Education Settings: Autumn Opening

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I apologise to my hon. Friend: I missed the very start of his question because he was on mute, but it was without doubt the best part of it, I am sure. I would very much like to join him in thanking all the teachers, teaching assistants and school support staff who, through the very height of this pandemic, went into school every single day, opened the doors and welcomed the children of critical workers and the most vulnerable children. He picks up on a really important point. This is why we are working so closely with headteachers and teachers on making sure that we identify the real needs of every single child so that the catch-up package and the tutoring is absolutely targeted at their needs and delivers what they need in order for them to be able to catch up. We need the class teachers to be able to make those assessments for children in order to make sure that there is the most effective delivery for them.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

We all want schools to reopen in September, but only if it is safe for pupils, teachers and the wider community. Only this week, the Health Secretary acknowledged that an unusually high rate of coronavirus infections among children in Leicester was part of the reason for reimposing restrictions there. In my constituency, there have been reports of coronavirus in three primary schools. School reopening must be safe and led by the science, so can the Secretary of State confirm that the measures he has announced today will be signed off as safe by the Government scientists?

[Gavin Williamson]

Sadly, the hon. Gentleman was not on mute. I can absolutely assure him that Public Health England has signed off all this advice. He might take the opportunity to read what Public Health England recently said about Leicester. It stated that while there had been

“good provision of primary school access for children”

since the beginning of June, researchers said they could find no “analytical link” between this and

“any real or apparent rise in new infections”

in Leicester. Conservative Members are all committed to opening all schools for all children of all year groups. I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman and many Opposition Members who are equally committed to doing the same. We are only doing this because we know it is safe to do so.

Educational Attainment: Yorkshire and the Humber

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) for securing this important debate, and the members of the Backbench Business Committee for giving time for it. This is vital time in which to discuss education and attainment in our region, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss the subject again so soon after the Opposition day debate on the Government’s schools White Paper, which my colleague the shadow Education Secretary led in the Chamber last week.

Education is a subject close to my heart, just as it is close to the hearts of everyone in the Chamber tonight. I am the son of two teachers, and I was very proud of the part they played in a collective contribution to changing the lives of people in my home city of Leeds. Without the education I received at Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School in Meanwood in Leeds, I would not have had the skills or the opportunity to represent the people I went to school with.

This motion highlights the fact that our region of Yorkshire and the Humber was the lowest ranked in England in 2013-14 for educational attainment. As has been mentioned, the SMF has found that inequality between regions was the most important factor in determining the educational attainment of students. Hon. Members who research the matter in the Library will find that in Yorkshire and the Humber 55.1% of pupils achieved five or more GCSEs at A* to C, whereas the national average in state-funded schools in England was higher, at 57.3%. In Leeds East, the figure was 44.8%, below both the national average and the figure across our region.

Why is that? Is it because people in Leeds East are less able? Is it because people in my area are less ambitious, less hard-working or less aspirational? Not a bit of it. Economic circumstances are a key factor. In 2015, eligibility for free school meals was higher in Yorkshire than nationally, and it was higher in Leeds East than in our region. Let us be clear, because this is political, as everything is: the Conservative Government’s austerity agenda of cuts to welfare and holding down pay in the public sector, which is such a dominant source of employment in my constituency, damages not only people’s living standards now, but the life chances of their children.

As we have heard today, the Government would have us believe that forced academisation is a panacea that will deliver school improvement. The problem is that there is no credible evidence base that suggests that conversion to academy status improves pupil attainment in national tests or national exams, or leads to school improvements. Even the Minister for Schools has conceded that, saying:

“This government does not believe that all academies and free schools are necessarily better than maintained schools.”

On that at least, he is correct.

Reference has been made to two reports by the Sutton Trust on the effect of academisation on students from low-income backgrounds. Both found “very significant” variation in outcomes for pupils from financially disadvantaged backgrounds, both between and within academy chains. In 2013, only 16 out of 31 academy chains bettered the improvement achieved across all non-academised state schools by disadvantaged pupils in attaining five A* to C GCSEs including English and maths. The Sutton Trust concluded:

“Far from providing a solution to disadvantage, a few chains may be exacerbating it”.

I will not dwell on how talk of “chains” of schools, as though they were some sort of fast food outlet, offends me greatly, but these are schools and they should not be chains. My constituency has five secondary schools, with a mixture of secondary academies and community schools. Last year’s GCSE results show that the academies in my constituency were the bottom three of those five schools for attainment. That is just a snapshot, but it is worth noting. One academy is in special measures following an Ofsted inspection in December. Just 34% of its pupils achieved five A* to C-grade GCSEs last year, compared with 50% in 2012 when the school had a “good” overall rating. The Ofsted report found that the new principal, who has a record of turning around a poorly performing school in Sheffield, has begun

“to tackle long-term weaknesses in the academy’s effectiveness.”

Another academy in my constituency, now in a local chain supported by Leeds City College, was transferred out of the E-ACT academy chain because of that chain’s “ineffective...intervention and support.” Perhaps that transfer was fortunate for the school, as E-ACT has recently scrapped all its governing bodies, cutting out parents and the local authority. In that sense, it is ahead of the game, as the Government are following it in that unjustifiable exclusion of local parents. A third academy transferred into the United Learning academy chain in 2012 when it was in special measures. Although it is performing better, I cannot help but note some of the concerns that others have about that chain.

We have work to do. I have already said that there is no evidence that academies perform better, and the facts on the ground in Leeds East support that view. The work before us is not helped by a serious funding shortfall. Leeds faces the prospect of a 5.2% real-terms cut in funding with the introduction of a new funding formula for schools. As we have heard from my colleagues today, it is clear that there is much to be learned from the London Challenge, which encouraged collaboration between schools and the sharing of good practice across local authority boundaries to improve all schools, not just those with the lowest attainment.

According to Professor Merryn Hutchings, lead author of the Department for Education’s “Evaluation of the City Challenge programme”, it is notable that the programme was comparatively cheap. Over three years, the funding for City Challenge was £160 million, which is considerably cheaper than the £8.5 billion reportedly spent on the academies programme over two years.

I have focused on secondary schools, but as this is primary school allocation day, I want to highlight the concern of Lucinda Yeadon, Leeds City Council’s executive member for children and families. She said that at a time when we are struggling to find new places for pupils, the forced academisation of primary schools means that the legal obligation on local authorities to provide more places while being stripped of the power to do so is “totally illogical,” and she is right. I conclude by thanking Councillor Lucinda Yeadon, all the wonderful teachers in Leeds and the local NUT and NASUWT activists—I know that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is not so keen on those activists—for all the work they do.

I also thank Parliament’s education centre, and Mr Speaker for the support that he has given it. Without a doubt—I am sure that on this at least I do speak for many others in this place—one of our greatest pleasures is meeting children and young people from our constituencies. I love meeting Leeds school pupils who have travelled down to see Parliament, which of course belongs to them, and hearing their insightful, inspiring questions and discussions. Leeds and Leeds East have pupils with ability and potential; it is down to us as MPs to hold the Government to account and ensure that we deliver the education system that young people in Leeds East, across Yorkshire and across the country need and deserve.

Trade Union Bill

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery]

That is a fair point, well made by my hon. Friend.

There are lot of examples of e-balloting, including its use in mayoral elections and by the Central Arbitration Committee. I am a great believer in balloting in the workplace and, indeed, in a hybrid of both methods, to make sure that people actually get involved in such important ballots.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

What kind of society are we moving towards when, under the proposed 50% and 40% threshold rule, a strike would be illegal even if 79% of the votes cast were in favour of strike action?

[Ian Lavery]

That is absolutely correct and spot on.

I will very briefly mention one other issue. The Conservatives are suggesting something that happens nowhere else in society—that those who do not cast a vote will be classified as voting no. That is outrageous and horrendous. It is undemocratic. It is against International Labour Organisation conventions and against European Court of Human Rights decisions. That will— I repeat, will—be challenged.

I end by simply saying that, in my view, there is no place in today’s society for this unbelievably brutal attack on hard-working men and women in the workplace. I predict one thing: that when ordinary people are pressurised too much, there will be a reaction. I predict from the Floor of the House of Commons that there will be civil disobedience because bad laws need to be changed.

Trade Union Bill

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my registered interests. I am a proud trade unionist and secretary of the GMB group of MPs.

What has disappointed and surprised me in this debate is the clear lack of understanding that is displayed by Government Members of what it is like to be an employee who needs a trade union. If there is one thing that they understand, it is that the trade unions stand between the Government and their plans for wage cuts, privatisation and attacks on terms and conditions. That is what the Bill is all about.

The Bill is a natural development, because it comes from the party that, in the last Government, introduced a law to make people pay to attempt to assert their workplace rights. I am, of course, talking about employment tribunal fees. The last Government made people pay to assert their right not to be unfairly sacked; pay to assert their right to have their wages paid; pay to assert their right not to be subjected to racist discrimination, sexual harassment or discrimination in respect of their religion in the workplace. It is a natural development. The Government now seek to clamp down on political opposition and leave workers defenceless against pay cuts and attacks on hard-won terms and conditions.

[Chris Stephens]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that this is not just an attack against one political party and that many organisations have benefited from trade union political funds?

[Richard Burgon]

That is right. One example is the anti-racist organisation HOPE not hate that I have enjoyed campaigning with over many years. The Government who say that they are against red tape and regulation now want the biggest voluntary member group in our country to drown in red tape and bureaucracy—or “blue tape”, as it should indeed be called. What is this obsession with things that could be done electronically being done on paper? Do we want to live in a society where supervisors must be appointed for picket lines, wear a badge or armband, and have to give their names to the police in advance? That is in clause 9.

[Ian Mearns]

It is an attack not just on freedom of association but on freedom of speech. People have to give notice of what they are going to put on a blog or on Twitter. That is inventing the concept of secondary tweeting, for goodness’ sake. It is in the consultation document, and therefore can be enacted afterwards.

[Richard Burgon]

I agree that it is gravely concerning, and I will come on to that point. Indeed, clause 9 states that the police must be notified in advance of trade union plans to use the internet or social media. Do we want to live in a society where the result of a ballot can have 79% of votes in favour of strike action, but it would be illegal for that strike to go ahead? That is in clauses 2 and 3. Do we want a society where the Government seek to stop the funding of political campaigns they do not like, and even seek to cut off funding to the Opposition that is meant in a democratic society to hold the Government to account? That is in clauses 10 and 11. Do we want to live in a society with anti-trade union laws that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis)—a distinguished Conservative politician who was once tipped for leadership of the Conservative party—described as laws that would meet the approval of General Franco?

The Conservative party logo used to be the torch of freedom, but this Bill is the antithesis of freedom. It seems to many people in the country that the Conservative torch that they view as the torch of freedom is being extinguished by the Bill. I call on Members from across the House who believe in freedom, liberty and civil society to do the right thing and oppose this Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

On that point, I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Further education colleges do indeed have a vital role in delivering the training for apprenticeships, and I wish more of them would do more of it. I can confirm that the allocations for the education of 16 to 19-year-olds in the 2015-16 academic year that were announced in March remain in place, and we are not planning to change them.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

10. If she will make it her policy to maintain the number of Sure Start centres in England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the House. I note that he is already making friends in the right places: the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) described his maiden speech as “socialist to the core”.

In November 2014, 2,800 children’s centres were open, and there were 674 additional sites offering children’s centre services. Obviously, the most important thing is not the number of buildings but the number of people whom we reach, and I am pleased that more than 1 million parents and children are using our centres.

[Richard Burgon]

I thank the Minister for his reply, and for his mention of socialism.

The Government have already cut half a billion pounds from the early intervention grant since 2010, and funding has been cut by 30% in real terms in Leeds. More than 700 Sure Start centres have closed. Can the Minister assure parents in my constituency that their centres will not be threatened with closure or further cuts?

[Mr Gyimah]

I assure the hon. Gentleman, first, that the funds for children’s centres have not been cut—in fact, the overall pot grew from £2.3 billion in 2012-13 to £2.4 billion in 2014-15—and, secondly, that there is a presumption against closure. Local authorities have a duty to consult when they plan to change their children’s centre provision.