Awarding of Qualifications: Role of Ministers

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

That is correct. Understandably, we always sought assurances on this, because all of us in this House strive at every moment to ensure that there is fairness for every one of our constituents. We want to ensure that all those young people who have studied so much in the run-up to their GCSEs, BTECs, A-levels or AS-levels get the grades they deserve.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend mentioned the triple lock. Wales had a similar system to the triple lock, but instead of mock exams, AS exams were used to fall back on. Unfortunately, that led to many of the highest achievers, who would have gone on to medical or veterinary qualifications, not being able to get the highest levels because the A* grade does not exist in the AS facility. Is it not right that people who were appealing in Wales would have had a guaranteed downgrade because of the Welsh Labour system?

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There would have been weakness and challenges whichever system we adopted. All four nations of the United Kingdom did everything they could do to ensure that there was the maximum amount of fairness for those students who were not in a position to take their exams as the result of a global pandemic.

On 16 August, Ofqual’s chair and the chief regulator advised me that the Ofqual board was minded to make a formal decision to revert to centre assessment grades for all students, or the calculated grade where that was higher. I accepted their view and the decision was announced on Monday 17 August by Ofqual and myself. Subsequently, the Department worked closely with Ofqual and the exam boards to ensure that GCSE results were revised and issued on the original results day of 20 August, and A and AS-level results were reissued on the same timescale.

The majority of awarding organisations that deliver vocational and technical qualifications did not use similar processes as those for GCSEs and A-levels, and those results were issued as planned. However, there were delays to some results where a similar standardisation process had been used, to allow them to be reviewed and reissued.

We took a range of actions to ensure that no young person would be held back from going on to higher education as a result of the grading changes. On 17 August, we announced the removal of temporary student number controls, which had been introduced for the coming academic year. We have also lifted the caps on domestic medicine, dentistry, veterinary science and teaching courses. We have provided additional teaching grant and funding for universities to support that.

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[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Having listened to the exchanges and read some of the documents before the debate, I am satisfied that the Secretary of State asked Ofqual to deliver the right answers. It is disappointing that its algorithm did not work and it was right that it had to be changed. Once the decision had been taken to close schools and not to proceed with exams, I think the best answer probably was to look to the teachers to evaluate the pupils and put them in the right rank order, but for there to be some moderating influence so that, overall, we got a fair spread of results. However, it appears that the algorithm did not do that and produced all sorts of individual injustices. It may have produced what Ofqual thought was the right answer school by school, but it did not produce the right answer pupil by pupil. That was a great pity and it was clear from what the Secretary of State has been saying that that was not shared with him, which is why we are debating this today. We should now move on. As many have said on both sides of the House, we need to learn lessons and make sure that the class of 2021 is better served and does not have the same difficult foray into getting their results as the class of 2020 did.

I am very pleased that a decision has been made that exams will be reinstituted. I note that we have had one Ofqual consultation already, with some conclusions, and a further consultation is under way. We have a series of new injustices that have to be dealt with, and they need to be dealt with quite soon, at this early stage. Some pupils were taught a full timetable of lessons remotely by their schools. Others had very little teaching during the summer period. Some schools were better equipped to press on with the full rigours of the GCSE and A-level courses and others were not. We need to ask ourselves what will happen in those situations, where some have been prepping for the full exam and others are now saying that perhaps they cannot in time prep for the full exam. Can we create some more time to make sure that all can be brought up to a satisfactory situation?

I see that it has been decided already that there will not be field work for geography and geology, which is quite a big loss, that there will not be formal oral examinations for languages, including English language, and that there will be less of a syllabus for those who are doing history and geography, in terms of choice of questions. These quite big decisions have already been made. I hope that there will be no need for any further decisions that could in any way undermine the reputation or the quality of the exam that will be set, and many will pass, for the class of 2021.

[Rob Roberts]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that getting the students who are due to sit their exams next year, in all the subjects that he mentions, back into the classroom again is vital to their continued academic success? Will he also join me in welcoming Labour’s refreshing new position of wanting to see all children go back, having dragged its heels on this issue over the summer?

[John Redwood]

I am delighted that the Opposition rightly wish to see children properly educated. I have never doubted that they wanted to see children properly educated—that must be a shared view that we all hold—but it would certainly be good if the Opposition carried on in the spirit of co-operation and responded to some of the consultations, for example, because very important decisions will now be taken over when the exams will take place, what the content of exams will be and how they will be marked and assessed. We need to have two things first and foremost in our minds: of course, we need to be fair to the pupils and to take into account that their education has been interrupted in recent months, but we also need to make sure that the system itself guarantees quality, so that they get a qualification that means something and is widely respected both at home and abroad. I hope that the Secretary of State will soon be able to bring forward positive proposals so that the class of 2021 can be properly looked after.

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[Rob Roberts]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Daisy Cooper]

I probably should not, as you have given me a strong steer, Madam Deputy Speaker—my apologies.

As we all look ahead to the next year, I draw Members’ attention to the gov.uk guidance on the four tiers of local-level restrictions on education that could be used. It is clear that remote education could be used in three of the Government’s four scenarios. Working parents will look at the guidance and wonder what guarantees the Government will provide that their children will continue to receive a good education over the next year if, in three of those four scenarios, parents are going to be responsible for home schooling. Will the Secretary of State listen to parents’ groups such as September for Schools and reconsider the Liberal Democrat amendment to the emergency covid legislation, which called for a guarantee that families could expect a minimum standard of education and that the Government would give schools the necessary resources to deliver it?

Ultimately, we need the full disclosure of the documents that the motion calls for, and we must have an investigation into the decisions and evidence that led to this debacle. We must learn from this episode and ensure that it is never, ever repeated, especially if we get to a position in which exams could be cancelled because of further lockdowns. It is time that the Secretary of State commissioned an independent investigation into the handling of GCSE, A-level and BTEC results.

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[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Con)]

Coronavirus has impacted nearly every aspect of society; sadly, schools are no exception. Despite the difficulties and extra stress that covid has caused, I commend the hard work of all the teachers and teaching staff across Delyn who have adapted their lessons to be accessible online and supported students throughout. I also praise Delyn’s students, and those throughout the United Kingdom, who have had to cope with unprecedented pressures and uncertainties over the past few months regarding their results and futures.

Before we can start to move forward and ensure that the same errors are not made again, we need to understand the distress and worry that has been caused to students, families and schools. The algorithm was wrong. It did not lead to the fairest outcomes for all students. It is right that we stop to evaluate the methods used to calculate grades and how that process was handled.

As was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe), while some Opposition Members triumphantly trumpet another Government U-turn, I urge them to consider what it actually shows: a Government willing to listen and to be flexible and adaptable. Indeed, a recent YouGov tracker of the public response to Government U-turns found that 49% of respondents think that a U-turn is a good sign, as it shows that Ministers are willing to listen and change, compared with only 23% who think that U-turns are a bad thing. The Financial Times has stated that a Government U-turn can be

“a sign of a healthy and functional democracy”.

If we want to encourage healthy and honest debate, we should define these U-turns in a positive light, as they demonstrate that the Government can be held to account and will react accordingly and do the right thing. I therefore support the Government’s decision to base GCSE, AS and A-level results on teacher estimates, when the algorithm that was widely accepted as the best system failed to deliver.



I cannot help but comment on the slight hypocrisy of Opposition Members, who have been very vocal in their criticism of this Government’s handling of the grading process, despite the Labour-led Government in Wales, with a Lib Dem Education Minister, using a similar algorithm and undertaking a U-turn to base results on teacher-predicted grades. Claims were made by the Welsh Labour Government that the system in Wales was, in fact, more robust and more credible, with the First Minister even defending the original system, but that actually led to a higher number being downgraded than was the case in England. They either carried out their own analysis and reached the same conclusions as the UK Government, in which case they should feel the same criticism from their colleagues, or they did no analysis and just followed blindly the UK Government’s position, and they have no legitimacy to govern at all. I suggest that Opposition Members evaluate the same mistakes and decisions made by their own party in government before criticising this one.

I hope, ultimately, that the regulatory bodies and relevant groups across all the devolved nations take the time to learn the lessons needed, even in these challenging circumstances.