Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I am very happy to host a meeting, and I would enjoy discussing these issues in greater detail. The hon. Lady will know, of course, that permanent exclusion, at 0.1%, is extremely low, and is actually lower than it was in 2006-07. The research on the link between exclusion and knife crime shows it is more complicated than simply a correlation because, for example, 83% of 16-year-old knife-possession offenders in 2013 had been persistently absent from education at some point during their school career. It is absence from school that is the key factor, which is why this Government so emphasise the importance of children attending school.

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

The Minister mentions 0.1%, but the Education Policy Institute found that there were 69,000 unexplained exits from school in 2017 alone. Does the Minister really believe that our schools are getting better when there is a crisis of more and more pupils leaving the system? The Minister has yet to commit to implementing the report from the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson). Will he now commit to implementing all the recommendations of the Timpson review?

[Nick Gibb]

As I said in answer to the question from the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), the rate of exclusions today is lower than under the last Labour Government in 2006-07. We take the issues referred to in the Timpson report, such as off-rolling, very seriously. Off-rolling is unacceptable in any form, which is why we continue to work with Ofsted to define and tackle it. Ofsted already looks at the records of children taken off roll. Its new inspection framework, which came into force this September, has a strength and focus on off-rolling that we support.

School Admissions Process

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Thursday 27th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Nick Gibb]

We are also concerned about the increase in the number of children in elective home education. That is why we issued a call for evidence on home education and we are looking at it carefully. We have consulted on the proposal to create a register of children not in school. A range of factors have led to the increase, but in my judgment, it is not due to a shortage of high-quality school places in our school system.

As of 1 February, 508 free schools are open, providing 275,000 school places. In 2019, the top seven of the top 15 progress 8 scores for state-funded schools in England were achieved by free schools, and three of those schools were in the top five: Eden Boys’ School in Birmingham, Eden Girls’ School in Coventry and the Michaela Community School. Each of those successful schools teaches a stretching knowledge-rich curriculum, has a strong approach to behaviour management and is committed to high academic standards.

This morning I visited West London Free School, for the second or third time. It has an excellent quality of education and superb behaviour. I was hugely impressed by what I saw. There were very high quality lessons in music and arts. Over 80% of pupils there enter the EBacc combination of GCSEs. Eden Boys’ School and Eden Girls’ School were opened by Star Academies, which has grown through the free schools programme from running a single school in the north-west to running 28 schools across the country. Ark John Keats Academy is an outstanding open free school. In 2019 its progress 8 score was well above average at 0.76 and 82% of students entered the EBacc.

At Michaela Community School, 84% of pupils were entered for the EBacc, and in its first set of GCSE results, the school reported that more than half of all grades awarded were level 7 and above, which is equivalent to A and A*. That school serves a very disadvantaged community. The London Academy of Excellence is a free school sixth form in east London that was set up in collaboration with seven independent schools. In 2019, the school had an average A-level progress score well above average. It recently reported that 37 students received offers to study at Oxford and Cambridge. King’s College London Mathematics School is a specialist maths free school. In 2019, 100% of its pupils achieved an A or A*.

[Mike Kane]

We are having a debate on admissions. I think the Minister has strayed some way off his brief. Perhaps his civil servants have given him the wrong speech today. Perhaps he could get back to addressing admissions.

[Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)]

Please stay on the topic of debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and pay tribute to him for his work in his years as Secretary of State for Education. It was a pleasure to work with him during that period. He is right—the School Teachers’ Review Body has recommended a 2.75% pay rise for teachers across the board, and we are also proposing a £30,000 starting salary for teachers from 2022. In addition to the £26,000 tax-free bursary, teachers of maths, physics, chemistry and languages who start their training this September will receive early career payments of £2,000 in each of their second, third and fourth years of teaching. So this is a good time to start training as a teacher. It is a worthwhile profession and I encourage all graduates to consider teaching as a career.

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

The Minister surely knows that the pay rise he mentioned will only return starting salaries to where they were in 2010. Furthermore, the prospect of a pay rise in three years’ time will do nothing to help schools that are struggling now to recruit new teachers. Does not he accept that the so-called “pay rise” is nothing more than papering over the cracks in this recruitment and retention crisis?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This funding will mean that we can continue our education reforms and continue to drive up standards—standards of reading and maths in our primary schools and in the whole range of the curriculum in our secondary schools.

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

They say that faith is the substance of things hoped for over the evidence of things not seen. At the time of her resignation, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) said “Judge a man by what he does, not what he says.” The Secretary of State has been part of a Government who have slashed £1.9 million from schools in his own constituency in the last four years. Codsall Community High School has lost £700,000, and Staffordshire has had to slash £60 million from its budget. The electoral promises are not worth the textbook that they are written on, are they?

[Nick Gibb]

I wish that the hon. Gentleman had cited the figures in my constituency, given that he is asking me the question although it was pre-prepared for the Secretary of State.

As I have said, the IFS has stated that this funding fully reverses cuts in funding for five-to-16-year-olds. We have only been able to deliver such a large increase in school funding because of the way in which we have managed the public finances since the banking crisis in 2008. That is why we can do this today, and why we have been able to announce the three-year spending package that all schools, including schools in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, have been seeking.

Small and Village School Funding

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Westminster Hall

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

As ever, Sir David, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O'Brien) on securing this important debate; it is very important that we talk about the funding of small and rural schools. I also congratulate him on the really powerful speech he made in the main Chamber last year about one of his favourite teachers, who had passed away. For many of us, speeches in the main Chamber do not often stand out, but that was a really memorable one. For him personally, education and standing up for his constituents is very important, and it was great to be in the main Chamber for that speech.

The Minister for School Standards and I have had this debate before. In fact, I said to him today that we should go for a drink some time, because at the moment I see more of him than I do of my wife. That is because we spend so much time either in the main Chamber or here in Westminster Hall discussing school funding cuts and budget pressures. If we are not discussing West Sussex, Cornwall, Stoke-on-Trent, Chichester, or Westmorland and Lonsdale, then it is Liverpool, Merseyside or Manchester—week after week after week.

I want to put this debate in context for Members from rural constituencies who are passionate about their schools, so I say to the hon. Member for Harborough that Leicestershire has had to take £51.9 million out of its budget since 2015. That is probably the root cause of most of the reasons why primary schools in rural or urban areas are facing problems at the moment. Many of the concerns about this issue have been really well articulated today, so well done to all Members who are standing up for schools in their constituencies. However, all the challenges for schools are amplified for small schools, as we have heard this afternoon.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on his speech, in which he said that small schools struggle because they do not have the economies of scale that some multi-academy trusts or local education authority schools can achieve in urban areas. I think he said that small schools lacked the “wherewithal”.

The hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), whose constituency is in West Sussex, shares a local authority with the Minister. I have to say with some passion that that authority has had to take £61.3 million out of its school budget since 2015. The Minister will come back and say what the Government have done since 2017, but this is the stark reality. As the hon. Lady said, too few schools seem to receive money from the hailed sparsity formula, which was supposed to be the silver bullet to help schools in rural areas. Maybe the Minister can tell us, through his officials or in writing, how many schools in rural areas are receiving money via this fabled sparsity formula.

It was interesting that the hon. Lady spoke really passionately, as she often does, about a school—I think it was Loxwood school—that had to set up a donations web page to fund a guillotine. That is the state of school funding in our day and age on the Minister’s watch. There are parent teacher associations. Who was it who said that schools are the “beating heart” of communities? I think it was the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas). They are, particularly in rural areas. Unlike many schools in urban areas, schools in many rural areas have PTAs, or they have parishes that help out, but that is the state of school funding; it has had to come to rely upon PTAs, donation web pages and companies helping out to buy basic products. Of course, one of the other problems that rural schools have is that, being in rural areas, they do not often have huge companies around them, as schools in cities often do.

The Minister has a huge problem. I forget the exact statistic, but somewhere around 100 schools—I will check out the exact number; it has been put on the record before—containing about 70,000 pupils are not brokered. That is another problem that schools in rural areas face. The Government are struggling, through these multi-academy trusts, to get enough brokers to broker those academies. So we literally have to thank the Lord for the Church of England, because if the Church of England did not have its thousands of schools in our rural areas—I also thank the Church for its schools in our cities—this Government’s policy would be in real difficulty.

The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), which is on the other side of Sussex, also contributed to the debate; his constituency is in an area where £37 million has been lost. It is always an honour to play football with him, and recently, we played at Stamford Bridge—I think it was in a game to “Show Racism the Red Card”. It was the only football game that I have ever played in where my boots were cleaner coming off the pitch than they were when I went on. He is an excellent footballer and I congratulate him on standing up for his schools.

The hon. Member for St Ives spoke about Cornwall, where £51 million has been taken out of the schools budget since 2015. He made a hugely valid point about special educational needs practice, which is often overlooked in these debates, even though it is an issue in urban areas, too. Where there is a school with really good SEN practice, parents want to get into that school, but the school has to put the money up front and is disadvantaged because of it.

Sorry—it was the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts), in his excellent speech, who talked about rural schools being the “beating heart” of the community. He is right, but I have to say to him that Oxfordshire schools have lost £37 million. He did not want to hear about the cuts, but I am afraid that he has to hear about them from me, because no amount of national funding formula, no amount of sparsity funding and no amount of special funding for rural schools—even though such funding may be a good idea that the Department might wish to look at; I will let the Minister respond to that suggestion—will get away from the fact of the cuts that have happened across the whole of Oxfordshire, in addition to what he said about the pension rises and pay rises, which we still do not have certainty about, and the SEN provision.

The Minister knows that I sound like a broken record on schools funding, but it appears that no matter how many times it is raised or whoever raises it—including his colleagues on the Government Benches—this Government are not listening to the grave concerns of hon. Members, leaders and teachers about the impact of school funding cuts.

It is really interesting. I do not want to proselytise on a party political point, but the leadership candidates of the Conservative party—sorry, what is the Health Secretary’s seat?

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

West Suffolk.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane]

I thank the Minister. The right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) pledged £15 billion of new schools money in that leadership debate. All the candidates know, from courting Conservative Members over the last few weeks, what the No.1 concern is for Conservative Members, and they have responded to those concerns in the leadership debates.

Across the country, our schools are experiencing £2.7 billion of cuts. There are concerns from teachers, including thousands of headteachers, many of whom protested right here in Parliament, and there are cuts to special educational needs and disability provision, which is an even more acute challenge for small schools, as they cannot amass economies of scale when they are buying additional support and resources.

Statistics from the Department itself show that the number of children and young people in England with SEN, or with education, health and care plans, rose by 34,200, an increase of 11% from 2018. However, research by the National Education Union has found that special needs school provision in England is down by £1.2 billion because of the shortfall in funding increases from the Government since 2015. No doubt the Minister will come back in his speech with what has happened since 2017.

The Government’s own data shows that as of January 2018, 4,050 children and young people with EHC plans or statements were awaiting provision; in other words, they were still waiting for a place in education. Over 500,000 children are now in a super-sized class, and there is an unquestionable recruitment and retention crisis in our schools, with the Government having missed their own targets five years in a row. For the second year running, more teachers are leaving the profession than joining it. That has a huge impact on rural areas, especially if we take into account the price that teachers have to pay to afford a house in those areas, not having had an effective pay rise in 10 years. That has really affected the ability to get the quality and calibre of teachers required in rural areas.

Rural areas also suffer—[Interruption.] Do I need to wind up, Sir David?

[Nick Gibb]

You do.

[Mike Kane]

I am terribly sorry, Sir David; I was just hitting my stride.

Career progression is more difficult in rural areas and for rural teachers, as cities often offer an agglomeration of impacts so that teachers can develop professionally.

Under Labour’s national education service, we will invest properly in our schools. Investment will be delivered under Labour’s fully funded and universal vision for a national education service that will cover all our schools, both rural and national, that need funding put into them—not just at the spending review, but today.

School Funding

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the teachers’ pension scheme. The employer contribution rate will increase from 16% to 23% in September 2019 but, as confirmed earlier in April, we will be providing funding for this increase in 2019-20 for all state-funded schools, further education and sixth-form colleges, and adult community learning providers. My hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mrs Badenoch) asked about that funding in future years, and it will of course be a matter for the spending review.

The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) asked whether I could meet his local headteachers to discuss funding, and I would be delighted to do so. The Secretary of State and I meet headteachers regularly, almost on a weekly basis, to discuss not only school funding, but other issues such as standards in our schools, and we would be happy to do that with the hon. Gentleman’s local headteachers as well.

Standards are rising in our schools. Thanks in part to our reforms, the proportion of pupils in good or outstanding schools has increased from 66% in 2010 to 85%. I listened carefully to the excellent opening speech by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans, who has raised the issue of school funding, both for her constituency’s schools and nationally, on many occasions, including in Westminster Hall debates recently and again today. I am sure that the Treasury will also have heard what she had to say today. I can give her the assurances she seeks that the Secretary of State and I are both working hard to prepare our spending review bid for when that process starts later in the year to ensure that we have the best bid possible for schools, high-needs and post-16 funding.

As I was saying, standards are rising in our schools. In primary schools, our more rigorous curriculum is on a par with the highest-performing in the world and it has been taught since September 2014. Since it was first tested in 2016, we have seen the proportion of primary school pupils reaching the expected standard in the maths test rise from 70% to 76% in 2018, and in the reading test the figure has risen from 66% to 75%. Of course we would not know that if we adopted the Labour party’s policy of scrapping SATs, which of course we will not do.

[Mike Kane]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

I will not give way.

Since the introduction of the phonics check in 2012, the proportion of six-year-olds reaching the expected standards in the phonics decoding check has risen from 58% in 2012 to 82% last year. We have risen from joint 10th to joint eighth in the PIRLS—the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study—of the reading ability of nine-year-olds, achieving our highest ever score in that survey. In secondary schools, our more rigorous academic curriculum and qualifications support social mobility by giving disadvantaged children the knowledge they need to have the same career and life opportunities as their peers. The attainment gap between the most disadvantaged pupils and their peers, measured by the disadvantage gap index, has narrowed by nearly 10% since 2011.

To support these improvements, the Government have prioritised school spending, while having to take difficult decisions in other areas of public spending. We have been able to do that because of our balanced approach to the public finances and to our stewardship of the economy, reducing the annual deficit from an unsustainable 10% of GDP in 2010—some £150 billion a year—to 2% in 2018. The economic stability that that provided has resulted in employment rising to record levels and unemployment being at its lowest level since the 1970s, giving young people leaving school more opportunities to have jobs and start their careers. Youth unemployment is at half the rate it was when we came into office in 2010, taking over from Labour.

It is our balanced approach that allows us to invest in public services. Core funding for schools and high needs has risen from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £43.5 billion this year. That includes the extra £1.3 billion for schools and high needs that was announced in 2017 and that we have invested across 2018-19 and 2019-20, over and above the plans set out in the spending review.

Figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that in 2020 real-terms per pupil funding for five to 16-year-olds in schools will be more than 50% higher than it was in 2000. We do recognise, though, the budgeting challenges that schools face as we ask them to achieve more for children. One element of it is about making sure that money is directed to where it is needed most. Since April last year, we have started to distribute funding through the new national funding formula, with each area’s allocation taking into account the individual needs and characteristics of its pupils and schools. Schools are already benefiting from the gains delivered by the national funding formula.

Since 2017, we have given every local authority more money for every pupil in every school, while allocating the biggest increases to the schools that the previous system had left most underfunded. By 2019-20, all schools will attract an increase of at least 1% per pupil compared with 2017-18 baselines, and the most underfunded schools will attract up to 6% more per pupil by 2019-20, compared with 2017-18.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

We understand the pressures on the high-needs budgets of local authorities up and down the country, including medical science and a whole range of other issues such as extending the age range for special educational needs provision up to 25. All those things have added pressure to high-needs budgets, which is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State towards the end of last year announced an extra £250 million between this financial year and the next financial year to recognise the pressures that local authorities are facing.

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

Figures show that our schools have 66,000 more pupils but 5,400 fewer teachers, 2,800 fewer teaching assistants, 1,400 fewer support staff, and 1,200 fewer auxiliary staff—a total workforce reduction of 10,800 from 2016-17. With weekend reports of headteachers having to clean the toilets, does the Minister still maintain that schools are not experiencing funding cuts from this Government?

[Nick Gibb]

As I said, since 2017 we have provided and are providing local authorities with more money for every pupil in every school. There are 10,000 more teachers in our school system today than there were when we came into office in 2010. In the recruitment cycle last year, we recruited 2,600 more teacher trainees into teacher training. It is an attractive and an honourable profession to work in. I wish the hon. Gentleman and Labour Front Benchers would support our schools and talk them up instead of talking them down.

School Funding

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

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

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist). I always want to sing “Blaydon Races” every time I think of her constituency. I thought she did her duty diligently as a member of the Petitions Committee, and despite a barrage of interventions, she was very composed when she made her speech.

I thank Mr Andy Ramanandi, the headteacher of St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Primary School, and the group of headteachers, staff and parents who launched the petition we are debating. Over the last few weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have watched their Facebook video, explaining the scale of the impact of the cuts on their school. Headteachers such as Mr Ramanandi, Mr Malik and others who have been involved in the campaign are here today. Their efforts have ensured that cuts to school funding are being debated in this place again, and I commend them for their work. Is it not ironic that the headteacher of a school named for St Joseph, the patron saint of workers, will have to go back to Gateshead tomorrow to start consulting on redundancies to make people unemployed?

This has been a fascinating debate. Normal practice as shadow spokesman is to thank all the hon. Members on my side for the excellent speeches they gave today—“You did really well, well done everybody,”—but that is not what I am going to do. I want to highlight a few hon. Members on the Government side who spoke today. It seems that nearly every MP from West Sussex is in the room: the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and for Crawley (Henry Smith), the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), and the Minister himself—

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

And Worthing West.

[Mike Kane]

Forgive me; the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), too. We know that that authority is having to cut—let me get my figures accurate—£8.9 million from the schools in their patches between 2015 and 2020. The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) spoke well about Southampton losing £4.9 million over the same period. The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), my footballing partner, spoke of Suffolk losing £7.8 million over that period.

The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) spoke passionately about his schools in Stockport. Stockport, my neighbouring authority, is losing £6.4 million and a special school in Stockport has said just this week that it will have to cut Friday afternoons from its curriculum. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), who like my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) represents Gloucestershire, spoke of cuts of £11.1 million. The hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) spoke about Essex—I was at St Dominic’s just the other week, and what a fantastic school it is—and the £29.8 million cuts faced there. Finally, there was a really powerful speech from the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), speaking about Hertfordshire having to cut £33.2 million from the budget. I will end my speech with what she said about the cake.

We can be in no doubt after what we have heard today about the impact of continued Government austerity on education. In fact, it is not austerity anymore; the Secretary of State has already said he wants to reduce spending on education and that he thinks it is too high. The policy is ideologically motivated. Education urgently needs investment across the board, and the Government must finally begin reversing the devastating cuts. Just look at how many right hon. and hon. Members have turned out today.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Education Secretary have both stated in the House of Commons that every school in England would see a cash-terms increase in its funding, but that flies in the face of the reality we have heard about today, what parents and teachers are telling us and what is happening on the ground. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has stated that it is simply not accurate, and the UK Statistics Authority has even rebuked the Education Secretary for his statistical inaccuracy. There has been a concerted effort by the Secretary of State and the Minister to fudge the figures and to deflect attention away from the school funding cuts that they have presided over. To add insult to injury, we have had a one-off £400 million for “little extras”, when schools cannot even afford glue sticks at the moment, as we have heard. The fact is that, across the country, schools are having to write to parents to ask for money.

If funding per pupil had been maintained in value since 2015, there would be £1.7 billion more in the system now. That means that 91% of schools still face real-terms budget cuts per pupil. Those in this Chamber know all too well the impact on the ground already. The average shortfall in primary school budgets is more than £67,000, and more than £273,000 in secondary school budgets. Our schools have 137,000 more pupils but 5,400 fewer teachers, 2,800 fewer teaching assistants, 1,400 fewer support staff and 1,200 fewer auxiliary staff.

I have spent far too many hours in this Chamber and the main Chamber, trying with my shadow Front-Bench colleagues and Members from across the House to get the Government to face facts and act. It beggars belief that the Government have ignored the School Teachers Review Body’s pay recommendations—the first time that has happened in 28 years. To make matters worse, the Government expect schools to meet the cost of the first 1% of the pay award from existing budgets.

As a former primary school teacher, I know the difference that a good teacher can make, with the right support and resources, to a child’s attainment and aspiration. We go into teaching because we believe in the value of education, we believe in its power to create social mobility and we believe in its ability to create ambition for all. This is about our children’s future and that of our country.

I will close with the words of teachers and teaching assistants from across the country:

“Last year the school I work at had to lose many of its teaching assistants due to lack of money.”

“I have to buy equipment and supplies for my job.”

“We do not have budget for staff training, resources or opportunities for children.”

“I am a qualified teacher now working and being paid as a teaching assistant, but I am being used to cover classes as the school cannot afford to employ supply teachers.”

“The Minister’s claim that more money is going into schools than ever before is pure sophistry.”

Free Schools and Academies in England

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Nick Gibb]

Indeed. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) on securing the debate and on his passion and commitment to ensuring that pupils in his constituency fulfil their potential through high-quality schools and education. Thirteen academies and free schools have opened in Chelsea and Fulham since 2010, and I congratulate the teachers, headteachers and all the staff who have dedicated their time to ensuring their success. That includes those who have been involved in establishing Fulham Boys School, of which my right hon. Friend is a patron.

My right hon. Friend talked about a number of free schools. He mentioned Kensington Aldridge Academy, where the excellent headteacher, David Benson, has pushed up academic standards and stewarded it and its pupils through the tragedy of Grenfell Tower. That included a year in temporary accommodation for some pupils and a successful return. My right hon. Friend also mentioned West London Free School, where the headteacher, Clare Wagner, is doing an excellent job with very high academic standards. Watching this debate is Mark Lehain, who established Bedford Free School and was one of the first pioneering headteachers. It has been a hugely successful programme and my right hon. Friend is right to point out its successes.

The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) needs to be a bit more rigorous in his research than simply clicking through Google. For example, school academies’ accumulated surpluses amount to something like £4 billion. Excluding fixed assets and pension liabilities, the sector’s net assets have increased by £0.2 billion, from £2.6 billion in 2016 to £2.8 billion in 2017. He also referred to accountability. The whole essence of the free schools and academies programme is based on evidence from the OECD that shows that high- performing education systems around the world have two things in common: professional autonomy, combined with very strong accountability. The accountability system for our academies is stronger than it has ever been.

The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East also raised specific issues about related party transactions, and I want to address that. We have changed those arrangements so that from April next year those transactions will be transparent and receive more oversight. Academy trusts will be required to declare all related party transactions to the Education and Skills Funding Agency in advance and seek its approval for those that exceed £20,000 either individually or cumulatively. He has said in other debates in the Commons that there have been more than 100 closures of free schools. Again, I am afraid that his facts are wrong. As of 1 November this year, 13 free schools have closed since the beginning of the programme. In addition, seven new university technical colleges and 21 studio schools have closed. In total, that amounts to 41 free schools, UTCs and studio schools closing since the programme began, not the number he cites.

[Mike Kane]

Does the Minister not include the collapse of, say, the Wakefield City Academies Trust, which had 23 schools? That is another trust that collapsed.

[Nick Gibb]

Those schools have not closed; they have been re-brokered very successfully to others. The essence of the free schools and academies programme is that we do not allow schools to languish in special measures year after year, which in essence is what was happening when those schools were under local authority control. We take very swift action where schools underperform, and we will not change the law that requires schools to become academies once they go into special measures, because that is how we get improvement. I will come on to some of the examples of how that works in due course.

Every child in this country, regardless of where they live or their background, should have the opportunity to benefit from the very best education. Free schools and academies have shown that professional autonomy in the hands of able headteachers and teachers can deliver a world-class education. For example, Dixons Trinity Academy, a free school in Bradford, achieved extraordinary results in 2017. Its first set of GCSEs placed it among the top schools in England for the progress achieved by its pupils. Strikingly, the progress score for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds was higher than that for the whole school, including more affluent peers. That school and many others show that socioeconomic background should not and need not be a barrier to academic success.

Leading multi-academy trusts, often led by inspirational headteachers, demonstrate that excellence need not be restricted to isolated schools. Thanks to a forensic approach to curriculum design and the implementation of evidence-based approaches to managing behaviour, the Inspiration Trust in Norfolk and the Harris Federation in London—two of the best performing multi-academy trusts—have conclusively demonstrated that all pupils can achieve whether they live in coastal Norfolk or inner-city London.

Improving Education Standards

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

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

In the past fortnight, we have seen the most unstable period of government since the Maastricht rebellion of the early 1990s. Unlike that debacle, however, this Government cannot rely on their own MPs, or even Unionist MPs, to make up the numbers. Indeed, many of the Minister’s colleagues have aired open mutiny directly to the Prime Minister in this Chamber; it is a piteous sight. So I was surprised to hear the Leader of the House announce last Thursday that there would be a general debate on improving education standards today. Thursday is normally reserved for Back-Bench business, but the Government do not want to hear any Back-Bench business at present.

This is an astonishing act of hubris: the Government have chosen to debate a subject for which they have shown nothing to show but failure over the past eight years. The right hon. Gentleman’s colleague the Secretary of State for Education must know that the Government have failed in their duty to improve educational standards, because in July the Secretary of State conceded that too many teachers were overwhelmed by excessive workload and then pledged to do more to support teachers and said he was trying to squeeze more funding out of No. 11. What did teachers get in last month’s Budget? The primary way of improving standards is to improve the quality of our teaching workforce and the relationship they have with their pupils, but there was no increase in school funding last month. Instead, budgets are set to fall again in the year ahead, and teachers did not see a proper pay rise. In fact, the majority of teachers will face another real-terms pay cut this year.

[Nick Gibb]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was paying attention to the Budget, but £400 million of extra capital was given to schools to spend this year, and another £508 million was given to schools to fund the pay award over two years.

[Mike Kane]

The majority of teachers will face a real-terms pay cut. I will come on to the £400 million in just a moment.

In the Chancellor’s words, all that the teachers got was a few “little extras”. The Secretary of State was said to have winced when asked about the Chancellor’s choice of words, which is not exactly the endorsement that one would expect from a Cabinet colleague. However, the Chancellor then doubled down by saying that the £400 million for “little extras” could buy

“a couple of whiteboards, or some laptop computers or something”.

It is no wonder that the Secretary of State cringed.

I am sure that the Minister will remember his colleague, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), now the Environment Secretary, saying that the measure of this Government’s success would be how the country would perform in the PISA rankings. That is what the Government predicated their agenda on. However, the PISA rankings that followed showed that the UK had failed to make any substantial improvements. In fact, we slipped back down the rankings. That shows the Government’s failure to improve standards on their own terms.

[Nick Gibb]

The children who were tested in those PISA rankings spent most of their education in schools under the last Labour Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane]

There is no evidence whatsoever for that. We know that 100 free schools have opened and shut in the past few years. We had one free school in Bermondsey that cost £1 million over two years and attracted 60 pupils. The local authority begged for it not to be opened, but it cost £60,000 per pupil while it lasted. We could have sent those pupils to Eton for half the price, although let me say to my hon. Friends that I am not advocating sending anybody there at the moment. We have 100 schools, unbrokered, containing 700,000 children. The Government cannot get anywhere near enough sponsors for the academies. They have only the Church of England in the rural areas and the Co-op, the Churches and the faith schools. The Education Policy Institute has stated that

“large structural reforms, through the expansion of the academies programme and the introduction of free schools, have so far resulted in…no impact on overall attainment.”

That is a damning measure, after eight years of this Government.

An economical attitude to evidence is apparent from the Government’s claim that 1.9 million children are in schools that are rated good or outstanding. Many of those schools have not been Ofsteded for more than 10 years, and the claim does not take into account the fact that we now have more pupils in the system. This is a discredited statistic. The UK Statistics Authority and the independent Education Policy Institute have raised serious concerns about it. The claim does not account for increases in the school population, or for the number of pupils who are in schools that have not been inspected since before 2010. In other words, it does not give the full picture. Today, the Minister has a chance to correct the record. Are his colleagues, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, right to say that their policies have led to 1.9 million more children being educated in schools rated good or outstanding, or is the UK Statistics Authority right to say that they need to put that figure into context? I would be happy to give way to the Minister on this point.

[Nick Gibb]

I said in my speech that, in 2010, 66% of pupils were attending schools that were then graded good or outstanding. Today, 84% of pupils are attending schools that are graded good or outstanding. If we multiply that out, we get the 1.9 million figure that the hon. Gentleman has cited.

[Mike Kane]

There we have it. That at least provides some context, but it is not what the UK Statistics Authority, the Institute for Fiscal Studies or the Education Policy Institute have said. These are made-up figures from a Government who have run out of ideas for education.

The true hindrance to improving standards is austerity. After all, every area of education—from early years, where we have seen 1,000 Sure Start programmes cut, to schools to further and higher education—has seen massive cuts since the Conservative party came to power. Our analysis of figures produced by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that school budgets are £1.7 billion lower in real terms than they were five years ago.

[Mike Kane]

There is a huge threat to maintained nursery schools, which we hear enough about from Government Members. The Government cut 1,000 Sure Start centres. The sure-fire way to achieve social mobility in our country is to make the best provision available for the youngest people in our society. We do not have that anymore; those Sure Start centres were cut. I will come to the impact of that on social mobility in a second.

Our analysis of the IFS figures shows a £1.7 billion cut in real terms. Government Members know it in their schools, too, because they talk to headteachers just as we do in our constituencies. To unpack that, these cuts, along with the impact of the public sector pay freeze and then the cap, have created a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, which was not once referred to by the Minister today. The Government have subsequently missed the teacher recruitment and retention target for five successive years, and in the past two years, more teachers have left than have joined the profession.

[Nick Gibb]

rose—

[Mike Kane]

For the third or fourth time, and following his speech, which went on for about 26 minutes, I give way to Minister.

[Nick Gibb]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has been extremely generous to me and my hon. Friends. I shall try to make this the last intervention. He might have missed the statistics that came out this morning, which showed that this year we recruited 8% more people, or over 2,000 more, into teacher training than we did in the previous year.

[Mike Kane]

Last year, we saw the number of teachers decline by 5,000. The Minister might come up with a statistic today, but teacher numbers are going down. Since 2011, a third of all teachers have left. I spoke to Teach First just the other day in a meeting. The current rate is one in, one out. Does the Minister bear no responsibility for the reforms, the pressures and the lack of pay rises that are the reason why so many great graduates and brilliant people are no longer training the future of our country but are leaving the profession? Does he bear no responsibility at all? Five thousand have left in one year.

Despite the noble effort of staff and teachers, schools are unable to deliver the high-quality education that children deserve because they simply do not have the funding to make ends meet, for either themselves or their schools. The Government’s own analysis has shown that teachers were around £4,000 worse off in 2016, compared with 2010, as a direct result of their policies on pay. Furthermore, the IFS has found that the promised pay rise will see the majority of teachers facing another real-terms pay cut.

Earlier this year, I was shocked to read a BBC article that reported that children were filling their pockets with food from school canteens because they were hungry. This is Tory Britain, 2018. These were children with greying skin. They were malnourished and afflicted with hunger. As a teacher, I know that schools cannot teach children properly if they are hungry in the classroom. That is happening in our country—one that now has 4.5 million children in poverty. That did not happen in a vacuum. Poverty is the grim and logical conclusion to austerity. Its effects are palpable, and its consequences can be irrevocable. If the Government truly want to see standards in education rise, they must do the logical thing and truly end austerity once and for all.

School Funding

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Nick Gibb]

I am sure that that is the case.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this important debate. It is always interesting to follow a Labour spokesman talking about school funding. It was the Labour Government who left the coalition Government with a record public sector deficit of £150 billion, which is equal to 10% of GDP—on the brink of collapse—an economy in recession and high unemployment. We have reduced that deficit to under 3%, we have the lowest level of unemployment since the 1970s and we have halved youth unemployment to record low levels. The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) should be more careful when he talks about public finances.

This debate is timely, given the looming Budget next week. I am sure that everybody has listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans and other hon. Members who have spoken. We are determined to create an education system that offers opportunity to everyone, no matter what their circumstances or where they live. That is why we have delivered on our promise to reform the unfair, opaque and outdated school funding system by introducing the national funding formula for schools, which previous Governments had shied away from doing, including the previous Labour Government.

The introduction of the national funding formula means that this year, for the first time, funding was distributed to local authorities based on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country. This historic reform is the biggest improvement to school funding for a decade and it is directing resources to where they are needed most.

This Government want to ensure that all children receive a world-class education, and we have made significant progress. More schools than ever before are rated good or outstanding; 86% of schools are now rated good or outstanding, compared with—

[Mike Kane]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

I will not give way.

That figure compares with 66%, which is what we inherited from the previous Government. The attainment gap is beginning to close and we have launched 12 opportunity areas to drive improvement in parts of the country that we know can do better. Children’s reading ability is also improving. We have risen from joint tenth in the reading ability of nine-year-olds to joint eighth in PIRLS, the progress in international reading literacy study.

However, we have made those achievements against a backdrop of inheriting an unfair method of distributing funding, which has hindered and not helped progress. Across the country, schools with similar pupil characteristics used to receive markedly different levels of funding for no good reason, meaning that the right resources did not reach the schools that needed them most. That is why it is so important that we have delivered on our promise to reform the unfair school and high-needs funding systems and introduced a national funding formula.

Schools are already benefiting from the gains delivered by the national funding formula. The formula has allocated an increase for every pupil in every school this year, with increases of up to 3% for underfunded schools. Next year, those schools that have been historically underfunded will attract increases of up to 6% more per pupil compared with 2017-18, as we continue to address historic injustices.

The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans will attract gains of 2.5% per pupil under the formula next year compared with 2017-18, which is an extra £3.1 million for schools in St Albans when rising pupil numbers are taken into account. Of course, how that money is allocated will depend on the local authority. Special needs funding in Hertfordshire will rise by £4.4 million this year, rising to some £107.9 million.

I listened very carefully to the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), and of course I would be delighted to accompany him on a visit to schools in his constituency and to meet headteachers.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has attended many of these debates on school funding, as he pointed out, and made calls for a fairer funding system. He has been successful in that respect; he should acknowledge his own success in putting the case for schools in West Sussex, because they have seen an increase in the funding allocated to them. How it is allocated on a school-by-school basis will depend on West Sussex, but the funding that it has received for schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency for 2019-20 has risen by 5.5% compared with 2017-18.

My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) was right to point to improving standards in her constituency and she was also right to refer to special needs funding, which I will come to. Under the national funding formula, the amounts allocated to schools in her constituency will rise by 3.4% in 2019-20 compared with 2017-18.

I was interested to hear about the “Politics and Pastries” roundtable that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) held. I would love to have been there; nevertheless, I would be delighted to meet headteachers from his constituency at some point very soon. Pupils in Plymouth will be funded on the same basis as in the rest of the country, despite what he said, under the national funding formula. That is the whole purpose of the national funding formula: based on the same needs, those pupils will receive the same amount. The hon. Gentleman referred to the gains cap, which ensures that changes in funding can be smoothed over the years under the national funding formula. Approximately 75% of schools that gain under the national funding formula—those that were historically underfunded—will be fully on their national funding formula figure by 2019-20.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) raised the issue of York’s position in the national league tables of school funding, but I should point out to her that the amount allocated to schools in her constituency will rise by 5.4% in 2019-20, compared with the baseline of 2017-18. We have made a significant—

[Mike Kane]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

No, I will not give way, because I am running out of time.

[Mike Kane]

rose—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister is not giving way.

Department for Education

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I want to apologise to you straight away, Mr Deputy Speaker. I prepared diligently for this debate, but I had not realised the importance of estimates day debates to the House. I woke up today to headlines in all the newspapers talking about Kane for England, “Go Kane” and Kane for Harry, England and St George. It was not until the shadow Secretary of State turned up in her England top that the penny dropped. However, I am sure that the one thing that the Minister and I would agree on is that we wish our team all the best for tonight. Straight out of the gate, the Chair of the Education Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), got the tone right for the debate. He also came up with the best soundbite of the day when he talked about funding “textbooks, not tanks”. I shall carry on with the alliteration and say that textbooks, not Tories, are the best thing for our education system.

There is a great deal to discuss in the Department’s spending review, but as colleagues have had to be brief, I will follow suit. I will start with schools, where the Department does the majority of its spending. In particular, I would like to focus on a claim that the Minister made over the weekend that is particularly relevant to this debate. He took to Twitter to say that

“claims that schools would lose money next year are inaccurate. School funding is protected in real terms per pupil—contrary to some inaccurate and misleading claims”.

I for one am glad that the Minister has decided he has a problem with inaccurate and misleading claims. With that in mind, does he believe that every school is going to get more money in the coming financial year? After all, it was the Secretary of State who said that under the current spending plans,

“each school will see at least a small cash increase.”—[Official Report, 29 January 2018; Vol. 635, c. 536.]

Unfortunately for his Department, this has been queried by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies and the UK Statistics Authority. So I ask the Minister to offer us some clarification and to state clearly whether schools will lose money or whether they will see a cash increase.

[Nick Gibb]

I should just like to point out that in the hon. Gentleman’s own constituency, his local authority has been funded to enable schools in Wythenshawe and Sale East to be funded with an increase of 2.3% once the national funding formula is implemented.

[Mike Kane]

I was so looking forward to that! The Prime Minister came to my constituency a few weeks ago to visit a school in Brooklands, in Trafford. That seat had never turned Labour in the history of municipal authority, but it did so that night and Labour took Trafford, because Trafford is losing £3.3 million in spending power for its schools.

Under the Department’s spending plans, schools will see cuts to their budgets for the third year in a row. I know that the Minister will be tempted to rehearse his prepared rebuttal and tell us how the Government have protected per-pupil spending in real terms, despite the fact that £2.7 billion in real terms has been cut since 2015. Those were the first schools cuts in a generation. Despite all the shallow talk of protecting budgets and extra funding, the future of our schools is not safe under the Tories.

While we are talking about the Department’s spending plans for next year, I know that there is one issue that teachers and school leavers across the country need an answer on, and that is pay. The Government’s own research has shown that their pay policy has left teachers nearly £4,000 worse off in real terms since they came into office. It is hardly a surprise that the Government are overseeing a crisis in the recruitment and retention of the teachers that our children and country need. Will the Minister admit that his pay policies have played a role in driving teachers out of the profession? If not, will he tell us why they are leaving the classroom in record numbers? For every teacher coming in, one is leaving the profession.

Teachers and other public sector staff have been repeatedly promised that the public sector pay cap has come to an end, but schools have been given no certainty about any pay rise or how it will be funded. So, will the Minister tell the House when the School Teachers’ Review Body will be publishing its annual report? Surely the Minister agrees that, without enough money to pay for higher wages, anything he utters from the Dispatch Box about an end to the pay cap is absolutely meaningless to the thousands of hard-working teachers who have not seen a real pay rise in years.

Before I end my speech, I want to discuss our student finance system. The Department’s estimates show that spending on the payment of student loans will be over £21 billion this year. They also show that the Department will be considering over £3 billion of interest payments on student debt as revenue. My hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has already shown that the Government’s use of an unreliable inflation measure for these debts costs students around £16,000, and they will now discover that that is being done to line the Treasury’s coffers. Will the Minister tell us how that £3.2 billion is going to be spent? Will he tell us whether the fact that his Department has a vested financial interest in keeping interest rates high means that it will not be acting to address the fact that students are paying more than 6% in interest before they are even able to repay their debts?

It is traditional for the Opposition spokesman to thank Opposition Members for their speeches, but not today. I want to thank all the Government Members for their speeches—[Hon. Members: “Ahh.”] Isn’t that nice of me? The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) made a fine speech, but he failed to mention that North Warwickshire Borough Council is losing £12.5 million from its schools budget. We had the most supportive unsupportive speech that I have ever heard in this House from the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg). He is right to say that Manchester teachers are the some of the best in the world—I was one of them—but Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council is losing £5.9 million over the funding period. What a fine speech it was from the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin). I believe that Horsham is in West Sussex, where primary schools are losing £8.9 million over this Parliament. I have already had it out with the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) about Derbyshire, which is facing an £11.5 million cut. Who else do we have? The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton)—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

The Department provides a range of support to schools, including a national deal to help schools to save money on such things as energy, where there is a 10% saving, or photocopiers and other computer equipment, where there are savings of up to 40%. We are also providing buying hub advice in pilots in the north-west and the south-west and a new framework from this September to help to drive down the costs of agency supply staff.

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

Does the Minister agree that the unintended consequence of the Progress 8 assessment system, as The Times Educational Supplement put it this week, is that all the losers look the same—they are schools in white, working-class areas with high levels of pupil premium. On the current measures, this will result in Ofsted having no choice but to downgrade these schools, compounding the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, and putting off prospective academy sponsors. What action is the Minister taking?

[Nick Gibb]

Actually, Progress 8 carries widespread support in the sector. It is a far better method of assessing schools than the previous method—five or more GCSEs of A* to C—because it measures progress and takes into account the starting point of pupils when they start secondary school. We think it is a good measure. We are looking at some of the details of the outliers when we calculate Progress 8, and we will have more to say on that in due course.

School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2018

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Wednesday 21st March 2018 General Committees

[Nick Gibb]

I would be delighted. The hon. Lady and I have discussed education in her area, and I know how passionate she is about improving academic standards in schools in her constituency. I would, of course, be delighted to visit some schools in her constituency with her in the very near future.

Under these regulations, the national funding formula will allocate the schools, high needs and central school services blocks of the dedicated schools grant fairly to local authorities. The school and early years financial regulations govern how local authorities can distribute that funding between schools and early years providers, and they apply for the coming financial year. Regulations that have recently been made will replace those for 2017-18.

In 2018-19 and 2019-20, local authorities will continue to set their own local funding formulae for schools, which will determine individual schools’ budgets in their areas. Those formulae are set following consultation with local schools. It remains the Government’s clear intention to move, in time, to a system in which each school’s individual budget is set directly by the national funding formula without local variation. That will ultimately ensure that similar schools will receive similar funding, regardless of where they are situated.

However, by continuing to allow a small but important element of flexibility for local authorities over the next couple of years, the regulations will be able to help to smooth the transition to the national funding formula at a local level. They set the rules within which local authorities must operate as they set their local formulae. The changes we have made to the regulations for 2018-19, compared with 2017-18, enable local authorities to mirror the national funding formula for schools in their local formulae. Unless we make these regulatory changes, they would not be allowed to do that. Many local councils have decided that they should replicate the national funding formula in their local formulae. We support that decision, which is a strong vote of confidence in the principles behind our national funding formula.

The regulations need to be made each year, and for the most part, the 2018 regulations simply ensure that the rules set in the 2017 regulations will continue in place. The changes we have made are intended to enable local authorities to mirror the national funding formula.

The changes on school funding are, first, the introduction of an optional minimum per-pupil funding level—the £4,600 I mentioned—which local authorities can now use as a factor in their local funding formulae to ensure that every school receives a minimum amount of funding for each pupil. Unless we pass the regulations, local authorities would not have the discretion to do that.

I do not understand why the Opposition prayed against the regulations. The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East raised the -1.5% minimum funding guarantee. That is the current position. Currently, if a local authority wants a minimum funding guarantee to smooth the effect of any changes to the local formula, to ensure that no school can lose more than -1.5% per pupil when a local formula changes, it can introduce that minimum funding guarantee. We have changed that in the regulations to give local authorities more flexibility, so that, instead of the option of -1.5%, they can now also vary the amount, up to +0.5%, which is the minimum funding guarantee in the national funding formula.

By praying against the regulations, the hon. Gentleman is entrenching in the rules for the local funding formula a minimum funding guarantee of -1.5% and preventing local authorities from having a +0.5% minimum funding guarantee, which we have introduced into the national funding formula. Secondly, the regulations on indicators of deprivation have also changed. Local authorities can choose to use a combination of the free school meals, Ever 6 free school meals and income deprivation affecting children index—IDACI—formulae. Thirdly, there are also some technical changes regarding looked-after children and the scaling factor used to set funding for pupils with low prior attainment.

The hon. Member for Rotherham also raised issues about significant growth in pupil numbers in constituencies. She cited regulation 13, which is designed to tackle precisely the problem she refers to. Regulation 13(4) states:

“Where (a) there is or may be an increase to the published admission number at the school; or (b) the school is subject to a prescribed alteration that may lead to an increase in the number of pupils at the school, the authority may, instead of ascertaining pupil numbers on 5th October 2017, include an estimate of pupil numbers.”

That will help schools to ensure that they have the proper funding as a consequence of a growth in their numbers.

The change to the high needs regulations removes an adjustment that was previously made to schools’ five to 16-year-old pupil numbers to reflect the number of places that the local authority has reserved for children with special educational needs. From 2018-19, five to 16 year-old pupils in such places will attract funding to their school through the local formula on the same basis as all other pupils at the school. Local authorities will have additional funding of £6,000 for each place from the high needs budget.

We introduced a new early years funding formula in April 2017; therefore, the regulations for 2018-19 are largely unchanged from 2017-18. The changes we have made in these regulations implement previously announced policy or are amendments intended to bring greater clarity to existing policies. For example, when we introduced our new funding formula, we announced that from 1 April this year, local authorities must pass on 95% of the national funding formula funding allocation to providers. That is up from 93% in the previous year, and it is an important change in these regulations.

How funding is used in practice is just as important as its fair distribution. We are committed to helping schools to improve pupil outcomes and promote social mobility by getting the best value from all their resources. School efficiency must start with, and be led by, schools and school leaders, but the Department provides practical support, deals and tools that will help all schools improve their efficiency. We will continue our commitment to securing national deals that procure better value goods and services in areas that all schools purchase. Schools can already save an average of 10% on their energy bills and around 40% on printers, photocopiers and scanners. Those deals have already saved schools over £46 million.

Across school spending as a whole, we are improving the transparency and usability of data, so that parents and governors can more easily see how funding is being spent and understand not just educational standards, but financial effectiveness. We will continue to expand our package of support for schools so they can ensure every pound is achieving the best outcome for pupils.

The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East raised the question of teacher numbers. We have record numbers of teachers in our schools: we have 457,000, up 15,500 since 2010. Last year we achieved 89% of our secondary target for graduate recruitment and 100% of our primary target. Returners are rising, from 13,000 in 2011 to 14,200 in 2016. We have tax-free bursaries of up to £26,000 for priority subjects. People often talk about retention; 70% of teachers are still in teaching after five years and 60% are still in teaching after 10 years, but the important point is that that figure has remained broadly constant for the last 20 years.

Class sizes have not shifted very much: they are about 27.1 in primary and 20.5 in secondary schools, on average.

[Mike Kane]

Will the Minister confirm that there are more teachers because there are more pupils, that one third of teachers have left teaching since they trained since 2011 and that education authorities have not filled one third of vacancies for teacher training courses next year?

[Nick Gibb]

There were a number of points there. First, the pupil numbers have increased; we have created 735,000 new school places since 2010, and one of the first things we did in 2010 was double the amount of capital spending on creating new school places. The previous Government had cut school places, particularly in primary schools, where 200,000 places were cut during that period despite knowledge of the increased birth rate.

The hon. Gentleman’s figure of 33% leaving teacher training who joined in 2011 is the 30% figure I was referring to; there are 70% still in teaching after five years. That is broadly the same figure that it has been for the last 20 years. People change their minds after starting a profession, and that figure has not changed significantly over the past 30 years.

I forget what the final issue was that the hon. Gentleman raised, but he also mentioned the report by the Education Policy Institute, which I think came out last week. We do not recognise the findings of that report, because the latest figures show that schools hold surpluses of more than £4 billion against a cumulative deficit of less than £300 million. We trust schools to manage their own budgets, and only a small percentage are operating a cumulative deficit. We are providing support to help those schools get the most out of spending.

I thank the Opposition again for securing this debate. For this Government, providing a high-quality education for every child is a top priority. The additional funding we have announced, together with the introduction of a national funding formula, will provide schools with the resources they need to deliver that. The school and early years finance regulations represent a vital piece in the funding jigsaw, making it possible for local authorities to make funding fairer at a local as well as a national level. By doing so, we can continue to drive school standards ever higher.

[Mike Kane]

So there we have it—that is the silver bullet, and a way to get the Government out of the political hole that the previous Government got into over getting fair funding for schools; we are left with a variance of 1.5% down or 0.5% up. The hon. Member for Cheltenham is in the room, and I hope that he had a good weekend, by the way—it seems to be a great festival. However, he has been quoted by Gloucestershire Live as saying that the national funding formula needed “major surgery”. What we are considering is not even a minor intervention.

The Minister said that the manifesto commitment was that no schools would lose money. That was the commitment—not that no schools would lose money because of the national funding formula. Manifesto commitments are not something that can be made up as you go along. It is incredible that there can be a funding formula with so much variance, so that schools can still receive a cut because of it.

The Minister was good with his facts, and in replying to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green he talked about schools in her constituency. Perhaps I may point out the £82,000 cut affecting St. Catherine’s Catholic Primary School in his constituency, and the reduction in pupil funding of £355 per pupil. Schools in West Sussex are threatening a four-day week. That, in the Minister’s back yard, is incredible.

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman is wrong about his facts. I tend to know the schools in my own constituency quite well, and every school in my constituency will receive an increase in funding according to the national funding formula. Many of the schools there are receiving significant increases—way above the 0.5% that some schools are receiving.

[Mike Kane]

Again, that is a sophist argument that some schools will receive an increase, but not in terms of the general level of cuts since 2015; and it is nothing in comparison with what the Minister rightly pointed out about budget pressure and inflation. All the schools in his constituency will be taking a cut over the next few years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

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

Evidence from last year’s key stage 2 SATs shows that the attainment gap between children on free school meals and their peers has widened since the year before. The results for the Minister’s precious key stage 1 phonics for kids on free school meals actually went backwards last year. At least the previous Secretary of State talked the talk on social mobility. Is it not clear that the Government do not walk the walk?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman is not correct. The attainment-gap index at key stage 2 has closed by 10.5%. We have seen a significant increase in the proportion of children who achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths: it rose from 53% last year to 61% this year—an increase of 8 percentage points—and the SATs are significantly more demanding than they were in previous years. We are producing a cohort of primary school leavers who are far better equipped in maths and English, ready for the demands of secondary school.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[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.

Education Funding: Wirral

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Nick Gibb]

I am sorry. I am talking about St Mary’s Catholic College in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wallasey. That school’s funding per pupil will rise from £5,625 to £5,680.

We also introduced a de minimis figure of £3,500 per pupil for the very lowest funded primary schools. Kingsway Primary School receives £5,376 per pupil, and that figure will rise to £5,422. On top of that, the school will receive £1,320 per pupil for every pupil who has ever qualified in the past six years for free school meals. The hon. Lady referred to 53% of pupils as qualifying at some point for free school meals—all those pupils will bring the school an additional £1,320 on top of the £5,376.

[Mike Kane]

Kingsway Primary School will face a cut of £39,400 by 2020. That is £233 per pupil. It has already lost one teacher.

[Nick Gibb]

No, it is not receiving any cuts in funding at all. Its funding will increase from £5,376 per pupil to £5,422 per pupil. That is an increase of 0.8%. It is an increase in funding, not a cut. I acknowledge there are cost pressures facing schools, but to go around saying that schools have had their funding cut is simply not true. If I can refer to Eastway Primary School—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane]

Will the Minister give way on Eastway Primary School?

[Nick Gibb]

I will not give way again because we are running out of time. The hon. Gentleman seeks to cite the National Education Union’s schools cuts campaigning website, which says that schools are facing a cut in funding. Schools are not facing a cut in funding. Every single school across this country will get an increase in funding.

[Mike Kane]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

No, I will not give way. I have only four minutes left. Every school in this country will see an increase in funding to it.

[Mike Kane]

A £101,000 cut—

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman cannot cite a website that claims there are cuts in funding when every school in this country will receive an increase in funding. There are costs that schools face, whether those be national insurance in 2015-16 or pension contributions, and there will be salary increases to pay in the future, but those are cost pressures that are being incurred right across the system.

I have put the record straight on these matters so that we can have an honest debate about the issues. Opposition Members would acknowledge that every school, including those in the constituencies of the hon. Member for Wallasey and the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), who cited Fender Primary School, will, like that school, see its funding increase. There is no cut in funding to Fender Primary School. The funding will rise from £4,649 per pupil to £4,690 per pupil.

[Mike Kane]

Will the Minister give way on Fender Primary School?

[Nick Gibb]

I will not give way. [Interruption.]

School Funding Formula (London)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The right hon. Gentleman has anticipated my comments, as he did his right hon. Friend’s. I will come to those issues. On the apprenticeship levy, schools can use apprenticeship levy funds not only for training support staff, but for training teachers. We are developing a teacher apprenticeship and the Government have asked Sir Andrew Carter to help develop a high-quality teaching apprenticeship to enable schools to draw down funding available through the apprenticeship levy.

We will publish our response to that consultation in due course. We will build on the strong support for the basic objective of reforming the current system as well as addressing the detailed issues and concerns raised throughout the consultation. We remain committed to working with Parliament and bringing forward proposals that will command consensus.

The right hon. Member for Twickenham raised the issue of introducing a national funding formula at this moment. We felt that at a time of constraints on budgets it was even more important to introduce such a formula to ensure that the unfairnesses are ironed out—more important than when budgets are rising.

Not only do we want the system for distribution to be fair; we also want to ensure that every school has the resources it needs to deliver a world-class education for every child. We have protected the core schools budget in real terms since 2010. We have given record levels of funding for our schools, and we set out plans to increase funding further in our manifesto, as well as continuing to protect the pupil premium to support the most disadvantaged pupils in our schools.

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

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

I will not.

We recognise that schools are facing cost pressures and we will reflect on the message that people sent at the election about the funding of our schools. We also know that how schools use their money is important in delivering the best outcomes for pupils. We will continue to provide support to help schools to use their funding in cost-effective ways. The Government have produced tools, information and guidance to support improved financial health and efficiency in schools. Those tools are available in one area of the gov.uk website.

School Funding (London)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Wes Streeting]

rose—

[Mike Kane]

rose—

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way to either of the hon. Gentlemen. It was disappointing that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) did not acknowledge that, directly as a consequence of this fairer way of allocating funding—this new funding formula—her schools are receiving £3.5 million more.

The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who is itching for me to give way, said that his borough of Redbridge was seeing a reduction in funding. I am afraid that that is simply not the case. Redbridge’s school funding will increase from £201,600,000 to £209,859,000, a 4.1% increase, as a direct consequence of the introduction of a national funding formula.

[Mike Kane]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way.

These anomalies will be ended once we have a national funding formula in place, which is why introducing fair funding was a key manifesto commitment for this Government. Fair funding will mean that the same child with the same needs will attract the same funding, regardless of where they happen to live.

We launched the first stage of our consultation on reforming the schools and high needs funding systems in March last year. We set out our principles—

[Mike Kane]

On a point of order, Mr Hanson.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The formula does contain an element for growth. We also responded to the representations on mobility made by the right hon. Lady’s colleague, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). When pupils join a school part way through the year, that will be factored in. I would have expected her to welcome both those changes to the funding formula.

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

The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) had hastily to delete a tweet this week that showed that the national debt had exploded on this Government’s watch. Therefore, the sparsity formula, which was to save rural schools everywhere, has become the paucity formula. Should the Minister not tell the House that the key issue facing schools up to 2020 is the £3 billion-worth of cuts coming down the line for every school in the country?

[Mr Gibb]

Funding is increasing to £42 billion by the end of this spending review period. We are increasing the amount allocated for sparsity from £15 million under the current formula to £27 million. The hon. Gentleman talks about debt, but, since 2010, we have had to face the problem of tackling the historic budget deficit inherited from the last Labour Government because of their poor stewardship of the public finances. Tackling that debt and that deficit has enabled us to have a strong economy with growing employment and greater opportunities for young people when they leave school.

Draft Coasting Schools (England) Regulations 2016

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Wednesday 30th November 2016 General Committees

[Mr Gibb]

Yes, but the hon. Gentleman is referring to the position as it was. The metrics on which schools were being held to account for many years was the proportion of their pupils who achieved five or more good GCSEs. We have changed that. From 2016, the judgment will be based on progress 8—the level of progress made by the school. That will deal with all the issues to which the hon. Gentleman refers. We want to spread the measure over three years to ensure that one particular year does not lead to a school falling into the definition. What we cannot do when providing a legal definition of coasting is go back and have different metrics from those that the schools expected at that time. That is why we have combined an attainment figure and a progress measure for the years 2014 and 2015. It is complex, but we believe that is the fairest way to hold schools to account.

We held a public consultation on our proposed coasting definition in autumn 2015, which sought views on the definition and on an illustrative version of the regulations. A range of views were expressed in the responses. Although there was some disagreement with the premise of identifying coasting schools, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee recognised, there was wide support, including among those who were otherwise opposed to a definition, for the use of a progress measure as the basis of a coasting definition. Many respondents felt that that was the fairest and most effective way of identifying those schools that are failing to ensure that pupils reach their full potential.

I am aware that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee was concerned that the regulations would have a greater impact on schools than suggested in the accompanying explanatory memorandum. I reassure the Committee that that is not the case. Since the scrutiny Committee reported, we have published a statistical note with our provisional estimates of the number of schools that will meet the definition when revised 2016 results are published. That shows that about 800 schools—just under 5% of schools with eligible results—are likely to fall within the definition based on their provisional data. Some of those schools may also be below the floor standard or be judged inadequate by Ofsted. They would already be working with regional schools commissioners to improve their performance. For those schools, being identified as coasting will not necessarily lead to any additional action.

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

The Minister identifies 800 schools falling within the category. Will he tell us how many of them are locally maintained schools? I have a figure of about 400, but he can come back to me later if needs be.

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman asks a perfectly reasonable question and I will come back to him during the debate to give him those precise figures if they are available.

As I was saying, falling within the definition will be the start of a conversation. Regional school commissioners will talk to all the schools identified, whether they are academies or maintained schools—I respect the hon. Gentleman’s point—to understand the wider context and decide whether additional support would help them to improve. The RSC may decide that a school is supporting pupils well or has a sufficient plan and the capacity to improve itself, and that therefore no further support is required. Alternatively, the RSC, working with the school, may consider that additional support is needed from, for example, a national leader of education or a high-performing local school. The RSC will then work with the school to help it to put that support in place.

In some cases, the regional schools commissioner, following discussions with the school, may think that a more formal approach is required. For maintained schools, the RSC may use the Secretary of State’s power to require the school to accept support or to change the membership of its governing body. For academies, the RSC may issue the academy trust with a warning notice setting out the improvement action required.

We expect that the regional schools commissioners will use the Secretary of State’s power to direct a coasting maintained school to become an academy, or to move a coasting academy to a new trust, in only a small minority of cases, which addresses head-on the point made by the hon. Member for Hyndburn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East, the shadow Minister, asked about the RSCs’ KPIs. We are reviewing the RSCs’ KPIs to ensure that they do continue to reflect the RSCs’ new role and remit appropriately. The revised set of year 2 KPIs will be published in the academy’s annual report later this year. The year 3 KPIs are being developed as we speak.

[Mike Kane]

Is the Minister therefore saying that it is inappropriate that a regional schools commissioner should have a KPI that is judged on how many schools they make into academies in an academic year?

[Mr Gibb]

No, what I am saying is that the KPIs are evolving in the same way as the role of the regional schools commissioner is evolving. As that role evolves, and as new responsibilities are given to the regional schools commissioner, so the KPIs have to be revised and amended to reflect those new responsibilities.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the split between academies and maintained schools. As far as primary schools are concerned, he is right. On the basis of the provisional data for 2016 and the previous two years, about 373 local authority primary schools will fall within the definition, along with 106 academies. In terms of secondary schools, 151 local authority maintained schools and 176 academy schools fall within the definition.

[Mr Gibb]

No, there is no quota. Coasting is not about academisation, as I have tried to say a number of times. The measure is about ensuring that schools get the support they need to improve, so that the pupils at those schools get the education they deserve in order to fulfil their potential. That is what this is about in toto. I hope the hon. Gentleman accepts that.

The split between academies and maintained schools at secondary level reflects the fact that more than 60% of all secondary schools are now academies. The sponsored academies have a history of poor performance, which is why they became sponsored academies. I am not surprised by the split of the numbers of academies and the numbers of maintained local authority schools at key stage 4 at secondary level that would fall within the definition.

The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East asked whether we will name those schools that fall under the definition. Coasting is not about naming and shaming, and we will not publish a list of schools that fall under the definition. It is about support. The first coasting schools will be identified after the final 2016 results are published. We will not make that contact on the basis of the provisional results because they change.

[Mike Kane]

Will parents know whether their child is in a coasting school or not?

[Mr Gibb]

I will come back to that point in a moment. All of the definition of a coasting school is based on published data. If parents want to go through the definition, they will be able to identify that. In addition, once a school has been notified that it falls within the coasting definition, it will inform parents of that fact.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether the regional schools commissioners have the capacity to take on that role with coasting schools. Alongside this restructuring, the number of staff delivering the regional schools commissioner remit has grown to reflect the growing number of academies and free schools, and the expanded scope of the regional schools commissioner remit, including responsibilities for coasting schools. Because of those new responsibilities, there are approximately 350 full-time equivalent staff members across the eight regional schools commissioner-led regional teams. As their responsibilities change, there will be changes to staff numbers.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether the regional schools commissioners have the expertise to decide what action to take in a coasting school. Regional schools commissioners have a wealth of experience to draw on when making decisions. They have been appointed by the Secretary of State for their extensive knowledge of the education sector in their regions. They are supported by headteacher boards made up of local outstanding headteachers, chief executives of multi-academy trusts and local leaders.

The hon. Gentleman raised the same question that Opposition Members raised about the academies programme. Sponsored academies are improving faster than their predecessor schools, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath, the former Secretary of State, asked the key question in the debate: how many more children are in schools judged good and outstanding today compared with when Labour left office in 2010? He asked the hon. Gentleman that question and answer was there none. We were helpfully aided by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South, who provided the answer when he said that 1.4 million more pupils are in schools graded good or outstanding today than in 2010. I have an announcement to make, and I hope the Committee is paying attention. There are now 1.8 million more pupils in schools graded good or outstanding today than in 2010, and nearly 90% of schools are judged by Ofsted to be good or outstanding.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether there were enough sponsors. Over the past five years, we have delivered 1,726 sponsored academies and have 957 approved academy sponsors. Over the next five years, as the number of sponsored academies continues to grow, regional schools commissioners will continue to work with existing sponsors to help them expand. In addition to growing existing sponsors, there is a pool of high-performing schools that we can draw on. To reiterate the point that I have made several times during the debate, the coasting measure focuses on support. We expect regional schools commissioners to pursue an academy solution only in a small minority of cases.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of funding and the education services grant. In 2016-17, the Department has provided more than £50 million to fund accredited system leaders. As of 1 November, there are more than 750 teaching schools, 1,150 national leaders of education and 500 national leaders of governance, present in every region in England. New designation criteria for NLEs and teaching schools will increase that further still. We are also considering what new funding might be made available to schools to support improvement, including for coasting schools. We expect to make an announcement on that shortly.

[Mike Kane]

This might be an opportunity for the Minister. The fair funding formula was delayed for months and months. When will the consultation be announced?

[The Chair]

In the context of this debate, Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

Yes. We are considering the consultation document we published in March. The consultation finished in April, and we are looking at the responses. We will respond to the consultation shortly.

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

Far from core school funding being protected, as the Secretary of State said a few minutes ago, we know that schools are set to lose £2.5 billion by 2020. Headteachers in the Minister’s county are threatening a four-day week because of the funding formula. In that context, how will he secure fairer funding for schools, especially in London, which has had the additional benefit of the London challenge formula?

[Mr Gibb]

The Secretary of State was right: we are protecting core schools funding in real terms. We are consulting on a range of factors such as deprivation, English as an additional language and sparsity, for which there is a flat figure per school. All those factors are part of the consultation document because we are addressing an historic unfairness in the funding system that Labour presided over for 13 years. This Government are taking action to address that. I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman supported the consultation, rather than criticise it.

Grammar and Faith Schools

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Kane]

rose—

[Mr Gibb]

I will give way to my hon. Friend and then to the shadow Minister.

[Mr Gibb]

We have made extremely good progress in raising academic standards in primary schools in reading and mathematics with the knowledge-based primary curriculum. However, one of the conditions on which we are consulting is for new grammar schools to have relationships with feeder primary schools and to establish new feeder primary schools as part and parcel of the objective of widening the social intake into expanded, existing and new grammar schools.

[Mike Kane]

Will the Minister assure the House that no school will lose out as a result of the fair funding formula?

[Mr Gibb]

We have consulted on the principles that will drive the national funding formula. We had many responses to that consultation and we are working through them. We will say more in due course about the weighting that attaches to those different principles. We will then have another consultation and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will make his views known at that stage.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud also raised a concern about the proportion of pupils at grammar schools who are eligible for free school meals. He will of course know that central to the proposals in the consultation document is a requirement on all new grammar schools to take a proportion of pupils from lower income households.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) raised the issue of children with special educational needs and disabilities. She will know that all schools must make admission decisions over those with special educational needs and disabilities fairly. When a child with SEND meets a school’s admission criteria of a selective school over academic ability, that will allow them to access the benefits of education at that school in just the same way as any other pupil. As I have said, we will expect selective schools to support non-selective schools and we will be looking to them to be engines of academic and social achievement for all pupils, whatever their background, wherever they are from and whatever their ability. Such support will benefit pupils with SEND in non-selective schools.

Two years ago, we made fundamental changes to how the SEND support system worked for families—the biggest change in a generation—putting children and young people with SEND at the heart of the process and ensuring that they are supported all the way through to adulthood. Since then, 74,200 young people have been given personalised education, health and care plans.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[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.

Teachers Strike

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

No, it does not. The new curriculum is essential if we are to prepare young people for life in modern Britain and equip them to do well at secondary school. The previous levels did not ensure that children, including those reaching level 4 at the end of key stage 2, went on to get at least five good GCSEs. This curriculum is much more rigorous and it has been designed to be on a par with the best education jurisdictions in the world. Some 66% of pupils are already meeting the new expected standard in reading, while 70% are meeting it in maths and 72% in grammar, punctuation and spelling. I think that teachers have done a great job in preparing pupils for this new, more demanding curriculum.

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

Brilliant former colleagues of mine have been brought to their knees by the unmanageable and exhaustive workloads introduced by this Government. Given that more teachers left the profession than joined it last year, does the Minister accept the link between teachers’ morale and the huge numbers leaving the profession?

[Mr Gibb]

Let me give the hon. Gentleman some facts: in 2015, 43,000 teachers left the profession—some due to retirement, while others went into other walks of life—but 45,000 entered it. Some 14,000 people returned to the profession, which is a higher number than the 11,000 in 2011. I do not recognise the picture painted by the hon. Gentleman. Whenever I visit universities and schools and make public statements, I talk up the profession, to encourage young graduates and sixth formers to think about a career in a very important and highly respected profession.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I read the hon. Gentleman’s recent letter to the Ofsted lead for the north-west, Chris Russell, and I share his ambition to improve standards of education in Greater Manchester, but it is not a top-down reform; it is devolution in its purest form that gives control of schools to the professionals on the frontline. That is what this is about. He should be supporting the measures because they will raise academic standards right across our schools system.

[Mike Kane]

This morning, I visited Springfield Primary School, in my constituency, which is run by the most dedicated professionals I have ever known—I had the privilege to teach there myself for the best part of a decade. They tell me that it is more than adequately supported by the Conservative local education authority in Trafford, and in Mike Freeman it has a brilliant LEA Labour councillor and school governor. Will the Minister join me in praising the school for all it does in my constituency and explain to it why its model, which is really good, needs to be changed?

[Mr Gibb]

We do not want the model under which that school operates to change; we want the school to take the model it uses to raise standards and teach children well, despite the loss of the hon. Gentleman as a teacher, and to spread that excellence to other schools in the area. That is the essence of the academies programme. It is about ensuring that every local school in every part of the country, beyond Trafford, has a good local school. That is the ambition. I hope he shares it.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Nick Gibb and Mike Kane

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The amendments we are debating give parents an additional entitlement to receive communication from the new sponsor of an academy while the process is being undertaken. We are unapologetic about the powers we are taking in the Bill, because we want to tackle all failing schools from day one when they become failing. That was in our manifesto, so this Bill is helping us deliver yet another manifesto achievement.

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

Does the Minister not worry that there is no proper procedure for a good school to decouple from a failing multi-academy trust? Time and again in my constituency, we see MATs that are not doing so well. I do not want to name the schools, but the Secretary of State knows about them because I have written to her personally about the issue. There is no proper procedure for such schools to decouple and we need one.

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, but the regional schools commissioners, of which there are eight around the country who know the local conditions and the local schools, will take action—indeed, they are taking action—when a multi-academy trust is failing to raise standards in its schools. We have taken action over 120 times to remove schools from multi-academy trusts that have not been delivering the support and sponsorship that we seek.

Once a sponsor has been identified for a failing school, it is commonplace for the sponsor to engage with parents about its plans for the school to ensure that they know what to expect. Often, parents are given the opportunity to share their views about any changes that the sponsor proposes to make. Lords amendment 7 will ensure that there is greater consistency for parents because the sponsor that is identified to take over a maintained school that is eligible for intervention will always be required to communicate to parents its plans for improving the school before the school is converted into a sponsored academy.

The hon. Members for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) have proposed four amendments to Lords amendment 7 that would replace the requirement on the proposed sponsor to communicate information about its plans to parents with a requirement for sponsors to consult parents about their improvement plans. I hope the House will recognise that that proposed change is more than just semantics. To ensure that underperforming schools are turned around as quickly as possible, clause 8 removes the requirement to consult on whether the school should become an academy so that that process cannot be misused to delay decisive action.