Girls (Educational Development)

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend has an excellent point. As female MPs, we are role models. To become an MP, someone has to be one in 100,000 people, and there are so few of us here, which relates to the cycle of learning that she has discussed. Knowledge from one generation can be passed to the next.

I was impressed by how openly and honestly the 100 successful women that I have mentioned talked about confidence, the need to develop it and how important it was for them in achieving in life. They compared confidence to a muscle that needed to be worked out through repetition of small, ever-increasing achievements. From those accomplishments, they developed a mental power—a power based on ability, achievement and a track record, further enabling them to strive for success.

Confidence can be difficult to describe. Helen Fraser, chief executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust groups of schools, past managing director of Penguin Books and two-time winner of “Publisher of the Year”, explained it as follows:

“There are many interrelated aspects to confidence, but there are two I would highlight as particularly important for girls, and which schools can help girls develop. The first is having the confidence to take risks, to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. Schools can nurture this by encouraging girls to take small risks—to stand up in front of a crowd and make a speech”—

like I am doing today—

to direct and produce plays, to take part in debates, to take on challenges like the Duke of Edinburgh’s award. These kinds of experiences make girls much more confident about risk, and risk is absolutely essential in working life.”

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

rose—

[Esther McVey]

I will give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant).

[Pauline Latham]

My hon. Friend says that confidence can be difficult to describe, but we know exactly what it is when we see it. Does she agree that girls often do much better in a single-sex environment in schools, even if it is only in a single-sex class in a co-educational comprehensive? They are not having to live up to a stereotype in front of their colleagues and friends, the boys—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the hon. Lady that interventions should be short.

[Pauline Latham]

Thank you, Mrs Main. Does my hon. Friend agree that girls do much better if they are not threatened by apparently more confident boys?

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend raises a point about girls being taught in a single-sex environment. Obviously, parents know best whether they want their children to be taught in single-sex environments. Whether there is stereotyping, whether girls are living up to stereotypes and whether they have the ability to speak freely within their peer groups can affect their confidence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

We in the coalition are absolutely committed to the importance of science and research, and we are strengthening the links between science and research and the business community. We are also offering cash protection for the science budget across all main current expenditure, which the hon. Lady’s party never did in government. The very source that she has just cited, the Campaign for Science and Engineering, only a fortnight ago

“welcomed Chancellor George Osborne’s announcement that £195m of new investment will be spent on science and engineering.”

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to promote British exports.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to promote British exports.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

My Department is supporting British exports through UK Trade & Investment. Its strategy, which was launched in May 2011, sets out plans to provide practical support to exporters over the next five years. I have undertaken a number of visits overseas to promote British business to countries including China, India, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and Romania, and next week I shall be in south-east Asia promoting British trade.

[Pauline Latham]

Britain is increasingly becoming a centre of excellence for high-tech, high-value manufacturing exports. In Derbyshire, we have some great high-tech exporters ranging from Rolls-Royce, which my right hon. Friend knows all about, to Pektron, an innovative, family-owned electronics manufacturer. What more can my right hon. Friend do to showcase those exceptional firms and remind people up and down the country and internationally that high-tech British goods are in demand everywhere, and that that needs to continue?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, there are many successful British exporters. Over the past year, exports have grown on a year-to-year basis by about 9%. Where we have fallen down historically is that British small and medium-sized companies have not been as involved in exporting as the larger enterprises such as Rolls-Royce. One of the main commitments in the UKTI strategy is to concentrate help and resources on those companies, which would undoubtedly help the specialist company in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

School Funding Reform

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We have benefited from looking at some of the PFI schemes that were inaugurated under the previous Government. The James review drew various appropriate lessons about how we could ensure, through standardised design and more effective procurement, that we can save money right at the beginning of any process. My colleagues in the Treasury have today published a report revealing how it has managed to bear down on costs in existing PFI schemes, never mind new ones. Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to Ministers in the Treasury, and to the campaigning energy of my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman). Together, they have ensured that we will make sure that PFI works in the interests of the whole public.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of the fair funding formula, which is something I have been championing for more than 20 years, since local management of schools let the genie out of the bottle, with local authorities publishing school spending. It is not fair that one school gets £4,000, while another gets £8,000, for the education of young children. Can I get an assurance from the Secretary of State that he will look into rural funding and so-called leafy suburbs, and that they will not be left out? They have always been penalised in the past by local authority funding. Will he also look at the funding for Lees Brook school, which takes a lot of pupils from my area, and is falling down? I have sent him the documentary evidence of that.

[Michael Gove]

A case for fairness well made, which we will seek to meet.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I have had the opportunity to meet Baroness Campbell on a number of occasions; I have had dinner with her and I also met her at a school in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). The crucial question for all schools is, “Do you want more freedom or less?” We are giving schools more freedom. All schools that wish to continue to enjoy specialist status, be they specialist sports, science or technology schools, will have that freedom. What we have done is remove the bureaucratic prescription that went alongside it, and that is because we on this side of the House trust professionals, whereas those on that side of the House continually sought to fetter them.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is giving more freedom to schools, because they really do need it, and the fact that there will be a national funding formula. How soon is that likely to be introduced? Many schools, including those that became grant-maintained and foundation schools, have been waiting for it for many years, and I know that academies are looking forward to it as well.

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, and I want to underline that we have been consulting on moves to a national funding formula. The former Prime Minister and Member for Sedgefield was himself keen to move towards a national funding formula in order to eliminate some of the inequities within the schools system. We want to ensure that, as we move towards such a formula, schools themselves have their voices heard, so that we can do everything possible to eliminate the inequities that existed under the previous Government.

Education Policy

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s remarks this afternoon. Will he assure me that he will ensure that the pupil premium gets to every child, no matter where they live?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s point. It is crucial that we ensure that disadvantaged children across the country receive the money that they need. One of the inefficiencies in schools funding under the previous Government was that disadvantaged children, particularly those in rural areas, often did not receive the support that they needed to achieve their full potential. We want to ensure that poverty knows no boundaries, and that the ways in which we will tackle it know no boundaries either.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hancock]

I never doubted for a minute the Minister’s sincerity or his commitment to it. What I do doubt is the ability of any Government to deliver properly the provisions we want, and I do not want to be seen to be supporting something that I think falls short of what all the parents we have been talking about expect from us. They want to see clarity of thought, a clear direction of travel and a means by which academies and free schools can provide this education without detriment to other schools in their area or to other young people with similar difficulties. That is why amendment 71 should be pursued. I hope that it is not withdrawn; I hope that it is voted on and that the House gives it a fair wind, because it would substantially help the Bill.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) on making his maiden speech. I have been to his constituency and I used regularly to visit a secondary school there in Pitsea. I recommend that he should go and visit it. I am not sure if it still has the same head, but he used to sing in a famous pop group in the 1960s. I cannot remember the name of the group but it was very famous at the time—

[Mr Evennett]

Very memorable then?

[Pauline Latham]

Very memorable, yes. From time to time, he would entertain his school in assembly by taking up his guitar and singing some of the songs for which he used to be so famous. I suggest that my hon. Friend visit him. As that was one of the first grant-maintained schools to go, I am sure that it will become an academy school as soon as possible. However, it is in a poor area. My hon. Friend has not just got nice leafy areas in his constituency; it is quite a mixed area, so I wish him well.

There are to be guidance notes on SEN when the Bill becomes an Act. I have a few questions about SEN, because there are many children in schools who have not just SEN but health needs. I cannot see anywhere where that has been addressed; I guess that it will come in the guidance notes. I urge the Minister to clarify what legislation there will be that impacts on the health funding that currently supports special needs children, and how that funding will continue in academies. It is very important that health needs are met, particularly in residential special schools, because it is expensive to educate children in that way, and the health authorities have an obligation to fund the meeting of some of the needs. I am not quite sure how that dovetails with the funding for schools from the local education authority.

[Mr Hayes]

I will deal with that matter when I sum up—some time in the distant future, no doubt—but to be clear, the hon. Lady’s point is profound, because not only does it apply to children who have special needs from birth, but it deals with the important issue of acquired special needs. It emphasises the fact that special needs are dynamic, because the conditions that children and young people face are themselves dynamic. We will certainly consider those matters. I will say a little more on the subject when I sum up.

[Pauline Latham]

I thank the Minister for that assurance. I am sure that many parents will be interested to hear what he said, because the issue is important to them. There is also the issue of funding of residential special school places. I mentioned that there are residential schools that cost an enormous amount of money. Some of that money comes from health funding, and that is an issue that he will deal with, but I would like to know—again, this will probably be in the guidance—how we will fund residential special schools. There are quite small schools that are very important for the children who go to them, who often have complex special needs that it is difficult to meet in anything other than a residential school.

[Mr Hayes]

So that I do not have to say too much when I sum up, perhaps I ought to make it plain that the law is clear that when a child is statemented, and their needs are specified, there is a duty to ensure that those needs are met. That might include provision outside the local authority area. Indeed, I spent a great deal of time in the 1980s, when I was a councillor in Nottinghamshire, fighting for parents, families and children who wanted their needs met outside the county. That does not change as a result of this legislation.

[Pauline Latham]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that assurance, as I am sure parents have concerns about security of funding for schools that wish to become academies. If one has a child in such a school, and one wants continuity, it is extremely difficult when there is any sort of worry about whether funding will continue.

I should also like to ask my right hon. Friend—

[Mr Hayes]

Hon. Friend.

[Mr Evennett]

It is only a matter of time.

[Pauline Latham]

Sorry. Perhaps in time. I know that under the Academies Bill, special schools will not become academies immediately; they must wait another year. I think that was said yesterday. What about independent special schools that wish to become academies? Will they be allowed to become academies at the same time as schools in the maintained sector? Will they be allowed to become special schools within the academies system at that same time, or will they have to wait a bit longer?

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) for his excellent maiden speech. I am from the north and I know his beautiful constituency extraordinarily well. I also know David Maclean, who was a fantastic MP, and I pay tribute to him, too. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), whose constituency I know slightly less well, although I think that it is somewhere near where “Dad’s Army” used to be filmed.

One thing that I have picked up from this debate is that Members on both sides are concerned about special educational needs. The hon. Member for Gelding, the shadow Minister, made that clear. [Laughter.]

Academies Bill [Lords]

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

I would say that they should be very fearful indeed. The reality is that we are on a fast track to treat as second class the majority of children with special educational needs, who will find their funding cut and their opportunities reduced by this legislation. They should be very careful.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

Would you say that the shadow Secretary of State is going back 20 years and coming back with the same arguments and fears that the Labour party put out about grant-maintained schools, when there was absolutely nothing wrong with them? They did a very good job for schools, raised standards and raised attainment for many pupils. They did a really good job, but, like then, you are just coming back and trying to bully people into saying that the Bill will not work and should not go ahead.

[Mr Speaker]

May I gently say that I am not coming back to bully anyone? I have never done that before and I would not do it in future. I know that Members will not want to use the word “you” again.