Co-operatives in Education

Steve Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I call the sparkling Steve Baker.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Thank you for your kind words, Mr Hollobone. It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship in this important debate. I thank the Minister for being here. I know that liberating his time has caused his Department some inconvenience, and I am extremely grateful to him for being here willingly when his Department is so busy.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is his duty.

[Steve Baker]

As the hon. Gentleman says, it is the Minister’s duty, but he has been most generous in the way he has approached the debate.

My reason for calling this debate is to support the Cressex school in my constituency, the young people it serves and the wider community from which they are drawn. It is undoubtedly the most disadvantaged community in my constituency. I want to cover the circumstances and successes of Cressex school, and the wider experience of co-operatives in education, and to ask the Government for action. I hope the Minister will forgive me if I say that although they have said some interesting and good things, they need to follow them through.

In a message of support, Dame Pauline Green, president of the International Co-operative Alliance, has set the definitive context for this debate. She said:

“Co-operatives have been involved in education from the very beginning, and there is an inextricable link between education and co-operative development. That is why we continued to place great emphasis on education when the co-operative principles were last revised in 1995, and why new guidance notes strongly reaffirm the importance of co-operative education.”

When I visited the Rochdale Pioneers museum, I was pleased to discover two things that explained a lot to me: autonomy, which I will return to, and the fact that one of the principles of co-operation has always been to educate, train and inform.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

As something of an historian, I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the co-operative movement started long before the Rochdale co-operatives in Yorkshire and in Huddersfield in my constituency.

[Steve Baker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the information and the way he provided it. When watching some of the films about the pioneers, I noted that although they were not the first, they were perhaps the earliest successful ones.

[Mr Sheerman]

They had good PR.

[Steve Baker]

They had very good PR. A couple of things struck me. First, they did not trade on credit, so people did not get into debt to consume, which is an interesting lesson for present times. Secondly, they made a surplus. They did not like to call it a profit, but they realised that they had to make a surplus over time, and doing so enabled them to succeed. A lot of interesting language was involved in that conversation, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his information.

In April 2010, Cressex community school became part of the Cressex Co-operative Learning Trust. I remember my first visit to the school after the election because I encountered a defiant spirit of autonomy and independence. There was a whisper of forced academisation because of its results, but there was fierce determination to remain a co-operative because of the way that the co-operative structure allows all parties to be engaged across the community.

The proper context of the results includes the selective system. As a Conservative in Buckinghamshire, I am expected to support selective education, but a whole tier of students at Cressex has been taken off to another school, which naturally depresses the overall results. There is no denying that Buckinghamshire county council is one of the most affluent in the south-east, but a high proportion of Cressex students and their families experience levels of disadvantage equal to those in northern cities. Nearly half of Cressex students live on estates that are among the most economically disadvantaged in England, with areas of entrenched poverty and low skills. The proportion of families with experience of higher education is below the national average and the proportion of children living in overcrowded households exceeds the national average. More than half of students have been eligible for free school meals in the past six years and are entitled to the pupil premium.

Although Wycombe has an ethnic minority population of around one fifth, 80% of the school’s pupils are from minorities and the school now receives increasing numbers of students from eastern Europe. Crucially, about three quarters of the students do not speak English as their first language. That is the context for Cressex school, and that is the challenge to which it must rise.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Deprivation is found not only in urban areas. There is considerable deprivation in remote rural communities such as Cornwall. In areas such as the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, we have often found co-operative trusts to be a good way of providing education to deprived remote communities where there are lots of small primary schools that face challenges in delivering high-quality education. Does my hon. Friend agree that the model can work for a broad range of communities throughout the UK?

[Steve Baker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come to the success of the model elsewhere, but I am aware that it has been a rip-roaring success in Cornwall. I originally come from Cornwall, which reminds me that we tend to focus on our own constituencies. There is rural poverty in Wycombe, but the rural part of my constituency is generally the better-off part. We still live in times of considerable inequality throughout the country and in our constituencies, and that focuses the mind.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Reddish Vale technology college in my constituency was the first co-operative trust school to be established under the Education and Inspections Act 2006. The Reddish part of my constituency is a deprived community and it has used the excellence at that school to engage with the wider community and to spread those co-operative values not just within the school community, but to the wider Reddish community. Is that not an example of co-operation in action?

[Steve Baker]

Absolutely. I think we are in danger of fierce agreement in the Chamber.

Cressex school is keen to support business and enterprise, and that demonstrates its wider commitment. In particular, it hosts the Wycombe business expo. The principles of co-operation and engagement allow a school to reach out more broadly.

I turn to the challenge to which Cressex must rise. Last year, 36.4% of pupils across England who were known to be entitled to free school meals gained five or more GCSEs at grade A* to C, including English and maths, but Cressex did better. At the time, 39.1% of students were receiving free school meals. Over the last six years, the number achieving those GCSEs has risen to 48%. Of course, the school aims higher than 48%, but it represents a dramatic improvement in results and they are the best in the history of the school.

The head teacher, David Hood, recently provided details. Of the students who left year 11 in 2013, 46.5% gained five or more GCSE passes including English and maths, a rise from 27% in the previous year, and 64.8% gained five or more GCSEs in any subject. The overall results represent a considerable increase over the previous year.

[Mr Sheerman]

To someone who has chaired a Select Committee for many years, that sounds really good, but when such figures are read out I sometimes insist that we ask how many pupils left with no qualifications or barely one GCSE, as 25% of kids at our schools do. It is important to get the balance right when looking at the figures.

[Steve Baker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is of course right that we sometimes forget to look at such points. It is crucial that no one should be left behind and the ethos of the school, as he will appreciate, is that the co-operators involved are determined to lift everyone up. I appreciate his point and I apologise that I do not have that information to hand.

Mr Hood made the point that performance in all core subjects rose markedly. In particular, Cressex has risen well above the national average in maths for the first time. He said that that is an exceptional achievement and he is right. Cressex is improving itself, which goes back to the point about defiant spirit. Cressex does not wish to have a model imposed on it; it is improving itself.

I have been on a journey, discovering something of the traditions of the left and the co-operative movement, and to me, that was the essential thing to understand. It is about self-help—a difficult term for a Conservative to use—mutuality, self-responsibility, direct democratic control, equality and solidarity. Such terms are perhaps vexed for Conservatives, but separated from state power, they actually just represent values and ideals that any fully formed human being should support. That, to me, explains the defiant spirit of autonomy that I found. Those values are being used by the Cressex school to engage with the community around it, and they are values transforming the lives and prospects of individuals whom we cannot allow to fall into neglect. Those people must be supported with a degree of delicacy if they are to flourish, which, in the end, is what we want for all the people in our constituencies, irrespective of their voting habits.

I turn to what it means to be a co-operative, and how Cressex has applied some of those principles. In the co-operative statement on identity, we find a definition that I think anyone could support and welcome:

“A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.”

That crucial element of voluntarism surprised me. I hope that Members on the left will forgive me if I say that I have always misunderstood socialism to mean compulsion, and I was amazed to discover that on the left, there is this great tradition of voluntarism. When I look down through the values—

“ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others”—

who could possibly disagree with them?

I turn to the principles: “Voluntary and Open Membership”—of course, a school should certainly comply with that. When I look at “Democratic Member Control”, I start thinking that the Government need to act, because it seems to me that across the whole suite of policy areas in education, the Government need to ensure that when parents, staff and others in the community are engaged in a school, they have the opportunity for their democratic control to be meaningful. The next principle is “Member Economic Participation”—although I paid £1 to become a member of Cressex co-operative, it does not seem to me, unless an Opposition Member would like to correct me, that anyone is immediately leaping to suggest that there should be economic participation in schools. However, “Autonomy and Independence”—what a marvellous idea, which seems to go directly to the heart of the Government’s policies. We then have “Education, Training and Information”, “Co-operation among Co-operatives”, and “Concern for Community”.

Those are some of the values that the Cressex co-operative trust has implemented, and which I think could allow other schools to follow suit, particularly where they are smaller and need to combine in order to be viable. The partnership with Cressex school has included Buckinghamshire New university, Dr Challoner’s grammar school, Wycombe Abbey school, the local authority and the Co-operative college.

After years of campaigning, the school moved into a new building, which certainly lifted spirits, and I have to say that we are grateful to the previous Government and all those involved locally for giving us those new premises. The community’s values were naturally aligned to those of the co-operative movement, and particularly the notion of being values-driven and faith-neutral, which, in my constituency, is highly relevant. The community engages actively, and as I mentioned in response to an intervention, is a specialist business and enterprise school.

I am particularly pleased that Johnson & Johnson’s Dr Cesar Rodriguez Valdajos, a Spaniard, has engaged with the school and become a governor. At a time when we are challenging how capitalism is working and where it has gone wrong, it is particularly interesting that someone from Johnson & Johnson has engaged with the school. When capitalism previously failed, that company showed, through its credo, how private enterprise could step up. What I find encouraging is that the notion of enterprise being people-centred is actually highly inclusive. Wycombe Abbey school is one of the finest independent girls’ schools in the country, and its engagement with Cressex has been not only crucial but mutual, because it is in those sixth-form pupils’ interests that they engage with the school and help with literacy and numeracy.

Crucially, the pupils share the school’s co-operative vision and values. As a former head boy told the governors recently:

“High achievement for all is certainly our shared responsibility. I can say for a fact that Cressex is a rising star. It’s climbing to the top and I am proud to be head boy.”

I have to say that Cressex has travelled a long way very quickly, since when I first visited the school as a candidate and saw a collection of prefab buildings and some people who were rather long in the face. There were some poor results, but Cressex is transforming itself very rapidly.

I am aware of the time, and that other Members would like to speak, so I shall abridge some of my other remarks on other co-operatives, but I particularly want to point to the experience of Mondragon university from the Library debate pack. Mondragon university is a Spanish institution owned by its staff, and an article, in the course of describing it, interviews a British academic, saying that

“many of the principles on which cooperatives are based are not necessarily that radical in higher education. Cook”—

Dan Cook—

“points out that the University of Cambridge ‘is already configured as a sort of workers’ co-op’ because every academic is part of the governing body…he adds: ‘I don’t think anyone has told them yet.’”

Therefore, it may well be that co-operatives are more advanced in the United Kingdom at all levels than has generally been believed.

Co-operative schools are now the third largest network of schools in the country, following Church of England and Roman Catholic schools. More than a quarter of a million young people attend a co-op school and more than £4 billion of assets have been transferred from local education authorities to co-operative trusts. In September 2011, co-op trusts ran 63 secondary schools. There are now 94 and the figure is predicted to be 102 by December. In the same period, co-op primary schools increased from 76 to a surprising 389, which is predicted to be 444 by December. Overall, co-operative schools have grown from 188 in September 2011 to a predicted 714 in December this year. That is an astonishing vote in support of autonomy and self-governance in relationship with others. To me, it is an enormous endorsement of liberty and civil society, and I believe that the Government should row in behind it.

The first co-op free school will be in Swanage, which demonstrates that co-ops are not incompatible with the Government’s free school programme. However, I look ahead to 2014, and I must say to the Government that at this time there are real imperatives for action, because about half of secondary schools and almost 90% of primaries still need to determine their long-term structure. There is every likelihood that they could choose to be co-operatives. If co-operation is a necessary requirement to enable small schools to flourish, the Government certainly need to act fast to put in place whatever is necessary to allow co-operation to thrive.

The Government ought not to fear co-operatives. I know that the co-operative movement began with figures such as Robert Owen, who was a utopian socialist, but the values and principles, and the place reached by the co-operative movement today, are not to be feared by people on the Government side of the House of Commons. Co-operatives are, above all, people-centred businesses, and it strikes me that co-operatives can resolve a number of conflicts of interest and ideology.

On markets versus collectivism, we have democratic, collective ownership of property, and yet co-operatives participate—and always have participated—in markets. I observe that one of the crucial reasons why state socialism can never work is that it eliminates markets in capital goods. Co-operation does not do that.

On employer versus worker, the Co-operative party’s website recognises that producer interest can effectively be dealt with through co-operation. I would suggest that some problems that the Government are currently experiencing could be ameliorated if more schools were directly controlled by parents, staff and the community, so that not only were industrial relations easier from the outset, but if difficulties did arise, they would be easier to resolve, because it would be clear who was negotiating with whom, and to what end.

It seems to me that today, sometimes co-operative schools are succeeding despite obstacles. That may well be in the spirit of the co-operative movement, but it seems that the Government ought to do more to ensure a crisp, simple and effective legal framework. I do not wish to pre-empt the remarks of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), but I would like to ask the Government to look closely at the ten-minute rule Bill that she brought forward. She proposed a measure that would enable schools to register as industrial and provident societies and enable nursery schools to be established as school trusts. That seems an extremely good idea, not only to complete that scale of education from nursery through to—it turns out—university level, but to ensure that things are viable and sustainable. I expect the Government to go down that road because of what has been said, and I would like to provide a little detail on what has gone before.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education said:

“First, let me pay tribute to the work of the co-operative movement. Since it started in Rochdale, many of us have been inspired by its achievements. I believe that the academies programme and particularly the free schools programme provide an opportunity for the ideals of the original co-operative movement to be embedded in our schools. The idea that all work together for the good of their community and for the fulfilment of higher ideals is one that Government Members wholeheartedly applaud.”—[Official Report, 16 January 2012; Vol. 538, c. 468.]

Cabinet Office Ministers have been outspoken in support of co-operatives. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General said of mutuals and the Government’s policies:

“The right to provide will challenge traditional public service structures and unleash the pent up ideas and innovation that has been stifled by bureaucracy.”

That chimes directly with the Co-operative party’s message that co-operative models offer the best model for the reform of the public services or public service delivery.

In November 2007, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spoke of co-operatives in Manchester and developed arguments leading to the tantalising prospect of

“a new generation of co-operative schools in Britain—funded by the taxpayer but owned by parents and the local community.”

In January 2012, he also held out the prospect of a new co-operatives Bill. Without wishing to give succour to Opposition Members, I say gently to the Government that the Prime Minister ought now to find time to bring forward that Bill, encompassing the proposals of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, if we are to avoid the allegation of mere posturing. I want us to get behind co-operative schools, and more broadly co-operatives in education, in the general interest, to transcend some of the partisan debate that has gone to and fro, because I know that, in Wycombe, co-operative principles are transforming Cressex school. Those principles are proving increasingly popular across the country.

Today, a revolution in autonomy for schools is taking place, but it seems to me that it is taking place despite obstacles, so I ask the Government please to work more closely with the co-operative movement in establishing new free schools and helping academies to become co-op trusts. Will they bring forward the co-operatives Bill and will they look closely at the hon. Lady’s proposals? I am sure that Ministers will be welcome at Cressex school if they wish to see how it works in practice.

The Government ought just to do the right thing. Principles of co-operation entrench liberty and civil society. They produce self-esteem, confidence and resilience. They are evidently popular with the public. The Government should now move heaven and earth to liberate the co-operative spirit in education.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

From the sparkling Steve Baker to the fragrant Meg Munn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Munn]

My hon. Friend has put his concerns on the record and he is absolutely right. There is strength in the co-operative movement; it is not about co-operative schools managing on their own and being separate academies or free schools, but about their being part of a movement that, as the hon. Member for Wycombe indicated, naturally gives support—there is support from Co-operatives UK and co-operative schools organisations —and sets up mutuality with other schools that can be helpful and supportive.

[Steve Baker]

I want to respond to what the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) said about the Co-operative bank—I am glad that is on the record. I would like to offer two points of comfort. First, given the way in which the credit markets were manipulated by central banks over the past few years—Members know that is one of my favourite subjects—no bank was likely to escape, so I am not surprised that the Co-operative bank was one that did not. Secondly, although we may be small in number, our spirit for co-operation is that of tigers. Co-operation’s moment has come. It will be victorious, and in future the co-operative movement will surge away.

[Meg Munn]

There is nothing I can add to that. I was going on to say that such wide support is positive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman does not want to intervene. He is chuntering away from a sedentary position, but he is not prepared to share his views with us.

If there is a co-operative schools system underpinned by the values described so eloquently by the hon. Member for Wycombe at the start of the debate, we overcome such problems. The schools can have autonomy. They can be run by local people according to a set of values that do not put profit before the education of local children and the views of local people.

I have had the opportunity to visit co-operative schools around the country. I mentioned earlier the visits that I made to Upper Shirley high school in Southampton and the Tiverton co-operative learning development trust in Devon. I talked to the teachers and the leaders in those co-operative schools and I put the hard questions to them. It is not enough simply to have a structure and values in place. It has to be absolutely the case that everybody involved in the school is focused on raising standards and making sure that every child matters and that every child is given an opportunity to fulfil their potential.

I have no doubt that from time to time some co-operative schools will go off the rails, as do other schools, but it is surely right that a model based on co-operative principles, whereby everybody knows the values that they should be working to, stands a better chance of success than one that is based on ultimately making a profit. That is a road down which I understand the Secretary of State is interested in travelling.

[Steve Baker]

I do not want to break up the spirit of consensus that we have engendered, but I am not against profit. I simply want to draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention back to the third principle of co-operatives, which I am sure he knows better than I do: member economic participation. We know—we discussed it earlier—that one reason why the Rochdale pioneers succeeded is because they made a surplus, and surpluses are paid as dividends to members. I am a little cautious when talking about co-operatives. I would not want the debate to be shut down too far, because there is an honourable tradition, clearly articulated by the co-operative movement, of member economic participation. I would not want to exclude it from the future of co-operative schools.

[Kevin Brennan]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s remarks and the opportunity to make it clear that I am not against profit, either. We live in a mixed economy and the market is a wonderful thing. In the case of education, occasionally it can be a good servant, but it is a very, very poor master. Opposition Members will never support profit-making schools. Yes, there is a role for a profit-making business in education—publishers, for instance—but Opposition Members will not support profit making in taxpayer-funded schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. No one size fits all and, as we know from schools in our constituencies, there is no blueprint that will make every school successful. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe reminded us earlier that the first co-operative free school will open next year in Swanage, and the first co-operative alternative provision free school will open in Harlow in 2014. Those are two examples of how different types of model can be nurtured to meet the needs of particular areas.

Collaboration, which is a feature of the values we have been discussing, manifests itself in several different ways, one of which is the academies programme. Other formal partnership arrangements may work for different communities in relation to both academies and maintained schools, so long as they provide a framework for joint working, with clear lines of accountability, and preserve the intrinsic values of autonomy and liberty that my hon. Friend spoke about.

[Steve Baker]

May I correct an error that I made earlier? I should have paid tribute to Katy Simmons, the chair of the governors of Cressex community school, and Mervyn Wilson, the principal of the Co-operative College, who have helped me to understand that the co-operative movement is striving for autonomy and self-government. While I do not wish to argue about party, it seems to me that the Government are trying to drive people to make the most of their in-built, inherent talents and to exercise freedom and responsibility in relationships, which is all moving in the direction of co-operatives. I am grateful to the Minister for his approach to the subject, but I hope that he will go back to the Department and ask it to produce the Bills that will make that a reality.

[Mr Timpson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. At this juncture, I should perhaps talk about the ten-minute rule Bill introduced back in April by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley. Some of its provisions related to the status of industrial provident societies and the existing legal barriers that she has identified, as well as to the role that nurseries may play in the co-operative movement.

As the hon. Lady will know, by virtue of having brought in the Bill, some elements of the 2006 Act preclude nurseries from inclusion in such co-operative trust arrangements. We are currently consulting on measures to make it easier for schools to extend their age range downwards—for example, from five to 11 for primary schools, to three to 11—so nursery classes in those schools would be able to adopt co-operative ideals. I anticipate that she will understand that some nurseries will therefore still exist outside the extended school system and that it is not possible for them to be trusts.

I will undertake, first, to ensure that the hon. Lady receives a full and proper reply from my Department and, I assume, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills—the Minister for Skills and Enterprise, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) is a Minister in both Departments—to her inquiry in relation to her Bill. Secondly, I will consider whether it would be of assistance to have a meeting with her and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe to discuss both how we measure the success of the co-operative movement as it has begun to grow over the past few years, and where it fits into the jigsaw of educational provision that is now available. I am happy to take that back and ensure that it is given full attention.