Education Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Field]

I was doing the calculations without the pupil premium, which is a terrifically important innovation. I understand the difference between the marginal cost in the north-west compared with going to Eton. I do not have any wish for those pupils to go to Eton, although I have nothing against Eton or the education it produces.

As I have said, this is a probing amendment; we hope to bring back the new clause in another place. I hope that the Minister understands that whatever we in Birkenhead decide—we have made no decisions about this as governors yet—we want to know the range of possibilities that we could develop for our young pupils at the academy school. This new clause is not going to go away. This is where the debate is going and the Government have a choice between joining us or opposing us until they have to give way. On that happy note, I have said what I want to say about this probing new clause, which we will try to push more seriously in the other place.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) for the second time in succession. It has also been a great pleasure to participate in proceedings in Committee on the Bill. I am still relatively new to the House and I found it encouraging, compared with the spectacle that we see at Prime Minister’s Question Time, to see parties on both sides coming together to put their experience and best interests at the forefront of trying to improve education in our country. I pay tribute to all the parties for doing that.

I should like to comment mainly on my new clause 1, but first I shall make a couple of points about special educational needs, which the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) has mentioned. It was a great pleasure, a week ago, to welcome the Secretary of State for Education to Bedford to talk to the head teachers of our three special schools, the Grange, Ridgeway and St Johns, and to talk about the Green Paper. The coalition Government have moved forward significantly in understanding what is required for children with SEN not only while they are at school but when they are preparing to go on to the work environment. That is a record that the Government can build on over the next five years and which will be a tremendous success and tribute to them. The Secretary of State’s discussion with the head teachers in Bedford and Kempston was most illuminating. Two of those three schools are outstanding and one is good with outstanding features, so they are already providing excellent education to children, and their knowledge and experience is most valuable.

It is important to consider the particular impact of the Bill on exclusions. The Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), knows how important this issue is, particularly for children with autism and the impact on them if they are later excluded. I hope that he will take into account the recommendations of the special educational consortium about future decisions so that he can make sure that the issue of exclusion does not have an undue impact on children with autism.

New clause 1 would pay particular attention to schools with a history of educational underachievement, by which I mean achieving below the minimum national floor standards for a number of years. It would give the Secretary of State the powers that he or she might require in such circumstances to intervene to support change and to provide educational opportunity to the children in those areas. The new clause is not about passing comment on teachers; indeed, the teachers who go to poorly performing schools are sometimes the most inspired and capable teachers in the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I am not unsympathetic to the views he expresses. I know how concerned he is about educational standards, and the Government are committed to raising standards throughout the system, particularly in inner-city districts, such as those he represents, where there are areas of deprivation that are not well served by schools.

We believe, however, that we do have significant powers. It is always open to argument that more are needed, but we believe that there are sufficient powers, and the Department, headed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, is determined to raise standards and is actively seeking sponsors to take over the leadership of schools that do not provide the necessary quality of education. The pressure, help and assistance coming from the Department means that people will be able to make proposals—more articulately than I am being at the moment—locally, but that does not mean that, at the same time as an academy proposal is going forward, there should not be a consultation process enabling all local people to put their views forward.

[Richard Fuller]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a consultation process that requires and comprises a public meeting for local parents, but which the teaching unions, the Anti Academies Alliance and the Local Schools Network flood with activists who have little or, in many cases, no adherence to the community in which that school would be located, is hardly public consultation?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There is no requirement to conduct a consultation in a specified way, and we have been careful not to introduce one, because every consultation should be adapted to local circumstances. We want to be flexible about how local consultation takes place and, before reaching a decision, the Secretary of State will look realistically at the local extent of that consultation in order to ensure that it has been genuine.

I share the view of my hon. Friend that, when meetings are packed with political activists who are not necessarily even from the local community but there to deliver their own ideological message, that is not genuine consultation. When a meeting is held and the overwhelming opinion expressed by those people gives the impression of one view, the Secretary of State will look through that to see what the genuine view is of local people in the community. He wants to ensure that the consultation has been extensive and has included local people, so, when local people have in effect been excluded by such activity, he will take that into account before reaching a decision. There is a need for appropriate safeguards, however, and we have been persuaded by the weight of opinion across both Houses to ensure that there is proper consultation.

New clause 13, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), explores the possibility of disapplying the TUPE regulations in schools that are eligible for intervention and that the Secretary of State wishes to transform through conversion to academy status. My hon. Friend will know that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, which the new clause seeks to disapply, were implemented in response to the European acquired rights directive. In line with European legislation, they set out the circumstances in which they must be applied, preserving an employee’s statutory duty and contractual employment rights through any transfer process. Disapplying those regulations for staff in converting schools would mean that such staff were unprotected when compared with other employees whose employment is transferred from the public sector.

I gave assurances in Committee that the rights of staff when transferring from the employment of a maintained school to an academy trust are protected by TUPE, but the application of TUPE at conversion does not mean that staffing cannot be reviewed and restructured after conversion—just as it can be before. We are clear about the need for school work force reform to improve the quality of teaching. We want to make it easier for schools to tackle poor performance by helping underperforming teachers to address their professional weaknesses or by enabling head teachers to deal more quickly with entrenched underperformance.

I listened carefully to my hon. Friend’s argument, and he will have some support for the views that he expresses.

Sure Start Children’s Centres

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I have listened with great interest to the debate. Speeches seem to have fallen into two categories: they have shown Sure Start as a shared success on which today’s debate gives us an opportunity to improve and they have made it a partisan issue and an opportunity to score points. We just heard from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), a man whose comments are always listened to very attentively by Members on both sides of the House, and his speech was a classic example of the first of those two categories. He made some very good points, one of which I shall comment on—that is, improving and taking Sure Start to the next level. Of course, we have heard other speeches, most notably that made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), that are more partisan and point-scoring.

I felt that the shadow Secretary of State’s speech was uncharacteristically ineffectual today. I always look forward to listening to his speeches, but I felt that it fell somewhere in the middle, as though his brief told him to make some electioneering, rallying, partisan points but his heart told him that Sure Start was far too important to be brought down to that level.

I want to try to address some of the points and try to avoid some of the partisan claims. My first point concerns the closure of Sure Start centres. I know that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends went through the general election confronted by Labour party smear stories about our intentions for Sure Start. It was a disgraceful smear then and it is a disgraceful smear when we hear it repeated, albeit in a muted way, today.

I am glad to have heard Members on both sides of the House talk about those councils that, even in very difficult times, are showing their commitment by maintaining Sure Start centres and to have heard the commitment on that point from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. When we hear that councils such as Harlow and Kent, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) mentioned, and, I understand, Liberal Democrat Councils and Labour councils such as Tameside have committed to maintaining Sure Start centres, surely that shows that this is truly a shared commitment for all parties. Why are other councils closing Sure Start centres? What have they done to find other savings? What sorts of overpaid jobs are they protecting? How analytical have they been about their budgets? Are we sure that they are not playing politics with children’s futures? I do not care what their political stripe is—I ask the Minister whether, through this process, he will pay close attention to the reasons why those councils are closing or threatening to close Sure Start centres.

[Julie Hilling]

Can the hon. Gentleman explain how a local authority such as Bolton can cut 25% of its budget without harming any of the services it provides?

[Richard Fuller]

That will definitely be a challenge. I know that the hon. Lady has deep experience in youth affairs and youth matters from her previous role, but people in Bolton have a higher level of public expenditure per head than we have in Bedford, where the deprivation level is about the same. When there are sharp reductions, that will cause some issues. That is an issue for her council to consider and it is crucial that services should come first for her council and for other councils. The methodology for delivering those services is where resources need to brought back into the budget.

[Sarah Newton]

Cornwall council is keeping all 40 of its Sure Start centres by using innovative methods involving consulting parents or federating the centres under the advisory boards or school boards. That will lead to reductions in management costs without reducing services. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a good example of a council that is not cutting front-line Sure Start services?

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I do not want to get too distracted by the issue of public expenditure, which I shall come to a little later. I am not sure that we want to tie our views about the future of Sure Start specifically to this period of deficit reduction measures and their consequences for local councils.

One benefit of being smeared by the Labour party about our intentions on Sure Start during the general election—a smear that has been proven to be completely without foundation—was that I got the great opportunity to visit a number of children’s centres in my community of Bedford. I must reinforce some of the points made by Members on both sides of the House about what a tremendous venue they are for networking and experience sharing between young mothers and fathers. In my home community, which is marked by a tremendous amount of ethnic diversity, when one goes to a community centre such as the neighbourhood centre in Queens Park and sees the Sure Start centre and the children’s services offered there, one really sees people from different communities mixing. That would not have happened without Sure Start—or, at least, not in such a great way—and we all want it to be maintained.

Many comments have been made about ring-fencing and about its role. In response to a question from the hon. Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) we heard that neither the Conservative party nor the Labour party continued to commit in their manifesto specifically to ring-fencing this budget. It is important, however, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead just said, to see what the consequences of getting rid of the ring fence will be on our budget. I am not sure that I would come to such a definitive conclusion as he would, if there are examples of where the loss of ring-fencing has led to closures. This period of reduction is quite exceptional and considerable benefits can be found by putting the responsibility for determining the budgets for Sure Start centres down into the local communities. As councils reinforce their commitment to Sure Start centres in difficult times, that opens up more opportunities for examples of best practice to come to the fore and broadens the service offerings that local councils will seek to put in their centres.

Let me return to the issue of the overlap between cuts to public expenditure and the commitment to Sure Start. This is not good territory for the debate. As I mentioned, it is incredibly difficult for councils to match their budgets in difficult times but the issues about the future of Sure Start need to go beyond the short-term deficit reduction measures that councils are having to take. Importantly, we should remember when we hear speeches about committing more money to something that we lead ourselves down a false path if we think that that always leads to better outcomes. Commitment is not shown by how much money is spent. That kind of thinking leads to profligacy, waste and ultimately to a complete mess of the finances, as we have seen with the situation of general government. Thinking that money is our indication of commitment is more sinister because it sets up expectations of what will be provided far beyond what it might be possible to commit to. It stifles innovation, creativity and opportunities to make more out of less and it also withdraws a commitment to volunteering.

Volunteering is an area in which we are already seeing, in many of the Sure Start centres in Bedford, a significant number of volunteers coming forward to expand the role of the services offered. That should surely be most welcome in all areas and communities. Volunteering reinforces the networking value that we get from our centres and enables us to do more effective outreach into our communities, particularly hard-to-reach communities, in all our towns and constituencies.

Today has been a good opportunity for us to identify ways in which Sure Start centres can be improved beyond the measures already identified by the Government in terms of expanding early-years provision. However, progress must be based on a recognition by all parties that there is now a shared commitment to Sure Start, which is being reinforced and not threatened in these tough times. I hope that all Members on both sides of the House will support the Government’s endeavours in that regard.

Post-16 Education Funding

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I enjoyed a visit to Daventry to meet my hon. Friend a few weeks ago and I hope to go again in due course to work with him to bring forward plans for a new university technical college. Although I admire his ardour, I urge him to be a wee bit patient just at the moment because we are developing plans to move from 12 to 24, and in the next few months we should be able to bring them forward.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Many young people will share my right hon. Friend’s disappointment that his opposite number, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who was part of a Government who maxed out the country’s credit card and racked up levels of debt that people will have to repay for their entire careers, has had absolutely nothing constructive to say today. Will my right hon. Friend note that in the review of EMA, one comment was that a large proportion of Bangladeshi and Pakistani students relied on it? Will his review look into that to see what can be done to ensure that their participation in higher education can continue?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who is particularly concerned to ensure that students from ethnic minority backgrounds enjoy better opportunities. One thing that we will do is liaise with college principals to ensure that currently under-represented groups, particularly Bangladeshi and Pakistani students and especially Bangladeshi and Pakistani female students, are encouraged to participate in future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, we are waiting to respond to the consultation on consumer credit and personal insolvency, which will deal with all aspects of consumer credit. I am not aware of the particular point that the hon. Lady has made, but when we respond I hope that she will welcome our ideas.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

In towns such as Bedford, there is a tremendous opportunity for small business men and women to support start-ups and entrepreneurs in their local communities with time, advice and money. Will the Minister consider ways in which he can support such community-led efforts to promote jobs and enterprise in local communities?

[Mr Prisk]

My hon. Friend exactly describes the great role of local enterprise partnerships, which provide the opportunity to forge together not only entrepreneurs but angel investors and local civic leaders. We are determined to grow the economy; the Opposition have nothing to offer. I am sorry that they are not prepared to listen and learn. They had 13 years in which we watched many parts of England and Wales fall behind. We are determined to ensure that that is not the case.

Education Bill

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

No, I will not.

Communities need other, more practical avenues of redress. Free schools are approved by the Secretary of State with no requirement for groups setting them up to consult widely with the local population. There is a complete lack of transparency and accountability over funding. We know that the Government have set aside £50 million to pay for new free schools, and we know from reports yesterday that about £25 million has been pledged to just two schools. Earlier, the Secretary of State failed to answer a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) about this. We know that a further 13 have been given promises of funding, but we do not know how much. Named day questions to Ministers simply go unanswered. It is not surprising that many communities believe that existing local schools are being left to fall into disrepair to allow free schools the money to be set up.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I have given way to the Secretary of State about three times, so I will give somebody else a chance.

[Richard Fuller]

It is important that the right hon. Gentleman gets a broader perspective on his two points about free schools. In the instance of the free school that is being set up in Kempston in my constituency, there has been widespread consultation involving parents and local schools, and a debate attended by the Anti Academies Alliance. The chair of the board of the free school has said that there will be full and clear transparency, and he is head of a college of further education in my constituency that is rated outstanding by Ofsted.

[Andy Burnham]

My point was that that level of consultation should be required. If a free school is set up, it may be good for those immediately planning to go there, but there may be an impact on the stability of provision around it and the viability of other local schools. There is a wider debate to be had in any community.

[Richard Fuller]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again.

It is simply not acceptable that we have not had any figures. Pledges are being made; Ministers are going round the country waving cheque books at people wanting to set up their pet projects. When the Government have cancelled Building Schools for the Future, it is unacceptable that they are not prepared to answer parliamentary questions to tell us how much money has been committed to these new schools. It gives the impression that, shamefully, ideology and not need is driving the allocation of capital to schools.

We support autonomy for head teachers, but the Bill strips back the role of the local authority to an extent that even head teachers are uncomfortable with it. The ASCL has said that it is

“concerned that there may now be too few points of contact between local authorities and schools”.

The removal of the duty to co-operate in the production of a children’s plan and to work with children’s trusts raises concerns over the safeguarding of children and young people. The Laming review highlighted the need for all agencies involved with children, including schools, to have a joined-up approach to ensure that no child slipped through the net. Every Child Matters was an effort to remedy the failure of services to work together. Unison says that the Bill

“drives a wedge between schools and other local services and negates Every Child Matters”.

As I have said, the Bill takes power from the public and local communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I look forward to supporting this Bill with gusto on behalf of all my constituents. It is, indeed, a landmark Bill. Historic? Well, not quite historic. Landmark, I think, is better, but the canon of my right hon. Friend’s work as Secretary of State for Education will truly be seen as historic as time passes.

It has been interesting to sit on the Government Benches and hear not only the speeches recognising that the Bill honours, empowers and respects our head teachers, but the observations of right hon. and hon. Opposition Members and the real divisions within the Labour party over the Bill, which is really the continuation of a journey that their Government started. There are divisions between those who believed then and believe now; those who believed then and are now just a little bit iffy; and those who never believed in the first place and certainly do not now. It has been very interesting to hear the observations about those divisions in the Labour party. It is welcome, however, to hear that Labour Members will be supporting the Bill.

One part of the Bill that is extraordinarily useful and valuable is the requirement for local authorities to fund early-years teaching for the most disadvantaged. That will come as welcome news to the governing boards and teachers at Cherry Trees, Peter Pan and Southway nurseries in Cauldwell ward, one of the most deprived parts of my town, which are suffering cuts from the Liberal Democrat-controlled council. I hope that we can move this measure forward quickly so that they can see that there is some hope for their funding in future.

If we are moving forward with the reading test at the age of six, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) welcomed, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues will ensure that they maintain the grants that are extraordinarily important for children who do not have English as a primary language at home. At two primary schools in my constituency, Priory lower school and Queens Park lower school, well over 80% of pupils do not have English as a primary language. We must maintain the ethnic minority achievement grants for families where English is not the primary language spoken at home. I also draw the Minister’s attention to issues of exclusion, which were mentioned by the shadow Secretary of State. The National Autistic Society says that for children with autism the exclusion rate is 27%, but for the rest of the population it is 4%. That is a major difference that requires further consideration.

My main concerns are about the proposals on academies and free schools. I like the fact that the Bill enables schools, each in their own time, to move towards becoming an academy. The Bill gives them that freedom, which they did not have before it was proposed and will not have until it is passed. I urge us all to think about talking to our own local authorities. As this strong movement towards academies moves forward, there will come a tipping point when local authorities no longer have the critical mass to offer the services they provide to the remaining schools. That is not a reason to hold back on this new-found freedom for head teachers, but a push for us to ensure that our local authorities are thinking ahead about what they will do next.

The Bill overcomes inertia and intransigence and promotes inspiration. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you will want me to give local examples of those three things, so I will accede to that. Let me start with inertia, which comes from the local authorities. As the shadow Secretary of State desperately tried not to be on the wrong side of history, he may have put a bit too much reliance on the record of local authorities. A total of 216 schools across the country are below the national minimum standard. That gives hon. Members a one in three chance of having one in their constituency. I inherited two: that was the record that my local authority bequeathed to me when I became the Member of Parliament.

I am not going to stand for that in my constituency. One of them, John Bunyan school, had been trailing at 19% and the low 20%s—at the lowest point, 9%—in terms of students who were achieving the minimum level of five GCSEs, including English and maths. Parents were voting with their feet, and its pupil numbers rolled down from 900 to 600. The school then became an academy. It has taken the action, and parents are responding. Now, its application rate makes it a 1,200-pupil school. Parents want this. They see that academies are a way of breaking down the inertia of local authorities, and I can see that in my town.

We have seen intransigence from the more extreme, unreconstructed class warriors or defenders of their own self-interest—by that I mean those at the Anti Academies Alliance and their fellow travellers at the Local Schools Network, who are, around the country, doing a great disservice to parents by distorting information, in some circumstances possibly to the extent of giving misinformation, about what academies and free schools are trying to do. They are also indulging in highly personalised attacks against people who want to establish academies and free schools—attacks they would never allow on members of their own union. We have seen that in Battersea, in Stourbridge, in Hammersmith and in my own constituency.

It is time that those people stopped acting as bovver boys for a Labour leadership who do not want their fingerprints on the crime of attacking people who have educational inspiration for their communities. I challenge the Labour leadership, in this debate, to draw the campaign by those groups to a close. There should be no more misinformation and no more attacks on people who are in the proudest tradition of trying to establish educational excellence in some of the most deprived areas of the country. In a blog for the Local Schools Network, the author refers to a debate in my town in which someone said of Mark Lehain, who has established a free school,

“Does he truly believe that local LA heads and teachers…are going to willingly and regularly exchange pleasantries?”

Well, I have got news for that person: we do things differently in Bedford and Kempston. I am very proud of our head teachers, 34 of whom came down here to make their case to the Secretary of State. We do things as a team in Bedford. Head teachers share what they learn from each other and grow together. I am very proud to say that that exchange partnership is going to welcome the head teacher of the free school, when it is established, as part of the family of schools. That is part of showing the way forward. That is the inspiration that we need, and that is what this Bill provides.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Bedfordshire Orchestral Society has an enviable record of promoting music in schools, but it is reliant on funding from two local authorities. Even ahead of today’s good news from the Secretary of State, Bedford borough council has committed funding, so will my right hon. Friend join me in encouraging Central Bedfordshire council to do likewise?

[Michael Gove]

When Central Bedfordshire council hears that my hon. Friend and I are both on the case, I am sure that it will be only too happy to join in and become as one in harmony with us both.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It was interesting to hear the shadow Secretary of State arguing for the equivalent of the Geddes axe, with every service receiving the same cuts. That would presumably mean cuts to the NHS, cuts to the schools budget and cuts to Sure Start simply in order to satisfy his desire for consistency on this policy. As the right hon. Gentleman should have discovered when he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to govern is to choose, and to have priorities.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

There are 1,200 students in my constituency who receive EMA. My right hon. Friend is giving them a very good lesson about who is responsible for the difficulties they will encounter over the coming months: the previous Government. Will he also teach them two other lessons? First, the shadow Secretary of State was part of the Government who spent all the money so that there is nothing left. When it has been spent, there should be some answers about what needs to be done with the wreckage left behind. Secondly, there is the lesson that when we are in tough times, we need to focus resources on those who are most vulnerable.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an admirable and correct point.

Schools White Paper

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am very interested that Reddish Vale is keen to become an academy and to embrace the future, and I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support. There is a huge variety of views across local government about the future of education, but I am encouraged that some of the most progressive and imaginative figures in local government are Liberal Democrat councillors. In particular, I would like to pay tribute to Gerald Vernon-Jackson in Portsmouth and to David Bellotti in Bath and North East Somerset, among many others. I will visit Stockport and have a word with the Liberal Democrat councillors there, and I am sure that I will leave better informed and happier about the world.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

There has been a teacher training institution in Bedford since 1882, and my right hon. Friend will be aware of the great work that the university of Bedfordshire does on teacher training for small schools in the eastern region, and on supporting further and continuing education for teachers. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that his proposals will reinforce, and not undermine, the excellent work being done by such institutions?

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. We are going to say to all higher education institutions that are currently involved in the provision of initial teacher training that we want them to open lab schools, in the same way that such schools have been developed in Finland and the United States. Those schools are run by education departments and they act as showcases for the best in teacher training, and I believe that education departments here can grasp this opportunity. We are working with the Training and Development Agency to ensure that they have the resources to do so.

Education Policy

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to ensuring that no one who has genuine talent is put off going to university. That is the function of the £150 million undergraduate premium.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

By slashing the Building Schools for the Future bureaucracy that was holding back Bedford academy, and through his strong support for the free school in Kempston, my right hon. Friend has already delivered for disadvantaged children in my constituency more in five months than the Labour party did in five years. May I point out that 50% of the children in lower schools in my constituency come from families in which English is not the primary language? Will he please ensure, through the consultation, that attention is given to people in that situation so that they do not lose out in the very welcome review that he is undertaking?

[Michael Gove]

Bedford is a classic community in that even though it sits within a county that is considered to be relatively wealthy, it contains not just pockets but large areas of real deprivation. That is why my hon. Friend, who is utterly committed to social justice, has played such a big role in helping to support teachers such as Mark Lehain who are committed to providing a better education for the poorest. Today’s announcement will only help such people to do a better job for the children who are in the most need.

Education Funding

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Lady. Those two academies will form part of the group that we are reviewing, as I mentioned in my statement. It is also the case that Estover community college in her constituency is, I believe, unaffected.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend’s passion for teaching is a welcome change from his predecessor’s passion for bureaucracy and financial waste—waste that has cost the taxpayers in Bedford borough council £500,000 on their Building Schools for the Future proposal, with no progress at all made on building. However, as my right hon. Friend is aware, there is a complex change in Bedford, involving a transition from three-tier to two-tier education. Will he agree to have a meeting on that issue?

[Michael Gove]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and representatives from Bedford.