entered for GCSE in history, geography and languages.

[Mr Lammy]

rose—

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way to the right hon. Gentleman, because I am running out of time.

The proportion of young people attempting geography GCSE dropped from 37% in 2000 to 26% last year. Modern languages dropped from 79% in 2000 to 43% in 2010. Of course 79% of pupils in the independent sector attempted at least one foreign language in 2010. We are determined to close the attainment gap between those from wealthier and poorer backgrounds, and this is one tool in our toolbox to achieve that.

Our hope and expectation is that the English baccalaureate will encourage more students to study history, geography and languages. As it is compulsory to study RE until the age of 16, students will continue to take RS GCSEs in addition to the English baccalaureate subjects.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) proposed having a humanity component of two out of three options, including RE, in the humanities block. We have considered that, and we will continue to review it. The concern is that that will extend the size of the E-bac to seven or eight GCSEs, making it less small and therefore restricting the space for vocational education, music and the arts and for those who do not want to study RE to GCSE.