Schools White Paper

Robin Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The higher education budget is the province of my colleagues the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable), and the Minister for Universities and Science, my right hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Willetts). We support higher education through the money that is spent by the Training and Development Agency for teachers. We want to ensure that that money is spent on attracting more highly qualified people into teaching, and in the next few months we will present proposals explaining exactly how we will support high-performing institutions, whether they are higher education institutions or schools.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his excellent White Paper and especially on the pupil premium, which will benefit many people in my constituency. Christopher Whitehead language college in my constituency, which is an outstanding school, is shortly to launch Mandarin classes. Will the Secretary of State expand on what the White Paper offers to improve the depth, breadth and quality of language teaching in our schools?

[Michael Gove]

I have been working with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to ensure that we can help more people studying modern languages, particularly Mandarin and strategic subjects, into teaching. I was fortunate enough to be in China with my right hon. Friend two weeks ago, when we received funding from the Confucius Institute to ensure that there will be 1,000 new trained teachers of Mandarin, and that the fantastic work being done in the school in my hon. Friend’s constituency is spread more widely.

Funding and Schools Reform

Robin Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this very important debate. Education is vital not only to the future of our children and young people, but to the future of the UK as a whole. Our economy depends on nurturing the best and brightest talents, and we should ensure that each and every child, no matter their background or social situation, has access to the very best education that we can provide.

I should like to declare my interest in this debate. I am chairman of governors of Vaynor first school, which is one of the largest first schools in the country with 408 pupils. The Secretary of State may remember visiting Vaynor with me a couple of years ago. Yesterday, I received an e-mail from its head teacher. She wrote:

“I could kiss Michael Gove! He has cancelled Financial Management Standards in Schools.”

Although it would not be proper for me to echo both sentiments in that statement, I firmly support the Government’s move to cancel needless micromanagement. As chairman of governors, I fully understand the issues surrounding fairer funding for our schools. The Government’s long-term plans for a simpler funding system are welcome. There is a definite need to tailor funding for schools in each area, not base funding allocation on a complicated and arbitrary system that overlooks local needs.

There is also a large disparity between the funding allocated to similar schools in different areas of the country. It has not escaped my notice that the constituency of the Leader of the Opposition receives per pupil funding of £4,083; the constituency of the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) receives per pupil funding of £4,265; and even higher is the guaranteed per pupil funding of £4,317 for the constituency of the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). Redditch, on the other hand, receives only £3,864. The schools of those right hon. Gentlemen who put forward today’s motion receive on average almost £300 more than schools in my Redditch constituency.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point on behalf of the schools of Worcestershire. May I add one more statistic to her figures? There is a £760 per pupil gap in funding between pupils in Worcestershire and the neighbouring authority of Birmingham. Her constituency in Redditch and mine in Worcester include some of the most deprived wards in the country. Both were represented by Labour Members in this House for 13 years, and people in those communities were on a 13-year promise of fairer funding. Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming this Government’s intention to review the funding formula? If Opposition Members turn their backs on funding reform, they will be turning their backs on some of the neediest communities in Worcestershire.

[Karen Lumley]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I urge the Government to ensure that funding is fair and that schools across the country have equal access to the piggy bank. I also welcome the Government’s plans for the pupil premium and the £2.5 billion that has been found in these difficult economic times to support educational development of the most disadvantaged pupils. That shows a real commitment by this Government to reduce the attainment gap and ensure that each and every school pupil reaches their potential. However, we must ensure that the pupil premium goes to those who are most in need, and I urge the Government not to overlook the pockets of deprivation that exist in Redditch and Worcester, the constituency of my hon. Friend. Will the Government clarify how the pupil premium will reach those pockets of deprivation?

Finally, I should like to say a few words about standards in schools. I should like to see standards raised in Redditch over the course of this Parliament. I firmly believe that the Government should focus on school standards—not just in a few schools but in all our schools. We need to ensure that teachers are free from the increasing bureaucracy and incessant form filling so that they can concentrate on teaching our children.

When I meet teachers and head teachers, one of the first things that they mention is the endless amounts of paperwork that they have to deal with. We need to move away, and stay away, from the bureaucratic procedures imposed on our school system and make sure that it is replaced by teachers spending more time with pupils. I received another e-mail yesterday, from another head teacher in my constituency, who wrote:

“Just to say I applaud the Government for abolishing this bureaucratic burden on schools. It is good to finally have a Government that listens”.

On that note, I will finish my contribution. We in Redditch are trying hard to improve our schools and get the very best education for our children. I applaud the Government’s proposals and hope that all hon. Members will make their schools and our nation’s children their top priority.

National Apprenticeship Scheme

Robin Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. To bring a little local experience to that observation, I should say that a successful scheme is operating at the Airbus factory in Broughton, close to my constituency. It is very attractive to young people in their teens who are still at school, whether they are capable of going to university or not. I know young people who are perfectly capable of going to university, but who have chosen to go through an apprenticeship programme because they regard it as the best way of developing their future careers. The scheme has been taken forward by combining study at further education colleges with development of that study through a foundation degree at a local university, and there is the added bonus of earning, which for many young people is preferable to incurring debt.

One point on which we can all agree is that apprenticeships need to be valued and their status recognised. The hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) made the interesting suggestion that there should be a royal society for apprenticeships, which is a good idea. The level of expertise and skill required by many apprentices to carry out their jobs is entirely equivalent to that acquired through a degree. Larger companies, such as the car manufacturers I met yesterday—I have visited Honda in Swindon, which was an interesting experience—are doing a great deal to support apprenticeships.

The real challenge lies with smaller businesses, and that is the most difficult area on which we should concentrate. We need to carry forward the good work that has been so successful with many of the large investment companies that I have mentioned, develop it and learn the lessons so that we can extend the apprenticeships scheme to smaller businesses.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that part of the problem with the apprenticeships scheme under the previous Government—I accept that there were many achievements—was that too often they were in a rush to increase the numbers and so approached large companies, particularly in retail and catering, that could easily transform traineeships into apprenticeships to get the numbers up? We must do much more to reach smaller companies, particularly those in manufacturing, such as Aeromet, an aerospace company based in my constituency, whose representatives I met yesterday. They told me that they had not been approached by central or local government at any time about apprenticeships and that they would like to learn more.

[Ian Lucas]

We certainly need to work hard with smaller companies to develop apprenticeship schemes, but there are good examples. I will mention another company in my constituency, Lloyd Morris Electrical. It is a small construction company that deals with electrics. It places great store by its apprentices and the training of its young people. There is a great appetite for apprenticeships among young people. Some of them could go to university but simply do not want to do so because they see their lives developing along an alternative route.

An important point was made earlier when we mentioned teachers and their attitude to apprenticeships. We need to give teachers a much more accurate and up-to-date representation of modern apprenticeships, and I mean that not in a particular sense, but in a broad sense. High-skill, high-technology and high-value jobs are involved, and teachers should encourage their students to follow them.

The Minister has made a commitment on apprenticeships, and I welcome his language, which contrasts, I am afraid, with what was said and done by the Conservative Government before 1997. He needs to be transparent about the details of what will happen in future and not pretend that his commitment is something that it is not. He hopes to announce the creation of 50,000 extra apprenticeships, giving the impression that they are new jobs for young people. First, it is one thing to promise apprenticeship places and another to deliver them—the devil is in persuading businesses, small ones in particular, to take on apprentices. I have often had that discussion with businesses in my area.