Further and Higher Education (Access) Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury appears to have made an announcement this morning on seeking a 5p reduction from Europe in the cost of rural fuel. Will you give advice on that, and say whether the Speaker’s Office has received representations from the Treasury on the subject?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for notice of that point of order. I have not received notification that any statements are to be made today, but I am sure that if Members on the Treasury Bench wished to give such notification, they would do so through the normal channels.
Education Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. A large number of Members are still trying to get into this debate, so the time limit will be reduced to six minutes. Even with that, I suspect that some Members still might not get in.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am from Liverpool, so I suppose I am getting used to cuts. I will try to amend my speech to fit the six minutes allocated.
As we have already heard, the Bill covers a wide range of concerns—from school discipline and behaviour to schools admissions and exclusions, setting up new academies and even changes to apprenticeships and the reform of student fees and loans. It is a mishmash of proposals designed not to give everyone the best chance of a good education but to create a three-tier system of the haves, the have-nots and the have-not-got-a-chances. In the future, unless parents have money or good connections, their children will be sent to schools facing massive cuts in their budgets, while money is siphoned off to academies and free schools.
Narrowing the curriculum to five subjects will mean abandoning all the young people who have thrived on vocational courses. Removing the promise of an apprenticeship will leave a legacy of young people who do not fit into this 1950s vision of what an education should be—young people consigned to the scrap heap by a Secretary of State who cares more about Latin and the classics than he does about Liverpool and the educational attainment of children from ordinary working families.
Above all, the Secretary of State is asking this House to strip local authorities of their role in managing the provision of education, and to transfer to him 50 new powers to interfere in and control almost every aspect of our schools system in England, including what subjects our children learn and what kind of schools they go to. Indeed, so much will be affected that, in view of the time, I shall confine my remarks to an aspect of education that gets little attention in the Bill, something that I believe highlights this Government’s misguided priorities.
We on the Labour Benches judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable, not by how the strong prosper. In that sense, many Members have been right to express deep concern today about what the proposals will mean for the treatment of children with special educational needs. As Ofsted highlights, just over one in five pupils—1.7 million school-age children in England—are identified as having special educational needs. Critically, as a whole, pupils currently identified as having special educational needs are disproportionately from disadvantaged backgrounds, are much more likely to be absent or even excluded from school, and achieve less well than their peers, in terms of both attainment at any given age and progress over time.
Getting education right for those young people transforms their chances and our ability as a society to benefit from what they could be, rather than dealing with the consequences of what they never get help to overcome. First and foremost, what many parents of children with SEN in Liverpool will ask about this Bill is: how can we judge what these proposals will mean for those children if we have not even been given notice of when the special educational needs Green Paper that this Government said they would publish will be published? In the absence of such information, the proposals offer little comfort to parents, who fight hard to ensure that their children receive the education they need, whatever their ability.
Many in the Chamber would recognise the challenges that Ofsted identified in its work reviewing SEN schooling and in the special educational needs and disability review. However, that is why it is all the more worrying that the proposals in the Bill have been brought forward without any details outlining what they will mean for children with SEN. Under the present system, a parent of a child with SEN often fights long and hard to get their child statemented, to ensure that they can access the services necessary to address their specific requirements. Under the proposals in the Bill, I fear for those children who need the co-operation of different services to participate in education—for example, children with a disability—or to access speech and language therapy, or mental health support.
It is not just in ensuring that children with special needs are supported that the cross-agency approach is important. Many of the current provisions were introduced as a result of the Laming report, as we heard earlier, following the death of Victoria Climbié, in order to protect the health, safety and well-being of children and young people. I therefore hope that Ministers will offer more than kind words for the parents of children with special educational needs who are listening today, and explain clearly how the Government’s proposals and the removal of the role of local authorities will not lead to a loss in joined-up services for our most vulnerable students. We know that children with SEN or a disability are more likely to face discrimination in admissions. The outcomes of the case often depend on the evidence presented, and if—
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Performance)
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. This is a popular debate and a six-minute limit has been introduced on all Back Benchers’ speeches, with the usual injury time for two interventions.
Mr Bailey
We would have sustained the level of support at local level that would have allowed manufacturers to benefit from the sort of programmes that were being developed to get us out of recession. However, the hon. Gentleman must forgive me if I concentrate on the issue at stake, which is the performance of BIS in promoting growth.
On LEPs, I am second to none in my praise for my local Black Country chamber of commerce and those who are committed to making it work. I shall do everything I can to support the LEP, but I know that there are serious reservations about the lack of funding it has for submitting applications and about the delay that occurred when its original application to become an LEP was turned down.
What, above all, is very worrying as regards the potential for LEPs is the fact that the planning proposals in the Localism Bill do not include LEPs having any role whatever in the process. How the Government can create a local organisation with a brief to drive growth but not include it in the local planning plans for a local community defies all credibility and belief. Without the support of local planning authorities, it will be difficult for local businesses to push for growth.
Immigration has already been mentioned. The revelations that we heard yesterday in the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee on the impact of the Government’s cap on recruiting people for vital, iconic businesses that have demonstrated time and again their ability to deliver jobs and growth are a real worry. Some of us thought that the Secretary of State had had some success in that regard, but it looks as though the headline announcements are not being reflected by the attitudes of the Departments involved. That is, in itself, a reflection on this particular Department’s ability to get what it needs from other Departments in delivering on an agenda that is essential for the Government and the economy.
BIS should be taking a lead role and ensuring that there is a growth impact test on the actions taken by other Departments. That is not so. This is why, under a Labour Government, we were growing ourselves out of—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Will the hon. Gentlemen resume their seats? There is a time limit on speeches, and also a time limit on interventions—it is called “short”.
Gavin Williamson
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) for making such lucid points.
My hon. Friend is right about training and giving business the freedom to succeed—freedom from regulation. That is why I pay tribute to Ministers in the Department. They have introduced a one-in, one-out policy on regulations —or I very much hope they will do so shortly. I would encourage them to be bolder, and certainly to be bolder than the Labour Government, and to make that a one-in, two-out policy. Let us be bold. Let us free industry from the shackles of government.
The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) made a valid point on intensive users of energy. We must be wary of environmental regulation. If we are not careful, we will ship business from this country to countries such as Ukraine, which do not have a care for environmental regulation. We will not just be shipping carbon abroad; we will also ship jobs. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench to bear that in mind.
The hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) made the valid point that we need to encourage jobs right across the manufacturing sector. We must be careful with all regulation, but especially with environmental regulation.
Opposition Members sometimes seem not to accept the fact that businesses do not always want to be involved in the intricacies of government. Businesses want the freedom to get on, but they need help with financing. There is a real squeeze for many small and medium-sized businesses in getting the finance that they need. The Black Country Reinvestment Society helps many SMEs in my constituency and much of the black country, including new businesses. It uses small amounts of capital to give those businesses the opportunity to grow and expand. I encourage Ministers to look at the model to see how it can be expanded across the country.
I also encourage Ministers to look at the German model. Many German banks do not simply lend to businesses and provide mortgages and banking facilities; they actually take an equity stake in the businesses. That stake means that they have a long-term vision for those businesses. More support, rather than more interference, is what is needed in this country.
Businessmen do not want a constant dialogue with civil servants and politicians. They want and need low taxes, low levels of regulation and most important of all, a stable economy. I encourage Ministers not to think that more government will lead to more business, but to think that less government will lead to more business.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) who has a very positive outlook on the current situation. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. We should not underestimate the importance of getting economic growth back into our economy. We still face difficult economic times. We must not forget that we have had the worst recession since the second world war, with six quarters of negative growth. We are now suffering from the hangover from that, and from the debt inherited from Labour.
The deficit is one of the greatest barriers to growth. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor is right to stick to his guns on his deficit-reducing strategy. The IMF agrees: it has identified that insufficient progress with fiscal consolidation in the medium term would be a key downside risk to growth. We should all remember that.
The path to growth is likely to be rocky, but we must put the building blocks in place to rebalance our economy into a more sustainable and resilient model, based on a broader spread of industry, rather than put all our eggs into one basket. We must also listen to business. Before and after the election, business was looking for three things—lower taxes, less regulation and more bank lending. Some progress has been made by the new Government and there is far greater intent than there was in the past. But there is still some way to go.
I read today’s motion with interest. It seems to hark back to a golden age in which the previous Government proclaimed the success of the RDAs. The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), and his then Business Secretary toured the country handing out rubber cheques that no one ever mentioned in the Budget, and which could never have been cashed. Their tenure did not result in an enviable record. The RDAs were top-heavy, with £246 million spent on administration alone in 2008-09. That is not a record to be proud of. However, despite the RDA my region—the west midlands—saw a contraction in private sector employment. That does not make sense, because the RDA was there to promote private sector employment, not throw money into the public sector. Across the country we saw a reduction in manufacturing jobs of 1.8 million under the Labour Government. That is not a record to be proud of, nor is it a golden legacy; it is something that this Government have inherited and are having to deal with.
Let me turn to the coalition Government and the difficult balance that we are having to strike between dealing with the deficit and getting sustainable growth. Despite the Opposition’s rhetoric, the coalition parties do have a plan for sustainable growth. There is a common theme or thread running through many policy areas. We have the LEPs, which are far more focused and business-led. I am sure that they will not be like Labour’s talking shops, which disengaged business. In particular, the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP, with which I have been proud to associate myself, is doing a fantastic job promoting the Coventry and Warwickshire area. I look forward to the progress that it will make in future.
Nor should we dismiss the £30 billion of investment being pumped into our transport infrastructure, or the fact that the regional growth fund is bringing £1.4 billion into the economy to pump-prime projects such as those being considered at MIRA—the Motor Industry Research Association—on the A5 on the edge of my constituency, which will bring in £250 million of private sector investment and could create 2,000 jobs. [Interruption.] Opposition Members shake their heads. They obviously do not want such investments to be made. I am also encouraged by the way in which the Government have started to reduce red tape and regulation, with the one-in, one-out strategy, reducing gold-plating and introducing business mentors to help new businesses grow. All those measures will create jobs. I hope that when the Minister winds up he will elaborate on how we will expedite that process and ensure that it moves forward far more quickly.
I am also pleased that we are committed to reducing corporation tax, which we need to do to move all businesses forward. Lower taxes are a way of stimulating the economy, benefiting not just the banks, as Opposition Members have said. I am also absolutely delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning has introduced another 75,000 apprenticeships this year to close the skills gap left by Labour. We had to bring in labour from abroad to fill the skills gap when the economy was expanding, when we had many people here who could have filled it themselves. I have only a short time left, so I hope that when the Minister winds up he can give me more information on what is happening with bank lending, which is an extremely important part of the package. I know that the previous Government failed miserably on that, and that the new Government are grappling to get it right, but if the Minister can tell us what is happening, that would be very helpful for us to pass back to our constituencies.
To conclude, we do have a package for growth and we are moving it forward. There are areas where it needs to be moved forward more quickly—
Alison McGovern
I am glad to hear the Minister’s intervention; I have often found him to be a partner for peace on this subject. However, I still worry about investment in business and about business growth. Money might well be set aside, but we still might not see the increase in opportunities for young people that we need.
Let me leave the Minister responsible for further education and the Business Secretary with this final point. They must work with local government. In Wirral, the one thing that has made a real difference to apprenticeships and young people’s employment is the Wirral apprentice scheme. It was funded with working neighbourhoods fund money via the local authority, which meant that that small and medium-sized enterprises could access support to hire apprentices. That is the one thing that has worked. Making local government suffer the biggest cuts in any part of government is not fair, and the impact will be worse on young people. I plead with the Secretary of State and the Minister—
Education Maintenance Allowance
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
I wish to declare an interest in that one of my children was in receipt of EMA to do A-levels at college, and I was very grateful for that help. I should also like to thank the Opposition for the opportunity to debate this matter.
I shall concentrate on the situation for the 655 students at Strode college in Street, the 1,813 students at Bridgwater college—41% and 50% of whom respectively are in receipt of EMA—and the 2,615 children living in poverty in the Wells constituency. I am grateful to Tom Strode-Walton, James Staniforth, the principal of Strode college, and Fiona McMillan, the principal of Bridgwater college, for the information that they have provided to me for this debate.
If students from disadvantaged backgrounds do not have the right help to access education for AS and A2-levels, there is no chance of them accessing university education until later in life. Strode college estimates that its students have claimed £500,000 in EMA this year. Bridgwater college surveyed its students and estimates that they have claimed in the region of £1.5 million.
The learner support fund at Strode college is currently £17,000, and at Bridgwater in this financial year it is £42,000. The Government propose to triple the current learner support fund for each college to address the loss of EMA to students from September 2011 onwards. That would mean that next year Strode college could expect £51,000, and that Bridgwater college could expect £126,000. It is difficult to understand how those colleges will make that funding stretch to meet students’ needs so that they can continue to fund their education.
The Minister should look to remove the main barriers to FE and HE. Many of the arguments that I would wish to make today have been rehearsed already, but in a rural area such as mine, one main barrier is transport to and from college. A county bus ticket in Somerset costs £600 a year. That is likely to increase as Somerset county council stops concessions for students—it will withdraw its subsidy in April—and as the various fuel price increases are included. Public transport in many rural areas is non-existent, and it is difficult for students to work because they cannot get home on public transport later in the evenings or at weekends, when there is a reduced service. A taxi fare from my village, which is four miles from the main town, is about £15 one way.
The mother of the twins Rhiannon, who wishes to be a vet, and Ayesha, who wants to be a psychologist, wrote to me last night. They live in a very rural part of my patch, and their mother is recovering from an illness. Consequently, they will be caught in a situation in which they have to pay £1,400 or £1,500 each year to get through college.
The other main expenses for which EMA is used have been mentioned: books, kit and clothing. Studying hairdressing at Bridgwater requires £200-worth of equipment. The equipment needed for plumbing, bricklaying, car mechanics and all the other trades is also extremely expensive. Chefs need knives; art and photography students need a constant supply of materials; and those on sports courses need clothing, footwear and equipment, none of which are cheap. Many other courses require textbooks and supporting literature, and all students need to cover those costs.
In my part of rural Somerset, there are several schools without any sixth forms: Whitstone school in Shepton Mallet, St Dunstan’s community school in Glastonbury, and Crispin school in Street. Students aged 17 and 18 will be required to stay on in full-time education or training from 2013 and 2015 respectively, and the choice of which school or college to attend must lie freely with the student. It is important that students are not required to attend their nearest A-level provider, as that could lead to their choices being limited. Year 11 students at Whitstone school, for example, might want to study a specific subject that means they will want to go to Frome college, Radstock college or Yeovil college, travelling 18 to 42 miles a day. It is important that future students have the ability to plan, budget and know exactly where they will be. For that reason, the Minister must address the issue of transport. I received advice from the Department for Transport this morning, saying that the local authority must provide home-to-school transport but that it has no legal requirement to help the over-16s, and that only 21% of local authorities use their discretionary powers to offer concessions, over and above the statutory requirements.
I ask the Secretary of State for Education to consider all the issues affecting my constituents in rural Somerset. EMA is not perfect; it needs to be reviewed. I am not wedded to it therefore, but I am sure that if we address the transport issues—
Elizabeth Truss
Absolutely. I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I am very pleased that the Government have introduced the English baccalaureate, which will help us to encourage more students from all backgrounds to study subjects that will help them to get to university. That is a good thing.
I shall finish by talking about the record of the previous Government in getting low-income students to university. Nineteen per cent. of students going into higher education were from families in the lowest income quintile, compared with 30% in Australia and 50% in the United States. That is a shameful record—[Interruption.] Members will note that both those countries have a proper tuition fee system. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. We cannot have all these sedentary interventions.
Elizabeth Truss
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
As a country, we need to stop comparing ourselves with what we were in the past and start comparing ourselves with countries that are making innovations. Our debate on education has been too insular; we are not looking at what is happening internationally. That is what the shadow Secretary of State for Education should focus on, rather than holding an insular debate that is only about our country. We are not just competing against ourselves; we are competing against other nations in the world. The £500 million being spent on EMA could be better targeted. More of it should be used to reform teaching qualifications, so that there are better qualified teachers to help low-income students get ahead in life.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. As you can see, no Government Members are standing, but many Opposition Members wish to take part in the debate. If you show self-restraint, several of your colleagues will get in; if you do not, they will not. It is up to you.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I will say it one more time. If hon. Members show restraint, more will get in. If not, they simply will not.
Funding and Schools Reform
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. The next speaker will be Damian Hinds. I ask him to sit down at 6.40 pm.
Public Accounts Committee Report (CAFCASS)
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. We are all grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for enabling the Select Committee report to be presented, but I hope you will encourage the various parties involved, including the Backbench Business Committee, to review the procedure. Perhaps a little longer is required—such as a half-hour slot—in order that the Chairman may present the whole case and then take questions, including from the Minister. I saw that he tried to intervene. On behalf of Committee Chairs in general, I would like to encourage further consideration of the exact procedure to be followed for this excellent innovation.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point of order. I have been an MP for 18 years and we seem constantly to be modernising the House. This procedure is embryonic—this is the first time we have followed it—and I am sure that the Backbench Business Committee will reconsider it and consider what changes need to be made to make it more effective. I agree with his comments about the first running of the procedure; it was very useful.
Academies Bill [Lords]
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I beg to move amendment 8, page 3, line 11, at end insert—
‘(1A) In the case of a member or members of a governing body objecting to an application under subsection (1), there shall be a ballot of the parents of children enrolled at the school, subject to regulations laid down by the Secretary of State.’.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 78, page 3, line 11, at end insert—
‘(1A) Before making an application for an Academy order, the governing body shall consult relevant parties on whether to make such an application.
(1B) The Secretary of State shall issue guidance as to how governing bodies should conduct such a consultation with parents, pupils, teaching and non-teaching staff and their representatives, neighbouring schools and the local authority and such other parties as he may think appropriate and such guidance must also specify the information to be made available to consultees in relation to the proposed arrangements for Academy status.’.
Amendment 4, in clause 5, page 4, line 11, leave out ‘such’ and insert—
(a) the local education authority,
(b) the teachers at the school,
(c) the pupils,
(d) the pupils’ parents,
(e) such persons as in their opinion represent the wider community, and
(f) such other’.
Amendment 18, page 4, line 11, at end insert ‘including the local authority for that area.’.
Amendment 77, page 4, line 14, leave out ‘may take place before or after an Academy order, or’ and insert ‘must take place before’.
Amendment 9, page 4, line 14, leave out ‘an Academy order, or’.
Amendment 86, page 4, line 14, leave out subsection (3).
Amendment 10, page 4, line 15, at end add—
‘(4) Consultation on Academy status should not be led by any member of a governing body who may benefit financially as a result of conversion to Academy status or whose salary, terms or conditions may be affected by such conversion.’.
New clause 1—Reversion of Academies to maintained status—
(1) This section applies to any former maintained school which has been converted into an Academy under section 4.
(2) The governing body must make arrangements for the holding of a ballot of parents under this section if at least 10 per cent of the parents of pupils at the Academy request it to do so.
(3) The purpose of a ballot under this section is to determine whether the parents of pupils at the Academy want the Academy to be converted into a maintained school.
(4) If the result of the ballot is in favour of conversion, the Secretary of State must—
(a) revoke the Academy order, and
(b) take such other steps as he considers necessary to convert the Academy into a maintained school.’.
Dr Pugh
When were elected this May—God, it seems years ago—we all knew that there was some prospect that politics in this place might never be quite the same again. Many of us, frankly, welcomed that. The huge and welcome influx of new Members gave us all hope that things could possibly be different. That, along with the odd arithmetic of this place and the challenging nature of the country’s problems, seemed to dictate that the way ahead would be through rational consensus and for a while—all too short a while—it appeared that tribalism and command-and-control politics were dead; the Chamber and Committees would be important and policy would have to be evidence-led, much to the disappointment of the media, whose preference is always for a good scrap.
What do we have with amendments to the Bill, however? We have the spectacle of Ministers who have already told us that they will accept no amendment, period, and the sight of Whips new and old cracking their knuckles off-stage and perfecting basilisk-like stares in the mirror, persuading people not to vote for amendments such as amendment 8 and others that, it could be argued, align with the spirit and improve the detail of the Bill. Paradoxically, they are doing that because they assume that is how coalition politics work. I say paradoxically, because the amendment-denying Ministers in front of us, whose agents the Whips are, seem to be the most mature, civilised and benign advocates of the new politics. I personally cannot associate myself with the recent comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron); nor can I afford to drink in the Boot and Flogger. I am simply moving an amendment with which the Committee should be comfortable and, frankly, which any Member of any party can and should be free to support.
In the event of a governing body being divided, amendment 8 obliges a school to hold a ballot if a governor or a minority of governors object to an application for academy status. It therefore provides a restraint on a motivated group of governors misrepresenting or riding roughshod over parents’ wishes.
Mr Evans, you might recall that under Mrs Thatcher, in the Education Reform Act 1988, a parental ballot was an essential precondition of the change to grant-maintained status in any school. There were votes across the country on those matters. Sadly, subsequent Governments seem to have lost interest in the views of parents and, in my view, have disempowered parents, with one exception. Tony Blair insisted that the change from grammar school status required a parental ballot and that condition survives and is effectively incorporated in this Bill.
Can anyone in this Chamber give me an argument for why grammar school parents should be balloted before the status of their school changes and parents of children at other schools should not? I am at a loss to find such an argument. Why should grammar school parents have a right that primary school parents, comprehensive school parents and special school parents do not have? Will anyone agree with the former and present me with a good argument for voting against the latter?
Academies Bill [Lords]
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Mr Ward
I must say this is a fantastic debate. I was not sure of the right time to introduce this point, but it is not always the case that, if a school has its own budget, it will do the best thing by the children. The best example is probably the provision of education social work. It might seem that the school is the client of the education social worker, but of course it is not—the child is the client. Very often, if a school is offered the money, it will buy in its own education social worker, who will be a door knocker for getting those kids into the school. Once a child is on the roll and the school is getting the funding, some schools will say, “Actually, we’re not too bothered if that person doesn’t turn up today.” Believe me, it is true! It happens—because, in many cases, schools are forced into doing it. But the child is the client, and if the best place for the child is in school, the education social worker will try to facilitate that to the best of their ability. However, if that education social worker is employed by the school, sometimes the school will let the child in, but sometimes it will not be too bothered. I have known young children who have been out of school for two years—
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Interventions, by their very nature, should be short.
Pat Glass
How do I follow that? On the issue of parents, I said earlier that I am someone who has been humbled and that I have made mistakes. That is why I am saying to the Minister that there is an important role for parents. It is always harrowing to listen to the stories of parents when they know that there is an issue and that their child has needs but those needs are not being addressed. There is always a dilemma. We hear a lot about how hard up we are, about how there is very little money and so on, but there is not enough money in the world for SEN. We must face that. It becomes about priorities.
I have never met a parent who did not want the best for their child. Sometimes they have not always been able to display that in the best way—sometimes they have been very aggressive—but they still want the best for their child. In all my years of experience, however, I have never once been approached by a parent who said, “I want to open my own school”—never once. That is not to say that it does not happen because, as I said earlier, there are good local authorities and poor local authorities. I sympathise with parents who live in those areas where there is a lack of provision, particularly for autism.
Pat Glass
Oh, right—can I make one quick point? Where special schools have been set up, whether by parents or by other organisations, the difficulty is that we all want to put money and resources in at the hard end, but what inevitably tends to happen is that that drifts away. When we look at schools that have been established, with the best of intentions, for the children with the greatest need, the children tend, in some cases, to have less severe needs.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 61, page 5, line 22, leave out from ‘proprietor’ to end of line 23 and insert ‘to appeal to a Local Commissioner’.
The First Deputy Chairman
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 62, page 5, line 25, leave out ‘review’ and insert ‘appeal’.
Amendment 63, page 5, line 26, leave out ‘review’ and insert ‘appeal’.
Amendment 64, page 5, line 43, at end insert—
‘“Local Commissioner” has the meaning given by section 23 of the Local Government Act 1974.’.
Mr Iain Wright
I beg to move amendment 76, page 5, line 34, leave out from ‘time’ to end of line 36 and insert
‘after deducting from any amount made available by a local authority to the school’s governing body (under section 50 of SSFA 1998 or otherwise) that has not been spent by the governing body or the headteacher, all existing and contingent liabilities not transferring to the Academy under a property transfer scheme (including any liabilities of the local authority incurred on behalf of the school), there is a net amount available.’.
The First Deputy Chairman
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 66, in clause 8, in page 6, line 22, leave out ‘property, rights and liabilities’ and insert ‘property and rights’.
Academies Bill [Lords]
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Dr Pugh
I want to test my understanding of what the Minister is saying. In response to the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), he said that he would be perfectly happy for a governing body to spend a fair amount of money on behalf of local children, even though there might not be anyone on that governing body who had any connection to local children. Surely there is an issue of accountability there—
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. This is not a wide-ranging debate on academies in general. We are debating the amendment, so perhaps the Minister could now direct his comments to that.
Mr Gibb
Thank you very much, Mr Evans. I will seek to do so.
There will be parent governors on the governing bodies of the schools, so they will not be divorced from them. We are trying to be permissive and to allow academies to draw up their own arrangements, and to select their own directors for the academy trusts and governors for the school. That is the approach that we want to take; we do not want to take a top-down approach to the governance of schools.
The hon. Member for Gedling mentioned the figure of 200 in the impact assessment. That is an illustrative figure to show the costs and the benefits that would arise if that number of schools were to convert annually. Given that this is permissive legislation, we cannot say that we will require x number of schools to convert annually and that the cost will therefore be y. He also asked for the number of primary schools that had expressed an interest. I can give him a figure, but with all the caveats that my fellow Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) expressed earlier. Of the 1,900 expressions of interest, 862 have been from primary schools, and 529 of the 862 have been judged by Ofsted to be outstanding.
Ian Mearns
I beg to move amendment 19, page 1, line 22, at end insert—
(za) the school has regard to the regulations relating to schools admissions made under section 84 of the Schools Standards and Framework Act 1998;
(zb) the school has regard to the regulations relating to the exclusion of pupils made under section 52 of the Education Act 2002;’.
The First Deputy Chairman
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 23, page 2, line 8, at end insert—
(e) the school must comply with the provisions of the Code for School Admissions issued from time to time by the Secretary of State.’.
Amendment 24, page 2, line 8, at end insert—
(e) the school must comply with fair access protocols issued from time to time by the Secretary of State.’.
Amendment 27, page 2, line 8, at end insert—
(e) the school complies with provisions on pupil exclusions and behaviour partnerships as set out in EA 2002, EIA 2006 and ASCLA 2009.’.
Amendment 42, page 2, line 8, at end insert—
(e) the admissions arrangements of the school make no provision for selection on the basis of religion or belief.’.
Amendment 11, page 2, line 21, at end insert—
‘(9A) Academy arrangements must also include terms imposed for the purpose of securing that the school complies with any code for school admissions issued under section 84 of SSFA.’.
Amendment 43, page 2, line 23, at end insert—
‘(11) Subsection (12) applies if the school is a voluntary controlled school which is designated by order under section 69(3) of SSFA 1998 as a school having a particular religious character.
(12) The Academy agreement must include terms imposed for the purpose of securing that no greater percentage of pupils are selected on the basis of religion or belief after, as compared with before, the conversion date.’.
Amendment 14, in clause 6, page 4, line 21, leave out subsections (3) and (4).
Amendment 49, in clause 6, page 4, line 24, at end insert—
‘(3A) If the school is a selective school, sections 105 to 109 of SSFA 1998 shall continue to apply in respect of the retention of selective admission arrangements at the school.’.
Amendment 44, in clause 6, page 4, line 37, at end insert—
‘( ) Subsections (7) and (8) apply only if the governing body has made a request to maintain such religious character.
( ) Subsections (7) and (8) do not apply if the school is not designated by order under section 69(3) of SSFA 1998 as a school having a particular religious character and, on conversion to an Academy, such a school may not then be designated or treated as designated by order under section 69(3) of SSFA 1998 as a school having a particular religious character.’.
Amendment 12, in clause 6, page 5, line 4, at end add—
‘(10) After the conversion date the school must comply with any code for school admissions issued under section 84 of SSFA which applied to the school on the conversion date.’.
Amendment 13, in schedule 2, page 18, line 26, at end insert—
‘9A In section 84(1) of SSFA (code for school admissions) after paragraph (b) insert—
“(bza) Academies,”.’.
Ian Mearns
I do not intend to detain the Committee for long as we are only three amendments into a 30-odd amendment marathon.
I am not a fan of the legislation as it takes a set of proposals that were meant for one set of schools and transfers those, lock, stock and barrel, to schools in a wholly different category. It takes resources that were meant to improve the educational outcome for children in schools that are underperforming and transfers them in a targeted way to schools that are, in the first instance, already regarded as outstanding. It will also take resources that the local authority currently receives to be targeted at school improvement and gives those resources to schools that are already outstanding, in a “devil take the hindmost” fashion.
Julian Smith
Is the hon. Lady telling the public that this Bill will expand selection? If she is, I believe that is a deceit.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. The hon. Member should know that he cannot accuse another hon. Member of deceit. Perhaps he would like to rephrase his comments, and withdraw the word “deceit”.
Julian Smith
I withdraw that word, but I think it is important that we do not represent the Bill inaccurately. This Bill does not propose any expansion to selection in this country, beyond the terms embedded in existing legislation.
Vernon Coaker
In fairness, the hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point on the need to concentrate not only on outstanding and failing schools. He is right to point that out. It would have been perfectly possible to develop Labour’s academies model to deal with schools in the middle—I will not call them coasting schools. Similarly, that is why our model contained provisions for all-through academies. It was sometimes a matter not of the secondary school alone, but of linking the primary and secondary schools. That is important.
The reason why the Opposition are opposed to the way in which the Bill is constructed is that it does not consider the need for academies or where they can bring added value to schools in an area, but says that they are the only solution. National challenge trusts, a change of head teacher or the injection of new staff to a school could make the difference rather than structural change, as I have seen in different parts of the country. One flaw at the heart of the Bill, to which we will doubtless return when the Government introduce their Bill in the autumn, is that they have made the mistake that people always make of believing that structural change brings improved performance in schools. Sometimes such change creates the opportunity for change to take place, but essentially, what ultimately makes the difference, whether in a local authority school, a national challenge trust or an academy, is the quality of leadership and teaching in the school, not structural change.
Good schools deserve help and support, and the hon. Gentleman was right to point out that we need better to understand how we get that injection of pace and inspiration into them. I do not think that that is necessarily brought about by structural change, particularly the structural change enabled by the Bill, which does not include a requirement on outstanding schools to link to or partner other schools. That is an aspiration and a desire—
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. We are straying somewhat from the amendments we are discussing on admissions and exclusions. There is a lot to be debated this evening in a short space of time, so could the shadow Minister please restrict himself to the amendments?
Vernon Coaker
I apologise to you, Mr Evans and to the Committee. I was trying to answer the hon. Gentleman fully, but perhaps my reply was too full.
The Local Government Association, along with many charities, says that a provision that academies must comply with the admissions code should be in the Bill, hence proposed amendment 23.
Amendment 14 would effectively prevent grammar schools from becoming academies. We are worried that grammar schools becoming academies will lead to an increase in selection in the academies arena. Will the Minister explain whether it would be possible for a grammar school with 1,000 places that had become an academy to expand to 1,500 or 2,000 places? Will he also explain what, if any, influence in terms of selection a grammar school that had become an academy would have if it were to link up with a weaker school? What effect would its selection policy have on that other school?
Will the Minister also explain what Lord Hill meant when he wrote that the Government intended to allow selective academies to expand where there was a strong case for doing so and where there had been local consultation? It is important that we understand what he meant by that.
On exclusions, amendment 27 seeks to ensure that the current legal framework would apply to the new academies, to the extent that they would have to conform to the existing codes that schools have to conform to at the moment. One piece of evidence from the equalities impact assessment shows that the overall rate of exclusions is higher in academies than in local authority-maintained secondary schools. How does the Minister expect to keep track of that and understand how it is all working? How can we ensure that pupils with special educational needs, and pupils who are less academic or who are difficult, are not excluded from a school simply to preserve the school’s examination standing?
In annex D, we can see that changes have been made to the model funding agreement. Paragraph 3 used to state:
“Subject to the exceptions in paragraph 4, the Academy Trust shall ensure that in carrying out their functions the Principal, the Governing Body and the Independent Appeal Panel (established in accordance with paragraph 5) have regard to the Secretary of State’s guidance on exclusions, as if the Academy were a maintained school.”
That has been changed to:
“Subject to the exceptions in paragraph 4, the Academy Trust shall ensure that in carrying out their functions the Principal and the Governing Body have regard to the Secretary of State’s guidance on exclusions including in relation to any appeals process as if the Academy were a maintained school.”
Can the Minister explain why the independent appeal panel has been removed from the model funding agreement? Or is that of no consequence?
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Evans. Rather a lot of Members who voted in the Aye Lobby seem to have slipped away. Will you please check that the count has been reported accurately?
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
Will the Tellers please come to the Table so that the numbers can be clarified? There now appears to have been a recount. The Ayes were 218, and the Noes were 321. The Noes still have it.
Building a High-Skilled Economy
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I know that hon. Members will wish to respect the conventions associated with maiden speeches, as we are privileged to have a number of them this afternoon.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, and congratulate you on your elevation to such an important role. I also congratulate the hon. Members for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on their maiden speeches. I particularly congratulate the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), who, I note, has managed to get his office up and running, a feat that has defeated me so far—well done on that. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison). I note your reference to animal welfare, which is a passion I share, and I hope that, if and when the time comes, you will join Labour Members in voting against any attempt by your party to reintroduce fox hunting in our country.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Could the hon. Gentleman please direct comments through the Chair? If you say “you”, it refers to me.
Chris Williamson
I beg your pardon and thank you for that correction, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will endeavour to ensure that I do not make that mistake in future.
Building a high-skilled economy is vital to the future prosperity of our country. I represent a constituency that is founded on a high-skilled economy. In a previous speech in the Chamber, I referred to the occasion when Jeremy Paxman said, “Why can’t everywhere in Britain be like Derby?” That is because we have been successful in Derby in developing a high-skilled economy. We were fortunate in having Rolls-Royce and Bombardier, which have done so much to create a high-skilled economy, in the city. The country could learn a lot from Derby.
We have invested heavily in the city, thanks to support for training from the Labour Government. We have an excellent university and two new colleges, which undertake extremely important vocational training, preparing young people for the world of work. We built 13 new schools under the Labour Government and employed many new teachers and teaching assistants, who are essential to developing a high-skilled economy.
However, the Conservative party’s policies are taking the country in the wrong direction if we want to develop a high-skilled economy. The Conservatives are making the same mistakes that were made in the 1980s, when the previous Conservative Government systematically undermined and destroyed manufacturing—the bedrock of the greatness of our nation. They took away opportunities for young people to move into work and get the training that they needed.