Voter Registration

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have had a very good debate, with excellent contributions on both sides of the Chamber. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott). Many of us will be jealous of how quickly the counts are undertaken in Sunderland elections. I think that for the last election in Liverpool, I got my declaration at 6 o’clock in the morning. Something can certainly be learned from a system that enables people to be in bed in the early hours of the following morning. More seriously, I pay tribute to the work that Sunderland electoral services do. As she said, that is something from which we can all learn in this country, as well as people in other parts of the world.

May I mention two other contributions before making my own speech? The hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), the former Minister, spoke about the work of the all-party parliamentary group, and it is a very welcome innovation. It is supported by Bite the Ballot, which I will say something about later. Bite the Ballot is a fantastic, non-partisan organisation that basically exists to get more young people registered to vote. I pay tribute to it; it is playing a very important role in the changes.

I also have to mention, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), who has been tireless in raising these issues. He was raising them before others were even talking about them. He is tenacious in challenging Ministers, shadow Ministers and, indeed, the Electoral Commission, and all power to his elbow for the brilliant work that he has done. He expressed the concern that Opposition Members have consistently expressed about the acceleration of the introduction of individual voter registration. I support individual voter registration because it is an archaic concept for the head of a household to determine who is registered to vote. There is undoubtedly cross-party support for changing that, but we have to balance getting to what is the right system that we all support with doing that in a way that does not have the unintended consequences that hon. Members have spoken about.

As has been said, the latest estimate from the Electoral Commission is that there are now 7.5 million people who could be registered but are not. We know that that is not a cross-section of the population as a whole. There are massive disparities between different sections of society. Let us look at 2011, which was the last time we could compare census data with the electoral register. About half of 18 to 24-year-olds were not on the register, compared with just 6% of those aged over 65. If we look at private renters—my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central spoke about private renters from the Sunderland experience—we see that barely half of people living as private tenants were on the electoral register, compared with more than 90% of home owners. Therefore it is a very big challenge, and that was under the old system of household registration. The big concern is that the situation could get worse.

We know that the data-matching pilots have given a figure of 79% for matching. That leaves 21% needing to be found in other ways, including local data matching and data mining.

Certain groups are particularly affected. My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd drew attention to the latest annual report from the Electoral Commission. I share his concern—which he expressed so powerfully—that it says that its target is simply to avoid any further fall in the level of registration. Surely we must have greater ambition than that. We want the 7.5 million figure to go down. The risk, as has been said, is that it will get even worse.

[Chris Ruane]

It could go up.

[Stephen Twigg]

Exactly. We want the 7.5 million figure to fall. We want the numbers of those who are not on the register to fall. We want a register that is more accurate and complete. Seven and a half million is far too many voters unregistered. We want the figure for those who are not on the register to be lower.

The hon. Member for Norwich North rightly reminded us that those who are already on the register will be carried over for 2015, but of course that does not capture people who have turned 18 since the previous register, who would be new to the register, and crucially—this is where I want to focus my remarks—it does not cover those who have moved home since the previous register. They then have the responsibility of registering under individual voter registration. In this immediate period, those are the people whom I am most concerned about.

There are three groups. One is private renters. By the nature of private renting, people are more likely to move about, and I echo the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central in that regard. When the Minister responds to the debate, I ask him to say something about the position of private renters. What can be done, working with local authorities and organisations that represent landlords and that represent private tenants themselves? Generation Rent is a fairly new organisation that is playing that role. What can we do to try to ensure that the numbers of private renters who are registered goes up rather than falling even further?

However, let me focus in particular on the two groups that I think are most affected in the immediate term: students and young people. There is already an enormous gap in terms of young people’s registration, as I have said, but also in the turnout of young people who are registered. There has always been that gap—it is not new—but it has widened over the last 40 years or so.

Students are a particularly important group in this regard. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central spoke about Sunderland as a university city. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who is no longer in his place, spoke about the Sheffield experience. We can learn from the excellent practice that he has promoted in Sheffield and which Sheffield university has adopted. When its students register as students, they are then taken to the voter registration site of the Electoral Commission so that they remain registered to vote. I think that that is the ideal system and that all universities should adopt it, but there are worrying signs already that the levels of student registration are falling dramatically.

I spoke to a Manchester city councillor recently. She told me that the initial indications are that registration at the student halls of residence in Manchester is averaging around 10% under the new system, whereas under the old system, with block registration, it was of course 100%. In the city centre ward in Manchester at the moment, registration is down by 98%. Things can be done between now and next April to ensure that the levels are improved, but that reminds us of the scale of the challenge with regard to university students, and that is something that does apply for 2015; it does not await further changes in terms of the legislative framework. What measures will the Government take to work with universities, the National Union of Students and local authorities, so that we maximise the number of higher education students on the register at their place of study in time for the election next year?

Let me now say something about young people and, in particular, the role of schools and colleges in registering young people. I was very interested to listen to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talking about the experience in Northern Ireland. The model that exists in Northern Ireland—the schools initiative—is one from which we can learn a great deal.

I have done a number of visits with Bite the Ballot to sixth forms both in Scotland and in England and seen the fantastic work that it does in encouraging young people to register to vote. I think that it makes sense to have a duty on schools and colleges to work with local authorities on voter registration. I urge the Government, who I think have been resistant to that idea, to consider it as a serious option. I asked the Minister about it at Deputy Prime Minister’s questions last week and I shall do so again today. Bite the Ballot has suggested that we have an opportunity with the Wales Bill, currently going through Parliament, to make an amendment that would ensure that there was a responsibility on schools to undertake one voter registration session a year and to work with their electoral registration officer to get more young people signed up. It is a modest amendment that is before the House of Lords at the moment. It is, as I understand it, supported by all the party leaders in Wales, including the leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the Welsh Assembly. The head teachers’ trade union—the Association of School and College Leaders—is very supportive of the idea, and we support it. I urge the Government to give serious consideration to adopting it. Clearly, under the Wales Bill, it would apply only to Wales, but we would like it to be adopted in England and Scotland as well—one step at a time. We would be drawing on and learning from the positive experience of that practice in Northern Ireland.

We have concerns about the speed with which the Government are implementing individual voter registration. The principle is sound; it is the speed of implementation that concerns us. In relation to certain groups, there is real concern about a large number of people falling off the register. I ask the Minister to consider, either in his remarks today or perhaps beyond today, whether we need to amend the legislation to allow certain groups to be block registered. I am particularly concerned about two groups in that regard. One, which I have already spoken about, is university students. There is a case for saying that the legislation should be changed to allow students who live in halls of residence to be automatically registered, in view of those unique circumstances. The other group that I am concerned about is those who live in residential homes—often older people or people with learning difficulties or other disabilities—who may fall off the register. Is there a case for looking at the retention of block registration for those two groups?

The immediate priority is to address some of the points that have been raised in the debate. I support my colleagues who have spoken of the importance of the door-to-door canvass in getting the highest level of registration possible. There is a real concern that, even with some of the additional resources that I acknowledge the Government have provided for the introduction of IER, that basic building block is being eroded in many local authorities, and it must not be. If IER is not to result in the negative consequences that some of us fear, door-to-door canvassing—including, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central said in her opening speech, a mini-canvass in January and February—is essential. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on that.

I reiterate the importance of looking at the Northern Ireland experience with schools and colleges. I urge the Minister to think again about extending to England, Wales and Scotland the duty on schools and colleges that exists in Northern Ireland. Above all, in the next period, the group that is most likely to find itself not on the register at election time next year is students in higher education. That is a real risk. Will the Minister give a commitment that he will work closely with the universities, the National Union of Students and local authorities to maximise student registration?

I finish by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central once again for securing such an important debate. A register that is as accurate and complete as possible is a crucial building block for our democracy. I am sure that the Minister will agree that to have 7.5 million people not on the register is unacceptable. If an unintended consequence of IER is that the situation gets even worse, surely all of us, whichever side of the House we are on, should be very concerned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

EROs, of course, must follow the law. I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s point during the course of my speech. The need to ensure that students, who can be quite mobile, get on the register has been mentioned several times during the debate. I assure hon. Members that through the creation by the Cabinet Office of a student forum in early 2013, the Government have been working with key partners in the higher education sector, including Universities UK, the Academic Registrars Council and the National Union of Students, to agree on practical steps that EROs and universities can take to encourage students to register. Steps that have been agreed by all representatives of the student forum include the provision of data from universities to EROs to help them to contact students individually; promoting the use of online registration, particularly during university course enrolment; and publishing guidance for ARC to help registrars to implement those steps before the start of the 2014-15 academic year.

My predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), wrote to university vice-chancellors asking them to support local authorities in their efforts to maximise the number of student registrations. A lot is being done to get students on the register. We recognise the importance of data sharing in the context of students, which was mentioned during the debate. Individual electoral registration officers must make it easier for students to register. More than 410,000 applications from 16 to 24-year-olds have already been submitted via the online registration process.

[Stephen Twigg]

I welcome the work of the student forum. Can the Minister assure us that he will take a close personal interest in the matter and look at the figures as they come in? If by January or February it is clear that there has been a substantial fall in the level of registration among students, will the student forum work with him to look at what can be done via online registration to get those figures up?

[Mr Gyimah]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that not only students but all under-registered groups are a priority for the Government. We want to maximise the register so that people can exercise their right to vote.

The Electoral Commission’s research found that 90% of people feel that it would be easy to provide their national insurance number when registering to vote—that is based on real evidence—and only 1% of applicants so far have been unable to provide their national insurance number or their date of birth. In February 2014, the local authority in Sunderland received £12,627 for maximising registration. That allocation was based on under-registration, especially due to the authority having a high student population. Of course, there are people without national insurance numbers, but that is a very small cohort. In such exceptional situations, people can provide other information, such as their passport.

A lot has been made of local data matching in this debate, and in other debates on individual electoral registration. All local authorities and valuation joint boards in Great Britain took part in the confirmation dry run in 2013, which involved matching their electoral registers against Government records. We believe that EROs are best placed to understand the relevance of locally held data and are likely to improve confirmation matches. That varies between local authorities, so we believe that EROs are best placed to make that judgment.

Achievement Gap in Reading

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) on securing this debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I pay tribute to the work that the right hon. Lady has done on this matter throughout her time in this House, including the questions that she has raised as parliamentary champion for Save the Children. The Save the Children report “Too Young to Fail”, which she referred to at the beginning of her speech, is very powerful and reminds us of the scale of the challenge that we still face. The report says that by the time children are seven, nearly 80% of the later differences in GCSE results between better-off and poorer children have already been determined.

Two years ago, in 2012, one in seven of seven-year-olds—approximately 76,000 pupils across the country—was still not reaching the expected level in reading. As the right hon. Lady explained so powerfully, children from the poorest backgrounds are much more likely than their better-off peers to fall behind with their reading. As she said, this is not just an immediate challenge for education, but something that stores up problems later on. I am talking about the risks of crime, economic failure and behaviour issues later on in education.

Studies show that almost one in 10 of the 14-year-olds who had been very poor readers at the end of primary school became persistent truants compared with an average figure of around 2%. We know from Ofsted and others that the group that now faces the biggest challenges in literacy are white British children, particularly boys but also girls, and that is part of the challenge that we need to face.

I welcome what the right hon. Lady said about poverty and about the difference that good and outstanding schools make. I am proud of the schools in my constituency that buck the trend and deliver the best results in English and mathematics at age 11. That shows that with the right ethos and approach and high standards of teaching and learning in our schools, we can make a difference.

When Joe Anderson took over the leadership of Liverpool city council after the 2010 local elections, he invited my right hon. Friend Baroness Estelle Morris, the former Secretary of State, to lead a cross-party commission on the future of education in Liverpool.

Between 2000 and 2010, Liverpool’s results at both 11 and 16 improved dramatically. Estelle’s report has been entitled “From Better to Best”, making the point that although progress has been made, there is still a lot more that we need to do in Liverpool. One of her recommendations was that Liverpool should become the foremost reading city in the country and that schools and their partners should give priority to reading so that no child, if capable, would leave primary school unable to read. Out of Baroness Morris’s report, we have the “City of Readers” campaign, run jointly by the mayor, Liverpool city council, the Liverpool learning partnership, which brings together schools and other educationists across the city, and the Reader Organisation. The campaign seeks to fulfil the goal of making Liverpool the foremost reading city in the country.

The aim is partly to promote reading for pleasure for residents of all ages across the city but also to focus on the achievement gap that is at the heart of the debate today. There are many initiatives, none of which involves charges for parents or children, and the idea is to have wide access for the community as a whole. For example, this summer Liverpool had the “Book It!” summer school, devised for children who need support with reading to help them make the transition from primary to secondary school. That was a free summer school for local children, supported by the local authority and the Liverpool learning partnership.

There has been a big emphasis on using existing cultural events in the city to promote reading. The “Giant Spectacular” in Newsham park in my constituency earlier in the summer gave such an opportunity, with a focus on readings from Roald Dahl as well as of love letters from the first world war. The recent Liverpool international music festival held beach reads, encouraging families to enjoy reading together. Readers in residence schemes have been put in place whereby a reader from the fantastic Reader Organisation spends two months in schools reading with selected pupils who need extra support and devising groups to promote reading for pleasure. Many schools have been involved, including a number from my constituency, such as Holly Lodge, Mab Lane, Dovecot primary and Our Lady and St Philomena’s primary. There has been a focus on continuing professional development, in particular promoting reading for pleasure, and Liverpool has risen to the challenge of targeting those adults whose life opportunities are held back by illiteracy.

At the heart of that is social justice, and as the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole said, this is not a new problem. If we can crack it and get it right, we will make a real difference to the life chances of many children and, in particular, children in some of the communities that I represent who often face great challenges from poverty and deprivation. Reading for social justice, reading for pleasure and reading as a crucial part of our economic future as a country—I hope Liverpool will have something to teach the rest of the country by being the city of reading.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I will not be tempted or seduced. I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend that it is vital for us to continue to give schools the flexibility that will enable them to spend the money in the best evidence-based way. As my right hon. Friend will know, the Ofsted reports that were published last week show that schools are beginning to use it very effectively to narrow the gap.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the ways in which the last Government sought to address this issue was the London Challenge, which, as the Minister will know, had a very positive impact on the achievement gap in London. What lessons does he think can be drawn from it for the rest of the country?

[Mr Laws]

There are certainly a great many lessons to be learnt from the London Challenge. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of reports which have been published over the last few months and which seek to draw those lessons. One lesson that I would draw is that it is important for us to provide the opportunities that the London Challenge helped to create for every part of the country, and not just for areas that have been selected by Ministers.

Technical and Vocational Education

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I warmly welcome the motion proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), in particular the acknowledgment in it that

“a transformation in vocational education has eluded governments for decades”,

meaning Governments of both the main parties. My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) spoke powerfully and mentioned Germany. I have used this quote in a previous debate but it is worth repeating. Tim Oates, who is one of the foremost experts in the country on the subject said that, in the 1940s, we devised an excellent system of technical education and exported it to Germany, where it has thrived ever since.

Youth unemployment is one of the biggest challenges we have faced in this country for many years. In Germany, youth unemployment is below 8%. In this country, it has fallen in recent months, which is welcome, but it is still above 18%. Overcoming that is crucial to achieving the politics of hope, about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) spoke so powerfully. This is not a new problem, but a long-term and intractable one. In 1984, the youth unemployment rate was 20%. It fell modestly in the first 10 years of the previous Labour Government and in 2007 was 14%, but that is still far too high.

We know that half of young people in Germany undertake apprenticeships, whereas the number undertaking technical and vocational courses and apprenticeships in this country is far lower at about 32%. We need a change on the supply side, as the motion sets out, with more and better vocational qualifications that are fit for purpose, but we also need a change on the demand side, with a cultural change in our attitudes to vocational education in this country.

The Edge Foundation does brilliant work in this area. Earlier this year, it did a survey of 2,000 18 to 35-year-olds, some of whom had followed an academic route and some a vocational route. About two thirds of those on the academic route felt that they had been supported by their school, whereas only one third of those on the vocational route gave that response. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) talked about parents. About half of those following the vocational route felt that their parents had encouraged them, whereas three quarters of those who followed the academic route felt the same.

We therefore need to achieve a cultural change involving independent advice and guidance in schools. The shadow Secretary of State spoke about that, and we must get it right. Some schools do get it right, and we should praise them. In the Budget debate, I spoke about Cardinal Heenan school in my constituency, which has done some fantastic work. I visited another Liverpool school last week, Calderstones school, which does a lot of work to ensure that from when students arrive at the age of 11, they are thinking about their options for the future, so that when they are 16 they make the best choice for them, including those who follow a technical and vocational path.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that not only careers guidance but work experience is vital as a way of trying out different types of work and different professions?

[Stephen Twigg]

That is absolutely vital, and I welcome the fact that it is integral to what is set out in the motion.

It is crucial that advice is personalised to the individual student. I want to warn against us getting into a position where we have to choose between the forgotten 50% and widening participation in higher education; we need to do both. I am proud of the fact that the previous Labour Government expanded higher education, but we did not do enough on vocational education.

I am working with schools in Liverpool to encourage more of the most academic young people to consider applying to top universities, including Oxford and Cambridge. I want to put on the record a tribute to Calderstones school, which I have already mentioned, because that comprehensive school in the heart of Liverpool gets a lot of its young people to go to Oxford or Cambridge. I want to mention Elle Shea, the head girl of St John Bosco school in my constituency, who has an offer of a place at Cambridge university. There are still not enough young people from low-income families getting into our top universities, but we should not have to choose between saying that and saying that we are passionate about the forgotten 50% and want to improve technical and vocational education; we need to do both.

The motion draws on the excellent work done for the Labour party during the past two years by Chris Husbands, from the Institute of Education in London, on how we can best strengthen the status of vocational and technical education. I particularly welcome the proposal for a national baccalaureate that seeks to put alongside fit-for-purpose qualifications, whether academic or vocational, concepts such as extended projects, personal development and an emphasis on character, resilience and employability. Those things matter, and it is very welcome to have such an emphasis in the motion.

I want to echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) said about the new forms that higher education will take. I particularly welcome the proposal made by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday for new technical degrees.

Let me finish by making a point about how we can take this matter forward. In my opinion, the Husbands review for the Labour party worked because it engaged with all those who have an interest in the area. They have all been mentioned in this debate—the further and higher education sectors, businesses and other employers, and young people themselves and parents—and it is important for their voices to be heard. Getting the national framework right is absolutely critical to the success of this work, but as several hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, in the end it cannot simply be imposed from on high; it is in our communities that it will make a real difference.

In Liverpool, I certainly pay tribute to the extraordinary work, yes, in our schools and further education colleges, but also what is done in partnership between businesses or other employers and the mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, and Liverpool city council in particular in delivering more high-quality apprenticeships. We can say things in the House and the Government can set a framework, as they should, but if we are to transform life chances, in the end the differences must be made on the ground in our communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who is very knowledgeable about educational matters, and to speak in this important debate. I enjoyed the rhythm of the shadow Education Secretary’s speech, liberally laced as it was with quotations from Sir Winston Churchill, but the speed with which he rattled through his speech did on occasion remind me of Churchill’s observation about Ramsay MacDonald: he had the great ability of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought. Notwithstanding that, however, there is some startling honesty in Labour’s motion because it says that it believes that

“transformation in vocational education has eluded governments for decades”,

so clearly Labour takes its share of the blame for any failure to deliver the sort of vocational education and qualifications that we want to see in our country.

For far too long, far too much stress and pressure have been put on the traditional route through A-levels and into university. Parents have for too long been left with the impression that, unless their children go to university, they have failed. Schools and teachers have been left with the impression that, if they do not get their students into university, they have failed, and the students themselves have been left with the impression that, unless they pass their A-levels and go to university and find a room in a hall of residence, they, too, have failed. That is a corrosive narrative that has undermined the importance of the vocational qualifications that R. A. Butler envisaged in 1944. As the shadow Education Secretary said, on 3 August we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of Royal Assent to the 1944 Education Act.

It is important, therefore, that we focus anew on vocational qualifications, and I am pleased and proud that the Government are focusing on expanding the number of apprenticeships—the figure is 1.8 million since 2010—that they have introduced the higher apprenticeships fund, which will create 10,000 places for state-of-the-art degree level apprenticeships, and are introducing the technical baccalaureate at the end of this year. I am pleased that Labour appears to be supporting that proposal, but I hope it has a less bumpy ride than the English baccalaureate had. I see the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) is in his place. In 2011 he said that the EBacc was a measure to be praised because it might reverse the decline in children studying languages, but by 2012 he was saying that education could not be improved by the EBacc reverting to a system that was considered out of date 30 years ago. I rather hope Labour will not flip-flop on the tech bacc as it appeared to flip-flop on the EBacc.

[Stephen Twigg]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman as we do not have much time, but what I will do is say that if I am wrong he should write to The Guardian, and make sure he has lots of spelling errors in the letter, which will ensure it is published.

I am very pleased by what the Government are doing with the tech bacc, because in my town we suffered terribly in the recession. A large number of young people found it difficult to find work and did not get the qualifications necessary to find work, so it is going to be important. When Labour left office in 2010, the main source of vocational qualifications in Tamworth was South Staffordshire college, which the shadow Education Secretary visited earlier this year. Now we have a sixth-form and Tamworth enterprise college, which together provide BTEC courses on everything from construction to IT. South Staffordshire college offers 33 courses and 24 apprenticeships, ranging from veterinary husbandry to bricklaying. That college has a 97% pass rate and a 91% satisfaction rate among students, so it is doing really very well. It is no wonder therefore that Jaguar Land Rover and JCB are recruiting in Tamworth and BMW has come to set up in Tamworth, bringing over 100 skilled and professional jobs. So I welcome what the Government are achieving.

My hon. Friends on the Front Bench should be pleased. They should be pleased that Labour appears to be supporting much of what they are trying to achieve. Labour appears to want to get aboard this vessel because it thinks it is rather a good one. Unfortunately for Labour, however, I fear that vessel has sailed, carrying my constituents to a better and brighter future, and all the shadow Education Secretary can do is wave from the quayside.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the strong lead that he has taken in arguing the case for fairer funding, which is long overdue. As he has acknowledged, schools in his area will gain to the tune of some £5 million from the proposals that we made a couple of months ago. I repeat the commitment that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have made on previous occasions: we are committed not just to this first big step towards fairer funding, but to a national fair funding formula, which should have been introduced many years ago but which the last Labour Government did nothing to address.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

Head teachers in my constituency are concerned about their budgets for this year, and they tell me that the big effect will come with the Government’s changes to sixth-form funding. Will he look again at those changes?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the Government have protected schools funding in the existing Parliament, and we have introduced a pupil premium to make sure that youngsters in more disadvantaged areas are also assisted. I agree with him that in the future we must make sure that education funding is as protected as possible across the system, and he will be aware of the announcement that the Deputy Prime Minister made on behalf of my party today. It is now up to other parties to make similar commitments.

Teaching Quality

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

Although when I was shadow Secretary of State I enjoyed working on a cross-party basis with the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), I have to say that his speech was unnecessarily partisan and did not add to the merits of this important debate.

This debate is about how we can both raise the quality of education and narrow the achievement gap. We have all welcomed the improvement in results, and, in particular, the fall in the number of schools that are below the floor target. That is of huge benefit to our society and our education system. However, the Demos report, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), is of great concern. It shows that if we take inner London out of the picture, we see a worsening position—a widening of the achievement gap between those from the richest backgrounds and those from the poorest—and that must be of concern to Members in all parts of the House.

How can we change the position? I think that the big challenge for all of us who have been engaged in education policy in the House, in government or in opposition, is to step back as politicians and policy makers, and to empower teachers and school leaders to lead that change. I welcome the motion, because it is about the profession leading change, and in my short speech I want to refer to some of the teaching pioneers who are already doing that.

The brilliant organisation Teaching Leaders is seeking to create the middle leaders of the future who can ensure that our schools improve, particularly those that serve the most deprived communities. ResearchED 2013 was set up as a grass-roots project by people who loved education and loved teaching, but felt detached from the education debate. They came together to create a national conference for teachers, researchers and others who were interested in how we inform the way in which we teach our children, in drawing out the best of policy theory and practice, and in finding out what works in the classroom. Then there is the long-standing and brilliant work of subject associations. When I was an Education Minister, I once went to the Geography Association’s Easter conference. Teachers were attending it voluntarily, during their Easter break, and were exchanging in a passionate way their interest in, and information about, their subject. That, I think, must be the way forward, but how can we best get to where we want to be?

There is a great deal of discussion about what happened under the last Government, but I think that we did some fantastic things to empower teachers. The Secretary of State mentioned Teach First. I am proud to have given Teach First the go-ahead when I was a Minister, 11 years ago. Its aim is to attract the best and the brightest graduates to teaching, and then to empower those teachers to use the latest research and evidence to inform their classroom practice. The sponsoring of academies was intended to ensure that the best teachers went into the schools that served the neighbourhoods with the greatest social and economic need. The London Challenge has succeeded in changing a position in which London schools were below the national average, to one in which London has the best-performing secondary schools in the country.

However, we also got some things wrong. Sometimes we were too centralist. We directed too much from Whitehall: there was too much of a “The Department knows best” approach. My former boss, Baroness Morris—Estelle Morris—said this week that the danger of such a centralised approach was that while the policy might be

“designed to empower teachers and raise the status of the profession, it was seen as being owned by the government and not by the profession itself.”

That is why I think that the movement initiated by the profession in favour of a royal college of teaching is vital, and deserves the cross-party commitment that it has attracted so far. I believe that it could represent a significant step forward for the teaching profession.

[Mr Stuart]

Will the hon. Gentleman expand on his thoughts about the college of teaching?

[Stephen Twigg]

I am grateful for the extra minute. That is what I was about to do.

It is absolutely right that the movement is independent of Government and independent of politics. I ask the Minister: if, and only if, the royal college comes to the Government to ask for financial help on start-up costs, will the Government consider providing that start-up support? We want something that is independent, but if it needs that help when it is getting set up, can they give it that support?

I want to make a point that I have made before and that is incredibly important. The countries that have been most successful in education have often forged a cross-party consensus and a wider consensus in society about education and its role. Look, for example, at Germany, and at the technical and vocational education system in Switzerland. Switzerland has a national centre for the use of evidence in education. A number of people, particularly John Dunford but also Baroness Morris, have put forward that idea, whose time has come. I called for it two years ago, when I used the title “Office for Educational Improvement” and the Secretary of State’s response was, “We already have such an office—it is called the Government.” I took that in good humour but I do not think that that is a good enough answer.

Part of the problem with education in this country, under successive Governments of different parties, is that the line between education and politics has been drawn in the wrong place. Politicians rightly decide how much money should be available, how it should be divided and the legal structure for education, but I do not think that politicians should get involved in the pedagogy and the curriculum. The professionals should lead on that and I believe that a centre for evidence could play a crucial role in delivering that. I welcome the opportunity today for a serious debate about how we enhance teacher professionalism, and promote greater continuing professional development and the opportunity for teachers themselves to lead that, but let us also say that evidence can play a much bigger role in education policy.

The morale of the teaching profession matters. It is undoubtedly the case—the Secretary of State needs to acknowledge this—that morale at the moment in school classrooms is low. Despite having this fantastic generation of teachers and results getting better, morale is low. He has to accept the point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) that sometimes the Secretary of State’s rhetoric, in this place and outside, has contributed to that decline in morale. I hope that that is something that he can reconsider.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Parents are naturally nervous whenever there is a change of management or leadership in any school and so they should be—they care about their children. The evidence points to the fact that when primary and secondary schools have been converted to academies, they have made significant improvements. One of the most controversial academy conversions happened in Haringey when Downhills school was taken over by the Harris chain. That met furious opposition from the unions and some Labour MPs, but children in that school are now flourishing at last, as are children in so many other academy schools.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does not the evidence show that the most important factor is the quality of teaching in our schools? Thousands of schools around the country have chosen not to go down the academy route. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating Ranworth Square primary school in my constituency, where the majority of children are on free school meals but where last summer 93% achieved at least a level 4 in English, maths and writing?

[Michael Gove]

That is a significant achievement and I am delighted to be able to congratulate the head and the team of teachers at that school. Many schools that I hugely admire have chosen not to go down the academy route. Thomas Jones primary in west London is one of the most outstanding schools in the country—100% of its children reach the level to which the hon. Gentleman refers—and is not an academy. For schools that are foundering or facing difficulties, however, academy solutions have, in an overwhelming number of circumstances, brought the improvement in results that we would all love to see.

PISA Results

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Not for the first time, and I am sure not for the last time, my hon. Friend hits several nails squarely on the head.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

Twenty years ago, the greatest underachievement in schools in this country was in London and other big cities, which is why the Labour Government introduced programmes such as the London Challenge and Teach First, which the Secretary of State has praised. Andreas Schleicher has talked about autonomy, but he has also talked about collaboration. What have the Government done to implement Ofsted’s report from June, “Unseen children”, which called for new sub-regional challenges modelled on Labour’s London Challenge?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes a number of good points. It is the case that the London Challenge was a success. Other systems of sub-regional collaboration introduced under the previous Government were less conspicuously successful. If we look at the ingredients of the London Challenge, we find that they were primarily growth in the number of academies, greater autonomy for head teachers and a rigorous approach—[Interruption] —and a greater and more rigorous approach to underperformance in schools that needed new leadership. Through the academies programme, we have ensured that schools across the country that have underperformed are under new leadership. It has been called the “forced academies programme”, and there has been no support for it from those on the Labour Front Bench. I hope that now they will show their support for this rigorous attempt to tackle underperformance, but I fear that they will remain silent, and will continue to have their strings pulled by their union paymasters.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

There certainly are pressures from immigration, and there are other pressures on the birth rate too. These pressures have been known about since 2003, and in spite of that the Labour Government took 200,000 places in primary schools out of circulation, notwithstanding the warnings from those now on the Government Benches.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have heard an incredibly complacent answer from the Minister. In 2010 the Secretary of State promised a new generation of good small schools with smaller class sizes. Since then we have seen a trebling of the number of very large primary schools, and in the past year a doubling in the number of infant classes of more than 30 children. Does the Minister not regret the decision in 2010 to cancel Labour’s primary school building programme?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman needs to acknowledge, in fairness, that this Government are allocating more than twice the amount his Government allocated for basic need. He needs to acknowledge that his Government made a mistake in withdrawing 200,000 places from primary education in the period from 2003. If he really is concerned about our capital expenditure on schools, perhaps he can tell me whether the Labour party is planning to increase it.

[Stephen Twigg]

It is time that this Government took some responsibility for their own decisions. They have been in power for three and a half years and we have a crisis in primary school places. Last week the Secretary of State told us that free schools would solve this. Next year only one in three of the free schools that will open will be primary schools. How does that solve the problem? Will he change course even at this stage and give top priority in capital spending for new school places in areas that need extra school places?

Pupil Premium

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister of State for advance notice of his statement.

When Labour came to power in 1997 we inherited a sorry state in the education system. From day one we gave priority to primary education. In 1997 only 59% of 11-year-olds reached the expected level of attainment in maths and 65% in English. By 2010 these figures had risen to 79% and 80% respectively. That was huge progress, but I agree that we need to build on this success. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the hard work of heads, teachers and support staff in primary schools across the country.

It is right that we have high expectation for all children in all schools, raising aspiration and unleashing potential. We will engage constructively with this consultation. We know from outstanding primary schools such as Cuckoo Hall primary in Enfield and Westfield community primary school in Wigan that all children can realise their true ability when they receive an excellent education. On leaving primary school, children need to be prepared with the knowledge, the skills and the resilience to take on the secondary curriculum. Despite massive progress, there are still too many children who are ill-equipped when they begin their secondary education.

Ensuring that all children reach at least the expected levels in maths and English is crucial. High standards of numeracy and literacy are vital; so, too, is a broad and rich curriculum that promotes creativity, enrichment, citizenship and resilience. I worry that the Government’s approach to the curriculum is too narrow and risks selling children short. What assurances can the Minister give that the Government’s changes to the accountability system will promote breadth and depth of learning, as well as literacy and numeracy? He has set out a new floor target of 85%, but that target is for an assessment that the Government have yet to define. Surely that is putting the cart before the horse. Would it not make for better policy to define the learning outcomes first? My worry is that this is another classic case of policy making on the hoof.

Similarly, the plan for ranking 11-year-olds has all the hallmarks of such an approach. To rank 11-year-olds runs the risk of removing year-on-year consistency, because children will be benchmarked against their peers in their current year, rather than against a common standard. Does the Minister agree that this risks damaging standards by not ensuring consistency over time?

The Government have sent out confused signals about attainment and progress. On the one hand they are scrapping level descriptors, which heads and teachers tell me are crucial for monitoring progress between assessments, yet on the other hand, the Minister is rightly emphasising progress measures today. That is very confusing. I ask the Government to think again about the abolition of level descriptors.

On the baseline measure for five-year-olds, there is sense in developing policy about how best to establish prior attainment to provide both teachers and parents with a clear indicator at the start of primary school. The devil will be in the detail, so it is vital that there is full consultation on that.

Finally, on the pupil premium, additional funding to support the progress of disadvantaged children is welcome. I have seen many schools that have made excellent use of the pupil premium. In his statement, though, the Minister said, “Early intervention is crucial”, and I agree with him. However, how does that sit with the fact that the biggest cuts in spending in his Department have been in early intervention funding? Can the Minister assure the House that additional funding really does mean additional funding?

I worry that the Minister may—to coin a phrase—be robbing Paul to pay Paul. The Chancellor announced in the spending review that the Government are moving to a national funding formula. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that this move could hit schools with large deprived intakes. Can he reassure the House that this really is new money and not simply giving money to schools with a lot of disadvantaged kids today, which is welcome, but taking it away in a couple of years when the national funding formula comes in?

[Mr Laws]

It certainly is new money—I will comment on that in greater detail in a moment.

I welcome the sensible and constructive approach that the hon. Gentleman has taken. I particularly welcome the fact that he has said that he is prepared to engage with us in dealing with some serious and important issues, such as the baseline for measuring progress. It encourages me that we can have a sensible consultation process that genuinely listens and designs a system that will be better and will last for the long term.

Let me respond briefly to five points that the hon. Gentleman made in his response. First, on the Government’s inheritance, I accept that progress was made under the previous Government, particularly in some parts of the country such as London. However, our inheritance of aspirations at the end of primary level was, frankly, hopelessly low. Even today, we allow schools potentially to pass their floor targets when one third of their pupils or more fail to achieve a basic level of English and maths. Worse still, our very measure of achievement—the 4C measure—leads to more than half the youngsters who achieve just that level failing to get five good GCSEs. In other words, we have been sending out a message about what success looks like at the end of primary school which is totally wrong. Indeed, some of the best schools in the country—including St Joseph’s primary school in Camden, which the Deputy Prime Minister and I visited this morning—have already moved well beyond 4C and in many cases are aiming at much higher levels, such as 4A, 5C and so forth. The Government need to catch up with those schools, which are leading the debate in education.

The second point was about the broadness and richness of the experience in schools. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that, although the concentration on English and maths is important, we do not want that to lead to a dramatic narrowing of the curriculum. The other subjects that people take, both academic and vocational—arts, music and sport—are incredibly important. However, no one can succeed in secondary education if they cannot read and add up. No one can enjoy the opportunities in all the other subjects if they are not equipped with those basic skills. I would also refer the hon. Gentleman to the changes we have already announced in the secondary measures of accountability. We will be incentivising schools to take not just five but eight GCSEs, and we will allow that to include vocational as well as academic subjects.

The third point that the hon. Gentleman made was about whether 85% was the right level and whether we were right to set such an ambitious target now, in advance of the precise measures being introduced in 2016. I think we are right to set out those principles now. The schools that he and I are familiar with, from inner London and elsewhere, are already setting levels of aspiration of 85%, 90% or 95%, at an even higher level than 4B, which I talked about in a speech a couple of months ago, so I think that we are right to raise expectations now. For too long we have had expectations set by very low levels, which are more about the levels set for school intervention than about reasonable aspirations for all schools.

On the ranking of 11-year-olds, let me make it absolutely clear that we are not talking about publishing information about individual students at a national level. That would of course be totally wrong. What we are talking about is something that I think virtually every parent in the country will welcome, which is more information—and more meaningful information—about how their children are doing. At the moment, apart from a few people in the Department for Education and around the House, level descriptors frankly mean nothing to the average parent. Having a mark, a measure of progress and a clear sense of where their pupil is versus the rest of the cohort is only sensible. Parents could do that at the moment through the levels process, if they could actually understand that process, which is so complicated. What we are doing will help parents, but we will listen to the messages that come back in the consultation.

Finally, let me turn to the hon. Gentleman’s point about money and early intervention. What we are announcing is about doing a lot more through early intervention. The additional money for the pupil premium that the Government have delivered, even in these times of austerity, is something of which the coalition can feel incredibly proud. The levels we are setting today will mean that the additional money going to pupils from the pupil premium from their time in primary school will be £8,000 or £9,000 per pupil. That is a massive amount to help schools across the country, particularly in disadvantaged areas, to bring children up to a reasonable standard.

As for early years, the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), who leads on early years and child care, and the Deputy Prime Minister have announced a two-year offer, which extends early-years support to the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, going way beyond anything the previous Government were able to deliver. This Government have a huge amount to be proud of, in offering schools this money to support such ambitious aspirations.