Infant Class Sizes

Debate between Tristram Hunt and Baroness Primarolo

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right: it is so disappointing to see this Government break the political consensus that Labour worked so hard to achieve in 1997.

Labour is committed to ending the free schools programme and refocusing spending on areas where it is needed most. Our message to parents is absolutely clear: Labour would make a choice, and schools enduring crippling infant class sizes would be our priority. We want to see great teachers, committed parents and innovative educationists opening new schools under our parent-led academy programme, pioneered by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), but those schools will have to be targeted on areas with a need for new places.

We had all hoped for a change of direction from the new Education Secretary, so I read with great interest her interview in The Sunday Telegraph, in which she explained how

“we have seen the first same-sex marriages take place, which is great.”



Indeed it is, but why did she seek to prevent it from happening by voting against the policy? If she really thought it was great, she would have supported the policy.

In the interview, the Education Secretary also revealed that her favourite work was Elizabeth Gaskell’s marvellous “North and South”—a tale of how a conciliatory, practical, confident woman steps in to save the reputation of an aggressive, right-wing, Gradgrind-like ideologue. Mr Thornton was a man

“who would enjoy battling with every adverse thing he could meet with—enemies, winds, or circumstances”,

and he quickly finds himself in an epic struggle with the trade unions. I can see the Education Secretary’s attraction to it. But alas, our modern Margaret Hale is on autopilot, determined to repeat the mistakes that got Mr Thornton his unenviable reputation. Nowhere in that interview was a commitment to ending the chaos of the free school programme, introducing new policies to improve the professional development of teachers, rebuilding the atomised school system, stopping the downgrading of apprenticeships, closing the attainment gap, or offering affordable child care.

Now, this afternoon, news has broken of the Education Secretary’s plan to introduce compulsory setting in all schools. Will she confirm that she will rule out compulsory streaming? What does she make of the Education Endowment Foundation’s research into the impact of streaming on children from deprived backgrounds? What evidence has she used to inform her plans—which specific academic findings? What assessment has she had on the impact of her plans—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am sure that that point is very interesting, Mr Hunt, and that we would all like to know the answer, but it is not the subject of the debate. As far as I am aware, the proposal is not on infant classes. While I am on my feet, let me say that infant classes probably behave better than most Government Members at the moment. Perhaps we can stop the cat-calling—Mr Heaton-Harris, please do not look so disappointed—and concentrate on the debate on the motion before us.

[Tristram Hunt]

Unlike so many Government Members, I always obey the rulings of the Chair and would seek no dishonour to it at any point, so I will immediately move on, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The Government’s failure on infant class sizes contains many different components—administrative incompetence, financial mismanagement, ideological pigheadedness, and a refusal to re-examine the evidence—yet it also speaks to two markedly different visions for the future of this country’s education.

Teaching Quality

Debate between Tristram Hunt and Baroness Primarolo

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

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

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend on the Front Bench was accused of lying. Is it right for the Secretary of State to accuse him of lying?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I most certainly did not hear that, and I would have done. As far as I can see, there is a dispute with regard to the accuracy of each Member’s interpretation of the said advert, but the Secretary of State most definitely did not accuse the hon. Gentleman of lying. He has put very forcefully exactly why he is of the view that he is with regard to the said advert. I am afraid that that is not a point of order.

[Tristram Hunt]

I had hoped at this point in my speech to unite both sides of the House by quoting the words of Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, who said:

“I would expect all teachers in my schools to be qualified.”

However, after last Friday’s remarkable briefing war by the Department for Education against Her Majesty’s chief inspector, I realise that he is not the unifying force that he might once have been. The achievement of qualified teacher status is not on its own a guarantee of teaching excellence; it is merely a starting point. We need to look at new ways of getting the best candidates into the teaching profession and the best teachers into underperforming schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tristram Hunt]

I am decreasingly surprised by the absence of the Schools Minister. When anything tricky comes up in public policy, we have a rather small cohort of Ministers from the Department for Education. As we can see from the amendment to the motion, they are in a neither fish nor fowl place on this.

The CBI has welcomed our policy. Katja Hall said:

“we need to create a culture where teachers are continually developed in the classroom to support them raising standards in schools. A licence system deserves serious consideration”.

From Brett Wigdortz of Teach First to the leading teaching trade unions to Russell Hobby of the National Association of Head Teachers, there is clear engagement and support for the idea. Even the Secretary of State’s old employer, The Times—before he spurned it for the Daily Mail group—has called the policy “courageous and correct”. I would hope for similar support from the coalition parties today.

The Opposition’s call is simply put in the first sentence of the motion: no education system can outperform the quality of its teachers. So instead of the relentless energy spent on endless structural reform, instead of the confused tinkering with the curriculum, instead of telling teachers how to teach chunking or whether they should use exercise books or not, our policy is altogether more ambitious—to work towards a world-class teacher in every classroom. I hope that Government Members will join us this afternoon in supporting the motion.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I have to inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Business of the House (Thursday)

Debate between Tristram Hunt and Baroness Primarolo

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

No. Mr Tristram Hunt was about to make an intervention.

[Tristram Hunt]

As a new Member of the House, I am finding the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) a complete tour de force. We are learning a great deal from him tonight, and it would ill behove him to rush. On the broader point of the time limit for tomorrow’s debate, is he aware of the numerous protestations that I have received from academics, students and postgraduates in the humanities community, who are worried not only about the situation facing history and modern politics but about what could happen to classics, divinity, theology, social anthropology, archaeology, anthropology and many other subjects? We could not possibly deal with all those concerns in five hours.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Thank you.