School Governing Bodies

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. We are having an interesting debate, which I am pleased is being held, because the Education Committee did a huge amount of work on the subject.

I also applaud those who have supported me in the all-party group on education leadership and governance, which has been an important vehicle to promote school governance. It has struck me that not only have we been debating governance within these walls lately, but I have been invited to several debates in London and beyond to discuss it; most recently, I attended a debate hosted and organised by The Guardian. That underlines the point that school governance is becoming an important subject, largely because of the changing landscape in our education system.

We need to look back to 1944, 1988 and the legislation that paved the way for the academy programme and all the rest to understand that the system has changed considerably, but that the governance structure of governors has not kept up—the pace of change for school governors has not been fast enough. We must understand that central point if we are to debate governance properly.

The other major overall point is that our schools need to engage not only with the community, as the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) said, but fully and thoroughly with business, professions and opportunities in the world of work. Governing bodies have a role to play, and I want to talk about that in some detail.

First and foremost, I urge the Government to start thinking about how they might inspire the best governors to be even better and great people to become governors. We need to attract from a broader range of society the kind of people whom we want to run our schools. That means talking up the role of governors, enhancing the role of governance and ensuring that people feel that, when they become governors, they count, are valued and can make a difference. We have to think about the need to inspire, and I urge the Minister to consider how the Department and others can inspire people to become governors.

On the question of regulation or deregulation. I am not a great believer in regulation; I like to see things operating freely and individuals using systems to promote good things in a good way. My inclination, therefore, is that we should not have more regulations or training programmes specifically tailored by someone else to be superimposed on people who might well have their own opinions. What is important, however, is for us to create an environment—a framework—for governing bodies to make such decisions for themselves, so that they know who they need to recruit and to train and how such training should be done. Only they know what their school and governing body need.

Therefore, I ask the Minister what can be implemented to encourage governing bodies to think about how they are structured, how their membership is formulated and other such matters. I have already urged the Education Committee to write to the Department to see how the draft Deregulation Bill might help—I would be grateful to hear from her about how that might be done.

In my constituency, I want to see more interface between business and schools; I want to see medium-sized and small businesses more engaged with education. Furthermore, I will come up with a plan to implement that, which will, broadly speaking, involve a series of seminars at which chief executives and board members of businesses can meet governors. Two things will be achieved: first, governors will see how boards operate, make decisions, decide strategy and ensure the highest standards in their businesses, whether they are a recruitment firm, a manufacturer or whatever; and, secondly, on the other side of the coin, businesses will be able to talk to education as a whole and schools in particular with a view to saying, “These are the sorts of skills that we need for our recruitment”, and to explaining the sort of people they need to design and manufacture their products, operate their services and be their professionals.

There is not a sufficiently clear interface between our education system and employers as a whole. One of the ways in which we can improve that is through improving governance, so that it becomes more business-oriented, benefiting from business skills—not to the exclusion of all the other vital skills, but to ensure that business skills are part of the narrative.

On the question of what happens if a governing body fails, I pressed the case in the Education Committee that we should be tough on failing governance—because we have to be. Too many schools are simply not doing well enough. Worst of all, too many schools are coasting and seem to think that that is okay. We need a governing system that holds those schools to account, to ensure that coasting or the quiet tolerance of some rather poorly taught subject does not happen. As we know from the past week, we have a long way to go to ensure that our schools deliver the kind of education that we need for the long term.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about failing governing bodies. It is key that we encourage local authorities to intervene accordingly. Sadly, in my constituency a school has recently been rated inadequate; that rating included the governing body. We need quick change when there are those kinds of problems.

[Neil Carmichael]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a powerful point. I can point to similar problems in my constituency. Any Member of Parliament interested in schools in their constituency will be able to say the same thing. That is rather a sad fact.

We need to find ways of making sure that governing bodies almost fear the consequences of failure. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools, has suggested that he should have powers effectively to remove governing bodies that are quite clearly incapable of turning a school around from failure to success. If we see that local authorities are unwilling to act—perhaps because everybody knows everybody and no one is willing to upset someone they knew a long time ago or have worked with successfully in some other department or school—we have to find other ways.

The people we should really be thinking about are children and their parents. They are the real stakeholders. We have to provide a system that guarantees that their school will be promoted, managed and dealt with in the best possible way. So my next request to the Minister is to make sure that we have a way of getting rid of governors who cannot do the job. It is dead easy: that is what we would do in a business, so it is what we should do in a school.

We want to see self-improvement. Our whole education system is about self-improvement. Any organisation should always be motivated to improve. The question we should always ask ourselves each day is, “How can I do this better?” That is a natural thing to do, so we want to see governing bodies doing it. Of course, that must be in conjunction with head teachers. As my hon. Friend the Chair of the Education Committee correctly pointed out, we need clarity as to what the head is supposed to be doing and what the chair of governors is supposed to be doing.

Again, that may well be a matter on which different types of schools would have different opinions—I accept that. But we cannot have a situation in which chairs of governing bodies are sitting around in schools for a couple of days a week trying to do what the head should be doing—that is completely unacceptable—and we cannot have a head basically taking on the role of the chair by steering the governing body through a difficult course to cover up or disguise inappropriate results and the like. We have to have clarity on those roles. That is where the Department for Education comes in: we need an explicit description of what the chair of a governing body is supposed to do. That should be part of the attempt to inspire people that I referred to earlier: we want to inspire the best people to be chairs of governing bodies, so we need to make sure that they know what they are doing when they approach the job.

I have talked a lot on the Education Committee about interim executive boards. As we all know, IEBs are used to replace governing bodies if the big decision to dismiss a governing body is taken. That is quite right. But that raises the question of why, if the solution is an interim executive board—a smaller body than the one it is replacing, made up of skilled people and with a focus on improvement and the capacity to get on with the job—we do not have something similar to that in the first place: a smaller structure, made up of people equipped with the right skills, so that the school can benefit from that kind of flexible, imaginative, innovative, robust governing system. That is where I have a slight variance of opinion with some of my colleagues on the Education Committee.

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[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to participate in this debate, Mr Rosindell. I think I am the only Member here who is not on the Education Committee, apart from the Minister and shadow Minister of course, but we are discussing a critical role, and I am so pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) led his Committee in an inquiry on it. It is a really important subject.

I was a school governor, back in the mid-’90s at a school in Kilburn, and in the late noughties at a school in Hampshire. At both schools, the experience was very interesting. In the mid-’90s, we seemed to spend a lot of time talking about children and teachers, but by the time I next became a school governor 10 years later, most of the agenda at our meetings seemed to be focused on whether we had done this or that policy update, or what about the charter mark we were going for, or what about this and what about that. As a consequence, the amount of time we spent speaking about children and teachers was dramatically reduced. I am pleased to see that there seems to have been quite a revolution in reducing the amount of direction given, and in allowing good school governing bodies to get going. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who is no longer in his place, made an eloquent point about the need to tackle poorly performing governing bodies, and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

In terms of recruitment and retention, my experience is that one of the barriers to becoming a school governor—at the moment in my constituency, I am trying to encourage people to become school governors—is perhaps the perception of the amount of time it takes, and the feeling about what value people can add. We know that some of the brightest and best business people are already dragged into so many other situations and are being asked to give their time, whether on issues to do with the future of the high street, their business association, or the chamber of commerce. Nevertheless, I find that when people do the work, they really enjoy it, and recognise that an effective governing body is critical to the good—if not outstanding—performance of a school. I encourage more people to come from business, but also from our public sector.

On the tools available, the Committee was right to talk about data, such as those data provided by RAISEonline—reporting and analysis for improvement through school self-evaluation. Although I have a PhD, I will not pretend that it is always the easiest thing to encounter cold, but it gives people very detailed information about children’s progress. That is why I was so pleased to see the data dashboard that came from Ofsted last year. Some amendments have already been made to it, to try to focus on the key issues. I have been to every school in my constituency and have met plenty of school governors, and I took great delight in encouraging them to use the tool. I cannot wait for the next set of results to come out, so that we can continue to try to understand whether progress is being made. The division between key stage 1 and key stage 2 was particularly illuminating for some primary school governors in deciding where they should be focusing their efforts, and I welcome that.

Importantly, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness referred to clerks. He is so right: they can make a critical difference to whether a governing body is effective. High levels of training should be made available, and I recommend that clerks should not serve in a school for more than a certain number of terms—not school terms, but terms of appointment—because it is useful to exchange clerks and make sure that things stay fresh and that the latest ideas come in.

I agree with the Government on pay; I do not think that we should pay school governing bodies. As is pointed out in the Government response, it is open to any governing body to buy in services, and that is very useful. Federations are a new model of governance. I represent a mainly rural seat, and with 54 schools in 300 square miles—some of those schools are very small—there are, rightly, increasingly moves towards more federations, the sharing of head teachers and so on. However, what has not happened yet, but should happen, is a merging of the governing bodies of those schools. I understand why people might feel concern that that reduces accountability, but it absolutely does not. There should be a partnership across schools. A suggestion was made in the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce report on Suffolk schools, called “No school an island”, to have parents’ councils to ensure—how can I put it?—that schools do not feel ignored. We see services merging, and the sharing of head teachers and senior teachers; I think we need to see the same with our school governing bodies.

In terms of the mix of skills, I wonder, at some schools, how prepared governors are to be critical friends. It is not the role of the chairman or chairwoman of the governing body to be only a cheerleader. We see that dilemma at the BBC: is the noble Lord Patten a cheerleader, or a critical friend of the BBC Trust? We have the same challenge for our school governing bodies; we must try to address what is really going on.

Head teachers should ensure that their teachers are up to scratch, but there is also another challenge. In one of the governing bodies on which I served—thankfully, I joined just after this took place—it took more than two years to try to displace a head teacher who was simply letting children down. It is very challenging for governors to do that kind of thing, and sometimes, the easiest way out is simply to do nothing at all. As has been said eloquently today, we cannot allow that to happen, which is why I am very pleased to see that a number of colleagues—I do not know how they manage to fit it in—continue to be school governors. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) is a governor of Ravenswood community primary school. I was delighted to see that, in the recent round of inspections in Suffolk, his school moved up the ratings to “good”. I shall be honest: many schools in Suffolk went the other way, so I thought that that was good for its credibility. I need to inspire myself to take that leap and go and do something to help the schools that are struggling in my area.

I was a latecomer to the debate, but this is such an important topic. I am glad that it has been given the prominence that it has. I see the Government response, and I admire all of it. I encourage the Government to go further—to stand up for governors and to recognise that they are the people who can make the difference, alongside great head teachers and great teachers.

PISA Results

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The fact that there are more highly qualified teachers in our schools than ever before is a very good thing that I hope the hon. Lady would support. If she is referring to South Leeds academy, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) did, the advertisement was misleading: it was not advertising for unqualified teachers but advertising for classroom assistants who would train in due course, as classroom assistants currently do. If the hon. Gentleman contacted the school, he would know that he has made a mistake. I hope that he will contact the school to apologise for his unfair and inaccurate depiction of the situation and show himself to be big enough to apologise for having got something wrong.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend explain why, while English schools have sadly fallen down the league tables, GCSE rates have soared?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Last time the OECD issued a report, I am afraid that Opposition Front Benchers rubbished it because, so they said, GCSE results improved under Labour. It is therefore clearly the case that our children are significantly more literate and numerate. The truth is that there was improvement under the previous Government, but, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) pointed out, there was also grade inflation. That grade inflation has been laid bare by international studies showing that while we have improved, other countries have improved far faster, and it is vitally important that we recognise that and learn from them.

Cost of Child Care

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I am grateful for this opportunity to lead this afternoon’s debate on the cost of child care—a growing concern to many Members across the House. Perhaps I should start by declaring an interest as the proud mother of a little girl. Like many Members, I have come to realise how difficult it can be for families to find the right kind of child care place. I am in the fortunate position of not having to make the same kinds of financial decision about what works for my family. I am very lucky, but I am conscious that many people face difficult situations.

Once again, it is the Labour party that is highlighting the cost of living crisis. We are all too familiar with the challenges that our constituents find in accessing affordable child care and the increasing burden that they face. The failure to keep down the cost of child care has put immense pressure on household budgets and directly contributed to the cost of living crisis facing so many families across our communities. That failure applies equally to pre-school provision and provision for school-age children.

By 2015, families with children will have lost up to £7 billion a year of support. Right now, families with pre-school children face a triple blow of spiralling child care costs, a reduction in nursery places and a cut in financial assistance. Some of those families are losing up to £1,500 a year due to tax credits changes.

Parents often say that child care can really become a logistical nightmare once children reach school age. Despite that, the previous Labour Government’s programme to support school-age children has been abandoned by the Department for Education, leaving many parents struggling to juggle work and family life. The Minister will no doubt claim that the Government are making progress; unfortunately, however, creative number crunching cannot hide the fact that the Government’s plans are failing to support the majority of families. It has been left to Labour to respond to the current crisis, with our proposals to extend child care for working parents of three and four-year-olds and to introduce a legal guarantee for primary schools to make child care available from 8 am to 6 pm.

The previous Labour Government understood the importance of the issue. The 1998 national child care strategy recognised for the first time that child care was not just a private family matter, but one where Government had a role to play in ensuring the affordability, availability and accessibility of high-quality child care places. Much was achieved during those 13 years of Labour Governments.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I should say to the hon. Lady and other Labour Members that the number of child minders fell significantly during their party’s time in office. It will be interesting to hear more about availability.

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, for whom I have a lot of respect. She takes a keen interest in these matters and wants to make sure that families have real choice among the options available when finding child care places for their children. I will make the very point put to her during yesterday’s debate: we need to make sure that child minders are of the right quality and can provide the best possible care for children. Unfortunately, some child minders, who are no longer registered, were not able to make that leap forward in providing the best possible high-quality care that we all want for the youngest children in our society.

The early-years entitlement was pioneered for four-year-olds in 1998 and it was extended to three-year-olds in 2004. Labour introduced the extended schools programme to help meet the needs of children, families and the wider community. Labour created Sure Start children’s centres and established more than 3,500 of them across the country.

Before the last general election, I was, like many others, relieved to hear the current Prime Minister acknowledge that Labour was right to prioritise child care support for families and pledge to protect Sure Start. However, like so many people, I have been bitterly disappointed that more than 500 Sure Start centres have closed since 2010 and that more than half of those still open are no longer providing on-site child care. All we heard today from the Prime Minister was a confirmation of that.

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[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sunderland upon Tyne South—

[Bridget Phillipson]

Houghton and Sunderland South.

[Dr Coffey]

I got that wrong—I apologise to the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), whom I congratulate on securing this debate. I appreciate that we had a debate yesterday on a similar topic, and I welcome this opportunity to contribute again on this important matter.

I thought that, rather than just reading out my entire transcript from yesterday’s Hansard, I would spend a bit more time saying a little more on the issue. The aspirations set out by the hon. Lady—affordability, availability and accessibility—are critical. As she said in the answer that she kindly provided me, the reason why so many child minders fell out of the system in the 13 years of Labour Governments was quality. She is absolutely right; we need to ensure that high quality—in fact, world-class quality—child care is widely available.

That is why I support what the Government are doing to try to raise the quality of child care. The issue is also about improving our young children’s access to education. As has been pointed out by many on both sides of the House, it is key that we do our best with our youngsters to ensure that they are able to access the opportunities available to everyone. That is also an important part of social mobility.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

The figures on child minders have been cited on a number of occasions. Does the hon. Lady accept, as the Minister did yesterday, that the figures have declined in the three years under this Government? There are 2,423 fewer child minders in the system now than in 2010.

[Dr Coffey]

I understand that, but having 2,400 fewer since 2010 is a little different from having 53,000 fewer in 13 years. I am not going to go over again the ground that we have already discussed.

It is fair to say that there are an extra 800,000 nursery places through schools.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Is the hon. Lady suggesting that those additional places were created in the past three years?

[Dr Coffey]

My understanding is that the provision has grown in that time. I am sure that the hon. Lady will correct me if she thinks I am wrong. I meant “grown”, not “groan”, unlike the joke yesterday.

Returning to affordability, there is no doubt that the cost of child care has risen significantly. Some of that will have been due to supply and demand; there is no question about that, where demand exceeds supply. It is important to expand the number of child minders to help with that.

One of the things that the Government are doing right is allowing schools to shed some of the regulatory burden on the ability to provide a wider range of child care opportunities on site. Labour suggests that legislation is required to have a primary school guarantee, but I do not believe that. What is important is that a school should not have to register separately with Ofsted if it offers provision for under-four-year-olds or that it should not need such tight planning when it wishes to expand. The same should apply when existing nurseries of good and outstanding quality wish to expand.

We are changing things so that Ofsted-registered and good or outstanding nurseries will start to receive funding directly, cutting out the recycling of money through the local council. That is another good measure to accelerate the needed provision of high quality child care.

Another good thing—the Minister may talk at more length about some of these—would be to streamline qualifications for early years, instead of having a choice of about 400 potential qualifications. In that way, parents could readily and easily check the quality rather than have to do their own research. Having an accreditation with fewer qualifications is a streamlining simplification that will help not only providers of child care but parents to make an appropriate assessment of what the right thing is.

On the cost of child care, I think the Government accept that having some of the most expensive child care in Europe—we are second highest behind Switzerland —is not sustainable. We need to address that. Coming from a Conservative tradition, I would try to do that not just by constantly upping the subsidy, but by providing wider choice, which will bring down cost. However, I commend the tax-free child care scheme, which will be available to working families.

I am sure that Government Members would be delighted if we could persuade the Chancellor to bring that scheme forward by a year, but I accept the fiscal constraints under which the Government operate. In any case, I am pleased that the scheme will be forthcoming in April 2015. That is a real positive for working mothers and fathers.

Other useful measures that the Government are introducing include shared parental leave. I understand that our coalition partners are keen to extend that even further; that is a debate for another time. I am pleased that we are pressing forward with that important development, and I am sure that Opposition Members welcome it too.

The reason why I do not think we need legislation to implement the primary school guarantee is that we can just get on with the scheme if that is what primary schools wish to do. We may require a statutory duty to force that to happen, and we have to consider that, but I see leading schools providing it already.

One point that I made yesterday is key. Governing bodies should work with head teachers and parents to ensure that the school day is not artificially reduced simply to have as short a lunch time as legally possible, but to ensure that time spent at school is available for extra-curricular activities and to be mindful of the fact that parents are working.

On Sure Start, we can have the back-and-forth. I have not had time since yesterday’s debate to go into the full detail, constituency by constituency, on the back-and-forth about whether 500 or just 45 have closed. As I said yesterday, I am happy to rely on the Minister’s assurance.

We are talking about choices. Yesterday, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell)—I got that constituency right—talked about the level of cuts, an issue referred to today by the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South. I have looked briefly at the website of the Department for Communities and Local Government. Using the spending power formula, which the Local Government Association recommended to the Government, I am able to say that spending in Newcastle upon Tyne has gone down by 1.4% this year; in Sunderland by 1.5%; and in Middlesbrough —I see that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) is present—by 0.5%. I did not have time to look at Wolverhampton.

Those figures come from the spreadsheet that I have opened. Meanwhile, spending has decreased in Norfolk by 1.6% and in Suffolk by 2.1%. In spite of that, Suffolk county council is keeping open its Sure Start centres. Yes, the management of some centres has been merged. The two in Felixstowe are run by one lady, the magnificent Jennifer Clarke-Pearson, who is working hard with families in Felixstowe to make that happen.

As I reiterated yesterday, it is important that in this wider debate about public services, which my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) mentioned, we must ensure that front-line services are protected—as constituency champions, all hon. Members in this Chamber will continue to do that. However, we should not get hung up solely on bricks and mortar. We must focus on the outcomes.

[Kate Green]

I agree that we should not just focus on bricks and mortar. However, although centres in my local authority in Trafford are being merged, as the hon. Lady described, the availability of services has been significantly reduced. A number of programmes that were appreciated by families, some of which were available universally in the past, are now not available.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I am genuinely sorry to hear that; I am not being flippant. It is important that local councils continue to provide valuable services that are doing good for local families, but, again, sometimes the Whitehall solution does not always work in the constituency or council area. The Department for Education issued statutory guidance in April to try to encourage councils and children’s centres to refocus—not on universality, perhaps, but on the families that Sure Start was originally set up to help.

[Catherine McKinnell]

indicated dissent.

[Dr Coffey]

That is my understanding, although the hon. Lady shakes her head.

I praise the valuable work of Home-Start, locally—certainly in Suffolk. It is going into the homes of people that Sure Start is not attracting into its centres. If Sure Start is stage two for these families and parents, that is to be welcomed. Sure Start should be focusing on the needs of more vulnerable families and less wealthy families, rather than being a universal thing, when other providers can provide child care. We have heard that Sure Start centres provide only 1% of child care opportunities.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I am not sure which year the figures the hon. Lady cited relate to; I suspect it is the financial year 2013-14. The point that I was making yesterday—she mentioned the speech I made yesterday—is that councils have to look two, three or four years ahead, to work out how to manage their finances. The cuts that we are talking about have not yet come.

[Dr Coffey]

I accept that point. The hon. Lady is accurate in saying that I was referring to 2013-14.

More widely, I appreciate councils’ concerns. Our own councils are going through this challenge; it is not unique to councils in the north-east, Trafford or wherever else. It is happening across the country. However, we need to be mindful that reducing support to local councils is being made up for, in some part, by other opportunities for councils to raise money. That may not be popular; it is certainly not popular with one of my constituents, who complained that they were going to have to start paying council tax on a house that had lain empty for three years. Such policies are not always popular, but they are revenue opportunities, as is business rates retention, which I am sure the hon. Lady supports. That is to encourage new start-up companies in areas such as hers and to attract companies’ inward investment, through relocation to the north-east, for example.

I shall bring my remarks to a conclusion, because I appreciate that many hon. Members want to participate. All parties are united on affordability, availability, accessibility and quality, which the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South mentioned accurately at the start, although we have different ways of achieving those things. But all our reforms are working and I hope that they will continue to blossom. I look forward to the Minister’s explaining in further detail why we in the Government are leading the child care revolution.

Child Care

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that families are facing rising childcare costs; notes the reduction in the availability of early years childcare; and calls on the Government to help work pay by extending from 15 to 25 hours the provision of free childcare for working parents of 3 and 4 year olds funded by an increase in the Bank Levy.

I welcome Ministers to the Front Bench. Today, once again, the Labour party is highlighting the cost of living crisis that is affecting communities up and down the country, because under this Government the historic link between growth and living standards is being split apart as never before. Growth without national prosperity is not economic success, and the first and last test of economic policy is whether living standards for ordinary families are rising. Official figures state that, on average, working people are £1,500 a year worse off than they were at the general election. The Labour party is determined to shine a light on that quiet scandal of collapsing opportunity and stretched family budgets.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

While the hon. Gentleman is explaining that collapse, he might want to say why between 1996 and 2010 there was a collapse in the number of childminders from more than 100,000 to 57,000.

[Tristram Hunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Conservative Members may think they can get away with their appalling record in office by worrying about the classification system for previous childminders, but that is a dead end to go down. As I will explain, the Labour Government have a hugely proud record on provision for the under-fives.

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[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock). It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who gave us the great news that his wife had recently given birth to a beautiful daughter.

It was also interesting to listen to the beginning of the debate. I thought that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) was able to truss up like a turkey the shadow Education Secretary, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), by putting up a good defence of the Government’s record and exposing the issues involved. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I can assure the House that the jokes do not get better than that.

Of course, child care is an issue not only for mothers; both parents should and do play a full role in the care of their children. They, and people without children, such as me, recognise that access to good quality child care is key. We should also celebrate the fact that more women are working than ever before.

[Fiona Bruce]

Should we not also honour and celebrate those mothers who decide to stay at home throughout their children’s childhoods and commit to caring for them personally?

[Dr Coffey]

I fully recognise that, too. What matters is that we should be allowing people to choose what they do. It is right to say that we should not condemn people who decide not to work in an external job and to focus their time on caring for their children at home.

The Minister referred to a number of cases where there has been concern about statistics being bandied about. Everyone in this House, however, would agree that one of the worst situations for a parent is when they need emergency child care, as occurs when teachers go on strike and parents are left trying to get time off work. It would be welcome if Labour Members condemned the decision of teaching unions to go on strike at irregular intervals, so that we can make sure that children are in school. The Minister referred to the fact that we are starting to remove red tape, so no longer will schools have to have a separate Ofsted registration when they cater for children under three years of age—that is to be welcomed. We are also dealing with aspects of planning and other requirements that restrict schools and deter them from facilitating child care provision outside the core school hours. It is important that we make it as straightforward as possible for existing school buildings to be used, be it by the school or not. I understand the wraparound guarantee to which the Opposition refer but, as has been pointed out, no extra funding is being provided for that—indeed, Opposition Members suggest that the funding has already been built into the formula grant.

One thing that does matter is having extra flexibility and choice. I also appreciate the commendation made by Ministers to ensure that schools do not just keep contracting their opening hours, as that, too, causes problems for parents trying to juggle work with getting their children to school. Some schools in my constituency have tried to do that and were still not listening after a consultation. Fortunately, however, when I sent them their communications from the Secretary of State, they realised that they should, of course, be considering the wider issues for working families. So I am glad that in the particular school I am thinking about the decision was reversed by the governing body.

Let me deal with other aspects of removing red tape or increasing the number of places. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) eloquently referred to the issue of childminder agencies, which will be introduced. That is a good innovation to allow more people to put themselves forward to offer child care, and that is very welcome. In addition, childminders who are rated “good” and “outstanding” will be able to be funded directly from Government, as opposed to the money being routed through the local council. That is a good step forward and, again, it removes the administration or other extra bureaucracy that stops government funding —we must remember that more than £5 billion is being spent by this Government on early years education and child care.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating North Yorkshire county council on its work? Not only has it managed to preserve the number of Sure Start children’s centres in my constituency, but I had the pleasure of opening one last year; we have actually increased the number of Sure Start centres.

[Dr Coffey]

I indeed join my hon. Friend in congratulating North Yorkshire county council and I will also give a boost to Suffolk’s council, as one Sure Start centre has opened in my constituency since the general election, and that is to be welcomed.

That takes me neatly on to the issue of Sure Start centres—or children’s centres, as they have become. A lot of figures are being bandied around about how many have closed. I have a regular correspondent on Twitter who assures me that the figure is now more than 700, whereas the Opposition tell us that it is more than 500. We have heard from the Minister today that fewer than 50 have closed. I will not pretend that I have had the time to go through all the different links and go into detail about the different numbers, but I am assured by what she has said at the Dispatch Box. Our Prime Minister said that he wanted to counter scaremongering, and we should not always get hung up about the buildings; it is about what matters for the child.

[Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

[Dr Coffey]

I was about to refer to my hon. Friend and I will do so before I give way to her. Early intervention grants are no longer ring-fenced; it is to be welcomed that we have local solutions to deal what is needed. I wish to commend three Members of Parliament, in particular, in this regard: the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field); my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), who has done some extraordinary work—learning, to some extent, from the right hon. Gentleman—on how to help children in his constituency; and my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), whom I was going to praise because of her work with OxPIP—the Oxford Parent Infant Project—and other facilities.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Surely what really matters is what Sure Start centres are achieving for families. We are not looking enough at the achievements of the centres, the inroads they are making and the improvement in UNICEF’s assessment of the happiness of British children—that is going in the right direction. Instead, all we talk about is whether a centre has closed. That is surely not the right thing to be looking at.

[Dr Coffey]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes the point I was referring to. Whether we are talking about Sure Start centres, children’s centres or many other public sector services, we should not get hung up solely on bricks and mortar; we should be focused on the outcomes for children, as that is what really matters.

I also wish to praise another local scheme in my constituency, Home-Start, which also operates around the country. I am particularly impressed with what it is doing to try to reach people, many of whom are not going to children’s centres to access services. It is taking the service to people in their homes, and giving help without it being seen as being judgmental—instead, it is seen as friendly. These are the kinds of initiatives we should be supporting. We should be allowing local councils to use their discretion and initiative to focus on what works best in their area, rather than solely implementing an idea from Whitehall.

Opposition Members have said that their proposals will be funded through the bank levy—I appreciate that they are not talking about a bankers’ bonus measure, which may have been discussed earlier. The shadow Secretary of State mentioned that less tax is coming in. He might have noticed that some of our largest banks have not been making a profit. The obvious cause is the global recession, but the previous Administration allowed the financial disasters to emerge: they allowed RBS to grow without any particular controls; HBOS was forced together with Lloyds, and similar other things occurred; and we had the disasters at the Co-op which have been revealed in the past few works. The Opposition are trying to suggest that a recovery in financial services is bad and that we need to tax them and, indeed, the people who work in them, further to pay for more and more schemes; the bankers’ bonus tax seems to have been used 11 times to pay for various schemes that Labour Members cite. The reality is that money does not grow on trees—we all got taught that lesson when we were children—and we have to make every penny stretch. I am very proud that this Government have genuine ambitions for world-class child care. We know that at this moment in time the coverage is patchy and it is costing more than it should, but I am very supportive of the moves we are making to ensure that child care becomes a significant contributor to growth and to the growth of the family.

Al-Madinah Free School

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I can certainly confirm to him that we have powers to take action against the school, as Lord Nash has already made very clear in his letter.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Parents will have pressed for the Al-Madinah free school to be established because they felt that the school would provide a suitable education for their children. I am reassured by the actions already taken, but will the Minister also ensure that pre-applications are thoroughly scrutinised?

[Mr Laws]

I will certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance. We scrutinise free school applications very carefully and reject many of them for a variety of different reasons. We will continue to scrutinise them very closely.

Secondary Schools (Accountability)

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I will certainly do that. Head teachers want to feel that they are supported by all parts of the education system, including our Department, and they want an accountability system which they see as fair and which drives the right incentives. I believe that what I have announced today will give them that.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, and particularly the fact that English and maths will be given double weighting in the new table. I am sure that that will lead to a greater quality, if not quantity, of teaching. Will my right hon. Friend consider publishing draft data so that parents can have the necessary information before attending open evenings and choosing secondary schools for their offspring?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the double weighting of English and maths, which we think sends a clear signal about the crucial role of those subjects. We will do what we can through the data portal to give parents as much information as possible about the issues, as soon as possible. We will also ensure that the key measures are published on the website of every single school so that parents can see what they often cannot see at present, namely a consistent comparison of the key performance indicators of all schools.

Teaching Unions (Strikes)

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve for the first time under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.

This debate is extremely timely, as it comes against the backdrop of recent strike action by certain teaching unions. Last week, on 1 October, members of the National Union of Teachers and NASUWT went on strike in 49 local authorities in eastern England, the midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, consequently denying education to pupils in 2,500 schools. I want to put on the record that, thanks to non-striking teachers’ dedication to their pupils and profession, many of the schools that expected to close were able to remain open.

Another wave of strikes is planned on 17 October in London, the north-east, the south-east and the south-west, where my constituency is located. I take this opportunity to urge teachers in schools in my constituency to think twice about strike action and, like their many fellow professionals who turned their back on last week’s strike, not to strike at the expense of their pupils’ education and welfare. A national strike of union members is planned for later in the year, before Christmas, and that will inevitably disrupt the lives of pupils and parents alike.

Let us turn to the origin of the decision to take industrial action. Last year, the two largest teaching unions, the NUT and NASUWT, voted to take industrial action throughout 2013. At first glance, the results of the ballots seem decisive: 82.5% of NUT members and 82% of NASUWT members voted in favour of strike action. We must, however, look at the turnout for the ballots: just 27% of all NUT members responded by returning their ballots, as did 40% of NASUWT members. In reality, strike action was therefore voted through by just 22% of NUT members and 33% of NASUWT members.

Even then, it is important to note that those unions do not represent the teaching profession of more than 750,000 teachers in its entirety. Taking that into account, strike action was agreed by the unions with a mandate of only 17.3% of teachers voting to strike. That is significant, because we must recognise the increasing divide between teachers or teaching professionals and the unions who claim to represent their voice.

In recent years, it seems that the only voice that unions represent is the growing tendency towards militant socialism that has gripped the heart of teaching unions. A breakdown of the NUT national executive shows that more than half its members have links to far-left organisations, with 21 of the 40 members having links to the Socialist party or the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, while 11 were endorsed by the Socialist Workers party in their election to the executive, four are members of the Socialist Teachers Alliance, one was a Socialist party candidate in the 1997 general election and there is even a member of the Communist party.

It is well known that union leaders do very nicely in pay and conditions out of their members’ subs. In the NUT, Christine Blower’s total remuneration is now £158,155, which has increased by 25% since she became general secretary in May 2009. That is more than seven times higher than the average teacher’s starting salary, and her pension contribution alone, of £42,236, is almost double that starting salary. Chris Keates of NASUWT earns a total remuneration of £139,834, which has increased by 78% since she became general secretary in 2004.

Let us not believe that the unions, either in numbers or in voice, reflect the everyday lives of the teaching profession. Tens of thousands of teachers—the silent majority—work tirelessly to transform the lives of young people in their care, and do so without recourse to strike action or what might be termed “teacher absenteeism”.

A new generation of teachers is coming forward who are the best trained and best skilled work force we have ever had. This generation of teachers deserves to be rewarded for their ability to raise their pupils’ performance. They are increasingly turning their back on the unions as their mouthpiece, knowing that they are being given greater freedoms to teach and improve their pupils’ education in the classroom. Some are even tearing up their union cards. One teacher wrote on The Guardian “Secret Teacher” site that

“we came into teaching for a reason. To inspire children, to go that extra mile, and to become better at what we do—ultimately for the students who are the reason we chose this profession. Yes, there are many issues facing us that do need action—but why is it that the unions’ suggested actions simply serve letting down the very people at the core of teaching?”

We need the best teachers to be in place, particularly in schools where the gap between the most affluent and the most disadvantaged pupils remains stubbornly high, to help turn pupils’ lives around. A good-quality education depends entirely on good- quality teachers, so rewarding good teachers must be at the heart of this Government’s school reforms.

That belief is overwhelmingly backed by the public. In a recent Populus poll of 1,700 people, 61% agreed that schools

“should be able to set the pay of individual teachers based on the quality of their performance as determined by an annual appraisal”,

while 28% believed that teachers

“should…receive the same salary regardless”.

When asked what the most important factor is in deciding teachers’ pay, only 8% plumped for length of service, which is the current measure. The poll found that 70% of people are opposed to teaching unions’ planned strikes, while 34% believe that teachers should be entirely banned from taking strike action.

I do not believe that the Government should be in the business of banning teachers from going on strike. It must be up to teachers themselves, not only as responsible adults, but above all as responsible professionals, to choose how they wish to be regarded. Do they believe that as professionals—that is how we wish teachers to be seen—they should take strike action where no other professionals would dare to? It must be up to teachers to face their responsibilities and to ask themselves why, if it is not acceptable for pupils to be absent from school, it should be acceptable for teachers to indulge in teacher absenteeism. What possible example can that set? How can the authority of a teacher’s professionalism be anything but diminished by strike action?

If teaching unions think that there is a genuine and deeply felt need to strike, they will recognise that such a need is also felt by the entire school community—pupils and parents alike. Each individual school, rather than taking its cue from the phantom democratic ballots of union leaders, should know whether strike action is necessary at local level and whether taking the ultimate step of sacrificing a day of pupils’ education is in those pupils’ interests.

The teachers’ cause would be strengthened if they had the backing of the entire school community, including parents. One solution for assessing whether an individual school has a truly effective mandate for strike action would be for it to ballot its parents on whether they agree with any proposed strike action. After all, parental ballots are not a new feature of our education system: they were introduced by the Labour party in 1998 as a means of assessing whether grammar schools should close.

Rather than strike action taking place with just over 17% of support from teachers, industrial action backed by parents would appear far more legitimate and have a greater chance of being taken more seriously. Allowing parents a voice over teacher strike action would help to depoliticise strikes, which are currently organised by a militant few at the expense of the welfare of the many pupils and parents whose lives will be disrupted in the next few weeks.

Of course, rather than take strike action in term time, thereby disrupting the education of thousands of young people and effectively denying them a day’s learning, surely it would be better for teachers to strike during the school holidays, when they are still at work in schools? We are frequently informed that just as a parliamentary recess is not a holiday for Members of Parliament, school holidays are not entirely holidays for teachers, who continue to work hard in their schools.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. Does he agree that we should encourage head teachers and chairs of governors to do their utmost to keep schools open as a learning environment for children, given that being at home may not be suitably positive for learning reinforcement?

[Chris Skidmore]

It is extremely important that school leadership remains strong at this time. I am referring here to the chair of governors, who has a duty to reflect the community’s voice, and the head teacher. As we know, it is the leadership that decides whether a school should remain open or should close. In my own constituency, I have seen the head teacher make the decision. As well as telling teachers who wish not to strike to have the courage of their convictions and to cross the picket line and go into school, we must also tell head teachers to stand firm on their principles. They are the captain of the ship in the school and they must ensure that it stays open for as long as possible.

Going back to my point about teachers striking in school holidays, I do not believe that teachers are taking off the entire school holiday. They are working hard in that period when the pupils are away from school, so it should not make any difference if the strike action was taken in school holidays rather than term time unless the deliberate aim of the teachers’ unions is to cause the maximum possible disruption to pupils’ learning, which would be regrettable.

In conclusion, there will always be disagreements and battles over how schools are run and pupils are taught. That is fair enough. Teachers themselves may disagree over the direction of a policy or a Government, and that is their right, but such battles should be fought not by strikes but in the court of public opinion, with ballots that reflect the views of all teachers and parents, and, ultimately, at the ballot box. They should not be fought, as those striking well know, at the expense of the children whom they claim to serve.

Careers Advice in Schools

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Birtwistle]

Yes, and even earlier.

I want to share some examples with the House of the problems there are with our careers advice provision. I spoke to a young lady who went to college in Blackpool. When it came to choosing a career, she said she wanted to be an engineer. Her teachers and careers advisers said, “You’re far too clever to be an engineer. You should be a doctor or a lawyer.” She said, “Well, I can’t stand the sight of blood and the last thing I want to be is a lawyer.” She got a job as an apprentice at BAE Systems at Warton and last year was awarded the apprentice of the year award. BAE Systems sent her to university and she is now on a fast track to management within the company.

The second example is of a young gentleman who went to college in Chester. When he left Chester, he went to Oxford. He was at Oxford university for three months and hated it—he thought it was a complete waste of time and that he was spending money for no return—so he left and got a job as an apprentice at Airbus. When he had served his time at Airbus, the company sent him to university, and he is now a section leader with Airbus. He was pleased to tell me that he had just bought a brand-new Mini and had been delighted to go around on a Friday night, pick up his Oxford friends and take them out for a drink. He had been earning while learning—that is our new apprentice slogan—and so could afford to buy a new Mini, while all his friends who went to Oxford were having problems, could not get a job and had debts coming out of their ears. He was happy to take them out for a drink in his brand-new car on a Friday night.

A wide range of careers advice is required from age 11, but what can we do about it? What careers advice is being offered in our schools? I suggest it is minimal. It is minimal because many of the people giving it have only ever been teachers and unfortunately have never been in the workplace—there are jobs, particularly in Burnley, they do not even know exist. There is light on the horizon, however: there is a company in Burnley called Positive Footprints. A young lady called Lesley Burrows, along with three of her friends, Josh, Lynne and Sarah-Jane, set up this company. She is working in a couple of schools where she has set up a virtual jobcentre. From age 11, every time a child comes to school, they will walk through a jobcentre in which is displayed every job available in Burnley and the surrounding area. Those young people can see what is available and can approach one of these four people and ask them, “What is this job?” Positive Footprints can then advise them on what the job is and the child can decide whether they fancy doing it. When they reach 14, they can apply for one of the jobs, so Positive Footprints will show them how to apply for a job, how to write a CV, how to get a reference and so on. And if they really fancy that career, they can speak to the company and ask whether they can go and see what it does. In that way, the young person can be aware of what the job involves. That is the right way forward, and I see no reason why the Government should not adopt such a system to show young people what the future holds.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I am really impressed by my hon. Friend’s story about the female entrepreneurs, and by the young lady to whom he referred earlier who had decided to do an engineering apprenticeship. Does he agree that it is really important for young people to be made aware of the vast number of opportunities out there, and of the GCSEs and A-levels that will help them to fulfil their potential rather than simply do what they feel they might like to do?

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I agree entirely. We need to show young people what is available in the big wide world. Unfortunately, the advice that they are being offered at the moment is coming from a narrow band of people in school and from their parents at home. There is far more in this world than those people know about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. He has fought like a tiger for the schools in his constituency and across Northumberland. I have been working with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to make progress.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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

As was mentioned earlier in questions, the Under-Secretary of State for Skills and I today launched the new technical baccalaureate, which will make the recognition of vocational education even more demanding and aspirational. I am grateful to Lord Adonis for the work that he has done to shine a light on what is good in vocational and technical education.

[Dr Coffey]

I welcome the launch of the tech bacc today. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will not return powers from academies to local authorities, as the shadow Secretary of State seemed to recommend last week? Is that not a U-turn on what Tony Blair and the noble Lord Adonis said when they first set up academies?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was very worried when I read the latest issue of The House magazine. In an interview with the shadow Secretary of State that was generally quite nice—he is a nice chap—he nevertheless said that he had “great respect” for Lord Adonis but “differences of emphasis”. He wanted to put “less of an emphasis” on

“the independent governance that academies have”.

I am afraid that, once more, that is a retreat from reform. Unfortunately, if the Labour party were to return to power, reform would stop in its tracks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely will not apologise to the people of east Durham for standing up for better education for their children. Perhaps the most telling remarks about the lack of ambition in schools in east Durham were uttered by Lord Adonis. Having visited a school there, he said that a teacher had told him, “In the past children turned right to work in the shipyards or left to work in the coal mines. Now they might as well walk on into the sea.” That spirit of defeatism reported by the noble Lord is exactly what we need to attack. Instead of attacking the Government, the hon. Gentleman would be better off tackling underperformance in his own constituency.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I welcome the publication of the dashboards launched by Ofsted last week and recommend them to the public, parents and governors. Will the Secretary of State go further, though, and explain how we can reconcile some of the Ofsted judgments with the attainment and other progress reports?

[Michael Gove]

The chief inspector is absolutely right to publish these dashboards, but they are only the beginning of how governors and others can hold schools to account for their performance. For example, if we look at the performance of schools under the English baccalaureate measure, we see that there are many schools across the country whose superficial headline GCSE figures flatter to deceive.