Birmingham Schools

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

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

The events in Birmingham reveal an education policy in disarray, a Government more concerned about warring egos than school standards and a Prime Minister unable to control his Cabinet. But while Ministers carry on their briefings, sackings and apology, the education and safeguarding of children in the great city of Birmingham must be this House’s priority.

I appreciate the anxiety which parents and pupils are feeling in the midst of this debate. Our focus now has to be on ensuring successful futures for the schools identified today, because what the recent weeks have shown is that the Education Secretary’s vision of controlling every school from behind a desk in Whitehall does not work; that Ofsted has to think much more carefully about the nature of its inspection system; that Birmingham city council has, as Sir Albert Bore acknowledged, some tough questions to ask of the quality of leadership in its children and young people’s directorate; that current systems of schools governance are open to abuse; and that there is a broader debate to be had about education and faith, underperformance among minority ethnic groups and the limits of communalism in multicultural Britain. In an age of multiple religions, identities and cultures, we need to be clearer about what a state education means for children of all faiths and no faiths.

Having read the Ofsted reports, Sir Michael Wilshaw’s letter and the report of the Education Funding Agency, for advance notice of which I thank the Education Secretary, I share the Education Secretary’s concerns about the provision of education and the safeguarding of children in certain schools in Birmingham. It cannot be right that children have been at risk of marginalisation from mainstream society, cultural isolation or even radicalisation. Similarly, the focus on narrow attainment at the expense of students’ personal and social development is a cause for concern. Some of the other Ofsted reports highlight invitations to inappropriate speakers, the downgrading or elimination of sex and relationship education, gender segregation, staff intimidation and a failure to prepare pupils to live in a multicultural society.

Sir Michael reports governors

“trying to impose and promote a narrow faith-based ideology in what are non-faith schools.”

He says:

“They do not ensure that a broad and balanced curriculum equips pupils to live and work in a multi-cultural, multi-faith and democratic Britain.”

This is an issue for faith schools as well as non-faith schools. We cannot have such situations in any English schools, and the report by the Education Funding Agency on the culture, ethos and governance of Oldknow academy has raised similar concerns about a restricted curriculum and the furtherance of conservative Islamist views.

We now have at least four investigations into what is occurring in Birmingham schools and today the Education Secretary has announced yet another, but this is an attempt to evade his own responsibility as Secretary of State. It seems to be everyone else’s problem—the Home Secretary’s, Charles Farr’s, the city council’s—but not his own. The truth is that if he had been in charge of the management of his Department, these issues would not have arisen in recent years. The Secretary of State has said that he has acted with speed on the issue, but the truth is that Ministers have been ignoring it for four years. In 2010, the respected Birmingham head teacher Tim Boyes made a presentation to the Department for Education highlighting the risk of a radical agenda infiltrating Birmingham schools, but nothing was done.

Will the Secretary of State confirm today which Ministers were present at Mr Boyes’s presentation, when he was first informed of the details of Mr Boyes’s presentation, when Ofsted was informed of the details of Mr Boyes’s presentation and when the Government’s extremism task force met to discuss Mr Boyes’s presentation? Or, as the Home Secretary has put it, is it true that the Department for Education was warned in 2010 and, if so, why did nobody act?

We do not need another massive review by the permanent secretary. Mr Boyes has provided the Department with information on his 2010 meeting and we need to know what steps the Ministers took and why the Secretary of State did not act. We need those answers here today, because the Labour party’s answer is absolutely clear. We need a local director of standards and accountability.

We know that Park View Educational Trust, the academy chain essential to the controversy, had a free school application turned down in 2013 on security grounds, yet the Secretary of State allowed the trust to take over Golden Hillock the same year. Can he explain why the trust was unfit to set up a free school but was still allowed to take over the Golden Hillock school, despite those security concerns? Who made that decision and what due diligence was undertaken?

The truth is that events in Birmingham point to a strategic failing in the Government’s education policy. The Secretary of State’s agenda has been an ideology of atomisation and fragmentation: teachers without qualifications; every school an island; a free market of provision; and an attempt to oversee it all from behind a desk in Whitehall. Birmingham has shown that that model is bust. Sir Michael Wilshaw speaks of successful schools in Birmingham having

“too few opportunities to share their successful practice with others.”

That is because of Government policy, and Sir Michael recommends a review of the education funding arrangements for auditing governance in academies and free schools, but the Education Secretary’s mantra of centralism and secrecy remains. He has learned nothing from this event. He says that he will personally look at funding agreements, once again from behind a desk in Whitehall, when what we need are local systems of oversight and accountability, with a system of local checks and balances.

The dramatic change in Ofsted rankings from outstanding to inadequate has also brought into sharp focus the need for inspection criteria that look beyond the exam factory model of recent years. We need young people to excel in their academic and vocational attainment, but to come out of school career-ready, college-ready and life-ready. That is why the Opposition welcome Sir Michael Wilshaw’s request to have a broad and balanced curriculum added as a further criterion to the inspection framework. We think that it should go further, to look at the development of character, resilience and grit in our school system. The Labour party believes that sex and relationship education should be a part of that.

The events in Birmingham have brought to light a desperate weakness in Government thinking. On the one hand, there is an education policy designed to fragment and divide, isolate without oversight and increase the risks of radicalisation—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think that the shadow Secretary of State is bringing his remarks to a close in this sentence.

[Tristram Hunt]

The Education Secretary speaks of requiring all schools to promote British values; all well and good. Among the greatest of British values is an education system that welcomes and integrates migrant communities, builds successful citizens in a multicultural society and secures safety and high standards for all, and the Education Secretary is failing to do so.

[Michael Gove]

I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) for his comments and I agree that we need to focus on successful futures for these schools. I also agree that we need a broader debate, to ensure that all schools—faith and non-faith—make sure that children are integrated into modern Britain. But I regret the fact that in his comments he was not able to let us know the Labour party’s position on no-notice inspections. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) for stressing that he believes that no-notice inspections are right; I am also grateful to the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) for stressing that. But I am still none the wiser about the position of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central. I am afraid that I am also none the wiser about his position on whether or not it is right to promote British values in schools and right to take the other steps that we have taken.

The hon. Gentleman asks about meetings between the Department for Education and the Birmingham headmaster, Tim Boyes, in 2010. I can confirm that I was not at that meeting, nor was I informed about its content. That is why I have asked the permanent secretary to investigate, and I have also asked him to look at other occasions before 2010 when warnings were reportedly given. The hon. Gentleman has previously alleged that I was warned by Mr Boyes in 2010 and did not act; that is not the case and I hope that he will make it clear in the future, and withdraw that allegation.

The hon. Gentleman asks about local oversight of all these schools. It is important to stress that when Tim Boyes raised these issues in 2010 all these schools were facing local oversight from Birmingham city council, and as Sir Michael Wilshaw has concluded, Birmingham city council failed. As Ofsted makes clear, repeated warnings to those charged with local oversight were ignored. Indeed, it was only after my Department was informed about the allegations in the Trojan horse letter that action was taken, and I thank Birmingham city council for its co-operation since then.

The hon. Gentleman asks what action was taken overall since 2010. It would be quite wrong to allege, as he does, that the Department has taken no action on extremism since 2010; the opposite is the case. As the Home Secretary pointed out, we were the first Department outside her own to set up a counter-extremism unit. Unreported and under-appreciated, it has prevented a number of extremist or unsuitable organisations from securing access to public funds.

The hon. Gentleman asks about academies and free schools, and the autonomy that they enjoy. First, I must correct him: none of the schools that Ofsted inspected are free schools and all the evidence so far is that free schools in Birmingham are proving a success. I must also correct him on the matter of oversight of academies. Academies are subject to sharper and more rigorous accountability than local authority schools. They are inspected not just by Ofsted but by the Education Funding Agency.

The hon. Gentleman also asks about curriculum inspection. Let me stress that it is already a requirement that schools have a broad and balanced curriculum; the question is enforcement. That means giving Ofsted the tools it needs, such as no-notice inspections and suitably qualified inspectors.

The problems identified today are serious and long-standing. They require us all to take action against all forms of extremism. I have been encouraged throughout my career by support from Opposition Members—the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr, among others—for a non-partisan approach to fighting extremism. I hope that, after his comments today, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central will reflect on the seriousness of these charges and recognise that this is not an appropriate vehicle through which he should make wider criticisms of the school reforms with which he and his party disagree. I hope that, in the future, we can count on him and others working across party boundaries to keep our children safe.