Birmingham Schools

Debate between Toby Perkins and Michael Gove

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is a very good point. Today we have outlined that we plan to consult on independent school standards, so that schools that are not funded by the taxpayer must meet basic standards of promoting British values, or the Education Secretary will have the capacity to close them down. We are also taking steps to work with the Association of Muslim Schools UK to see what more can be done.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Education Secretary either omitted or did not get the opportunity fully to respond to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) about Park View. For the sake of clarity, will he explain why Park View was not allowed to open a free school but was allowed to sponsor Golden Hillock to become an academy?

[Michael Gove]

Before any free school can be opened a very high bar must be cleared. A separate set of criteria were judged in this case, and the Minister responsible decided that for that specific free school application, the bar was not cleared.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Toby Perkins and Michael Gove

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

On all the visits that I have made to my hon. Friend’s constituency, I have always had cause to thank people not just for the superb way in which history is taught in Colchester and across Essex but for the distinguished contribution that public servants in Essex, both in uniform and out of it, have made to this country. The war of 1812 to 1814 was a cousins’ war, and it is only appropriate that we remember that as we attempt to—[Interruption.] I see that one of my ain folk is objecting to that. All I would say, brother mine, is that in the shadow of Burns week, we should extend the hand of amity, as I do to my American cousins. Even as we remember their valour, we should also celebrate the fact that we work together in the brotherhood of man today.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Minister for Skills and Enterprise is struggling desperately to understand the impact of his policy on the most deprived 18-year-olds, so let me tell him about the impact of that policy in Chesterfield. It means that 655 students in this year’s cohort would not get the funding, which the principal of the college in Chesterfield tells me will directly impact on those students who do not achieve well in GCSEs, and clearly be very divisive. The principal told me that the assumptions made for this policy are alarmingly naive and fundamentally incorrect—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Toby Perkins and Michael Gove

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

12. What recent representations he has received on his proposed changes to GCSEs; and if he will make a statement.

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

We have received almost 5,500 written responses to our consultation, and we are currently reviewing them, along with all the views that we have heard in meetings with interested organisations. We will report on the findings from the consultation once we have had a chance to consider them in full.

[Toby Perkins]

If the Secretary of State had succeeded in uniting everyone—from the CBI to the teaching unions, from Kenneth Baker to Sir Jonathan Ive—in support of his proposals, we would be calling him a genius. What word would he use to describe someone who has achieved the exact opposite?

[Michael Gove]

I am always grateful for the thought that the hon. Gentleman is toying with the question of whether to call me a genius or a saint. I shall merely say that what we have managed to do so far is put the case for reform after the years when, sadly, the Labour party was in power, and confidence in our examination system received a shock from which the coalition Government are at last rescuing it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Toby Perkins and Michael Gove

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s comments about the state of the school estate in comparison to what it was like after the Conservative Government in 1997 are nothing short of a disgrace. The reality is that this year the average secondary school has had its budget for maintenance and repairs cut from more than £105,000 to less than £20,000. The Secretary of State has spectacularly failed to stand up for our schools and our schoolchildren. Does that not fatally expose how vacuous his claims are to have found more resources for schools this year?

[Michael Gove]

That question was beautifully written, almost as though it had been carved in marble by a master mason. The truth is that no one on that side of the House can afford to clamber on to their high horse when it comes to school buildings. It was that side of the House that inherited a golden economic legacy and squandered it. It was that side of the House that betrayed a generation of young people by giving us a record deficit and a record debt. It was that side of the House that presided over a schools building programme that was reckless, profligate and inefficient. It was that side of the House that put political convenience and partisanship ahead of our young people. Frankly, even though the hon. Gentleman was not in the last Parliament, every time he comes to that Dispatch Box to talk about the state of our education system or school buildings, there is only one word we need to hear from him, and that word is sorry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Toby Perkins and Michael Gove

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

When Central Bedfordshire council hears that my hon. Friend and I are both on the case, I am sure that it will be only too happy to join in and become as one in harmony with us both.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Once again, there is a chasm between rhetoric and reality: the big announcement is a cash freeze, which in real terms is a cut. It is another example of confused decision making. The right hon. Gentleman promises to increase access to music, but the cuts mean that 60% of schools, as surveyed by the National Association of Music Educators, are cutting music provision this year. Does he accept that, unless music is protected and ring-fenced not just for one year but into the future, all his rhetoric will lead to is less music provision in deprived areas?

[Michael Gove]

There is a huge chasm between rhetoric and reality: the chasm between the apocalyptic rhetoric that we heard from the Opposition Front Benchers and their sock puppets elsewhere, and the reality of increased funding for those areas that need it most, and new funding for the teach music first scheme, ensuring that some of our most talented musicians from leading music schools and conservatoires work in our most challenging schools to ensure that every child has an opportunity, which I, like the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), believe should be extended to all. It is only under this Government, with this announcement on school music and our pupil premium, that we are at last ensuring that money goes to those children who need it most, instead of being wasted on the quangos and bureaucrats that characterised the past 13 wasted years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Toby Perkins and Michael Gove

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I have to say that if I leave the House at the end of today having made the hon. Gentleman a happy man, I will consider my political career to have reached its peak. I seriously accept both the case that he makes for capital funding for Tibshelf school, which is in his constituency, not that of the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), and the case for support for the gentleman he mentions. I am sure that the money will be there to ensure that that gentleman can carry on his good work. As the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), made clear, capital funding is available for Derbyshire and I will ensure that capital funding is in future targeted on those areas of greatest need. There are few areas of greater need than those that the hon. Gentleman represents, and few are lucky to have such an eloquent advocate.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

We welcome the Secretary of State’s humiliating climbdown on the school sport partnerships. It is hard to know what is most disgraceful: the refusal to meet Baroness Campbell or the way the Government badmouthed the Youth Sport Trust, the hundreds of school sports co-ordinators and the thousands of volunteers. The Secretary of State said that school sport partnerships had failed, another Minister slammed them and even the Prime Minister said they had a terrible record. Now, in the face of a storm of protest, the Government claim to be leaving them in place until shortly after the Olympics, albeit with dramatically less funding. We hope that the Secretary of State learns a lesson from this, which is just the latest shambles he has presided over. Will he acknowledge that school sports partnerships have not failed and have not got a terrible record, and will he promise to back them up to the Olympics and beyond?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Toby Perkins and Michael Gove

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is an impassioned supporter of independence in all its forms and in all sorts of bureaucratic institutions, and I agree that one would be well advised to steer clear of any quango that models itself on IPSA. It is our intention to ensure that school funding is simplified, that schools exercise more autonomy and independence, and that the system is rendered fairer across the board. In particular, we will not be creating a new body that will have any additional bureaucratic powers.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

For every one of the past five years specialist sports colleges have had higher levels of attainment than the national average across the curriculum. The Secretary of State’s decision to axe the entire £162 million school sports partnership fund will decimate the work of specialist sports colleges. Given the success of school sports partnerships in raising attainment, and if he is interested in the east end boys as well as the west end girls, can he explain why he refused even to meet a recognised world expert in school sport such as Baroness Campbell before deciding to axe funding to the Youth Sport Trust and to decimate school sport?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I have had the opportunity to meet Baroness Campbell on a number of occasions; I have had dinner with her and I also met her at a school in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). The crucial question for all schools is, “Do you want more freedom or less?” We are giving schools more freedom. All schools that wish to continue to enjoy specialist status, be they specialist sports, science or technology schools, will have that freedom. What we have done is remove the bureaucratic prescription that went alongside it, and that is because we on this side of the House trust professionals, whereas those on that side of the House continually sought to fetter them.