Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Tristram Hunt

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I welcome that contribution from my hon. Friend. That is indeed part of the proposal in our call for views, and I am sure he can write in to that formally to add weight to that argument.

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

5. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the introduction of procedures on English votes for English laws.

Teaching Quality

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

I would be delighted to pay tribute to the leadership of Claire Armitstead. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend for promoting mindfulness and attentiveness in the classroom. Those are the kind of disciplines that help to achieve results.

What happens in the classroom is essential, and the point is simple: good teachers change lives. They engender curiosity, self-improvement and a hunger for knowledge. It is they who awaken the passion for learning that a strong society and a growing economy so desperately need. They are the architects of our future prosperity, not the enemies of promise.

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

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be seeking his own teaching qualification if he is still planning to give lessons himself. Both my parents were qualified teachers, and I am very proud of that fact. Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there are fewer teachers without qualified teacher status in state schools under this Government than there were under Labour?

[Tristram Hunt]

The hon. Lady admits an important point, on which we can agree. We both want to move towards having more qualified teachers. I am glad that we agree on that, and that she will be supporting that part of the motion tabled by her coalition colleagues. Under the Labour Government, teachers working on a permanent basis in the classroom were working towards qualified teacher status. That is the vital difference: we believed in working towards qualified teacher status, whereas this Government believe in deregulation and de-professionalisation.

The first plank in Labour’s schools policy is to focus on standards and not structures. We do not think that the job is done simply because a school has changed its name to that of an academy or a free school. We think that the most important relationship is between a teacher and a pupil, and we would therefore ensure that all teachers in state-funded schools were qualified or working towards qualified teacher status. We currently have a deregulated, downgraded system of professional teaching standards. Shamefully, under this Government, a person needs more qualifications to work as a burger bar manager than to be in charge of the education of our young people. We believe, as the Prime Minister did once and as the Deputy Prime Minister might still do—it is always difficult to tell—that our young people need highly qualified, highly motivated teachers in their classrooms.

Child Care

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Tristram Hunt

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.