School Funding Reform

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A great many right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, but I remind the House that there is another statement to follow and a series of very heavily subscribed debates to take place under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee, as a consequence of which there is a premium on brevity from Back and Front Bench alike.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I welcome the statement from the Secretary of State. Too many areas, particularly rural areas, have suffered from grossly inequitable funding for too long. I welcome what the Secretary of State said because rural areas have additional costs, which are not met by current funding. Can he assure the House that we will not falter in moving to fairer funding and we will put real need ahead of political convenience in bringing forward a national funding formula in due course?

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[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State knows that the outstanding and good schools that are most likely to become academies under his system will probably have less need for support for special needs, behavioural support and advisory services. Does he agree that it follows that the academies that he is creating will be tempted not to buy back support services from local authorities under current arrangements, which will mean big cuts in authorities such as Sefton, where seven schools are becoming academies. Will he review funding arrangements for academies so that support services available within local authorities are—

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I think we understand the thrust of his question.

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[Michael Gove]

We will seek to allocate that money to the local authority areas where there is the greatest population pressure. I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support for the principle of university technical colleges, which enjoy growing support across the House.

[Mr Speaker]

Let me take this opportunity to inform the House that after the Front-Bench exchanges had been completed, we had 32 minutes of questions from Back Benchers, and the pithiness of those questions and of the Secretary of State’s answers meant that in those 32 minutes we got through 44 inquiries. The Secretary of State has, I think, set a record in this parliamentary term. He has won the trophy; I hope he is pleased.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that I did not answer his point about Lancaster and Fleetwood, so I will respond to him in writing about it. As I said, schools will be held accountable for their use of the pupil premium by the detail in the performance tables, which will be published from this year, and by the requirement from September 2012 to make it clear how they are spending their pupil premium money in respect of the progress made on the attainment of the pupils it covers. We are also very committed to providing advice on best practice and we will be doing that soon.

[Mr Speaker]

The motto is that Ministers should look at the question on the Order Paper before answering, rather than afterwards, but I appreciate what the Minister has said and I think that the House is grateful for it.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

10. When he plans to launch the internal review of personal, social, health and economic education announced in the teaching White Paper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

[Sarah Teather]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) will just have to wait with bated breath for our early years statement, which will be out shortly and in which we will make further announcements about Sure Start and how we intend to improve the quality of early years.

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[Michael Gove]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I remind the House that topical questions and answers are supposed to be brief.

[Michael Gove]

That was a very effective pitch from a very effective Back Bencher.

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[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises a good point, which is a major concern of this Government. More than one in six parents have children who are not offered a place at their preferred school. That has led to 85,000 appeals. We are reviewing the admissions process, which is far too complex to understand and administer. One of the proposals is to allow good schools to raise the pupil admissions number. We have had a very good response to the consultation so far and will announce our response in due course.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is much better when the hon. Gentleman addresses the House. We always look forward to that.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It appears that the 16 to 19 funding consultation for 2013-14 will not be published until September at the earliest. Will the Secretary of State take steps to ensure that that does not delay the publication of information about the 2012-13 budgets for schools and colleges?

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[Michael Gove]

That question was epigrammatically brilliant and requires no further elucidation from me, other than to say, “Hear! Hear!”

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I must say that as a quick learner, the Secretary of State is proving to be exemplary, and the House is grateful to him.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Every head teacher and teacher I have spoken to dislikes and has enormous disrespect for the E-bac. I have not come across a single educationist who supports the Secretary of State. It is causing chaos at key stage 4 and in our schools. Is that what he meant by giving more power and autonomy to teachers?

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[Michael Gove]

Oscar Wilde once said that one should try everything in life once apart from folk dancing and incest. I think that he was only 50% right.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We always go away from listening to the Secretary of State not only entertained, but improved. We are grateful to him.

School Closures (Thursday)

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We must now move on. I have taken 25 Back-Bench contributions, but we have an important statement to follow and considerable pressure as regards progress on the Finance Bill. The Secretary of State has shown his willingness and desire to keep the House regularly updated and that is, I am sure, appreciated.

Academies (Funding)

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Three of the 704 new academies are in my constituency. We are seeing an education revolution, so why are we not discussing that and the success of our schools, rather than accounting errors that are a car crash left by the previous Government?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The simple answer to the hon. Gentleman’s inquiry is that we are discussing this matter because an urgent question application was submitted to me and granted by me. No further discussion of that point is required.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Is it not the case that this urgent question has certainly underlined the need for a full investigation and inquiry into the discredited system that the last Government used for the funding of schools, which was unfair and inefficient? Is it not ironic that this issue has been raised when schools want more autonomy from such systems? Is it not also the case that we should support—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is enough. The hon. Gentleman has had a good outing and I am sure he has enjoyed it.

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and asked a good question. Many local authorities have been raising this issue for many years; they campaigned on it and lobbied the previous Government about the unfairness of the school funding system. That is what we are determined to sort out with the school funding review.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

Any opportunity that this House provides me to champion the cause of apprenticeships is to be celebrated, and celebrated this afternoon it will be.

[Mr Speaker]

We are all delighted to bring a bit of joy into the Minister’s life.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

17. What steps he plans to take to target adult learning provision on those who most need support.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

I want our education system to be the best in the world, which is why we have invested more than £100 million in an endowment fund for the poorest students. We have invested £2.5 billion in the pupil premium, we have expanded the academy programme and we have invested more in expanding elite routes into teaching such as Teach First. We have also raised the floor standards by which we judge schools’ performance. Some 216 secondary schools are below the floor standards with fewer than 35% of their students achieving five good GCSEs, including English and maths, and 1,394 primary schools are below the floor standards with fewer than 60% of pupils at the end of key stage 2 achieving level 4 or above in English and maths. I wrote to local authorities on 1 March asking them to set out their plans for improving their weaker schools. I received those plans back on 15 April and I am reviewing them.

[Mr Speaker]

The answer, I am afraid, was simply too long. I hope that answers from now on will be shorter.

[Mary Macleod]

In my constituency I want the best possible education for all pupils, no matter who they are or where they come from, but organisations such as the CBI are saying that they are concerned by the numeracy and literacy levels of school leavers. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should have a zero-tolerance approach to underperforming schools and that we should prioritise literacy and numeracy levels?

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[Mr Gibb]

It is always a concern if schools are not entering students for qualifications that best meet their interests. That is what is behind the introduction of the English baccalaureate measure. We want to undo some of the perverse incentives that already exist in the league table situation. We would not want to see pupils being transferred mid-course to English baccalaureate subjects simply for the league table position.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I gently appeal to the Minister of State to face the House when giving his replies so that we can all hear them?

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I am sure the Minister has read the bishops’ e-alert which arrived from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales at 2.18 pm this afternoon, in which the bishops say that they

“have serious reservations over the omission of Religious Education from the English Baccalaureate”

and

“urge the government to reconsider its decision”.

Given the state of rebellion on the Government Benches about this and the uncertainty across the country, will the Minister take this opportunity to confirm that he is not planning another U-turn, this time about RE and the E-bac?

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[Michael Gove]

I hope the advice that the right hon. Gentleman has given to his son on how he sits his SATs includes doing his revision and his homework, because I sat open-mouthed as the right hon. Gentleman unveiled his latest position on free schools. It is very different from the answer he gave on “The Andrew Marr Show” on 10 October when he was asked:

“So you are against free schools?”

and he said, “Yes I am”; very different from the answer he gave in The Guardian on 9 November when he said that under Labour

“there would be no more free schools”;

and very different from the answer he gave on 31 January when he said:

“Free schools mean a free-for–all”.

Over the past year, he has been consistently opposed to free schools, and now he says he is in favour—

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

[Michael Gove]

Not so much a U-turn—

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

[Michael Gove]

More an inglorious retreat—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I ask the Secretary of State to resume his seat, and let me make it clear beyond peradventure, to the Secretary of State and to the House, that questions are about the policy of the Government and answers, suitably succinct, should be about the policy of the Government. That is how we will proceed from now on.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

8. What progress he has made on the reform of provision for children with special educational needs in (a) Loughborough constituency and (b) England.

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[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Lady will know that I have agreed to, and indeed already conducted, a meeting with young people to consider exactly what they want out of the system. I intend to spread those summits to other locations across the country so that we can shape the service to meet young people’s needs, for as John Ruskin said:

“The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.”

[Mr Speaker]

We look forward to the Minister’s summit-spreading.

[David Wright (Telford) (Lab)]

16. What recent assessment he has made of the merits of local authorities having a director of children’s services; and if he will make a statement.

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[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

T10. Head teachers of eight secondary schools serving children in my constituency have taken what they describe as the unprecedented step of writing to the parents and carers of years 11 and 12 students about the impact of Government cuts on sixth-form funding. They are considering cutting the range of courses, increasing class sizes, ending the teaching of some subjects, and reducing guidance and enrichment sessions. They say in their letter:“we have never been subject to cuts of this magnitude,”which—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think that we have got the drift of the question.

[Paul Blomfield]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Enough.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing my attention to that letter; I hope that he will send me a copy. I know that he is a new Member, and that he is passionate about raising standards in his constituency, but the reductions in public spending are a direct consequence of the mistakes that were made by the Government who preceded us. I am afraid that the reply that he should give to that letter should graciously acknowledge that fact.

Regulatory Authorities (Level of Charges) Bill

John Bercow Excerpts

Friday 13th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

For the record, because it is important to be accurate about these things, I do not have that document on my bedside table. I have the collected works of Ezra Pound and a selected number of my own speeches.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful. No debate would be complete without the legendary literary references of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), but I know that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) will not be tempted away from the path of virtue, whatever the enticements of the Minister.

[Mr Chope]

We now know where my hon. Friend the Minister gets all these references from, but that is another story.

Let me give an example of a good regulator. Some of us had the privilege of listening to Colette Bowe from Ofcom earlier in the week. She said that Ofcom had been asked by the Government to reduce its costs by some 25%. It has already reduced its costs by more than 20% and it has not increased the costs of regulation but reduced the size of the organisation so that it acts more proportionately. There is a message there for many other regulators whose minds are not concentrated sufficiently because they have the option of always being able to increase their charges. That is why I have these provisions in the Bill.

The Bill does not say that regulators can never increase their charges, but clause 1(2) states:

“No regulatory authority shall introduce a charge in respect of a service currently provided free of charge in England unless a report has been laid before Parliament setting out the reasons for the introduction of the charge and that report has been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”

Other colleagues will have different examples, but at the moment the Department for Transport is actively considering charging owners of vehicles a registration fee just for having a vehicle in their ownership. The statutory off road notification, which is a means whereby an owner can keep a car off the main road without incurring a fee, will be changed and the owner will have to pay the fee that is being introduced, even if they are keeping the car off the main road and not using it on the highway. That would be an additional new charge. Would it be reasonable? I do not think it would, but if it were introduced under the Bill, it would be necessary for a report to be laid before Parliament setting out the reasons and justification for it. If that were to happen, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire would no doubt ask questions about the impact on those who have older cars that they do not use very often.

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[Mr Knight]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the right hon. Member intervenes, may I say two things to the Minister? First, he is second to none in his respect for the courtesies of the House, and I invite him, therefore, to address the House and not continually to turn his back on the Chair. Secondly, although his preamble to his main thesis is of great interest to the House, I remind the House and those listening that there are two clauses in the Bill, which consists of one page and one line. I feel sure that it will not be long before the Minister wishes to address himself to the clauses of the Bill.

Vocational Education

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that it is a sign of the last Government’s failure to improve education that more than 250,000 children left school last year without a C grade in GCSE maths and English?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The short answer is no, and let me repeat to the hon. Gentleman what I have already had reason to say to him several times: questions must be about the policy of the current Government. I have made that point to him before, and he has breached the requirement several times. He will not do so again.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I want to follow on from the question of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts). Riverside college is a really good college in my constituency, but it has faced major funding cuts from the Secretary of State’s Government. Given that he has just guaranteed increased funding for students in St Helens, will he also give the same guarantee to students in my constituency of Halton?

Education Bill

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I find it upsetting when people complain about my presence in debates. Frankly, I think that the hon. Gentleman has secured a very good deal.

There is no bigger barrier to the recruitment and retention of good teachers than poor pupil behaviour. Figures published last month showed that in nearly one in five secondary schools, behaviour is judged as being no better than satisfactory. In the latest year for which we have figures there were over 363,000 fixed-period exclusions, of which 80,000 were issued for threatening behaviour or verbal abuse against an adult. Recent polls by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers found that two in five teachers had dealt with physical aggression during that year, and that a quarter had been subjected to a false allegation by a pupil. That underlines the fact that too many teachers have been hindered in doing their jobs because of poor behaviour. I fully understand why teachers have felt that the system, and the Government, have not always been on their side. The Education Bill will ensure that the pendulum swings back in their favour by strengthening teachers’ powers. They will be able to issue same-day detentions, and to search for, and confiscate, items such as mobile phones and video cameras. We considered these measures in detail in Committee. I hope they are used only very rarely, but I would rather teachers were able to decide for themselves whether to use them and I am confident that they will help protect the rights of all children to learn in an environment free from disruption and bullying.

Just as importantly, the Bill will also extend better protection to teachers from false and malicious allegations. Teachers will now have pre-charge anonymity when faced with an allegation of an offence by a pupil, to prevent false accusations being used to undermine teachers’ authority. Teachers have campaigned for that for years, and it has been delivered by this Government in our first year. Of course, we will continue to listen to those who seek to extend these provisions to other staff in schools and colleges, but we also need to tread carefully in relation to cherished rights of free speech in a free society.

Discipline is just one area in which teachers have not been afforded the trust and respect they deserve. Over the past decade, for every step forward, there have been three steps backwards as yet more targets and diktats were issued to schools from the centre. Understandably, much of the debate in Committee was about whether to retain the legislation that piled up under the previous Government. I do not doubt that much of that was well-intentioned, but it has clearly failed to address the performance gap this country faces, especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

We are determined to raise the professional status of teachers by giving them the space and flexibility they need. Since the Academies Act 2010 the number of academies has more than trebled, from 203 to 658. All those schools are able to decide what is best to raise standards for their pupils, free from red tape and political interference. That is why it has attracted not only Toby Young, but Peter Hyman, Tony Blair’s former director of strategy and author of the autobiographical book, “1 out of 10: from Downing street vision to classroom reality”. Peter Hyman is setting up a free school in Newham. Newham School 21 will teach children between the ages of four and 18 and aims to be open in September 2012. The Bill provides for two new types of academies: alternative provision academies, and 16-to-19 academies, which will extend the benefits of the programme even further.

The Opposition have complained that the Bill centralises power, yet at the same time they complain when we strip back the layers of instruction and guidance telling schools and colleges how to co-operate, which they put in place. Similarly, they protest when we end the requirement on every local authority to set up forums, irrespective of their actual needs or unique circumstances. The Bill will help us bring an end to the perpetual revolution that has been inflicted upon schools, by allowing professionals—not the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency or the General Teaching Council—to do what is best for them.

Just as we are liberating professionals from bureaucracy, so we are ensuring that there is stronger accountability to parents. The Bill will sharpen school accountability by reducing the number of areas in which Ofsted inspects to just four—pupil achievement, quality of teaching, leadership and management, and behaviour and safety—with outstanding schools and colleges also being freed from routine inspection, so that more focus can be diverted towards those that need it most.

The independent regulator, Ofqual, will ensure that our qualifications stand comparison with the best in the world by measuring our relative performance. Because we are prepared to take action where schools and local authorities fail to give children their one chance of a good education, the Bill strengthens the Government’s power to intervene in poorly performing schools, which often have higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils. The Minister for children, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), is introducing an entitlement to free early-years provision for 130,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds across the country. The scrutiny in Committee has allowed us to set out clearly that we will maintain the free entitlement for all three and four-year-olds at 15 hours, and that we will ask Ofsted to review the impact of the two-year entitlement.

We are also ensuring that more resources are targeted at the education of the poorest through the pupil premium, which will be worth £2.5 billion every year by 2014-15, and the Bill will ensure that funding for apprenticeship training takes priority when young people have a place, so that we deliver on our ambitions to expand the programme and make it the primary work-based learning route for raising the participation age. Thanks to the vigilance and scrutiny of the Chairman of the Education Committee, we have now removed a reserve power to suspend this offer, which underlines our commitment further. In addition, the scrutiny provided and arguments put forward by my hon. Friends the Members for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and for Wells (Tessa Munt) on the issue of school governors and the proposals in clause 37 have allowed us to improve our policy in this area. We have retained the principle of governor appointments based primarily on skills, while also meeting their desire to reflect stakeholder groups with an interest in schools, in particular staff and local authorities.

The schools White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, set out a pathway to close the attainment gap between those from the poorest and wealthiest backgrounds, and to reverse this country’s decline in international performance tables, so that all who are educated in our state schools have the opportunity to compete with the school leavers and graduates of countries with the best-performing education systems. This Education Bill will allow us to take important steps on that journey, and I commend it to the House.

[Mr Speaker]

May I gently point out to the shadow Secretary of State, as I equally could to the Minister, that there are Back Benchers who would also like to contribute and that would help the House?

[Andy Burnham]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The Secretary of State’s first Bill was rammed through with unseemly haste, under procedures normally reserved for counter-terrorism measures, when the odour in the rose garden was still pleasant and Labour leadership candidates were still on the hustings, so we can at least say that this Bill has had a more thorough airing. I therefore thank the members of the Public Bill Committee for their work on it, and I thank the Officials, Officers and other staff of the House who have enabled the Committee’s work to take place. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) and for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), who have done an excellent job.

The Schools Minister has been assiduous in his replies, and I thank him for that, but his courtesy has not extended to the production of the essential documents, such as the draft admissions code, that are needed to give this Bill the fullest possible scrutiny. That is highly regrettable—it is insulting, even, to Members of this House—and I trust that the same discourtesies will not be repeated towards Members of another place. Talking of discourtesies, it is a shame that the Secretary of State could not dignify us with his presence this evening. He made a cameo appearance earlier, but he obviously has something more important to do than be here to see his own Bill through. I do not know whether he has a good reason—perhaps he does—but we should have been able to expect him to be here.

Like the Health and Social Care Bill, the Education Bill threatens a free-for-all in our public services. It is a reckless gamble with standards and with the life chances of our children, with no evidence to support it. That is why we will vote against it tonight. Our principal objection to it is based on the fact that it takes power away from parents and pupils and hands it back to providers and to the centre, in the form of the Secretary of State. That is the flaw at the heart of the Government’s vision for public service reform. If they give more freedom and autonomy to providers, be they general practitioners or hospitals in the health sector or head teachers and schools in the education sector, they have to balance that with a corresponding empowerment of the public—parent and patient guarantees—and more ability for service users to hold providers to account. That is what is completely absent from the Government’s vision: this is a provider-led reform with an accountability deficit.

The health reforms have been paused, partly because of fears that the system being created lacks moderating checks and balances. Many people working in education, who will be watching these proceedings, have exactly the same fears about these schools reforms, but sadly the House, in its votes this evening, has failed to respond to them. This is a right-wing reform of our education system, a ripping up of the fabric and frameworks that have stood our services and our children in good stead for years.

Tory Cabinet Ministers are now boasting about this radical right-wing agenda. Iain Duncan Smith has said:

“We’ve got a lot—my welfare reforms, the education reforms…all of these are big, big Conservative-driven themes.”

I believe he said that today. William Hague went as far as admitting that the Lib Dems were crucial—

[Mr Speaker]

May I say to the shadow Secretary of State that he is quite an experienced Member, and he should not refer to serving Members of the House by name?

[Andy Burnham]

You are absolutely right, Mr Speaker, and I apologise.

The right hon. Member—I am struggling to remember his constituency now—[Hon. Members: “Richmond.”] That is it; I was going to say for North Yorkshire. The right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) said:

“A Conservative government with a very small majority or in a minority would have been massively constrained in what we could take through parliament.”

There we have it: this is a right-wing agenda propped up by the Liberal Democrats.

We heard today a bid from the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), supported by 35 colleagues on his side of the House, to extend selection to our state education system. We know that the Secretary of State, although he could not be here this evening, attended a reception in Parliament—I think it was just before Christmas—where the hon. Gentleman asked him whether he would extend selection through his free school movement. The Secretary of State said:

“My foot is hovering over the pedal; I’ll have to see what my co-driver Nick Clegg has to say”.

Those of us who read Mrs Gove’s entertaining columns in the newspaper know what happens when the Secretary of State puts his foot on the pedal: utter chaos and disruption ensues for anybody in his vicinity. In this case, I think the co-pilot would be better off getting out of the car before the Secretary of State puts his foot down on the pedal—but as we know, the co-pilot is still unfortunately locked in the boot.

We were expecting a bit of muscular Liberalism today—indeed, we were promised it—but sadly there was none. It was just as we suspected. Parents watching this debate want to know that their child has a fair chance of getting into the school that they choose, that they will have good teachers, and will be able to get good careers advice to support them in their choices. Instead, they are getting a free-for-all with no guarantees, a weakening of the admissions system, unqualified teachers in state schools and a withering away of face-to-face careers advice.

I am sorry that we did not get the chance tonight to move an amendment, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West was going to take on, about the need to have qualified teachers in our state schools. I hope that Members of the other place will return to that issue to stop this risky gamble with standards in our schools.

The Bill exposes a curious contradiction in this Secretary of State’s approach to school reform. He has not decided yet whether he truly believes in freedom and really wants local people to get on and do the job that they want—as the Minister just said he did—or whether he wants to dictate to them what they must do and how they must do their jobs. We have an Education Secretary who preaches freedom, but then wants to dictate the books that children read in primary school. He says that teachers know best, but then demands that they use synthetic phonics to teach reading. He lauds professional autonomy, but makes it clear which subjects he approves of in his English baccalaureate and which are second best. That is not good enough: he needs to decide. If he wants teachers to get on with their job, he should let them do it. We should not have this contradiction at the heart of policy that is causing people across the country to lose patience with him.

I gather that the Secretary of State is downstairs at a function or party this evening. I find it hard to believe that he is not here to speak up for his own Bill, to defend it and to tell us why I am wrong and why he has the right vision for our schools. The fact that he is not here means that he cannot face this House to ask for the 50 powers that he is taking in the Bill. We might have thought—might we not?—that he would have the courtesy to come and ask the House for those powers. It is a sorry state of affairs, and shows something of the arrogance that increasingly characterises the Government.

I believe that the Secretary of State is failing to take the education profession with him. They need stability and he is providing chaos. He is losing the confidence of head teachers and teachers. The Education Bill will now move to the other place and I know that their lordships will seek to moderate it, protecting fairness and promoting high standards in every school for every child. I urge them to do so and to give the Bill the fullest possible scrutiny, because this House of Commons, as it has shown today, is in danger of sleepwalking towards an elitist two-tier education system that will be good for some children and some schools, but not all children and all schools.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are 11 minutes to go and several Members who wish to participate. Extreme brevity would facilitate the maximum number of Back-Bench contributions.

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[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will have noted that the Secretary of State was not present for the Third Reading of the Education Bill. I wonder whether you can give any advice as to whether, when a Secretary of State does not turn up for the Third Reading of their own Bill, which I think is quite unusual, any information should be given to the House, or possibly as a courtesy to the shadow Secretary of State or Opposition Front Benchers, as to why they are not here. We understand that the Secretary of State, who is apparently now standing somewhere nearby at the Bar of the House, was available to come here. Are there any procedures by which it would be normal for the Secretary of State to give notice that he is not going to participate on Third Reading?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is no. Any Minister can provide a rationale or an explanation for presence or absence if he or she so chooses, but there is no formal procedure for so doing. The question of who appears on behalf of those on the Treasury Bench is purely a matter for them, not a matter for the Chair. The hon. Gentleman has nevertheless registered his point.

Points of Order

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance on a matter relating to ministerial accountability to Members of the House. I recently sent a letter, at the request of a constituent, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose office then notified me that it was being forwarded to the Department for Education for reply. Today, I received a reply from the Department—from the permanent secretary. This is the second time I have received such a letter. The matter about which I wrote was politically controversial, so the permanent secretary has, whether he wished it or not, been drawn into party political controversy by expounding and defending Government policy. This clearly is not satisfactory, Mr Speaker, and I shall be grateful for your guidance on how we should deal with such a situation and prevent its recurrence.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman has been in the House for 40 years—I think he is in his 41st year of service in the House—so he will know that how Ministers respond to questions is principally a matter for them. However, I certainly think the point that he has raised warrants a ministerial response. For my own part, I will stick my neck out and observe that when a Member of Parliament tables a question, the Member of Parliament wants a reply from a Minister, not from an official. It might even be thought a little unwise to respond to the right hon. Gentleman, of all people, in the way that was done, but I am sure the Secretary of State will have something to say about the matter.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I am grateful for this opportunity, as I am determined at all times to ensure that my Department responds promptly and fully to questions from colleagues across the House, and the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) is a particularly assiduous correspondent on behalf of his constituents. I have had the opportunity in the past to reply personally.

On some occasions it is appropriate when responding to parliamentary questions and to correspondence to enlist the support of those who do such a good job in the civil service and in arm’s length bodies. It is always a matter for ministerial discretion, but if any Member of the House is unhappy with any reply that they have received, I would be delighted if they would write again to me. In almost every case where a parliamentary question has been answered or parliamentary correspondence has been received, there has been a note from a Minister stressing that if the reply and the information contained therein is unsatisfactory, Ministers would of course be delighted, as I am at any time, to provide further information.

I am also delighted and grateful to you, Mr Speaker, to be able to say that the backlog of correspondence that we inherited has now, thanks to the generous and energetic work of officials in the Department, been cleared. I hope that in the future I will be able to answer all questions from all parts of the House as promptly as Members deserve.

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[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State. That closes the matter on the subject of questions and correspondence. I invariably receive personal replies in the form of letters from the Secretary of State, and I have come to look forward to them with eager anticipation.